238

THE BI-MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS
OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

LINKING, DEVELOPING AND SUPPORTING ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING PROFESSIONALS WORLDWIDE

May–June 2014 Issue 238

Having it all – Stephen Mitchell | Explicit content – Chris Walklett
Liberating IELTS – Alison Featherstone
22 ways to differentiate – Victoria Elliott
Keeping everyone awake – Tran Le Nghi Tran
An email to remember – Oliver Hipkins
Creative writing – Catherine Cheetham
Emotional support in ELT – Tom Lloyd
ISSN 1814-3830
IATEFL Voices 238   a
 May–June 2014
Issue 238

From the Editor

ISSN 1814-3830

As you read this, many of us attendees, both on site and online

will be reflecting and building on what we learnt from the
conference. In the next issue of Voices there will be feedback
Contents
and highlights but for now, it is Voices as usual.
Tom Lloyd and Alison Featherstone look back to Liverpool   3 From the President
2013 as Alison writes about receiving her award and the effect
of the conference on her and her future work with IELTS while Feature articles
Tom reflects on how his talk dovetailed with his life, reinforcing   4 Having it all
his message on supporting our learners emotionally. Stephen Stephen Mitchell promotes independent
Alison Schwetlick,
Editor Mitchell continues the theme of supporting learners with his learning through student choice
discussion on promoting choice and independent working to   6 Explicit content
enhance learning in the classroom. Chris Walklett exploits songs and lyrics in
Catherine Cheetham and Oli Hipkins come up with parallel but intriguingly differ- the classroom
ent ways of teaching writing using pictures; Oli using a PowerPoint to elicit key ideas
  7 Liberating IELTS
and draft a text to run by a classmate before writing a final version. Catherine, for
Alison Featherstone looks back on
her part, hands out pictures and creates a game of noun and adjective pairing; she
Liverpool 2013
has the class guess who the author of each picture-based text is. Chris Walklett, on
the other hand, reflects on ways to use songs to simulate Krashen’s ‘din in the head’   8 22 ways to differentiate
and turn linguistic input into language output. Victoria Elliott shares some quick fire
Tran Nghi shares a number of very effective activities to ensure that we can assess ideas
the progress of each individual learner in classes of 60–90 students. Victoria Elliott 10 Keeping everyone awake
continues this emphasis on reaching individual learners, sharing a long list of strate- Tran Le Nghi Tran involves everyone in
gies to cater for the individual levels, learning styles and preferences. I would like to extra-large classes
thank Victoria Elliott, Stephen Mitchell and Gary Snapper (Editor of Teaching English, 11 An email to remember
formerly Classroom) the magazine of the National Association for the Teaching of Oliver Hipkins helps his students with
English (NATE) for allowing us to reprint the articles. writing
This time the Spotlight is on the Global Issues SIG, an apposite subject considering
12 Creative writing
our increasingly global connections both individually and through organisations like
Catherine Cheetham uses pictures to tell
IATEFL. Margit Szesztay, GISIG Coordinator, asks us to put global responsibility at
stories
the heart of our professional identity and to join GISIG so we can access the new
resources, events and activities on the members’ website. 13 Emotional support in ELT
Last but not least, we thank Sandee for her hard work and untiring enthusiasm Tom Lloyd considers student wellbeing
as reviews editor; to let her spend her free time on things other than IATEFL, we
are looking for a new reviews editor for Voices so, if you have experience and are Regular columns
interested, please contact me. 14 Materials reviews
Sandee Thompson
The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language was founded in 1967 16 Practical teaching ideas: Class rules
Registered as a Charity: 1090853
Robin Cunninghame Graham
Registered as a Company in England: 2531041
Head Office (for general information about IATEFL and details of advertising rates) 17 Literature: Three novels on school
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Copyright Notice 25 Coming events and Publications
Copyright for whole issue IATEFL 2014.
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IATEFL Voices 238   1

2  IATEFL Voices 238
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
From the President

From the President

Seven recent developments bid for a grant that will make a Carol Read
sustainable difference to language has over 30
As I reach the halfway mark of my term as IATEFL President years’ experi-
learning in their local context. We
it feels timely to summarise progress and initiatives taken ence in ELT
also entered into an innovative
during this period for the benefit of IATEFL members. These as a teacher,
partnership with International
are largely collective initiatives brought about by the com- teacher train-
House (IH) Trust with their gener- er, academic
bined dedication and hard work of IATEFL staff, the Board of
ous sponsorship of the IH/IATEFL manager,
Trustees and volunteers on IATEFL committees. Being at the materials
Training Award. This offers an
helm is both a privilege and a challenge, and I would like to writer and
opportunity for IATEFL Associates
highlight seven of our recent achievements: educational consultant. Carol’s
in the developing world to apply main specialisation is in primary
1 IATEFL’s new home for 20 training days to be delivered language teaching and she has
The move to new premises in Faversham, UK took place in in their own country by IH Trust published extensively in this area.
August 2013. It involved many months of meticulous plan- teacher trainers.
ning and was superbly project-managed by our Executive
5 Improved procedures for electing IATEFL Trustees
Officer, Glenda Smart. The result has been to provide our
Following wide consultation, a series of measures were
staff with brand new, light and spacious offices including a
adopted to improve procedures for electing new IATEFL
sizeable meeting room, a kitchen and space for the IATEFL
Trustees. These include increasing the applicant information
archives. The improved working conditions allow for better
asked for and offering the opportunity for informal advice
services to members and there is potential for future expan-
from the (Vice) President. In order to be transparent about
sion. After years of rented premises, it is a major landmark
the legal responsibilities that accompany a trustee role, we
that IATEFL now has its very own ‘home’.
have also changed the name IATEFL Coordinating Commit-
2  ‘History of IATEFL’ publication tee to IATEFL Board of Trustees.
We have commissioned a publication, History of IATEFL,
6  IATEFL International Ambassadors
to commemorate IATEFL’s 50th anniversary. This will be
We have recently created the role of International Ambas-
distributed free to all members by the 50th Annual Confer-
sadors for IATEFL. This is an honorary position by invitation
ence in 2016. The aim is to document the first half-century
with a goodwill mission to spread the word about IATEFL in
of IATEFL’s development in a way that is academically
an international context. We are delighted that many former
sound as well as enjoyable. The authors, Richard Smith and
presidents have accepted this role. We are also pleased that
Shelagh Rixon, are currently researching the IATEFL archives
two high-profile ELT professionals, Jill Hadfield and Jeremy
and interviewing present and past members of IATEFL in
Harmer, who are long-term members and supporters of
preparation for writing the book. We are delighted that the
IATEFL as well as frequent speakers at international confer-
British Council is supporting this project with a generous
ences, have also agreed to take on this role on a rotating
research grant.
basis for two years.
3 Main IATEFL Webinar Series and forthcoming
7  Marketing consultancy for IATEFL
IATEFL Online Conference
Looking ahead to the future, we have recently commis-
The IATEFL Webinar Series started in May 2013 with a ses-
sioned a marketing consultancy report to give us expert
sion by IATEFL’s Patron, Professor David Crystal. The regular
advice on communicating and fulfilling our mission as a
monthly series has since gone from strength to strength.
charity and international membership association for ELT
It includes many well-known ELT speakers such as Penny
professionals in the 21st century. Although there is room
Ur, Jeremy Harmer, Mike McCarthy and Tessa Woodward.
for improvement and many challenges that lie ahead, you
The live webinars are open to all and recordings are sub-
can be sure that in the second half of my term as President,
sequently archived in the members’ area of the IATEFL
I will put as much dedication, energy and enthusiasm as I
website. As a result of the success of the IATEFL Webinar
can into ensuring that IATEFL continues to be one of the
Series, we are planning to hold our first IATEFL Online Con-
most inspiring professional communities to which English
ference in October 2014.
language teachers can belong.
4 IATEFL Projects and IH/IATEFL Training Award
A recent priority has been to explore ways IATEFL can offer
greater support to teacher associations (TAs) in the develop-
ing world. In this context, we launched IATEFL Projects, a
scheme designed to offer eligible TAs an opportunity to

IATEFL Voices 238   3

Feature articles
Having it all
Stephen Mitchell promotes independent learning through student choice.
Stephen Independent learning, student
Mitchell is a choice, assessment for learning,
full-time teacher measurable progress and cover-
of English and age of the department objectives:
Drama at St
you can’t have them all, can you?
Luke’s Science
and Sports I think you can.
College in We want students to be
Exeter. He is an independent learners. We want
active member them to take some responsibility
of NATE (National Association for
the Teaching of English) and has a for their own learning. We want
particular interest in how technology them to work at their own pace
can be used to enhance students’ with the most able shooting for
learning. the stars and the least able mak-
ing serious progress instead of opting out. But we have
learning objectives the students need to cover. But we have
targets they need to reach. But ...
Put simply, it’s about choice: choice of text, choice of
tasks and choice of support. Have them choose a text, give
them a printed list of tasks and then expect them to get on
with it. In the modern world people are overwhelmed by
choice: which of many television channels to watch; what
to eat; which clothes to wear; etc. However, we rarely give
them much choice about how they learn in school. The rest
of this article describes a way forward I have tried. It is an
approach I have used with newspapers, non-fiction writing
and various topics, but here I’ll focus on novels.
Tasks
Give each student a printed list of activities to choose
from. Divide the tasks into sections according to learning
objectives or subject matter and ask the students to choose
one task from each section. For example, recently I wanted
students to write about the setting of the novel they were
reading. They had a choice of three tasks.
1 What words, phrases, technology or values tell us where
and when the story is set? Try to list ten things.
2 Write a list of ways your novel would be different if it was
set in South Africa five years ago.
3 Describe the setting of your novel in detail. Which other
novel you have read has a similar setting?
With the work we had done earlier in the year and some
effort, every student was able to complete one of the tasks.
Recently, I wanted Year 9 students to revise parts of speech.
They were given the choice of completing two computer
programs which taught and tested them on:
Using the Internet if necessary, make sure you know
what the following words mean: noun, verb, article,
adjective, adverb, conjunction, and preposition. Take
a paragraph from something you have read and parse
it, that is, copy each word and then underneath write
what type of word it is.
4  IATEFL Voices 238
I led a starter revising the terms and then some students
chose to work through the computer programs, a few chose
to just use the notes they had in their books and the Internet
before parsing a paragraph, and one needed to work with
me on an individual basis because she was completely
bewildered. The same end was achieved but they made the
choice about how to achieve it.
Often students are not used to making choices about
their learning and so when I first use this approach with a
class I limit the number of tasks to choose from and make
the choices very similar to make it easier for the students to
choose wisely. For example, year 7 students have been given
the following choice:
1 Write a clear set of instructions for how you get to school
each day. You should include a map as well as written
instructions.
OR
2 Write a clear set of instructions for how you get into
town from where you live. You should include a map as
well as written instructions.
Because they are not used to assessing themselves, some
students will pick a task that is too difficult for them to
tackle independently. This is a common enough error out-
side school (just watch ‘The X Factor’). Normally the mistake
is discovered within a few minutes when the student asks
for help. The teacher can just direct the individual to another
task or give enough support to enable success.
Making the first task relatively short so they can succeed
quickly helps all the students. Sometimes I have had them
do a task that just takes five minutes of effort. The resulting
house point or sticker is a visible sign that they are taking
responsibility and can succeed.
The texts
Choose three different novels. One should be challenging,
one should be quite easy. For example, this year I matched
Girls Under Pressure by Jacqueline Wilson, with Millions by
Frank Cotterell-Boyce and Bad Alice by Jean Ure. Several of
the boys read the ‘girly’ book because it was the easiest and
had pictures. The most able students were encouraged to
use the books they were already reading at home. The best
student decided to read Jacqueline Wilson anyway and then
felt dissatisfied so read something more challenging.
It is best not to pick anything too long because they
won’t get through it. If possible, choose one text you have
the audio book for. An MP3 player costs twenty pounds and
I have watched lesson-destroyers happily following in the
book while listening silently using headphones.
Alternatively, have them choose their own book, one
suitable for their reading ability. Stipulate it can’t be one
they have read before and that there can’t be a film of
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
Feature articles
the novel or they won’t read it. That cuts out the Twilight understand an explanation because it is too difficult, the
series, but some would argue that isn’t a crime. For some learning can be personalised. For example, last month, while
groups you have to specify that they can’t use picture books, the other students were getting on with their own learning,
the books should be in English and should contain words, I was able to explain to two students how to use semicolons.
not just pictures. Giving them choice is important not just If too many people need the teacher’s attention at once
because different abilities can be catered for, but because I just make a list of names, tell them
they have to take responsibility for what they read. They to get on with the next task and I deal
can’t complain about a text if they have chosen it. with them in order, or, if possible, ask
another student to help. In the modern
Lesson structure At the end of the lesson it is impor- world people are
Begin each lesson with a starter. There are three reasons tant to ask several students what they overwhelmed by
for doing this. have been learning. Different students choice: which of
should give different answers. If you
1 It allows you to introduce or reinforce skills they will need
don’t ask them to make their learning
many television
later in the unit.
explicit they think they have been channels to
2 It ensures that the students are seated, silent and focused
before they start to work independently.
doing ‘work’ rather than learning. watch; what
3 Some students just can’t work independently for an
This is not a way of working you to eat; which
hour. The five or ten minutes makes a huge difference to
would use every day of every week.
clothes to wear;
It is more likely to be used for three
one or two members of some classes.
weeks each term. It isn’t a particularly
etc. However, we
After the starter the students work independently – read- new idea; I have been using it for rarely give them
ing or completing a task. The teacher assesses completed over twenty years. However, it is an much choice
work, giving immediate verbal feedback and recording approach that can transform the learn- about how they
grades or levels, organises peer tutoring, makes sure ing of individual students. I have seen
resources and equipment are available, gives house points talented students enthused by working
learn in school
(or some other type of reward) for effort and teaches at their own pace and making choices
students individually or in pairs. that affect them. I have watched lower
Because the teacher assesses the work immediately, ability students glow with pride because they have suc-
students can make faster, better progress. Students learn ceeded. I have also observed colleagues who are stunned
much more quickly if the teacher can tell them how to when they enter a classroom where all the students are
improve straight after (or during) a task rather than having engaged in different tasks and the teacher is talking to just
to wait until the next lesson when the exercise book has one student.
been marked. sljmitchell@hotmail.com
Individual teaching is possible. Instead of students having A version of this article was first published in NATE Class-
to cover something they already know or being unable to room, Autumn 2011/Vol 15. (Editor)

IATEFL VOICES—NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

IATEFL Voices appears six times a year and
contributions are always welcome.
General information
IATEFL Voices is aimed at practising
classroom teachers, administrators and
managers. It is not a refereed journal but
a newsletter aimed primarily at members
of IATEFL worldwide.
For this reason IATEFL Voices does not
normally publish specialised articles
although these may be suitable for one
of the SIG newsletters. (See the ‘Who’s
who in IATEFL’ pages for details of how
to contact SIG coordinators.) Neither
does IATEFL Voices publish academic
or theoretical papers, which should be
directed to the English Language Teaching
Journal (ELTJ) or other similar journals.
Contributors should also read the copyright
notice on page 1 of this issue.
Submitting copy
Short texts (e.g. announcements, letters,
etc. up to 250 words) can be sent in any
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5WJ, UK, or by email at editor@iatefl.org
Alison Schwetlick
Editor: IATEFL Voices

IATEFL Voices 238   5

Feature articles
Explicit content
Chris Walklett exploits songs and lyrics in the classroom.
Chris Tim Murphey (1990) posited that songs
Walklett can stimulate, what Stephen Krashen
has taught called, the ‘din in the head’, and that
English in
this ‘involuntary mental rehearsal’ is
one form
or another an ideal way of turning linguistic input
for nigh on into language output.
20 years. As Despite all their apparent benefits
a lover of though, tutors can encounter both
songs and song lyrics, it became
internal and external hurdles to using
a natural extension to use them
as much as possible as part of them. The external factors include
classroom activities. fears about how songs in class would
be perceived by the syllabus and/or
exam driven institution. Many teachers also believe that
there needs to be a pedagogic purpose to each and every
lesson.
Several internal issues also present themselves. Firstly
there is the scarcity of suitable materials, leading to the need
to produce one’s own. This is time-consuming and some-
what problematic as there is very little out there in the way
of applicable theory to act as guidance. Another barrier may
be a lack of confidence about using this resource, perhaps
due to a lack of cultural knowledge of students’ interests
with regard to modern songs.
If all has gone smoothly thus far, the potential exploiter
of songs/song lyrics has a few more
things to consider; namely, how
Songs/song lyrics exactly to employ this resource. Is one
interested, for example, in exploiting
though are worth
the sound element only i.e. as a kind
persevering of mood setter? Or is the interest in the
with as they are impact that the lyrics and music have
an authentic, together? Or, is the focus on using
motivating, the lyrics in isolation? This last option
is a bit of game changer as it brings
multi-sensory in (seemingly underused) genres that
stimulus, have a lot to say lyrically – such as rap
which deserves and hip hop.
re-evaluation Without doubt the tutor needs to
use common sense when selecting
given the wealth
suitable songs. As well as level, such
of possibilities a choice may come down to factors
now afforded by such as culture, some religions, for
the internet example, have issues with music, and
age. It is probably best to avoid the use
of modern songs with a more mature
class, for instance, whilst older ‘hippy’ classics are perhaps
not best suited to a younger audience.
Further, Jo Gakonga (2013) suggests that one should:
• Choose the song carefully: avoid choosing a song that
means a lot to you personally, for if the students dislike it,
you might feel that they have by implication rejected you.
6  IATEFL Voices 238
• Choose the task carefully: spend time thinking about
which task type, or what sort of skills activity, the song
best lends itself to.
Set the task up well: use pictures, photos or realia, and
ask initial questions such as: ‘what’s the mood of the song?’
and ’how does it make you feel?’
Clearly, songs and song lyrics offer a wealth of classroom
possibilities beyond that of the (massively overused) gap fill.
Using songs for simple punctuation or dictation exercises
for example can be rewarding. In addition, it is widely felt
among theorists that song is a particularly good medium for
acquiring common-use language due to its high tolerance
of error. Activities on connected speech can work well too;
this area is problematic for, as Gimson observed: ‘word
boundaries are often muddled due to phenomenon such
as assimilation, elision, liaison and juncture’ (Gabrielatos
1994:1). Connected speech issues have also led to the
amusing (and potentially linguistically fruitful) phenomenon
of mondegreens.
An area that interests me personally is using song themes
in the classroom. One of my favourite themes is providing
a critique of the UK; giving a different view from that
expressed in most course books. The The’s Heartland (1986)
with its ‘this is the 51st state of the USA’ refrain and The
Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen (1977), are two examples
that I have used for this purpose. The latter was productive, I
found, to present an alternate view to the Queen’s Diamond
Jubilee.
Without careful thought, potential exploiters of songs/
song lyrics can easily get it wrong, by, for example, picking
a song that offends or annoys their class, or, worse still,
bores them. There is also the potentially thorny issue of
copyright to bear in mind. Songs/song lyrics though are
worth persevering with as they are an authentic, motivating,
multi-sensory stimulus, which deserves re-evaluation given
the wealth of possibilities now afforded by the internet.
walklettchris@hotmail.com
References
Gabrielatos, C. 1994. ‘Materials evaluation and adaptation:
A case study of pronunciation teaching. The treatment of
pronunciation in The New Cambridge English Course, vol.
1’. Unpublished essay, Research Centre for English and
Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge.
(Retrieved from www.gabrielatos.com/Pronunciation.pdf)
Gakonga, J. 2013. ‘Using songs for language learning’.
(Retrieved from www.slideshare.net/JGakonga/using-songs-
for-language-learning)
Murphey, T. 1990 ‘The song stuck in my head phenomenon:
A melodic din in the LAD’ System. Vol 18. PP. 53-64.
(Retrieved from www.academia.edu/1902744/The_song_
stuck_in_my_head_phenomenon_1_melodic_din_in_the_
LAD)
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
Feature articles

Liberating IELTS
Alison Featherstone looks back on Liverpool 2013.

Attending the conference about current and future identity Alison

as they are simultaneously trying Featherstone,
This was my first attendance at an IATEFL conference. I had ESOL teacher
to master the specialised English
been to other English language teaching conferences— and first
Language skills of the demanding
NATECLA, every year since 2006, NATESOL, Manchester, Morgan Terry
IELTS test—so all insights about Memorial
and TESOL Spain and France—but nothing had prepared me
how to help them were useful and Scholarship
for the fabulous multiculturalism, breathtaking volume of
welcome. Winner has
choice, sheer speed, bazaar atmosphere of the book fair and now set up her
As I travelled through the
technological wizardry of my first IATEFL conference. I would own project to enable students
specialised IELTS sessions I was
have felt overwhelmed had it not been for the support of unable to afford learning materials
introduced to both established and to study IELTS (liberatingielts.com).
Eryl Griffiths, Chair of the IATEFL Scholarship Working Party,
new learning materials—paper-
and Justin Rodford, Marketing Coordinator, Cambridge
based and web-based. I was particularly interested in finding
Assessment, both of whom steered me in the direction of
IELTS beginners’ resources and came away with a shed-load
all the essential mid-day meetings plus amazing night-time
of books—some given free and some bought at the book
parties round Liverpool’s Cavern Club on Matthew Street or
fair—plus a set of invaluable hyperlinks, most of which I am
in the Albert Dock where I met passionate teachers from all
either already using or intend to bring on board very soon.
over the world all only too glad to share ideas and experi-
I was also pleased to get my hands on Focus on Academic
ence. And I did enjoy the first IELTS Morgan Terry Memorial
Skills for IELTS by Morgan Terry and Judith Wilson, series
Scholarship award ceremony where I was presented with a
editor Sue O’Connell (whom I met at the conference) a
most unusual and attractive, engraved glass plaque by Mark
comprehensive preparation with everything packed into one
Walker, Director of Examinations, British Council and Nick
book. This I will share with intermediate/advanced students
Saville, Director, Research and Validation, Cambridge Eng-
as we move into the next teaching year.
lish Language Assessment against a back-drop of supportive
onlookers, red and white balloons and red and white iced Last words
IELTS cupcakes—the IELTS colours of course!
A final achievement of attending this 2013 conference in
Enriching my practice Liverpool has to be that I have already signed up for the
2014 conference in Harrogate. Following free membership
Faced with such a rich, diverse choice of options at the
for a year, as one of the benefits of winning the scholarship,
conference I was keen, this time around anyway, to find
I certainly will continue this option and attend future confer-
as many IELTS dedicated sessions as possible. IELTS is of
ences; I am an IATEFL convert and I expect this commitment
course a specialist interest and most teachers delivering
to go on improving my practice for many years to come.
IELTS courses have other interests as well; therefore I was
My thanks go first to my friends at the British Council,
both surprised and pleased to realise that, if I could run
particularly Melissa Cudmore, Senior Advisor, Research and
fast enough in between sessions, I would be able to attend
Consultancy, British Council, who oversees the organisation
all seven separate sessions being offered by leaders in the
of the CPD events in the UK British Council seminar series
IELTS field. This I managed to do—and all the sessions were
and secondly to the IATEFL and Cambridge Assessment
brilliant! I was also able to catch a valuable presentation
teams who made my experience of winning so positive. I
on providing emotional support to ESOL and EAL students
look forward to assisting in the welcome of the second win-
based on extensive research published in Innovations in
ner of the IELTS Morgan Terry Memorial Scholarship.
Teaching English to Migrants and Refugees. A majority of my
afeatherstone@waitrose.com
students are coping with recent, severe trauma and worries

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IATEFL Voices 238   7

Feature articles

22 ways to differentiate
Victoria Elliott shares some quick-fire ideas.

Victoria Elliott Here are 22 quick-fire ideas to add 4 Pairwork: for paired groupings to work through an
is a Lecturer an element of differentiation into explanation task, for example, pair students with some-
in English in your lesson. They are grouped under one of a different attainment. Teaching someone else is
Education at
different headings but most could be the best way of learning something yourself because you
the University
of York. She adapted to apply to a different activ- have to explain it, and LAPs gain from the one to one,
has previ- ity or class style. as well as having different ideas to contribute to the
ously trained Two abbreviations have been discussion. Students of the same level will often come up
English and used—LAPs for ‘lower attaining with the same questions or thoughts on a topic, whereas
Drama teachers at the University
pupils’ and HAPs for ‘higher attaining a different eye can bring a fresh perspective.
of Warwick and taught English in
secondary schools. pupils’.
Reading
Group work 5 Differentiated tasks: when reading a class text together,
1 Same ability groups: select groups by ability, and give Special Educational Needs (SEN) or very low attaining
different groups different sheets to work from. There pupils who can’t read could be offered photocopies of
are two ways of differentiating the questions—either the book to highlight words they can recognise while
give completely different (and differentiated) questions, the class is reading along. Or provide sheets of high
or give the same questions with scaffolding provided for frequency words to tick off when they’ve heard them.
lower attaining groups, and suggestions for extended 6 Reading in class: allot parts or sentences according to
thinking to the HAPs. The answers are presented back to ability to read—fluent readers read most, but everyone
the class so everyone gets some face time and everyone gets a reward for reading, so if a student who struggles
gets the benefit of all questions and ideas. manages a good sentence, it’s an achievement. There is
2 Mixed ability groups: create mixed ability groups, in also the direct speech approach—give fluent readers the
small groups of three or four. (Large mixed ability groups narrative role, while less good readers get specific char-
can result in someone getting left out.) Every group acters whose speeches they have to read. Alternatively
gets the same level of question to discuss. You pick the ‘you can read aloud as much as you want’ so even shy
group spokesperson to feedback to the class—you might kids will have a go. Differentiating on the level of the
choose to pick a HAP to stretch individual approaches personalised learning.
them, or a LAP to get their contri- 7 Questions: print support for questions (‘hints’ or ‘top
bution. Alternatively, perhaps you tips’ or ‘words to use’) on the bottom third of the page,
might choose the middle pupil Some of them are folded under. Students can unfold it, if they want/need
in the group if they don’t often things you will be the help, have it to peek at if they can’t get one ques-
contribute to class. doing already— tion, or keep it folded up the whole time; they assess
3 Role assignment: create a mixed
they’re here to their own needs.
ability group where each person is 8 Assessment: graduate reading assessment sheets where
assigned a different role, accord-
point out that just the questions start easier and get harder—each target
ing to their potential. The roles because they’re level has a different question they’re aiming to reach
depend on the activity, but they easy, it doesn’t (monitored by students themselves).
might include the director, the mean they’re not
person in charge of writing and Writing
differentiation
the communicator. In Speaking 9 Personalised learning target: students (or you) copy the
and Listening tasks it can be pro- target you gave them from the previous task at the top
ductive to make the HAPs the of the new piece of work. It might be ‘read through
assessors, with the task of observing what is happening, every sentence and put in a comma where you need to
and evaluating it and their colleagues according to the pause’. It might be ‘use a mix of complex and simple
criteria you’ve agreed (also nicely ticking peer assess- sentences. At the end explain your use of two different
ment). Alternatively this role might go to the student sentences to make the piece appropriate for the audi-
who is always talking or dominating the class; the asses- ence and purpose’.
sor is a silent role, which stresses ‘listening’ skills. The use 10 Pair work peer assessment: pair students with someone
of criteria stretches the assessor’s understanding of the of a similar ability to read and comment on each other’s
skill, and their constant monitoring presence improves work, with suggestions for improvement.
the other students’ focus on the task.

8  IATEFL Voices 238

 May–June 2014 Issue 238
11 Differentiated worksheets: give the whole class the same
task but with different worksheets, perhaps printed on
different colours to disguise (or highlight!) groupings.
For example: ‘describe the haunted house’. HAPs get
prompts suggesting the use of sensory description,
complex sentences, discourse markers etc. The middle
group get prompts reminding them to use metaphors
and similes. LAPs get scaffolds with suggested para-
graph openers, reminder to make
sure they use full stops and capital
letters, scary adjectives brainstorm Let students
activity at the top—or whatever
variation on these is appropriate for
choose which
your class. direction to work
in; a lot of people
Whole Class know whether
12 Directed questioning: differentiate they are a big
question types—closed to LAPs,
picture person
getting the development out of
mid-attainers, and getting HAPs to
or a detail first
evaluate others’ answers and add to person
them.
13 Differentiation by time: give the
same activity but give different groups of pupils different
amounts of time to complete. (This requires extension
activities for those who get less time.)
14 Differentiation by task: have a variety of tasks at the
front of the classroom—e.g. questions allowing you to
get to higher levels of Assessment Focus (AFs). Pupils
can pick, according to their target grade, or if they are
ambitious, a little higher.
15 Extension tasks for early finishers: these must be quali-
tatively different, not just more of the same. Give them
a creative task related to the main one, or some other
higher order skill from Bloom’s taxonomy, such as evalu-
ation or synthesis. This can also be called a ‘power-up’
activity.
16 Teacher support: get students going on a task, go round
to the LAPs and check they’re okay, get them started.
Similarly visit the high achievers and point out to them
that you want them to push themselves to get on to the
extension activity, or to remember to do all the things
they need to get a higher level, etc.
Feature articles
17 Varied cloze tasks: use cloze activities which have varying
numbers of words removed. LAPs are filling in a word
here and there, middle attainers more, perhaps the HAPs
just get the beginning of the sentence. Alternatively
produce two versions of a cloze—one with the words to
choose from at the top for the LAPs, and a blank version
for the rest.
Research tasks
18 Differentiated prompts: provide specific questions that
need answering (LAPs), stem prompts (middle attainers)
(e.g. childhood, career, family) and no prompts other
than the topic (HAPs).
19 Differentiated sources: give ideas for one specific web-
site to use (LAPs), a few (or some hints of places to start)
for middle attainers, but no hints for HAPs (until they ask
for it!).
Learning preferences
20 Different activities: provide different types of activity
which cater to the same or similar objectives—one which
is based on words, one on images, one on dramatic role
play, one with drawing/ diagram making, an so on. Let
students pick which one suits them best.
21 One activity with different tasks: provide the same activ-
ity working in different directions—one big picture to
analytical detail, one analytical detail to big picture (for
example, looking at a poem). Let students choose which
direction to work in; a lot of people know whether they
are a big picture person or a detail first person. This is
known as ‘holist’ and ‘analyst’ in terms of learning styles.
22 Variety of activity: in a description exercise, or other
writing task, cater for different learning styles—do a
visualisation activity, have pictures, and some music for
pupils to use as prompts.
Many of these activities leave choices to the person who
knows the class and its needs best—you! Some of them are
things you will be doing already—they’re here to point out
that just because they’re easy, it doesn’t mean they’re not
differentiation.
victoria.elliott@york.ac.uk
A version of this article was first published in NATE Class-
room, Summer 2012/Vol. 17. (Editor)

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IATEFL Voices 238   9

Feature articles
Keeping everyone awake
Tran Le Nghi Tran involves everyone in extra-large classes.
Tran Le Nghi In my country, language classes
Tran, MA, of 25–30 learners are an expecta-
has six years tion rather than a reality; I usually
experience
have 60–90 students in each class.
teaching
With such sizes, most of the games
English at
Banking and activities I had learned seemed
Academy, useless. Furthermore, most of my
Phu Yen Branch, Vietnam. She is learners are from a very poor back-
the Cambridge ESOL Best Practice
ground so often the most they can
in Teacher Training Scholarship
Winner 2013. do is to stay awake. However, adver-
sity is the mother of invention, and
below are some of my ‘inventions’ to deal with the situation.
Checking individual learning
These activities are used for checking comprehension or learn-
ing of every student in the class, regardless of size or level.
Binary task questions
For instance, with binary task questions, I ask the learners to
raise their left or right hand to show ‘true/ right’ or ‘false/
wrong’ respectively. Those who raise the wrong hand or
are too slow have to stand up and
can only sit down after giving a right
It is obvious that answer. Learners still standing at the
the weaker, or less end of the activity are given a penalty.
focused, students The punishment is usually to do funny
are the ones most miming.
often appointed Multiple choice
to do things Similarly, multiple choice questions
and, amazingly can be done by asking students to
enough, the ones raise one, two, three or four fingers
corresponding to the answers A, B, C
who improve the
or D. In cases of questions with two
most right answers, students raise both
hands indicating their choices. To
raise the difficulty level, I may call for answers to the ques-
tions in random order, requiring more concentration.
Cloze
Another game called ‘chain reaction’ can be used for gap
filling exercises. One student volunteers or is appointed to
give the first answer and picks the next student to answer.
If the answer is incorrect, the speaker stands up. This game,
too, can be played in any order of questions, and whoever
repeats one already done also stands. I instruct students to
appoint those who appear not to have done their home-
work or are chatting or sleeping.
A variation of this game is when the cloze exercise is a
longer text with paragraphs. Here, a student starts to read
the text aloud and stops anywhere they like after filling in
one blank space. The next student has to continue exactly
10  IATEFL Voices 238
from the next word in order not to get a penalty. This way,
the whole class must pay close attention to what is happen-
ing. Sometimes, to increase competition, the class is divided
into two groups and one must appoint the other group’s
members to go on. The group with more members seated
at the end of the activity win and can set the punishment
for the losers.
Group work
If each group contained four to five members, there would
be far too many groups to control. I usually divide the class
into two to four groups, each with 15–30 members, and let
them compete against each other in completing the tasks
the most quickly and accurately.
This is extremely useful in doing controlled writing
exercises such as sentence completing, building or rewriting.
Give them an exercise with many sentences, and let them
volunteer to appoint their rival group members to write their
answers on the board. Remind them to appoint weaker
peers so that their chances of winning are higher and the
quicker they finish the task, the more bonus marks they
will get. To get the rest involved, they are allowed to shout
suggestions or corrections to help their group’s members
or distract their opponents. The answers are marked, and
the group with more marks wins. This game often leads to
crowds at the board, a traffic jam in the aisles and much
laughter and cheering.
Sometimes, to avoid the noise and the crowds, I put
the groups into a relay race when there must be only one
member per group writing on the board at one time. This
variation is good for question answering, paragraph writ-
ing or story reporting practice in which group members
co-operate with one another to win. Occasionally, I create
a game with several rounds, each with a different exercise,
and the final result is totalled from all the rounds.
When the weaker students are appointed to go up too
often, the better ones can get bored, so I reserve the more
difficult or creative tasks for them to do. For example, each
group may send to the board as many people as they like,
voluntarily, to write as many new words on the same topic,
translate a sentence into as many different versions, or say as
many sentences as they can with only a given word or phrase.
The stress is on the limited time allotted, and since the better
performers will win the game they have to send their best
representatives and collaborate well within the group. Also,
to enhance student engagement, they are allowed to point
out their opponent’s mistakes to earn more marks.
Conclusion
With extra-large class sizes, it is difficult to give every student
proper attention and feedback. However, the above activi-
ties have helped me enormously in finding out how much
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
each individual understands their lessons and how well
they can speak English. My students also find their learning
more effective and fun than before. It is obvious that the
weaker, or less focused, students are the ones most often
appointed to do things and, amazingly enough, the ones
An email to remember
Oliver Hipkins helps his students with writing.
For most students creative writing is a huge challenge as it
tests their ability to think outside the box and pushes their
L2 imagination to its limit. On the other hand, practical writ-
ing, such as emails, letters and complaints etc., can often
feel a little stale and unchallenging. The answer, I have
found, is to supply them with as much content as possible
before a writing task. This way, their imagination is still
being tapped into, but with the support of predetermined
ideas which help to produce a narrative.
Rivers and Temperley (1978) put it nicely when they
wrote, ‘The students, relieved of the complete responsibility
for the development of the content, can concentrate their
energies on vigorous writing and can experiment with vari-
ous possibilities for expressing an idea’.
Pictures paint words
Using picture prompts is a great way to inspire new ideas.
This task uses the same process but adds a little bit of ten-
sion to make it more exciting.
Preparation
First, prepare a selection of around 7–10 images that
supply the students with enough content to produce a
narrative. I chose various images from the internet, all set
in a beach resort. The images can contain actions, scenery
and characters, or they can just signify a certain time of the
day when something happened. Each image should inform
the students of the high points and the low points of the
holiday. The internet is a great source of authentic images,
especially holidays from hell. (I had some hard decisions to
make in choosing the right dirty toilet!)
Activity
The entire activity will take around 90 minutes.
For ease of use, I copied all of my images into a
PowerPoint slideshow so I could project them onto the
whiteboard. This is not essential and printed copies will do
just the same job. Before you start, inform your students
that they are going to see a series of pictures which they
will have to take notes on. Tell them that they should only
jot down key words as they will have just twenty seconds
on each image. (PowerPoint has a nice timer function which
allows you to set the length of time each slide appears.)
The time limit encourages students to keep their notes
Feature articles
who improve the most. As an old Vietnamese proverb goes,
‘learning from peers is better than from teachers’ but in
order to learn, students must first be awake and involved.
These work for me.
tt15121980@gmail.com
Oliver
Hipkins, BA,
CELTA, is an
EFL teacher
at Katherine
and Kings
College of
London. He
very simple and informative. Twenty has been
seconds is usually long enough for teaching for four years and is
intermediate to upper-intermediate currently interested in creative
students, but adapt the time limit to workshops for younger learners
and learning styles.
suit the group.
Encourage the students to make notes as follows:
Pic 1
blue sky sandy beach beach bar
crowded looks hot
busy road next to beach
Write up
When the students have seen all the images, provide them
with some essential language to get them going:
It was terrible / brilliant to start with.
The (…) was lovely but the (…) was awful!
I couldn’t believe the state of the …
I’m fed up/happy with …
The service was appalling/superb.
I’m never going back I’m definitely going back next year.
When I get the chance, I’m going to … write a letter of
thanks/write a letter of complaint to …
Inform the students that they are going to produce two
pieces of writing from their notes:
• The first: rough draft (the teacher helps to correct)
• The second: final draft (with corrections)
Set the students a time limit for each draft so they
don’t write for too long and get bored. I suggest twenty to
thirty minutes on each draft, depending on the level of the
class. During the first draft, the teacher should monitor the
students closely and offer help with structure, spelling and
grammar so the re-drafting requires little to no extra help.
After they have finished, encourage them to swap with a
partner and comment on each other’s work.
For the PowerPoint slide show I produced for this task,
feel free to email me on oliver.hipkins@kkcl.org.uk.
oliverhipkins@hotmail.com
References
Rivers, W. M., and M. S. Temperley. 1978. ‘Writing and
written exercises II: flexibility and expression’ in A Practical
Guide to the Teaching of English: as a Second or Foreign
language. New York: Oxford University Press.
IATEFL Voices 238   11
Feature articles
Creative writing
Catherine Cheetham uses pictures to tell stories.
Catherine Introduction
Cheetham
is from
Student writing tends to centre on
Vancouver, personal narratives that become
Canada. somewhat repetitive. This is not to say
She has a
that personal narratives are irrelevant.
Master’s in
On the contrary, they play a central
TESL/TEFL
role in developing writing fluency.
from the
University of Birmingham, UK and Because of their repetitive nature and
over 17 years experience in ESL. learner accessibility, they are an ideal
She is currently teaching at Tokai
staple of the learning process. That
University, Japan. Her main inter- said, learners also need to partake in
ests are student motivation and
a variety of creative writing challenges
materials development.
that move beyond standard routines.
Creative writing requires learners to manipulate the lan-
guage in interesting and diverse ways. The problem is that
many students find creative writing challenging because
they don’t know where to begin. To achieve creativity and
build learner confidence, the subject matter needs to be
realistic and non-intimidating. By using pictures to structure
ideas, students have a stronger base from which to create
an original story. Furthermore, creative writing needs a
purpose. I have found the following lesson plan to be an
excellent way for students to embark on a variety of topics
and themes to express creativity, while playfully sharing and
communicating authentic meaning with their classmates.
Materials
Select a topic and prepare several topic-based pictures for
each pair or member of the class. The following are recom-
mended topics: housing, fashion, holidays, and everyday
life scenes as depicted in genre art, such as that of Norman
Rockwell. Pictures may be obtained from websites or appli-
cations such as Microsoft Word. Try to select pictures with
a lot of background detail and imagery to facilitate student
description. Note that no picture should be the same, but
ideally they should have some similarities.
Suggested writing topics and themes:
Topic Theme
Housing Describe your new home
Real estate listing
Fashion Fashion review
Catalogue description
Holiday Travel log
Tourist information/Advertisement
Genre paintings Art eeview
Narrative story
Word builder
On the board write several adjectives such as ‘beauti-
ful’, ‘comfortable’, ‘dark’, ‘expensive’, ‘large’, ‘tiny’. Have
12  IATEFL Voices 238
students form groups of three or four. Give each group a
picture. For each adjective on the board, ask students to
write a noun from the picture. Since the object is to write
as many original noun and adjective pairs, students should
not share their words with their group members. Encourage
students to think of different words that can be used to
describe one object. After two minutes, students should
stop writing and compare their answers with their group
members. Points are awarded for each original noun and
adjective pairing; therefore, if students within the group
brainstorm identical adjective/noun pairings, that pair of
words is disqualified. To give students more exposure, select
another picture and repeat the process.
Example of student noun/adjective pairs
Student 1 Student 2 Student 3
Beautiful            Beautiful
✗ ✓
   girl    Beautiful  woman  ✓
✗
Comfortable   chair   Comfortable ✗
 chair  Comfortable  sofa  ✓
✓
Dark  hallway  Dark ✓
 corridor  Dark  passage  ✓
✓
Expensive    watch   Expensive ✗
 jewelry  Expensive  jewelry  ✗
✓
Large  clock  Large ✗
           Large  watch  ✓
Tiny baby            ✓
✗
Tiny            Tiny  shoes  ✓
Writing
Depending on the level of the students, the composition
may be done individually or in pairs, as basic level students
may benefit from pair work. Give each student or pair a
picture and instruct them to write about the picture based
on the chosen theme. Ideally, a sample text and/or a writ-
ing outline based on the theme should also be distributed
to assist students in the writing process. To build learner
confidence, the exercises should focus on content, with
the teacher responding to the ideas that are well expressed
rather than explicit corrections. The idea is for students to
express themselves and feel uninhibited.
Sharing
Now collect and post all of the pictures in random order
at the front of the classroom. Collect and redistribute the
students’ writing to different members in the class. Students
then read their classmates’ writing. Next, students match
the writing with the correct picture posted at the front of
the classroom. To check that they have made the correct
match, students should return the writing to the author.
Conclusion
I have found that my students react well to this method of
creative writing. Just as in personal narrative writing, stu-
dents need the opportunity to write creatively using a variety
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
Feature articles
of topics and themes. Using pictures gives students a sense Students feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when
of direction and support to begin the creative process. Being their picture is correctly identified, as their writing has been
able to share and read other texts on the same topic allows communicated and understood.
classmates to interact and make content comparisons. catherine.cheetham@gmail.com

Emotional support in ELT

Tom Lloyd considers student wellbeing.
In most respects my experience of IATEFL 2013 was the Create time and space: Although Tom Lloyd
same as many others. The talk I delivered went well, I most teachers are time deficient, is an ESOL
learned more about current research and innovative practice creating the appropriate time and teacher
and project
and managed to catch up with old friends as well as make space for your student to talk is
manager for
new ones. Where this experience differed, however, is that vital. Try to conduct all support the British
on the last day of my attendance I received the news that away from the rest of the class in a Council.
a close friend of mine had committed suicide. On receiving one-to-one situation. His talk at
this news I made my way to the back of the conference hall IATEFL 2013
Listen without judgement: Non- was based on his experiences as
which overlooked the River Mersey. It was a beautiful spot judgmental listening is one of the a volunteer for the Samaritans, a
and one where I felt I could begin to take in the almost cornerstones of emotional support. charity which offers 24-hour sup-
overwhelming shock and sense of loss that I was feeling. It is the space into which we invite port to those in emotional distress.
Later in the day when I had composed myself a little the person we are supporting to
and begun my journey home, I realised that my being at express how they feel without fear of being belittled,
the conference and the news I had just received may not criticised and so on.
have been wholly unconnected. The talk I had given the
day before my friend took his life was about supporting Concentrate on the feelings and not the story: The story
students experiencing emotional distress and furthermore is the account of who did what to whom; a cavalcade of
this talk was based on my experiences as a volunteer for the victims and perpetrators. By its very nature, it assigns blame
UK charity the Samaritans, which offers 24-hour telephone and concomitant feelings of guilt or resentment. Such
support for people who are suicidal. sentiments entangle one’s thinking with the past to the
While some may feel this is just a coincidence, I am not so point where moving on becomes difficult or impossible. By
sure. Indeed further contemplation in the intervening period concentrating on the feelings, we allow the student to face
has convinced me that there is an inherent synchronicity in the emotional difficulty they are experiencing now without
these two events, and therefore perhaps an opportunity to any further burden of guilt or resentment. Creating this
reach a wider audience than the 40 or so people who were acceptance is the only way that we able to begin letting go
present at my talk to discuss the importance of emotional of the past in any meaningful way.
support and the difference it can make in people’s lives. Returning to week of the conference, a few days after
The fact that one in three people will experience a mental returning home I received the news that one of my students
health problem at some point in their life is a frequently had won an award for her achievements in overcoming
cited statistic in the UK. In terms of human relationships, a mental health disorder caused by an abusive partner.
teaching is not a static environment and many of us come I had nominated this student for the award as she had
into contact with a great variety of students throughout undergone; one of the most amazing transformations I
the course of the year. Given this reflection it should be have witnessed whilst working in education. By her efforts,
clear that we are almost continually in contact with at least and with my support and that of the college counsellor and
several people who may be suffering from some form of the other students in the class, this student had managed
emotional distress. to overcome an anxiety disorder and develop the strength
Furthermore, as was observed by one of the participants to stand up to her partner, ending a cycle of abuse that
at my talk, we as teachers are often the first port of call for stretched back over 30 years.
these students who may be in need. Indeed, if there is a In hindsight it was a strange week, assailed by events
statistical likelihood that some of our students may be suf- which seemed to oscillate between the tragic and the victo-
fering from some form of emotional distress, the question rious. Despite the dramatic differences in the conclusion of
we should ask is how we can best support our learners. The these two stories however, I believe the message concerning
following provides a brief overview of the basics of providing the importance of emotional support and wellbeing remains
emotional support: the same.
tlloyd@waltham.ac.uk

IATEFL Voices 238   13

Regular columns

Materials reviews
Sandee
Thompson is a
teacher trainer/
assessor. She
received her
MA TESL from
Edited by Sandee Thompson Birmingham
University and is
In this issue, Hilary Livingston, trialled some of the material from Garnet’s English for Academic English currently teach-
Studies series and I reviewed their 50 Steps to Improving your Academic Writing. We both agree that Garnet ing EFL at the College of the North
Atlantic, Qatar.
puts out fabulous material for learners and teachers of academic English. On a new topic for this column,
Anja Burkert reviews a book on teaching with comics edited by LASIG committee member, Christian Ludwig. As comics are probably a new and
untried teaching tool for many of us, this review is longer than usual.

English for Academic Study:
Reading Course Book
John Slaght
Garnet Publishing Limited, 2012
111 pages
ISBN 978 1 90861 437 7
English for Academic Study:
Reading and Writing Source
Book
John Slaght and Anne Pallant
Garnet Publishing Limited, 2012
68 pages
ISBN 978 1 90861 436 0
English for Academic Study:
Reading Teacher’s Book
John Slaght
Garnet Publishing Limited, 2012
197 pages
ISBN 978 1 90861 438 4
English for Academic Study: Reading Course Book is just one of the
English for Academic Studies (EAS) series published by Garnet, which
aims to provide students with the skills and strategies needed to be
successful in an academic setting. The reading course book provides
all the practice tasks that correspond to the texts found in a separate
book entitled English for Academic Study: Reading and Writing
Source Book—see next review. Also, there is an English for Academic
Study: Reading Teacher’s Book with practical teaching advice for each
exercise in the course book as well as an answer key and additional
photocopiable practice materials.
The reading course book and accompanying source book are aimed
at an upper intermediate student, (5.0–7.5 IELTS band score) who
wants to be able to read purposefully at university level. The readings
are authentic and their article-style columns, larger sized font and
colourful photos, make them reader friendly. The course book is the-
matic with 8 different units covering such topics as sustainable energy,
food security and sustainable fashion. There may be up to four texts
relating to each topic. The texts vary in length, but on average are over
1000 words each. The tasks cover the usual skills and strategies such
as skimming and scanning, predicting, inferring, and looking for main
ideas. However, one of the strengths of these books is that the tasks
go beyond the ‘usual’ and really give the student practice at other
essential university level reading skills, such as analysing the text for
purpose, reading recall, annotating, comparing two texts, and reading
with a focus question in mind.
The wide variety of skills and tasks presented requires the students
to read and reread the texts, getting the most out of every page. And,
if students find they need even more practice, there is a dedicated
website for both students and teachers with links to additional web-
sites for the skills practised.
All in all, this reading course book is ideal for someone who has
a high English level and now wants to learn the skills and strategies
necessary to be an efficient and effective reader at college level.
Hilary Livingston
CELTA, MEd.
hilarylivingston@hotmail.com
50 Steps to Improving your
Academic Writing (Study Book)
Chris Sowton
Garnet Education, 2012
272 pages
ISBN 978 1 85 964655 7
50 Steps to Improving your Academic Writ-
ing is aimed at upper intermediate EFL
students at a 5.0+ IELTS band level. It is organised into ten key areas
and includes 4 useful appendices. Each of the ten units is broken into
5 sub steps which are further broken into 6 components: Reflection,
Contextualization, Analysis, Activation, Personalization and finally,
Extension. The book is meant to be used as a self-study tool and each
chapter should last approximately 60 minutes.
Some of the areas covered in the book are: Unit A:: Understanding
Academic Convention, Unit C: Preparing to Write and Unit F: Develop-
ing your Writing Style.
In Unit A, the first chapter helps the student to analyse the dif-
ferences between spoken and written English. Discussion focuses on
method of delivery, level of formality, how meaning is communicated
and how skills are acquired. It takes the learner step by step through
the magical world of ‘processing’! I love it. For example, it helps learn-
ers to understand that in spoken English we raise our voices to make
a point but in written English we need to use punctuation and select
our words in a different manner. Step 3 in this chapter is on plagiarism
and I think it is a grand idea to have it at the beginning of the book.
First, the students evaluate what is normal practice in their country and
in the UK. (This could be reworded for the USA, Canada or any other
English speaking country, of course.) It shows students what plagiarism
is and how to identify whether or not they are plagiarising. There
are practice tasks to identify plagiarised statements and students are

14  IATEFL Voices 238

 May–June 2014 Issue 238
encouraged to review a recent essay and evaluate whether they copied
something they shouldn’t have. This is a useful unit for all learners, ESL
or otherwise.
Unit C: Preparing to Write, provides learners with the opportunity
to evaluate how their first language affects their writing and their
current skills and strategies. It provides advice on how to organise
studying time and how to take good notes. Unit F - Developing your
Writing Style, looks at sentence structures and linking devices, contex-
tualising language, making text more cohesive and common mistakes.
Overall, I think this is a fantastic book and I recommend it to every-
one who teaches IELTS, academic English or essay writing.
Sandee Thompson
DELTA, MA TESL
sandee_t@yahoo.com
Teaching Comics in the Foreign
Language Classroom
Christian Ludwig and Frank Erik Pointner
(editors)
WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2013
ISBN 978 3 86821 484 0
In der Reihe: Handbücher zur Literatur-
und Kulturdidaktik
Band 4
Herausgegeben von Wolfgang Hallet und
Ansgar Nünning
Teaching Comics in the Foreign Language Classroom fills a gap which
many language teachers, including myself, did not even realise existed.
Doing credit to the development of the comic into a medium on equal
footing with film and the internet, the book offers a multitude of prac-
tical and appealing teaching ideas soundly embedded in a theoretical
framework.
The book starts with a chapter by Bernd Rüschoff who argues
convincingly for the use of comics in the modern EFL classroom
where learning is viewed in terms of ‘an active, creative and socially
interactive process’ (p. 8). As a proponent of the social constructivist
paradigm which characterises current thinking in EFL methodology,
he points out a number of reasons why graphic art can and should
be integrated into language teaching and learning. In this context
he mentions, among others, the multimodal way comics represent
meaning, their authenticity, and their suitability for fostering students’
(inter)cultural awareness.
Also in some sense a ‘chapter apart’ albeit in a different way, the
second chapter by Frank Erik Pointner deals with the comic’s idiosyn-
crasies and how to exploit them in the classroom. The author explores
questions such as how a character, an action or time is represented in
comics and suggests addressing these unique features of the medium
in the classroom. He also offers his own definition of the comic as ‘a
narrative medium consisting of words and pictures that interact’ (p.
30).
The following contributions focus on a variety of purposes for which
graphic art seems highly suitable in the context of language teaching
and learning. Katja Heim, for example, highlights the importance
of multisensory learning for young learners and points out different
categories of possible word-picture relations in comics. She claims that
teachers need to recognize these as they can serve different teaching
aims. Dominik Rumlich, in his contribution, stresses the advantages
of comics over other media in cognitively involving students in the
Regular columns
learning process. As intensity of student engagement is a crucial factor
in successful learning, comics, which combine text and pictures, are
particularly suited to fostering students’ cognitive involvement and, as
a result, their linguistic advancement. His teaching ideas range from
exploiting gaps (for example, the information gap between panels)
to familiarising students with the emotionally rich authentic everyday
language used in comics.
Other articles are concerned with the adaptation of literary works
to the comic book format. Sandra Eva Boschenhoff shows how comic
adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic short stories can be more
easily accessed by students than their original literary counterparts.
She concedes that in order to exploit the full potential of the comic
medium, it is necessary to depart from the original in many ways. This,
however, can offer teachers and students new perspectives and fresh
insights in the literature classroom. Pascal Fischer likewise shows how
the contemporariness of the comic medium may serve as a bridge
between highbrow classic literature and the perceptions of many of
today’s students. She suggests using comic book adaptations as a
supplementary educational tool in literature classes and emphasises
the multitude of Shakespeare comics which have been produced
since the mid-20th century. Focusing on various comic adaptations of
Hamlet, she insists that confronting students with different adapta-
tions of the same scene is key as it gives students the opportunity to
think critically and voice their own ideas.
The contribution by Maria Eisenmann deals with the wealth of
comics and graphic novels produced by artists as a reaction to one of
recent history’s most traumatic events: 9/11. She discusses three of
these works in great detail and describes multiple ways of integrating
them into the classroom. Christian Ludwig explores the potential of
graphic fiction to sensitise students to the diversity of the world we
live in by initiating inter- as well as trans-cultural encounters in the lan-
guage classroom. He particularly focuses on the works of two authors
dealing with the construction of identity of Asian- and Arab-Americans
in today’s multi-ethnic American society. Claudia Drawe, too, exploits
graphic art, more precisely an autobiographical graphic novel, for
intercultural learning. Using the example of Nelson Mandela. The
Authorised Comic, she shows convincingly how the comic book man-
ages to involve students emotionally, thus enhances their intercultural
communicative competence.
Last but not least, Julian Sudhoff shows how comics may enrich
CLIL lessons (in his case, biology and history lessons) by creating
authentic, contextualised and often personalised learning environ-
ments. He illustrates very convincingly how critical discussions and
interpretations can be triggered by to the complex interplay of words
and images of this graphic genre.
All the chapters are extremely well researched, and the enormous
number of directly applicable teaching ideas is presented in a sys-
tematic and approachable way; the book is also extraordinarily well
illustrated. I therefore entirely agree with Jeremy Harmer who, in
the foreword, says that this book should be on the shelves of every
language teacher.
Anja Burkert
anja.burkert@aon.at
Erratum
In Voices 237 we referred to Renata Agolli as Renate. This was
incorrect.
IATEFL Voices 238   15
Regular columns

Practical teaching ideas

Guest contributor Robin Cunninghame Graham sets class rules using a learner-centred approach.
Each autumn, in hundreds of classrooms, teachers establish rules with Some examples of what was Robin
their new classes. Yet, given that most, if not all, of these will have agreed are: Cunninghame
been broken before Christmas, it appears to be a waste of time. I Graham is a
1 Handouts would be kept to
believe there are two underlying causes for this apparent failure: bore- self-employed
the minimum necessary to teacher living
dom and lack of ownership. teach the class, but the stu- near Segovia,
1 Boredom dents would have to do more Spain. He has
copying of things from the an MSc in
Many students have been through this rule setting exercise year on Occupational
year. It is an inherently boring part of the initial lesson, which just has board or take dictation.
Psychology and an MA (TESOL),
to be got through. They know what is expected of them and they 2 They could watch a film once Business English and Business
dutifully produce it. They have no expectation that it will ever be any a month, but would have a Culture qualifications as well as a
worksheet to complete and a CELTA + YL Extension. He has been
different and are utterly bored with it. teaching English since 2001.
class discussion based on it or
2  Lack of ownership one of its themes.
Hot on the coattails of boredom comes a sense of not owning the 3 They could eat during the film on condition that they cleaned the
rules. Despite their having apparently participated in the selection of classroom at the end of the class. (They in fact never brought any
class rules, due to their ennui with a process that is often teacher- food.)
centred, students feel disempowered and have abdicated any real 4 No homework would be set unless they, or their parents, asked for
involvement. it. (One student asked for homework.)
Some students, perhaps wanting to please, give what they believe is
The discussions were lively though mutually respectful. Some
wanted; other students, perhaps to challenge, offer as many ridiculous
themes arising in the discussions were: the value of film in language
ideas as possible, in the sure knowledge that they will all be rejected
learning; the different rights of customers and stakeholders; taking
out of hand. But should they be? What would happen if the teacher
responsibility for ones actions and their consequences.
were to use learner-centred discourse to really negotiate the rules with
his/her class (Anton, 1999)? Advantages and disadvantages
I decided to find out with my class of 15 year olds.
The advantages
Negotiating rules • Negotiating the rules makes the process more interesting and enjoy-
I divided my class into two groups and asked them to brainstorm able for both parties (engagement).
the rules they wanted, some of which could be for the teacher. They • The students feel respected as people whose views are important
were encouraged not to analyse their ideas, but were directed to have (empowerment).
a group majority supporting each rule they wanted to propose. • The teacher makes her/himself less authoritarian by yielding some of
The two groups then swapped their lists and compared ideas. This his/her perceived power (humanising).
was followed by a brief whole class discussion as to which 10 rules • Rules that are negotiated are likely to be better kept than those that
they would present. I made it clear that I would consider any rule, but are imposed (ownership).
that some might be unacceptable to the school. In such an event, they • The students use English in a more realistic way and the teacher can
could substitute a new rule for consideration. identify common errors (communication).
The rules suggested were interesting, if not always practicable. They • It can help foster learner autonomy later in the year (facilitative
included: approach).

1 No more than one handout per lesson The disadvantages

2 Outings to local places at least once a term
3 Watching a film every week (i.e. taking up one of their two classes
per week)
4 Eating snacks when there was a film
5 Classes to start and finish on time
6 No homework and no exams
The discussion included asking why they wanted a particular
rule, which was very revealing of their earlier learning experiences
(for example, wanting to avoid having bundles of grammar and/or
vocabulary exercises every class). Each suggestion was negotiated,
except where the school regulations made it impossible (for example,
outings and no exams).
• Most of the first lesson is taken up with rule setting.
• The teacher has to agree to be bound by rules set by her/his stu-
dents.
• It requires more work from the teacher.
For me the advantages far outweighed the disadvantages as well as
presenting a challenge to both my class and me.
cunninghame.graham@gmail.com
References
Antón, M. 1999. ‘The discourse of a learner-centred classroom:
sociocultural perspectives on teacher–learner interaction in the second
language classroom. Modern Language Journal, 83/3: 303–18.

16  IATEFL Voices 238

 May–June 2014 Issue 238
Regular columns

The literature column

David A. Hill presents three novels about school.
Possibly one of the most interesting topic areas to work on with lan- out ‘Tell him about thi hawk, David A. Hill
guage learners is education. It is something we all have experience of Billy.’ And with patience, Mr Far- is a freelance
and ideas about, so there is plenty to draw on and discuss, plus the thing gets Billy to tell the class consultant
in English
range of texts available is huge, from books about the methodology about how he found and trained
language
of education, through history, sociology, psychology and philosophy his kestrel. There are encouraging and literature
to the endless stream of daily newspaper articles about what this or exchanges such as: working out
that government are doing, falling or rising standards, new exams and ‘Trained it? I thought you had of Budapest.
so on. Coordinator
to be an expert to train hawks.’
of the LMCS
There are three novels which I have long loved and frequently used ‘Well, I did it.’ SIG, he is the author of many
in class and which I suggest make great texts for exploring schools, ‘Was it difficult?’ books for students and teachers in
teachers, students, attitudes and education itself, and the great thing various educational sectors, as well
‘’Course it was. You’ve to be
is that they each have a wonderful film version as well: as original and adapted readers,
right … patient wi’ ’em and four collections of poetry.
E. R.Braithwaite. 1959/2005. To Sir, With Love. Vintage Classics. and take your time.’
Film: To Sir, With Love. 1967. Directed by James Clavell. Starring ‘Well tell me how you did it then. I’ve never met a falconer before,
Sidney Poitier, Lulu. I suppose I must be in select company.’

Muriel Spark. 1961/2000. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Penguin
Modern Classics.
Film: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. 1969. Directed by Ronald
Neame. Starring Maggie Smith, Gordon Jackson.
Barry Hines. 1968/2000. A Kestrel for a Knave. Penguin Modern
Classics.
Film: Kes. 1969. Directed by Ken Loach. Starring David Bradley,
Colin Welland.
Each novel deals with pupils in a different kind of school. To Sir,
With Love (TSWL) is set in an East End London school in a working
class area. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (TPOMJB) is set in a posh girl’s
school in Edinburgh. A Kestrel for a Knave (AKFAK) is set in a rough
secondary school in a Yorkshire mining village. Each novel foregrounds
a different teacher with a different approach to education. In TSWL,
the teacher is an immigrant from British Guiana, Ricky Braithwaite,
who not only has to face a difficult teaching situation, but also racial
prejudice. He wins his final-year secondary class over by changing the
ground-rules of the class to complete respect for everyone, and by
treating them as the adults they will soon be out in the real world. In
TPOMJB the eccentric Jean Brodie selects her ‘special girls’ for treats,
and instils highly personal ideas on what is good and right; she is in
direct conflict with the school’s Headmistress and most of the other
teachers. In AKFAK the main teacher focused on is Mr Farthing, the
English teacher, who is the only one who treats the protagonist, Billy
Casper, kindly; he is contrasted starkly with the Headmaster and the
bullying P E teacher. So, by choosing the right book for your students,
and the right extracts from the book, and the film version, you can pro-
vide the basis for a wonderful series of interactive, intertextual lessons.
My personal favourite is AKFAK, and my favourite scene is the one
where Billy’s class (4C) is having an English lesson with Mr Farthing.
They are talking about the difference between fact and fiction. The
teacher elicits a factual story from one of the boys, and then asks Billy,
who has not been paying attention. Initially he is annoyed when Billy
can’t answer and threatens that the class will have to come back at
four o’clock if he doesn’t tell a story. At this, one of the others shouts
And later as Billy gets enthused by his explanation, Mr Farthing says:
‘You’d better come out here and give us a demonstration. We’re
not all experts you know.’
Billy, who is very weak at writing normally, spells all the technical
terms connected to falconry perfectly, and the teacher writes them on
the board. And when he has finished, Mr Farthing says:
‘Right you can sit down now. That was very good, I enjoyed it, and
I’m sure the class did.’
Billy blushed then walked back to his place, looking down at
his feet. His return to the ranks was greeted by a splatter of
applause, which Mr Farthing allowed to run its natural course.
The same scene is beautifully done in Ken Loach’s excellent film,
and we see exactly how a good teacher can draw out even the most
reluctant learner by getting them to work on something that they are
interested in and succeed in. There are various ways of working this
with a class, for example:
• The class discusses ways in which teachers can help shyer learners.
• The class reads the extract described above and discusses how far
Mr Farthing did the same suggestions that they came up with, and
what else he did.
They can then watch the film version of the scene and compare
similarities between what they read and what they see.
An alternative is to start with activity (a) above, but then
get half the class to do (b)—read the written text, and half
to do (c)—watch the film extract; they then compare what
they have read/seen with a partner from the other group.
This is not only a great activity for intermediate level plus language
classes and traditional literature classes, but also for pre-service and
in-service English teachers.
And I can assure you that all three novels are well worth reading
and films well worth seeing for themselves, regardless of what you
might do in class.
Happy reading!
David A. Hill
futured@hu.inter.net

IATEFL Voices 238   17

18  IATEFL Voices 238
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
ELT Journal news
Potential contributors to ELT Journal often ask whether their idea for an
article ‘fits’ the journal’s aims and objectives. Do articles have to report
on research projects? Does the journal publish papers which don’t
summarise and analyse data? And are articles which outline successful
classroom activities and practices likely to be published?
Well, we are interested in research, but the research reported upon
in ELTJ should directly benefit teachers and learners—thinking through
the implications of research for ELT practitioners is one of the journal’s
central aims. And we are interested in articles which think through issues
in a way which is likely to prompt readers to reflect on current debates in
ELT and/or their own professional practice, but which are not necessarily
‘led’ by data. Finally, of course, the journal is interested in what teachers
and learners actually do in the classroom, but these explorations should
throw light on current theoretical positions.
From this, you will see that ELT Journal is not interested in research
for its own sake, but neither does it publish purely practical articles
which do not have a clear and demonstrated connection with principles
or theories of language teaching and learning.
So what are the possible implications of all this for potential contribu-
tors to the journal? First, that is it useful to read some ELTJ articles before
submitting a paper, to get a sense of the kinds of article that we publish.
Inside IATEFL
(A number of articles are freely available on ELTJ’s website at http://eltj.
oxfordjournals.org/.) Secondly, papers need to explore the links between
practice and theory when focusing on a particular topic. And finally,
contributors to ELT Journal don’t have to work in universities or hold
PhDs (although many do); many teachers and other ELT practitioners
contribute papers to the journal, focusing on a range of issues including,
for example, reports of action research projects, systematic evaluations
of classroom innovations which link their own practices to underlying
pedagogic theories, and also, of course, summaries of their own small
scale research investigations into various aspects of classroom life. ELT
Journal is for all those involved in English language teaching, after all.
Graham Hall
editor@eltj.org
Are you reading this online?
You can choose the way you receive IATEFL Voices in the
Members Area.
Just login at www.iatefl.org to change your settings.
IATEFL Voices 238   19
Inside IATEFL
Focus on the SIGS
The Testing, Evaluation and
Assessment SIG
TEASIG held a very successful conference in
Siena, Italy on ‘Diversity, Plurilingualism and
their Impact on Language Testing and Assess-
ment’; we look forward to the publication of
the conference proceedings, along with the
proceedings of past conferences this year.
TEASIG publications include the TEASIG news-
letter and we are happy to announce that we
have two new Newsletter editors, Ayşegül
Liman Kaban, based in Turkey, and Susan
Sheehan, based in the UK, who will be working
together from the next issue.
Judith Mader, Coordinator
teasig@iatefl.org
The Materials Writing SIG
MaWSIG: looking back and looking
forward
In its first year of operation, MaWSIG has been
very active. We started off with a successful
webinar by John Hughes, ‘Writing ELT class-
room materials for a wider public’. This was
followed by a sold-out panel discussion event
in Oxford on ‘New Directions in ELT Materials
Writing’. At the 2014 Harrogate conference,
many members and other delegates interested
in materials development attended our first
PCE ‘Writing for digital’, and we also had a
MaWSIG Day with presenters on a variety of
topics. Just before the Harrogate conference,
our first newsletter, Building Materials, came
out, presenting a wide range of practical and
academic issues. All these activities consid-
ered  principles, challenges and solutions in
materials writing. In the process, we gathered a
very respectable number of new members and
grew from an initial 50 to over 230!
20  IATEFL Voices 238
So now to look
ahead—what do we
have in store for the
next year? Our web-
site will be up and
providing information
for members and non-
members. For the 2015
conference there will
be another PCE and
SIG Day; but before
that we plan to have a
series of webinars with
prominent speakers on
an interesting range of materials development
topics. Keep up with all our news on Facebook
at www.facebook.com/MaWSIG and by follow-
ing us on Twitter (@MaWSIG).
Nick Robinson, Coordinator
mawsig@iatefl.org
The Business English SIG
Electronic Village Online
IATEFL BESIG participated for the second year
in the TESOL Electronic Village Online (EVO)
with a session entitled ‘Developing business
English teachers’. The aim of this five-week
course was to give business English teach-
ers the opportunity to focus on some of the
salient aspects of our profession such as self-
reflection, motivation, needs analysis, learning
styles, teaching interpersonal skills, integrating
technology, designing materials and build-
ing your own teaching business. The session
concluded by giving participants the tools to
create their own professional development
plan. There were close to 200 participants and
it was moderated by BESIG members: Kristen
Acquaviva, Justine Arena, Roy Bicknell, Claire
Hart, Gabrielle Jones, Dana Poklepovic, Charles
Rei, Marjorie Rosenberg, and Mercedes Viola.
In addition to our asynchronous online plat-
form, we had nine live sessions in order to have
as much spontaneous, synchronous interaction
with the participants as possible.
Summer Symposium, 13–14 June 2014 in
Graz, Austria
This spring we are delighted to return to Graz
where Evan Frendo, our plenary speaker, will
be delving into the topic ‘Exploring business
English’. In addition, some twenty-five speak-
ers will be holding talks and workshops on a
variety of topics. We are looking forward to
welcoming you to Graz.
IATEFL BESIG 27th Annual Conference
We are delighted to announce that we will be
returning to the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg,
St Augustin campus near Bonn, Germany for
our annual conference from 14–16 November
2014. The call for papers runs until 25 May
2014 and early-bird booking from 1 July–1
September 2014. Reduced conference rates
this year are being offered to colleagues resid-
ing in Spain and Portugal.
For more details of our events see www.
besig.org.
Marjorie Rosenberg and Claire Hart
besig@iatefl.org
The Learner Autonomy SIG
Unfortunately, this
time LASIG has
got sad news. On
Monday, 3 Febru-
ary 2014 one of
our members, David
Hall, Associate Pro-
fessor at Macquarie
University, Austra-
lia, passed away. David Hall, Harrogate
All through his life 2010
David was involved in foreign language teach-
ing in one way or another and in many
different parts of the world—as a practising
teacher, researcher, manager of distance learn-
ing, and much more.
David joined IATEFL as early as 1980. He
was very interested in the future of language
teaching and especially in learner-centred
approaches, and he joined the Learner Auton-
omy SIG after it was founded. Recently, he was
also a member of our committee. For several
years we relied on David’s expertise and his
commitment to the goals of LASIG. But most
importantly, we appreciated him as a person—
his keen judgment and wonderful sense of
humour. It was a great pleasure and privilege
to know him and to work together with him.
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
However, it was already at the Annual
Conference in Liverpool that we missed David
as he had to cancel his attendance for health
reasons. Therefore, sadly to say, his death
Spotlight on Global Issues SIG
English for change!
Our SIG aims to bring together profession-
als who see themselves as educators as well
as language teachers. To illustrate how our
members see this educational role, here are
a few responses to the question: why did you
join our SIG?
I teach English in Oelde, Germany and I
joined GISIG because I am interested in get-
ting my students to think critically as well as
speak English well.
I am a teacher trainer in the UK and I
joined GISIG because I am passionate about
empowering young people to be the future
generation in a more equal society.
I am a university teacher in Londrina,
Brazil and I joined GISIG because I believe
English language education is a part of a
larger agenda to raise awareness about
global interconnections.
With 140 members, we’re one of the small-
est SIGs. Does this reflect a lack of interest
among IATEFL members in bringing real-world
issues into the classroom or developing critical
thinking? I don’t think so. We tend to see our-
selves as teachers of young learners, teacher
trainers, mentors, business English teachers,
etc., with a variety of professional interests. A
concern for global issues is not typically part
of our professional identity. About six years
ago at our annual conference, there was an
excellent but poorly attended session on 'ELT
and sustainable development’. A friend attend-
ing the conference told me: ’I’m interested
in sustainable development—but not when I
come to a teacher’s conference. Here I’d rather
attend a session on using songs, storytelling,
or drama activities—these are the things that
relate to what I do in the classroom’.
While I can understand the above senti-
ment, my identity as a teacher and teacher
trainer has undergone a radical change in
Inside IATEFL
was not unexpected. We have lost a per-
sonal friend, a dedicated teacher and a highly
esteemed researcher. Our thoughts go out
to his family, his friends, his former students,
the past few years. I now see the students in
my classrooms as world citizens, in addition
to being Hungarian or Turkish, teenagers or
young adults, visual or kinesthetic learners, etc.
With no exception, all my students are inhabit-
ants of a planet with diminishing resources,
facing crises of an unprecedented scale. Albert
Einstein said, ’We can’t solve today’s problems
with the same mindset that created them’. We
need a change in mindset.
To me, being an educator means planting
the seeds for such change. My main challenge
is to be an agent for change, while bearing in
mind that my main responsiblity is to teach
language; to challenge my students to think
creatively and compassionately, and remember
that most of them come expecting to prepare
for exams and to have fun.
For teachers facing similar challenges, our
SIG has a great deal to offer. If you want to find
out more about our activities and resources,
our website (gisig.iatefl.org), expertly managed
by László Hajba, is a good place to start. To
read about what our SIG stands for, visit the
‘Newsletter Highlights’ section where you will
find some key articles from our past publica-
tions. Each one starts with a short introduction
written by a committee member telling you
why that particular article is a relevant and
important read today.
’Food Issues’’ was an innovative event which
has resulted in a collection of resources on the
topic of food, now available to all teachers. Our
Events Organiser, Lindsay Clandfield writes:
In October of 2013, we held a month long
online event. During this time we invited teach-
ers, teacher trainers and writers in our field to
contribute their ideas on how we can teach
‘food’ with a conscience. We had contributions
come in via our Facebook page, our Twitter
feed and our website. Teachers shared all kinds
of great articles, images and videos. Topics as
varied as hunger and food scarcity, advertis-
ing, eating disorders, local food, sustainable
agriculture and labour issues were addressed.
One of the outcomes of the event is our
Pinterest page. Go to the ‘Resources’ section
and everybody else who misses him.
Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen,
Joint coordinators
lasig@iatefl.org
of our site, click on ‘Food Issues’ and browse
through the classroom activities, visuals, lesson
plans, videos and articles.
In October 2013 Luke Prodromou ran a
thought-provoking webinar for us: ‘The Dick-
ensian Turn: Critical language education in
a time of crisis’. Again, you can find more
information on our website.
In January 2014 we launched a new fea-
ture: ’E-lesson Inspirations’, a collection of
powerful videos with ideas for using them
in the classroom. These short clips and the
accompanying classroom activities serve as
another example of how language teaching
can be combined with teaching for change
and gives voice to alternative viewpoints. Units
include: ’Football Mad’, a poem performed by
Benjamin Zephaniah with activities that invite
students to explore its message, ’Pale Blue
Dot’ in which astronomer Carl Sagan offers a
cosmic perspective on our world, and ’Black
Friday’ featuring Kalle Lasn taking a critical look
at our consumerist society. Here is an example
of comments posted on our site:
I like these lesson inspirations. There are
so many good ingredients out there but these
inspirations put them together into whole-
some snacks. And what’s good and what will
keep them good is the invitation for multiple
perspectives (including the obvious for and
against) not just a single ‘good’ viewpoint,
because people automatically dig in against
preaching, even when it’s good. I do. (Adrian
Underhill)
Finally, as you’re reading this, the IATEFL
Conference in Harrogate is behind us. Our
PCE will have focused on using games and
simulations for raising awareness of global
issues, and our SIG day will have included an
innovative Four Corners Dialogue on the topic
of ’Teaching as a political act’.
If you too believe that ELT can help to widen
horizons, raise global awareness, and challenge
our students to be creative, please join our
GISIG community!
Margit Szesztay
GISIG Coordinator
IATEFL Voices 238   21
Inside IATEFL
From the Associates
IATEFL’s Associates Representative, Les Kirkham, brings Associate news.
Regular readers of these Associates pages will
recall that we have discussed grants available
to IATEFL Associates several times in the past
few years. I would like to highlight the same
topic in this issue and draw your attention to
three major grants, two funded by prominent
educational trusts and the other by IATEFL
itself.
Funding for projects
These grants are intended to be used as part-
funding to undertake projects that enhance
the work of your teacher association (TA). So
I’d like to use these grants to extract advice as
to what TAs need to do to compose a strong
application or proposal for funding. Readers
of the IATEFL e-bulletin will have heard of
IATEFL Projects Award
This is the inaugural year for this IATEFL
award, and the Board of Trustees thought
long and hard about how to maximise the
effect of the award for the greater good
of our profession, and for education in
general.
It offers  associates  the opportunity to bid
for small grants that will enable them to make
a difference to language learning in their local
context that would not be possible without
this support. Any proposal has to show that
IH Trust/IATEFL Training
Award
In partnership with IATEFL, the International
House Trust offered a training award to an
associate of IATEFL in the developing world.
This is a valuable and distinctive award in that
it includes 20 training days to be delivered
in their own country or region by IH Trust
teacher trainers. Thus the aim is to support
existing teacher development programmes
within Associates through the provision of
relevant training.
Again, as in the IATEFL Projects Award, it is
expected that the training will have an effect
on a broad community of English language
teachers in their countries or regions. It can
either be a direct teacher training course, or a
22  IATEFL Voices 238
all three, but even if they are aware of the
grants, some associates may need a bit more
encouragement to apply; and others may not
be aware at all.
Generally, these awards are aimed at TAs
from developing areas of the world, or that
come from lower income countries. These are
essentially the associates that are able to apply
for the Wider Membership Scheme, so that is
a factor to bear in mind as well. But there are
also opportunities for collaboration with more
established TAs that might have expertise to
share.
Let’s look at these three awards and draw
out the characteristics that would comprise a
strong application on behalf of your associate.
The three in question are the:
the effects of the project will reach a broad
community of English language teachers and
give the opportunity for less experienced teach-
ers to take an active role. Also a part of the
proposal must show how the outcomes will be
evaluated and disseminated.
So any associate writing a proposal must
make clear how it will involve both experienced
and inexperienced teachers as well as describe
the impact on learning, and exactly how this
will be evaluated.
The kinds of projects that are anticipated
are ones that have a lasting effect, not just
a one-off event. They can be face-to-face,
trainer training course which can then lead to
cascade teacher training at local level.
The training must also demonstrate lasting
effectiveness (‘sustainable outcomes’ in the
current jargon) as well. Here are some exam-
ples of the types of possible training projects.
Training to:
• upgrade teachers’ language proficiency and/
or developing language teaching practice
• develop materials in under-resourced local
contexts
• assess learners’ needs/abilities and cur-
riculum demands and to develop language
teaching practices that respond to these
• encourage and develop innovative practices
in teaching specific language skills
You will see the parallels with the IATEFL
Projects Award. There is an emphasis on
• IATEFL Projects
Award
• International Les Kirkham, Associates
House Trust- Representative
IATEFL Training
Award
• The Hornby Trust-IATEFL Teacher Associa-
tion Development Projects Fund
All three are only open to IATEFL associ-
ates and although all three are closed for
applications for 2014, all the winners for this
year should also be known by the time you
read this, though not all at the time of writing
this—except, that is, for the winners of the
Hornby-IATEFL Award. Read on and all will be
revealed.
or online, or a mixture of the two. But the
‘lasting effect’ may include things such as
upgrading teachers’ skills, holding a confer-
ence to seek and implement solutions to a
specific problem in the country, researching
needs of learners and then writing materials
to address them, or finding ways to introduce
new technology or methodology.
There may also be opportunities for exper-
tise to be shared between different associates
in pursuit of the aims of a project, or for
specific SIGs to be involved. We are all linked
so it makes sense to search for such collabora-
tive opportunities.
teachers’ language proficiency, teaching skills
and methodology, as well as enhancement
of their ability to develop materials and
assessment, and for all these there needs to
be a demonstration of lasting effectiveness
(’sustainability’), and a means of evaluating
this.
Preparing a budget
It is significant that preparing budgets, includ-
ing how the TA will find funding from other
sources, is a requirement in support of these
applications, so the associate should make
sure it develops the skills to produce a clear
budget plan, and is also able to find other
funds. Further training in Budgeting and
Fund-raising are two of the areas of expertise
that associates have often requested, and
May–June 2014 Issue 238
will increasingly be a ‘must’ in the range of
skills that a TA needs to deploy in pursuit of
its mission.
So, to summarise, the IH Trust-IATEFL
Training Award seeks evidence of:
Inside IATEFL
• clear and realistic aims and objectives
• benefit to a broad community of language
teachers
• a clearly outlined budget showing costs and
local funding 
• key people involved within and outside the
TA, including partners
• a clearly developed sustainability plan, with
appropriate evaluation measures.

Hornby Trust-IATEFL
Associates Development
Projects Fund
This award has been going for several years
now, and I have personally been involved with
it each year since 2011 when the winners
were our associates based in Albania and
Cuba. In the current cycle, 2013–2014, there
were 11 applicants, and the winners are …
no, I’ll leave that till later.
The Hornby Trust funds this award, and as
it is open only to IATEFL associates, IATEFL is
also involved, as well as the British Council,
who are responsible for distributing the fund-
ing for the winners and supporting them
in other ways. So this is another exemplary
partnership between major organisations in
this field, and four when you include the
winner.
So what are the declared aims of this
award? The aim is to support ‘teacher and
teacher association development in practical,
sustainable and contextually relevant ways’.
Specified examples of possible projects
include:
• outreach projects to support a new branch
and/or increase recruitment of new mem-
bers;
• projects to evaluate existing provision and/
or develop new services for members;
• projects which spread expertise within the
particular TA or across IATEFL associates.
Each year, the judges for this award have
looked closely at how the project will develop
the TA itself in organisation, administration
or scope, as well as enhancing teaching
and learning within its area. So there are two
clearly-linked types of objective.
There is also an emphasis that this should
be part-funding: the TA has to seek support
from other sources, (‘matching funds’) so this
encourages a TA actively to seek local funding.
If a TA has not done this before, the fund-
raising skills and sources they develop for this
project can carried over to other projects in the
future. But as is said in the call for proposals,
‘…some or even all of these ‘matching funds’
can be ‘goods in kind’, for example, free venue
space, donated stationery, use of equipment,
etc’. These are all facilities that otherwise might
have to be paid for, and thus carry a monetary
value as well.
In applying for this award, what does a TA
need to do? Here are the required actions and
details:
• Name a project leader
• Write an informative title
• Describe the type of project
• Give a time scale
• State clear specific aims
• Justify its usefulness in satisfying clear stated
needs
• Describe exactly what will be done at each
stage
• Name the team (including non-TA partners)
involved, with their job descriptions and
responsibilities
• Draw up a budget with the detailed likely
costs, how the funds will be used, what
matching funds will be available, where they
will come from, and how they will be used
• Describe how the project will be evaluated
• Describe how and why it will have a lasting
effect.
Here’s what you have to do
So, to sum up, each of these three funding
opportunities is slightly different, but they
share characteristics and requirements that
every TA should be aware of when consider-
ing an application. Bear in mind the eleven
points above, and all the other points above
in this article, and your application will have
a strong basis.
Remember:
• What … do you want to do?
• Why … do you want to do it?
• Who … will do it?
• How … will you do it and evaluate it?
• When … will you do it?
• Where … will the money come from and
be used for?
And finally you need to be able to say:
• How … it will strengthen the association
• How … it will enhance language teaching
and learning
• How … it will benefit your community.
Good luck with your next application.
Oh, do you want to know who the Hornby
Trust-IATEFL Project Fund winners are? Well,
if you came to Associates Day in Harrogate,
you will already know. And if you didn’t, I’ll
be writing about them here in Voices very
soon. Have a great summer. J
What? Oh, OK, the winners were our
associates from Morocco and Omsk, Russia.
Congratulations to both of them, and many
thanks to the other nine associates who
entered the competition.

Have you thought about writing something for Voices? Is there something you feel
Have you thought strongly about? Something you would like to say or share? Everyone who has ever

    of writing had an article published in our Newsletter started out by submitting an article for the
first time and Voices is particularly interested in receiving material from people who

    for are relatively new to the profession. Perhaps you have an idea but it’s not enough
for an article? Well, brief can be just as good and often better. We are especially
interested in items as short as 400–800 words—quite long enough in many cases to
make a pithy point—and shorter articles will give more people a chance to be heard,
regardless of who, where or how well ‘qualified’ they are.

Alison Schwetlick, Editor, IATEFL Voices

IATEFL Voices 238   23

24  IATEFL Voices 238
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
Inside IATEFL

Coming events
2014 DON’T FORGET October
23–26 China
April 11–14 April 2015 CELEA 7th International Converence
on ELT in China, Nanjing
30– Brazil
3 May 14th BrazTESOL International 49th Annual ‘Localization and individuation: Reforms and
research in China’s ELT’
Conference, Joao Pessoa
‘Emerging Identities in ELT’
International Event coordinator: China English Language
Education Association
Visit: http://braz-tesol.org.br IATEFL Conference Visit: http://www.celea.org.cn/2014/english/
May and Exhibition November
10 April 2015 14–16 Bonn, Germany
10 Salford, UK IATEFL BESIG Annual Conference
IATEFL LMCS SIG with NATESOL Pre-conference events
event 14–15 Albania
17 France
Manchester UK ELTA Regional Conference, Berat
See www.iatefl.org for more information and “English and Employability”
TESOL France Young Learners and Contact eltaalb@gmail.com or visit
Teens Event. Paris important deadlines
www.eltaal.org
‘Spotlighting, Encouraging, Inspiring English
Learning and Teaching among Young September 21–24 Japan
Learners and Teens’ JALT 2014 40th Annual International
12–14 Poland Conference and Exhibition on
Contact : tesolfrance@gmail.com or visit
23rd International IATEFL Poland Language Teaching and Learning,
www.tesol-france.org
Conference, Lublin Tsukuba
23–25 Cyprus ‘Innovation and technology in foreign ‘Conversations across borders’
IATEFL YLTSIG and CyTEA joint languages teaching: methodology, Visit: http://jalt.org.conference
event, Nicosia psychology, IT’
‘Early Years Conference Language Learning Submission deadline 1 May 2014
2-6 – International Perspectives on Early Years Contact: conference2014@iatefl.org.pl or
Plurilingualism’
Visit www.iatefl.org
visit www.iatefl.org.pl
26–27 Albania
Wish IATEFL would
30–31 Turkey
IATEFL LASIG, Istanbul
ELTA Regional Conference, Lezha host an event in
“Teaching and Learning English for Fun:
‘Learners and Teachers as Companions on
the Road to Autonomy’
Challenges and Solutions” your country?
Contact eltaalb@gmail.com or visit
Visit: www.iatefl.org www.eltaal.org
31 Korea Go to
KOTESOL Conference, Daegu Submissions for the calendar are welcome and should
‘Change in the Classroom: Principled be sent to glenda@iatefl.org and copied to the Editor at http://www.iatefl.org/
Pragmatism’ editor@iatefl.org. It is helpful to follow the format in the special-interest-groups/
calendar above, and also to include submission deadlines
Visit: http//koreatesol.org/
for papers for potential presenters. So that we receive your list-of-sigs
 nc2014CallForPresenters
announcements in time, please check Voices (p.1) for the to contact the IATEFL SIGs
June copy deadline and the publication month of each issue.
13–14 Austria

IATEFL BESIG Summer Symposium,
Graz
‘Putting the research to work: research,
practical applications and materials in
Business English’
Booking: 1 March–4 June 2014
Visit www.besig.org
27–29 UK
NATECLA National Conference 2014,
Sheffield
Visit: http://www.natecla.org.uk/content/568/
 National-Conference-2014
August
21–23 India
ELTAI 9th International and 49th
Annual ELTAI conference, Jaipur
‘English: From classes to masses’
Submission deadline: 31 May 2014
Contact shailamhn@yahoo.co.in or visit
www.eltai.in
The most up to date version of the calendar can be
found on our website,
http://www.iatefl.org/events/
Publications received
The Editor has received copies of the
following publications:
ELT Research, RESIG Newsletter, January
2014, Issue 29 (ISSN: 2304-2591)
ES(O)L SIG Newsletter, January 2014, Issue 1
(ISSN: 1742-4968)
Professional and Academic English ESPSIG
Journal Summer-Autumn 2013, Issue 42
(ISSN: 1754-6850)
Independence, LASIG Newsletter, February-
March 2014, Issue 60 (ISSN: 1026-4329)
LMCS SIG Newsletter, December 2013, Issue
44 (ISSN: 1814-6495)
Speak Out! PronSIG Newsletter, February
2014, Issue 50 (ISSN: 1026-4345)
TEASIG e-Newsletter, March 2014, Issue 55
(ISSN: 1814-697X)
TDSIG Newsletter, Autumn-Winter 2013-14,
Issue 69 (ISSN: 1026-4361)
TTEdSIG e-newsletter, November 2013
(ISBN1026:4396)
Associates Publications
ETAS Journal, Switzerland, Winter 2013,
Volume 31/1 (ISSN: 1660-6507)
TESOL-Spain E-newsletter, January 2014
(ISSN 2255-0356)
TESOL-Spain E-newsletter, Convention Issue,
February 2014 (ISSN 2255-0356)
Publications from Teachers’ Associations
or special interest groups received will be
acknowledged in this column and should be
sent to the Editor at PO Box 3182, Pewsey,
SN9 5WJ, United Kingdom.
Please send only items published wholly or
partly in English, which should be received
by the deadlines detailed on the contents
page of this issue. All further enquiries to
editor@iatefl.org.

IATEFL Voices 238   25

Inside IATEFL
Who’s who in IATEFL
Patron: Professor David Crystal, OBE, FBA
Advisory Council
As Patron: David Crystal
As Editor of the ELTJ: Graham Hall
Individual members: Herbert Puchta,
Catherine Walter and Adrian du Plessis,
Anna Searle
Board of Trustees
President: Carol Read
Vice President: Peter Meydges
Treasurer: Colin MacKenzie
Secretary: Zeynep Urkun
Membership Chair: Gary Motteram
SIG Representative: George Pickering
Associates Representative: Les Kirkham
Electronic Committee Chair: Caroline Moore
Committee Members
Conference: Carol Read (Chair), Burcu Akyol,
Louise Atkins (Head Office), Bethany Cagnol,
Glenda Smart (Head Office), Alison Medland
(Head Office), Alison Wallis (Head Office),
Poppy White (Head Office) and Ros Wright
Finance: Colin MacKenzie (Chair),
Karsten Gramkow, Wayne Rimmer,
Lizzie Wojtkowska-Wright and Glenda Smart
(Head Office)
Publications: Peter Meydges (Chair), Roy Bicknell
and Martin Eayrs
ElComm: Caroline Moore (Chair), Louise Atkins
(Head Office), Mike Harrison, Heike Philp,
Paul Sweeney and Mercedes Viola
Membership: Gary Motteram (Chair),
Victoria Boobyer, Tilly Harrison,
Marjorie Rosenberg and Shaun Wilden
Conference Selections Editor: Tania Pattison
cseditor@iatefl.org
Voices Editor: Alison Schwetlick
editor@iatefl.org
IATEFL Representative on the ELTJ panel:
Carol Read
IATEFL Representative on the ELTJ
Management Board: Catherine Walter
IATEFL Scholarship Working Party (SWP):
Eryl Griffiths (Chair) eryl_griffiths@yahoo.co.uk,
Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou, Patrick McMahon,
Amos Paran and Adrian Tennant
Head Office
Executive Officer
Glenda Smart: glenda@iatefl.org
Deputy Executive Officer
Louise Atkins: louise@iatefl.org
Finance Officer
Kay Cox: kay@iatefl.org
SIGs & General Administrator
Eleanor Broadbridge: eleanor@iatefl.org
Conference Organiser
Alison Medland: alison@iatefl.org
Deputy Conference Organiser
Poppy White: poppy@iatefl.org
Business Development Officer
Alison Wallis: awallis@iatefl.org
Membership Officer (Maternity Cover)
Natasha Cleary natasha@iatefl.org
Finance & General Administrator
Linda James: linda@iatefl.org
Other
generalenquiries@iatefl.org
26  IATEFL Voices 238
Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
Business English (BE)
http://www.besig.org
Coordinator: Marjorie Rosenberg
besig@iatefl.org
Newsletter Editor: Julia Waldner
julia.waldner@besig.org
Events Coordinators: Cornelia Kreis-Meyer
cornelia.kreis-meyer@besig.org and
Andrzej Stesik andrzej.stesik@besig.org
Treasurer: Bethany Cagnol
bethany.cagnol@besig.org
Development Coordinator: Akos Gerold
akos.gerold@besig.org
Website Coordinators & BESIG Online Team
Coordinators: Claire Hart claire.hart@besig.org
and Mercedes Viola mercedes.viola@besig.org
BESIG Online Team: Justine Arena
justine.arena@besig.org; Matt Halsdorff
matt.halsdorff@besig.org; Michelle Hunter
michelle.hunter@besig.org; Pete Rutherford
pete.rutherford@besig.org;
BESIG Editorial Team: Roy Bicknell
roy.bicknell@besig.org; Kristen Acquaviva
kristen.acquaviva@besig.org; Vicky Loras
vicky.loras@besig.org and Lynn Nikkanen
lynn.nikkanen@besig.org
English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
http://espsig.iatefl.org/
Joint Coordinators: Aysen Guven and
Prithvi Shrestha espsig@iatefl.org
Journal Editor-in-Chief (Professional and
Academic English): Mark Krzanowski
markkski2@gmail.com
Assistant Editors: Andy Gillett
andy@andygillett.co.uk; Bernard Nchindila
nchinbm@unisa.ac.za; Nadezhda Yakovchuk
n.yakovchuk@hotmail.co.uk
Editorial Advisers: Ruth Breeze
rbreeze@unav.es and Modupe Alimi
ALIMIMM@mopipi.ub.bw
Membership Secretary: Jeremy Day
jday@poczta.onet.pl
Web Manager: Semih Irfaner
irfaner@bilkent.edu.tr
ESP Reporters: Tawanda Nhire Nelson Antonio
tawandanel@yahoo.com.br and Marcos Koffi
Ngoran ngoran.marcos@yahoo.com
Members-at-Large: Kevin Knight
krknight1@hotmail.com, William Nash
w.nash@sheffield.ac.uk, Rosinda Guerra Ramos
rramos1@uol.com.br and Sam Thompson
sam.thompson@londonschool.com
English for Speakers of Other Languages
(ES(O)L)
http://esolsig.wordpress.com/
Coordinator: Caroline Okerika esolsig@iatefl.org
Newsletter Editor: Genevieve White
gwhite@shetland.gov.uk
Reviews Editor: Ryan Simpson
Committee Members: Michelle Bagwell,
Pauline Blake-Johnston, Janet Golding and
Philida Schellekens
Global Issues (GI)
http://gisig.iatefl.org/
Coordinator: Margit Szesztay
margit.szesztay@gmail.com
Newsletter editors: Dana Radler
dana_radler@yahoo.co.uk and Xiaobing Wang
icysprite0411@yahoo.co.uk
Web Content: Wolfgang Ridder
wori2051blfd@t-online.de
Webinars: Dennis Newson djn@dennisnewson.de
Event Organiser: Lindsay Clandfield
lclandfield@yahoo.ca
Membership & Social Networks: Vacancy
Webmaster: László Hajba
hajba.laszlo@icloud.com
Discussion List Moderator: Iqbal Dhudhra
iqbaldhudhra@yahoo.com
Discussion List Animator: Bill Templer
templerbill@gmail.com
Learner Autonomy (LA)
http://lasig.iatefl.org
Joint coordinators: Leni Dam and
Lienhard Legenhausen lasig@iatefl.org
Finance officer: Katja Heim
Katja.heim@uni-due.de
Webmaster: Christian Ludwig
christian.ludwig@uni-due.de
Publications officer: Jo Mynard
jomynard@gmail.com
Membership officer: Anja Burkert
aon.913308801@aon.at
Event organisers: Marcella Menegale
marcella.menegale@libero.it and Pili Uceira-Diez
eoipili@gmail.com
Editorial team: Natanael Delgado ndelgado@
ujed.mx and Irena Subic Jelocnik irenasj@t-2.net
Leadership and Management (LAM)
http://lamsig.iatefl.org/
Coordinator: Jenny Johnson lamsig@iatefl.org
Newsletter Editor: George Pickering
georgeuk32@aol.com
Secretary: Loraine Kennedy
kennedyloraine00@gmail.com
Website & Discussion List coordinator:
Andy Hockley adhockley@gmail.com
Committee members: Andy Curtis
andycurtiswork@gmail.com and Josh Round
Literature Media and Cultural Studies
(LMCS)
http://lmcs.iatefl.org/
Coordinator: Chris Lima lmcssig@iatefl.org
Newsletter Editor: Alan Pulverness
alan@nile-elt.com
Treasurer: Amos Paran A.Paran@ioe.ac.uk
Publicity and Marketing: Vacancy
Webmaster: Carel Burghout echidna2@xs4all.nl
Learning Technologies (LT)
http://ltsig.org.uk
Joint Coordinators: Shaun Wilden and
Nicky Hockly ltsig@iatefl.org /
coordinator@ltsig.org.uk
Newsletter Editor: Natalya Eydelman
newsletter@ltsig.org.uk
Finance Officer: Sophia Mavridi 
treasurer@ltsig.org.uk
Discussion List Moderator: Vacant
Webmaster: Pete Mackichan 
webmaster@ltsig.org.uk
Events coordinator: Shaun Wilden 
events@ltsig.org.uk
Online events coordinator: Heike Philp
online-events@ltsig.org.uk
 May–June 2014 Issue 238
Inside IATEFL
Community Manager: Vicky Saumell Scholarships Coordinator: Larysa Sanotska Discussion List Moderator: Gospel Ikpeme
communitymanager@ltsig.org.uk sanotska@yahoo.com gospelikpeme@gmail.com
Materials Writing (MaW) Teacher-research Updates Coordinator: Webmaster: Kalyan Chattopadhyay
Coordinator: Nick Robinson mawsig@iatefl.org Paula Rebolledo prebolledoc@gmail.com profkalyan@gmail.com
Treasurer: Byron Russell TESOL Liaison: Sarah Mercer Publicity & Membership Officer: Burcu Tezcan
Membership Coordinator: Jill Florent sarah.mercer@uni-graz.at burcu.tezcan-unal@zu.ac.ae
Social Media Coordinator: Karen White Treasurer: Siân Etherington Young Learners and Teenagers (YLT)
Events Coordinator: Sophie O’Rourke s.etherington@salford.ac.uk http://www.yltsig.org
Deputy Events Coordinator: Rachael Roberts Teacher Development (TD) Joint Coordinators: Dennis Newson and
Publications Coordinator: Hans Mol http://www.tdsig.org Kalyan Chattopadhyay yltsig@iatefl.org
Publications Editor: Lyn Strutt Coordinator: Anthony Gaughan tdsig@iatefl.org Joint Network coordinators Teens (T):
Pronunciation (Pron) Former Coordinator: Mojca Belak Helen Davies helendavies06@gmail.com &
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/epu/pronsig mojca.belak@guest.arnes.si ffinlo Kilner ffinlo@sul-schools.com
Coordinator: Wayne Rimmer pronsig@iatefl.org Newsletter Editor: Catherine Mitsaki Network coordinator Young Learners (YL):
Newsletter Editor: Robin Walker cmitsaki@yahoo.gr Lou McLaughlin lniclochlainn@gmail.com
robin@englishglobalcom.com Events Manager: Huseyin Demirel Network coordinator Very Young Learners
Discussion List Moderator: Alex Selman demirelhuseyin.demirel@emu.edu.tr (VYL): Charles Goodger
alex.selman@mac.com Website Content Editor: Barbara Roosken goodger.charles@gmail.com
Webmaster: Jane Setter j.e.setter@reading.ac.uk b.roosken@fontys.nl Network coordinator Special Educational
Finance Officer: Piers Messum Members without portfolio: Willy Cardoso Needs (SEN): Susan Hillyard
p.messum@gmail.com cardoso.elt@gmail.com and Sinéad Laffan ssnhillyard@gmail.com
tesol@oxfordtefl.cz C&TS Newsletter Editor: David Valente
Research (Res)
Testing Evaluation and Assessment (TEA) david.valente@britishcouncil.org
http://resig.iatefl.org/
http://tea.iatefl.org Online Events & website coordinator:
Coordinator: Richard Smith resig@iatefl.org
Coordinator: Judith Mader teasig@iatefl.org Nellie Deutsch nellie.muller.deutsch@gmail.com
Discussion List Moderator: Atanu Bhattacharya
atanu1071@googlemail.com Joint Newsletter Editors: Ayşegül Liman Kaban Online Events support: Graham Stanley
ayseguliman@gmail.com and Susan Sheehan graham.stanley@gmail.com
Events Coordinator: Sarah Brewer
s.sheehan@hud.ac.uk Online Events support: Christina Giannikas
s.m.brewer@reading.ac.uk
Events Coordinators: Carol Spoettl christinagian@hotmail.com
Membership Secretary: Sandie Mourão
c_spoettl@hotmail.com and Zeynep Urkun Events support & SEN Network support:
nettlehouse@mail.telepac.pt
zeynepu@sabanciuniv.edu Gemma Fanning gemmafanning@icloud.com
Mentoring Coordinator: Mark Daubney
mark.daubney@ipleiria.pt Webmaster: Carel Burghout echidna2@xs4all.nl
Newsletter Editors: Ana Inés Salvi Discussion List and Social Media Moderator:
Coordinating Committee Members and Committee Members
anainess26@yahoo.com.ar; Gosia Sky Doris Froetscher doris.froetscher@uibk.ac.at can be contacted by emailing generalenquiries@iatefl.org
gosia.sky@hotmail.co.uk; Richard Smith Committee Members: Dave Allan The Editor of Voices can be contacted by post at
dave@nile-elt.com and Sue Hackett PO Box 3182, Pewsey, SN9 5WJ, United Kingdom or by email
resig@iatefl.org at editor@iatefl.org
Outreach Coordinator: Harry Kuchah suefhackett@hotmail.com
Administrative staff, SIG Coordinators and Local Associations
H.Kuchah@sheffield.ac.uk Teacher Training and Education (TTEd) can be contacted directly at the addresses above.
Public Relations: Deborah Bullock http://ttedsig.iatefl.org In a large organisation like IATEFL people are always on the
move and contact details can rapidly become out of date.
deborah.bullock@britishcouncil.es Coordinator: Birsen Tutunis ttedsig@iatefl.org Please email generalenquiries@iatefl.org if you find any errors
Recording Secretary/Elections Officer:  Newsletter Editor: Gabriel Diaz Maggioli or omissions in these listings.
Shelagh Rixon shelaghr@hotmail.com diazmagg@newschool.edu

Associates  (as of April 2014) BELTA (Belgium) ELTA Albania

beltabelgium@gmail.com eltaalb@gmail.com
Associates are now listed by name with email ASTEL (Sudan) www.beltabelgium.com www.eltaal.org
and web contact details. In cases where neljack@hotmail.com
Associates were in the process of signing or BETA (Bulgaria) ELTAA (Afghanistan)
renewing their Associate agreements at the time ATECR (Czech Republic) beta.iateflbg@gmail.com khalid_wlmar@yahoo.com
of printing their names may not appear in the atecr@centrum.cz www.beta-iatefl.org www.eltaa.afghanistan
list below. In case of doubt please contact IATEFL www.atecr.cz
Head Office. Modifications to contact details in BETA (Burkina Faso) ELTABB (Germany)
ATEF (Finland) sanguissou@yahoo.fr watersleo@hotmail.com
this list should be sent to Head Office. english@suomenenglanninopettajat.fi
BNTEA (Benin) www.eltabb.com/main/index.php
AAELTA (Ethiopia) http://www.suomenenglanninoppettajat.fi
bflapesi@gmail.com ELTAF (Germany)
aaelta2012@gmail.com ATEI (Iceland) events@eltaf.de
kristen@fa.is BRAZ-TESOL (Brazil)
AATE (Algeria) braztesol@braztesol.org.br www.eltaf.de
aateemail@gmail.com www.ki.is/feki
www.braztesol.org.br ELTAI (India)
www.aatealgeria.weebly.com ATEL (Lebanon) eltai_india@yahoo.co.in
atel_lb@hotmail.com CAMELTA (Cameroon)
ALAK (Korea, Republic Of) evelema@yahoo.com www.eltai.in
alaksecretary@gmail.com www.atel-lb.org
CELEA (China) ELTAM (Macedonia)
www.alak.or.kr ATER (Rwanda) elizabetahristovska@gmail.com
kanrukundo@gmail.com celea@fltrp.com
AMATE (Czech Republic) www.celea.org.cn www.eltam.org.mk
amate@amate.cz AVEALMEC (Venezuela) ELTAS (Germany)
www.amate.cz teadira@ula.ve CI-ATEFL (Cote D’ivoire)
ngoran.marcos@yahoo.com chair@eltas.de
ANELTA (Angola) http://avealmec.org.ve/ www.eltas.de
angolaanelta@gmail.com AzerELTA (Iran, Islamic Republic Of) CLASS (Congo, The Democratic
Republic Of The) ELTAU (Germany)
ANUPI (Mexico) talebov@yahoo.com eve.mullett@gmx.de
www.eltanet.org sangabau@hotmail.com
igarrido@anupi.org.mx www.classdrc.com www.eltau.de
www.anupi.org.mx AzETA (Azerbaijan) English Australia
azer_eta@yahoo.com E&M – GATE (Germany)
APPI (Peru) verwaltung@englisch-und-mehr.de sueblundell@englishaustralia.com.au
appi@telefonica.net.pe www.az-eta.org www.englishaustralia.com.au
http://englisch-und-mehr.de
APPI (Portugal) BELNATE (Belarus) ETAG (Georgia)
yustulov@mail.ru EATE (Estonia)
appi@appi.pt Leena.Punga@gmail.com etag.tbilisi@caucasus.net
www.appi.pt www.ir.bsu.by/kel/teachers/belnate.htm www.etag.ge
www.eate.ee
ASOCOPI (Colombia) BELTA (Bangladesh) ETAI (Israel)
info@belta-bd.org ELTA (Serbia)
asocopi@yahoo.com elta.kancelarija@gmail.com etaioffice@gmail.com
www.asocopi.org www.belta-bd.org/ www.etai.org.il
http://www.elta.org.rs

IATEFL Voices 238   27

Inside IATEFL
ETAS (Switzerland) Libya TEFL (Libya) TELTA (Tanzania, United Republic TETO (Togo)
catherine.shultis@fhnw.ch aalkhaiyali@wsu.ed Of) togoenglishteachers@gmail.com
www.e-tas.ch www.libyatefl.org jamalizer@gmail.com Thailand TESOL (Thailand)
FAAPI (Argentina) MATE (Morocco) TESL CANADA (Canada) thailandtesolcm@yahoo.com
president@faapi.org.ar matemorocco@yahoo.com admin@tesl.ca thailandtesol.org
www.faapi.org.ar www.mate.ma www.tesl.ca UKBET (Bangladesh)
FEELTA (Russian Federation) MATE (Haiti) TESOL Arabia (United Arab eahtashamul.karim@gmail.com
feeltacon@dvgu.ru italien_jeanfrantzy@yahoo.com Emirates) www.ukbet-bd.org
www.feelta.wl.dvgu.ru MATE (Mali) fathibenmohamed@yahoo.com UzTEA (Uzbekistan)
FORTELL (India) amela_mate@hotmail.com www.tesolarabia.org uztea@edu.uz
rachnasethi7@yahoo.com MATEFL (Malta) TESOL France www.uztea.uz
www.fortell.org jeantheuma@hotmail.com tesol@enst.fr VENTESOL (Venezuela)
FORUM (Kyrgyzstan) www.matefl.org www.tesol-france.org venezuelatesol@gmail.com
forumeltassociation@gmail.com MELTA (Germany) TESOL Greece www.ventesol.ning.com
FPACI (Cote D’ivoire) treasurer@melta.de tesolgreece@gmail.com YakutTESOL (Russian Federation)
patdagrou@yahoo.fr www.melta.de http://www.tesolgreece.org alnatnick@mail.ru
www.fpacitf.wordpress.com MELTA (Mozambique) TESOL Iraq http://yakuttesol.blogspot.co.uk
GATE (Ghana) amunhequete@gmail.com alizwair@yahoo.com YARTEA (Russian Federation)
myisaiah20@yahoo.com META (Mauritania) TESOL Kuwait yartea@list.ru
www.facebook.GATE hachim.athie@yahoo.fr membership@tesolkuwait.com www.yartea.ru
GATE (Gabon) MEXTESOL (Mexico) www.tesolkuwait.org ZATESL (Zimbabwe)
gate_gabon@hotmail.fr administracion@mextesol.org.mx TESOL Macedonia-Thrace N. Greece rmagadzire@gmail.com
Geli (Cuba) www.mextesol.org tesolmth@gmail.com ZETA (Zimbabwe)
alcgeli@ceniai.inf.cu MORCE-Network (Morocco) www.tesolmacthrace.org patsonmpofu@ymail.com
GELTA (Guinea) abdellatif.zoubair@gmail.com TESOL Spain
gelta2008@yahoo.fr www.morce.net catt-boardman@tesol-spain.org
MSATE (MSSUA) (Czech Republic) www.tesol-spain.org In a large organisation like IATEFL
HELTA eV (Germany) people are always on the move
kilshaw@t-online.de liba@karoliner.cz TESOL Sudan (Qatar)
www.helta.de www.mssua.info elsheikhaymen@hotmail.com and contact details can rapidly
NATECLA (United Kingdom) http://www.tesol-sudan.org become out of date. Please email
HUPE (Croatia) generalenquiries@iatefl.org if you
hupe.iatefl@gmail.com info@natecla.org.uk TESOLANZ (New Zealand)
www.natecla.org.uk hilary_smith@xtra.co.nz find any errors or omissions in these
www.hupe.hr listings.
IATEFL Chile NATESOL (United Kingdom) www.tesolanz.org.nz
iateflchile@gmail.com jtnicolson@hotmail.co.uk
https://www.iateflchile.cl www.natesol.org
IATEFL Hungary NELTA (Nepal)
office@iatefl.hu
www.iatefl.hu
ccnelta@gmail.com
www.nelta.org.np/ IATEFL VOICES—
IATEFL Peru
iatefl.pe@gmail.com
NETA (Namibia)
atjiramanga@polytechnic.edu.na NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
https://sites.google.com/site/iateflpe/ NileTESOL (Egypt)
mplumlee@auceqypt.edu IATEFL Voices appears six times a Longer texts (up to 1500 words)
IATEFL Poland
office@iatefl.org.pl http://niletesol.org/web/index.html year and contributions are always should be typed in 12 point Arial
www.iatefl.org.pl OmELTA (Russian Federation) welcome. or Times New Roman, double
IATEFL Slovenia omelta@bk.ru
http://omelta.omsk.edu/ spaced, with wide (2.5cm) margins
mateja.kores@iatefl.si General information
www.iatefl.si Qatar TESOL (Qatar) and printed on one side of the
IATEFL UKRAINE ismailfayed@gmail.com IATEFL Voices is aimed at paper only. Pages should be
www.qatartesol.org clearly numbered. Texts should be
anna_chuiko@yahoo.com practising classroom teachers,
http://www.iatefl-ukraine.org.ua RATE (Romania)
alice.cojocaru@britishcouncil.ro administrators and managers. accompanied by a brief, 30-word
IETA (Indonesia) www.rate.org.ro It is not a refereed journal but biodata.
andridefrioka@yahoo.com
SATEFL (United Kingdom) a newsletter aimed primarily at • Texts over 1500 words should be
IndiaCALL (India) slesia1@yahoo.com
infoindiacall@gmail.com members of IATEFL worldwide. discussed with the Editor before
http://www.satefl.org.uk/
www.indiacall.org submission.
SATEIL (South Africa) For this reason IATEFL Voices
INGED (Turkey)
nazlidemirbas_06@hotmail.com
catherine.roberts@wits.ac.za
does not normally publish • Email and attachments are
www.sateil.co.za welcomed but should not
www.inged.org.tr specialised articles although
SELF (Denmark)
JALT (Japan) hkas@ucsyd.dk these may be suitable for one contain macros. IBM/PC or Apple
iac-chair@jalt.org Macintosh files in any standard
http://jalt.org SELTA (Senegal) of the SIG newsletters. (See the
selta.instructor@gmail.com ‘Who’s who in IATEFL’ pages format are fine.
KATE (Korea, Republic Of) www.selta.sites.google.com/site/
juniloh@pknu.ac.kr for details of how to contact • If your article is accepted for
englishlanguagecell
www.kate.or.kr
SLATE (Sierra Leone) SIG coordinators.) Neither does publication, a passport-type
KOSETA (Korea, Republic Of) glrpalmer@yahoo.com photo will be required.
marinej@paran.com IATEFL Voices publish academic
www.koseta.org/ SLTA formerly LMS (Sweden) or theoretical papers, which • Please mark anything you send
eva_z_p@tele2.se in clearly with your name, email,
KOTESOL (Korea, Republic Of) www.spraklararna.se should be directed to the English
stoakley@gmail.com Language Teaching Journal (ELTJ) address and phone/fax numbers
http://www.koreatesol.org/ SNELT (Niger)
sirajjia@hotmail.fr or other similar journals. • The Editor reserves the right
KSAALT (Saudi Arabia) SPELT (Pakistan) to make editorial changes in
ksaalt2011@gmail.com
www.ksaalt.org
sarwar.zakia@gmail.com Contributors should also read the any manuscript submitted and
www.spelt.org.pk copyright notice on page 1 of
LAKMA (Lithuania) will not return any material
SPELTA (Russian Federation) this issue.
asociacija.lakma@gmail.com submitted.
tatiana-szelinger@yandex.ru
http://www.lakmaonline.lt
www.spelta.stormway.ru Where to send copy
LATE (Latvia) Submitting copy
TEA (Austria) Copy and further questions should
andys@latnet.lv office@tea4teachers.org Short texts (e.g. announcements,
www.late.lv www.tea4teachers.org be directed to the Editor at PO Box
LATEUM (Russian Federation)
letters, etc. up to 250 words) can
TEFL in Yemen (Yemen) be sent by in any format. If they 3182, Pewsey SN9 5WJ, UK, or by
n_kolesnik@hotmail.com k.alparaty@yahoo.com
www.lateum.org are handwritten the Editor will email at editor@iatefl.org
www.yementefl.webs.com
Levende Talen (Netherlands) TEFLIN (Indonesia) appreciate your efforts to make Alison Schwetlick
p.rose@aps.nl dsukyadi@upi.edu Editor: IATEFL Voices
www.levendetalen.nl these legible.
www.teflin-indonesia.org

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