The

ELT

Mag
Issue 1 Vol. 1

Autumn 2021
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 Welcome!
This is the motto for this new English Language Teaching publication from New Way Press Publishing Ltd. The ELT Mag was born out
of the idea of including all professionals in the sector. Creed, nationality, sex, place in the world where you work, etc do not matter to
us... Your ideas do. This magazine has been created for you by people like you: enthusiastic ELT professionals that want to share their
ideas with each other. That is what we at New Way Press Publishing strive to do, and we hope this first free issue shows that.

None of what is present here would have been possible without the hard work of the enthusiastic professionals that submitted their
contributions and believed in this project. We are very thankful to you all for trusting us with your work, and for being so very patient
with us all throughout the process. This magazine would not exist if it were not for you.

This publication would not have seen the light of day either if it had not been for our trusted assistant editor Lucia Marotta, who not
only helped us with editing but also contributed to this issue as well. We are very thankful to you Lucia for all the help and guidance
you have provided myself and the company throughout the process.

When one embarks on projects like this one tends to forget that visuals are a brand's statement. They also make up for that visual
aspect of a publication that can sometimes make or break its content. So I would also like to thank all the visual artists that
contributed to this issue and believed my words were enough to sustain their contributions. WE are hoping that this helps give you
the very much needed publicity you need, because you are amazing artists and we want to celebrate your work.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Penny Ur for contributing to this first issue. Penny and I have never met, but she was kind
enough to answer my email request and provide us with an article for this first issue. We at New Way Press Publishing admire Penny's
work and feel honoured to have worked with her on this first issue.

My last words go to Ben Dobbs, my business partner, who has blindly believed in my ideas from the get go and has not asked
questions or denied any requests. I am deeply grateful to you for this opportunity and I cannot wait to see what the future has in
store for us here at New Way Press Publishing.

Hope you all enjoy this issue of The ELT Mag as much as we enjoyed creating it for you all!!!

Mara Temi

Want to contribute to upcoming issues?

your ideas at:

Email us
       the-elt-mag@new-way-press.com
 IN THIS

A. R. Shearer

C h a n g i n g L a n d s c a p e s i n E a rl y C a re e r E LT .......................................

6
Aisling Ly

Ho w t o b e S u s t a i n a b l e i n A n y Wo rk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
E n v i ro n m e n t

Anahí Pesci

I G a s a R e s o u rc e fo r E LT P ro fe s s i o n a l s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10
Penny Ur

K e y T i p s fo r Te a c h i n g Vo c a b u l a r y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
P.J. Ryan

E m e r g e n t l a n g u a g e a n d re a s o n s t o
p ro m o t e i t i n t h e c l a s s ro o m ....................................................
16

Gabriela Pozza

G o i n g t h e E x t r a M i l e : M a ke ...........................................................
18
Id i o m s S t i c k !

Maria Glazunova

Ho w t o t r a c k s t u d e n t s ' p ro g re s s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20
Jim Fuller

Ho w t o G e t I n v o l v e d i n t h e ............................................................
22
B l o g o s p h e re P a r t 1

Seán Brophy
W h a t o n E a r t h i s a No u n P h r a s e?

The Podcast ......................................................

24
 ISSUE...

Federico Pasquale
Ho w t o S e t u p y o u r o w n ........................................................
26
Online Educational Business

Patrick Spillane

Implementing Communicative
L a n g u a g e Te a c h i n g i n Mo n g o l i a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

Mikaela Armelini

Ne u ro s c i e n c e : E s s e n t i a l
Te c h n i q u e s fo r t h e C l a s s ro o m
....................................................
30

C. Kavanaugh, K. Le Blanc & M. Romero

T h e F i l m Fe s t i v a l Mo d e l i n t h e C l a s s :
E n g a g i n g S t u d e n t s b y P ro m o t i n g
Empathy and Cultural Literacy ................................................

32

Lucía Marotta

Te a c h i n g E n g l i s h t o E l d e rl y S t u d e n t s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34

Joana Arzberger

P re p a re Te a c h , R e p e a t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
36

Cristina Gallego
& Belén Paoli

Why not? .................................................................

38
Changing Landscapes in Early Career ELT

A. R. Shearer

The year was 2019. I had graduated with an MA-TESOL degree and had several job
interviews lined up. My enthusiasm quickly changed to discouragement as many of
these interviews were atrocious. My hiring committees were filled with gatekeepers
(Montgomery, 2020), using the fact that I was a freshly minted teacher as a reason
not to hire me. I finally found myself interviewing with someone who treated me
with respect and spoke to me as a professional. This interaction led me to my first
paid teaching job, with a non-profit in a major city in the United States of
America. Everything was going well until spring of 2020, when I found myself
jobless after the non-profit was closed due to COVID-19.

The prospects for a new job were incredibly slim as the entire world experienced
this pandemic. Borders had closed, so the prospects of going abroad for work were
non-existent. In the United States, schools, colleges, and universities were making
transitions to virtual learning. Hiring freezes (Davidson & Lambert, 2020) were put
into place at companies and teachers were being let go as programs got cut. It was
not the best time for new teachers early in their careers.

Those who graduated right in the heart of 2020 were also put in a precarious
position. They had spent most of their teacher training with face-to-face
instruction and were now being asked to teach virtually. So there we were, new
teachers, during a global pandemic, trained in face-to-face instruction but facing a
global industry-wide transition to online instruction, and one of the issues
gatekeeping us from prospective jobs was that we could not prove that we were
capable of transitioning to online teaching. Even now in 2021, I am finding myself
in job interviews where virtual instruction is a new limiting factor. Because I have
been teaching virtually one-to-one and working as an online language assessor for a
for-profit company, I have been able to leverage those virtual experiences.
However, sometimes this isn’t enough, despite me being fully capable of teaching
on Zoom and using learning management systems (LMSs) like Canvas or Moodle.

At times things have felt hopeless. I have questioned my direction and thought to myself,
“Oh no, what have I done with my life?” The saving grace was finding digital communities
for early career teachers, in the form of Twitter and organizations such as IATEFL,
CATESOL, ASCD, and TESOL International. I was able to participate in professional
development webinars and talks, get experience with virtual ELT design, and learn about
various LMSs. I also learned about other great platforms which I could integrate into online
teaching that would make online learning easy and student-centered, such as Pear Deck,
Voicethread, and Padlet. These communities afforded me the ability to take courses; attend
webinars, conferences, and talks; and gain friendships and collaborators.

"So there we were, new teachers, during a global

pandemic, trained in face-to-face instruction but

facing a global industry-wide transition to online

instruction, and one of the issues gatekeeping us from

prospective jobs was that we could not prove that we

were capable of transitioning to online teaching."

Reading was also an important tool during this time. I learned about social justice issues
such as trauma-informed education, culturally responsive teaching, restorative justice
circles, and topics that were only superficially covered in my masters program (i.e.
raciolinguistics - Alim et al., 2016) and multilingual/translanguaging education). As an early
ELT educator living through what feels like continuous global chaos and a never-ending
COVID-19 pandemic, the future is unstable and not promising. Certain techniques and
methods we learned in school are now inapplicable to the current learning climate and we
are faced with an unclear vision of how the future of teaching will be shaped. However, the
connections made and communities built within online communities have the potential to
afford new teachers the support needed to persevere, no matter what the future looks like.  

Image courtesy of Jayashree Gurumurthy. For more:

      

                                     jayonherway
 HOW TO BE MORE
SUSTAINABLE IN ANY
WORK ENVIRONMENT

AISLING LY

Sustainability has been around for quite a

long time now and now with COVID-19,
it’s even more important. With people
working from home, people travelling
less and spending less money, it’s
important to be conscious of the ever-
changing world around us.    And it’s a
major reason to protect the environment
for future generations. Here are just a few
tips that could possibly help you in any
work environment.

Tip 1: Use less paper!

We love paper! Not really, but anyways. It’s important to try and use
less paper. If you’re printing off something, maybe think about printing
it double sided. Not only does it reduce the amount of paper you use,
but also makes it look neater. Also, if you have lots of scrap paper left
over you could, like me, write on the back of it as notes, or  use it as
extra printing paper provided it’s not an important document.
Alternatively,    you could have your documents all on your computer
or mobile phone, that way you don’t have to print it off.

Tip 2: Bring your leftover Tip 4: Reduce your

dinner for lunch
electricity consumption

You’ve made a delicious dinner and

With most people working at
you have leftovers. You could put
home, electricity is very important
these leftovers in a lunchbox and
for us. How would we live without
bring them into work. You can also
it? A good thing is to unplug
buy a lunch carrier bag  to carry your
things that you don’t use all the
lunch into work so it won’t spill all
time. Things like phone chargers
over your bag. These carrier bags can
and printers don’t need to be
be bought in many sustainable
plugged in 24/7, so when you’re
shops.
finished charging just unplug. If
you have plugs with switches on
them to turn them on and off,
maybe    switch them off if you’re
not using them.

Tip 5: Reduce the

amount of water you use

This seems like an obvious one, Tip 6: Use a reusable coffee

but    bear with me.    Using less
cup and water bottle. And
water whenever you can, is a
great way of saving water and you of course, masks!

save the planet. Did you know it

takes 60 litres to make one pair of
jeans? Maybe fill    up the kettle
once in the morning and use a
flask to keep it hot.    Put on your
dishwasher when it’s full if you
work provides you with one
Tip 3: Use metal straws and
cutlery from home (if having
lunch in a park or in your
office)
plastic.
With the way the paper straws can
be, after about 5 minutes they
disintegrate when you’ve only got
half way down your drink. Metal
straws really work out. You can buy
them in most stores that do
homewares and they are easy to
clean. Using cutlery from home    is
also a handy way of eating lunch and
saving the environment. There are
also places that do wooden cutlery,
use that also as wood can break
down much easier than the hard

These can be quite expensive but

long term might save you 20c each Tip 7: Buy notebooks and
time you buy a coffee or €1 every
pens only when needed

time you buy a plastic water bottle.

You can find big ones if you We love notebooks and some of us
like  large coffees or if you want a flat love to buy expensive ones.So use
white, they have small ones for flat the notebooks that you’ve already
whites. The water bottles are easy to bought and then, once you’ve run
find. A simple metal cup really goes a out and need more you can buy a
long way and I have coffee cups that nice new one. Pens are also
I bought 5 years ago still in use. something we use everyday, so if
Reusable masks are great and more you have loads of pens that you
durable than the disposable ones. I have stocked piled before COVID
have 2 makeup bags full of reusable maybe use them and then buy new
masks that I use all the time and are ones as needed.
very protective.

 IG as a Resource for
ELT Professionals

Anahí Pesci

As I am sure most of you have experienced, at the beginning of the pandemic we had to completely
redesign our lessons for an online context, considering that not all of our students would have
connectivity and that many of them (and us!) were experiencing the hardships, isolation and anxiety
that came with an unknown, deadly disease.  

Mostly, my worries revolved not around having to get used to new technology (in fact, I found joy in
learning about new tools that have so much potential for enriching teaching-learning
environments), but rather around how to create meaningful learning activities in such a context,
considering that in Argentinean secondary schools in-person lessons were cancelled barely a week
after the school year had started (March 2020). In addition, in our attempt to make sure “contents
were not lost” and that students still “kept learning” what they were expected to, we soon fell into
the trap of grind culture. The amount of work for both students and educators piled up at an
overwhelming rate.

In this context, fellow educators on social media became a great company in many respects. In
particular, I started following (or looking more closely at) several Instagram accounts that bring
reflection, fresh ideas and perspectives, and interesting materials to our lessons. Though this social
network may one day become outdated, I believe its current potential for teachers is worth
highlighting.
In this context, fellow educators on social media Most importantly, ELT professional accounts
became a great company in many respects. In are a great way to connect with fellow
particular, I started following (or looking more teachers around the world that somehow
closely at) several Instagram accounts that bring share a similar educational philosophy. It is
reflection, fresh ideas and perspectives, and easy to lose perspective in a context that
interesting materials to our lessons. Though this demands hours (sometimes 12, even more) in
social network may one day become outdated, I front of a screen. I don’t know if you can
believe its current potential for teachers is worth relate, but I feel it is easy to forget our primary
highlighting.
aims as educators in the sea of daily tasks…

sometimes it is tempting to rely on the old
Of course, during the pandemic live talks became grammar exercises, both for us and for our
so much more frequent. In our case, as students.

professionals, this meant the opportunity of

assisting free online workshops whose quality

and pragmatic nature make them incredibly

valuable. Tutorials are also readily available to
solve tech-specific issues or to implement new
digital tools, which in a context of overwhelming
"I feel it is easy to forget our
amounts of work is more than welcome to primary aims as educators

simplify our lives, while still promoting creative in the sea of daily task."
and refreshing practices in our virtual
classrooms.

 "Some
incredible IG
accounts bring
revitalizing
perspectives
into the
profession"

Here, then, are the accounts that I cherish

Some incredible IG accounts bring revitalizing the most:

perspectives into the profession, reminding us of

our why, reminding us of teaching as an act of IG accounts specifically devoted to ELT

love and service. Furthermore, they help us
perceive the different contexts, practices, values
that may be involved in education. What are
similarities and differences in the ways we think
of English teaching, say, in Spain, in Chile, in
These accounts are mostly for Spanish-
speaking professionals (I think we are a great
bunch!). I will not say much, as you will
probably want to dive into them:
@teachingteacup, @parentesis.educacion,
@profe.pamela, @missnayasmoments.

Argentina? And how does each perspective relate

to the way that we conceive of education as a IG accounts of teachers of foreign

broader concept?
languages

  
Some of these educators work on
Of course, I could not finish this article without bilingual/dual programs, some others teach
foreign languages other than English, but all
suggesting some accounts that bring interesting
of them have brilliant ideas and inspiring
reflections and materials to social networks. They educational perspectives:

are not selected in a rigorous manner but rather @la_profe_online, @profetips,

based on a personal search for inspiration and @thewokespanishteacher.

refueling of my passion. If you haven’t already, I

suggest that you embark on such an important IG accounts that are not specific to
foreign-language teaching

quest (be it on IG or anywhere else – including

But connect to broader educational
this beautiful magazine!).
philosophical considerations to bring into the

classroom:

@teachandtransform, @laviejadelenguaje,

@toocoolformiddleschool,
Hope you enjoy these accounts and discover @fivefootoneteacher, @mudandinkteaching.

some precious gems along the way!

Star Article: Penny Ur

Key Tips for Teaching Vocabulary

When I started teaching in the late 1960s, I remember an English teaching inspector telling me: ‘Don’t worry
about teaching vocabulary: teach correct grammar and the learners will just pick up the vocabulary as they go’.
This was in the heyday of audio-lingual methodology, according to which learners needed primarily to
‘automatize’ grammatical patterns through a lot of imitation, repetition, and drills.

Even then, this seemed to me a not very effective – and rather boring – way of getting my learners to master a
new language.    As time went on, I was happy to see attitudes changing: there was an increasing emphasis on
teaching learners to understand and convey meanings rather than just create correct sentences in the new
language. And if you are focusing on meaning-making, then you are inevitably going to devote more attention

to teaching vocabulary, since it is primarily the vocabulary which conveys meanings.

Note that incidental learning – ‘picking up’ vocabulary through reading or listening, as recommended by my
inspector – is very slow and inefficient.    It works for children learning their mother tongue, or ones who are
learning a second language through ‘total immersion’, because they have an enormous number of hours of
contact with the language every day.    But most learners of English today are living in a non-English-speaking
country, and are exposed to English mostly, if not solely, through English lessons – often only four hours a week
or less. So most of our students’ vocabulary learning will be through our lessons, and we need to make sure that
the vocabulary learning procedures that we use are as effective as possible.

Here are some vocabulary-teaching tips which I hope you will find helpful.  They are based on a combination of
my own teaching experience and evidence from the research.

Teach a lot of vocabulary, and teach vocabulary a lot!

Users of English probably need about 3000 words in order to understand and communicate at an intermediate
(B1) level (Schmitt & Schmitt, 2014), and at least twice that in order to cope with unsimplified reading texts. If
you are teaching in a school in a non-English-speaking country, that probably means teaching about twenty
new items a week (though obviously fewer for younger beginners and more for older or more advanced
learners). And you need to find time also to review.  You’ll need, therefore, to devote a lot of time to vocabulary
teaching:  my own recommendation would be about a quarter of total lesson time, and a similar proportion of
homework assignments.

Raise students’ awareness of the importance of vocabulary learning

17 september, 2011

If the students are aware how important it is to acquire a large English vocabulary in order to achieve
proficiency, then they are more likely to invest effort in learning it.  It is worth devoting some class time at the
beginning of a course to a discussion of the issue – in the students’ mother tongue if you know it and if they are
PORTRAIT OF

not yet proficient in English.  Not only will they understand why they are asked to work on vocabulary so much
in your course, but will also be more willing to cooperate if you ask them to invest effort and time outside the
classroom in vocabulary-enrichment assignments: finding and interviewing English speakers, for example;
THE MAN

watching movies or you-tube clips in English with subtitles (if any) only in English; noting English words or
phrases displayed
keep up in the street,
with the in movement
advertisements or on packaging of foods.

Star Article: Penny Ur

Key Tips for Teaching Vocabulary

Review vocabulary items several times

Learners do not remember a new word after one exposure.  Or even two or three. The research indicates that in
order to remember a new item permanently, they probably need between 6 and 16 reviews (Zahar et al., 2001).
Our problem is, then, to make sure that there are enough opportunities for review, without our students getting
bored with repetitive tasks. So we need to vary the types of procedure (sentence-completion, multiple-choice,
dictation, brainstorming, matching, guessing, question-and answer, finding synonyms and opposites,
paraphrasing …), and make sure we use tasks that are likely to be interesting: getting students to relate the new
items to themselves, for example, or make up stories that use them.  

Multi-word items

Vocabulary is not just words. It also includes multi-word items: phrasal verbs like look after, get away;
prepositional phrases like by the way, of course; binomials like to and fro, more or less – and more. These are
items that work like words in that they express a single idea, and are stored in the memory as a single ‘chunk’;
and their meaning often cannot be guessed by combining the meanings of the component words. So if you are
compiling a list of new vocabulary to be taught from a text and reviewed later, look out for these types of items
and include them in your list: don’t limit yourself to single words. And encourage students to write them down
as items to be learned.

Get students to retrieve

Exactly how many times you need to review items depends not only on the difficulty
Vocabulary is
of the item and ability of the learner, but also on how effective the review procedure
is.    A task that gets the learner to retrieve and produce the form or meaning from
not just words.
memory is much more effective than one that consists of only letting them see or hear
the item again, without demanding any effort of retrieval (Laufer & Rozovski-Roitblat,
It also includes
2015).    So it’s better to run a quiz or some kind of sentence-writing or brainstorming multi-word
activity that gets students to use the new vocabulary themselves than just to remind
them of the form and meaning of the new items or tell them to study a word list.
items
Prioritize frequent words

Since we have limited time at our disposal for vocabulary teaching, and need to make sure that our
students learn as much as possible, it makes sense to prioritize those items which are likely to be most
useful for them, and not to waste time – particularly at beginner or intermediate levels – on teaching
advanced, relatively rare, words they are unlikely to need at this level. The most useful words are, on
the whole, those which occur most frequently in the language as a whole. So when you identify the
new vocabulary in a text, direct students’ attention mainly to those that are clearly more frequent.
Words that are needed for this text but unlikely to be encountered again soon will need to be
explained, but don’t invest too much effort in reviewing and testing them.    If you’re not sure how
frequent a particular word is, look it up in a learner dictionary: most of the modern learner dictionaries
indicate the level of their headwords, based on frequency.

Star Article: Penny Ur

Key Tips for Teaching Vocabulary

Use translation to clarify meanings

There are lots of ways to clarify meanings of a new

vocabulary item: pictures, realia (real objects),
explanations and definitions, synonyms, opposites,
examples in context, etc. Translation into the
students’ L1 has been traditionally frowned on, and
teachers tend either to avoid it, or use it and then feel
guilty about it. But actually it is a very efficient way of
presenting the meaning of a new item, if your
students all speak the same mother tongue, which
you also know.    It is likely to be relatively accurate,
and is certainly clearer and quicker than most of the
other options – as well as a natural, intuitive resource
for the learner.    Probably the best way to introduce
the meaning of new vocabulary is to use the L1
together with one or more of the other
options.    Translate first, and then add an English
synonym, example in context etc.; or clarify the
meaning first through pictures, definitions etc., and
then add a quick translation to ensure
understanding.  

Include a vocabulary component in tests

If you compose your own tests rather than using

published ones, then it’s a good idea to include a
section that explicitly tests vocabulary, as well as
ones that target reading or listening comprehension,
writing, and grammar. This not only conveys the
message that vocabulary is important enough to
include as a component of assessment; it also makes
it much more likely that students will invest effort in
learning the vocabulary in order to succeed in the
Image courtesy of Marcelo Sanchez. For more:  

    
test.
                     mmarcesanchez

References and further reading

Laufer, B., & Rozovski-Roitblat, B. (2015). Retention of new

words: Quantity of encounters, quality of task, and degree of
knowledge. Language Teaching Research, 19(6), 687-711.

Schmitt, N., & Schmitt, D. (2014). A reassessment of frequency

and vocabulary size in L2 vocabulary teaching1. Language
Teaching, 47(4), 484-503.

Ur, P. (forthcoming). Penny Ur’s 77 tips on teaching

vocabulary. Cambridge University Press.

Zahar, R, T. Cobb & N. Spada. ( 2001). Acquiring vocabulary

through reading: effects of frequency and contextual
richness. Canadian Modern Language Review , 57(4), 544-72.
 Emergent language and
reasons to promote it in the
classroom
P. J . R YA N

A real shift in language teaching and improvement on the fabric that

governs the classroom is in need of change, and here’s why.

As the Internet continues to be more

integrated in our lives and artificial
intelligence systems that aid learning continue
to evolve with each passing year, the
language student today may be slowly
becoming more independent from the teacher,
which in turn may threaten our livelihoods as
practitioners. Of course, not everyone is
technologically fluent and will need some sort
of instruction, but there is a serious cause for
concern here.

So, what are the majority of schools doing about it? We have courses and course books, but if
students are getting their information and practice elsewhere, and usually for free, are these
curriculums and materials meeting their immediate, local and/or global needs as we enter a
post-pandemic era? What else can we offer them? One thing that students need but cannot get
on their own is something largely marginalised in the classroom - real conversational practice
and the detailed analysis and feedback of the language that emerges from it. Wilberg (1987)
points out that it is the teacher’s responsibility not to provide the communicative content, but to
understand the student’s communicative needs first, then provide the framework for this input to
be practiced communicatively, and later analysed for present or missing linguistic features. Task-
based learning and other fluency-first and student-centered approaches allow real
communication and dialogue to flourish in the classroom. When students are given this level of
freedom, emergent language occurs and real learning that matters to them can begin.
 To illustrate this way of thinking inside my classroom, I had two students who needed to prepare for a job
interview. The class brainstormed questions that could have been asked and they practiced answering them.
After each round of speaking, the content and language that emerged was then analysed, celebrated,
corrected and/or improved upon as a group. Keep in mind that the language is not restricted to one language
focus; all language systems are covered.

Below is an edited document on Google Docs I used to showcase the emergent language through the four
language systems during feedback (the document is normally a lot longer with fuller sentences produced by
the students). This language is improved upon by reformulating and recasting it for the students to use for
future performances. The students can access this record of work at any time, and their work and feedback is
never lost. Students love to learn new words, phrases and strategies from each other.

Chart taken from an

online A2 class on
the topic of
‘Countries worth
visiting after COVID’

The Language League

Reflection diaries and vocabulary notebooks
Grass Skirts (credit Oli Beddall)

This can be utilised at the start of lessons or
pulled out when student energy levels start to
wane. Put students into teams and they stay
this way throughout your course. Teams score
points by answering questions on emergent
language covered in previous classes. Give
each team questions on slips of paper (I get
my students to draw questions from my
recycling toy bin). Record the points on a
wall. Students take one slip at a time
piece of paper so the students can see their
position in the league. At a certain point in
the course, hand out prizes to all e.g. sweets.
This has helped to improve not only the
I encourage my students to take five minutes
to sit down and write down their thoughts after
most lessons about the language they have
encountered and used, for instance, what they
did well, what problems they overcame, and
where they are having trouble. During
formative assessment, they then summarise
these ideas to help me, and them, get a clearer
idea of where the student is with the language
I also encourage students to keep a vocabulary
notebook. They write down new words that
emerge from lessons into two or three full
sentences, without the aid of translation.
Put the students into groups.
Prepare some recent errors that the
students have made into a form of
community advertisement where
people can rip the phone number
from; the errors being the phone
number. One document for each
group. Stick the document on the
and try to correct it in their group.
They race to the teacher to see if
they got it right. They can select
another error if they did.

retention of the language covered, but student Oftentimes these words end up in the
attendance rates, too. If this seems a bit Language League, so this motivates my
ambitious, just use the questions without the students to keep a record of language.

league component.

 GOING THE EXTRA

MILE: MAKE IDIOMS
STICK!
GABRIELA POZZA

Idioms are good examples of formulaic language  which often pose

challenges in the classroom. The fact that the meaning of idioms
cannot be worked out easily is likely to cause misunderstandings and
thus breakdowns in communication.

Students across all levels benefit from learning idioms - it
gives beginners the much desired sense of progress and more
advanced students gain a lot from learning high frequency
expressions and increasing their vocabulary. Exposing
learners to idiomatic language enables them to not only
recognise these in rapid speech but also use them without
much thinking, thus increasing their confidence and aiding
fluency.    This is why addressing idioms is of paramount
importance in the classroom. Having said that, I will spill the
beans and describe what has worked for me.
Focusing on form. Students are likely to struggle with
1 Grouping idioms thematically and tied with the
learners’ contexts. This provides them with more
chances to use it    in real life. For example, most of
my students are doing exam preparation, so idioms
related to studying such as ‘to rack one’s brain’, or
‘call an allnighter’ are quite useful as they can use
them frequently.
Incorporating authentic material. Idioms are part
2 more interesting, or used for emphasis in speaking
of popular culture, so they can be easily found in
newspapers, series, magazine articles, etc. Exploring
how the idioms are being used in that particular
context equips learners with examples of real
language in use.
3 Keeping a contextualised - and thorough - record
of new vocabulary. This helps learners recognise
language patterns such as prepositions (e.g. ‘I still
hold a grudge against him’),  connotation (e.g. ‘to be
a chicken’ carries a negative connotation, so it can
be used to mock or to provoke someone) and
comparison with other idioms (e.g. ‘lend an ear’ and
‘prick sb’s ear up’ can be quite similar but differ in
meaning) rather than traditional vocabulary lists,
whose lack of details prevents learners from
noticing how language is used. Students can also be
encouraged to include the L1 equivalents, always
bearing in mind that idioms must be seen and
treated as a single unit and not as words in isolation.
Idioms provoke powerful imagery, which makes them fun to teach - aside from the endless creative
activities and games which, combined with the tips above, can make vocabulary-focused lessons
remarkably engaging. By using effective teaching strategies we can help learners memorise and
actively incorporate idioms into their language. After all, where there is a will, there is a way!
Using mnemonic techniques such as visual
4
representations or stories. Have learners come up
with their own drawing/ image that represents the
idiom e.g. ‘to turn red’, ‘sit on the fence’. Additionally,
students can work in groups and make up stories to
explain the etymology of the idioms and the whole
class can vote on the most plausible - or the most far-
fetching - story!
5
word order, articles, prepositions when it comes to
using idioms, so assembling words into sentences or a
fill in the gap activity can go a long way in ensuring
idioms are being seen as fixed chunks (e.g. ‘up to the
minute’ and not ‘up to minute’).
Providing different contexts and functions for
6
learners to use idioms in written or spoken activities.
Idioms can be used to make articles and anecdotes
activities where students are asked to make requests,
describe past events, and so on.
Exploring features of connected speech. Such as
7
intonation (does it fall or rise?), assimilation (which
sounds modify when put together?), elision (which
sounds disappear?), sentence stress (which sounds are
pronounced with more emphasis?). Bringing
awareness to the aforementioned features improves
learners’ listening and speaking skills, as they are
more prepared not only to recognise but also
reproduce them.
8 Revising regularly to keep what has been learnt
active. Spaced retrieval provides learners with
repeated opportunities to revisit the idioms they had
learnt the previous weeks. Allocate 10 minutes of your
class three times a week to use quizzes, controlled
practice activities, pictionary, and others.
Image courtesy of Jayashree Gurumurthy. For more:  
                                                 jayonherway


How to track

students' progress

Maria Glazunova

I teach without coursebooks in "Teaching

Unplugged" style (Thornbury, 2009), and here I
want to share some ideas on how I track my
students' progress.

After every lesson, I give short online tests as homework based on the kind of grammar
that emerged. Then, students put their results in Google docs. In this way, I can see what

they still don't understand, and it gives me an idea for the direction of the next lesson.

As for the new emergent vocabulary - mostly chunks, not just separate words – I give
different tasks. For example, they record voice messages in Telegram/WhatsApp and use

Quizlet. One of my students' favorites is to write stories with these emergent items that I
carefully analyze and give feedback on.

At the end of every lesson, I ask students what 3 things they think they have improved (in

comparison to the previous lessons). As a result, they learn to analyze their progress,
develop the habit of noticing the good stuff too and gain self-confidence.

It also helps to see the direction for the following lessons, what homework to give, and
students are encouraged to suggest different ideas that can help them improve.

"We need to give time and space for our

students to find their own answers."  

After students analyze themselves, I always step in and share my observations,
suggestions. I don’t always give ready made solutions. Often, I ask questions. We need to
give time and space for our students to find their own answers. For example, if the student
tells me “I don’t know how to learn new vocabulary. Tell me how”. I can give some tools and
strategies, but we always explore what works best for a particular student. I ask “What do
you think can help you to improve?”. And sometimes, students can come up with their own
system that works for them. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy.

Sometimes, when we don’t see the progress, I can ask, “why is that so? What do
you think?”; and students tell me honestly their reasons and we negotiate
possible solutions. Sometimes, it is necessary to change our lessons' direction
because their motivation and priorities have been changed. Honesty between us
is essential.

I'm constantly keeping my finger on their English pulse because if I don't do this - the
price of misunderstanding and demotivation is too high. I encourage them to share
how they use the language outside the classroom (they could conduct a meeting with
foreign colleagues, etc.). This also adds up to their sense of achievement,
responsibility, and autonomy.

My colleague Yuliya Pyatnochko suggested shooting a video at the beginning of

the course and at the end. So, I started to record our sessions more often with my
students' permission. It is useful and inspiring because they can see the difference.

I’d say my biggest task is not to teach them the present perfect but to help dissolve the restrictions they place

on themselves (if they want to) and see their progress more adequately. That they start perceiving English as
a tool to get the result they need and help others, find pleasure and interest in the learning process. Once it’s
done - everything else falls into the right place.

More from Maria

Glazunova here

How to get involved in the blogosphere!

Part 1

Jim Fuller
Blogging is getting popular these days, but starting off can be scary. In this two-
part article, we  will look at the what, why and how of blogging, so that you can
get started easily.  

What is blogging?

Seems a silly question, but I think it’s a good place to start. In essence, a blog can be anything  that you write about on
your own or another person’s website. I think that many teachers have  this impression that blogging needs to be some
big academic endeavour, when in actual fact  most blogs are not - some simply want to blog to keep a record of their
thoughts. Another  important dimension to consider is the idea of professional identity and how blogging shapes  this;
through blogging we can craft, or at least develop our own identity that we present to the  wider ELT community and
ourselves (Barkhuizen, 2019). With this in mind, perhaps we can  define blogging as the following:

‘A blog is: a record of your thoughts, opinions, or experiences that you put
on the internet on a  website in an informal or academic manner with the
purpose of having other people read them;  somewhere to write down your
thoughts that can be retrieved at a later date; and/or a tool that  can be used
to shape and present professional identity.’  

Why blog?

Earlier in the year,  I carried out a very informal survey amongst ELT bloggers. I had 24 responses and what was
interesting was that the majority of participants (not only teachers) indicated that they had been blogging for less than
two years (45.8%). I can’t draw too many conclusions from this, but it does seem like there has been a little ‘boom’ in
blogging, perhaps due to the pandemic. My theory is that  with the push to work online, ELT professionals have become
more tech-savvy, happy to experiment with online development tools, and see the value in blogging.

But, let’s look at some conclusions that can be drawn. It is clear that blogs help professionals  develop, with 91.7% noting
that through blogging they have been able to do so. Of course, the  ways in which each person may develop through
blogging is going to be different, but one thing  is certainly true: blogging helps. Blogging falls under the category of
reflective practice and is  important as it helps us articulate our thoughts and, through this articulation, ‘reshape
our  practice as we become aware of what works and what doesn’t’ (Dragas, 2019).  
What about jobs? When asked if blogging had helped
participants successfully gain    employment, the
majority said no; although, there were still quite a
large number of people that    said yes (45.8%). I
recently spoke with a number of directors about
blogging, and many noted  that while blogs would not
be a deciding factor regarding a decision to hire
someone, they would    certainly influence their
decision. In a sense, your blog acts as an online
portfolio - selling  yourself to the world. Of course, this
has to come with a word of warning - what you post
is    available to the whole ELT community so
remember that your opinions may not be shared
by  all.

But there were many other reasons put down for starting a blog. Take a look at the following list:

Reasons, ranked from most to least popular

75%

4.2%

Increase online profile

4.2%

The need for a creative outlet

4.2%

For fun
4.2%

To document the reality of the industry

4.2%

To network with other teachers

4.2%

To share knowledge
4.2%

To provide materials for others in similar positions (e.g. teacher training)

To help other ELT professionals

From a personal perspective, I have found blogging to be a useful development tool, online CV  as well as a way to
network with other like-minded professionals. Without blogging I would most    likely never have got some of the
positions I have held or met some of the lovely ELT folk that I  have. Neither would I have pushed myself to be as
critical as I have in certain areas.  

It’s probably clear that I can’t answer the question for you - only you can. As a professional, you  need to identify your
motivations for wanting to blog and from there you will have a much clearer  understanding of what the benefits
might be and what you can write about.

Check out Jim's blog here

 What on Earth
is a Noun
Phrase?
The Podcast

In the spring of 2019, nestled into a small French village

where the river Élorn feeds out to the sea in the north-
west of Brittany, I started studying on my DELTA. I began
with module 2 and teaching practice. Our first Language Seán Brophy
Systems Assignment (LSA) was to be based around a
grammar point in the English language and our tutors had
kindly emailed a list of relevant grammar points that the
6 of us could pick from. I missed the email and was left
with “the noun phrase”. Initially, I thought to myself
“What on earth is a noun phrase?” With time though and
good thought, I got my head around it and focused on
getting some reading done and a lesson planned and
taught. It all went well. During that first DELTA week in
France, we talked about teaching  practice and
methodology, our goals and ambitions and everything in
between. In the middle of all of this, the EFL Twitter
community and EFL podcasts came up. I suppose that is
where and when the seed was planted. Nearly two years
to the day later, having spent my fair share of time
thinking, chatting and editing, all amidst a global
pandemic, I released the first episode of the podcast
“What on earth is a noun phrase?”.

Image courtesy of Diana Gibney. For more:

        

                          photo.atelier.dg
The idea in essence is simple: short, practical and forward-thinking conversations
with different practitioners in the field of EFL and linguistics. We have what we
hope to be insightful discussions that are easy and quick to listen to and provide
you with practical tips and ideas for your teaching.

In season 1, we started off by talking to Matt Steele about “Authentic Listening”

and why, when it comes to listening, that we need to stop testing our learners.
Matt told us how “authentic listening is about training your ear. It is of fundamental
importance to everybody, from elementary up.” Episode 2 brought us to one of our
favourite ways to teach: Task-Based Learning. We were lucky to chat with Neil
McCutcheon, the author of “Activities For Task-Based Learning”. Amongst many
things, Neil told us how “the problem with PPP is it’s rather meaning impoverished
and also potentially limiting in the language focus. So, TBL is more meaningful, it’s
more student-centred and the language focus is likely to be wider and richer.”
Episode 3 was with the great Sarah Blair and we discussed her wonderful ideas
around “Visualising Grammar”. For a different viewpoint on grammar, this is the
episode for you. Sarah and I discussed the differences between time and space in
relation to English grammar and how this alternative approach can be helpful for our
students. Sandy Millin joined us for episode 4, where we discussed professional
development, why it’s important and where you can get it. Sandy told us about the
power of the online EFL community and her self-published series of books for
teachers and trainers. Season 2 is currently in the pipeline and we have some really
interesting guests lined up.

The podcast is produced and released through Oxford Language Performance (OLP)
and you can find it wherever you normally get your podcasts, or you can listen and
subscribe directly. If you do get a chance to listen, I really hope you enjoy it!

Listen and subscribe to Sean podscast here

Interact with him on Twitter

How to set up your
own online
educational business

Federico Pasquale

Hi there! My name is Federico Pasquale and I’m the teacher from The Online Classroom. In
this opportunity, I’m going to tell you about my experience in setting up my own educational
business.
With schools closing down and companies laying
workers off as a result of the pandemic in March
2020, I found myself in the need of generating
work and reaching new students to go back to
teaching as soon as possible. Some colleagues
suggested creating profiles on different teaching
platforms but the problem was that some of
these platforms only accept people who can
teach their native language. Another problem is
that there seem to be more teachers than
students and last but not least, some of them
require you to teach a first lesson for free (from
20 minutes up to 1 hour). In the end, and after
trying some of these platforms, I decided to start
a new project from scratch. I knew it would take
time but at least it would be mine.  It was then
that The Online Classroom was born.
It wasn’t easy at the beginning and I was kind of
lost as I didn’t want to post what 99% of other
teachers and schools were posting. It took me
some time to come up with an idea which now
I’m happy with. After spending many hours
reading about marketing and teaching, I found
out the importance of two things: having an
audience in mind and being specific. The first
question you should ask yourself is who you are
targeting with your posts. If you post basic
vocabulary, then you are targeting at starter-
level students and if you post business
vocabulary for instance, then your target are
business people. Having your audience in mind
will help you decide on what to do and what
direction to take. My target audience is, for
example, intermediate and higher level students
who are learning English to take an international
exam. So every week, I work with different
topics from the tests. The more specific you are
the better. It’s also a good idea combining
something you like and are passionate about
with your teaching. If you like writing you can
help your audience with this or if you love
reading, why not teach English through
literature?
It’s also important to give something to your
audience for free and show yourself on the
platform too. This will help create confidence as no
one wants to have classes with a stranger, but if you
show yourself, students will begin to know your
online teaching persona and if they like your page,
it’s likely that they will end up buying private lessons
with you.  Of course, you need to be patient and
have passion for what you do; starting an online
teaching business doesn’t take just a few days. My
advice is: find something that you love and start
creating content about it, share it with your
community of friends and students and then
advertise your teaching. After some time your
followers will already be in love with what you do
and will be happy to pay for your services.
The first question
you should ask
yourself is who
you are targeting
with your posts.
Apart from running and promoting my page, I
must say I’m a bit of a technophile and I love using
technology in the classroom to make my lessons
more engaging. I also like helping and learning
from other teachers about technology. This is why
I’m working on a techno section for future issues
of this magazine, so keep  posted!
Find The Online English Classroom here
Implementing
Communicative
Language
Teaching in
Mongolia
Patrick Spillane

In 1997, some seven years after Mongolia

abandoned Sovietism, its Ministry of
Education announced an alteration to its
curriculum stating:

‘The aim of language

teaching is to provide
learning conditions for
students to attain
communicative skills in
social contexts’ (Namsrai
2001)
This move can be construed as another
means of shaking off the legacy of
communism, since it was intended to
supplant the dominant pedagogical model
of grammar-translation introduced by the
Soviets for teaching Russian.

Nevertheless some resistance came from
scholars and teachers who believed CLT
inappropriate in their EFL context, where
little opportunity existed for language practice
and exposure beyond the classroom. Where a
will for change existed, good intentions were
sometimes thwarted by a lack of resources and
training.
junior teachers address senior teachers by
the same title, suggesting another reason
Indeed, Namsrai (2019) further reports that
real curricular change beyond a statement of
intent did not arrive until 2018 when the
national curriculum was updated to be learner
centred, a central principle in the
communicative approach.
Nevertheless, I have observed teachers
In fact, during my first stint in Mongolia in
2018, I was assigned to evaluate an English for
Academic Purposes program in a large private
university. On conducting a needs analysis, I
learned that many teachers considered
grammar-translation a viable option for them,
but also expressed openness toward CLT.
something that only native speakers do.
In reading the reports of my predecessors,
who had worked with this group of teachers
for three years, it was apparent that classroom
practice did reflect a grammar-translation
model, with classes conducted almost entirely
in Mongolian and little interaction beyond
teacher explanations and questioning. Also,
uptake of the learner centred communicative
methods introduced through bi-weekly
workshops was very low, even viewed with
hostility in some cases.
When I began to co-teach, the reasons became
clear: many teachers had low levels of English
proficiency and were not comfortable
communicating in English. Furthermore, they
tended to view themselves as university
lecturers rather than English Language
Teachers, as evidenced in their email
signatures, marked ‘lecturer’ and ‘senior
lecturer’.
struggle.
On returning to Mongolia in 2019, I was
invited to celebrate teacher’s day, another
legacy of the soviet era occurring every
October, which demonstrates the great
reverence felt towards teachers in the
country. In fact, students address teachers
using the honorific title ‘Bagshaa’, and
for teacher-centred lessons, a traditional
view of education, found throughout Asia,
which prescribes very different roles for
teachers and students than those prescribed
by the individualistic model of CLT.
delivering communicative lessons with
great competence, and others attempt to do
so but with wavering commitment.
Students too seem to respond very well to
demonstration classes I deliver, but the
view persists that such lessons are
"Students too seem to
respond very well to
demonstration classes I
deliver, but the view
persists that such lessons
are something that only
native speakers do."
Overall, it seems a cultural  tug of war is
being waged in Mongolia, both between
tradition and modernity, as well as the
influences of the three great powers who
have long appreciated the strategic
importance of Mongolia’s geographical
location, China, Russia and the USA, and
classroom practice seems to reflect this

 Neuroscience:
Essential Techniques
for the Classroom
Mikaela Armelini

“What should I do when my students behave inappropriately in my lessons?”. This is a

question I get asked a lot by my teacher mentees. What we do, then, is to change the
question. Instead, I ask them: “what are your students communicating through this
behaviour?''. This requires a change of focus: understanding behaviour as communication.
An example of this is when students act out in aggression; according to neuroscience
research they do so because they are in anger or pain. This article will delve into how
students affected by trauma or stress tend to behave in classroom settings and what
classroom strategies we can apply to provide learners with the safe space to enhance
learning.

Image courtesy of Gustavo Notarnicola. For more:

        

                                                 pixbygus
According to MacLean (1990), the neocortex is the part of the brain that can find it very difficult to process
language when under stress, hence, the first thing we need to do as teachers is to help learners to calm down
and reduce stress. We should validate their feelings with our words and tone of voice and use short
sentences. Your focus here is connecting with the student. You can give examples of what you do when you
feel that way, such as “When I feel this way, I take a walk and that helps a lot!”. These are other phrases we
can say to students that will both validate their feelings and help them calm their emotional brain: “You are
allowed to feel…” “Let's talk when you're ready”; “It's okay to be…” “That's really tough, isn't it?”.

Raising awareness about the importance of bringing oxygen to the frontal lobe of the brain and training
students to take deep breaths when feeling distressed is key in terms of brain calmness and relaxation.
Another technique is to get students to tidy their desks for a minute or get them to drill a structure while
clapping. This activates several areas of the brain and also helps them calm down. In order to help learners
change their focus, you might carry out this activity: pick a color. Ask students how many things in that color
they can see around the room or out of their window. Then pick another color. This will help them to distract
for a bit and unwind.

WE SHOULD VALIDATE STUDENTS'

FEELINGS FIRST AND ALSO OFFER
STUDENTS ALTERNATIVES TO
PERFORM A TASK.

Bearing in mind that behavior always communicates something, when students get
disruptive it might be because they are struggling with a task or activity that is too
demanding for them. An idea to help learners cope with the situation is to support our talk
with non-verbal strategies such as visual aids, multi-sensory options like gestures, facial
expressions, and sounds. As mentioned above, we should validate their feelings first and
also offer students alternatives to perform a task. Last but not least, it’s of utmost
importance to create a safe environment throughout the lesson. By establishing clear
routines, keeping instructions clear, using simple language, and breaking down instructions
into steps, we build a much more safe and positive learning environment where students
can rely on predictability.

As teachers of a foreign language, we should be aware of the role of our students’ brains
and emotions at the time of learning. Our main focus should be to work hard to foster a
relaxed classroom climate, to connect with our learners, validate their feelings, and give
them tools to manage stress. In this way, we are training them to become better learners
and also equipping them with powerful tools to improve their quality of life.

 The film festival

model in the class:
Engaging students by
promoting empathy and
cultural literacy
Catherine Kavanaugh, Kate Le Blanc & Mariela Romero

It’s inarguable that travel and international education at an early age cultivates an ear for a second
language, a gateway to learning about and feeling confident in the world. Yet this is inaccessible for
many due to economics, health and awareness. COVID stopped travel and, in many ways, leveled the
playing field, further spotlighting the need for immersive, travel-like experiences.

How might we build on the pandemic-sparked global awareness to develop desire to learn a second
language? How might we foster not just cross-cultural comfort but expectation of diversity? How do we
show greater welcome to new neighbors or students from other cultures who are on their way to
becoming bilingual or simply learning a foreign language? How might we?


One of the possible ways is by using international films as tools for cultivating cultural literacy. The visual
medium of short films exposes students to languages and cultural practices outside their day-to-day
experiences. Language educators are always worried about providing immersive opportunities for students
to hear and see languages spoken both natively and non-natively. One way of doing this, that can be
extremely engaging for students, is by replicating the international film festival atmosphere. We base our
answer on the research conducted in collaboration with the Berlin Film Festival’s Generation section, where
thirty-five from forty-five respondents mentioned learning language from cinema. That was exactly the case
of Felix Klein, who said that most of his English “came from movies,” from listening to languages spoken in
context. Language educators know exactly what Felix means. Likewise, director Bong Joon Ho supported the
idea last year at the Oscars when he pointed out that subtitles are really “a magic door.”

Additionally, there is another element intrinsic to immersing in an international short film that supports
language learning. This is empathy. Educators can also be leaders in underscoring empathy in language
learning. Why not? Global cinema is a simple, accessible learning tool. Why not use it?

The international film festival model helps students stretch and strengthen their empathy muscles through
film viewing and post-viewing discussion as well. The empathy in the stories is what stuck with regular film
festival goer Felix Klein, more than ten years after watching his earliest memory of an international film.
The film festival model presents a learning atmosphere matched only by travel itself for generating
empathy across cultures. Here is how empathy and language can come together in this model:

1. Learning about other young people’s

lives and language through the film’s
story.

2. Learning through the filmmaker’s point

of view and language.

3. Learning about other peers in the class,

through post-film discussions.

4. Learning about international peers, who

can join the audience from near and far.

5. Reflecting on relationships portrayed in

films.

6. Doing post-viewing writing activities,

like film recommendations and reviews for
other peers.

We recognize that some learners are lucky to have a parent or a teacher who has overcome the “bottom of
the screen” obstacles to engagement but learning from cinema shouldn’t be left up to luck. While many
educators are looking for authentic engagement with speakers in the second language, the international
film model can foster cultural literacy through interaction with international guests as well. Cultural
literacy is having empathy and curiosity for different languages, geographies, climate, culture and it can
start with simply asking what time it is somewhere else in the world.

The peer-to-peer learning in the film festival model is particularly profound. Educators know that lifelong
learning comes from vivid memories of momentous events. Therefore, we shouldn’t undermine the
enormous cognitive impact of cinema but instead use it to our advantage as a learning tool. One that
paves the way for greater understanding of cultural literacy, one that helps enrich and empower our
students’ cultural identity, as well as their social emotional literacy. Ghandi once said, “We but mirror the
world,” so let’s make the mirror as diverse as we can. Let’s screen films in the class through the
international film festival model. Let’s join the most noble trend—the one that aims to create more
empathy in the world, from the class to the outside world...and beyond!

Find out more about this project here

Teaching English to Elderly Students
Lucía Marotta
The urge for advanced-age people to learn English is becoming bigger and bigger every day. Around the
world, but especially in Europe, migration between countries has created the need to integrate to new
societies, as well as communicating with grandchildren and in-laws abroad. Moreover, as awareness of
the importance of remaining mentally active increases, the elderly have started to take an interest in
learning foreign languages with the aim of preventing mental aging and loss of cognitive capabilities.

Elderly people are full of valuable

experiences which younger people
don’t have

Teaching these students poses a challenge to us teachers; it requires a lot of patience and dedication, and
many times we lack the theoretical knowledge as to what the cognitive characteristics of these students
are. We might wonder “What are these students’ characteristics?”, "How do these characteristics affect
these students' learning?" and "How should these characteristics affect our teaching?".

Let us start by defining these students and outlining their characteristics. According to the World Health
Organisation, considering biological factors, the chronological age to deem someone elderly starts at 60.
However, it is to be noted that these factors are not the only ones; as other elements of the individual context,
such as health, economic and social ones might contribute to slower or faster aging processes.  

To begin with, we should have some considerations in relation to possible visual and auditory impairment;
enlarging font sizes, minimizing glare, making effective use of colour contrast, having a well illuminated
classroom, minimising background noise, and speaking more slowly when necessary are things which for sure
will facilitate input perception.

Another characteristic that elderly students may have is lower inhibitory control, which in class transpires as
poor ability to differentiate relevant from non-relevant information. Some steps we can take to tackle this
problem are adapting materials in order to make them more concise and straightforward (depending on the task,
the text and the level of our students, we could cut off some paragraphs or sentences). We could also work with
our students on filtering and selecting information (crossing out redundant phrases, for example) before
carrying out the language tasks required.

Older students’ low self-esteem

and self-confidence in relation to
learning can also have a huge
negative impact on their learning

These students also present slower processing speed compared to younger adults, which means that
internalisation of new concepts will take longer. In order to help with this issue, we should reduce the speed of
our delivery, as doing so would provide them with more time to think over the new concepts, relate them to
their schemata, understand them and internalise them. We should also avoid various simultaneous stimuli, as
processing different stimuli at the same time would lengthen the internalisation process, especially
considering that another characteristic of elderly students is difficulty to concentrate and keep focused on one
single thing.

Older students’ low self-esteem and self-confidence in relation to learning can also have a huge negative
impact on their learning. Many times, elderly students come to the class thinking that they cannot do it, that
they cannot learn new things, and they feel particularly apprehensive when it comes to using technology and to
participating in classes which are shared with younger adults. One possible solution to the later problem is not
mixing these students with those of a younger age group. I am aware that this might not be possible in all
contexts, but if it is, doing so will greatly benefit students. By not being mixed with younger students, they
don’t feel judged, their affective filter is lower and hence they are more willing to participate, take risks and ask
for clarification. If this is not possible and students of significantly different ages are mixed, a good thing to do
is to bring their own experiences to the class; elderly people are full of valuable experiences which younger
people don’t have, and letting them share those experiences every now and then may rise their self-esteem and
encourage them to participate more often. When it comes to the use of technology, regardless of their
reluctance, digital tools should be used as they enhance and facilitate learning in several ways, but it has to be
noted that we should try to find user-friendly tools which won’t get in the way of their learning.

Teaching to the elderly can be challenging and it can often feel as if we are not progressing. However, by giving
some thought to what these students are like, how they learn and what we could do to help them, we should be
able to teach more efficiently and hence, to optimise their learning.

Image courtesy of Diana Gibney. For more:

        

                          photo.atelier.dg
PREPARE
TEACH
REPEAT
Joana

Arzberger

It kind of feels like we are one class away from losing it: losing our files, losing our headsets, losing
ourselves in the abyss of reports and, sometimes, losing our cool when no one responds to our
questions. This online saga seems to have gone on for far too long and there is no clear end in sight.

From an outsider’s perspective, we, teachers, have it easy. We get to wake up later than usual, no
commute . We can teach from our bedroom or living room. We clearly do not have to worry about
wearing shoes. But is it really that simple?

When we would get up to go to teach in a physical classroom, most of our household concerns were set
aside for the hours we were out of the home. There was a routine at play. The simple fact of leaving your
house switched the teacher-mode on and got you ready (or somewhat!) for the teaching challenges ahead.
Then there was the staff room with familiar faces and idea swapping, along with jokes over the third cup
of coffee or tea, or  even in the queue for the copier. Then standing up and walking to the classroom to set it
all up and Rocky (movie reference for the younger generation) your energy up to set the tone of the class.
Pair work or group work, one seating arrangement  away. Even choosing to stay in the classroom during
the break was an option: ‘I have already walked today!’, you might have told yourself at times.

Home officing sounds quite appealing when the choice is ours and when we can work from a café or a park
to break the monotony of the domestic atmosphere. But that option was not viable over the last 15 months.
For teachers, leaving the premises of our homes was not really in the cards as we had to be on camera
throughout the duration of classes. Some teachers gambled with taking quick field trips to provide students
with more tangible realia and get them to engage in a ‘different setting’, you know, other than the teacher’s
office/ kitchen. And then, apart from sitting in front of a computer screen for hours attempting to interact
with students on the other side (lucky for those with a cameras-on school policy), there is the class
preparation.

Home officing sounds quite appealing when the choice is

ours and when we can work from a café or a park to
break the monotony of the domestic atmosphere. But
that option was not viable over the last 15 months.

The internet has made the prepping task as easy as clicking a button, literally: endless grammar
resources, ready-made lesson plans for newcomers and experienced teachers, the power of sharing
documents with no environmental impact and no excuse for students claiming they have lost the
handout from two minutes before (exaggerated, though it has been reported), even impromptu videos to
exemplify the new vocabulary in context. Have we, however, kept the same drive for preparing our
lessons? Have we played it a bit safer due to mental exhaustion? Some might have in the beginning
amidst the technical chaos. But after months of webinars, workshops, and training  to make online classes
just as powerfully connective as the physical ones were, meetings have become great learning hubs for
those students open to the experience.

One thing is certain: whether it is in a week or six months, once classes resume to being face-to-face or
hybrid, it will take some time for the interaction to be as it once was. It is important to remember to
prepare with enthusiasm and ask for help when feeling stuck or uninspired, teach with gumption, either
from home, the classroom, in front of a screen with everyone able to see your pores or from behind a face
shield, and repeat the formula day in and day out, not forgetting to check in with ourselves. Sit up
straight, stand up, walk around, taking several deep breaths along the way. The silver lining is that we
are all in this together and it will be over.

 H Y
W
T ?
N O CRISTINA
GALLEGO

&

  BELÉN
PAOLI

It all started with a why not? Being a Methodology teacher and owning a language school in La Plata
(Argentina), I truly feel the need to use the performing arts to inspire my students and teachers to
learn the English language in a more effective and realistic way.

I started my search in Buenos Aires, where various companies staged plays in English with that
educational purpose. My idea was to take students and teachers there as an outing. Then, the first why
not? came to my mind. Why not take one of those companies to the impressive Coliseo Podestá
theatre in my town? After watching several plays followed by long meetings, I made up my mind. All of
them were fascinated to come to La Plata, a well-known university city, except one: Buenos Aires
Players (BAP). Its owner and founder, Celia Zubiri, has been considered the first and most important
playwright in English in Argentina, but she had failed in four attempts to show her plays in schools. But
in the end her why not? sealed our agreement.

Image courtesy of Marcelo Sanchez. For more:

                            

                             mmarcesanchez
Now I was in need of a partner! There was so much to
do! Every single teacher I made the proposition to
panicked! It was then when my friend Belén, a
prominent event organizer came to my support with a
why not? Events Servicios Educativos was then born,
as a unique professional company to offer high
quality educational events in English in La Plata and
surrounding areas.

Since 2004 we have been organizing our emblematic

Teatro Educativo en Inglés, hosting Buenos Aires
Players plays for different age groups and academic
levels, and supporting teachers and students with pre
and post viewing complementary materials not only to
fully enjoy the shows, but to motivate them along this
gripping process of teaching/learning the English
Language.Every June, five performances are given in one
single cheerful day, a day full of songs, laughter, sponsors
presents, and above all, the sincere gratitude of our loyal
audience for helping them integrate the theatrical
experience with the classroom. We are proud to be the
sole event in English in La Plata, recognized at municipal,
provincial and national levels.

The Secretary of Education of Municipalidad de La Plata
first invited Events in 2012 to be the connecting link with
educational institutions. With our Why not? we started
collaborating in the spreading of cultural events, such as
the Bodies Exhibition in 2012, the first Book Fair Ciudad
de La Plata in 2013, and the following ones in 2014 and
2015.
Last year, our why not reached    the online world
and proved to be a complete success, thanks to the
renowned storytellers amazing collaboration. They
were designed once again to amuse students as
well as awaken their motivation to learn and fully
comprehend the English language.

Now, why not put our story in numbers? In these

In 2005, we hosted “Teaching.com.Art” at Jockey Club La amazing 18 years, 85.120 grateful spectators
Plata on teachers’ request. Obviously our why not? was were congregated to our 43 successful events.
put into practice. The purpose of this daylong event was
Our aim towards ELT is to fulfill teachers’
to provide teachers with innovative educational tools
expectations and concerns. In turn, we are
and the use of drama techniques in teaching, by the hand
continuously rewarded with their enthusiasm,
of well-known ELT professionals. Teachers had the
endless support and gratitude to Events. And…why
possibility of addressing ELT professionals in person in
not a toast? As we always do with our teachers in
our lunch, and then visiting any of the seven publishers'
Argentina to welcome each working year, today we
stands, gathered for the first time in La Plata, such as
warmly welcome you, Mara and Ben, in your
Pearson, Oxford, and Express Publishing among others.
challenging entrepreneurship and we sincerely
Since then, Events became the helping hand in
thank you for choosing us as your collaborators in
contacting teachers for publishers' presentations.

Argentina.

Find out more about Events La Plata here

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 The ELT Mag is a product of New Way Press
Publishing Ltd

Dublin, Republic of Ireland

Mag members
Mara Temi - Editor in Chief The ELT Mag

Lucia Marotta - Assistant Editor

B. R. - Magazine Creative Designer

Ben Dobbs - New Way Press Publishing Director

Visual artists on this issue

Diana Gibney
photo.atelier.dg

Laura Dergo                     _lau.der    

Gustavo Notarnicola          pixbygus

Jayashree Gurumurthy       jayonherway

Marcelo Sanchez              mmarcesanchez

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front and back cover courtesy of:

                                                                                          

                                                                                       _lau.der