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Issue 117
July
www.etprofessional.com 2018

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How (not) to Transforming

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fatten a pig teaching

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Scott Thornbury Pete Sharma and Barney Barrett

Fact, opinion, No one told me that!

stance Beth Davies and
Clare Maas Nicholas Northall

The practical resource for English language teachers worldwide

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Contents Issue 117
July 2018

MAIN FEATURE IN THE CLASSROOM

43 Vocabulary: principles and practice 9
4 How (not) to fatten a pig
Benjamin Kremmel has some key questions on
Scott Thornbury examines the assessment vocabulary tests
of progress and its implications for teaching
IN THE CLASSROOM

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FEATURES 46 Teaching large classes 3
Hall Houston and Andrew Starck continue
4

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METHODOLOGY their series on the triumphs and tribulations
8 Transforming teaching of teaching big groups
Pete Sharma and Barney Barrett consider the

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challenges of changing to a blended learning model TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS
EAP 23 What are your super powers?

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11 Fact, opinion, stance Sean H Toland encourages his students to
Clare Maas clarifies concepts that invent new heroes
undergraduate students need to know
23
EXAMS AND ASSESSMENT
13 Bridging the gap ga TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

49 No one told me that! 1

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Mark Heffernan demonstrates how IELTS Beth Davies and Nicholas Northall start a new
classes could offer more preparation for series with tips for those moving into teacher training
future studies
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16 IELTS without tears 1 TECHNOLOGY

Graham Perry makes an important exam
55 53 Wix websites
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more enjoyable
Laura Hadwin gets her students to design
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WRITING
websites
18 Flipping successful
55 Worth a thousand words
Jenna Williams uses the flipped classroom
model to teach IELTS Writing Jason Anderson discovers various uses
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for Google Images in class

METHODOLOGY
21 An eye to the future 58 Five things you always wanted to know
about: becoming more tech-savvy
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Mustafa Altan sees entrepreneurial skills

as crucial to our students’ prospects Nicky Hockly explains how to increase your
confidence in using technology
RESOURCES
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59 Webwatcher
25 Game, set and match!
Russell Stannard discusses digital citizenship
Alex Case recommends some matching games
©

IN THE CLASSROOM REGULAR FEATURES

28 Students’ stories 7
32 IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
David Heathfield tells a story about three
pieces of wisdom 34 REVIEWS
36 SCRAPBOOK
IN THE CLASSROOM
60 NOT ONLY, BUT ALSO ...
39 Best chair, worst chair
Chia Suan Chong notes the advantages of
Katie Martin tests the effectiveness
promoting note-taking skills
of a vocabulary game

Includes materials designed to photocopy,

some of which can now be downloaded from
the ETp website (see page 3)

www.etprofessional.com Issue 117 • July 2018 1

Editorial
An aunt of mine was often heard to remark sagely ‘When one point of teaching her students the difference between stance,
door closes, another one shuts’. She wasn’t a particularly opinion and fact, something which many of them find confusing.
pessimistic person; she was just misquoting inventor Alexander
Students intending to move on to further study in English will need
Graham Bell. What he actually said, of course, was ‘When one
a battery of additional skills. As Chia Suan Chong reminds us, one
door closes, another opens’, and this is often taken as an
of these is the ability to take comprehensive and comprehensible
indication of his optimism that people can learn from their
notes, and this is another thing we can help our students with.
mistakes and move on to new opportunities. In fact, however,

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the quote doesn’t end there – there is a sting in the tail: ‘but we Away from university study, Mustafa Altan is also looking to his
so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that students’ futures. He believes that entrepreneurial skills will be

ed
we do not see the ones which open for us.’ vital for them and for the societies in which they live. He sees the
English language classroom as an ideal place for these skills to
As teachers, our hope is, naturally, that our students will move

on successfully from our classes, and it is our job to help them
to attain their goals, so that life’s doors open for them. But how
do we do this, and how do we determine how much progress
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be engendered, so that more opportunities will open up for the
students when they go out into the world.
Whatever doors our students are hoping will open for them,

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they are making? whether their aim is simply to improve their English or they
have their sights set on study at an English-medium university
In our main feature, Scott Thornbury discusses how progress
or a career in international business, they need us to help

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was assessed in the past, and how it is done now. He worries
them progress as far as the door, sometimes to nudge them
that we put too much emphasis on artificially-created scales of
through it, and always to ensure that they have the skills to
achievement and methods of assessment that rely on instinct,
cope on the other side.
rather than actual research into learning.
hin
Pete Sharma and Barney Barrett recognise the doors that have
been opened by technological advances. They see the blended
learning model as a way of transforming teaching, offering
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many new opportunities – and they are keen to help teachers

introduce it successfully.
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Helena Gomm
Some students hope to progress beyond general English and Editor
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use their language skills to study in an English-medium Email: helena.gomm@pavpub.com

university. The gatekeeper exam that will enable them to take
this step is IELTS. But for Mark Heffernan, just getting the
students though the exam is not really enough. There is a big
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gap between the skills required to pass the exam and those Connect with us!
that the students will actually need at university. He describes
how teachers can help to bridge that gap and prepare their
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students better for what lies ahead.

Clare Maas knows that progress into academic study also @ETprofessional linkedin.com/ facebook.com/
etprofessional etprofessional
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requires comprehension of some difficult concepts. She makes a

©

ENGLISH TEACHING PROFESSIONAL

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Pages 29 and 36–38 include materials which are designed to photocopy. All other rights are reserved
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prior permission in writing from the publishers.

2 Issue 117 • July 2018 www.etprofessional.com

 ONLINE RESOURCES

Resources online
Go to etprofessional.com/resources for your extra printable resources, ready for use in class.

ONLINE RESOURCES

Do you like ...?

Teacher’s instructions
Preparation:
Cut out one set of cards per class or per group of two to four students. Make sure the words
can’t be seen through the back of the card by making pale copies, using thick or coloured paper
and/or getting the students to play on a dark surface such as a wooden table.
Procedure:
■ Ask the students to spread the category cards face down across the table. One student turns
over two cards and tries to get the same answer to two Do you like …? questions, based on the
categories shown, from another student (or two different students), in order to be able to keep
those two cards. For example, if they turn over the characters and colours cards and get the

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answer No, I don’t, Yes, I do or I don’t know to both Do you like Lucy in Peanuts? and Do you
like pink hair?, they can keep both cards. If they get a mix of different answers, eg one Yes, I do
answer and one No, I don’t answer, they have to put the cards back face down in the same
places, and play passes to the next person. The game can also be played with questions about
people they know, such as Does your mum like cornflakes? and Does your teacher like hats?
■ If over-competitiveness and cheating are likely to be problems in your class, monitor the game

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carefully to ensure that the students tell the truth in their answers, and/or encourage questions
like Do you like eating spiders? which are almost impossible to get away with lying about!
Cards to cut out

birds books breakfast food bugs

candy characters clothes/fashion cold drinks

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colours desserts exercise farm animals

flavours food fruit games

hobbies hot drinks household chores meat

movies music people pets

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places plants restaurants school subjects

sea life seasons shops snacks

sports teams technology toys

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TV programmes vegetables weather wild animals

‘Game, set and match!’ by Alex Case www.etprofessional.com

Do you like ...?

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Accompanies ‘Game, set and match!’
by Alex Case, page 25
ONLINE RESOURCES
lis

Superhero stories
Handout C: Our Superhero Story
Our Superhero Story
Your group must create an original superhero story. The new characters you each created must be in your story. Use the diagram
below to help you plan your story. Make your superhero story interesting and exciting!
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b) Setting
(Where does the story take
place? Locations? When?)
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a) Characters c) Problems
ONLINE RESOURCES
(Names? Descriptions?) (Describe the unexpected
1 developments or Superhero stories
2 problems inHandout
the story.) B: My Superhero Profile
3
My Superhero Profile My Superhero Sketch
4
1 Superhero name:
Title 2 Real name: (Your character’s real name)
______________________________ 3 Age:
______________________________ 4 Gender:
5 Marital status:
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6 Height:
7 Weight:
8 Cover job:
9 Country: Nationality:
f) Themes d) Major events
10 Home:
(What is the main message (What happens?) 11 Education:
or lesson of your story?) ONLINE RESOURCES

12 Likes:
e) Conclusion
«
Superhero stories
(How does the story end?) Handout A: Example Superhero Profile
«
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13 Dislikes:
«
Superhero Profile
‘What are your super powers?’ by Sean H Toland www.etprofessional.com
« 1 Superhero name: Helping Man
14 Personality: 2 Real name: Hiro Tanaka (Your character’s real name)
« 3 Age: 17 years old
« 4 Gender: male
15 Hobbies: 5 Marital status: single
16 Special powers: 6 Height: 173 cm
« 7 Weight: 62 kg
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«
8 Cover job: high school student
17 Weakness: 9 Country: Japan Nationality: Japanese
«
10 Home: Osaka
11 Education: Go to Osaka High School. Study English,
Japanese, mathematics, & w orld history.
Superhero stories ‘What are your super powers?’ by Sean H Toland
12 Likes:
« listening to music
www.etprofessional.com
« drinking café lattés
13 Dislikes:

Accompanies ‘What are « studying

©

« loud noises
14 Personality:

your super powers?’ by «

«
friendly & cheerful
outgoing & sociable
15 Hobbies: dancing; riding my road bike; playing baseball
Sean H Toland, page 23 16 Special powers:
«
«
can hear voices of people who need help
can see 5 km ahead
17 Weakness:
« afraid of elevators & big dogs

‘What are your super powers?’ by Sean H Toland www.etprofessional.com

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MAIN FEATURE
How (not) to
fatten a pig
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Scott Thornbury explores the progression of our
attempts to determine and define progress.
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hat is ‘progress’ in second language learning?
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That is to say, by what route do learners
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progress from A to B – or even, for some of
them, from A to Z? And, crucially, how do we
recognise progress when it happens, so that
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– among other things – we can measure it?
Grammar and order of acquisition
Traditionally, of course, the long march from zero to native-like
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proficiency is captured in labels like beginner, intermediate and
advanced. Attempts to describe what these levels mean in terms
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of learner achievement tend to be coloured by the prevailing
linguistic theories of the day. So, in 1975, on the assumption
that proficiency in a language equates with knowledge of the
grammar of the language, Louis Alexander and some
©
colleagues drew up a detailed checklist of grammar items
(called English Grammatical Structure) spread over six ‘stages’.
Thus, by the end of Stage I, learners were expected to be
familiar with the modal verbs can and must, and the difference
between How much? and How many?, among other things. By
Stage V, on the other hand, they were expected to have covered
‘modals used to express the speaker’s assessment of a situation’,
and by Stage VI, ‘special uses of, and absence of, the definite
article with count nouns and proper nouns’.
Alexander et al freely admit to having based their structure
list on their own teaching experience and intuitions, using
criteria such as ‘apparent frequency of occurrence, productivity,
4 Issue 117 • July 2018
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general usefulness, progression from simple to compound and
complex, and pedagogical expediency’. No mention is made of
the order in which learners actually acquire these items.
However, research into acquisition orders that was being
conducted at around the same time – the so-called ‘morpheme
studies’ – somewhat undermined at least some of the structural
sequencing proposed by Alexander et al. For example, past tense
forms such as she worked (Stage II in English Grammatical
Structure) tend to be acquired before present simple forms – she
works (Stage I). And within the past tense forms, irregular verbs
(she went) are typically acquired before regular ones. The case for
a fixed order of acquisition has been confirmed in further studies
– an order, moreover, that is largely impervious to teaching.
Nevertheless, the structural grading which was proposed by
Alexander and co has largely survived intact, and to this day still
underpins the design of most general English courses.
Topics, functions and notions
With the advent of the communicative approach, however, an
attempt was made to unseat the hegemonic grammar syllabus.
Stages were re-labelled in terms of the learner’s degree of
communicative competence: Waystage, Threshold and Vantage,
for example. (The Threshold level was roughly equivalent to
late intermediate, and gave its name to the whole project.)
Syllabus items were specified as topics (eg occupation, hygiene),
functions (eg expressing agreement and disagreement) and
notions (eg quantity, ownership) – the synthesis of which was
www.etprofessional.com

thought to comprise communicative competence. But
proponents of this approach were vague as to which topics,
functions and notions should be introduced at which level, and
equally vague as to the degree of skill required. According to
Jan van Ek, ‘The main criterion will have to be whether
communication takes place’, with a secondary requirement that
this should be achieved ‘with some degree of efficiency’. These
were hardly satisfactory criteria with which to plan a syllabus
or measure learners’ progress.
True: the so-called notional and functional syllabuses had
at least broken free from the strictures of formal grammatical
syllabuses. But, in so doing, hadn’t they simply perpetuated the
same atomistic approach, whereby progress is conceived as the
accumulation of lots of ‘discrete items’? Chris Brumfit was one
of the first to warn against reducing communicative
competence to a mere checklist of notions and functions: ‘No
inventory of language items can itself capture the essence of
communication.’ Nor, as I shall argue, can it capture the essence
of language development.
Descriptors
In an attempt to redress the vagueness, if not the granularity,
of the Threshold Level project, the Common European
Framework for Reference (CEFR) adopted its own six-tier
scheme (A1–C2), but took the bold step of fleshing these levels
out with detailed descriptors of what the learner was expected
to be able to do at each level. These descriptors – intended to
be applicable to the learning of any European language – took
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the form of ‘can do’ statements. For example:
■■ c an produce simple mainly isolated phrases about people and
b
places (A1 – overall oral production)
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■■ c an express news and views effectively in writing, and relate to
those of others (C1 – overall written interaction)
The architects of the CEFR were quick to point out that ‘any
attempt to establish “levels” of proficiency is to some extent
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arbitrary, as it is in any area of knowledge or skill. However, for
practical purposes it is useful to set up a scale of defined levels to
segment the learning process for the purposes of curriculum design,
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qualifying examinations, etc’ (emphasis added).
Nevertheless – and despite these caveats – the CEFR levels
and their descriptors are now widely and uncritically applied
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(despite sitting uncomfortably with the seemingly
indestructible structural syllabus). The terms A1, B2, etc have
virtually replaced the old beginner and intermediate labels. But
©
is such confidence in the new orthodoxy justified? Not
according to Glenn Fulcher, who argues that the way that the
CEFR has become institutionalised has meant that it has
become less a reference than a route map: ‘For teachers, the
main danger is that they are beginning to believe that the scales
in the CEF[R] represent an acquisition or hierarchy, rather
than a common perception. They begin to believe the language of
the descriptors actually relates to the sequence of how and what
learners learn’ (emphasis added).
But this isn’t so. Why? Because the descriptors were not
derived from any empirical studies of how learners actually
do learn. As Michael Swan notes, ‘For that information about
www.etprofessional.com
MAIN FEATURE
development, one needs longitudinal studies of the same subjects
or cross-sectional studies of strictly comparable populations’.
Like English Grammatical Structure, the CEFR descriptors
reflect long-held beliefs and intuitions about language
development (albeit this time exhaustively corroborated by
other professionals), but they lack an empirical basis. This
does not invalidate their usefulness as curricular goals. But
you cannot just lay them end to end and assume they
represent development.
SLA research
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So, is there no research into language development that
teachers, testers and curriculum planners can draw on? Yes,
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there is a long tradition in second language acquisition research
that attempts to tease out ‘an SLA index of development’ – that
is to say, the key indicators of progress in a second language. A
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meta-analysis, done as long ago as 1998 (by Kate Wolfe-
Quintero et al), found that the key indicators of progress
involve an interplay of such factors as accuracy, fluency and
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grammatical and lexical complexity. That is to say, progress is
not so much the effect of ticking off a checklist of discrete
grammar items, functions or competencies, but is a gradual
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ripening of the entire interconnected system.
Another, more recent study (by Alison Bailey and Margaret
Heritage in 2014) tracked the progress, over a one-year period,
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of school-age English language learners in giving oral and
written explanations of maths problems. Key indicators of
progress included increases in the quantity of production,
greater overall coherence, an expanded range of structures and
functions, and increased accuracy. Again, this suggests that
progress manifests itself as some very general patterns of
development that cut across many different granular learning
objectives. Might there not be a case, therefore, for encouraging
a more global use of English, on the assumption that the
knowledge and skills thus acquired will be transferred to any
number of more specific tasks?
Dynamic systems
Despite this more holistic perspective, these studies tend to
retain a view of learning that is incremental, unidirectional and
linear: one in which progress is best represented as a steady
upward curve. More recently, and influenced by the study of
dynamic systems in the natural world, this uninterrupted
learning curve model has been challenged.
One of its leading critics is Diane Larsen-Freeman, who
argues that learning – and language learning in particular –
entails a dynamic interplay of multiple factors, the outcome of
which is unpredictable: ‘Language development is not only uneven
but also proceeds at multiple rates simultaneously’ (2008). In other
words, ‘learning is not climbing a developmental ladder; it is not
unidirectional. It is non-linear’ (2017).
Elsewhere (2014), Larsen-Freeman has written that she
thinks language is less like a synthetic artifact and more like a
biological organ: ‘An organ, like the heart, grows from one cell by
dividing, multiplying, and differentiating … [Moreover] the life
of an organism is not resident in its parts. It is whole from the
start, embodied in the global organisation of the living processes.’
Issue 117 • July 2018 5
MAIN FEATURE
One way that this ‘global organisation’ is manifested is in the
dynamic interplay between vocabulary learning and grammar
learning, where the latter only really takes off when there is a
critical mass of lexis. In short, trying to segment these
interconnected processes into discrete steps is like trying to make
an omelette out of tiny bits of another omelette, rather than
mixing a few basic ingredients together and letting them interact.
To compound the problem, many research studies of
language development focus not on individuals but on large
cohorts of learners. They therefore tend to bundle the findings
together, in the interests of identifying general trends. (This was a
problem with the original morpheme studies too.) A closer look
at the data often shows a great deal of individual variation, with
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different learners taking quite different routes. As Diane
Larsen-Freeman observed in 2006, ‘learners do not progress
through stages of development in a consistent manner’. To plan for
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the norm without taking individual differences into account may
result in some learners being assessed by criteria that simply
don’t match their learning trajectory.
b
Reality
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None of this, of course, is news to experienced teachers. As
they well know, learners progress at varying rates and with
different skills and abilities. Nor is their progress always
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attributable to what they have been taught. Learning can seem
to plateau out at times, and then give rise to unanticipated
breakthroughs, as if a dam has been breached. The idea that
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learning is simply jumping through a series of hoops bears little
or no relation to reality. Nevertheless, it is a model of progress
to which curriculum planners, test designers, many teachers and
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not a few learners are irresistibly drawn. Wouldn’t it be nice,
after all, if learning ran to a schedule as punctual and as
reliable as a Swiss train?
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There is no better representation of this idealised, linear,
granular and incremental model of progress than the much-
hyped Global Scale of English (GSE). Boasting that it has
increased the number of CEFR ‘can do’ statements
exponentially (there are over 1,200 now), the designers have
gone further than the CEFR ever did, and (with the help of a
great many informants, but with no apparent research into
actual developmental paths) they have ranked these into an
optimal learning order. Thus, in the words of the website: ‘The
GSE helps learners answer: How good is my English? Am I
progressing? What do I need to do next?’
More worryingly, the GSE helps teachers (and
administrators and other stakeholders) answer the question:
6 Issue 117 • July 2018
What do I need to test next? A cynic might be forgiven for
thinking that the whole elaborate architecture of the GSE (and
similar schemes) is simply a pretext for endless cycles of
teaching and testing. Certainly, if that was not the intention, it
may well be one of its unexpected consequences – given the
culture of accountability that pervades education generally.
While bite-sized learning objectives might seem harmless in
themselves, they may be enlisted towards harmful ends. As the
US educationalist Diane Ravitch bemoans: ‘How did testing
and accountability become the main levers of school reform? …
What once was the standards movement was replaced by the
accountability movement. What once was an effort to improve the
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quality of education turned into an accounting strategy:
Measure, then punish or reward.’
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As the adage goes, you don’t fatten a pig by weighing it all
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the time. n
Alexander, L, Allen, W S, Close, R A and O’Neill, R J English
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Grammatical Structure: A General Syllabus for Teachers Longman 1975
Bailey, A and Heritage, M ‘The role of language learning progressions
in improved instruction and assessment of English language learners’
TESOL Quarterly 48 (3) 2014
Brumfit, C ‘“Communicative” language teaching: an assessment’ in
Strevens, P (Ed) In Honour of A. S. Hornby OUP 1978
Fulcher, G Re-examining Language Testing: A Philosophical and Social
Inquiry Routledge 2015
GSE website www.pearsonelt.com/about/gse.html
Larsen-Freeman, D ‘The emergence of complexity, fluency, and
accuracy in the oral and written production of five Chinese learners of
English’ Applied Linguistics 27 (4) 2006
Larsen-Freeman, D In Han, Z and Tarone, E Interlanguage: Forty Years
Later John Benjamins 2014
Larsen-Freeman, D ‘Complexity theory: the lessons continue’ In
Ortega, L and Han, Z Complexity Theory and Language Development
John Benjamins 2017
Larsen-Freeman, D and Cameron, L Complex Systems and Applied
Linguistics OUP 2008
Ravitch, D The Death and Life of the Great American School System
Basic Books 2010
Swan, M ‘Review of English Profile Studies 1 by Hawkins, J and
Filipović, L (Cambridge University Press)’ ELT Journal 68 (1) 2014
van Ek, J A Threshold Level English Pergamon 1980
Wolfe-Quintero, K, Inagaki, S and Kim, H-Y Second Language
Development in Writing: Measures of Fluency, Accuracy, and
Complexity University of Hawaii Press 1998
Scott Thornbury teaches on the MA TESOL
programme at The New School (NY), USA.
He is the author of many books, including
most recently the second edition of About
Language: Tasks for Teachers of English and
30 Language Teaching Methods, both
published by Cambridge University Press.
scott.thornbury@gmail.com
www.etprofessional.com
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METHODOLOGY
Transforming
teaching hin
Pete Sharma and Barney Barrett survey the transition to blended learning.
W
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‘ e would like to move into blended learning.’
This comment was made after our
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workshop at the IATEFL conference in
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Brighton, UK, in April this year. It is a
sentiment we have often heard voiced, along
with several fears: What would such a move involve? How can
we ensure the success of our course? This article addresses the
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challenges of changing from running purely face-to-face
classes supported by technology to running a fully-fledged
blended learning (BL) course.
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What is blended learning?
Despite the fact that BL is a ‘buzz’ term in language teaching, it
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means different things to different people. A good place to start
is the ELTJ page ‘Key concepts in ELT: blended learning’
(2010) which lists some common definitions: combining
©
traditional teaching with e-learning; combining different
methodologies; combining different technologies. Despite the
proliferation of definitions, a general understanding has
emerged that the term refers to a course which combines
face-to-face classroom teaching with web-based learning. This
is the definition we used in our workshop and which lies at the
heart of our book Best Practices for Blended Learning.
However, the term continues to be in a constant state of
flux. The recently-coined term ‘virtual blended’ has been
applied to a 100 percent online course which uses ‘face-to-face
online’ teaching through combining web-based study with ‘live’
webinars. Other more exotic incarnations of BL involve:
8 Issue 117 • July 2018
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F2f + virtual reality (VR): students away from class use
■■
Google Cardboard to have VR experiences which they report
back in class.
■■ F2f + augmented reality (AR): the coursebook contains
pictures which trigger videos when viewed through a mobile
phone app; again, these AR experiences occur between classes.
Why blend?
Let us return to the institution which has decided to run a BL
course. Why change? Usually, a complex range of reasons
underlies the decision. One of the commonest is time: there is
simply not enough time for the students to cover what they
need to in order to learn a language within the constraints of
the course length. This has traditionally led to the dreaded
homework, and we know that many students simply don’t do
their homework.
One question we often hear is Can BL save money? There is
a huge divergence of opinion and experience on this point.
Many commercial organisations cite cost-saving as an
argument for blending, maybe because the practice was first
introduced into corporate training for that very reason – in
order to save costs. However, schools which have moved part of
their curriculum online often report unexpected, invisible costs,
such as having to pay teachers for moderating the forums.
Other common reasons given for blending are more
pedagogical, and include combining the positives of
classroom teaching with the advantages of online learning:
studying at your own pace, in a place of your choice; and
www.etprofessional.com

‘differentiation’ – using the platform as a way of delivering
personalised, individual learning.
One remarkable example of the genesis of a BL course can
be seen in a case study which we report in our book. In
Venezuela, trouble on the streets has sometimes made it
impossible for students to get to class. Teachers have responded
by delivering impromptu classes across the internet.
What are the challenges?
Change is never easy. Switching to BL can be hugely
challenging. At one institution, an early attempt to take a
six-hour-a-day course and blend it (three hours in class in the
morning, three hours study at home) proved to be a sobering
experience. The feedback was poor. The students who enjoyed
the class did not contribute to the knowledge building in the
online environment; those working happily online disliked
having to travel to class at a certain time, a restriction imposed
by the timetable. The course failed to satisfy anyone’s learning
preferences. As this particular course developed, it became
clear that the integration of the two modes needed to be
thought through carefully: an effective BL course is not just
classroom teaching ‘yoked together’ with a self-study module.
This feedback was typical of that received for many BL
courses. Students often don’t see the link between what is
done in class and what is done online; some students don’t
perceive the online parts of the blend to be of equal value to
the in-class sessions. Both students and teachers may
encounter de-motivating technical problems with the
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hardware or software.
Which platform?
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Arguably, the biggest single choice facing institutions
switching to BL is which Learning Management System
(LMS) to choose. This was the question we asked people at
our IATEFL workshop: If you run BL, which platform do you
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use? The results of this straw poll taken at a major ELT event
were absolutely fascinating, showing the staggering range of
options available.
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Around ten percent of responses were from people who
don’t currently blend. Of those who do, one LMS was by far
the most common, with over 20 people using it, perhaps a
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quarter of the room. It can be customised to your institution,
and contains a huge range of features, including forums, wikis,
quiz makers and tracking tools. That platform is Moodle.
Blackboard, a platform common at universities, was used by six
©
institutions, but neither Edmodo nor Facebook, so-called
socialisation platforms, were currently being used for teaching
by anyone in the audience. Some of the newer kids on the block
– Canvas, Schoology and Eliademy – were being used by
individual schools.
A handful of participants used platforms linked to
coursebooks. This is one of the most accessible routes into
BL, because the teachers are already familiar with a particular
teaching approach. The interactive materials are written by
experienced ELT authors. Such platforms include tracking
tools which allow teachers to see data on their students’
performance, such as their scores for each exercise.
www.etprofessional.com
METHODOLOGY
An alternative to using a publisher-built LMS is for
teachers to create their own personalised materials. One person
at our workshop was using the English360 platform, which
includes authoring tools, allowing teacher-produced materials
to be incorporated alongside web-based materials (authentic
texts, YouTube videos) and high-quality publisher-produced
content. If you are a business English teacher wishing to create
customised exercises based on students’ documents, this
platform is worth investigation.
Four participants worked in institutions which have
created their own platforms. The decision to do this usually
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grows out of a frustration with a perceived lack of flexibility
in existing platforms. If you are interested in learning more
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about this, download Appendix 2, ‘Building your own
platform’, from our book at www.etprofessional.com/best-
practices-for-blended-learning.
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A BL course can be created without an LMS, using an
eBook, online IELTS practice material, a DVD-ROM –
the list is almost endless and, indeed, participants in our
nd
session reported using a vast range of online tools to
support their classroom teaching. These include: blogs,
wikis (three participants were using these), Google Classroom
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and Dropbox.
Several platforms were new to us, including Royal ABC,
Achieve 3000 and Brainpop ELS. It is impossible to keep up
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with the number of platform options, just as it is impossible to
keep up with the number of websites and apps.
Tips for getting started
Given the vast and increasing number of options, what can a
school do? There are a number of things, and in this last
section of our article we will list some tips to get started in
moving from face-to-face to blended course delivery.
1 Learn from others
There are so many contexts in which people teach and learn,
there can be no single answer as to what to blend. Contexts
include: teaching young learners, English for Academic
Purposes (EAP), freelance business English, teaching in
low-tech and even no-tech contexts, and so on. We suggest
looking at what similar institutions are doing. Try to emulate
successes and avoid pitfalls. We learnt a great deal from the
experiences of the Case Study contributors in our book.
2 Follow a framework
We suggest working systematically through a four-stage
framework for creating a BL course. This draws on the
work of Claire Whittaker and Brian Tomlinson for the
British Council.
■■ Stage 1: Context. Firstly, it is important to decide the reasons
for blending. Listing these reasons will be instrumental in any
choice of delivery platform.
■■ Stage 2: Course design. This involves getting the balance right
in terms of time spent on each of the modes (face-to-face
and online) and the way they are integrated.
■■ Stage 3: Learners and teachers. This involves planning the
training necessary for both teachers and students.
Issue 117 • July 2018 9
METHODOLOGY
■■ Stage 4: Evaluating the blend. Here, a school could evaluate
the choice of software or the platform or do work to
ascertain the effect of BL on student achievement.
3 Remember the ‘golden rules’ of BL
implementation
There are four critical factors in working towards a successful
BL course.
■■ Appropriacy: It is appropriate to develop fluency in the
classroom, and to work on ‘critical thinking’ skills through an
online forum. This factor needs to be considered for every
element of the course.
■■ Complementarity: This refers to the genuine and effective
integration of the in-class and online elements. We ran an
online training course on BL, and one reason why the
webinars were successful was that we took genuine examples
of participants’ individual, online work and used the webinar
to discuss and give feedback on this work. This true
integration of work done on the platform and work done
with the trainer was highly appreciated by the participants.
■■ Attitude: The success of a BL course depends on the
teacher holding positive beliefs about BL which are
transmitted to the learners. We once witnessed a teacher
introduce the new learning platform to their students with
these words: ‘OK – it seems everyone has to use THIS
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platform now.’ This told us a lot about their own beliefs
about the platform and the efficacy of BL itself.
■■ Teacher training: Teacher training and learner training are
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both absolutely essential to make BL work. In the case
studies we looked at, this point comes through time and
again. Many language teachers start in the classroom, and
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their training includes studying well-known methodology
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books, such as those by Jeremy Harmer and Jim Scrivener.
These focus largely on classroom interaction, but aspects of
blending involve a different set of skills, such as the effective
use of a forum or chat-room, delivering a webinar or an
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online lesson, and these are supported by a different
literature, such as Interaction Online by Lindsay Clandfield
and Jill Hadfield. Too often, classroom teachers are just
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expected to be able to ‘do stuff online’. What they need is
time to explore new tools and support in acquiring new
skills to work alongside those skills they already possess.
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4 Stay up to date
The area of technology is fast-moving. Two key developments
which are having an impact on BL are ‘mobile learning’ and
©
‘adaptive learning’. Nowadays, learners can access mobile-
friendly versions of their LMS on a tablet or smartphone.
Studying away from the classroom has never been easier.
‘Adaptive’ platforms aspire to provide so-called
personalised feedback, changing the learning pathway in
response to each student’s individual answer. A lot of
investment is being poured into adaptive technologies and
artificial intelligence (AI), and these developments are
already having an impact on what students can do away from
the classroom. In terms of informal learning, this may
involve talking to Siri, using Google Voice Search, giving
instructions to Amazon’s Alexa or other voice-recognition
10 Issue 117 • July 2018
tools. Teachers need to keep up to date with these
developments, resting assured that what they do in the
classroom will always be invaluable. As James Hoyle of Go
English (a language institute in Spain) states: ‘(We are)
unlikely to be replaced by the Bots!’
5 Experiment
Don’t expect to find the perfect solution immediately. It may
take time, during which you will build up familiarity with a
platform or set of tools. We found many institutions in our
survey used more than one platform, depending on the age of
the students or the type of course.
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t t t
BL remains one of the most exciting areas in language
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teaching. As we have seen, the concept is based on being
responsive to your context. There is no single ‘solution’ but,
rather, many ways in which we can transition successfully
nd
from the traditional classroom to blending classroom and
online activity. The good news for teachers is that, no matter
ga
how fast the technology changes, it is principled pedagogy
which lies at the heart of a good language course. By focusing
on the pedagogy and working through the framework
carefully and critically, we believe a school can implement a
successful blended course. n
Clandfield, L and Hadfield, J Interaction Online CUP 2017
Harmer, J The Practice of English Language Teaching Pearson 2015
Scrivener, J Learning Teaching Macmillan 2011
Sharma, P ‘Key concepts in ELT: blended learning’ ELTJ 64 (4) 2010
Sharma, P and Barrett, B Best Practices for Blended Learning Pavilion
Publishing and Media Ltd 2018
Whittaker, C and Tomlinson, B (Eds) Blended Learning in English
Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation British Council
2013
Pete Sharma works as a pre-sessional lecturer
in EAP at Warwick University, UK. He is a
Director of Pete Sharma Associates Ltd, a
consultancy and training organisation.
www.petesharma.com
Barney Barrett is an English language teacher,
teacher trainer, website builder, blogger and
video-maker. He is also an e-learning developer
and instructional designer.
https://stratfordteachers.com/
Pete and Barney have co-written many books on educational technology in
ELT. Their latest is Best Practices for Blended Learning (Pavilion).
www.etprofessional.com

Fact,
opinion,
stance
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Clare Maas helps her students to progress by
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differentiating complex concepts.
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n most introductory academic writing courses, both within
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EAP and for students whose main language is English, the
fact that academic texts display an author’s ‘stance’ is
mentioned as a key point. But ‘stance’ is quite a complex
vil
concept for undergraduate students to understand, and in
my experience they commonly confuse it with ‘personal
opinion’. I often read essays which include the presentation of
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evidence for contrasting views on a topic, sometimes very well
evaluated, but then in the conclusion the student has written
something vague, such as ‘In my opinion, everyone should be
allowed to have their own view on the topic’. Now this might be
©
an open and tolerant perspective to have in life, but in academic
writing, we usually expect the author to take a stance, based on
the evidence they discuss in their text. And so I’ve started to
develop ways to help my EAP students (at B2+ level)
understand ‘stance’ through some communicative exercises.
I start my lessons with the questions in Figure 1 displayed on
an OHT or PowerPoint slide. In pairs or small groups, the
students ask each other the questions and answer them. This
kind of task can help build a supportive atmosphere in the class:
it feels like a warmer or ‘getting to know you’ activity, but the
answers the students share can be used to help them understand
the difference between facts, opinions and stance.
www.etprofessional.com
ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES
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1 Where and when were you born?
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2 Do you eat meat? Drink alcohol? Smoke?
3 Do you think New York would be a nice place to live?
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4 What kinds of music can calm you down or cheer you up?
5 H
 ow much do you know about religious education in British
schools, and how does this affect your view on whether it is
appropriate?
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6 B
 ased on your experience as a student, what kind of
note-taking do you consider to be the most effective?
Figure 1
Once the groups have discussed all the questions, or after a
defined period of time that I give them, I interrupt the
groupwork and set the next task: I ask them to decide on the
questions in Figure 2, also displayed on an OHT or PowerPoint
slide. [Answers: a) Qs 1 and 2, b) Qs 3 and 4, c) Qs 5 and 6]
Regarding the questions you have just answered:
a W
 hich of them prompted answers with a piece of information
that is fixed, and not debatable?
b W
 hich prompted answers showing one person’s preference
or attitude?
c W
 hich prompted answers explaining how background
understanding informs someone’s view on a topic?
Figure 2
Again, this time after just a few minutes, I interrupt the
groupwork and hand out small cards with definitions of fact,
opinion and stance on them (see Figure 3).
Fact: something known or proven to be true.
Opinion: a personal belief or appraisal, based on
insufficient evidence to allow certainty.
Stance: a position on a certain issue, based on consideration
of evidence, often expressed publicly.
Figure 3
I then ask the students to identify which of the terms (fact,
opinion or stance) expresses the types of answers prompted by
the questions categorised now as a, b or c. [Answers: a) fact, b)
opinion, c) stance]
Issue 117 • July 2018 11
ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

After using concept-check questions to make sure
the students understand the differences between these
three types of information, particularly opinion and
stance, we move on to a task that gets them
discussing the inclusion of the different information
in various text types. This could also be done as
groupwork, and I try to make it into a game, with
each group competing together. We label one wall
each with the terms fact, opinion and stance. Then I
call out a text type (eg news article, application letter,
university essay), and the groups have to position
themselves next to the walls to indicate how
express the author’s interpretation of evidence –
stance. I ask them to do this individually, and
sometimes compare with a neighbour, before
sharing and discussing the answers in plenary. The
discussion allows me to emphasise again the
prevalence of stance in academic writing, as well as
highlighting some of the ways, however subtle, it
can be expressed. Usually, my students are quite
surprised that there are so few hard facts in the text!
t t t

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frequently they think that kind of information is in In this lesson, I aim to move my students closer to an
the text type I’ve just called out. The groups discuss

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understanding of stance in academic work, by
before moving, and are also allowed to split up. For starting with them talking about themselves, then
example, if they believe an academic essay will substantiating their understanding of the terms fact,

M
include some facts but more stance, then one group opinion and stance, and finally by showing an
member can stand by the fact wall while the others go authentic example of the balance of these in an
to the stance wall. Often, I find getting the students academic text excerpt. I have had good results from

nd
up and moving at this stage in the lesson can this approach, and I’m sure my activities can be used
reenergise the class, and seeing these physical or adapted for use in other EAP contexts, too. n
groupings of students helps them to visualise clearly

ga
the balance of the types of information commonly Clare Maas (née Fielder) holds
found in the different text types. post-graduate qualifications from
the University of Wales and Trinity
To bring home the point about stance in
hin
College London, UK. Before
academic writing, and to quieten down the class moving into tertiary education, she
after the commotion of moving around, I then taught English at German grammar
provide the students with a printed excerpt from an schools, and ESP at several
academic article. One I’ve used with my students is language academies in the UK and
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Germany. Her professional interests

in the box below, as an example, but I would suggest include EAP materials development
finding a text on a topic relevant to your own and CPD for teachers. She also
b

students’ fields of study. The students are tasked blogs at ClaresELTCompendium.

with highlighting or circling any facts they find in wordpress.com.
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the article excerpt, and underlining the points which cmmaas@uni-trier.de

ion

English as a lingua franca

by Barbara Seidlhofer
ELT Journal Volume 59 (4) October 2005. Published by Oxford University Press *excerpt*
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In recent years, the term ‘English as a lingua franca’ (ELF) has emerged as a way of referring to communication
in English between speakers with different first languages. Since roughly only one out of every four users of
English in the world is a native speaker of the language (Crystal 2003), most ELF interactions take place among
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‘non-native’ speakers of English. Although this does not preclude the participation of English native speakers in
ELF interaction, what is distinctive about ELF is that, in most cases, it is ‘a ‘contact language’ between persons
who share neither a common native tongue nor a common (national) culture, and for whom English is the
©

chosen foreign language of communication’ (Firth 1996: 240). […]

Despite being welcomed by some and deplored by others, it cannot be denied that English functions as
a global lingua franca. However, what has so far tended to be denied is that, as a consequence of its
international use, English is being shaped at least as much by its non-native speakers as by its native
speakers. This has led to a somewhat paradoxical situation: on the one hand, for the majority of its users,
English is a foreign language, and the vast majority of verbal exchanges in English do not involve any native
speakers of the language at all. On the other hand, there is still a tendency for native speakers to be regarded
as custodians over what is acceptable usage. Thus, in order for the concept of ELF to gain acceptance
alongside English as a native language, there have been calls for the systematic study of the nature of ELF –
what it looks and sounds like and how people actually use it and make it work – and a consideration of the
implications for the teaching and learning of the language.

12 Issue 117 • July 2018 www.etprofessional.com

 EXAMS AND ASSESSMENT

Bridging the gap

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ga
hin
b lis
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Mark Heffernan makes sure the leap from IELTS to university isn’t a leap into the unknown.
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I
ELTS: why do students take it? Normally, in the Key skills
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UK, the answer is to enable them to go to

university. But what about when they get there Focusing on this goal, I think there are nine key
– are they sufficiently prepared for their studies? skills that university students need, and which, in
my experience, they often lack:
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The idea for this article came about when I began

teaching pre-sessional courses at a university. I ■■ Paraphrasing and summarising skills;
found that although my students had achieved the ■■ Knowledge of academic register;
required IELTS scores, they were not aware of many
©

■■ Reading skills;
of the skills needed for them to write longer essays
and, therefore, to function adequately in an
■■ Listening and note-taking skills;
academic environment. ■■ Critical thinking skills;
What I would like to suggest here are a few small ■■ Writing from sources;
changes in emphasis that teachers can make to ■■ Ability to do presentations;
ensure that not only are their students prepared for ■■ Ability to reference correctly, and understand and
the IELTS exam, but that they are able to
avoid plagiarism;
participate more successfully in their studies when
they get to university. While going fully into the ■■ Ability to structure a piece of writing properly.
‘writing from sources’ university mode may not be I have divided these nine skills into three groups:
appropriate, these suggestions should be a those we already do as part of IELTS teaching, those
comfortable fit for most IELTS classes. we maybe don’t, and those I propose we should do.

www.etprofessional.com Issue 117 • July 2018 13

EXAMS AND ASSESSMENT
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hin
lis
The aim of this is to bridge the gap between an
IELTS class and a student’s university studies, to
ease their academic culture shock and to make
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IELTS classes more than just a means to an end.
Pu
Things we already do
Knowledge of academic register; Reading skills;
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Listening and note-taking skills
To me, these skills are already an embedded part of
any IELTS syllabus, so we don’t need to focus on
them here.
vil
Those we maybe don’t
Pa
Writing from sources; Ability to do presentations;
Ability to reference correctly, and understand and
avoid plagiarism
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Though these fall outside the remit of the IELTS
classroom, we can touch on them, and I try to do
so. Although they are not always a comfortable fit
for a class where the students are looking directly
ahead, I do think we can seek to raise awareness by
mentioning them. Writing from sources isn’t needed
in IELTS, but if the students assume that university
essays require simply thinking up ideas, they will
struggle. This skill could become part of a
summarising class, which will be discussed later.
Presentations could even form part of speaking
practice, and listening to presentations such as TED
talks can be a great way of practising listening while
14 Issue 117 • July 2018
raising awareness of classic presentation structure.
Referencing and plagiarism are harder, but I would
still try to allude to them. I would suggest
highlighting references when you encounter them in
reading texts, and taking the opportunity to explain
their importance and role.
Those I propose we should do
Paraphrasing and summarising skills; Critical thinking
skills; Ability to structure a piece of writing properly
Knowledge of these three skills and what they entail
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will help smooth a student’s path into university,
and I see all of them as a comfortable fit within an
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IELTS classroom.
Paraphrasing and summarising
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Paraphrasing and summarising skills are of
paramount importance for students when they get
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to university. They need to be able to paraphrase
and summarise in order to write from sources and
avoid plagiarism. These two skills are something I
have found many students struggling with, so the
more practice they have before they get to
university, the better.
These are not necessarily obvious skills to fit
into IELTS classes: when writing a 250-word essay
or 150-word report, you are not going to be writing
from a plethora of sources. However, paraphrasing
is something all students need to be able to do to
avoid repeating words from the questions (which is
frowned on in IELTS) – and also to avoid repeating
themselves. Anything that builds their ability to
rephrase, using different lexis or grammar, can only
be a good thing.
I start with basic practice, examining synonyms
and word form – changing steady rise to gradual
increase, for example. Then, I move to
reformulation, using a new grammar structure,
such as passives or nominalisation. This practice is
particularly useful in IELTS Part 1 writing. Most
coursebooks look at this kind of thing, which is
great. What they don’t do, however, is to explain to
the students how this skill will benefit them at
university. This is where we come in. The key is
explaining to the students just how much they will
need to use this skill. In the UK, we favour
paraphrasing and summarising over quotations.
Encourage your students to see paraphrasing as a
tool, not just an academic exercise. I have found
that students who only see it as changing the words
and using synonyms often paraphrase badly. There
needs to be a deeper understanding of why they
are doing it, and what the paraphrase or summary
will be used for.
Although there is little reason for students to
summarise in the IELTS exam, I believe it is a skill
they need, and I propose that it should be made part
www.etprofessional.com

of reading skills. A common part of the reading
exam is the matching paragraphs to headings task.
By focusing on the topic sentence and taking notes,
the students are summarising to a degree and giving
themselves a better chance of being able to do the
task. You could additionally get them to find
articles on their subject from a reasonably credible
source, eg a broadsheet newspaper or the BBC, and
ask for weekly summaries. This encourages them to
begin researching and to think about the key
information. This should promote critical thinking
skills. An alternative could be weekly mini-
presentations on the articles they find.
Planning and paragraph
construction are paramount;
too often, students believe that
planning is merely writing the
words introduction, paragraph
one, paragraph two and
conclusion on a page
Critical thinking
Defined by the Oxford dictionary as ‘The objective
analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a
judgement’, critical thinking is paramount at
university. Some IELTS coursebooks try to
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encourage it, yet I can report, sadly, that many
students are lost when their tutors tell them they
need to be more ‘critical’.
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Try to get your students to think of a stance
when they write. Do they agree or disagree with the
proposition, and to what extent? Is their position
defendable, and what evidence do they have for it?
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What are the possible counter-arguments? What are
the implications of this? These sorts of questions
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will stand them in good stead.
You could also introduce them to Bloom’s
Taxonomy, which seeks to provide a framework for
cognition, using a pyramid with six levels: Remember,
©
Understand, Apply, Analyse, Evaluate and Create.
Versions of this are readily available online. Explain
the meaning of the subsections, and highlight where
the skills you are teaching fit into it. For example,
paraphrasing and summarising match the Apply
level, and text organisation would fit in Analyse.
Structuring a piece of writing
Logical thinking hopefully leads to more logical
writing. Planning and paragraph construction are
paramount; too often, students believe that
www.etprofessional.com
EXAMS AND ASSESSMENT
planning is merely writing the words introduction,
paragraph one, paragraph two and conclusion on a
page. I recommend getting them to try to think
about the grammar and lexis they intend to use.
This brings us back to paraphrasing to avoid
repetition. Encourage your students to think which
grammar and vocabulary they are going to use to
do this, and help them to learn some key academic
words from the academic word list created by
Averil Coxhead, which can be found online.
Additionally, they need to think of the structure
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of their writing and how it flows. Are the ideas
merely dumped on the page, or is there logical
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progression and cohesion? At university, the latter
will be expected, so it is a good idea to get your
students thinking about this now. Use examples
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from academic texts, draw their attention to how the
ideas are organised and the use of pronouns and
linking devices to knit it all together.
nd
I see no problem with teaching your students
more than they actually need for an IELTS essay.
Teach them to include thesis statements, to end
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paragraphs with conclusions linking back to their
thesis positions, and to restate the thesis statement
in the conclusion. Focus on what makes a good
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introduction and a good conclusion. (I often find
that conclusions written by IELTS students are
directionless). All of these things will help your
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students do well in the IELTS exam, will make
planning easier for them, and will make their time
at university less disorienting.
b
t t t
Raising awareness of how these skills will be
important to your students beyond IELTS, and how
they could already be used in their academic writing,
will make the transition to university smoother, while
also making their IELTS courses a little richer. n
Bloom’s Taxonomy: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-
pages/blooms-taxonomy/
Coxhead’s Academic Word List: www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/
resources/academicwordlist
Mark Heffernan has been an
English teacher for 13 years,
specialising in teaching exam
classes. He is a Teaching Fellow at
Queen Mary, University of London,
and has written for Cengage. He
also shares a blog with David
Byrne, textploitationtefl.com, which
looks at mining texts for skills and
system-based lessons.
m.heffernan@qmul.ac.uk
Issue 117 • July 2018 15
 1
EXAMS AND ASSESSMENT

IELTS
without
tears

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In the first of a new series, Graham Perry offers some fun
ideas for preparing students for the Academic IELTS exam.

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F
or anyone unfamiliar with the Academic 2 True or false?

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IELTS exam, the writing paper consists of This is an excellent activity for students who are new
two parts. The first part involves the to IELTS and are beginning to experiment with the
candidates being given a diagram and

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new vocabulary and structures which you have
having to describe it in a minimum of 150 taught them.
words. The most common type of diagram they are
■■  ut the students in teams, show them a typical
P
asked to describe is a graph (a line graph, bar chart,
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IELTS graph and then read out various
pie chart or even a table). Although the ability to
sentences about it, some true and some false.
interpret graphs and the trends depicted in them is an
incredibly useful skill, both in education and the ■■  ive points to teams who can identify whether
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workplace, this can be quite a dry topic to teach.
So here are six activities which I use to make my ■■
IELTS classes more interesting and, yes, even fun. I
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the sentences are true or false.
 sk the students, working in pairs, to make
A
their own sentences about this or another

have included some ways in which the activities can be graph. I suggest getting them to make four true
Pu

differentiated for different levels. sentences and two false sentences.

■■  eparate the pairs to make different groups,
S
1 Wall race and get the students in each new group to test
each other.
ion

This is useful as a warmer or a means to introduce

the type of vocabulary which the students will need Variations for different levels
for this part of the IELTS exam.
For low-level classes, you can keep the sentences
vil

■■  ive the students just the empty axes of a graph

G simple, using just the verbs you wish the students
and explain which format the graph will take (eg to practise.
line graph or bar chart).
For high-level classes, you can encourage the
Pa

■■  lace various written clues for the completion

P students to be more adventurous. Stipulate the
of the graph on the wall around the class and, language that they should use: for example,
individually, in pairs or in small teams, the adverbs or structures such as twice as many, half
©

students race to complete the graph. as many, etc.

Variations for different levels
For low-level classes, you can make the clues quite
specific, eg Sales soared to 65 million in 1995.
For high-level classes, the clues can be made less
specific and could involve the students having to
collect various clues in order to extrapolate the
required information. For example, Clue 1 might say:
Twelve women studied in 1995; Clue 2 might say: In
1995, 25% fewer men than women studied English;
Clue 3 might say: The number of women who studied
English doubled in 1996.
3 Pairwork graphs
This is a great activity to encourage speaking (yes,
even in a writing class!) and to personalise the
language (see the variation I’ve included at the end).
■■  ut the students in pairs, A and B. Give Student A
P
an IELTS graph and Student B just the empty
axes for that same graph.
■■  xplain that Student A needs to describe their
E
diagram in order to help Student B complete
their graph.

16 Issue 117 • July 2018 www.etprofessional.com


■■  sk the students to sit back to back during this
A the board to look at the graph and then runs
activity. Otherwise, there may be too much
temptation for Student A to point to the
appropriate parts of Student B’s diagram to
help them complete it.
■■ They then swap roles with new graphs.
Variations for different levels
For low-level classes, the students can be
encouraged to use whatever language they have at
their disposal. They can also be given smaller, simpler
graphs to describe.
For high-level classes, you can include certain
stipulations, eg the student describing is banned from
using any verb more than once, to encourage use of a
range of language.
For all levels, the students could be asked to
personalise and create their own graphs to describe,
for example, how busy they are during a normal week,
or the annual rainfall in their country.
4 Gapfill competition
This is a really great holistic activity, focusing on
everything from accuracy to range of language to
linkers.
■■  ut the students in groups and give each group
P ■■
an IELTS graph question and a model answer,
with various words in the answer gapped (eg
these might be all the verbs in the answer, all
the linking words, etc). Each gap should be
given a number to identify it.
Pu
■■  he groups take turns to guess the missing
T ■■
words. They are given one point for guessing a
missing word and another point for guessing
which gap it appears in.
ion
■■  t the end of the activity, the group with the
A Variations for different levels
most points wins.
Variations for different levels
vil
For low-level classes, you obviously gap fewer words
in the model answer or do a complete gap of certain
Pa
whole sentences within the text.
For high-level classes, do a complete cloze of an
entire paragraph. This is a great way to focus on all
©
the elements which this type of writing requires, eg
range of language, correct tense, cohesion, etc.
5 Graph running dictation
This is a useful activity for waking your students up,
as it requires all the skills – and movement!
■■  ut the students in pairs. Ask them to decide
P private schools in Spain and the
who will start off as the speaker and who will
start as the person drawing the graph.
■■  lace a graph on the board and explain that
P further education sector.
there will be a time limit for the students to
complete it. One student in each pair runs to
www.etprofessional.com
EXAMS AND ASSESSMENT
back to describe it in as much detail as they
can to their partner, who tries to draw the graph
being described.
■■  alfway through, ask the students to change
H
roles, and continue the description – or place a
new graph on the board for them to describe.
Variations for different levels
With low-level classes, do the activity as outlined
above. For high-level classes, remove any numbers
from the axes of the graph. This really encourages the
ia
students to focus on using a range of language, rather
than just describing the numbers.
ed
6 Prepositions ‘connect three’
M
The large number of prepositions which students
need to know for the IELTS Writing Task 1 can be very
challenging, and this activity can really help.
nd
■■  repare a grid. I find that six squares by six
P
squares is about right for this game.
ga
■■ In each square, write a sentence in which the
preposition has been removed, eg Sales
increased ... 2 million (from 6 million to 8 million)
hin
over the period.
Write or project the grid onto the board.
■■  ut the students in teams. The teams take turns
P
lis
to choose a square and say what the missing
preposition is. If they are correct, they win that
square and their team name is written in it on
b
the board.
 ach time a team manages to win three
E
squares in a line (horizontally, vertically or
diagonally), they win one point for their team.
For low-level classes, give the students three possible
answers for each sentence.
For high-level classes, have sentences with more
than one missing word.
t t t
I hope that you find these activities useful for your
students, and I would be grateful for any feedback
– especially if you can think of any other useful
variations on the ones described. n
Graham Perry is from Brighton,
UK, and started teaching in 1991.
Since then he has worked in
UK, teacher training and, for the
last 20 years, working with
international students in the
grahamperry99@yahoo.co.uk
Issue 117 • July 2018 17
WRITING
Flipping
successful
ga
hin
Jenna Williams tries a flipped classroom technique to teach IELTS Writing Task 2.
O
lis
ne of my colleagues at the college
where I teach was talking over lunch
b
about how exciting it was that she
Pu
seldom taught at the front of the room
anymore. Her ‘flipped’ lessons meant
that her maths students watched a ‘how-to’ video
showing them how to solve a particular type of
ion
problem as homework. They then worked through a
series of maths problems during the lesson at their
own pace, assessing their own progress at the end
vil
with ‘what went well’ and ‘even better if’ statements.
Furthermore, they wrote their own learning
objectives and monitored their own achievements.
Pa
She said this ‘workshop’ style teaching was much
more rewarding for her, as the class was naturally
differentiated (the students themselves decided what
they wanted to do and to achieve each lesson) and
©
motivation was high. She said she rarely stood and
demonstrated at the front any longer: she simply
moved around the room from student to student,
assisting and checking progress in a nearly quiet,
albeit extremely productive, room.
I left the dining hall wondering if this could be
achieved in English essay writing lessons. I teach
EAP and IELTS preparation (to classes of a
maximum of 15 students) and had realised that
prepping the students to write, and then sending
them home to complete an assignment is often
unhelpful for the following reasons:
18 Issue 117 • July 2018
ia
ed
M
nd
■■ The students sit alone in their rooms, wondering
where to start.
■■ They are often tempted to plagiarise, as they
can easily copy from online sources.
■■ It creates a lot of marking for me to do later,
which I also do alone.
Now that I have moved the entire writing process to
the classroom, we are all together and a great deal of
our time is saved. This procedure allows me to support
the students at each stage: idea generation, planning
and crafting. Now, as in my colleague’s maths class,
with the students writing in class, they can ask for help
at the time they need it and, while they are writing, I
can ask questions like Is that really a good example for
that point? This not only develops their critical
thinking skills, but has also been far more useful
(according to my students) than comments on a paper
returned a week after it was first written.
Flipped writing
What follows are the steps that I have taken for an
initial foray into this style of writing instruction
with a new group of students. The preliminary
training may take five to six hours of lessons and
may seem long-winded at first, but once the students
are accustomed to the structure and procedure,
most topics and writing take between one and three
one-hour lessons.
www.etprofessional.com

Generating ideas
Firstly, a brief discussion of a general topic, such as
urbanisation, illiteracy or the death penalty, can be done, to
gauge the students’ prior knowledge and viewpoints in a sort of
test–teach–test style. Depending upon the results of this, I can
set a number of video lessons (from TED Talks, TED Ed,
YouTube, etc) for the students to watch, and from which they
take notes for the next class (this is good practice for my
university-bound students). This is similar to my colleague’s
maths homework ‘how to’ video preparation.
There are different ways this can be done. The students
could all watch the same video and debate it, or groups of
students could watch different videos (perhaps representing
different viewpoints on the same issue) which they then
explain or defend in the next class. I have found that using
videos and discussion, particularly with teenagers, develops
their ability to generate ideas independently and
comprehend views which might be opposed to their own.
This could be done over a number of lessons (potentially
with debates) or just one. To extend this, or as homework,
the students could also prepare lists of relevant academic
vocabulary from this research.
Planning
Then, perhaps in the next lesson, a specific question is posed
relating to the general topic the students have studied. This is
where these writing lessons differ slightly from my colleague’s
maths lessons. I have found collaboration at the planning
lis
stage to be confidence-building for my students (mostly
teenagers), while my maths colleague only rarely encourages
peer collaboration, favouring independence. In my lessons, I
b
ask the students to work together to decide how many
Pu
paragraphs are required (usually four or five for IELTS Task
2) and to determine what the topic of each will be. For
example, in a recent class we discussed this IELTS question:
In some countries, governments are encouraging businesses and
ion
industries to move away from city centres and relocate to regional
areas. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
My students generally agreed that four paragraphs were
vil
required: introduction, advantages, disadvantages (these two could
be reversed) and conclusion.
Pa
Next, continuing to collaborate, the students are given
mini-whiteboards and encouraged to plan body paragraphs
together under the topics they have chosen previously
(ideally, just one- or two-word points are best, rather than
©
time-consuming sentences). This usually takes ten to 15
minutes. Then, particularly the first few times a class uses
this procedure, these ideas are shared with the whole class.
The students are encouraged to explain, challenge and
defend the ideas presented. Also when this procedure is first
introduced, I suggest that they add ideas from other
students’ boards to their own, as I have found that some
struggle with thinking of relevant academic points quickly
(40 minutes is the time suggested for an IELTS Task 2 essay).
My students say that this focus on idea generation and
planning has given them confidence in dealing with issues in
more depth for all of the subjects they study. Lastly and
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WRITING
importantly, I ask them all to take a photo of their
whiteboards with their phones to enable them to refer to this
plan while writing (often done in the following lesson).
Crafting
Finally, the students get down to writing. Once they are
familiar with the procedure, these writing lessons become
similar to my colleague’s flipped maths lessons. However, at the
start, some scaffolding and support is often required to develop
the students’ understanding of how to structure an essay as a
whole, as well as its individual paragraphs.
For IELTS Task 2, it is essential that a candidate ‘arranges
ia
information and ideas coherently and there is a clear overall
progression’ (as directed in the descriptors for an IELTS Band 6
ed
Task response). To do this, it is sensible to include an introduction,
body paragraphs with a topic each (it should be noted that even if
M
the candidate completely supports or disagrees with a question,
the opposing view should be discussed) and a conclusion which
clearly links their own view to that specific question.
nd
Despite my intention of avoiding lock-step, teacher-centred
lessons, the first time I use this approach with a new class, I do
model writing a body paragraph on an interactive whiteboard,
ga
to illustrate a writer’s thinking process, much in the way my
colleague might illustrate a completely new maths strategy.
Using the students’ plans and ideas, we begin with a body
hin
paragraph (‘the meat in the sandwich’) rather than the
introduction. We start with a topic sentence (eg relating to the
question above: There are many advantages of relocating
enterprises or factories outside urban centres). Presenting ‘a clear
central topic within each paragraph’ is essential for candidates to
achieve a Band 7 score for coherence and cohesion. As I type
on the board (I usually use Word), I verbalise my thought
processes while writing and ask the students for advice (eg
Would that be better in the passive voice? Is that the best word?
Oops, spelt that wrong!) and use online dictionaries like Word
Reference (wordreference.com) to find ideal synonyms, in full
view of the class. We discuss appropriate linking phrases to
follow a basic point, explanation, example/justification
structure, using at least two points from their photos of their
whiteboard plans. Each student is given a list of linking
expressions for each of these and we build sentences together as
I type. I always place great emphasis on the fact that each
sentence should have a purpose and that linking words can be
used to make that purpose clear to the reader.
Next, the first time this approach is used, we continue
working together to write the second body paragraph’s topic
sentence (eg relating to the above question: However, there are
also disadvantages to such proposals). From this point, using the
list of linking words, the students begin working alone. If the
majority are able to do this (particularly in higher-level classes), I
move around the room and comment on their completed or
partially completed paragraphs (noting comments in green pen
on their work – which saves time on my later marking). I ask
questions like Why have you repeated that word? Do you know a
better synonym? Is that really a good example? etc. With
lower-level classes, I monitor more carefully and sometimes
refocus everyone on the IWB if many seem to be struggling, and
we work on this second body paragraph together.
Issue 117 • July 2018 19
WRITING
When beginning this procedure with a new class, in
the next lesson we look together at the introduction.
This can be done more independently, once the
students are familiar with the structure. Having a full
introduction is helpful for achieving higher band
scores in IELTS. A strong Task 2 introduction could
include three to four sentences: a background
statement (explaining why this issue is being
discussed), a paraphrase of the question (using
synonyms, or changing word forms or sentence
structure), the writer’s opinion (if required by the
question) and a sentence explaining the essay’s
structure (eg This essay will discuss the benefits and
drawbacks of this proposal and draw conclusions).
Depending upon the level of the class, the students
either create their own sentences following this
structure and I move round the room monitoring their
progress, or sentence starters are supplied on the IWB
for them to adapt to the question posed, and I monitor
their progress in the same way.
Lastly, we discuss the conclusion (without which a
candidate may only achieve a maximum of Band 5 for
ga
Task Response). Conclusions are harder to prescribe,
but should include a link back to the original question
which states the writer’s own view on the issue (a clear
hin
‘position’ is necessary for a Band 5 or above for Task
Response). The students could summarise the points
they have made (but if they do this, they should avoid
using the same terms or vocabulary, as this becomes
lis
dull), but this is not entirely necessary. Ideally, it is
good to end with a ‘punch’, perhaps linking their ideas
b
to the bigger picture (ie how this will help humanity or
people in their country). As one of my own English
Pu
teachers used to say: tie your essay up with a bow.
Continuing after the initial lessons
ion
Once the students feel confident about what is required
for each part of an IELTS Task 2 essay, the whole
process can be started again with another challenging
topic, leading to a question or questions, and using the
vil
same basic formula: starting with videos (perhaps with
some debate), then focusing on working alone or
collaboratively to answer a specific question through
Pa
idea generation, planning and crafting.
In my lessons, each time we attempt a new
question, I try to pull my support gradually away from
©
the class as a whole and focus on working with the
students on a more one-to-one basis. As my maths
colleague pointed out, this is the most rewarding part
of this procedure, because the students genuinely gain
confidence and are grateful for this (some have told me
they have become more confident writers in their own
languages after mastering this procedure), and I am
generally able to finish a third to two-thirds of my
marking in the lesson.
This method is very flexible. The students can
decide to work alone from the presentation of the
question, work with a partner only to plan, or sit at a
20 Issue 117 • July 2018
‘refresher’ table where I might review linking words
or a particular part of an essay. They can move to the
area of the classroom that suits them that day.
If it seems that all the students need practice of
a particular part of an essay, another benefit of this
approach is that the teacher can focus on just one
paragraph type – shorter to write and mark than a
whole essay. For example, to refocus on the ‘point,
explanation, example/justification’ structure
suggested for body paragraphs, I sometimes have
my students read each other’s work and highlight
ia
each type of sentence in a different colour, to help
them discuss whether they have followed this pattern
ed
in a logical way.
Like maths, writing takes regular, repeated and
supported practice to make the skills required a
M
natural part of a writer’s repertoire. A further
benefit of this method is that it truly scaffolds the
students’ progress and then is self-differentiating,
nd
allowing everyone to work at their own speed and to
focus on the areas they need most practice in. The
students could work on different parts of essays or
even on different questions at the same time,
gradually honing their confidence and the quality of
their answers. This means all the students are
engaged (though perhaps on different tasks), as they
can set their own targets, work at their own speed
and know they can ask for help when they feel they
need it. A final benefit, for the teacher of small- to
medium-sized classes like mine, is that much of the
marking can be done in class; often adjustments
worked out together at the time of writing mean
that the final product is of a very high quality.
t t t
Teaching an IELTS Task 2 writing class in the style
of my colleague’s flipped and less teacher-centred
maths lessons means that both the teacher and the
students are rewarded by clear, measurable progress.
Giving students structure and support, which is
gradually removed as they improve and they
themselves determine that they need it less and less,
reflects the essence of true teaching and learning. n
www.ielts.org/-/media/pdfs/writing-band-descriptors-
task-2.ashx?la=en
Jenna Williams works at CATS
College, Canterbury, UK, where she
teaches EAP and IELTS preparation
to students preparing to enter UK
universities. She was an IELTS
examiner from 1996 to 2012.
jwilliams@catscanterbury.com
www.etprofessional.com
 METHODOLOGY

An eye to
the future

ia
Mustafa Altan believes students should adopt an entrepreneurial mindset.

ed
E
ntrepreneurship is not a new idea, but it has never
been more important than it is today, in this time of

M
financial, societal and educational challenge, both at
a local and global level. It also seems logical to me
to link entrepreneurship with education. On the one

nd
hand, innovation and entrepreneurship have the potential to
provide solutions to the challenges of the 21st century and

ga
beyond – by building sustainable development, creating jobs,
generating economic growth and advancing human welfare.
And on the other, education has the potential to develop an
entrepreneurial mindset in the future leaders of all sectors and
hin
to equip them with the skills necessary to solve the complex,
interlinked and rapidly changing social and economic
problems of the world.
lis

A nurturing environment
b

Without the features of an entrepreneurial mindset, such as

risk taking, confidence, initiative taking, creativity and social
Pu

responsibility, being a part of general education systems at all

levels, it will be difficult to create an environment which will
nurture enterprising individuals with the ability to facilitate them to adapt flexibly to a rapidly changing and highly
interconnected world. And education in its dual role, both
ion

economic growth and prosperity and to come up with solutions

to the problems faced by society. social and economic, has a key role to play in ensuring that
each citizen acquires these. The document sets out eight key
Although there has been a significant increase in the
competences which all individuals need for personal
number of courses and programmes featuring entrepreneurship
vil

fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social

in some form, I feel that more could still be done to integrate it
inclusion and employment:
fully into the educational curriculum, including the curriculum
Pa

of language classes. 1 Communication in the mother tongue;

2 Communication in foreign languages;
The need for a new model 3 Mathematical competence and basic competences in
It is clear that educational systems should be able to help
©

science and technology;

people develop qualities that are regarded as essential for
entrepreneurship. However, current educational models,
assumptions and approaches about learning and teaching
seem unable to equip individuals for new and unexpected
challenges, including the dramatic changes brought about by
globalisation. Therefore, it is my view that we desperately
need an educational paradigm shift, and that to build an
entrepreneurial society, it is important to reform traditional
strategies and teaching methods, so that learning gains new
meaning both for learners and, eventually, for society.
A European Council document of 2006 asserts that every
citizen will need a wide range of key competences to enable
4 Digital competence;
5 Learning to learn;
6 Social and civic competences;
7 Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship;
8 Cultural awareness and expression.
All eight are considered equally important, because each of
them can contribute to a successful life in a ‘knowledge
society’. However, two items in the list have great importance
for ELT professionals: communication in foreign languages,
and developing a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship.

www.etprofessional.com Issue 117 • July 2018 21

METHODOLOGY
ELT and entrepreneurship
The last few decades have seen the importance of the English
language continuing to increase around the world, especially as
the lingua franca for economic and scientific exchange. English
has become dominant in a way that no language has ever been
before, and the common belief is that it may never be
dethroned as the ‘king of languages’.
The use of English as the world’s preferred medium for
international communication can be credited to globalisation,
just as globalisation can be credited to the spread of the English
language. The two have gone hand in hand.
As a result, teaching and studying English consist of more
than just teaching a subject or learning a foreign language;
rather, they are a major factor in the survival of many sectors
and the success of businesses all over the world.
Consequently, having an entrepreneurial mindset together
with a good command of English is a good prognosticator for
a successful career, and it is obvious that these two things can
both be taught in schools. I strongly believe that English
classes are the best places to kill two birds with one stone and
make this educational vision come true. Carefully designed
topic- and theme-based entrepreneurial activities embedded in
ELT curricula could result in stimulating an entrepreneurial
spirit and mindset in the students, at the same time as
hin
improving their command of English. It is my firm belief that
English courses should be designed in such a way that learners
can both learn English and develop an entrepreneurial
mindset. No other discipline and, as a result, no other subject
lis
area teacher has such power.
An entrepreneurial mindset
b
in English classes
Pu
Many activities commonly used in English classes already help
the students to deal with new situations, to think both
ion
individually and cooperatively, to be self-confident, to take
risks, to tolerate ambiguity and to be good negotiators, all of
which are essential characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.
These include information-gap activities, jigsaw readings and
vil
listenings, task-based exercises, conversation grids, problem-
solving activities, picture prompts, roleplays, interviews, small-
group or team-based oral activities, impromptu speeches and
Pa
presentations, class surveys, games, and various writing tasks
and inspiring readings.
However, approaching entrepreneurship as a teaching
©
philosophy means teaching a way of thinking and acting, built
on a set of assumptions which take individual differences into
consideration and use alternative assessment techniques to
encourage creativity, risk taking, critical thinking, etc.
Individual differences such as motivation, intelligence
profiles, gender, attitude, self-esteem, learning strategies, brain
dominance, learning styles, personality, field dependence/field
independence, tolerance of ambiguity, anxiety level and
beliefs about learning should be taken into account during all
these activities and nurtured equally.
I am further convinced that performance-based and
alternative assessment techniques should be implemented to
22 Issue 117 • July 2018
foster and encourage enterprising individuals who are
creative, risk takers, critical thinkers, and practise the
language freely with one another and with people in the
community, in order to reach an effective level of proficiency.
Individual differences can influence how an individual
behaves in various situations. Accordingly, understanding and
respecting these differences can help us know how best to
support and respond to what an individual needs. Individuals
bring a huge variety of skills, needs and interests to learning.
Therefore the educational goals, methods, materials and
assessment embedded in the curriculum should be designed to
ia
enable all individuals to gain knowledge, skills and
enthusiasm for learning in an environment where everybody is
ed
nourished and honoured equally.
M
t t t
If we can adopt entrepreneurship as a teaching/education
nd
philosophy, we can help our students to understand, develop
and practise the skills and techniques needed for productive
ga
entrepreneurship at all levels and in all areas.
To my mind, English classes are the best places both to
develop an entrepreneurial mindset and to gain the necessary
language skills to survive in today’s extremely competitive
world. They already offer precious opportunities to make this
vision come true. Well-designed and well-executed activities can
help turn the English classroom into an active, safe and
enjoyable place where students can learn both entrepreneurial
skills and the language they will need to use these skills in
real-world situations.
Teachers themselves need to take a central role in
discovering the best way to implement entrepreneurial
English classes. It is clear that we need effective English
teachers who teach entrepreneurially by taking individual
differences into account and focusing on performance-based
assessment, instead of standardised curriculum and testing,
in order to foster locally-thinking, globally-acting, creative,
risk-taking, critically thinking and socially responsible
entrepreneurial individuals with a good command of
English. Therefore, teacher education programmes should
focus on producing the kind of English teachers who can
work towards this goal. n
‘Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of
18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning’ https://
eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM%3Ac11090
Mustafa Zülküf Altan is a full-time professor
in ELT at the Department of Foreign Languages
Education at Erciyes University, Turkey. His
research interests include teacher education,
teacher development, individual differences in
foreign language learning, the theory of
multiple intelligences, alternative assessment,
intercultural communication and
entrepreneurial teaching.
altanmz@erciyes.edu.tr
www.etprofessional.com
 TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

What are
your super
powers?

ia
ed
Sean H Toland recommends a collaborative
superhero story.

M
I
n our current globalised era, it is becoming increasingly important Procedure

nd
that our students are able to communicate their ideas effectively 1 B
 efore class, make a copy of the lesson handouts for
online, via emails, reports, blogs, etc. Writing, like many things in each student (Handouts A, B and C).
life, is a skill that requires a tremendous amount of practice and

ga
2 D
 ivide the class into small groups and draw the following
focus. Unfortunately, English language classrooms in every corner
chart on the board:
of the globe are frequently filled with reluctant and/or disenchanted
students who are apprehensive about doing any type of L2 writing.
hin
Educators need to recognise this reality and find ways to help their Superhero name Special powers/abilities
learners break through this significant mental barrier. Example
The activity ‘Superhero stories’ described below draws on the
lis

popularity of superhero comics and movies to engage the students 1

in collaborative creative writing. In essence, it interweaves
important communicative elements into an enjoyable and practical
b

2
task that teachers can use in a wide range of instructional
Pu

environments, not just young learner classrooms – though it is

likely to be particularly popular with teenagers. The first part of the
activity requires the students to examine two superheroes in a Ask the groups to make a copy of the chart on a piece of paper.
small group. Next, they each create an original ‘caped crusader’ Write the name of a popular superhero (eg Spiderman) in the
ion

and discuss the new character with their classmates in a ‘speed example section of the chart. Elicit the special powers/abilities
mingling’ session. The final part of the activity calls on them to this individual possesses from the class (eg quick reflexes,
work with two or three classmates on a collaborative story that jumps high, climbs walls, enhanced strength, shoots webs) and
vil

features each of their original superheroes. put these in the second column. Each group must then add the
names of two additional superheroes to their chart and identify
Superhero stories their special powers.
Pa

3 G
 et each group to make a brief report to the class,
Level: The activity is suitable for students at pre-intermediate
and review any difficult vocabulary.
level and above.
4 Write the following phrases on the board:
Time: It should take around 60 to 90 minutes of class time and
©

about ten minutes of preparation. a plot

Materials: The students will need smartphones or tablets b characters
and/or a computer with internet access. You will also need c setting
a board, a timer or stopwatch, and copies of the lesson d major events
handouts. These can be downloaded from the ETp website at e themes
www.etprofessional.com/media/31273/etp117_
5 G
 ive the groups five minutes to discuss the meaning of
onlineresources_seantoland_superherostories.pdf.
each item. Afterwards, elicit answers and provide
Small versions are shown for reference within this article.
corrective feedback.
Aims: The aims of this activity are to expand the students’
6 T
 ell the students that they are going to watch a movie
vocabulary, foster their creative thinking, improve their reading,
trailer about a young superhero. They should try to identify
writing and communicative skills, promote collaborative learning,
the items listed above after watching the short video clip.
and inject some excitement into the classroom.

www.etprofessional.com Issue 117 • July 2018 23

TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

7 Project the Antboy theatrical trailer on a ONLINE RESOURCES

Superhero stories
screen or have the students access it on Handout A: Example Superhero Profile

Superhero Profile

their smartphones using the url (www. 1 Superhero name:

2 Real name:
Helping Man
Hiro Tanaka (Your character’s real name)
youtube.com/watch?v=qORKPg5JRas)
3 Age: 17 years old
4 Gender: male
5 Marital status: single

or the QR code here.

6 Height: 173 cm
7 Weight: 62 kg
8 Cover job: high school student
9 Country: Japan Nationality: Japanese

Give the groups 10 Home: Osaka

11 Education: Go to Osaka High School. Study English,
Japanese, mathematics, & w orld history.
ten minutes to 12 Likes:
« listening to music
« drinking café lattés
discuss it and 13 Dislikes:
« studying
« loud noises
speculate on 14 Personality:
«
«
friendly & cheerful
outgoing & sociable
possible answers. 15 Hobbies: dancing; riding my road bike; playing baseball
16 Special powers:
« can hear voices of people who need help
Get each team to can see 5 km ahead
«
17 Weakness:
« afraid of elevators & big dogs
present their

ia
answers briefly. ‘What are your super powers?’ by Sean H Toland www.etprofessional.com

ed
8 G
 ive each student a copy of Handouts A and B, and draw Handout A
their attention to the model ‘Superhero Profile’ card and ONLINE RESOURCES

Superhero stories
picture on Handout A. Select student volunteers to read out

M
Handout B: My Superhero Profile

the items on the card. Deal with any difficult vocabulary (eg My Superhero Profile
1 Superhero name:
2 Real name: (Your character’s real name)
My Superhero Sketch

cover job, marital status). Then explain that each student 3 Age:
4 Gender:
5 Marital status:

must create an original superhero character in the blank 6 Height:

nd
7 Weight:
8 Cover job:

profile card on Handout B. Give them 15 minutes to 9 Country:

10 Home:
11 Education:
Nationality:

complete their cards, and tell them that they must also make 12 Likes:
«

a sketch of their superhero, once the profile is finished.

«

ga
13 Dislikes:
«
«

9 T
 ell the students that they are now going to walk around
14 Personality:
«
«
15 Hobbies:

the classroom and do a ‘speed mingling’ activity. They will 16 Special powers:
«

have three minutes to introduce their superheroes to each

«
hin
17 Weakness:
«

other, asking and answering questions. After exactly three

minutes, you will signal that it’s time to change partners.
‘What are your super powers?’ by Sean H Toland www.etprofessional.com

The students must talk to five of their classmates. Handout B

lis

Before the ‘speed mingling’ commences, model a ONLINE RESOURCES

Superhero stories
conversation with a student volunteer (eg What are your Handout C: Our Superhero Story
Our Superhero Story
superhero’s special powers? My superhero can see
b

Your group must create an original superhero story. The new characters you each created must be in your story. Use the diagram
below to help you plan your story. Make your superhero story interesting and exciting!

through walls). Emphasise that this is a communication

Pu

b) Setting
(Where does the story take

activity and not a reading exercise. a) Characters

place? Locations? When?)

c) Problems
(Names? Descriptions?) (Describe the unexpected

10 S
 top the mingling activity after 15 minutes and divide the 1 developments or
2 problems in the story.)
3

class into groups of three or four students. 4

ion

Title
______________________________

11 G
 ive each group a copy of Handout C, ‘Our Superhero ______________________________

Story’. Discuss as a class each of the items on the handout.

Tell the students that each group must work together to
f) Themes d) Major events
(What is the main message (What happens?)
or lesson of your story?)
vil

write an original superhero story and you will give them ten e) Conclusion
(How does the story end?)

minutes to brainstorm ideas for their story, making notes on ‘What are your super powers?’ by Sean H Toland www.etprofessional.com

the diagram on the handout. Point out that all the new
Handout C
Pa

characters they created must be in their stories. Deal with

any difficult vocabulary and answer any questions. Accompanying this article and downloadable from
12 W
 hen the brainstorming session is finished, tell the the ETp website at www.etprofessional.com/
media/31273/etp117_onlineresources_
©

groups that they have 30 minutes to write their superhero seantoland_superherostories.pdf are the three
story, working together. handouts you will need for the activity described.
13 In the next lesson, get each group to read out their story
and discuss their ideas with another group. Sean H Toland is currently an
Assistant Professor at Nanzan
Variations University, Nagoya, Japan. His
This activity can be modified to suit different proficiency levels. research interests include
technology-enhanced learning,
For example, lower-level students may need more time to
materials development and critical
complete their superhero profiles and collaborative stories. The theory. He is a PhD student at
group-writing activity can be assigned during the next class. Lancaster University in the UK,
studying e-research and
More advanced learners could write a paragraph that
technology-enhanced learning.
introduces their superheroes. They could also write an individual
seanhtoland@gmail.com
superhero story after the collaborative brainstorming activity. n

24 Issue 117 • July 2018 www.etprofessional.com


Game, set
and match!
hin
Alex Case looks at games in which
students match dominoes or cards.
lis
R
eaders who saw how many variations I
b
outlined in my article on jigsaw games in
Pu
Issue 113 of ETp might be surprised to
find that those are just part of the even
more varied and useful category of
‘matching games’. This article explains many
ion
versions of, and uses for, two matching games:
dominoes and pelmanism (also known as ‘pairs’ or
‘the memory game’).
vil
Dominoes
The more similar of these two games to a jigsaw
Pa
is dominoes, especially the ‘jigsaw dominoes’
variation explained below. Many of my students
are only aware of dominoes from YouTube videos
©
showing people standing them up in lines and
then knocking them over dramatically, so I
occasionally start by demonstrating an actual
game of dominoes. There are many variations,
but I tend to demonstrate a simplified version that
has the same rules as the ELT version that I will
then get them to play.
Regular dominoes
Each domino is a rectangle divided into two, with
between zero dots and six dots on each half. Each
domino in a set has a unique combination of
dots, and every possible combination of those
www.etprofessional.com
RESOURCES
ia
ed
M
nd
ga
numbers is included in a set of dominoes: from a
domino with no dots on both halves to a domino
with six dots on both halves.
Two to four players take seven dominoes each
and look at them, without showing them to anyone
else. One domino is then placed face up in the middle
of the table. The first player tries to match a number
on one of their dominoes to one of the halves of the
domino on the table, eg putting a domino that has
five dots on one half next to a matching domino with
five dots that is already on the table. If they can’t ‘go’,
and there are still dominoes which haven’t been dealt
out to any of the players, they take one more. Play
then passes to the next person. The person who
places all their dominoes or has the fewest left at the
end of the game wins.
ELT dominoes
Very young and low-level learners could benefit
from moving from one quick game of regular
dominoes to another game using a set of dominoes
with written numbers on the left-hand side of each
one and dots or figures on the right, so they have
to match six to 6, etc. They could also do similar
things with pictures, eg matching red on the right
of one domino to a patch of that colour on the left
of another domino, or matching the written word
cow to a picture of a cow. It is very easy to make
Issue 117 • July 2018 25
RESOURCES
your own paper dominoes with a two-column table
in a Word document, making sure that each end
matches at least one other domino and that you
leave the two columns together on each domino
when you cut them out. There are also many
commercial versions of picture dominoes, with
animal vocabulary, etc, but they usually have
problems, such as words with very tricky spellings
that aren’t easy to pronounce.
Picture dominoes are often also more like a
jigsaw than an actual set of dominoes, with only one
possible match for each half of each domino. This is
not necessarily a bad thing, but if that is the case, it is
often better to get the students to work together to
match all the cards to make a big circle (or rectangle)
instead of, or before, trying to play an actual game of
dominoes. It is easier and more satisfying if the final
order makes some kind of sense, eg if a set of
‘opinions’ phrases are alternatively positive and
negative, or if the finished days of the week are in
order when the students have put all the ‘jigsaw
dominoes’ together in the right way.
Matching half of a domino to the same or a
similar thing on another domino also works for:
first letters and matching words (eg Z with a
ga
hin
■■
picture of a zebra or A with ‘_pple’);
■■ phonemic symbols and words which start with
those sounds;
lis
■■ synonyms (such as character words with the same
meaning but positive and negative connotations);
b
■■ formal and informal phrases with the same
Pu
function (eg formal and informal requests);
■■ phrases which have the same word missing
(eg ‘__ a good time’ and ‘__ your hair cut’
because they both need the word have).
ion
Especially in higher-level classes, it is perhaps more
common and useful to get the students to match up
beginnings and endings of words, phrases, sentences,
vil
etc. This works well for negative prefixes and the
words they go with, collocations such as play and go
Pa
with sports, or beginnings and endings of useful
telephoning phrases. Other possibilities include:
■■ adjectives and dependent prepositions
(eg afraid + of);
©
■■ proverbs;
■■ compound nouns;
■■ binomials (eg safe and + sound);
■■ names of months (eg Jan + uary);
■■ irregular plural endings (eg ox + en);
■■ opinions phrases;
■■ travel phrases (eg airport phrases with alternate
phrases used by staff and travellers);
■■ beginnings and endings of words that the students
have been studying (eg whiteb + oard).
26 Issue 117 • July 2018
As well as matching similar things and beginnings
and endings, you could also match opposites,
eg I support … and I oppose … for opinions phrases
or generous and mean for character words.
Pelmanism
Like dominoes, pelmanism is also based on a game
that is common outside the classroom, but this time
played with a normal set of playing cards.
Regular pelmanism
ia
In the original version of pelmanism, a pack of
cards is spread face down across the table. Between
ed
two and four players take turns trying to find two
cards with the same number (the seven of diamonds
and the seven of hearts, etc), putting them back face
M
down in the same places if they don’t match. Play
then passes to the next person, either after each try
or whenever the person whose turn it is finds two
nd
which don’t match, with the latter variation being
more exciting but sometimes leading to one player
dominating the game.
ELT pelmanism
As with dominoes, the matches that the students
are looking for can be things that go with each
other or things which are similar in some way. For
example, if you want to practise prepositions of
time like at, on, in, etc, you could make cards with
those words and also cards with seven o’clock, my
birthday, June and the 17th century to match with
them, preferably with the two kinds of cards
having different sizes, shapes and/or colours.
However, I prefer to have just a pack of cards
with missing prepositions like ___ Monday and
___ New Year’s Day, and then ask the students to
find pairs which have the same word missing. It’s
generally best if there are the same number of
each kind of card and an even number of each
group, eg eight with at missing, eight with on
missing, etc. However, having fewer of some kinds
of cards and/or ‘orphan’ cards left at the end of
the game because there was an odd number is fine
and can make the game more challenging. You
can play with as few as two categories (eg just
different words meaning go up and go down) or as
many as ten categories (eg ten different missing
dependent prepositions). However, you need to
make sure that, as with the original card game,
there are several possible matches for each card. I
find that it works best with between three and five
groups of words, eg words which go with the
negative prefixes un-, in-, im- and ir-, with eight to
12 cards of each kind. This kind of pelmanism
works with the matches being the same ...
■■ kind of business communication (eg matching
two emailing phrases or two telephoning phrases);
■■ function (eg giving bad news and apologising);
www.etprofessional.com
 RESOURCES

■■ connotation (eg both negative or both neutral); setting up the game, and therefore any matches
■■ verb pattern (eg want and would like, because they that the students can think of and which make
both take the infinitive with to); sense are allowed. If you have a set of random
words that need revising, this also works without
■■ vowel sound;
any personalisation by asking the students to find
■■ first letter (eg a picture of a mouse and of a any similarity between the two cards that they turn
mountain); over. For example, if they turn over the words
■■ plural (eg phenomenon and medium, because both ladder and fuse, they could say A ladder is more
plurals end in a); dangerous than a fuse or They are both made of
■■ number of syllables; metal, to practise comparing/contrasting, or They
are safe, for simpler adjective practice. To expand
■■ stressed syllable;
the range of language used, it’s best to tell the

ia
■■ topic (eg two crime words or two marketing students that they must make sentences that are at
terms); least slightly different each time.

ed
■■ nationality ending (eg Britain and Sweden, Random pelmanism works with almost any
because both adjectives end with ish); vocabulary on the cards, but I have used it most

M
■■ question (eg often and once a week, because they often with animals, classroom objects, places, body
are both answers to How often …?); parts and academic vocabulary. For additional
■■ comparative form (-er, more, -ier, or irregular); language practice, you can also put some additional

nd
information about the vocabulary on the cards (eg
■■ level of formality (eg two extremely formal or two
both the British and American forms, or the plurals
standard business phrases).
of countable nouns). You can then test the students

Personalised pelmanism
It is also possible to play a personalised version
of pelmanism. If you have a pack of cards with
topics like food or vocabulary like unicycle on
them, the students can ask each other yes/no
questions about the two cards that they turn over
ga
on their memory of that aspect of the vocabulary
after the game.
The problem with random pelmanism can
hin
occasionally be that almost all the cards match
easily, therefore taking away the challenge. To avoid
that problem, you can make the game into ‘reverse
lis

and can keep the cards if they get the same pelmanism’, where the challenge is to find cards that
answer to both questions. For example, if they get their partner can’t match in any way.
the salt and paper cards and ask Is there any salt With students who find reading difficult and
b

in your bedroom? and Is there any paper in your with sets which are very tricky to match, you can
Pu

garden (now)? and get No answers to both, they also play pelmanism with the cards face up.
can keep both cards. Personalised pelmanism Another popular variation for younger students is
works for: ‘3D pelmanism’, in which they choose things such
as plastic fruit from just feeling in a bag and then
ion

■■ have (got);
■■ like; get points if they can say They are red, They are
big (in real life), etc.
■■ want;
Before or after playing pelmanism, I often get
vil

■■ there is/are; my students to put the matching cards in columns,

■■ countable and uncountable nouns; sometimes as a race. n
present continuous (eg Is your father wearing a
Pa

■■
tie? with two I don’t know answers also counting Accompanying this article and downloadable
as a match). from the ETp website at www.etprofessional.
com/media/31274/etp117_onlineresources_
©

The other possibility is to ask the students to alexcase_doyoulike.pdf are instructions for the
combine both cards in one true statement about teacher and a set of cards to use with a random
their partner or in a question that their partner pelmanism game called ‘Do you like ...?’.
answers Yes to, eg trying to make true conditional
sentences like If we hadn’t invented cars, trains would Alex Case teaches in Japan and
be more popular, or trying to get Yes answers to publishes his teaching materials
and ideas at http://tefltastic.
questions like If you had wings, would you save
wordpress.com.
people jumping off bridges?
alexcase@hotmail.com
Random pelmanism
These personalised variations are a kind of
random pelmanism. By random, I mean that the
teacher hasn’t decided the correct matches when

www.etprofessional.com Issue 117 • July 2018 27

IN THE CLASSROOM
Students’
stories
David Heathfield tells a tale of wisdom from the Middle East.
A
li Algamedi emailed me an
audio-recording of himself
telling ‘The three pieces of
gold’ so that he could get
feedback about his
pronunciation and language use before he
told the story in class to his fellow students.
The difference between this initial
recording and his subsequent performance
was impressive, which reflected the time
and dedication he put into the task. Now, a
year later, Ali is completing his
postgraduate studies in mathematics at the
University of Exeter, UK.
When Ali told the story, he called the
central protagonist ‘the man’. I feel the
story is clearer if this character has a
name, so, with permission, I call him Ali.
‘The three pieces of gold’
Storytelling tip: Predicting
To orientate students before telling a
ion
story, it is a good idea to introduce some
key vocabulary and give them a chance
to ask you some questions, so that they
can then predict the plot. This kind of
vil
predicting is particularly helpful in the
case of longer stories like this Middle-
Pa
Eastern wisdom tale. It increases the
likelihood that the students will remain
engaged in the storytelling, as they
compare what they imagined with the
©
events in the story as you tell it.
28 Issue 117 • July 2018
7
Before telling
Let your students know that you are
going to tell them a Middle-Eastern tale
M
called ‘The three pieces of gold’. Show
them a word cloud like the one below or
write up the 12 most frequent key words
nd
from the story. After checking that the
students understand words such as
wisdom and vultures, give them a
ga
two-minute time limit to find out as much
as they can about what happens in the
story by asking you quick-fire questions.
hin
Give quick and helpful answers, without
giving away the whole story.
Now give the students, working in
lis
pairs, another three minutes to tell the
plot of the story they think you will tell.
Ask them to listen and help you tell the
b
story, and explain that, afterwards, they
Pu
will be able to compare their predicted
story with the one you tell them.
While telling
Involve the class in your telling of the
story by inviting different students to say
their answers to the questions Ali asks
himself, eg Should I give the wise old man
a piece of gold in exchange for a piece of
wisdom? and What shall I do? It works
well if the students don’t agree with each
other and need to justify their answers.
After telling
Ask the same pairs as before to discuss the
similarities and differences between the
actual story and the plots they predicted.
Ask the students to choose their most
memorable moment from the story you
told them and to describe it to their
partner. Then, from the whole class, find
three memorable moments from different
parts of the story. Ask the students to
stand up facing you in their own space and
to make a ‘freeze’ of the chosen moment
that comes earliest in the story – in other
words, they should all ‘become’ the same
character at that moment in the story,
without moving a muscle or making a
sound. For example, they might all be the
wise old man looking up at the birds and
laughing. Do the same with the second
memorable moment. It is likely that the
third memorable moment will be the point
in the story when Ali is pointing the gun
through the window at the man talking
with his wife, not knowing that the man is
his son. This time ask them to get into
ia
groups of three and make a ‘freeze’. As
they are holding the ‘freeze’, say: ‘In a
ed
moment you are going to bring this scene to
life. Ali is going to hear the man say
“Mother” and he will know that this man is
his son. When he comes into the house, his
wife and son will be very surprised. They will
ask Ali many questions about what
happened. How will they react when they
find out about the horse, the gold and the
gun? Find the voice and the way your
character moves. 3–2–1, begin!’
After the students have acted out the
scene the first time, ask them to do it a
second time, this time focusing on feelings.
You could give each group time to write a
script of their scene at this stage, to
develop the language they used when
acting it out. Finally, invite some groups to
take turns performing the scene in front of
the whole class, and ask for positive and
constructive comments about their
performances from the rest of the class.
Finally, the students will be ready for
a whole-class discussion about the
meanings they find in the story.
t t t
You can learn this story by listening to
me telling it to international learners of
English on YouTube at www.youtube.
com/watch?v=eFbEYeqR5yE or by
reading it on the next page. n
David Heathfield is a
freelance storyteller,
teacher and teacher
trainer. He is the author
of Storytelling With Our
Students: Techniques
for Telling Tales from
Around the World and
Spontaneous
Speaking: Drama
Activities for Confidence and Fluency, both
published by DELTA Publishing. He is a
member of The Creativity Group.
www.davidheathfield.co.uk
www.etprofessional.com

The three pieces of gold
O
nce upon a time, there was a
young man called Ali, who
was so poor that he could no
longer earn enough money
to look after his young wife
and his baby son. So he said to his wife: ‘I
must leave to travel far away and, when I
have enough, then I’ll return.’
Ali travelled far across the land until he
came to a river. He waded across the river
and arrived in a new country. He travelled
further and finally came to a mill, where he
asked the miller for work.
The miller said, ‘Can I trust you?’
‘Of course.’
Every day, he worked in the mill,
grinding grain to make flour, so bread could
be baked. The days turned into weeks. The
weeks turned into months. The months
turned into years. After 20 years, he thought:
‘I can be away from my wife no longer.’
Ali went to the miller and said: ‘I am
leaving. I am returning home to my wife.’
‘You have worked hard for me all these
20 years. I’ll give you all that I have. Take
these three pieces of gold.’
Ali gladly took the gold and set off for
his home. Soon he met three men on the
road and they walked along together. Two
of the men were young and they talked to
him, but the third man was strange and old.
He didn’t speak and always looked up at
the birds flying above from one tree to the
next. Often the old man laughed.
Ali asked the two young men: ‘Who is
that old man?’
‘That is our father. He is a wise man.
vil
Our father can understand the language of
the birds.’
Pa
‘Is it true?’ asked Ali. ‘Why does he
never speak?’
‘He is a man of few words, but his
speech is wise and his wisdom is valuable.
©
You can learn much from him.’
Ali thought about this as they walked
along, and he remembered the three pieces
of gold in his pocket. ‘Should I give the wise
old man a piece of gold in exchange for a
piece of wisdom?’ He turned to the old man
and said, ‘Here is a piece of gold. Please give
me one piece of wisdom.’
He pressed the gold into the old man’s
hand and the old man’s eyes shone as he
spoke: ‘Never cross a river after heavy rain.’
‘How can this advice help me?’
www.etprofessional.com
thought Ali as they walked on.
Ali felt the other two pieces of gold in
his pocket and wondered what he should
do. ‘Should I exchange another piece of
gold for a second piece of wisdom?’
Ali put another piece of gold in the old
man’s hand, and the old man smiled as he
spoke: ‘When you see vultures circling in
the sky above, go and see.’
As they continued walking, Ali thought:
‘What does this mean? Many times I’ve
seen vultures circling in the sky but I’ve
always walked past.’
Now Ali and the three travellers were
nearly at the place where their ways parted.
Ali thought about the third piece of gold:
‘I should bring this last piece home to my
nd
wife.’ But he couldn’t stop himself from
wondering what the third piece of wisdom
ga
would be. ‘Should I buy a third piece of
wisdom with this last piece of gold?’
Ali gave the gold to the old man, who
looked into Ali’s eyes and said, ‘Never act
hin
in anger. First count the years you have
been away.’
Ali said goodbye to his three travelling
lis
companions and went on towards the river,
but then it began to rain. Soon it was raining
hard. The sky grew dark. Black clouds
b
appeared and there was a great crash of
Pu
thunder. The heavens opened and the sky
emptied water onto the ground below. Ali
pressed on through the rain, and finally the
storm passed and the sky cleared.
ion
Ali came to the river and the water
seemed calm. Ali wondered, ‘Perhaps …
perhaps I can wade across. What shall I do?’
Then Ali remembered the old man’s
wisdom: ‘Never cross a river after heavy rain.’
Ali waited and, as he stood there, a
young man rode up on a fine horse. ‘What
are you doing, standing here?’
Ali said, ‘I am waiting to cross the river.’
The young man laughed at Ali and
shouted, ‘Are you afraid? Watch me!’
The young man rode his horse into the
river, but underneath the calm surface there
was a strong current and the young man
and his horse were carried down the river
and away. As Ali watched, he saw the horse
swimming alone back to the edge of the
river, but the young man had drowned.
Ali looked after that horse and fed it.
When the horse was ready, Ali climbed onto
the back of that fine horse and he began to
IN THE CLASSROOM
ride along the riverbank. He rode until he
finally came to a bridge across the river. He
crossed the bridge and then he rode towards
his home, thinking: ‘My wife will be glad to
see me riding on this fine horse.’
As he was passing a forest, he looked up
and he saw three vultures circling in the sky
above the trees. ‘What shall I do?’ he thought.
Then Ali remembered the old man’s
ia
wisdom: ‘When you see vultures circling in
the sky above, go and see.’
ed
Ali got down and tied the horse to a tree.
He walked between the trees of the forest
looking up at the vultures until finally he
M
came to a clearing. There were the bodies of
three dead men lying on the ground. Next to
them were the guns they had used to shoot
each other, and between them was a bag full
of gold. Ali saw that these men were robbers
and that they had killed each other because
each wanted the gold for himself. Ali picked
up the bag of gold and one of the guns and
went back through the trees. He climbed
onto the horse and rode towards his home
thinking ‘My wife will be glad to see this bag
full of gold’.
When he reached home, it was already
getting dark. He climbed down from the
horse and went towards the house. As he
was coming nearer, he looked through the
window and there was his own wife. Ali could
hear her talking to a man in the house. ‘Has
my own wife forgotten me? My wife has
found another man!’
In his anger, Ali pointed the gun through
the window at the man and was about to
shoot. ‘What shall I do?’ he thought.
Then Ali remembered the old man’s
wisdom: ‘Never act in anger. First count the
years you have been away.’
Ali was angry, but he began to count,
‘One, two, three … who is this man that my
wife smiles and laughs with? Ten, eleven,
twelve … I see the love for this man in her
eyes. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen … now I
will kill the man who takes my place!’
But just as he reached twenty, Ali heard
the word ‘Mother’ from the man’s lips. This
must be his own son! Ali put down the gun
and, with tears running down his cheeks, he
ran into the house and stood before his son,
now 20 years old, and his wife. Ali put his
arms around them both and wept for joy.
There they lived in plenty for the rest of
their days, all thanks to the wise man who
spoke the language of birds.
Issue 117 • July 2018 29
 ETpedia 1,000 ideas for English
“… a one-stop treasure trove
of ideas. Especially useful
language teachers
for new teachers, it should

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provide plenty of inspiration

ed
for last-minute classes …”
EL Gazette

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nd
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ETpedia is the practical companion for English
language teachers. With thousands of ideas
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across seven titles, ETpedia offers inspiration,

useful teaching advice, activities to use in the
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E166-10-14

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 IT WORKS
IN PRACTICE
More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all worked
for ETp readers. Try them out for yourself – and then send us your own
contribution. All the contributors to this issue will receive a digital subscription
to Modern English Teacher.

ia
ed
football boots and shirt, and the children were eager to tell me what sports they play
THE MYSTERY BOX (and how smelly my shoes were!).

M
Luke McGlynn, Swansea, UK Other possibilities:
A ‘mystery box’ is a closed box ■■  nce the students understand the concept, they can be encouraged to bring their
O
containing an object or objects own items to class and put them in the mystery box.

nd
which the students are asked to
■■  ou could use the mystery box to set up the context for the day’s lesson by putting
Y
speculate about. Sometimes, they
inside it items related to the target vocabulary.
are invited to put their hands through

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a hole in the box so that they can ■■  ou could choose items related to a particular phonic such as an apple, a toy
Y
feel what is inside. I have started ambulance and a toy ant to make ‘phonic time’ more engaging. n
taking a mystery box to my young
hin
learner classes, and I have been
amazed how excited the children are
when they see the box and how
much language production it
lis

generates.
There are a number of things you
b

can do with a mystery box but, first,

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you will need to make one. You can

find lots of inspiring ideas on the
internet, but all you really need is a
shoe box (or similar), some coloured
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paper and a little imagination. I have

added crepe paper, cotton wool and
pipe cleaners inside my box to make
vil

it more tactile. Mine also has a hole

so that the students can put their
hands into the box without seeing
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the objects inside.

I use the mystery box at the end
of my closing routine after tidy-up
©

time and writing the homework on

the board. I gather all the students
into a big circle on a mat and play IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
my ‘mystery box song’. Then they
take turns to feel inside the box, Do you have ideas you’d like to share with colleagues
describe the item inside and guess around the world? Tips, techniques and activities; simple
what it is. Finally, I take the mystery or sophisticated; well-tried or innovative; something that
item out and show it to them, telling has worked well for you? All contributions win a prize!
them a little story about it and Write to us or email:
encouraging them to add information helena.gomm@pavpub.com
or ask any questions. For example,
last week, after a lesson on hobbies,
the objects in the box were my

32 Issue 117 • July 2018 www.etprofessional.com

 IT WORKS IN PRACTICE

THINKING OUTSIDE
(AND INSIDE) THE BOX
Tien Minh Mai, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
The idea of using a box with my students occurred to me when
I was given a small paper box at a professional development
event sponsored by Macmillan. The outside of the box was
printed with the publisher’s promotional materials. I saw that it
was a very well-designed box, and I wondered whether there
was something I could do with it in my classroom.
Then I realised that creative language learning and
that the box has been magically transformed – and what they
are looking at now isn’t a box at all, but some other object.
Using the box as a prop, they then have to take turns to act
out a short scene to enable the others to guess what the box
has become for them, without using the name of the object.
The pair or team of students who are the first to guess
correctly then take their turn to act out their scene. Some of
my students at CEFR B1 level have performed scenes that
depict the box as a cushion, cigarettes, a pair of boots or a
paddle. Others have chosen very ordinary objects, such as a
lunch box, bottle of milk, mobile phone, hat, laptop, book,
eraser, purse, pencil case, watch, motorbike, airplane, etc. It

ia
teaching does not take much: it can be as simple as the
is a good idea to encourage divergent thinking and upgrade
teacher’s or students’ ownership of a box, which can be in
the students’ linguistic competence by creating a list of

ed
any shape or form. The box could come from anywhere: I use
over-exploited objects and words and challenging the
the box that contains my USB-HDMI cable (see Figure 1), but
students to avoid them.
it could just as well be the box in which an online retailer has

M
delivered your shopping. Any box will do! Of course, you don’t have to use a box for this
improvisation activity, any other object would do. I often use a
Here are three ideas for activities that employ three
face mask, a popular object with Ho Chi Minh City-dwellers
principles of creativity – curiosity, improvisation and

nd
who commute to work by motorbike.
randomness – and which can all be used with students of any
level or age. They have a dual aim: to help the students
3 A dice box

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practise language creatively, and to teach them about the
principles of creativity. The random combination principle dictates that meaningful
learning can be created out of randomised construction. A dice
box can be used to inject the element of randomness into a
hin
variety of activities. Basically, a dice box is a box with six faces,
all the same size, on which numbers, words or images can be
displayed. When the box is rolled (like dice), whatever is on the
lis

face on top must be used by the students in an activity.

To create a dice box, you could use a template downloaded
b

from the Tools for Educators website (https://goo.gl/8pVggF).

Here, you will find a useful collection of dice templates with dots,
Pu

texts and pictures. It is a good idea to print the templates out on

strong paper, so that they last longer, and to dedicate about ten
minutes of class time for the students to cut them out and
ion

construct them. Once each student owns a dice, they can work
in pairs or teams, taking turns or rolling their dice simultaneously
Figure 1 to do the following activities:
 ombine a pair/group of word or picture prompts to
C
1 A mysterious box
vil

■■
produce a creative sentence. For example, Mum is
Many people agree on the importance of cultivating curiosity ironing clothes for our new baby snake (see Figure 2).
(the ability to question) in learning. As a lead-in or warm-up
Pa

■■ Combine a pair/group of prompts to create a story.

activity, the teacher first places a secret object inside the box
and gives a few hints as to what it might be. The students
■■ Review speaking topics before an exam. n
then take turns to ask questions about the object in the box
©

(between ten and 20 questions in total) before they have to

guess what it is. Useful language structures may be written
on the board, depending on the students’ level (ranging from
I think it’s a ..., for low-level students, to Well, it has to be ...,
for more advanced ones). The final ‘unboxing’ of the object
can be made more dramatic with some background music, or
even delayed until the end of the lesson, as a way to sustain
the students’ curiosity and interest.

2 A prop box
The aim of this activity is to encourage improvisation. The
students are put into pairs or teams and asked to imagine
Figure 2

www.etprofessional.com Issue 117 • July 2018 33

Reviews
Creative Output: Activities for
Teaching Speaking and Writing
by Gerhard Erasmus and Hall Houston
Erasmus and Houston 2017
978-1-537-12828-3
How do I keep my lessons interesting and fun
over the long haul? This is a question most of
us have had to ask at some point in our
teaching careers. Students demand that their
lessons should be both fun and interesting,
perhaps more than ever, and it is part of the
unspoken contract between the students and
the teacher that they should be so. No matter
how many training courses we have been on,
ion
and how many years of experience we have,
the pressure to vary what we do in our
classrooms is constant – whether it is that
special observed lesson, the need to keep our
vil
students engaged over months of instruction,
or simply to prevent us, as teachers, from
getting bored and frustrated with having to
Pa
teach the same material all over again. Variety
and creative resourceful ideas for activities is
where Creative Output meets this need.
©
The self-published book is divided into
two main subsections. In Part A, Erasmus
and Houston briefly discuss the theory
behind their title – namely, output hypothesis
– stating that producing language, ie speaking
and writing, is a vital part of learning a
second language. From this foundation,
conditions that need to be met for output
activities to be effective are laid down.
The authors state their goal to be that
everything said in the book ‘is questioned
and that different readers each get something
different out of [it]’. They clearly aim to
34 Issue 117 • July 2018
provide their readers with a springboard for determine the most effective language
thought and discussion. They demonstrate teaching method. However, I believe that
their awareness that every teacher is a this book would make a highly pragmatic
materials developer to some extent, but that, and useful contribution to every teacher’s
generally, little guidance is provided by toolbox of activities.
training courses and books as to how to
Paulina Melichova
approach the task of supplementing the
Dundee, Scotland
coursebook with engaging and true-to-life
activities. In light of this, two of the most
The Image in English Language
ia
useful sections in the first part of the book
are the checklists of procedures for Teaching
ed
successful speaking and writing activities. Edited by Kieran Donaghy
The practical Part B contains easy-to- and Daniel Xerri
navigate sections on speaking and writing ELT Council 2017
M
activities (separate and integrated), moving 978-99957-1-151-1
from input to output, book-based activities
and those tailored to young learners.
nd
The book concludes with a brief list of
language functions with contexts in which
they appear, as well as a list of resources on
output hypothesis.
ga
teaching speaking and writing, and the
Some of the highlights of the book
hin
are:
■■ The open-ended nature of the activities,
which leaves ample space for adaptation.
lis
■■ The step-by-step procedures given for
each activity.
b
■■ The creative variations on familiar
coursebook tasks which are offered.
Pu
■■ The layout, which provides space to
customise each activity by adding notes
and comments.
■■ In the real world, individual language
skills are rarely used in isolation. The The Image in English Language Teaching
authors skilfully address the need for argues that, in spite of a dramatic shift in
integrated practice of productive skills. how we engage with visual media on a
regular basis in today’s society, the ELT
There are some things that I think could be
industry has been slow to adapt. Although
improved. For example, many of the
some coursebooks are beginning to use
activities depend on the students being able
images to stimulate debate in classrooms,
to contribute resourceful ideas, which in my
there is still a dominance of mono-modal
experience is often not the case. I also feel
texts, even though students engage with
that some activities would benefit from a
multi-modal texts much more frequently
clear rationale and clarification about how
outside class. This current state of affairs is
the success of the activity will be measured.
due to little attempt being made to design
In addition, many of them seem to be
materials in accordance with pedagogies
tailored to students whose needs consist of
espousing the virtues of visual literacy,
forming and discussing opinions. This might
resulting in superficial stock photos in
be a valid approach in certain contexts, but it
coursebooks being underexploited. Indeed,
would be good to see other language
despite some teacher development books
functions covered in the book. The activities
promoting the critical use of visual media in
would also benefit from recommendations of
classrooms since 1966, ELT teachers today
level and indications of approximate timing.
require visual literacy training more than
There is, as yet, no conclusive evidence ever, especially with the increasing use of
as to the exact nature of second language technology in the classroom causing visual
acquisition, and no one has yet been able to literacy to be not just overlooked, but also
www.etprofessional.com

misinterpreted. By bringing together a series
of papers based on talks given at The Image
Conference (five conferences have been held
so far, supported by the IATEFL Learning
Technologies SIG), this book intends to
encourage teachers (and, indirectly, their
learners) to become more visually literate,
through discussing the benefits and
challenges associated with these new literary
practices in ELT. In addition, several chapters
provide activities to try out in the classroom.
An example of the promotion of visual
literacy is the use of video in the language
classroom. In Chapter 2, Anna Whitcher
expresses her belief that processes such as
film-making can instigate positive change
in the classroom by promoting not just
‘21st-century skills’, but also visual literacy
through critical examination of the
students’ finished products.
However, while it hasn’t always been
feasible to engage in both the process and
the product of film-making in the ELT
classroom, videos are now ultimately
changing the ways in which we learn, which
means that teachers should be trained to
exploit them effectively. Training should not
just be limited to video, however. The
implications of using images from social
media in the classroom are also explored in
this book, with Magdalena Wasilewska
arguing that coursebook images won’t suffice
to satiate digital natives’ preferences for using
visual media to communicate. Teachers,
therefore, need to be selective in choosing
images from a diverse array of sources:
images that either generate emotion or
contain enough visual clues and recognisable
concepts for the learners to be able to use
them to develop their own language skills.
But it is not just the selection of visual
vil
media that is critical, but how this media is
used in class. Personalised and reflective
processes, ranging from journal-writing to
Pa
‘artist-in-residence’ programmes, mentioned
by Chrysa Papalazarou and Emma Louise
Pratt respectively, allow for artwork to be
©
further incorporated into classes in a
beneficial way, and it is clear that images
from a plethora of sources provide teachers
with a wealth of opportunities to develop
visual literacy alongside language
acquisition. An example of this is
storytelling, as explored by Paul Dummett,
which can foster greater emotional
engagement, leading to deeper processing
and ultimately longer-lasting learning.
However, the book argues that these sorts of
tasks have not truly had their potential
explored, and run the risk of becoming
www.etprofessional.com
short-term trends at the mercy of ELT
publishers, an issue also facing digital games
in ELT, as argued by Paul Driver.
The conclusion is that visual media
clearly play an integral role in classrooms yet
remain underexploited by teachers and
publishers. Despite appearing quite academic
in nature, this book provides a fascinating
insight into how images and video can be
utilised in the language class to develop visual
literacy awareness. By providing the reader
with a range of activities to trial in the
classroom, this book truly encourages us to
reconsider our role, not just as language
teachers, but also as practitioners of visual
literacy, so that we can ensure that our
classrooms are more relevant and more in
tune with the needs of our students in an
increasingly modernised society.
Tom Flaherty
nd
Barcelona, Spain
ga
Talking Images: Idioms
by Lucy Holmes and Sharlene Matharu
Lucy Holmes and Sharlene Matharu 2017
hin
978-15272-1-555-9
lis
b
Pu
ion
This self-published photocopiable resource
book is a delightful way of teaching idioms
in a creative, meaningful and fun way.
The material is divided into 12 units,
each working on a different theme, such
as feelings, health and fitness, travel,
relationships and money. The units follow
the same pattern, beginning with
Teacher’s Notes, which provide teacher-
friendly instructions on how the units
should be taught, as well as the answers
REVIEWS
to the exercises and the key vocabulary
the students need to know for that
particular unit. The next two pages focus
on various activities to practise the 12
idioms featured in each unit, and these
include speaking activities where the
students have the opportunity to use
the newly-acquired language in a
communicative way. The last section
has picture cards illustrating the idioms.
The units are based on the PPP
(Presentation–Practice–Production)
ia
approach, and they all start with a
warm-up, followed by practice activities
ed
with a special focus on accuracy – which is
vital, given that idioms are extremely fixed
expressions. The follow-up activities range
M
from free conversations to open questions
or discussions, so boredom is never part of
this book. There are also homework and
revision tasks to help the students
consolidate what they have learnt. At the
back of the book is a table with all the
idioms, and a very useful index.
I have tried out the units extensively with
a number of students at different levels, and
they have proved to be engaging and
motivating. This book has also helped me
supplement my main coursebook and add
variety to my lessons. I have observed that the
game-like aspect, where the students have to
look at a picture card to work out what idiom
it represents, was a productive speaking
activity in itself and generated a lot of
discussion. I have also noticed that even after
a few weeks, my students were still able to
remember the expressions.
My only reservation is that most of the
idioms are not in context, so the teacher
needs to provide a context or explain when
an expression is used. By simply looking at
the picture card and the idiom ‘bark up the
wrong tree’, for example, a student would
never be able to understand its real
meaning, let alone complete the table with
the definition. If the idioms were presented
in context, the students would be able to
work more independently and the lessons
would be more student-centred.
Talking Images: Idioms works with
idioms like no other book I have
encountered, and it is ideal for any level, but
especially B1 upwards. It is very well
thought-out, and I fully agree when the
authors say it is ‘a resource book by teachers
for teachers’. Not only did my students
enjoy every single lesson in which we used it,
but I did too, so I thoroughly recommend it.
William Chaves Gomes
London, UK
Issue 117 • July 2018 35
 SCRAPBOOK Gems, titbits, puzzles, foibles, quirks, bits & pieces, quotations,
snippets, odds & ends, what you will

Title
Moving forward or moving back?
Progress:
Scrapbook probably
subone of the(standfirst)
head most subjective words in the English language – all you can really say is that
it means movement of some kind! The concept of progress will bring some people cheering to their feet,

ia
Article sans body copy article sans body article
and leave others sobbing into their beer, gin or wine.
sans body article sans body article sans body

ed
I once heard a wonderful army expression, and I don’t know whether it is in current use, but I do hope so:
‘advancing negatively’! For a number of people, that is what progress means: moving, but not necessarily
in a forward direction.

M
‘Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.’ These are the words of Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian
adventurer, who sailed a hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamoto Islands, thereby demonstrating
that our ancestors made much more progress than we ever imagined and were capable of making long sea

nd
voyages and establishing contact with other cultures.
As writer Aldous Huxley once remarked:

ga
‘Technological progress has merely provided us
with more efficient means for going backwards.’
Albert Einstein was even more forthright:
hin
‘Technological progress is like an axe in the
hands of a pathological criminal.’
lis

Progress given the green Moving on

b

light ... or perhaps the

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And then there is the

red light? neutral approach to
progress. To ‘progress’
Technology has long been the ambivalent symbol of can mean simply to go
ion

progress, with many people applauding the actual forward or onward in

technical achievements, but questioning the real-life space or time:
application and use. An easy example is the Mobile
The train progressed
vil

Device (making actual phone calls is so old-fashioned): a

through the valley.
solution has been found to the problem of Device users
wandering, oblivious, into the path of traffic. This involves As the play
Pa

a complex system of lighted studs in the pavement at a progressed, the

pedestrian crossing. The Dutch town of Bodegraven is leading man grew
already trying out such a system. The pavement lights fainter and fainter.
are linked to the traffic lights and glow red when it is not In this sense, progress
©

safe to cross and green when it is. However, the Dutch
Traffic Safety Association is not impressed and has
accused the system of ‘rewarding bad behaviour’. ‘It’s
not a good idea to help mobile phone users look at their
phones,’ said their spokesperson.
is simply moving on:
A couple finally managed to save enough money to buy
a house, and they excitedly picked up the keys from the
estate agent. When they got to the front door of their
new home, they were delighted to see that someone had
sent them some flowers. However, when they read the
accompanying card, it said Rest in peace. The man was
rather cross and called the florist to complain. After he
had pointed out the obvious mistake and said how angry
he was, the florist replied, ‘Sir, I’m really sorry for the
mistake, but rather than getting angry, you should
imagine this: somewhere there is a funeral taking place
today, and they have flowers with a note saying,
Congratulations on your new home.’

36 Issue 117 • July 2018 www.etprofessional.com


Progress as change
The 13th President of the United States, Millard Fillmore, was
cautious in his attitude to progress: ‘It is not strange ... to
mistake change for progress.’
The 44th President, Barack Obama, was a little more optimistic:
‘If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep
walking, eventually you’ll make progress.’
Other optimists include Kahlil Gibran: ‘Progress lies not in
enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.’
And inventor Charles Kettering: ‘Every time you tear a leaf off a
calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.’
However, there are also the realists:
‘Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They
come out of struggles from below.’ Noam Chomsky
‘We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress
hin
means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road;
in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most
progressive.’ C S Lewis
lis
‘Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot
change their minds cannot change anything.’ George Bernard Shaw
b
Pu
A change for
the better?
ion
An Amish boy and his father were
visiting a shopping centre for the
very first time. Being unused to any
kind of modern technology, they
vil
were amazed by almost everything
they saw, but especially by two
shiny, silver walls that could move
Pa
apart and back together again. The
boy asked his father what these
were. The father responded, ‘Son, I
©
have never seen anything like this in
my life, I don’t know what it is.’
While the boy and his father were watching, wide-eyed, an old woman
in a wheelchair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button.
The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room.
The walls closed and the boy and his father watched small circles of
lights with numbers above the walls light up. They then continued to
watch the circles light up in the reverse direction. The walls then
opened up again and an athletic young woman stepped out.
The father said to his son, ‘Go get your mother.’
Whether you see this story as progress or simply change depends
on your sympathies ...
www.etprofessional.com
Perceptions of progress
Progress is often illustrated by historical comparisons, a
favourite of which is comparing means of getting to school:
A boy asked his father for a lift to school, even though it
was just a ten-minute walk away.
‘You should be ashamed,’ his father told him. ‘When
Abraham Lincoln was your age, he used to walk ten
miles every day to get to school.’
‘Really?’ the boy replied. ‘Well, when he was your age,
he was President.’
These sorts of comparisons are often irrelevant, and
remind me of perhaps the ultimate comparison, from the
ia
wonderful musician and songwriter Tom Lehrer:
‘It is a sobering thought, and one that makes you realise
ed
how little you’ve accomplished, that by the time he was
my age, Mozart had been dead for ten years!’ (Mozart
M
died at the tender age of just 36.)
Pet peeves
nd
■■  ake a copy of the worksheet on the next page for each
M
ga
pair of students in the class.
■■  ut the students into pairs. (You will need an even
P
number of pairs to make this activity work best; if this
is not possible, having some groups of three would
also work.) Give each pair a copy of the worksheet.
Explain the term pet peeve (something that a particular
person finds especially annoying and which they like
complaining about).
■■  ell the pairs that they have ten minutes to think of six
T
aspects of life today that annoy or irritate them. Explain
that these can be objects, such as computer games,
mobile phones, etc, or they can be less tangible things,
such as stress, bad manners, arriving late, etc. They
should draw a quick sketch of these things, one in each
of the boxes on their worksheet. Emphasise that they
should not write any words.
■■  sk them to swap their worksheets with another pair,
A
without telling the other pair what their pictures
represent. They should then look at the pictures they
have been given, decide what they think they
represent, and talk about their own feelings about
these things. Then ask them to get together with the
pair that drew the pictures to explain what they thought
the pictures represented.
■■  ow tell the pairs that they have been given the chance
N
to ban one of these things for ever, and they should
discuss which thing to ban from the ones they got from
the other pair. Allow them about four minutes for this,
then ask them to get together with the other pair again
and explain which thing they decided to ban.
■■  his can be extended into a whole-class discussion. Write a
T
list of all the things that were drawn on the worksheets on
the board, and get the students to discuss as a class which
one they would all ban if they had the choice.
Scrapbook compiled by Ian Waring Green
Issue 117 • July 2018 37
 Pet peeves
In pairs, think of six things about life today that you find annoying or which make you angry. Draw a picture of each
one in the boxes below. Don’t write down any words.

1 2

ia
ed
M
nd
3 4
ga
hin
b lis
Pu
ion
vil

5 6
Pa
©

38 Issue 117 • July 2018 www.etprofessional.com


Katie Martin has her students on the edge of their seats to learn some tricky collocations.
I
hin
was already a practising teacher when I studied for my MA
in TESOL, and that played a big part in why I chose a
classroom experiment for my dissertation topic. I had
thoroughly enjoyed the theoretical reading and discussions
lis
that formed a large part of the course, but I very much
wanted to test a hunch from my own classroom when it came
to doing my own research.
b
Teachers know that vocabulary games are useful learning
Pu
tools. At the beginning of my career, I had been taught a
vocabulary game, called ‘Best chair, worst chair’, using lexical
sets for very young learners, and involving nothing but the target
ion
language and a number of chairs. Over the years, I adapted this
fun repetition game for use with older children and adults, often
using it to focus on preposition collocations which are sometimes
hard to remember, such as addicted to and suffer from. Playing
vil
the game appeared surprisingly effective in helping the students
to remember these arbitrary patterns, even enabling them to
recall them a day or two afterwards. But was that as far as it
Pa
went? Was it just wishful thinking that I wasn’t wasting time by
playing a frivolous game?
My dissertation research gave me the chance to test empirically
©
my hunch that it was an effective learning tool. The idea was
simple: count how many students remembered how many
collocation phrases two weeks after playing ‘Best chair, worst
chair’. The results (using simple statistical analysis, which I was
able to do on my own) gave a strong indication that my adapted
game was indeed helping my students to remember the phrases.
The game
‘Best chair, worst chair’ is a verbal, competitive game with a
focus on form, rather than meaning. It focuses on which
preposition matches which headword, rather than what the
phrases actually mean. Here are the instructions for playing it:
www.etprofessional.com
IN THE CLASSROOM
ia
ed
Best chair,
M
worst chair
nd
ga
1 Have everyone sit in a circle on their chairs. Say
solemnly that you, the teacher, are in the ‘best chair’ and
apologise to the learner sitting to your left – they are in
the ‘worst chair’. Point out that the chairs become
progressively ‘better’ in rank as you move clockwise.
Elicit that everyone wants to sit in a better chair and, of
course, the best chair.
2 Assign a different collocation phrase, eg suffer from,
scared of, to each student. Get them to echo each one
back to you, both individually and as a group, to check
that they’ve got it. Be strict with accuracy and
pronunciation.
3 Reiterate that you are in the best chair, so you will begin.
Call out one of the phrases (try to choose one that belongs
to a strong or confident student). Hopefully, the student in
that chair will respond and look inquisitively at you, and
you can prompt them to call out another phrase. Then get
the student in that chair to call out another phrase. Once
the learners realise that they have to remember quite a few
phrases, they may suddenly become alert and want to have
a quick rerun of all the available phrases. Once you have a
rhythm of phrase calling, start to get strict with timing by
holding up three fingers and counting down to an
exploding-bomb closed fist.
4 When somebody makes a mistake with a phrase,
forgets to respond or is too slow, stop the game and
tell the offender they must move to sit in the worst
chair. Make sure that each student, from the original
one in the worst chair to the person sitting to the right
of the culprit, moves one chair to their left to fill the
gap. Don’t let the original worst chair student jump
chairs to sit in the offender’s chair. Inform the students
that the phrases belong to the chairs, not to them. If
Issue 117 • July 2018 39
IN THE CLASSROOM
they are sitting in a new chair, they now have a new
phrase. Allow for a little excitable panicking, and get
the original chair holders to share their initial phrases
if required.
5 When this has happened once, the students will quickly
deduce how the game works. Their aim is to work their
way around the circle to sit in the best chair. Remind
them to use your phrase (I usually choose an ‘easy’
phrase for myself, to encourage the students to use it) in
order to get you into the worst chair and another
student into the best chair. They may be reluctant to do
this, but once it happens (sometimes ‘accidentally on
purpose’ on my part), the game really takes off when
you tell the new ‘best chair’ that they are in charge and
should start the next round.
6 Play for around 15–20 minutes. I usually finish by
getting the whole class to shout out the phrases, one by
one. The students are often surprised by how easy it
now is to belt out the phrases without thinking when,
earlier in the lesson, they may well have struggled to
select the suitable preposition.
The rationale
‘Best chair, worst chair’ is a repetition game, where each
hin
phrase can be spoken and heard around 48 times. However, I
wouldn’t dismiss it as merely a decontextualised drill: it draws
awareness to collocation patterning that is otherwise not
noticeable to the students. For 15–20 minutes, target
lis
vocabulary is rapidly repeated, with the whole class paying
keen attention without becoming bored. The students have to
b
keep the phrase assigned to their chair in mind, and at least a
few others to shout out when cued.
Pu
Nevertheless, as a CELTA graduate well-versed in the
Communicative Approach, I was concerned that this game
might lean towards the dreaded Behaviourism (the theory that
ion
parroting language repeatedly automatically leads to its
acquisition). So I set about finding out how collocations
(chunks of language usually found together, such as in the
preposition collocate addicted to) are formed in our brains.
vil
The theory
Pa
I was surprised to find that many researchers had found
evidence that the form (letters or sounds) of a word or
collocation is learnt before the meaning is fully understood –
or understood at all. This reminded me of living abroad and
©
having catchy L2 phrases heard on the TV or from colleagues
stuck in my head, whether I understood the meaning or not.
Additionally, psycholinguistic research states that words
frequently heard together become associated unconsciously, in
a process known as ‘lexical priming’. This happens
automatically, even after only one or two encounters, and
makes it faster for the brain to both recognise and produce
chunks of vocabulary. We see this effect in vocabulary
patterns such as collocation. EFL and ESL students don’t
have as much exposure to English for their brains to benefit
from the same priming ability that they experience in L1
learning. The artificial repetition of phrases (cope with,
40 Issue 117 • July 2018
addicted to, suffer from) promoted in ‘Best chair, worst chair’
provides lexical priming opportunities in the brain and
strengthens links between headwords and their prepositions.
This makes it easier for the students to process and retain
even arbitrary preposition collocations.
The research
To find out whether ‘Best chair, worst chair’ actually works, I
needed to design an experiment to examine the game
critically. I wanted to determine if the game works beyond a
superficial level. I had to use systematic evaluation to judge
ia
the game’s effect more reliably, rather than my impressionistic
intuition. I only had time to test the initial phase of a longer
ed
learning process, but I thought it was better to see if the game
worked 24 hours after playing it and then two weeks
afterwards, rather than not at all. As a teacher, I was lucky to
M
have access to students at two language schools I had
previously taught at, enabling me to get a reasonable number
of participants to make the results meaningful.
nd
I collected the data in a classroom setting where a total of 55
participants completed a pre-test to check if they already knew
ga
the 20 phrases I had decided to use (these phrases are shown in
Figure 1). I randomly split the students into a ‘Game group’ and
a ‘Control group’. The groups were relatively balanced in age,
English ability and L1. Carrying out the experiment made me
realise how you can only minimise imperfections in your
methodology, rather than eliminate them completely.
Congratulate on passing the test
Addicted to chocolate
Scared of snakes
Confess to a crime
Famous for something
Late for class
Forget about it
Blame Justin Bieber for being spoilt
Typical of so-and-so / country
Admit to cheating
Accuse of plagiarism
Cope with confusing grammar
Suffer from back pain
Worry about essay writing
Deal with a problem
Interested in reading
Listen to music
Reason for playing this game
Depend on someone
Good example of a child star
Figure 1 The collocates used in the research (only the words in bold were
used in the game)
I played ‘Best chair, worst chair’ only with the Game group
and worked on a gap-fill exercise with the Control group. I
tested both groups on their collocation knowledge three times:
in the pre-test conducted before briefly working on the
phrases and then playing the game/doing the gapfill, again 24
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 IN THE CLASSROOM

hours later and, for the third time, 17 days later. Game group Control group
Using the pre-test as a base, I counted how many
(n=29) (n=26)
new collocations the students correctly identified
and called these ‘gains’. This data was input into 24-hours 17-days 24-hours 17-days
an Excel spreadsheet and I applied simple post-test post-test post-test post-test
statistical tests (t-tests available in Excel). The
Mean gain 8.69 9.72 5.31 5.35
average collocation gain was higher for the Game
group than the Control group. More remarkable Median gain 9 11 5 5
was the statistical output, which showed that the Range 3–15 3–16 0–12 0–14
improved performance by the Game group was
statistically highly significant, with a probability of Figure 2 New collocates learnt (gains)
less than 0.01% that this result was achieved by

ia
chance. The statistical difference between the two ■■ Pronunciation, eg minimal pairs or problem
groups’ performance showed as very large, and the

ed
sounds. The game is really useful for practising
results can be seen in Figure 2.
both receptive and productive skills, as it
immediately shows when intelligibility breaks
The feedback

M
down. It is hard but very effective. Keep an eye/ear
At the end of the experiment, I wanted to check what on monolingual groups, as they may happily
the students thought of the game, so I asked them to continue using sounds which aren’t

nd
comment anonymously. They generally agreed it was comprehensible in an international setting.
fun to play and helped them remember the phrases. ■■ Using infinitive/gerund patterns – eg avoid doing,
Or, simply put: ‘I like it because it is helping me.’

ga
want to do – works well, although fossilised errors
can still be difficult to ‘unlearn’.
The teaching implications
‘Best chair, worst chair’ is worth playing to help
hin
t t t
students learn and retain otherwise hard to
remember prepositional collocates. However, this I was worried that by researching students that I
game should not be played in isolation, as there is wasn’t currently teaching (I was studying for my
lis

no reference to word meaning. I usually only play MA full-time), the game wouldn’t be seen at its
it once definition, use and context are established. best. The students didn’t know me, their usual
It also helps as a means of recycling the target
b

teacher knew nothing about the game, and they

vocabulary and demonstrating to students that were not using the phrases in the time between the
Pu

repetition can be a useful learning tool. game and the two-week post-test. That the ‘Best
Post-testing the students, even casually by chair, worst chair’ vocabulary game worked so well
having them shout out the preposition to your in this study despite less than ideal conditions is
ion

headword, gives them feedback on their learning
and is motivating, as they can easily see their own
progress. This particular language set is suitable for
pre-intermediate level upwards. Even upper-
vil
testament to its effectiveness in helping students
retain complex vocabulary.
I’d also most definitely like to encourage other
teachers to research their own classrooms. I found it

intermediate learners often struggle to remember empowering and extremely useful to know if an
the less-encountered phrases. activity was actually doing some good. Furthermore,
Pa

Twenty students per game is an absolute
maximum and the ideal would be ten to 14, as
otherwise there are too many phrases to focus on.
Sometimes, once a class knows the game, I split them
©
whether as part of action research or a Master’s
dissertation, when you carry out a classroom
experiment, you don’t have to restrict yourself to using
questionnaires, surveys or interviews! Quantitative

into two separate circles and let them play
concurrently, to increase the number of times the
phrases come up per learner. It is a good idea to keep
an eye out for ignored phrases and promote their use.
Possible adaptations
■■ The game can also be played with lexical sets of
any kind, and works well with lower levels.
Once the students master the procedure, I
introduce a second word which belongs (and
moves with) the student, in addition to the
‘chair word’ they have to remember.
research using simple statistical analysis is perfectly
doable for an everyday practising teacher. n
Katie Martin has taught children
and adults over the last 12 years,
including in the UK, Indonesia, Sri
Lanka and Malaysia. She also
spent three years teaching in a
state grammar school in Vienna,
Austria. Language acquisition and
retention are some of her
professional interests.
k8nkoffer@gmail.com

www.etprofessional.com Issue 117 • July 2018 41

 Teac h i n g E n g l i sh

TITLE
Best Practices
for Blended
SUB TITLE

Learning Pete Sharma and

Barney Barrett

ia
ed
By Pete Sharma and Barney Barret
T his comprehensive handbook supports

M
language teachers and school
managers in developing and running

nd
Blended Learning courses. The authors
bring their years of experience to this
ga
ever-evolving and highly-complex field of
ELT to offer systematic guidance on the
hin
various technologies available to language
teachers, as well as offer a framework
lis

to help you choose which of the many

learning platforms available is suitable for
b
Pu

your context and goals. The handbook also

contains practical teaching ideas which
blend traditional classroom input with
ion

online activities.
Whether you are a language teacher or
vil

teacher trainer looking to start blending

Pa

your classes or an academic manager

looking to improve learning outcomes in
your institution, Best Practices for Blended
©

Learning offers the information and support

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To order online visit: www.pavpub.com/best-practices-for-blended-learning

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9
Vocabulary:
principles
and practice
In the ninth part of this series on the insights to be gained from research into vocabulary learning,
Benjamin Kremmel offers five questions to ask ourselves when we are making or choosing
vocabulary tests.
A
fter reading several enlightening articles
about vocabulary learning and teaching
in this series, I feel it is now high time to
have a look at vocabulary assessment
and the various issues involved in it.
ga
Almost 25 years ago, Norbert Schmitt proposed
four questions to guide the development of
vocabulary tests. They are still highly relevant today
but have, unfortunately, not yet fully trickled down
hin
into classroom assessment practice. This article will
revisit these questions, and expand the set to a fifth
question that is often overlooked, both in research
lis
and pedagogical contexts.
Key questions
b
Vocabulary tests are probably among the most
Pu
common tests in language classes. They may be
formalised or part of a standardised test battery, or
done very informally, for instance as a quick recap
ion
at the beginning of a lesson. Irrespective of the level
of formality, we should all be asking ourselves five
key questions before or (in the case of the last one)
after we administer any vocabulary assessment.
vil
These five questions are:
1 Why do we want to test vocabulary
Pa
knowledge?
2 What lexical items do we want to test (and
how many)?
©
3 What knowledge aspect(s) of these lexical
items do we want to test?
4 How can we best elicit this knowledge and get
the information we want about our learners’
vocabulary knowledge?
5 How well has the test worked in giving us the
information we wanted?
While these questions might not seem very complex
at first, we often find intricacies as we reflect on
them more closely. My argument is that we can all
put together better vocabulary assessments, which
are more useful and informative for us as teachers,
www.etprofessional.com
IN THE CLASSROOM
ia
ed
M
and for our students, if we have a clearer
understanding of the purpose of the test (any test,
for that matter, not just vocabulary) and what,
nd
precisely, we wish to assess.
Each question in this set follows logically from
the previous one, and the answer to any question
will, to a large degree, determine the answer to the
next question in line. The first, and therefore
arguably most important, question is Why?
1 Why do we want to test vocabulary
knowledge?
Learners are exposed to enough testing as it is, so
the last thing we need to do is to throw more tests at
them that have no clear purpose. If we cannot come
up with a good answer to the question of what
inferences, decisions or consequences we will be
using the test results for, then we should probably
refrain from administering it. There are, however, a
number of very good reasons to test vocabulary,
which we could put forward:
■■ We may wish to test whether the students have
learnt the lexical items that we have taught (or
that they were expected to study), in the form of
an achievement or progress test. This is probably
the most common purpose of vocabulary
assessment in language classrooms.
■■ Vocabulary tests may also be a component,
discretely or in an embedded form, of
standardised proficiency tests, such as Aptis,
IELTS or TOEFL. Alternatively, vocabulary tests
themselves might be used as a proxy for full
proficiency tests, since we know from research
that scores on vocabulary tests are strongly related
to scores on tests of general proficiency.
■■ We could also test vocabulary for diagnostic
purposes, to identify lexical gaps and weaknesses
and inform us as to which vocabulary items we
should focus on in future learning activities.
■■ Vocabulary tests are also a very popular means of
placing students in different classes. They can give
Issue 117 • July 2018 43
IN THE CLASSROOM
us a relatively quick indication about who belongs
in a stronger class, and who still has some room
for lexical improvement and would benefit from a
lower-level class.
■■ We may wish to set a vocabulary test in order to
kick-start the motivation for vocabulary learning.
Any test will have a ‘washback’ effect or impact
on teaching and learning. The purpose will
determine to a large extent what the test looks like
and, following on from that, what is in the test
and how it is used will probably affect the
students’ learning. The very fact that there is a
vocabulary test will probably signal to the
students that vocabulary learning is considered an
important part of learning a language.
Depending on the purpose of the test and the
answer to this first Why? question, our vocabulary
tests may (or rather should) look very different.
2 What lexical items do we want to test
(and how many)?
One of the ways in which vocabulary tests differ is
ga
in the lexical items they use. We first need to get a
clear understanding of what we define as a ‘lexical
item’. Is it only a single word or does it also include
hin
multi-word chunks? Given what we have already
read in the other articles in this series about the
‘formulaic’ nature of language, we would probably
lis
wish to include both words and phrases.
■■ If the test is for achievement purposes, we will
want to test vocabulary covered in our lessons,
b
in the coursebook or from a supplementary
Pu
vocabulary list that the students have been
asked to study. If we are testing to increase
motivation, we could also include lexical items
that will be useful for the students in reaching
ion
their goals (eg passing a standardised test,
university entrance exam, etc). A standardised
test such as the Vocabulary Size Test or the
vil
Vocabulary Levels Test would not be very useful
in either of these two scenarios. Instead, few
items, and a relatively informal assessment
Pa
method, may be sufficient to get an adequate
idea of the status quo of our students.
■■ Diagnostic tests, placement tests or proficiency
©
tests, on the other hand, may need to sample
from a broader and more general range of
words, and the assessment will need to include a
greater number of items, in order to get a
robust estimate of where the students are in
their learning. In many of these cases, the
lexical items will be taken from frequency lists,
such as those that have already been discussed
in this series or, in particular diagnostic
scenarios, from individual frequency levels only
or from topic- or discipline-specific lists, such
as the Academic Word List or word lists for
engineering, business, medicine, etc. While the
44 Issue 117 • July 2018
range of frequency levels may be smaller in
diagnostic tests, as we would typically target
items that the students are expected to know at
a particular stage in their learning, placement
and proficiency tests will usually include words
from a wide range and feature some infrequent
items, to make sure they differentiate between
learners of different ability levels and are
challenging for even the best students.
The number of items that should be on the test
also depends on your answer to the Why question.
ia
More questions will give us more information, but
tests must always be practical, so there is no
ed
hard-and-fast rule for all purposes. The issue is
what we would consider a representative sample,
case by case. While ten to 20 items may be enough
M
to check how well 50 items from a coursebook unit
have been retained in a classroom achievement test,
a diagnostic test of vocabulary size would need
nd
many more to allow for meaningful score
interpretations about a student’s knowledge of the
most frequent 3,000 or 5,000 words. The question
of how many items is also closely related to the
following issue in our set of questions.
3 What knowledge aspect(s) of these
lexical items do we want to test?
If we are only interested in getting information
about whether or not a student knows the meaning
of a lexical item in English, or knows the English
form for a particular meaning, we may get through
a lot more questions in a given amount of time,
compared to when we want to know about how well
they know a particular lexical item. Most
vocabulary tests will focus on knowledge of the link
between form and meaning (eg Can the learner give
a definition, synonym or translation of a vocabulary
item?). However, ‘knowing’ a word can involve very
much more, and the deeper we want to probe our
students’ knowledge, the fewer lexical items we will
be able to test – a trade-off between quality and
quantity. Paul Nation, for example, suggests that
there are many aspects of vocabulary knowledge
that we may be interested in assessing, and these are
shown in the table on the next page.
Any of these aspects, or any combination of
these, may be of interest to us, and there are
different test formats to tap into these knowledge
aspects. This leads us into question number 4.
4 How can we best elicit this knowledge
and get the information we want about
our learners’ vocabulary knowledge?
The decisions we take on questions 1–3 will guide
our answer to this question. There are multiple test
formats available for each of these aspects, and
technology offers us even further opportunities.
Take knowledge of the form–meaning link, for
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 IN THE CLASSROOM

FORM Case study: I ran a study a while ago to compare whether

What does the word sound like? ‘recognition formats’ (multiple-choice or multiple-matching)
Spoken are more informative than those where the students need to
How is the word pronounced?
What does the word look like?
recall the English form of a particular meaning. My hunch was
Written that ‘recall formats’ would deter the students from guessing, so
How is the word written and spelled?
these formats would be a better representation of their actual
What parts are recognisable in this word?
vocabulary knowledge. When comparing the test scores on the
Word parts What word parts are needed to express the
different formats to the definitions the students were able to
meaning?
give me in interviews or writing, I found that recall formats
MEANING tended to underestimate their vocabulary knowledge, while
What meaning does this word form signal? recognition formats were biased towards overestimation.
Form and
What word form can be used to express this

ia
meaning 5 How well has the test worked in giving us the
meaning?
Concept information we wanted?

ed
What is included in the concept?
and This last question is one that is often forgotten. It was not
What items can the concept refer to?
referents even included in Schmitt’s original set of four, so I have added

M
What other words does this make us think of? it now because I think it is crucial. We typically choose or
Associations
What other words could we use instead of this one? develop a vocabulary assessment, administer it and then use
USE the scores in whatever way we see fit. Good assessment
practice, however, does not stop there. It requires us then to

nd
Grammatical In what patterns does the word occur?
functions In what patterns must we use this word?
examine whether the test has actually functioned in the way
we intended. There are a number of things we could look at to
What words or types of words occur with this

ga
check the actual quality of the test, with some ways being
one?
Collocations more technical than others. At the very least, within the
What words or types of words must we use with
limited scope we have in our classrooms, we will want to
this one?
check what the students found difficult or easy and whether
hin
Where, when and how often would we expect to
Constraints there are any unexpected patterns in the answers. We will also
meet this word?
on use want to consider the effects that guessing, ‘test-wiseness’ or
Where, when and how often can we use this word?
subjective factors in scoring may have had – all things that
lis

Nation’s aspects of vocabulary knowledge that we could assess could confound our scores. And we will want to reflect
carefully on what scores from a particular test format and test
instance. We can ask for translations, word-for-word or within design will mean, what they will allow us to say about
b

sentence contexts. We can devise multiple-choice questions someone’s vocabulary knowledge, and what they will not.
Pu

where the students need to either choose the meaning from

several definitions or recognise the correct form among
several options for one particular meaning. We can create a t t t
matching format, ask for labels on pictures, ask the students
ion

to produce synonyms, or recall meanings or forms without I believe that if we answer these five questions, we are
any options to choose from. All of these formats target the guaranteed to arrive at more useful, robust, meaningful and
same aspect of word knowledge, but we need to decide which informative measures of vocabulary knowledge to inform our
vil

will be the most informative for our purpose. For instance, if language pedagogy and research. n
we want to test the vocabulary knowledge needed for reading,
we will want to know how many vocabulary items the Kremmel, B and Schmitt, N ‘Interpreting vocabulary test scores: what
Pa

do various item formats tell us about learners’ ability to employ

students are able to recall the meaning of. As a result, we will
words?’ Language Assessment Quarterly 13 (4) 2016
probably choose a ‘meaning recall’ format where we give the
Nation, I S P Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (2nd edn)
students the English form and see if they can tell us (orally or
CUP 2013
©

in written form) what it means. Or take collocation

Schmitt, N ‘Vocabulary testing: questions for test development with
knowledge: Are we simply interested in the students’
six examples of tests of vocabulary size and depth’ Thai TESOL
knowledge of which is the correct, strongest or most frequent Bulletin 6 (2) 1994
collocation among a set of pairs? Do we want to see whether
they know the meaning of a pair? Or do we want to test Benjamin Kremmel is a postdoctoral
whether they can produce the most frequent collocates of a researcher at the University of Innsbruck,
particular word in speaking or writing? Are we interested in Austria. He is interested in all aspects
our students’ receptive or productive knowledge? Is it more of vocabulary learning, teaching and
assessment.
authentic to present the items embedded in a context or
Benjamin.Kremmel@uibk.ac.at
discretely? And what limitations might individual formats
have? No format is perfect, but we need to be aware of
the shortcomings and take them into account when we
interpret resulting test scores.

www.etprofessional.com Issue 117 • July 2018 45

IN THE CLASSROOM
Teaching
large
classes 3
Hall Houston and Andrew Starck look at using a variety of activities to motivate large classes.
I
n the previous articles in this series, we have
talked about the issue of how class size affects
teacher–student rapport, and mentioned several
tips for bringing your class closer together.
ga
As with anything, at the beginning this can be
easier said than done, as more experienced teachers
will have found out. As Mary Bart suggests: ‘Think
hin
back to your first few years of teaching. If you’re like
most educators, you probably made your share of
mistakes. To be sure, we all do things differently now
than we did when we were first starting out. Thank
lis
goodness for that!’ To help teachers to avoid many
pitfalls, we will focus here on what we believe to be
b
one of the most important elements of a motivating
course: variety. Employing a broad range of
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activities will appeal to more students, as large
classes are usually heterogeneous; thus a mix of
activities increases the likelihood that every student
ion
will find something that appeals to them.
Individual work activities
vil
Teaching methods such as the communicative
approach, task-based learning and teaching
unplugged all exhort teachers to give their
Pa
students plenty of pairwork and groupwork.
While this is excellent advice, backed up by a
great deal of research, we feel it’s also extremely
important to include individual work in lessons.
©
Some introverted students prefer to work alone,
and don’t always appreciate being told to get
together with a partner. Others enjoy a break
from looking at the blackboard, and just need a
bit of time to gather their thoughts. Individual
work can provide a welcome change of pace from
noisy discussions, roleplays and mingles. It
provides valuable time when the students can
make significant progress in a full range of core
language skills, vocabulary, grammar, listening,
reading and writing – all by themselves.
Here are a couple of activities we recommend:
46 Issue 117 • July 2018
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1 Picture dictation
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Tell the class to take a piece of paper, at least A4
size. (They can recycle the back of a handout.)
Make sure everyone has a pen or pencil, then tell
them they have to listen very carefully as they are
going to draw a picture based on your instructions.
For example, you can begin by saying:
‘In the middle of the picture, there is a very large
tree. Next to the tree, there is a dog. What is the dog
doing? In front of the tree, there are two children.
One is pointing at something and the other is
carrying a heavy box ...’
You can adapt the dictation to the level of the
students, using more difficult vocabulary or a more
complex storyline. After the dictation, the students
often enjoy comparing their pictures with each
other. They can check to see if their dogs are doing
the same thing and find out what the children are
pointing at or carrying. Which of the pictures are
most creative? They could even have a vote on who
are the best artists.
2 Guided visualisation
Prepare a short text that asks the listener to imagine
a story in which they are the central character (see
the example script below). In class, tell the students
to close their eyes and put their heads down on their
desks. Tell them to listen carefully and imagine what
you tell them:
‘Imagine it’s very late at night: 2 am. You are
lying in bed, but you can’t get to sleep. You feel the
bed sheets and mattress against your skin. You move
your legs and arms, and you turn over. Next, you get
up out of bed. Your feet feel the cold floor as you walk
across your bedroom. You turn on a light. You squint
as your eyes adjust to the bright light. You walk over
to the TV and turn it on. You sit down in a
comfortable chair. Your eyes widen as you look at the
TV screen. You see one of your favourite scenes from
your favourite movie. As you watch the scene, you
www.etprofessional.com

smile and remember what a great movie it is. Then a
chill runs down your spine as you feel a hand gripping
your shoulder tightly. You look around and see the
one person you are most scared of.’
After you tell the students to open their eyes,
you can ask them what the movie was and who the
person was. You can continue by finding out which
students often wake in the middle of the night, and
what they usually do. Do they find it easy to go
back to sleep? Do many students have nightmares?
While both these activities involve listening, the
students can also work on other skills in individual
work. In a writing class, they could write a
paragraph to describe the picture they drew in the
Picture dictation. After the Guided visualisation they
could develop the script into a longer story.
Competitive games
Even the most passive students get caught up in the
excitement of a competitive game. Games are
usually extremely easy to set up, and many activities
can be adapted into a competition. For example,
you can divide a class into two teams and get each
team to complete a task, such as writing as many
sports-related words as they can in three minutes, or
competing to be the first team to write a list of ten
items commonly found in the kitchen.
The following are two extremely lively
competitive games:
b
1 Dictation race
Pu
Before class, prepare about ten medium-length
sentences. These could be from your teaching
material, or sentences that you have created, using
vocabulary and grammar from recent lessons. In
ion
class, tell the students that they’re going to listen to a
dictation, but they will be competing in two teams.
Each team must send a member to the board to write
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the sentence being dictated. The first person to write
the sentence without errors wins a point for their
team. Each time, call on a person from each team to
Pa
stand ready at their desks. Read out a sentence, and
then say GO! (I learnt this activity from Chris
Cotter’s terrific book Better Language Teaching.)
©
2 Guess the vocabulary
Put the class into two equal-sized teams. Make sure
the teams are sitting well apart from each other, as
you want to keep a clear boundary and this game
can get noisy, to say the least.
Draw a large rectangle in the middle of the
board, easily visible to both teams. Call one player
up from each team and make sure they are facing
their own team with their back to the board, so
they can’t see what you are writing. Tell them you
are going to write one word in the rectangle and
the standing players have to guess what it is. Point
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IN THE CLASSROOM
at each of the teams and say loudly: ‘It’s your
responsibility to describe the word to your classmate,
in English. Do NOT mouth the word or translate it
into your native language.’ Warn them that if you
see anyone cheating, you will deduct ten points
from their team.
As an example, write banana in the rectangle
and ask the students how they could describe it,
eg a yellow fruit or something monkeys love to eat.
No matter what level the class is, it can
sometimes be difficult for the players to guess the
ia
word, so start with a very simple word first. Then
when one student has guessed it, erase it and write a
ed
more complex word for a second go. When the first
two players have had two goes, ask them to sit down
and bring the next two up to face their teams. Each
M
time a player guesses the meaning first, give a point
to their team. If the students are obviously enjoying
this game, do a second round.
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Whole-class activities
ga
These types of activity bring the whole class
together, instilling a feeling of togetherness. They
can definitely be noisy, because the students are
hin
often caught up in the fun. The best type of
whole-class activity encourages the students to think
about what they’re saying, to avoid the unpleasant
feeling that they’re just blandly mumbling a bunch
lis
of random syllables.
1 Repeat if it’s true for you
Prepare a series of sentences, all starting with I or
My. Ideally, you should use vocabulary and
grammar that the students have encountered
recently in your classes. Here are some examples:
I have two sisters.
I’ve never been to Tokyo.
My neighbour is extremely noisy.
I’m German.
I always drink a big cup of coffee in the morning.
Tell the class that you are going to read out some
sentences, and you want them to repeat each
sentence, but only if it’s true. Read out the
sentences, and pause after every two or three
sentences to ask a student a question related to the
sentence, eg Carlos, would you like to go to Tokyo?
Pedro, what is your favourite kind of coffee?
(I learnt about this activity from Dealing with
Difficulties by Lindsay Clandfield and Luke
Prodromou.)
2 Choral reading
Ask your students to read out a dialogue, paragraph
or short text that appears in your teaching material.
Try some of these variations, to add some zest to
the choral reading.
Issue 117 • July 2018 47
IN THE CLASSROOM
■■ Read out each sentence with some dramatic flair, and ask the
whole class to repeat it exactly the way you said it.
■■ Decide on the spot who will read each sentence (OK, you four
read the first sentence …). Then ask the entire class to repeat
the sentence immediately afterwards.
■■ Assign a certain feeling to the class (sad, nervous, angry,
scared, etc), and tell the class to read the text with that feeling.
Flexible tasks
As we mentioned earlier, large classes tend to be heterogeneous.
Thus, students in your class are likely to be at different levels and
have different interests, expectations and preferences. One
common solution for teaching heterogeneous classes is to prepare
two or more versions of an activity, so that the students can do an
activity that matches their level. However, this can result in
teachers spending significantly more time on preparation.
A simpler alternative is to prepare what Seth Lindstromberg
calls ‘flexible tasks’. These are tasks that have more than just
one teaching aim and allow students at many different levels to
participate. They give the students more freedom to use the
vocabulary and grammar they know, instead of just focusing
on one verb tense or grammar point. The following are two
flexible tasks that we recommend:
hin
1 Three-sentence story
Display an image of a famous celebrity or cartoon character.
Ask the class to name them and tell you what they know
lis
about them. Write on the board two lists of vocabulary, one
from lessons earlier in the course and one from more recent
lessons. Tell the class to think of a sentence about the
b
celebrity/cartoon character, using two words from the board,
Pu
one from each list. The sentence should be written in the past
tense, as if part of a story. Hand out index cards, and ask
each student to write their sentence in the middle of their
card, leaving the top and the bottom blank. Next, ask
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everyone to write their own name on the back of the card,
and pass it to you. Redistribute the cards so that everyone has
another student’s card. Instruct everyone to read the sentence
vil
on their cards, and add two sentences (one before it and one
after) to create a very short story. Erase the vocabulary from
the board and emphasise that the students can use any
Pa
vocabulary they want for their sentences.
2 Sentence starters
Write on the board (or on a colourful PowerPoint slide) several
©
partial sentences about a topic that you have covered in class
recently. For example, if you are teaching a class about
marriage and family, you might write:
The ideal husband/wife is …
I will never get married unless …
The best thing about being single/married is …
My family is very ..., but also …
Even though my children/my family/my partner is ..., I still ...
Give the students time to look over the sentences. You can
display them at the beginning of a class break without comment.
48 Issue 117 • July 2018
After a few minutes, tell the class to choose one sentence to
complete. Once they are ready, call on several students to read
out their sentence. Comment on these, and encourage the
others to make comments and ask questions.
t t t
All the activities we have included here can be adapted to
include whatever subject, theme or vocabulary you have been
using in your classroom and to suit students at any level of
proficiency. Games not only give a great change in pace, but
ia
often bring a refreshing alternative to the more traditional and
more serious approaches to reviewing texts, sentence structures
ed
or idioms. Try them out on your students and see which work
best for you. You can even experiment by trying out the same
M
game in different classes to see if you get different reactions.
But don’t forget: variety is the key. So use all the different
games described here but, even if you discover a favourite, wait
nd
several weeks before you get the students to play it again.
Employing games can completely change the dynamics of a
classroom, turning quiet classes into lively centres of bubbling
ga
activity and fun. The individual activities tend to focus more on
enhancing creativity and inner thinking, whereas the competitive
games and whole-class activities can bring the class together as an
interactive unit. They aid in the development of a strong team
spirit, as each member eggs their team on to beat the opposition.
Flexible tasks give both the teacher and students a greater
freedom to choose what they know and wish to include in the
task at hand. See which ones you and your students like best. n
Clandfield, L and Prodromou, L Dealing with Difficulties Delta 2007
Cotter, C Better Language Teaching Chris Cotter 2009
Bart, M (Ed) Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom Magna
2010
Lindstromberg, S ‘Towards better results with mixed-proficiency
classes: use of flexible tasks’ Humanising Language Teaching 2000
Lindstromberg, S Language Activities for Teenagers CUP 2004
Hall Houston teaches undergraduate students
at National Taipei University of Nursing and
Health Sciences in Taiwan. He is also a teacher
trainer for Cambridge English. His books
include Provoking Thought, Brainstorming and
Creative Output.
hallhouston@yahoo.com
Andrew Starck lectures at Southern Taiwan
University. The courses he teaches are
far-ranging: from Contemporary Philosophy to
English Songs. He has presented a variety of
workshops all around Taiwan. In his spare time,
he enjoys painting and salsa dancing.
swimtaiwan@yahoo.com
www.etprofessional.com

No one told me
that! 1
hin
W
elcome to ‘No one told me that!’,
lis
a new series of articles in which
we aim to provide some much-
needed continuing professional
b
development (CPD) for novice
Pu
teacher trainers. The articles in this series are
primarily aimed at teacher trainers with under
two years’ experience, and we hope that you will
find our tips and advice useful, whatever your
ion
teacher education context. Over the next few
issues, we will look at a number of areas integral
to the role, namely designing and delivering input
sessions, supporting trainees with lesson
vil
planning, observing lessons and giving feedback
and, finally, coping with the numerous pastoral
Pa
issues a teacher trainer may have to face.
Routes into teacher training
©
There are many different ways to make the
transition from teacher to teacher trainer. Some
teachers find they just fall into this role: as the most
experienced teacher at a school, they are chosen to
lead the weekly TD sessions. Some teachers make a
conscious decision to become a teacher trainer, and
so follow a more formalised route by completing a
trainer-in-training programme, which then qualifies
them to become, for example, a CELTA or Trinity
Certificate tutor. Others may decide to deliver
workshops at ELT conferences and, finding that
they’re good at this, decide to offer their services in
their own or other schools. As well as these routes,
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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
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In the first of a new series
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aimed at novice teacher
trainers, Beth Davies
ga
and Nicholas Northall
offer ten top tips to those
new to the role.
there are, of course, many others. How did you
become a teacher-trainer?
Transitioning from teacher
to trainer
Whatever path is taken, becoming a teacher trainer
is not an easy step to make, even for experienced
teachers. To support this transition, many
institutions offer courses, mentoring and, as
mentioned, perhaps formal training, to ensure
potential new trainers are able to get to grips with
the role as soon as possible. There are also articles in
journals such as The Teacher Trainer, ELT
magazines like ETp and MET, and now even books
(eg John Hughes’s A Practical Introduction to
Teacher Training) for anyone hoping to become a
teacher trainer. However, once a teacher has started
working in this new role, they may suddenly find
that support and advice for carrying out the
challenges that lie ahead start to wane.
Novice teacher trainers can sometimes,
therefore, find themselves thrown in at the deep end,
with little support and nowhere to turn for advice.
In our experience, while there tend to be CPD
opportunities for more experienced teacher
educators, there appears to be a dearth in both the
literature and practical resources to meet the needs
of those who are new to the role. The aim of this
series is to help bridge the gap for those who may be
struggling to find their feet.
Issue 117 • July 2018 49
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
Ten top tips
To kick things off, we’d like to start with some
general advice for new teacher trainers. We began by
considering what we would like to have known (or
been told!) when we first started out and, from this,
we have formulated our ten top tips. Here they are
(in no particular order):
1 Be prepared for a lot of hard work!
There’s no doubt about it, being a teacher trainer is
hard work, and perhaps never more so than when
you’re first getting to grips with your new role. At
many centres, you may be required to work long,
anti-social hours, perhaps in the evenings or even
at weekends, so make sure you are prepared for
this. While it is undoubtedly a demanding job, we
hope you’ll agree that it’s also rewarding and a
chance for you to make a real difference to people’s
personal and professional development – for us,
this makes it all worthwhile.
2 Make sure you are familiar with the
ga
course.
What are the aims of the training you are
providing? What do your course participants want
hin
to achieve, and how can you best help them to be
successful? Part of your role as a trainer is to be
aware of the desired learning outcomes. If you are
lis
delivering a formal teacher training qualification,
such as the CELTA or Cert TESOL, make sure you
are familiar with the course requirements, syllabus
b
and assessment criteria – and that you know where
Pu
to find this essential information. Also, remember
to keep up with any changes that may occur – for
example, Cambridge have recently made changes
to the CELTA syllabus and assessment criteria. As
ion
a trainer, it is vital that you remain up to date. If,
on the other hand, you are delivering a series of
in-house workshops to a group of experienced
vil
teachers, consider what areas of teaching you want
to help them to develop.
Pa
©
50 Issue 117 • July 2018
3 Familiarise yourself with core texts.
Let’s be honest, you may not always have the
answers (or the time to provide them), so knowing
where to point the trainees for advice and ideas is
really important. At entry level, be aware of any key
texts the candidates have been asked to buy, and
remember to exploit these before, during or after
your input sessions. Refer in-service teachers to
relevant, up-to-date literature, and encourage them
to make links between theory and practice.
4 Brush up on your own knowledge of
ia
methodology and language.
Know your subject! If you’re working with pre-
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service trainees, go back to basics and remind
yourself of those things that you didn’t use to know,
M
such as terminology, CCQs, how to give clear
instructions, language grading, and so on. Make
sure your knowledge of language (including
understanding the meaning, form and
nd
pronunciation of grammatical structures and lexical
phrases) is up to scratch and that you are familiar
with key approaches, procedures and techniques.
Keep abreast of the latest developments in the field.
Just as when you’re teaching L2 learners of English,
consider how you can convey your knowledge to
your trainees in a way that will be accessible and
meaningful to them.  
5 Get support and advice from other
trainers.
It’s likely that you will be working with other
trainers who have a wealth of experience and
their own tips and tricks, which they would
probably be more than happy to share with you.
Could you ask them to share their input materials
with you, or perhaps set up a central repository
where you can get together a bank of useful
resources? How about observing your colleagues
delivering input or feedback, to see how things
can be done in different ways, and then reflecting
on this together? Is a mentoring system available
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at your centre? If so, make the most of it! Just as
with teaching, much of your learning will take
place on the job, but there’s also a lot we can
learn from our more experienced colleagues, so
don’t be afraid to ask!
6 Gain as much experience as possible.
If feasible, try to train on a variety of courses and in
different contexts. If you get the opportunity, work
at different centres, deliver different course types
(both pre-service and in-service) and experiment
with different modes of delivery (full-time and
part-time; face-to-face, online and blended). It’s all
too easy to get stuck in a rut and not see the bigger
picture if you only ever work on one particular
course type in one particular place, so try to gain as
much experience as possible and learn from how
things are done elsewhere.
7 Keep teaching!
If at all possible, try to continue doing some ‘real’
classroom teaching as, arguably, this may give you
more credibility as a teacher educator. In other words,
try to avoid putting yourself in a position where you’re
teaching people to do something you don’t do
anymore. Keep your foot in the classroom door!
8 Network, network, network!
Joining online forums and groups aimed at teacher
trainers is a great way to get to know other
professionals in our field. There are many of these
available on social media, and a quick Google search
b
will bring up plenty for you to choose from. A couple
Pu
of our favourites are www.celtatrainers.com and
#CELTAchat, which is a monthly chat on Twitter
about various topics relevant (but not limited) to
CELTA or Trinity Cert TESOL trainers. Also,
ion
consider reading – or, if you’re feeling brave,
writing your own – blogs aimed at teacher trainers,
for example http://teachertrainingunplugged.com/blog/.
Finally, try to attend conferences, either those
vil
specifically aimed at teacher trainers (there are a
few emerging, eg the annual Cambridge Teaching
Pa
Awards Symposium, which this year will be
hosted by International Language Centre, Kyiv,
Ukraine – http://ilc.org.ua/single/4th-ceta-
symposium) or more general ELT conferences,
©
such as IATEFL, where sessions aimed at teacher
educators are becoming more and more common.
Not only will you get the chance to embark on
some serious CPD (see below for more on this),
but part of the attraction of conferences such as
these is the opportunity to network and meet
like-minded people.   Sheffield, UK, where he teaches
9 Continue your own professional
development.
Just as your own professional development is key
to a successful teaching career, the same is true
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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
once you are working as a teacher of teachers.
There appears to be a growing market for CPD
for teacher trainers, so make the most of the
opportunities that come your way. Jo Gakonga’s
elt-training (www.elt-training.com) contains a
wealth of material for teacher trainers, as well as
a myriad of excellent resources which you can
pass on to your own learner teachers. There are
also some more formal train-the-trainer courses
available, such as the British Council’s CPD for
trainers (http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/
continuing-professional-development/cpd-teacher-
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trainers). More informally, don’t forget the
importance of self-reflection, and perhaps
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consider using audio or video recordings of
yourself delivering input or feedback as a
M
means to do this.
10 Remember the importance of
people skills.
nd
Although this may not have been at the forefront of
your mind when you decided you wanted to become
ga
a teacher educator, pastoral care is an important
aspect of your role, and good people skills are
essential. Don’t forget this! There will be more on
this topic in a future article.
hin
t t t
lis
We hope you’ve enjoyed the first instalment in our
series. If you have any questions or comments, or if
there is a particular area you would like us to
include in future articles, please don’t hesitate to get
in touch. n
Hughes, J A Practical Introduction to Teacher Training
Pavilion 2015
Beth Davies is a teacher and
teacher trainer, based at the
English Language Teaching
Centre at the University of
Sheffield, UK. She has worked
in ELT since 2001 in a variety of
contexts and has an MA in
Applied Linguistics with TESOL.
e.davies@sheffield.ac.uk
Nicholas Northall works at the
English Language Teaching
Centre at the University of
EAP and contributes to the
centre’s teacher training
programme. He has worked in
ELT for almost 20 years.
n.northall@sheffield.ac.uk
Issue 117 • July 2018 51
 ia
ed
M
nd
ga
hin
b lis
Pu

MyCPD tracks your reading, research and reflection.

ion

Take control of your continuing professional

development with MyCPD.
vil

Free to English Teaching professional school and individual subscribers.

Pa

With MyCPD you can track the articles that you’ve read and easily keep
©

a log of your training activities. You can also add your own reflections
and lesson ideas and check your progress at a glance. Keeping an up
to date record of your CPD is vital for showing current and potential
employers that you are committed to your professional development.

Find out more at:

www.etprofessional/mycpd

Wix
websites
ga The set-up
hin
lis
b
Pu
Laura Hadwin sets up a project to teach English and
21st-century skills.
ion
I
truly view technology as a double-edged sword –
one that can help our learners with English, but
vil
one that can also be a hindrance. However,
technology is here to stay, and technological skills
are now required for most occupations, so it is
Pa
something that cannot really be avoided. My
learners also respond well to it, although I use it
judiciously. I have, however, had particular success
©
with getting my learners to design websites on topics
of their choice using Wix (www.wix.com), free
website development software.
The project
I was inspired to get my learners to design
websites in class after I had created my own
‘Wixsite’, http://auroraenglish.wixsite.com/English.
I started this website to draw the attention of
potential employers to my qualifications and
teaching experience, but also to curate my
favourite language learning websites so that my
learners could access them more easily. I have now
www.etprofessional.com
TECHNOLOGY
ia
successfully done a website design project with
two groups: an advanced multilingual group of
ed
undergraduate students at a UK university, and a
monolingual mixed-level group of publishing
M
students at a Canadian college. The multilingual
group worked individually, but the monolingual
group worked in pairs to increase their
nd
confidence, comfort and fluency in English.
Both groups showcased their websites in
presentations at the end of the course.
I decided to allow the learners to choose their own
topics for their websites in order to increase
motivation, foster greater intrinsic validity and
increase learner ownership. It was also imperative
that they were fully engaged because of the
significant time investment and amount of
independent work that was required: a term at the
university and a month during the intensive college
programme. The learners responded really well to
this, as I don’t think they had previously had much
freedom, academically or personally, and they were
really eager to share their passions with their peers.
However, in order to avoid the ‘paradox of choice’,
I also included suggestions for topics, such as
favourite hobby, future occupation/area of study or
national cultural event.
The research
I wanted to increase both academic and media
literacy, and so we discussed the reliability of
different websites. We also addressed issues related
to the credibility and currency of sources. The
university students were required to use five reliable
online sources and to create a bibliography. They
had to cite their sources appropriately and refer to
them in the bibliography, which helped to develop
their paraphrasing and summarising skills. We also
talked about what makes an effective website, and
evaluated the effectiveness of several websites, based
on criteria such as content, images and layout.
The website
As with most software, the instructions for using Wix
are written in English and, therefore, regardless of
Issue 117 • July 2018 53
TECHNOLOGY
the topics they had chosen, the learners were required
to do a lot of reading in order to set up their websites
successfully. This is essential practice, as I find it
increasingly difficult to get my learners to read, and
have noticed that many of them don’t even like
reading in their first languages. Because this task is
very active and the learners are interacting with and
controlling the technology, even my most reticent
readers didn’t seem to mind, and some were so
immersed in creating their websites that I think they
forgot they were reading! The reading occurring here
is not the same as an academic text, newspaper article
or novel, of course, but it has considerable real-world
applicability and is meaningful to them.
Although I was there as a resource, I strongly
encouraged the learners to use their own
technological problem-solving skills, and, generally,
they are far more tech-savvy than I am! This
encouraged them to be autonomous, and also
developed their ability to navigate and overcome
challenges, making them more resilient learners.
To start with, I gave a whole computer lab session
difficulty managing their time. Following this, I
allowed some time in each lab session, but
ga
over to the project, but I found the learners then had
hin
encouraged the learners to devote extra time to
working on the project independently, particularly
the reading and research, as I also really wanted to
lis
increase their capacity for extensive reading. I
checked in with them regularly throughout the
project to monitor their progress, but not too
b
frequently, as I strongly believe that over-scaffolding
Pu
and over-managing learning is not helpful: it does not
lend itself to the acquisition of transferable skills
such as self-regulation and time management.
ion
The presentations
At the end of the course, each person or pair
presented their website to the class. To support this,
vil
I elicited a list of effective presentation techniques,
and we went over useful language for introductions,
transitions and conclusions. I also gave the learners
Pa
several online presentation resources to look at
independently. They then did mini-presentations on
a favourite memory in small groups and got peer
©
feedback. This allowed them to practise their
presentation skills, but also recognise areas for
development prior to the website presentation.
The presentations were really interesting and
informative, and I believe that those who put in the
most work were really proud of the results. During
presentations in the past, I have often found it
difficult to ensure audience participation, so I
always institute a policy whereby the audience have
to ask a minimum of three questions after a
presentation, and many in these classes asked their
peers even more questions than that.
54 Issue 117 • July 2018
The feedback
I asked the learners to give anonymous peer
feedback, basing their comments on their ideas
of successful websites and the work we did on
effective presentations. After each presentation,
the audience wrote their feedback (using a
formula of two positive points and one area for
improvement) on paper and gave them to the
presenter(s). I also gave my own feedback, using
my own assessment criteria for assessing
presentations in general. However, in the future
ia
I would like to develop a more detailed set of
assessment criteria specific to this project, as
ed
objectively assessing creative tasks is difficult.
Overall, the feedback I got from the learners
was very positive, although in the beginning
M
stages of the project some of them were not
confident about their abilities. However, I
strongly believe in experiential learning (learning
nd
by doing) and, as the German philosopher Hegel
once said, ‘We cannot learn to swim if we don’t
get in the water’! I also really wanted the learners
to manage their work themselves and, for this
reason, I tried to organise the project into clear
stages. Ultimately, I think some of the learners
who didn’t work very hard were disappointed
with what they had created when they saw the
quality of their peers’ websites, but this is a
lesson in itself. When we finished the project, I
got the learners to reflect on two things that went
well and two areas for improvement, and I hope
and believe that this experience will translate into
better time management and greater efforts from
those learners in the future.
t t t
This project is something that the learners can add
to their CV and show to potential employers, to
demonstrate not only their technological ability
and English writing skills, but also their mastery
of soft skills such as creativity, teamwork and
critical thinking. Regardless of my cautious
optimism regarding technology, this is one project
that I will continue to use, primarily because it
features technology assisting in the development
of many other useful 21st-century skills. n
Laura Hadwin is an English
Language Teacher at Camosun
College in Victoria, BC, Canada.
She is interested in teacher
identity and beliefs, teacher
training and materials
development. In her free time,
she loves yoga, volunteering and
exploring our amazing world.
laura_hadwin@live.co.uk
www.etprofessional.com

Worth a
thousand
words
Jason Anderson puts us in the picture with
Google Images.
S
ome of the most important changes in our teaching
over the years can happen without us realising it.
I’ve never thought of myself as a technophile, nor a
technophobe – more of a ‘techno-so-what’– but I
was pleasantly surprised when one day a year ago,
another teacher popped into my classroom during the break,
saw the range of apps open on the interactive whiteboard
(IWB), and said: ‘Didn’t know you were so much of a techie!’
lis
‘I’m not,’ I replied, ‘They just make things a lot easier.’
So it is with Google Images. Ever since Russell Stannard’s
article on using Google Tools in ETp Issue 98, I’ve been
b
experimenting more and more with this particular tool, and
Pu
have found it an essential resource whenever I’m teaching in a
tech-enabled class.
This article will look at a range of ways in which Google
ion
Images can be used in the ELT classroom. When teaching in the
UK, I’m lucky enough to have an IWB and internet access, but
even if you just have a data projector or a smaller screen you
can share, many of these ideas can still be used.
vil
Using Google Images in class
Pa
Under each section below, I’ll start with some simple ideas, in
case you’re not very tech-savvy, and then scaffold up to more
complex ideas for the techies to build on.
But first, some basics. If you can, use the Google Chrome
©
browser, as this offers more options, although you can usually
do similar things with other browsers. Here, I will describe the
procedure for using Chrome on a Windows 10 PC. Procedures
will also vary on different devices.
Google Images can be accessed at: www.google.com/imghp. It’s
a search engine that looks for images only, including
photographs, clipart, etc. It’s fast and shows multiple images that
meet your search requirements. So if you search for fruit, you’ll
see lots of images showing many different types of fruit. Click on
one, and it’ll appear larger. You should also see a link to visit the
website it comes from (look for a globe icon), related images and
www.etprofessional.com
TECHNOLOGY
ia
ed
M
nd
other options. Once you’ve performed an initial search, just
below the search box you’ll see an option for ‘Settings’, where a
ga
drop-down menu provides access to ‘Search settings’
(‘SafeSearch’, which enables you to avoid adult content, is here)
and ‘Advanced search’, where, under ‘usage rights’, you can
hin
select ‘free to use or share’. ‘Tools’, next to ‘Settings’, also allows
for some of the settings to be accessed directly.
Two things to bear in mind:
1 Always check that ‘SafeSearch’ is on when using the tool
in class, to avoid inappropriate images showing up in
your search.
2 Remember that some of the images are copyright
protected, although you can use the ‘Advanced search’
settings to exclude these.
1 Clarifying the meaning of vocabulary
The most obvious use of Google Images is also the most
common one in my classroom. Most teachers know that you
can use the tool to help to clarify the meaning of concrete
vocabulary items (eg cupboard, ski or haddock), but perhaps
you didn’t know that it’s also useful when you’re trying to
explain more abstract ideas. Try searching for coincidence,
confusing or influence and then scroll down slowly. What
your learners see will help them to understand the concept,
with different students finding different images useful. Then
there are superordinate categories such as vehicle, profession
and tool, or more culturally specific items such as cottage
and condo. By searching and scrolling down through the
results, your students can see multiple examples that will
help them to understand the parameters of the concept and
usage of the term.
More advanced users can try opening two Google Image
search windows alongside one another to compare two similar
concepts, such as respect and admire. Get the students to
describe any differences they notice or, if you share their first
language, to guess the translations for the two words, based on
the images provided.
Issue 117 • July 2018 55
TECHNOLOGY
2 Inspiration for speaking
Both at the start of the lesson and for speaking practice later
on, you can use Google Images to quickly find pictures to get
your students speaking. At the start of a lesson on food, for
example, you could search for food or fridge contents, select
one image and enlarge it. This can be done either by using the
right-click menu and selecting ‘Open image in new tab’ (for
Chrome – this differs on other browsers) or, if you have a
keyboard and mouse with a scroll wheel, hold down the
CTRL key on the keyboard and roll the scroll wheel to zoom
the webpage in and out quickly (this works with most
browsers). Tell the students to work in pairs to see how many
of the foods they can identify. Or perhaps you want to
practise structures such as the present continuous or there is
(somebody) doing (something). A creative search such as
people in a park or busy café can bring up images showing a
range of different activities that the students can describe.
Select the best images and enlarge them for speaking practice.
Before a reading or listening activity, searching for a place
name, famous person or interview topic can help to build
schemata and pre-teach vocabulary. Get your students to
describe what they see and to note down any questions they
have. Or display your planned vocabulary items alongside the
images and get the students to predict how the words relate to
the pictures.
hin
Or how about using it for a ‘Guess who’ activity – useful
in lessons where you want your students to describe features
of the face or clothing? Try searching with a random name:
lis
Sarah or Ahmed will do. Then display as many images on the
screen as possible (to get a full-screen view, press F11 with
most browsers). Student A describes one and Student B has to
b
guess which one is being described; then they swap. You can
Pu
even select ‘faces’ in ‘Advanced search’ (under ‘type of image’)
if only photos of faces are needed.
3 Enhancing student feedback
ion
Especially in a large class, it can be difficult to get the
students to listen to each other during feedback. For
example, when they have been talking in pairs about what
vil
they did at the weekend or their favourite film and are
reporting back to the class on their discussion, very often, a
student will mention something that the others may not
Pa
know about or understand. Doing a quick search in Google
Images can provide context and meaning, without
interrupting the speaker, and can boost the students’
interest, so that they listen to each other more carefully, and
©
understand more. I’ve even had students stand up and point
at things in the image results, which can sometimes extend
feedback into impromptu presentations!
4 Guessing games
If you search for something and then hide the search box by
scrolling down a little, you show a range of images from
which the students can often guess your search term. This can
be really useful when revising vocabulary. Just get the students
to close their eyes or look away from the screen while you do
the search. Then they can look back and shout out, write
down or whisper to their partner what they think the search
56 Issue 117 • July 2018
word is. Students can also guess phrasal verbs (try run out of
or put off), collocations (catch a cold, catch fire, etc) and
idioms (the last straw) in this way. Often, you can choose just
one useful image or cartoon from the search results to elicit
your expression.
You can also do this with grammar. After a lesson on
superlatives, try searching for oldest, most expensive or weakest,
scroll down and get the students to guess what you searched
for. Alternatively, try typing a first conditional sentence into the
search box, eg If it rains, I’ll cancel the barbecue, and see if they
can guess the whole sentence. Even if they can’t, they’ll get lots
ia
of practice trying!
5 Lesson review
ed
Finally, if you’ve made extensive use of Google Images or other
aspects of the internet during the lesson, your browser history
M
can provide a very quick, impromptu review of where you’ve
been and what you’ve covered. The simplest way to review this
is to click on the ‘back’ button (a left arrow located in the top
nd
left corner of the browser window) and, for each page, get the
students to tell their partner why you went there and what they
learnt from it. And if you’ve closed your browser since the start
ga
of the lesson, remember you can access your search history
through the browser settings.
t t t
One final word of caution: Google searches are created by
computer algorithms, and sometimes can throw up things that
are not very useful, are inappropriate or even offensive. Adults
should already know this, but just a quick explanation and
disclaimer before you use Google Images – ‘It’s useful, but far
from perfect, so apologies if …’ – can help to prepare the
students, just in case. And if you’re teaching young learners, it’s
probably better to search in advance of the lesson and have the
pages ready on different tabs. Note, too, that the search engine
Bing has an image search, with a ‘strict safe search’ setting that
is usually safer than Google’s.
Remember also that trial and error is often the best way to
learn to use something, but it’s best to make the most of these
errors before getting to class, so experiment on your own one
evening, and see what you can do by playing around with the
settings and advanced search features.
Especially for those of us who aren’t very good at
explaining vocabulary, Google Images is a great tool but, as
I’ve hopefully convinced you in this article, it can be so much
more besides! n
Jason Anderson is a teacher, teacher trainer
and award-winning author of books for
language teachers. His photocopiable
resource books include Role Plays for Today,
Teamwork and Speaking Games, all published
by Delta Publishing. He has taught and trained
teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary
contexts in numerous countries worldwide for
organisations including UNICEF, the British
Council, VSO and International House.
jasonanderson1@gmail.com
www.etprofessional.com
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TECHNOLOGY
Five things you always wanted to know about
becoming more
tech-savvy
(but were too afraid to ask)
1 problems during class. There is usually at least one student who
 hat if I’m a technophobe? How can I become
W is delighted to share their technological knowledge and to help
more confident with technology?
Tech-savviness – that is, knowing about technology and feeling
confident around it – is a state of mind. Nobody knows everything
about all technologies. You just need to know enough about
technology to serve your needs. Consider this: Even if you think
you’re a technophobe (someone who is afraid of technology), you
probably use several technologies regularly in your personal life.
For example, it’s likely that you use email and know how to find
information online. You probably have a mobile phone and use it
to take photos, to make phone calls or to send SMS text
messages. If you have a smartphone, you may even use group
messaging services like WhatsApp, or perhaps you use Google
hin
Maps to find your way around. The first step towards feeling more
confident with technology? Make a list of the things you already
know how to do with it.
2
lis
I don’t like using technology with my students.
It’s too challenging!
b
Don’t try to use technologies that you don’t feel comfortable
Pu
with. Instead, start with what you know. Use the tools that you
are already familiar with. If you know how to use email in your
personal life (very likely!), start using it as a tool with your
students. The most obvious use of email is to get the students
ion
to use it to send you their written homework, and there are
other more imaginative ways that you can easily experiment
with. Try a chain story, in which the students build up a story
collaboratively via email (see ETp Issue 112 for more ideas on
vil
how to use email). If you know how to use your mobile phone
to take photos, get your students to do the same. For
Pa
example, choose an upcoming coursebook topic, and ask
them to take a couple of photos connected to the topic before
the next class. In the next class, put the students in small
groups and ask them to share their photos, explaining how and
©
why their photos relate to the topic. This simple activity
activates topic-related vocabulary and is highly personalised
– and it’s not technically challenging to do! By starting slowly
with simple technologies and activities, you will be able to
build up your tech-savviness and confidence over time.
3
 y school makes me use technologies I’m not
M teaching and technology. Her company The
comfortable with.
This is sometimes the case with teachers who are asked to use
tools like IWBs (interactive whiteboards) but may not have
received enough training to feel confident using them. As a
short-term solution, ask your students for help if you have any
58 Issue 117 • July 2018
In this series,
Nicky Hockly explains
aspects of technology which
some people may be
embarrassed to confess that
they don’t really understand. In
this article, she describes how
you can increase your
confidence with, and
knowledge of, digital
technologies.
ia
solve a problem. But as a longer-term solution, ask your school
ed
to set up short informal weekly training sessions to help less
confident teachers like yourself become more confident with
M
IWBs – or any other hardware or software you’re expected to
use on regular basis.
4
nd
I don’t know what to do when things go wrong
with technology and there is no one to help me.
Being able to deal with a wide range of technical issues on the
ga
spot means being fairly technologically proficient, and we are,
after all, language teachers. You’ll never know all there is to know
about technology. Probably the most useful piece of advice I’ve
ever received is that, with any technology problem you have,
someone else has had exactly the same problem before you and
someone has almost certainly posted the solution online. Imagine
you’re working on your computer and get an error message. The
first thing to do is to google that error message, and see what
online forums say about how to deal with it. In most cases, you
will find detailed video tutorials, or text tutorials with screenshots,
about how to solve the problem. You’re not alone!
5 How else can I become a bit more tech-savvy?
As you know, the internet contains a wealth of free resources that
can help you develop as a teacher. There is plenty of information
online about how to use learning technologies effectively to
support English language learning. Attend a free webinar about
how to integrate digital technologies into your teaching. For
example, the IATEFL Special Interest Groups (SIGs) run regular
webinars, as do many major ELT publishers. Read blogs, books
or e-books about integrating learning technologies into English
language teaching. Then get started by trying a simple
technology tool yourself at home, before trying it out with your
students in class. Good luck! n
Nicky Hockly has been involved in EFL
teaching and teacher training since 1987. She
is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E,
an online teacher training and development
consultancy, and she is the prize-winning
author of many books about language
Consultants-E (www.theconsultants-e.com)
offers online educational technology training
courses for English language teachers.
nicky.hockly@theconsultants-e.com
www.etprofessional.com

Webwatcher
S
Just as we need to be ‘good citizens’ who know how
to conduct ourselves within society, we also need to
be ‘good digital citizens’ who know how to act when
working in the digital domain. Digital citizenship is
about learning how to engage within the digital
domain safely and ethically.
One of the biggest problems I find with this subject area is
that it covers so many issues. Howard Gardner and his
colleagues in the ‘Good Play Project’ have identified five key
areas of digital citizenship: Identity, Privacy, Authorship and
Ownership, Trustworthiness and Credibility, and Community. We
can use this framework to help us to get a better overall view of
the issues and incorporate it into a lesson plan to help our
students build a better understanding of the topic. The lesson
plan below is aimed at B1/B2-level students, but you could adjust
the content and make it work for a lower- or higher-level class.
Lesson idea
Part 1
Write the five key areas (as above) on the board. Explain to the
students that these are topics related to digital citizenship.
Explain to them what digital citizenship is and ask them to work
lis
in groups and discuss what they think the topics are about and
what types of issues might be raised under each one. Afterwards,
ask some of the groups to share their ideas with the class.
b
Part 2
Pu
Give the students the following list of issues. Ask them to match
each issue with the topic(s) it relates to. This will help them to
understand what sorts of issues are related to each topic.
ion
1 T
 om has opened an anonymous email and clicked on a
link that appears in it. He now seems to have a virus on
his computer.
vil
2 P
 aul has copied half a page of text from an internet site
and put it in his essay.
3 M
 aria has taken some pictures from the internet and used
Pa
them in her video mash up.
4 Iwona has hundreds of friends on Facebook that she
doesn’t know.
©
5 P
 aulo has posted pictures of himself on the internet which
show him holding a fake gun.
6 L
 uLu has received a horrible text about a classmate and
shared it with her friends.
7 T
 atiana is using a website for her studies that a friend has
suggested to her.
8 Pablo is using the password ‘123’ for his Facebook account.
9 S
 ophie has included her address and telephone number
in her online profile.
10 T
 om has created a website where students can write what
they think of the director of the school.
When they have finished, go through the answers with the class.
www.etprofessional.com
TECHNOLOGY
Russell Stannard
proposes an idea
for a lesson on
digital citizenship.
Suggested answers
1 Privacy and Trustworthiness and Credibility (Opening up anonymous
emails is an issue of privacy, as it provides a very easy way to hack
information. It is also an issue of trustworthiness, as you should never
open something when you are unclear about the source.)
2 Authorship and Ownership 3 Authorship and Ownership
ia
4 Privacy and Identity (Remember that your identity is not only what
you have posted about yourself but who your ‘friends’ are and what
ed
you have written and uploaded.) 5 Identity 6 Community
7 Trustworthiness and Credibility 8 Privacy 9 Privacy 10 Community
M
Part 3
Ask the students to work in groups and go through the ten issues.
For each one, ask them to decide:
nd
a What is the problem?
b What advice would they give to the person involved?
ga
Here is an example for issue number 1:
Problem
Anonymous emails may contain viruses or, worse, may allow the
hin
sender to hack your information if links within them are opened.
Advice
Never open emails where you do not know the source, and
certainly never click on links sent by people you don’t know.
After going through the issues with the students and seeing
what advice they have suggested, you might find that different
groups see the issues in slightly different ways, and they may
suggest different advice.
You might want to get the students to turn their advice into
rules and make posters to display these on the walls.
Hopefully this will help build up a picture of the five key areas which
are covered by digital citizenship and provide a framework which will
help both teachers and students to get a better understanding of the
types of issues that emerge around the topic. n
Gardner, H and Jenkins, H ‘Appendix: How we got here’ In Our
Space: Being a Responsible Citizen of the Digital World The Good
Play Project/Project New Media Literacies 2011 https://dmlcentral.
net/wp-content/uploads/files/Our_Space_full_casebook_
compressed.pdf
Good sources of information and videos:
www.nsteens.org/
www.pz.harvard.edu/projects/the-good-play-project
Russell Stannard is the founder of
www.teachertrainingvideos.com, which
won a British Council ELTons award for
technology. He is a freelance teacher and
writer and also a NILE Associate Trainer.
Keep sending your favourite sites to Russell:
russellstannard@btinternet.com
Issue 117 • July 2018 59
 Not only, but also • • •
Chia Suan Chong looks at what English teachers teach apart from language.
In this issue, she looks at note-taking skills.
Whenever I attend a conference talk, I live tweet the event while
taking notes for my blogposts on my smartphone. Some people
have asked me if this multi-tasking takes my attention away
from the talk, and I have always maintained that, in fact, it
sharpens my attention and enables me to listen actively and
better understand the speaker.
• • •
In order to select and summarise what has been said into a tweet
or to put the idea into my notes, I first have to understand the
speaker, the logic behind what they are saying, and how it relates
to what I already know. I then have to write my notes down in a
focused and time-efficient way. The process forces me to pay full
attention to the speaker and stops me from drifting off or
daydreaming. The very physical act of writing (or tapping the
words into my phone) also helps me remember what I’m learning.
And if I do forget, I have my notes to remind me.
• • •
Like most skills, note taking doesn’t necessarily come naturally to
everyone. But with guidance, training and practice, it is a skill that
can have multiple benefits for our students: whether it is to prepare
hin
them for university modules where English is the medium of
instruction, to introduce them to the skills of taking minutes at a
meeting, to help them get the best out of future training courses, or
lis
simply to enable them to maximise their learning in our classrooms.
• • •
b
A popular and systematic note-taking system is the Cornell
Pu
method. The page is divided into two columns, with the right
column – where the main ideas are jotted down – taking up about
70 percent of the page. The narrower left column is used to write
questions, key words and comments with reference to the main
ion
notes on the right. If the notes are to be used for exam revision,
vil
Pa
©
60 Issue 117 • July 2018
students can cover the right column and use the left column to
test their understanding and memory of the main ideas. About
five lines are left at the bottom of each page, where a summary
of the notes is made.
• • •
Some learners might, however, prefer more visual ways of
representing their notes. Avid doodlers might go for visual
ia
note-taking methods like Sketchnotes, but a simpler method
like mind mapping could offer an outlet for creativity to note
ed
takers, without requiring too much artistic flair. Mind maps are
diagrams that organise words, ideas or theories around a key
M
word or topic. Sub-topics can branch off the main topic; they
can be grouped together; or they can be given certain areas on
a page to show the relationships between them, and the
concepts that branch off them. While language teachers might
nd
use mind maps to record categories of vocabulary items, they
can also be used for brainstorming sessions, event planning and
ga
other types of notes. With multiple online mind-mapping tools
available, users are finding it easier to create professional-
looking mind maps to have as a record.
• • •
So the next time your students pull out their smartphones to take a
photo of your boardwork, consider spending some time teaching
them the skill of taking notes and talking about how they could
benefit from the practice, not just because it would be good for
their English, but also because note taking is a skill that will come
in useful throughout their lives.
Chia Suan Chong is a teacher trainer and general/business English
trainer, currently based in York, UK. Chia has been ETp’s resident
blogger since 2012, and you can find out more about note taking on
her blog at etprofessional.co.uk. chiasuan@live.co.uk
www.etprofessional.com
 Te a c h i n g G r a m m a r

TITLE From Rules

to Reasons
Practical ideas and advice for
SUB TITLE
working with grammar in the
English language classroom

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By Danny Norrington-Davies
T eaching Grammar: From Rules to Reasons

ed
is a book which offers teachers an alternative
view of grammar to that found in many traditional

M
resources, setting out how this can be used in a
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nd
The book suggests that teachers need to consider
and teach grammar differently, as opposed to a

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traditional fixed system of rules that students learn
one-by-one. The author, Danny Norrington-Davies,
believes that instead, grammar is far more dynamic
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lis

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Not only does Teaching Grammar: From Rules to
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„ Vital reasons to learn grammar in the classroom, but to help students
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©

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„ Photocopiable texts and tasks, lesson plans and communicate
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Order code: T242
ISBN: 9781911028222
To order online visit: www.etprofessional.com/teaching-grammar-from-rules-to-reasons
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