English Teaching Professional 78 Jan 2012

ENGLISH
EACHING
Tprofessional
Issue 78
January
2012
The Leading Practical Magazine For English Language Teachers Worldwide
A second self
Jill Hadfield
The power of circles

Brendan Ries
Community spirit? Me?

Crystal Hurdle
The battle of the boards

Sarn Rich
practical methodology
fresh ideas & innovations
classroom resources
new technology
teacher development
tips & techniques
photocopiable materials
competitions & reviews
w w w . e t p r o f e s s i o n a l . c o m
Contents
MAIN FEATURE
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
A SECOND SELF
Jill Hadfield reviews some theories of motivation

and announces an alternative approach
COMMUNITY SPIRIT? ME?
50
Crystal Hurdle resents the tyranny of the

sharing circle
REAL REFLECTION 2
52
Simon Brown believes trainee feedback

is an invaluable resource
FEATURES
SHHHHH!
Sonja Wirwohl suggests that silent speaking

stimulates participation
ELF IN THE CLASSROOM
TECHNOLOGY
12
Simon Andrewes outlines suitable tasks

for teaching English as a Lingua Franca
THE BATTLE OF THE BOARDS
54
Sarn Rich speaks up for traditional technology
WEBWATCHER
THE POWER OF CIRCLES
16
Brendan Ries promotes harmony and respect

through circle activities
HOLISTIC GRAMMAR TEACHING 6
20
Rod Bolitho wonders what if ...
57
Russell Stannard sets his students talking

outside class
FIVE THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO

KNOW ABOUT: CROWDSOURCING
58
Nicky Hockly gets in with the in-crowd
MAKE IT MEANINGFUL
25
Maxine Mangat puts more emphasis on vocabulary

as a skill
THE WONDER OF WARMERS
REGULAR FEATURES
28
LANGUAGE LOG
40
John Potts
Alicia Artusi and Gregory Manin break the ice
HELPING LEARNERS TO LEARN
32
RICE ON THE MENU
59
Rose Senior
Claire Gibbs advocates autonomy
OVER THE WALL
38
Alan Maley recommends books about the

global financial meltdown
NO GAIN WITHOUT PAIN
46
IT WORKS IN PRACTICE
36
SCRAPBOOK
42
REVIEWS
44
Peter Wells evaluates extensive reading
COMPETITIONS
41, 64
TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

VYLS
23
Greg Davies nurtures the very young
A GRAMMAR GAME
INTERNATIONAL
SUBSCRIPTION
FORM
30
24
Yuvaraj Arokiyadas teaches grammar through

a guessing game
Includes materials designed

to photocopy
www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 78 January 2012
Editorial
Y
ou may detect a slightly circular theme to
to find that extensive reading of simplified novels has
this issue. From crop circles and wedding
the same efficacy. Graded literature has many
rings in the Scrapbook to articles on very
supporters, so some readers may disagree with him.
different types of circles by Brendan Ries and Crystal

Hurdle, it seems you cannot escape the power of this
simple geometric figure.
Whatever direction we are coming from, our goal is

likely to be the same, and whether this goal is
achieved by having our students imagine what it would
I am reminded by the different viewpoints taken on the
be like to be a successful learner, as Jill Hadfield
value of circles that English Language Teaching is a
advocates in our main feature, or by getting them to
broad church, encompassing both complementary and
sit in a circle and share their thoughts, our aim is to
conflicting perspectives. So whilst some might view
do our best to help our students become successful
the circle as a reflection of perfection and a symbol of
language learners.
peace and harmony, the sort of circles Crystal Hurdle

endures in the touchy-feely development sessions she
is obliged to attend are, for her, akin to Dantes nine
circles of hell.
And speaking of the Italian poet, Peter Wells points out
Helena Gomm
Editor
that although T S Eliot is supposed to have learnt
helena.gomm@pavpub.com
Italian by reading Dante, few of our students are likely
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Issue 78 January 2012 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
M A I N
F E AT U R E
A second
self
Jill Hadfield
considers motivation,
imagination and identity.
Theres no desiring without

imagination. Aristotle
What I desire I must first imagine.

What I imagine I create. Michelangelo
his is the first article in a series

looking at a new theory of
motivation, Zoltan Drnyeis
L2 Self System. Subsequent
articles will look at how to derive
practice from theory, sample some
practical classroom activities derived
from the theory and consider how to
build these into a motivational
programme and incorporate them into
a language learning syllabus.
Lets begin with a short history of L2
motivation research, then consider why
in recent years psycholinguists have
begun to feel that existing theories are
inadequate. We will discuss developments
in mainstream psychology, in particular
Future Possible Selves theory, and see
how these have been adapted and refined
to form Drnyeis L2 Self System theory
of motivation in language learning.
The motivation research

Motivation is our students reason for
learning, the drive that makes them
study. As such, it is, according to
Drnyei, the most common term
teachers and students use to explain what
causes success or failure in learning. It
is, therefore, not surprising that over the
years psycholinguists have been
fascinated by what causes motivation
(or its absence!).
Dominant ideas in L2 motivation

over the last 50 years have been
expressed in two dichotomies. The first is
the opposition between instrumental and
integrative motivation, instrumental
motivation being the desire to learn a
language for a purpose finding a better
job, for example and integrative
motivation being the desire to learn a
language because of an interest in or
love of the language, culture and L2
community. The second is the dichotomy
Motivation
is our students
reason for learning,
the drive that makes
them study
between intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation, or inner motivation versus
external motivation, arising from specific
situational factors, for example good
teaching, interesting topics, etc.
Instrumental, intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation are concepts that can apply to
any branch of learning; integrativeness,
however, is specific to language learning,
and because of this has been the focus
of much research over the years.
Recently, though, integrativeness has
become an increasingly problematic
concept and researchers have been
turning back to mainstream psychology
in search of alternative theories.
The issue of
integrativeness
Robert Gardner, the originator of the
integrativeness theory, defines
integration as a genuine interest in
learning the second language in order to
come closer to the other language
community, along with an openness to
and respect for other cultural groups and
ways of life. In the extreme, he states,
this might involve complete identification
with the community and possibly even
withdrawal from ones own group, but
more commonly it involves integration
within both communities.
Having a
clear vision of
a desired future
self motivates you
to work towards
reducing the distance
between your actual
self and your
future ideal
In recent years, however, the rise of
English as a global language has made
the notion of community problematic,
and researchers have begun to pose the
question: How relevant is integrativeness
in situations where learners have no
direct contact with a community of the
L2 speakers? and, according to Susan
Coetzee-Van Rooy, the notion of
integrativeness is untenable for L2
learners in World English contexts.
Researchers then began to posit the
need for a new focus. Jeffrey Jensen
Arnett suggested the need for a focus on
bicultural identity, and other
researchers have asked whether the
focus should now be on integration, not
with any particular English-speaking
nation, but with an imagined global
community.
Tomoko Yashima, for example,
found that it has become increasingly
difficult for Japanese EFL learners to
identify a clear target group or culture,
and a study she conducted in 2000
revealed that of the many reasons given
for studying English, identification with
Americans/British was among the least
endorsed items. She replaced integration

with a new concept, which she called
international posture, defined as a
tendency to relate oneself to the
international community, rather than any
specific L2 group ... to see oneself as
connected to the international
community, have concerns for
international affairs and possess a
readiness to interact with people other
than Japanese. She finds that
international posture is a valid construct
that relates to motivation to learn and
willingness to communicate [WTC]
International posture affects learners
motivation, which leads to proficiency as
well as self-confidence which in turn
accounts for L2 WTC.
Future Possible Selves

theory
Other new theories of motivation,
similarly questioning the validity of
integrativeness in the new millennium,
began to link motivation with research
on the self.
The key to understanding these
theories is the post-modern view of
identity not as single and fixed, but as
multiple and complex. These multiple
selves can exist in the present but also in
the imagination as Future Possible
Selves.
According to Hazel Markus and
Paula Nurius, Future Possible Selves are
individuals ideas of:
what they could become;
what they would like to become;
what they are afraid of becoming.
To this list, Edward Higgins adds:
what they would like to be (the ideal
self);
what they feel they should be (the
ought-to self).
These two slightly different but
overlapping definitions in fact define
four future possible selves:
The Ideal Self: what we would like to
become
The Ought-to Self: what we feel we
should become
The Feared Self: what we are afraid of
becoming
The Default Self: what we could
become (ie if we did nothing to
transform our Future Self into the
Ideal Self).
The motivation
connection
The connection between future possible
selves (also called self-guides) and
motivation is outlined in what is called
self-discrepancy theory. Higgins finds
that people are motivated to reach a
condition where their self-concept matches
their self-guide and that motivation can
be defined as the desire to reduce the
discrepancy. In other words, having a
clear vision of a desired future self
motivates you to work towards reducing
the distance between your actual self and
your future ideal. Motivation is thus
defined as a form of desire.
Motivation, imagination
and possible selves
If motivation is a form of desire, then it
is intimately connected to the power of
the imagination. The more clearly you
can imagine your desired future self, the
stronger your motivation will be:
Imaging ones own actions through
construction of elaborated possible selves
achieving desired goals may directly
facilitate the translation of goals into
intentions and instrumental action.
(Markus and Ruvolo)
This has been put more succinctly by
Etienne Wenger:
Imagination is looking at an apple seed
and seeing a tree.
And by Richard Boyatzis and Kleio
Akrivou:
Throughout history humans are driven
by imagination and the ability to see
images of the desired future.
Imagination and imagery are, therefore,
central to Possible Selves theory
possible selves harness what Markus
terms the remarkable power of the
imagination in human life. Markus and
Nurius also emphasise that future ideal
selves are a reality for people, a vivid
and tangible image that they can see
and hear.
Fusion of the cognitive

and affective
However, motivation through imagining
a future possible self has to be more
than idle daydreaming. A vision of a
future self must be accompanied by a
concrete route map that outlines steps
to achieving the goal.
A second
self
Harry Segal has described Possible

Selves theory as fantasy tempered by
expectation or expectation leavened by
fantasy ... the social cognitive act of
future planning combined with the
equally human act of generating fantasy.
What is so attractive to me in this
theory is partly its intuitive appeal
who has not been motivated by the
vision of a more attractive future? but
also its fusion of affective and cognitive
elements thought and emotion,
imagination and practicality.
Shakespeare, who understood most
aspects of human psychology before
psychologists were around to invent
theories, saw how powerful this fusion
of opposites could be:
blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well
commingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortunes
finger. (Hamlet)
In other words, if you combine
emotion and reason, imagination and
practicality, you are not at the mercy of
chance you have some control over
your destiny. What better summary
could there possibly be of Future Selves
theory?
positive impact of success, the enjoyable

quality of a language course).
Thus, the L2 Motivational Self System
offers a tripartite structure of the
motivation to learn a foreign/second
language:
the internal desires of the learner;
the social pressures exercised by
significant people in the learners
environment;
Drnyeis Motivational Self System

proposes a new approach to the
understanding of L2 motivation, the
L2 Motivational Self System, with
three components:
The Ideal L2 Self the L2-specific facet
of ones ideal self: If the person we would
like to become speaks an L2, the ideal L2
self is a powerful motivator because we
would like to reduce the discrepancy
between our actual and ideal selves.
The Ought-to L2 Self the attributes
that one believes one ought to possess to
avoid possible negative outcomes and
which may bear little resemblance to the
persons own wishes.
The L2 Learning Experience motives
related to the immediate learning
environment and experience (eg the
Boyatzis, R and Akrivou, K The ideal self

as the driver of intentional change Journal
of Management Development 25(7) 2006
Coetzee-Van Rooy, S Integrativeness:
untenable for World Englishes learners?
World Englishes 25(3) 2006
Drnyei, Z Motivation and the vision of
knowing a second language IATEFL
Conference Selections 2009
the experience of being engaged in the

learning process.
Drnyei, Z and Ushioda, E Motivation,

Language Identity and the L2 Self
Multilingual Matters 2009
Drnyei outlines conditions for

motivation through future self-guides:
The individual has a desired future selfimage,
Gardner, R C Integrative motivation and

second language acquisition In Drnyei, Z
and Schmidt, R (Eds) Motivation and
Second Language Acquisition University of
Hawaii Press 2001
which is elaborate and vivid;
Higgins, E Self discrepancy: a theory

relating self and affect Psychological
Review 94 1987
which is perceived as plausible and is in

harmony with the expectations of the
individuals social environment;
which is regularly activated in his/her
working self-concept;
which is accompanied by relevant and
effective procedural strategies that act
as a roadmap towards the goal;
which contains information about the
negative consequences of not achieving
the desired goal.
He then details a six-step process for
motivation through construction of an
Ideal L2 Self:
1 Creating the vision: helping the
learner to visualise their L2 Self.

2 Enhancing the vision: strengthening
The L2 Motivational Self

System
Arnett, J J The psychology of

globalization American Psychologist
57(10) 2002
and elaborating the initial vision.

3 Substantiating the vision: subjecting
the vision to a reality check to make

sure it is achievable.
4 Operationalising the vision: planning
out how to actualise the vision.

5 Keeping the vision alive: maintaining
enthusiasm.
Higgins, E The self-digest: self knowledge

serving self-regulatory functions Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 71 1996
Higgins, E Promotion and prevention:
regulatory focus as a motivational
principle Advances in Experimental Social
Psychology 30 1998
Markus, H and Nurius, P Possible selves
American Psychologist 41 1986
Markus, H and Ruvolo, A Possible selves:
personalised representations of goals In
Pervin, L A (Ed) Goal Concepts in
Personality and Social Psychology
Lawrence Erlbaum 1989
Markus, H (2006) Foreword In Dunkel, C
and Kerpelman, J (Eds) Possible Selves:
Theory, Research and Applications Nova
Science 2006
Segal, H Possible selves, fantasy
distortion and the anticipated life history:
exploring the role of imagination in social
cognition In Dunkel, C and Kerpelman, J
(Eds) Possible Selves: Theory, Research
and Applications Nova Science 2006
Wenger, E Communities of Practice:
Learning, Meaning and Identity CUP 1998
Yashima, T International posture and the
ideal L2 self in the Japanese EFL context
In Drnyei and Ushioda (Eds) Motivation,
Language Identity and the L2 Self
Multilingual Matters 2009
6 Counterbalancing the vision:
students are driven by the desire to

achieve but also by the desire to
avoid negative outcomes.

In future articles I will look at the
process of translating this theory into
practice, offer some practical, instantly
useable classroom activities, and give
suggestions for incorporating them into
a language syllabus. ETp
Jill Hadfield has worked as

a teacher and teacher trainer
in Britain, France, China,
Tibet, Madagascar and
New Zealand. She edits
ELTmag (www.eltmag.com),
and her books include the
Communication Games
series (Pearson), Oxford
Basics, Classroom Dynamics
and An Introduction to
Teaching English (all OUP).
Motivation, co-authored
with Zoltan Drnyei, will
be published by Pearson
this year.
jillhadfield@mac.com
IN
THE
CLASSROOM
Shhhhh!
Sonja Wirwohls students speak in silence

and chat on paper.
Now turn to your partner and
discuss the question.
ets be honest, how often do

we use this phrase in an
average teaching day? And
how often, then, do we find
that classroom discussions have their
limitations, especially if our speaking
lesson comes at the end of a busy day?
Like me, you have probably observed
that your students skilfully avoid using
the target language that you have
laboriously taught, concept-checked and
practised. Apart from this, the more
vociferous students in the group
sometimes tend to take over in terms of
volume and output, leading to a less
than balanced discussion. Alternatively,
the students may rattle through the
discussion points, only to produce a proud
Finished! in order to then sit in silence.
I have been teaching mixed-level
classes of students from different cultural
backgrounds, and have tried to find a
solution in which the students are
encouraged to express opinions in equal
measures whilst being given time to
process and order the language they want
to use. In my own experience of teacher
development sessions, periods of silent
reflection have always provided a very
welcome breather as they allow me to
order things in my own head before then
addressing further points in discussion.
The more
vociferous students
in the group sometimes
tend to take over in
terms of volume
and output
For these reasons, I have decided to

experiment with a different technique:
Why not turn the tables by placing a
ban on speaking for a period of time
and setting up a paper chat, where the
written word is the only allowed
medium of communication?
Paper chats
In preparation for the discussion, make
several A3-sized posters and write a
different discussion question in the
middle of each. Placing the question in
the centre rather than at the top allows
for consideration of, and contribution
to, all responses, rather than assuming a
linear commentary in which only the
last statement is addressed. The
spidergram approach also has the
advantage of mirroring the creative
process of generating and evaluating
ideas for essays and other longer pieces
of writing. I generally allow one poster
for two to three students. At this stage,
it helps to rearrange the seats so that
everyone in one small group can reach
the poster comfortably.
After answering any questions
concerning the discussion topics,
announce that the students will now only
be allowed to communicate their opinions
in writing, all at the same time. Encourage
them to write wherever there is space on
the poster. Why not demonstrate by
adding a quick comment on one of the
posters yourself ? You can, of course, set
a time limit for the first writing phase,
which will depend on the level of the
class and the complexity of the issue.
The students then work individually,
writing their initial response to the topic
next to the question. Remind them that,
just as in an oral discussion, the
purpose of the exercise is not 100percent accuracy, but communicating
and responding to ideas. Once the time
limit is up, tell the groups to swap

posters and write comments on their
peers contributions to another topic.
Encourage them to challenge each other
and defend their points of view. This
way, it is possible to have several
students contributing to the same
subject, and everyone voicing their
views at the same time.
Once every student has commented
on each issue, each poster returns to the
students who considered it first. They
now have the opportunity to see how
their initial input has developed and, in
turn, to add further points.
If you are feeling brave, you could
distribute piles of sticky notes in the
class for any extra-curricular
communication. This way, I have
conducted completely silent periods of
discussion, which, apart from adding
novelty, gently forced the students to
improve their written fluency by also
making them resort to writing in order
to ask about spelling, borrow pens, etc.
This has proved a great way to practise
question forms with lower-level classes.
The process of
writing gives everyone
an equal opportunity
to express themselves,
with no one talking
non-stop or politely
waiting their turn
Considerations
Paper chats work in many set-ups, but I
have found that they are extremely
effective in balancing participation in
classes in which there is a large
discrepancy in the students willingness
to speak. The process of writing gives
everyone an equal opportunity to
express themselves, with no one talking
non-stop or politely waiting their turn.
The technique can also be used with
classes which need to improve their
writing yet are reluctant to do so, whether
this is because of a lack of confidence
or a general aversion to writing. Less
laborious than essays set for homework,
paper chats offer a fun change from
traditional writing practice. Mimicking
real interactive communication makes
writing more enjoyable, especially for
generations for whom written

communication tends to be limited to
online chats in front of the computer.
Since the technique is easily
adapted, paper chats also work
brilliantly in basic writing lessons at
sentence level (topics such as Whats
your favourite food? or Whats the traffic
like in your city?) and exam classes
(IELTS questions, for instance).
Writing down their

views gave them a little
more time to process
other students
contributions and
respond appropriately
Observations
Whilst experimenting with paper chats,
I have observed that the students
curiosity about their peers comments
proves a real driving force. There tends
to be a general sense of empowerment
in the democratic process of everyone
actively participating in exactly the
same thing at the same time, and
gaining almost instant gratification
through others responses.
As some of my students have
remarked, expressing an opinion on
paper within a limited time frame exerts
gentle pressure on them to express
themselves clearly and concisely. While
we could argue that this is the same
process in speaking, some of my
students made an interesting
observation. They felt that in real
discussions, the pressure of having to
listen, think and respond in an instant
posed a problem in terms of confidence
and language output. However, as the
act of writing down their views and
responses naturally occurred more
slowly, this gave them a little more time
to process other students contributions
and respond appropriately.
With students who are reluctant to
participate in discussions, seeing an
argument develop on paper helps to
make them realise that the responses
Yes, I agree or No, I disagree dont
amount to fruitful conversations, be it in
a class discussion or a discursive essay.
Since their peers questions are bound to
demand the backing up of statements
with examples and evidence, the
students critical faculties are challenged

in an environment which can be
perceived as less pressured than, say, a
group debate. It follows that paper chats
can be excellent confidence boosters for
more reticent students who might feel
shy or have difficulties in contributing
spontaneously to spoken discourse.
Almost a pleasant side-effect is the
fact that, in one students words,
achieving small successes makes the
prospect of attempting longer pieces of
writing (exam tasks, for example) much
less daunting, which has a positive
knock-on effect on the students general
attitude towards writing.
Possibilities
Of course, the writing process need not
end here. There are plenty of
opportunities for exploiting the
students output once the actual chat
has concluded. Apart from the obvious
one of peer- or teacher-led error
correction, the posters make a great
starting point for the evaluation of
ideas and contributions, thus training
the students critical faculties.
I can imagine that paper chats could
also make a nice written ice-breaker
at the beginning of a course, whilst
giving the teacher a chance to
surreptitiously assess the groups
writing skills.
Having taught a lot of IELTS
preparation courses, I always pounce
on any technique that can help less
confident students approach IELTS
writing with less dread. (An IELTS
task might present a point of view
and ask the students to justify their
response, eg As higher education is far
more accessible nowadays than it was to
previous generations, university degrees
are losing their value. To what extent do
you agree with this view?) Paper chats
can help in this situation by leading
the candidates towards the completion
of an exam writing task and are
particularly beneficial early on in a
course. In groups, the students can
evaluate the strength of the different
arguments put forward and choose
the most pertinent contributions. Why
not distribute highlighter pens and
encourage the students to underline
the most convincing points? These can
then be organised to suit the structure
for an exam task and written up into
a coherent argument. This way, the
awareness of exam candidates is

drawn to the process of writing,
which they can then employ in further
studies.
If computer facilities are available, an
online chat seems the obvious way of
conducting this kind of lesson. I
personally prefer having the whole
conversation on paper or at least as a
hard copy, however, as this allows for
the use of the discussion as a starting
point for further reflection, as
indicated above. While virtual learning
environments (VLEs) such as
Blackboard may be used for posts, you
need to make sure that the students
make the most of the opportunity to
respond actively to each other: I have
observed a tendency for learners to
see the task as completed once their
contribution is posted online.
Paper chats also make a suitable basis
for an additional post-writing
discussion, focusing on evaluating
what was said and how it was said, in
order to raise awareness of the process
of gathering and reacting to ideas.
A paper chat could equally be used as
a follow-up to a previous lesson, to
consolidate or recycle lexis the students
have encountered in a reading or
vocabulary exercise.
Instead of elaborate discussions on
posters, during a mini-chat students
can make up their own questions to
write on individual pieces of paper,
which are then passed around and
added to. This way, the students
practise their skills in bite-sized
writing tasks whenever you can spare
a few minutes.

In conclusion, paper chats make a
valuable addition to any teachers
toolkit, as they can easily be adapted
for a wealth of classes and lessons. ETp
Sonja Wirwohl has been
an English teacher and
examiner since 2000 and
is currently involved in
the provision of EAP at
University College,
London, UK. A selfconfessed wordaholic,
she has a passion for
language in all its
creative expressions.
s.wirwohl@ucl.ac.uk
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M E T H O D O L O G Y
ELF in the
classroom
For Simon Andrewes, a shift in teaching purpose signifies a shift in tasks.
n Issue 77 of ETp I argued that

there was a shift taking place in
English language teaching from
EFL (English as a Foreign
Language) to ELF (English as a Lingua
Franca). I suggested in the article that
the focus of EFL was most typically on
interpersonal exchanges and
communicating individual, and maybe
idiosyncratic, responses and preferences.
Crudely put, it was often seen as the
language of getting what you want on a
personal level in an English-speaking
environment. EFL taught English for
unequivocally native-speaker contexts,
where the non-native speaker was
clearly in the minority, a foreigner,
expected to adapt to the native
speakers fixed and given norms.
By way of contrast, typical contexts
in which ELF is used are workplace
professional and managerial meetings
and academic tutorials and seminars.
Skills required in these contexts might
include reporting, exchanging and/or
passing on information and ideas;
participating in conferences; giving and
understanding talks in a variety of
situations; giving and appreciating
presentations; analysing, summarising
and/or synthesising ideas.
These contexts are reflected in the
sources used for compiling the most
important ELF corpus that there is to
date: the Vienna Oxford International
Corpus of English. This corpus is made
up of recorded ELF interactions,
classified under a number of speech
event types, listed 1 as:
12
interviews
press conferences
service encounters
seminar discussions
working group discussions
workshop discussions
meetings
panels
question and answer sessions
conversations.
Generally speaking, these settings for

cross-cultural communication through
English require skills for communicating
in the public or semi-public domain.
There is clearly a shift away from the
interpersonal and transactional
exchanges, communicating individual
responses and preferences, that were
central to the teaching of EFL. And,
above all, the assumption of EFL that
the non-native speaker was in the
minority and so expected to adapt to
the native speakers norms is no
longer valid. The aim of participants in
ELF communicative exchanges is to
ensure maximum comprehensibility for
those participants, who will have a
variety of L1s, irrespective of nativespeaker norms and expectations.
The need for English in the
professional and academic worlds in
cross-cultural contexts is tacitly
recognised today in all sectors of
English teaching to speakers of other
languages (TESOL) and a shift of
emphasis is taking place, be it in
publishing, course design, syllabus
Issue 78 January ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com
planning, teaching, training or

assessment and examinations. The
University of Cambridge ESOL
Certificate in Advanced English (CAE)
examination, for example, is marketed
as a demonstration of competence in
English for high achievers in the
professional and academic world, its
publicity acknowledging the fact that
English is an international language,
used globally for business and study.
The shift of focus from EFL to ELF
will not only affect the choice of
language norms and models, but also
the choice of classroom activities. It will
mean a shift in repertoire, and the rest
of this article will turn its attention to a
selection of tasks and activities that
could usefully be part of this repertoire.
1
Pausing and nuclear

stress
Rationale
ELF is used predominantly for oral
communication, where few assumptions
can be made about the familiarity of the
participants with, or their expectations
of, standards of pronunciation. Pausing
and nuclear stress, I emphasised in my
previous article, can be essential for
making meaning clear in these situations.
Pausing is the spoken grammar which
indicates units of meaning and works
very much like punctuation works for the
reader. The more fluent the reader, the
less the need for punctuation is a maxim
that also applies to pausing and nuclear
stress in spoken language.
Task
Break up the following, admittedly notvery-academic, text into nuclei, with
pausing for easily comprehensible
delivery and indicate the nuclearstressed words. The solution can be
discussed in class afterwards.
Text 1
melt the butter in a large saucepan
and add the finely sliced whites of the
leeks saut for a few minutes and add
the sliced potatoes and chicken stock
bring to the boil add plenty of salt and
pepper and a little ground nutmeg
simmer until the vegetables are soft
and sieve chill stir a little cream into
each bowl and sprinkle with chopped
chives before serving
Possible solution
Melt the butter / in a large saucepan //
and add the finely sliced whites / of
the leeks // saut for a few minutes //
and add the sliced potatoes / and
chicken stock // bring to the boil //
add plenty of salt / and pepper / and a
little ground nutmeg // simmer / until
the vegetables are soft // and sieve //
chill // stir a little cream into each bowl
/ and sprinkle with chopped chives
before serving
Reading aloud/peer
dictation
Rationale
Reading aloud has long been anathema
to the communicative approach to EFL
teaching as being an artificial classroom
task rather than an authentic real-world
form of communication. Yet writing a
report and delivering its content, findings
or conclusions orally seem perfectly
natural features of communicative
English in ELF settings. In this respect,
it cannot be coincidental that tasks such
as reading aloud and sentence repetition
and dictation have been included in the
new online Pearson test of academic
English (PTE Academic).
The following activity encourages
clear enunciation and sensitivity to
interlocutor response, and demonstrates
the need for linguistic accommodation
(adjusting language to guarantee
mutual understanding).
Task
This particular activity was trialled after
a coursebook unit on international
cooperation. With large classes it could
be done in groups. The sentences of Text

2 were distributed at random among the
members of the class. Each student in
turn was made responsible for dictating
one sentence to the others. The students
could ask for the sentence or a part of the
sentence to be repeated as often as they
wanted, and they could ask for words to
be spelt. Only when all the students were
satisfied, could they move on to the next
sentence. The activity raises awareness
of and gives practice in aspects of both
delivery and reception. To what extent
do breakdowns or difficulties in
communication occur with the speaker or
the listener? For example, in Sentence 1,
the consonant cluster /ldz/ in the word
worlds was problematic for the Chinese
speaker, complicated by the difficulty
many Asians have in distinguishing
between the phonemes /l/ and /r/. When
the speaker perceived the problems of
his listeners, he was able to adjust his
pronunciation and overcome the potential
communication breakdown. An example
of misunderstanding, which some
listeners failed to resolve, due largely to
wrong word stress occurred in Sentence 3
with the word circumference. And finally,
also Sentence 3, a combination of poor
pronunciation of the word beneath and
confusing pausing (metres beneath / the
Franco / -Swiss border ...) led to
unexpectedly insurmountable difficulties
of comprehension.
Text 2
1 The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is
the worlds largest high-energy
particle accelerator.
2 Its purpose is to find the answers to
some of the paramount questions of
contemporary physics.
3 The LHC is a circular tunnel, 27
kilometres in circumference and
over a hundred metres beneath the
Franco-Swiss border.
4 The term hadron refers to particles
composed of quarks.
5 The Large Hadron Collider was built
by the European Organization for
Nuclear Research (CERN), a wellknown and highly-respected centre
for sub-nuclear scientific research.
6 CERN is driven, not by profit
margins, but by a commitment to
collaborative scientific research
between countries, universities and
scientists.
Dictogloss
Rationale
This activity involves representing heard
texts in writing, a task that may well
reflect a commonly required skill in
ELF contexts, involving listening, note
taking and text writing. Indeed, it is a
communicative, task-based activity that
develops writing skills in a meaningful
context for ELF. Dictogloss has gone out
of fashion in EFL teaching. Originally,
the purpose was the discrete teaching or
consolidation of some grammar point. It
was promoted as an alternative form of
language input, an alternative to print
text-based lessons. It is a classroom
dictation activity where learners are
required to reconstruct a short text by
listening and noting down key words,
which are then used as a basis for
reconstruction in pairs or groups.
My use of dictogloss deviates from
the traditional form, its aim not being an
accurate reconstruction of the dictated
text, but an own words reconstruction,
in which all the points of content of the
original have to be included in the
reconstruction, but not the precise
wording. Indeed, the text is not read as
a dictation, but told as a story, with
some paraphrasing and, at times,
repetition of certain sections word-forword. Although any re-telling may vary
in the words used, key words do need to
be maintained. Essential information
should be repeated and given more or
less the same emphasis in each re-telling.
Task
The text I used for this activity was
based on a story very widely reported in
the early weeks of 2011 in popular
newspapers and on news websites. Here
again, the text itself is not academic,
but the technique is relevant for ELF
contexts. The procedure is more or less
as follows:
Tell (dont read) the story (see Text
3A) at a reasonable pace, but too fast
for the listeners to write detailed
notes. Notes should preferably not be
taken at this stage.
Give the students a list of key words
for focus, for contextualisation and
also for pre-teaching or ensuring
understanding of the key vocabulary
needed to reconstruct the story. Here,
they are restricted to proper nouns
and place names, as well as dates and
time expressions (Text 3B).
13
ELF in the
classroom
Tell the story a second time. As they

listen, the students can and should
take notes.
In pairs or small groups, or working
alone, they then reconstruct a version
of the text from their (shared) notes,
aiming at grammatical accuracy and
textual cohesion and logical sense or
consistency, but not trying to
reproduce the original text exactly.
Text 3A
This news story from the USA tells how
Carlina White solved her own
kidnapping case.
Carlina was abducted from a hospital
in Harlem on 4 August 1987, when she
was just 19 days old. She had been
taken there by her mother, Joy White,
because she was suffering from a
persistent high temperature. But when
Joy returned to the emergency room
after two hours, she found her
daughters cot empty.
There were reports of a woman seen
consoling the mother. According to one
witness, this woman later picked up the
baby and walked out of the building with
her. Although the kidnapping was very
high-profile, reported in all the
newspapers and on TV, the police were
never able to trace the mystery woman
and the case was never solved.
Carlina was then raised as Nejdra
Nance in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and
some years later her family moved to
Atlanta in Georgia. But as she grew up,
Carlina began to wonder why she did
not look like anyone else in her family.
She had the feeling that she did not
belong. Then, she had reason to suspect
the woman who raised her was using a
fake social security ID.
So, at the age of 23, she began making
her own inquiries. Her breakthrough came
when she contacted the National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children, and
there, on the Centers website, she
thought she recognised a photograph of
herself as a baby. The Center was very
cooperative and provided information
about the case, and on 4 January Carlina
telephoned the woman she believed to
be her biological mother.
14
Scribes are invited to come to the front

of the class and write up their own or
their groups versions of the text on
the board for all to see and discuss.
4
Converting written
texts into spoken texts
Rationale
The assumption of this activity is that
noun phrases are characteristic of
written texts, whereas spoken delivery is
more likely to use verb phrases and
skill at switching between the two
enhances communicative competence,
especially in the formal or semi-formal
situations in which ELF is commonly
The New York Police Department

took over the investigation, arranging
for DNA tests that, last Tuesday,
confirmed that Carlina was the daughter
of Joy White and Carl Tyson, who are
now separated.
But Carlina had not waited for the
results of the police investigation. She
had held her first reunion with her
mother on the previous Friday, and after
the results of the DNA tests she returned
once more to New York from her home
in Georgia to be with her new family.
Im overwhelmed. Im just so
happy. Its like a movie; this is all brand
new to me, Carlina told reporters.
Her 18-year-old half-sister, Sheena,
of whose existence Carlina had, of
course, known nothing, said: We spoke
and got to know each other, and she
looks exactly like my mom. It felt like we
knew each other even before we met.
Police are now investigating the
woman who raised Carlina.
Text 3B
How Carlina White solved her own
kidnapping case (January 2011)
Names
Dates/times
People:
Last Tuesday
Carlina White
Last Friday
Nejdra Nance
19 days
Joy White
23
Carl Tyson
4 August 1987
Sheena
4 January 2011
Places:
Harlem Hospital
New York
Bridgeport, Connecticut
National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children
Atlanta, Georgia
used, such as delivering a written report

orally to a meeting.
Task
This is a basic exercise in converting
noun phrases into verb phrases. The
students first offer their solutions. The
validity of these is then discussed in
class, as in real-life communication such
automatic conversion re-formulations
are often likely to be inappropriate. In
this example text, noun phrases related
to climate change are converted into
verb phrases.
Text 4
Noun phrases
These are some of the natural
phenomena relating to climate
change which have been observed:
an increase in heavy downpours
unpredictable river flow variations
earlier snowmelt
a lengthening of ice-free seasons in
oceans and on lakes and rivers
rapidly retreating glaciers
a thawing of the permafrost
longer growing seasons
rising sea temperatures and levels
Solution
Verb phrases
The following natural phenomena
have been observed:
Heavy downpours have increased.
River flows have varied/tended to
vary in unpredictable ways.
Snow has melted/been melting
earlier.
Ice-free seasons in oceans and on
lakes and rivers have lengthened.
Glaciers have retreated
rapidly/noticeably.
The permafrost has thawed/been
thawing.
Growing seasons have got longer.
Sea temperatures and levels have
risen.
Paraphrasing
Rationale
Paraphrasing, or reformulation, is a
vital skill when it comes to ensuring
effective communication between
interlocutors of whom we cannot make
sure assumptions about shared language
norms, common previous knowledge or
equal levels of skills and abilities. The

re-writing tasks which feature in the
Cambridge ESOL exams provide strictly
controlled practice in the ability to
reformulate something that has been
said, giving the listener another chance
to grasp your meaning.
The game is more interesting, more

difficult and more productive if
taboo words are included: words
that cannot be included in the
prompts and clues.
Text 6 is an example only and has not
been tested in classroom conditions!
Text 5
Complete the second sentence so
that it has a similar meaning to the
first, using the word given. Do not
change the word given. Use between
2 and 5 words, including the given
word.
First sentence: You must do exactly
what the manager tells you.
Word given: CARRY
Second sentence (solution): You must
CARRY OUT THE MANAGERS
instructions exactly.
Defining or explaining
vocabulary game
Rationale
If you think a more entertaining way of
developing the ability to paraphrase,
define and/or explain vocabulary is
appropriate, this well-known and much
loved classroom game, popular among
children and adults alike, would be
suitable.
Task
Write six words or expressions on the
board. The game works better if they
are thematically linked. One student
sits with their back to the board and
tries to guess the words while their
teammates give prompts and clues;
they cannot, of course, utter any
word or any part of the expression to
be guessed. Give a time limit: longer
at first, then shortened.
Text 7
an increase in heavy downpours
Text 6
rising sea temperatures and sea

levels
Words/expressions to be guessed
rapidly retreating glaciers
1 particle accelerator
lengthening growing seasons
2 contemporary physics
the finely sliced whites of the leeks
3 the Franco-Swiss border
plenty of salt and pepper
4 quarks
a fake social security ID
5 CERN
the National Center for Missing and

Exploited Children
Task
Text 5 gives the wording of the
instructions and example sentence of
Part 4 of the Cambridge FCE Use of
English paper. The CAE exam Use of
English paper, Part 5, has the same kind
of sentence re-write task, only in this
case between three and six words are to
be used, while in the CPE exam Use of
English paper, Part 4, the range of
words to be used in the paraphrase is
between three and eight words. This
kind of task can be adapted to
classroom needs.
classroom tested, but is presented here

as a guide for teachers to develop a drill
suitable for their own classroom
circumstances.
6 collaborative scientific research
The New York Police Department
Taboo words
LHC, Large Hadron Collider
the worlds largest high-energy

particle accelerator
European Organization for Nuclear

Research
twenty-seven kilometres in
circumference
research
a commitment to collaborative
scientific research
collaborate, collaboration
Fluency/pronunciation
drills
Rationale
Drills no longer have the central role in
EFL that they once had, but many
methodologists and teachers still find a
place for them in the classroom. Before
Michael Lewiss lexical approach 2
taught us to think in terms of language
chunks, drills were essentially grammar
drills. The purpose of this activity is to
focus on chunks of language, but not in
order to learn formulaic expressions or
fixed collocations by heart. Its aim is,
rather, to accustom the learners to stress
and pronunciation patterns, in this case
of noun phrases. This activity might not
only improve fluency but also raise
awareness of the grammatical function
of pronunciation (such as indicating
units of meaning and the relationship of
words to each other within that unit).
Note that some linguists claim that
chunks tend to get unmanageable if
they exceed seven words or so.
Task
The students listen and repeat (choral
and individual repetition). Use the
technique of back-chaining to build up
the sentences, eg downpours ... heavy
downpours ... an increase in heavy
downpours. Note: This text is not

Teachers will find that many of the triedand-tested communicative activities of
the EFL classroom will be transferable
to the needs of ELF learners. As they
gain more insight into these needs via
classroom interaction, teachers will
gradually adjust their repertoires and
learn to disregard preconceived ideas of
what communicative tasks and activities
should look like. It is my contention
that a shift is taking place in English
language classrooms from a classic EFL
classroom repertoire to one more
oriented on ELF settings and needs, a
belief reflected in the choice of activities
I have suggested above. ETp
1 www.univie.ac.at/voice/page/corpus_
description
2 Lewis, M The Lexical Approach LTP
1993
Simon Andrewes has
been involved in TEFL
since the mid-1970s. At
present, he is DoS at the
English department of a
higher educational
college in Greenwich,
London. One of his
greatest defects as a
teacher, he regrets to say,
is that his attention is
more easily attracted to
the grand overview than
the nitty-gritty detail.
simon@granadalabella.eu
15
IN
THE
CLASSROOM
The power
of circles
Brendan Ries
connects with his students

in an environment of
mutual respect.
Everything the Power of the World does

is done in a circle. The sky is round, and
I have heard that the earth is round like
a ball, and so are all the stars. The
wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds
make their nests in circles, for theirs is
the same religion as ours. The sun
comes forth and goes down again in a
circle. The moon does the same, and
both are round. Even the seasons form
a great circle in their changing and
always come back again to where they
were. The life of a person is a circle
from childhood to childhood, and so it
is in everything where power moves.
Black Elk
s I travel and teach in many

countries I see there is beauty
and love everywhere, as well as
deep-seeded prejudices built
up over centuries of oppression and
religious and cultural misunderstanding.
When we have the chance to share views
and take a glimpse into other peoples
personal emotions, the opportunity for
positive change arises. Dialogue is an
important tool in this process of
unification and understanding. In The
Little Book of Circle Processes, Kay
Pranis states that discussing values,
creating guidelines and showing unseen
aspects of ourselves are all part of creating
the foundation for dialogue that engages
participants spirits and emotions as well
as their intellect. These unseen aspects
of ourselves that create a foundation for
dialogue are most often forgotten in the
classroom setting. No matter what the
context of a teaching situation,
activities in which the students stand or
16
sit in circles bring a natural positive

force into the classroom that enables
dialogue, community and the possibility
of freedom of expression, resulting in a
more holistic, communicative and less
stressful environment.
A glitch in the system

Because our society has traditionally
believed that it is good to obey orders
and respect superiors, we know a great
deal about how authority works. We
know a lot about competition, little
about cooperation; more about the
male than the female, the outer world
than the inner, the rational than the
intuitive, the machine than the garden.
Mary OReilley (1993)
To understand why circles are powerful

and significant in the classroom, we
must first analyse some parts of the
education system.
In the world of higher education,
there is a hierarchy of knowledge where
respect is undervalued and skills are often
based on the analytic rather than the
holistic. This promotes competitiveness
and feelings of superiority and
aggression. Levels of competitiveness
are obvious, with grades, publications
and degrees factored into the equation,
instilling militaristic levels of honour
students, masters, PhDs, captains,
lieutenants, and so on.
In Frames of Mind, psychologist
Howard Gardner of Harvard names
seven different intelligences and states
that schools traditionally teach to only
two of these mathematical and verbal
competencies. He identifies two further
The oppressive
classroom
The Ministry of Education decides
what is good to think, while denigrating
individual opinion. Individuality is
punished, and no one is encouraged to
think on ones own.
Katsuichi Honda, quoted in Suzuki
and Oiwa
In Japan, one of the problems in the

education system is the lack of
communicative and collaborative
classrooms, thus excluding the intra- and
interpersonal. At times, it can be difficult
to get Japanese students to offer opinions
about different topics. They arent given
many opportunities to share critical
opinions in school, and culturally it is
often more acceptable to express opinion
iStockphoto.com / AlexMax
competencies as forming the basis of

the concept of social and emotional
literacy: intrapersonal (the ability to
recognise and manage ones own
feelings) and interpersonal (the ability
to understand and get along with
others). Circle activities create a place
for these other intelligences to exist in
the classroom sphere.
Governments are frequently run
according to a militaristic structure, and
this same structure can also be seen in
homes and in schools. People often grow
up watching the parent give orders, the
teacher give orders, the boss give orders,
the police, and so on. As a result, many
then become the boss, the parent, the
teacher, etc, giving orders and assuming
an air of authority without any insight
into other options for facilitation. As
Mary OReilley claims, young people
learn by being insulted, bullied and turned
into objects to insult, bully, and turn
others into objects, and these actions
contain the seeds of war. It follows that,
therefore, the first step in teaching peace
is to examine the ways in which we are
already teaching war.
My hope as a teacher is not to bring
an oppressive attitude into my classroom.
No matter what the cultural setting,
people want and need to be respected
and heard, yet many institutional
curricula do not include the teaching of
understanding through dialogue. It is,
therefore, up to us as teachers to find
room for this in our lessons. Circle
activities are one of the ways we can
encourage this process and bring about
a closer connection between students
and teachers.
Everything the
Power of the World
does is done in a circle.
The life of a person is a
circle from childhood to
childhood, and so it is
in everything where
power moves.
in silence. In order to facilitate speaking

opportunities in an English class, teachers
need to structure the lesson with
groupwork and content-focused tasks in
order to encourage production.
Of course, this isnt only the case in
Japan. I personally never had a class
throughout my middle school and high
school years that allowed me to offer
much opinion during the lesson. I feel
that this would have been a valuable
process and would have helped with my
own inability, as a young person, to
express how I felt about issues. Perhaps
this is one reason I love using circles so
much: I can give my students the chance
I never had to participate in dialogue.
The type of education which I and
many people I know received consisted
of the teacher or professor teaching and
the students taking notes, thus
funnelling the knowledge that the
teacher supremely held onto a piece of
paper. An education system in which
students are seen as empty vessels to be
filled with information, as Paulo Freire
puts it, doesnt seem to involve concern
for the students emotional selves. With
this type of education, the teacher is
always right and the students wrong.
This is one of the biggest problems in
many education systems.
Circle activities offer a way to break
up the monotony of this style of

education and change the institutionalised
feel of the classroom, giving the
participants a different view of what
education is, and what it could be. Part
of changing this type of education
means a liberation from the teacherfocused classrooms of the past and a
move into classrooms which are more
student-centred and community-driven.
The peaceable
classroom
Peace education contributes to the
social growth of all children if it helps
them develop characteristics essential
for the attainment of peace a sense of
dignity and self-worth, a confidence to
question their values, communication
skills, an ethical awareness, and an
empathy for others.
Harris and Morrison
The term peaceable classroom was coined

by William Kreidler in the 1970s. As
Lantieri and Patti report, Kreidler
stressed that the strength of the peaceable
classroom is in the synergy that develops
from the presence of six principles:
cooperation, caring communication, the
appreciation of diversity, the appropriate
expression of feelings, responsible decision
making and conflict resolution.
17
The power
of circles
Past mistakes have created the

problems we see in the classroom today.
Students these days generally feel the
classroom is boring and say they feel
disconnected. Even the literature and
curriculum that teachers choose have a
message that they impart to the students.
The question is, what is the message and
are teachers including their students in
dialogue is it peace education?
Circle activities
To find voice and to mediate voice in a
circle of others is one of the central
dialectics of the peaceable classroom.
OReilley (1993)
Here are three circle activities which I

often use with my students.
Circles for beginners

I learnt this activity, in which knowledge
is symbolised by water, from a workshop
on Training for change by George
Lakey. I often use it as an introduction
to circle activities as it opens the
students eyes to new possibilities in the
classroom, specifically the possibility of

a collaborative, community classroom.
I get all my students to stand in a
circle, give everyone a cup and start to
pour water into each cup from a pitcher.
Initially, I dont address what the water
represents; I just assess the students
reactions when for some students I fill the
whole cup, for some I fill it only partially
and for others I pour in only a drop. The
look on most students faces becomes
very interesting as this happens, and there
are clear signs of competitiveness. Some
students say, Hey, why did I get so little?
In the second part of the activity, I ask
the students to share some of their water
with each other. I play no role as they do
this. Then, I move onto the third part
and say to the students: Lets all share
our water together. In this stage, everyone
in the room, including me, shares their
water. Next, I ask each student to express
their feelings as to which process they
liked best and how they felt during the
different stages. I also ask them to say
what they think the water represents.
It is interesting that when I did this
activity in Turkey, most students said
that they preferred the second part of
the activity where the students shared
their water. I then asked What about me?
I feel left out. Shouldnt we all share this
knowledge with each other?
To find voice
and to mediate voice
in a circle of others
is one of the central
dialectics of
the peaceable
classroom.
The way of council

One of my professors in graduate school,
Paul Levausseur, introduced me to this
activity, which is based on NativeAmerican philosophies. It is called The
way of council and is used to facilitate
heart-felt discussion on a specific,
focused topic. It employs a talking
piece; this can be anything a piece of
wood, a stone, any object the teacher or
the students bring to class. Only the
person holding the piece at any one time
can speak. This process calls for active
listening and active speaking. There is no
rehearsing what one will say, and those
listening have to listen actively and not
think about what they will say when the
talking piece comes to them. Any
participant who doesnt feel anything has
come up for them to say should simply
pass the talking piece on. When all
participants are focused and totally
active, this process is breathtaking and
simply the most holistic healing
experience and beautiful phenomenon I
have experienced in any classroom.
Rotating circles
The students stand in two concentric
circles with the inner circle facing out
and the outer circle facing in. Each
student is, therefore, facing a partner
with whom they converse. The outer
and inner circles at times rotate so that
the pairs are changed. Questions for
discussion might be provided by the
teacher, at other times they can be
provided by the students.
I often use this for active listening
and speaking, where the participants in
the outer circle speak and those in the
inner circle listen. Afterwards, those
listening repeat what their partner has
just told them. Students say that they
like this activity because they feel
listened to and respected, and want to
respect and listen to others in return.
Circles in action
Human beings have a host of emotional
needs for love and recognition, for
belonging and identity, for purpose and
meaning to their lives. If all these needs
had to be subsumed in one word, it
might be respect.
William Ury
When I began teaching at a university

in Turkey, some of my fellow teachers
expressed negative views of the
students, their behaviour and their
attitudes to learning. I believe that when
18
said they also felt respected as I too

quietly listened to what they had to say
without interruption.

Human
beings have a host
of emotional needs
for love and recognition,
for belonging and
identity, for purpose
and meaning to
their lives.
teachers take on a negative mind state

and believe that change is not possible,
the battle is already lost, but I did find
out from experience that in general
there was a negative feeling amongst the
students with regard to the classroom,
the teachers and the number of English
classes per day.
I knew that I wanted to create a
peaceable classroom and I decided to
use circle activities to achieve this. I felt
that they would bring a natural appeal
to these classes and a fresh spark of
something new
First, I decided that I wasnt going
to be a disciplinarian and would always
endeavour to show the utmost respect
for my students. I thought about my
own tutors activity The way of
council and about how it opens up the
opportunity for everyone to stand on
equal ground.
It is a simple fact that change is
uncomfortable, and at first many students
greeted my instructions with cries of We
are having a circle again? and made jokes
about circles. However, the following
week as I entered the classroom they
asked, Can we have a circle?
Some students had difficulty
honouring the rules of the activity;
they found it very difficult to be quiet
while other people were speaking. No

matter how often I explained the
process, there were many who continued
talking to other students after the
talking piece had passed by them. In
this context, smaller group circle
activities were more positive and much
easier to maintain. The topics that
worked with the whole class in this
activity were those that focused on the
students interests and included giving
thanks to your ancestors and the
Bayram holiday (a holiday which takes
place after Ramadan). Putting the
students in smaller circles did allow
everyone the chance to speak, but these
circles were never as powerful as the
whole-class ones with these topics.
When the council circles did break
down, I would tell the students that if
you are speaking while someone else is
speaking, not only are you not listening,
but you are not showing respect. At times
when a student started speaking without
the talking piece, another student would
say, Respect, please! These responses
showed me that some students wanted to
honour the circle and were learning in the
process. When more students became
accustomed to this process of respect in
the classroom, it was much easier to
change the full dynamic. My students
As teachers, we have the opportunity to

overcome the weaknesses of past
classrooms and show in a positive way
that our students are respected for their
ideas, no matter how different they are
from those of the teacher or their
classmates. Promoting a sense of
community and student-centredness
through the use of circle activities is a
step towards developing a peaceable
classroom. It challenges the negative
feeling toward the classroom setting
that many students bring to their
lessons and offers insights into the
students views in the process.
In our future classes, lets not forget to
make time for the power that circles can
produce, make time for the intrapersonal
and interpersonal intelligences to be
acknowledged and, at the same time,
promote a peaceful community. ETp
Black Elk, N and Neihardt, J Black Elk
Speaks University of Nebraska Press 3rd
ed 2004
Freire, P Pedagogy of the Oppressed The
Continuum Publishing Corporation 1970
Harris, I and Morrison, M Peace
Education McFarland and Co 2003
Lantieri, L and Patti, J Waging Peace in
Our Schools Beacon Press 1996
Lakey, G Training for change: conflict
transformation across cultures
(CONTACT) Conference workshop at The
School for International Training 2008
OReilley, Mary R The peaceable
classroom College English 46(2) 1984
OReilley, Mary R The Peaceable
Classroom Boynton/Cook 1993
Pranis, K The Little Book of Circle
Processes Good Books 2005
Suzuki, D and Oiwa, K The Other Japan:
Voices Beyond the Mainstream Fulcrum
Publishing 1996
Ury, W Getting to Peace Viking Adult
1999
Brendan Joseph Ries
has been a language
teacher for eight years
and has taught in Japan,
South Africa, Turkey and
the USA. His interests
include critical thinking
in the classroom
through problem-posing
education, creative
writing and community/
collaborative learning.
b.revel@gmail.com
19
G R A M M A R
Holistic
grammar
teaching 6
Rod Bolitho considers
our teaching of if clauses
is nothing if not iffy.
he tyranny of form over

meaning is still a reality in
many English language
classrooms around the world.
There are some very understandable
reasons for this: teachability,
convenience, deep beliefs about
grammar and how it should be taught,
lingering structural organisation in
textbooks and supplementary materials,
teachers own uncertainties when
confronted with the shock of real
language in real contexts, to name but a
few. The result, inevitably, is collusion
by teachers in ways of making English
seem simpler and more formulaic than
it really is. Nowhere is this more evident
than in the case of conditional
sentences, frequently (and misleadingly)
referred to as if-sentences. Many
textbooks still deal with them in the
time-honoured way, using three, or
sometimes four, categories:
Type 1: If I have time (present tense),

Ill go (future tense) to the doctors
tomorrow.
Type 2: If I had more time (past tense),
I would go (conditional tense) to the
doctors.
Type 3: If Id had more time (past
perfect tense), Id have gone (past
conditional) to the doctors yesterday.
Type Zero: If you heat water to 100C
(present tense), it boils (present tense).
20
It is easy to see the superficial attraction

of this categorisation. It is neat and
tidy, and it has a kind of built-in
discipline which appeals to teachers as a
way of determining what is right and
what is wrong in learners speech and
writing. But it contains both
oversimplifications and fallacies:
1 There is no such category as the
future tense. Grammarians are now
pretty much agreed that there are only
two tenses in English (present and past),
and that views of the future are
essentially modal. Thus, in the Type 1
example above, will is a modal verb,
which in this context expresses a degree
of likelihood. For more on this, see my
article on modal meaning in Issue 73 of
ETp.
2 The verb in the if clause in the
Type 2 example may look like a past
tense, but there is nothing past about its
meaning. As can be seen more clearly in
utterances beginning If I were you ...,
for example, what we are dealing with
here is the subjunctive form, used to
express hypothetical meaning, in this
sentence with the communicative effect
of making the visit to the doctors seem
less likely. Referring to the verb as past
tense is not only wrong, but also serves
to make understanding and learning far
more difficult for students with a
mother tongue (eg German) which still
has an overt subjunctive form in
contexts such as this. And once again,

the verb would go in the main clause is
modal in nature, expressing a lesser
degree of likelihood than the will in
Type 1.
3 The same set of distinctions applies
in the Type 3 example, which is firmly
rooted in the past, and may express
regret or just a reason for not doing
something. The verb in the if clause is
not a simple past perfect, but a past
subjunctive; the main clause expresses
here an unfulfilled intention and is, once
again, modal in nature.
done soon. You know well

have to pay the top rates
unless ...
Wife:
Husband: Thats exactly why I want to

talk to you. To be honest,
Im not sure whether I want
to go to Benidorm again.
Wife:
Breaking the rules

Many would argue that it is better to
teach a system first and deal with
exceptions later, and there may be some
truth in that. But the system outlined
above seems in many cases actually to
be an impediment rather than an aid to
some learners, and often only adds to
the verb tense neurosis that many of
them develop while grappling with
English. In any case, all the evidence in
samples of spoken language points to
the fact that native speakers prioritise
meaning over form, and do not hesitate
to break so-called rules in order to
ensure that they are understood.
Learners need to be prepared for
examples like these (from my own data):
1 If I manage to get a baby-sitter, I
would consider coming.

2 Id have shouted to you if Id have seen
you!
... I know, I know ... unless

we book at least three
months in advance. Thats
all right provided that were
absolutely sure about where
we want to go.
I wouldnt mind a change

either. OK, suppose we
decide not to go to
Benidorm, what are the
alternatives? You know I
wont be happy if I dont get
my sun, sea and sand!
Husband: Well I was wondering

about Greece this time.
Wife:
Greece? After Ive spent the

last two years going to
Spanish evening classes!
Husband: It was just an idea.

Wife:
OK, Ill think about Greece

but on one condition.
Husband: Whats that?

Wife:
That you learn the language

this time!
(transcribed and slightly adapted from a

conversation overheard in a staffroom in
the UK)
3 If youd got down to work when I told
you to, you wouldnt be in this mess

now.
But theres more to this than just verb
choice and rules about sequence of
tenses. A more generous view of ways of
expressing conditions can be picked up
from study of a dialogue like this one
(you might like to try the task for
yourself):
Identify and comment on the
conditions expressed in this text.
Husband: We need to talk about our
holiday. Have you got a
moment?
Wife:
Well, if you could just wait a

moment ...
Husband: OK, I dont mind as long as

we can get the booking
Even a quick scan reveals seven or eight

different ways of expressing conditions,
all of them common enough in contexts
like this one, and some of them
structurally quite straightforward. The
whole conversation revolves around
conditions within the framework of an
informal negotiation between husband
and wife. Yet the fixation with if
sentences alluded to above tends to
squeeze out the teaching and learning of
items such as provided that, on condition
that, as long as and suppose at
intermediate level, and to defer them
until much later stages of learning
that is if they are taught at all. The
same applies to features such as the
seemingly incomplete If you could just
wait a moment ... which is, in fact, a
perfectly complete and understandable
utterance of a type which is very
frequent in spoken discourse. It is worth

exposing intermediate learners to this
kind of text and getting them to
identify and think about these different
options in a context which is familiar
and readily comprehensible.
A working hypothesis
The element of hypothesis which is part
and parcel of so-called Types 2 and 3
conditionals can be activated and
practised in a number of ways, but here
are two examples to work with in the
intermediate or upper-intermediate
classroom.
On condition
Split the class into groups of three or
four. Give each group a hypothetical
situation in the form of a question on a
slip of paper. Here are some examples:
On what conditions would you try
bungee-jumping?
On what conditions would you go
white-water rafting?
On what conditions would you let a
stranger into your home?
On what conditions would you report
a fellow-citizen to the police?
Give each group ten minutes to work
out a number of conditions and then let
them report to the class, expressing
their conditions in at least three
different ways. The listeners are allowed
to ask questions beginning with Would
... or Wouldnt ... (eg Wouldnt you feel
scared? Would you take your mobile
phone with you?).
In the next example, quite manageable

in an intermediate class, there is
potential for discussion to emerge and
develop within a natural and whole
hypothetical context which will in itself
be familiar to learners, especially
teenagers.
Turning points
Think of a turning point in your own life
and be ready to talk about it to your
learners in the form of a personal
anecdote. Heres an example:
When I was 18 and was about to leave
school, I went for a job interview with a
cotton company in Liverpool. They
wanted someone with a qualification in
21
Holistic
grammar
teaching 6
Spanish to join their team in Ecuador. I

got the job and I was all ready to go. I
went home and told my mum I was
going to work in South America. She
was upset but said If thats what you
really want to do .... Later, my dad
came home and when I told him the
news, he exploded. He told me I was
going to go to university, not South
America, and Id better get used to the
idea! Can you guess what I did?
Theyll have no problem guessing! Now
invite the learners to think back to a
turning point in their own lives
(something they were going to do but
which didnt happen) and to talk about
it in pairs. Stress that they should only
speak about something they feel
comfortable with. After a few minutes,
ENGLISH
EACHING
Tprofessional
Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd,
PO Box 100, Chichester,
West Sussex, PO18 8HD, UK
Fax: +44 (0)1243 576456
ask a couple of volunteers to tell the

class about their turning points, and
reinforce this use of was going to.
Ask them to keep their own stories in
mind and return to your own story in
this way:
I often wonder where I would be now if I
had taken that job. Perhaps Id have
made a million. Maybe Id still be in
Ecuador. But Im really very happy that I
became a teacher.
Then turn to your volunteers and ask
them to speculate in the same way,
helping them as necessary to express
these purely hypothetical notions about
past and present. Finally, get them all
back into pairs to share their What if ...
thoughts.
This activity is particularly suited to a

more mature class at intermediate level
or above. It makes a deep-level
connection between the use of was going
to to express something incomplete or
unfulfilled, and the kinds of
hypothetical meaning usually expressed
through Type 3 conditionals. This
connection is not found in coursebooks
Do you have ideas youd like to share
with colleagues around the world?
Tips, techniques and activities; simple or
sophisticated; well-tried or innovative;
something that has worked well for you?
All published contributions receive
a prize! Write to us or email:
editor@etprofessional.com
Visit the ETp website!
Writing for ETp
The ETp website is packed with practical

tips, advice, resources, information and
selected articles. You can submit tips
or articles, renew your subscription
or simply browse the features.
Would you like to write for ETp?

We are always interested in new writers
and fresh ideas. For guidelines and
advice, write to us or email:
www.etprofessional.com
22
and yet it is such a valuable hook for

learners to hold onto and work with.

Taking a meaning-based and holistic
view of areas of language like this helps
learners to think about how they can
find ways of expressing what they want
to express, rather than worrying them
constantly about rule-based accuracy.
English, especially in its spoken form,
remains a very badly-behaved language,
and raising learners awareness of ways
in which people communicate is a very
important element in the process of
guided acquisition that will eventually
lead to fluency. ETp
Rod Bolitho is Academic

Director at Norwich
Institute for Language
Education, UK.
Previously, he spent 17
years at the University
College of St Mark and
St John in Plymouth. His
most recent book is
Trainer Development,
co-authored with Tony
Wright.
rodbol44@yahoo.co.uk
TALKBACK!
Do you have something to say about
an article in the current issue of ETp?
This is your magazine and we would
really like to hear from you.
Write to us or email:
Reviewing for ETp

Would you like to review books or other
teaching materials for ETp? We are always
looking for people who are interested in
writing reviews for us. Please email
for advice and a copy of our guidelines
for reviewers. You will need to give your
postal address and say what areas of
teaching you are most interested in.
VYLs
Greg Davies considers the challenge of very young learners

and what to do about it.
eaching very young learners (VYLs)
usually considered to be those
between three and five years of age
can be daunting when you consider the
power which you, the teacher, hold to
influence the lives of your young students.
Children under five can be a marvel to
teach because their minds are like sponges
and, as everything is new to this age group,
you will have lots of fun with them. You
can incorporate and experiment with
classroom activities in a way that is not
possible with older students, and VYLs
have an amazing energy that you will
rarely find in older children.
The limitations
However, when it comes to teaching
English to VYLs, many teachers ask the
same question: How can I teach young
learners English when they still have
problems with their L1? In fact, research
does suggest that it can be difficult to
teach students L2 when L1 is still being
learnt and, clearly, there are limitations.
VYLs have very young brains so teachers
do need to treat this age group very
differently, recognising the limits of what
can be achieved and what is needed to
facilitate as much learning as possible. A
simple example is that, even though VYLs
pick up target language very quickly, they
may also forget it with the same speed!
Teachers, therefore, not only need to
introduce new language, they need to
incorporate a very large amount of recycling and repetition into their lessons.
This doesnt just mean drilling, it means
combining the same language in a variety
of activities so that the children can
encounter it again and again.
Another problem is that VYLs cannot
comprehend abstract ideas. They need
practical examples of language in use to
be able to understand and reproduce it.
However, despite the limitations,
I firmly believe that VYLs gain significant

benefits from learning English at the
youngest possible age. Early exposure to
L2 allows them to become comfortable
with it, with the result that these students
dont perceive the significant differences
between L1 and L2 and the possible
barriers to learning that older students
can sometime feel and experience.
Remember that what they remember or
forget is not as important as the fact that
you are laying the foundations for a
lifetime of confident learning.
The keys to success

Success with younger age groups is
dependent on the classroom teacher and
the teaching strategy they adopt. We
need to be teaching younger learners
about English, but this should be
interpreted as meaningful use of English.
It is probably a complete waste of time
trying to teach younger learners about
grammar, sentences, structures and
possibly even writing, because they still
struggle with these things in their L1.
The key to success here is exposure
to English through teaching language
chunks and set phrases by means of
activities such as songs, chants, games,
dance, etc. Not only do these things
provide good exposure to English, but
they are also great fun for students.
Another point to note is that the
appropriate selection of materials and
coursebooks is essential. Books with
fictional, fairytale stories and lots of visual
content are hugely beneficial as they tend
to focus not so much on grammar but
on phonics and they place an emphasis
on high-frequency words. Once VYLs
have mastered a few high-frequency
English words, their learning will proceed
at an accelerated pace as they can then
build upon this knowledge. Teaching VYLs
shouldnt be about grammatical accuracy,
but more about critical thinking,

developing confidence (through drilling,
repetition and pronunciation activities)
and working on the basic skills needed
for future language development.

The point is that we should use English
to teach other things: rhymes, art, simple
tasks, or even the motor skills needed to
cut out shapes and glue them onto card,
etc. Done largely in English, this will
increase the VYLs exposure to the
language. They will find classes fun and,
very importantly, they will not be
inhibited or frightened by L2. There is
little probability that younger learners can
be taught to read and write in L2 when
this hasnt yet been achieved in L1, but
exposure to L2 in other ways is critical.
You, the teacher, are very often the
only opportunity for VYLs to hear and
feel the language and this is why it is
paramount that the English class is
maintained in English, without L1
intervention.
Jumping between one language and
another will undoubtedly confuse the
children, so I recommend that you
concentrate on fun activities which
involve other skills, using English
throughout the lesson. If the students
dont have a particular skill in their L1,
then look for teaching strategies to
circumvent this, remain focused on plenty
of repetition, lots of engaging activities to
develop chunking, and boost their general
confidence in using English. Additional
pronunciation activities will significantly
build the VYLs confidence for future
learning, which, after all, is the main
objective of teaching this age group. ETp
Donaldson, M Childrens Minds Routledge
1987
Harmer, J The Practice of English Language
Teaching Pearson 2007
Greg Davies currently
works for Pearson
Education as an
academic consultant
based in Mexico City,
having previously taught
students of all levels in
his own language centre
in Tlaquepaque, Mexico.
His interests include
mixed-ability classrooms
and reflection.
gregdavies75@hotmail.com
23
A grammar game
Yuvaraj Arokiyadas makes grammar teaching fun.
rammar, though an important
aspect of any language, is often
treated with contempt by
learners at all levels and, at times, by
teachers, too. Teaching the rules of a
language in the traditional way often fails
to yield a positive outcome in young
learner classes in particular, as children
easily get distracted and bored. I should
like here to explore the answers to the
following questions by sharing my
experiences of using a language game to
teach and practise grammar rules:
Are there interesting ways to teach
grammar?
Do grammar games provide authentic
contexts for young learners to
learn/revise the rules?
Do games sustain learner interest?
Fluency versus accuracy

I acted as a facilitator to improve the oral
communicative ability of young learners
in a private school in Chennai, India.
Activities to enhance oral skills were used
in the classroom and it was heartening
to observe that most of the learners
enthusiastically participated in these.
However, in the course of these
activities, I observed that the majority of
the learners had problems in framing
grammatically-correct sentences and
questions. Here are some examples:
Is the birds flying?
Did he received the prize?
Did he became prime minister of India?
Does he plays cricket?
What is his achievements?
Did she won the gold medal?
Though the major objective of the course
was to improve the childrens oral
communicative skills, the teachers felt a
need to draw their attention to the errors
they were making. We decided to use a
game to teach and reinforce the rules.
Why a game?
Here are some convincing arguments for
using language-learning games:
24
They create a stress-free atmosphere

in the classroom.
They ensure learner involvement,
motivation and participation.
They cater for mixed-ability classes.
They create a meaningful context for
language use.
They can serve as a diagnostic tool
for the teacher.
Guess the celebrity
A grammar game
Objective To revise the rules for
interrogative sentences.
Procedure
Thirty young learners aged eight to
nine were randomly assigned to six
equal teams, labelled A to F.
All the teams had ten minutes to
make a list of well-known celebrities.
Team A was then asked to tell the
name of one of their celebrities to a
member of Team B.
The other members of Team B then
had to ask their team-mate questions
(up to a total of eight) in order to
identify the celebrity.
Similarly, Team B told the name of one
of their celebrities to a member of
Team C, and so on.
The game continued until all the teams
had used up their celebrity names.
Guidelines
It soon became apparent that the children
were more interested in identifying the
celebrities than framing questions with the
appropriate sentence construction. They
became so excited that they simply asked
one-word questions to their team-mates,
such as Male? Indian prime minister? Politics?
Sports? etc. Moreover, one of the challenges
in a mixed-ability classroom is that, in
group activities, some learners prefer to
remain passive spectators. To combat these
problems, therefore, the learners were
given the following guidelines:
Every member of the team had to
ask at least one question.
The questions had to be complete

sentences.
The questions had to be
grammatically correct.
Noise
Most of the learners enthusiastically
participated in the relaxed and stress-free
atmosphere of the game. The noise level in
the classroom was rather high as they
were excited. Teachers of English in India,
at all levels, are often expected to maintain
silence in the classroom. However,
advocates of communicative language
teaching believe that a silent classroom
is anathema to language learning, and the
noise generated in the classroom was a
small price to pay for the involvement
and motivation of the learners.
Correction
Some of the learners were keen to
correct any errors that their team-mates
made. Though the intention was to
create a positive atmosphere, the game
did provide opportunities for peer
learning and incidental correction.
Outcome
The game provided ample opportunities
for the children to practise question forms
and they participated enthusiastically as it
induced a spirit of competition among
them. The teacher had opportunities to get
feedback on the teaching/learning process.
Furthermore, although this was not
actually the object of the game, the
learners had an opportunity to brush up
on their general knowledge.

Teaching young learners can be challenging
as their attention span is much shorter
than that of adults. Using games that
sustain their interest can ensure learner
participation and motivation. Of course,
language games can also be used to cater
to the needs of all learners, irrespective of
their age, learning styles and strategies. ETp
Yuvaraj Arokiyadas is
an Assistant Professor
at SSN College of
Engineering in Tamil Nadu,
India. He has done
research on some
of the core pedagogical
issues pertaining to the
teaching of English to
young learners in mothertongue-medium schools.
yuvaraja@ssn.edu.in
V O C A B U L A R Y
Make it
meaningful
Maxine Mangat
integrates vocabulary
into her lessons and her
curriculum.
eve all heard about

scaffolding or schema
building, otherwise known
as building on prior
knowledge. However, it can be a challenge
to build meaningful opportunities for
vocabulary development into our lessons.
Lets consider adopting a new mentality
and some new methods for taking
vocabulary further in our teaching. By
actively creating building blocks for
vocabulary acquisition in our lessons,
hopefully we can also provide direction
and opportunities for real vocabulary
development in our students.
Four skills? How about

nine skills?
In order for the students to focus their
attention on vocabulary, the teacher must
do so as well. In fact, in order to give it
sufficient prominence in our lessons, I
believe we must consider it equal to any
of the skills of reading, writing,
listening and speaking. These traditional
four skills dont take into account the
other skills necessary for language
development, all of which require focus:
vocabulary;
spelling;
grammar;
pronunciation;
study skills.
By widening our focus as teachers,

integrating all these skills into our daily
teaching and sharing this new mentality
with our students, we can ensure that
everyone remains on target so that these
important elements dont get overlooked.
Make it a real lesson

plan!
In order to create a focus on vocabulary
acquisition, teachers need to integrate
vocabulary teaching concretely and
directly into their lesson plans.
Vocabulary has its place in every lesson
and can be organically pulled from the
other skill areas covered in the lesson. A
collaborative, student-centred approach
works well, and ensuring that each
student provides a word for a
collaborative wordlist makes them all
accountable. Perhaps the students could
be asked to work on their collaborative
wordlist for the first ten minutes of the
lesson every lesson; or maybe it could
be set as a group homework assignment.
In this way, vocabulary work can be
either the appetiser or the dessert course
to any lesson. Electronic (try
PowerPoint or Prezi) and hard-copy
wordlists should include the following:
Must-haves for wordlists:
students name (so that if there is an
error, you can find out which student
is accountable)
picture of the word (or a picture that
describes the word)
translation of the word
meaning
part of speech
example
suffix/prefix
pronunciation (through the phonemic
alphabet or, on an electronic wordlist,
with a sound clip so that the students
can hear the word being pronounced)
25
Make it
meaningful
Word power is student

power
Increasing the focus on vocabulary also
means giving control to the students.
Student-led qualitative and quantitative
vocabulary self-checks are great ways to
keep the students in the drivers seat. Try
one of these options in your classroom:
PowerPoint wordlists
Are your students using a graded reader?
Have them write a PowerPoint slide with

the wordlist must-haves given above for
each word they learn while reading. Get
the whole class to share their lists!
Alternatively, each student can hand their
wordlist in as part of their final project.
Vocabulary ice-breaker
Running out of ice-breaker ideas to get
your students motors running?
Start the lesson by writing a simple word

on the board, such as interesting. Have
the class shout out as many words as
they can that are close in meaning.
Suddenly interesting becomes amusing
and so does your class.
Vocabulary boot camp
Tired of editing your students work?
Run a vocabulary peer-editing boot camp

with your class. Collect in their writing
assignments and distribute them
randomly around the class. Give the
students five minutes (or more, depending
on age and level) to read the text they
receive and edit out boring or simple
vocabulary with better suggestions.
Get online
Trying to stay current?
Try a corpora-based idea. Go online

and type in the following web address:
www.lextutor.ca. Dont be scared off by
the formatting; rather, take some time to
browse through Dr Tom Cobbs lifes work.
This corpora-based website for second
language instructors and students can:
help you to build vocabulary lists and
quizzes based on your own materials;
help you to assess text to decide on its
level of difficulty (based on the
vocabulary within it);
help you to assess student work based
on the vocabulary used in it;
provide support for the reading
materials in your curriculum.
Efficiency is the spice

of life
Most teachers and students complain
that there isnt enough time to learn
everything on the curriculum. This
often leads to a lack of focus on all nine
skills outlined above. But in order for
vocabulary study to be meaningful, it
cannot just be an add-on to a lesson
or to the curriculum. It needs, instead,
to be embedded in a complementary
way into the activities already present in
the lesson and curriculum:
Doing pronunciation work? Use
examples from the vocabulary learnt
in the unit.
Practising the past perfect? Take the
opportunity to review the
pronunciation of -ed endings.
Performing timed readings? Pull
keywords from the text and add them
to your wordlists.
Fax: +44 (0)1243 576456

26

Often it is the new vocabulary which
students acquire that makes them
conscious of the progress they are
making in their language development.
Taking our vocabulary activities further
in our lessons will foster the students
intrinsic motivation that feeling of
self-motivation that encourages them to
keep on going with their learning.
One recommendation would be to
start a small vocabulary group among
interested teachers at your institution.
Meeting monthly or quarterly over a
coffee and sharing new activities that
work is a great way not only to remind an
instructor that vocabulary is one of the
nine skills, but also to ensure that your
creative and useful vocabulary-building
activities are taking it further. ETp
Maxine would like to thank all of the members
of Seneca Colleges English Language
Institute for involving her in the Vocabulary
Interested Faculty Group and helping her
vocabulary pedagogy to emerge.
Maxine Mangat has been
a passionate educator for
seven years and enjoys
sharing her love of
Volkswagens with her
students. Having taught
ESL, EAP and TESL
domestically and abroad,
she is currently the
Associate Chair of
English and Liberal
Studies at Seneca
College, Toronto, Canada.
maxinemangat@gmail.com
Writing for ETp
Reviewing for ETp
Would you like to write for ETp?

We are always interested in new writers
and fresh ideas. For guidelines and
advice, write to us or email:
Would you like to review books or other

teaching materials for ETp? Please email
ENGLISH TEACHING professional

Learning about the authors voice in

a creative writing class? Explain the
relevance of thoughtfully-chosen
vocabulary.
Lessons that grow organically and
naturally encourage efficient vocabulary
growth.
TALKBACK!
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for reviewers. You will need to give your
postal address and say what areas of
teaching you are most interested in.
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IN
THE
CLASSROOM
The wonder
of warmers
Alicia Artusi and Gregory Manin get their lessons off to a successful start.
n theory, always starting out your

lessons with a fast, fun, groupbuilding, attention-getting warmup activity is a great idea. In
practice, there is homework to be
checked, several pages of the coursebook
to get through, new homework to assign,
projects to be discussed. In other words,
the everyday demands of the class make
doing any kind of extra activity look
either impossible or simply a waste of
valuable time.
But is it really an impossible goal, or
could spending a few minutes of each
lesson on this kind of irrelevant
activity make a big difference to how
your classes function and progress? We
certainly think so.
The reasons for doing a short warmup activity at the beginning of a
language class are simple:
coursebook or other material you are

using: focus on a grammar point or
vocabulary area dealt with in a previous
lesson. So, for example, if you are
studying past tenses, you could ask
What did you do on Saturday? or
What were you doing at six oclock
yesterday? Then have the students ask
each other questions and report the
answers and/or get them to guess the
answers you would give.
Both academic and personal
relevance can be included in this kind of
quick activity, and it has the added
benefit of being a natural, everyday use
of a language that may otherwise seem
abstract and alien to your students.
Even a quick quiz on irregular past
forms can act as a fun warmer if its
presented as a game or contest.
to get students with limited language

exposure to think in, or at least think
about, the target language;
Ideas for quick

warm-ups
to focus the attention of the students;

to encourage group cohesion among
students who have just come from a
variety of pursuits and places;
to set a welcoming, positive and
productive tone for the lesson.
Here are some points to keep in mind
when choosing a warm-up:
Keep it short (510 minutes).

Keep it simple.
Make it relevant.
Make it enjoyable.
Warm-ups can easily be related to the
28
Questions and answers
Name a topic (yesterday, nature, sport,

music, etc) and either ask the students
questions or have them ask each other,
or you, questions about it. Train them
not to respond at all to incorrectlyformed questions its a great challenge.
2
Speculation
Pose simple questions such as What do

you think I did yesterday? What am I
going to do on Saturday? etc. Accept all
correctly-formed statements, and reward
a correct guess by making that student
the focus of the speculation.
Brainteasers
These are usually short, puzzling

situations that students have to solve. If
they are already written on the board
when the students come into the
classroom, they get their attention
without you having to ask or beg for it!
For example:
A man went to Paris and bought
something expensive. He then went out
and gave it to a series of total strangers
who, in turn, each handed it back to him.
What was it? (Answer: a camera)
4
Complete the sentence
This is usually a drill-type activity

found in workbooks, but it may look
different when used with riddles,
proverbs, aphorisms, and so on. These
offer a good opportunity to put the
students brains to work, teach them
about culture and check if they can
complete a sentence with grammatical
accuracy. For example:
Write an incomplete aphorism on the
board, eg
A conclusion is the place where
___________________.
(Answer: you got tired of thinking)
Ask your students to work
individually or in groups and to try to
complete the idea.
After a minute, check the different
answers, provide the answer you have
and display some of the best
alternative answers from the students.
The same activity can be done with the
blank at the beginning, and with a

proverb, eg
_______ is the mother of all wisdom.
(Answer: Experience)
5
Tongue twisters
Tongue twisters can be used as either a

warm-up or a cool-down activity.
Get the students to practise a tongue
twister for one minute.
Get them to say it to the class
individually or within smaller
groups if they feel embarrassed.
If you have a mobile phone or MP4
player with a recorder, you can record
the class repeating the tongue twister,
play it and finish the class with a
smile.
The following tongue twisters are good
for practising the /C/, /s/, /r/, /J/ and //
sounds, which are difficult for Latin
American students and those in some
other cultures:
/C/ and /s/
I can think of six thin things and of six
thick things, too.
/r/, /J/ and //
Around the rugged rocks the ragged
rascal ran.
6
Sticky ball
Write several words that you want to

review on the board. Give each word
a value, for example 20 points for a
difficult one, 12 points for one that is
easier.
The students take turns to throw a
sticky ball or a paper ball at the
board, and they have to make a
sentence using the word that they hit.
The sentences the students make
should all contribute to a short story.
They win points for correct sentences.
7
Open the door
If you have access to a projector or an

interactive whiteboard, you can design
some colourful PowerPoint templates to
be used in different classes and with
different purposes. In the example shown
here, there are a number of doors, behind
each of which is a challenge (for example,
Give two synonyms for the word steal,
Is this sentence correct: Ive been in this
class last year?).
Tell the students that they are all
looking for a place to stay. The have to
take turns to choose a door. If they get
the answer to the challenge correct, they

can enter the house. If not, they have to
keep on trying till they find a place to
stay.
8
Find someone who ...
This is a good way to get your students

walking around the classroom and
interacting with each other. Tasks you
might set include:
Find someone who
likes your favourite colour.
was in the park yesterday.
will celebrate his/her birthday this
month.

Other simple, impromptu activities you
could use for warmers include
hangman, noughts and crosses, miming
and 20 questions. These are good for
practising vocabulary, and for any of
them you can use the wordlists included
in most coursebooks. A quick quiz or
simple, real-life conversation can also
serve as a warm-up or cool-down
activity. We suggest keeping a list of
proverbs, tongue twisters, riddles, puns,
aphorisms and brainteasers so that the
material is ready whenever you need it.
Some websites where you can find ideas
for many of these activities are listed
below.
In conclusion, it seems that
enjoyment is underrated by some
teachers and also by some students, who

see it as a waste of time. But it is a fact
that students learn best when they are
relaxed and happy. So, set a positive
tone. Acknowledge and encourage every
student in the class. And give your
students a reason to feel good every
time they enter your classroom. ETp
brainteasers:
http://brainden.com/
proverbs:
www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/
proverbs.html
tongue twisters:
http://thinks.com/words/
tonguetwisters.htm
PowerPoint templates and puzzles:
www.englishmixsite.com
Alicia Artusi and Gregory Manin are teachers

of English and material writers. They are the
authors of No Problem! and On Target (two
coursebook series for Spain), ECCE Result!
and Engage, all published by Oxford
University Press. They have created a free
website for ESL/ELT teachers and students at
www.englishmixsite.com.
aliciartusi@gmail.com
gjmanin@gmail.com
29
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01/12
LEARNER
TRAINING
Helping
learners
to learn
Claire Gibbs trains
her students to be more
independent.
eachers daily meet students

with a wide variety of needs,
goals and objectives. Students
come to class with different
expectations, motivations and, above
all, personalities. Some attend classes
twice a week but do little work on the
language outside class, yet they are
frustrated when they dont progress at
the pace they would have hoped. Others
have the determination to seek out
every opportunity to develop their
language skills but may not know the
best way of going about this. Teachers
can help encourage autonomy in their
students so that they can develop their
language learning outside the classroom.
This brings benefits for both teachers
and students!
In this article, I will give a brief
outline of the benefits of helping
students become more autonomous
through learner training and then
suggest some activities that teachers can
use in the classroom to do this.
What is learner autonomy

and why should it be
encouraged?
Since the onset of communicative
approaches to language teaching and
learning, the roles of teachers and
32
students have changed. No longer are

teachers expected to control the whole
learning process and pass on knowledge
to passive recipient students. Nowadays,
the teacher is seen as a facilitator and a
guide who can help the students
towards their individual goals and
objectives, whilst the students, in turn,
must take responsibility for their
learning and their progression towards
their aims. The ultimate aim of
language teaching should be to help
students learn how to learn and take
charge of their own learning.
This involves choosing materials
and evaluating them, organising a
schedule and seeking out learning
opportunities. It is being active rather
than reactive, and from a Constructivist
viewpoint it is seeking meaning from
the input received. Learner autonomy is
important because taking responsibility
for ones own learning leads to higher
motivation, which in turn leads to more
likely success in learning. This success
leads to confidence and further
increased motivation.
What is learner training

and why is it needed?
Helping learners attain the conditions
necessary for autonomy through learner
training can be extremely beneficial.
Marion Williams and Robert
Burden define learner training as a way
of teaching learners explicitly the
techniques of learning a language, and an
awareness of how and when to use
strategies to enable them to become selfdirected.
Autonomy requires certain things to
be present: cognitive and metacognitive
strategies (planning of studies and
analysis of language and its use,
respectively), motivation, knowledge
about language learning, external
support and a raised consciousness as
to the importance of being responsible
for ones own learning. Learner training
(which could include explicit work on
all the above features except motivation)
empowers the learner and can lead to
more successful language learning.
Research has shown that attributes
which successful learners have in
common include an awareness of
possible differences between the L1 and
the target language, being involved in
the learning process, interest in
expanding knowledge, and awareness of
what is necessary to learn a language.
What role can

computers play?
Modern teaching benefits from access
to a vast array of technology. This can
be used in the classroom by teachers, or
for self-access and study by students.
There are many reasons why technology,
specifically computers, should be
incorporated into language learning.
Firstly, it can be extremely motivating
for the students. It gives a different
medium through which to work, adds
variety and can enable learners to make
choices about the material and pace. It
is flexible and can be adapted to suit the
needs of individual students. In
addition, it can be interactive and give
instant feedback.
Most importantly, technology can
support autonomy as students select
and evaluate material. There are also
many ways in which computers can be
used for self-study. Online newspapers,
radio shows, podcasts, wikis, blogs and
webquests are just some of the
possibilities. By taking advantage of the
vast range of computer-based material,
learners are using various strategies to
plan and execute their language learning
and, at the same time, enhancing their
autonomy.

The following activities are ones that I
have used with students of various
levels and which have given them ideas
that they can adapt to suit their own
personal needs and preferences. The
activities can all be adapted to meet
your own classroom situation and the
language can be graded to suit the level
of your students. Hopefully both you
and your learners will get some benefits!
Activity 1 Ways to study

Aim
To make the students aware of the
many forms that self-study can take and
to enable them to choose the ways that
they would enjoy the most.
Procedure
Hand out the worksheet (see page 34,
top) in class and tell the students to
brainstorm ideas together in pairs.
Elicit their ideas and write them on
the board, adding any extra ideas
from the Teachers answers box that
they didnt think of.
Ask the students to pick the two ideas

that they like most and to try these
first. They must report back in class
the following week. This will be the
start of keeping a record of study (see
Activity 2).
Teachers answers
(suggestions only)
Things students can do outside class:
Listening
Watch English films.
Listen to English songs.
Use the following websites:
www.eslhome.com
www.shambles.net/pages/learning/
EnglishP/eslpodcast/
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
learningenglish
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
Speaking
Speak to other English speakers.
Writing
Email other learners or English
speakers.
Become involved in online chats
in English.
Write letters.
Keep a diary in English.
Write essays.
Reading
Read a newspaper or articles from
it (online or paper).
Read graded readers.
Pronunciation
Listen to as much English as
possible.
Learn the phonemic script.
Record yourself speaking and
listen to your recordings.
Grammar
Use your coursebook.
Do exercises in a grammar book.
Practise using new structures in
your speech and writing.
Vocabulary
Write words on cards with the
translation on the back.
Write sentences with new words
in them.
Buy a good dictionary.
Draw pictures and label them.
General
Find a study buddy and practise
together.
Take advantage of every
opportunity to use your English.
Activity 2 Record of study

Aim
To help the students organise their
studies.
Procedure
Explain the importance of regular
study. Highlight the range of ways of
studying as shown in Activity 1. Tell
the students that by writing a plan
and reflecting afterwards on their
work, they can see their progress and
determine which study methods are
most and least successful for them.
Hand out the worksheet (see page 34,
bottom). Tell the students that they
must complete this each week.
Each week, have a 20-minute
discussion between the students in
pairs, in which they say how
successful their study has been that
week and the areas they particularly
enjoyed or didnt enjoy.
Activity 3 Webquest
Aim
To expose the students to the wide
variety of learning resources on the net.
Procedure
Explain to the students that the
internet can be a great place to find
resources for studying English.
Hand out the webquest (see page 35)
and give them one week to complete
all the tasks.
Williams, M and Burden, R Psychology
for Language Teachers CUP 1997
Claire Gibbs has been
involved with ELT for
over ten years and has
lived and taught in
several countries,
including Estonia, Japan
and Australia. She is
currently teaching in
London, UK.
gibbsyc@gmail.com
TALKBACK!
33
Helping learners to learn

Ways to study
Think of ways that you can study or improve in the areas shown in the table. An example of each has been done for you.
Listening
Listen to English radio (eg BBC World Service).
Speaking
Use Skype to make group calls.
Writing
Start an online blog.
Reading
Read magazines in your interest area.
Pronunciation
Use podcasts and repeat sentences.
Grammar
Do online grammar exercises.
Vocabulary
Keep a vocabulary notebook.
General
Keep a learning journal.
Record of study
Plan of study for the week beginning ...................................
Day
Area of study
Work done
Notes
34
Helping learners to learn
Webquest
Grammar
Which do you like the best?
Find some websites that offer online grammar exercises by

doing a search for online grammar for esl students.
Listen to a podcast from your favourite site.
Write the names of three different websites which have

exercises practising these structures:
What was the subject?

What did you learn?
the second conditional
Speaking
................................................................................................................
Set up a Skype profile.
the past simple
Chat online to other classmates.
................................................................................................................
comparatives and superlatives

................................................................................................................
Skypecasts can just be listened to or you can join in

and talk. Try one.
Which website do you like best?
What was the subject of the Skypecast you heard/talked

on?
Vocabulary
Pronunciation
Look at the following websites:
Go to www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/index.htm.
www.englishclub.com/websites
What are the rules for pronouncing the in English?
http://a4esl.org/q/h/vocabulary.html
Write a popular English tongue twister and practise

saying it.
www.manythings.org/vocabulary
Write down five new words that you learnt from one of
the sites.
Writing
Write an email in English to a friend.
Which site was it?
Who did you write to?
Did you like this one best?
Go to www.englishclub.com. Look at the blogs, chats

and forums.
Reading
Find an online magazine on a subject you are interested in.
What is its name and what is the website address?
What is the topic of the website/magazine?
Which would you like to write on most?
General
The Guardian website is www.guardian.co.uk.

Find an article on it about your country.
www.eslcafe.com
Give a general summary of what the article is about.
http://a4esl.org/
www.learnenglish.org.uk
www.manythings.org
Look at the following website:
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Reading/
Choose a link and read a story or article.
Which one did you choose? Why? Did you like it?
Which do you like the most?

Write down three things that you used this website for
and that you would recommend to somebody else.
Listening
www.eltpodcasts.com
www.podcastsinenglish.com
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/
35
Do you have an idea which you would like to contribute
to our It Works in Practice section? It might be
anything from an activity which you use in class to a
teaching technique that has worked for you. Send us
your contribution, by post using this form or by email
to helena.gomm@pavpub.com.
All the contributors to It Works in Practice get a prize!

We especially welcome joint entries from teachers
working at the same institution. Why not get together
with your colleagues to provide a whole It Works in
Practice section of your ideas? We will publish a photo
of you all.
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36
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Use my word
Poll position
Quite a number of students find

making conversation is not an
easy thing to do even in their
mother tongue, let alone a foreign
language. As teachers, we often
try to give them practice in this
skill and provide some hints for
maintaining conversations, such
as never answer just yes or no, ask
questions, maintain eye contact,
try to sound interested, etc.
Polls have been used in ELT for

decades as a way to get students
talking and discussing.
To make speaking activities more

exciting, I often give each of my
students a different word before
the activity starts. They have to
keep this word secret from their
partner, but their task is to steer
the conversation in such a way as
to get their partner to use their
word at least once during the
conversation. If you want, you can
specify that they cannot say the
word themselves, but will score
points every time their partner
uses it.
The choice of words is up to you:
they could be simple everyday
words or expressions, or ones that
you want to revise with your
students.
This technique is great fun and
provides plenty of speaking
practice as the students work hard
to force their partners into saying
their words.
Nataliya Potapova
Uzhhorod, Ukraine
Theyre great for starting off a class

or finishing off a topic, and can
even be used as the basis for an
entire lesson. Polls basically involve
proposing a question, having a vote
and presenting comments/having a
discussion. In class, you can play
around with these steps by putting
the vote at the end of a discussion
or having an initial vote and then a
discussion, or even having no vote
but just comments. You could also
start with a broad discussion, vote
on a question and then discuss it
further. The options are endless,
almost.
An interesting source of daily
contemporary poll discussion ideas
is www.sodahead.com, an online
polling site where readers ask
questions and then vote and add
comments. This site also has
slideshows and lets you make your
own poll and post it on the site.
Whats great about it is that
anything you put up can be voted
on and answered by anyone; the
comments soon add up, so within a
day youll have plenty of responses.
Another good thing is that all the
questions are about topical US/UK
stories, which will encourage the
students to read and watch the
news and understand the
importance of learning about
culture alongside language.
Here are ten lesson ideas:

1
Write a question on the board and ask

your students to vote and present a 30second comment.
Tell the students the topic of the question

and get them to guess the question itself.
Put the students into groups, give each

group a series of questions and get them
to discuss each one.
Give the class a choice of three questions

and ask them to decide which is the most
interesting and why.
Write up one question and get the

students to brainstorm the background to
it and why people might want to ask this
question.
Ask pairs of students to make their own

questions and canvas the opinions of the
rest of the class.
Make a question at the end of the class

linked to the topic you have been
studying and elicit some opinions. Then
put it on www.sodahead.com. For
homework, ask the students to add their
comments and keep track of other
peoples.
As in 7, but ask pairs of students to come

up with questions.
Ask the students to create a slideshow of

important images related to their
question and then put it on the site.
10 Get the students to canvas the opinions
of their friends, family, host family or

other teachers for homework and to
report back in the next lesson.
Phil Wade
Bordeaux, France
37
Over
the
wall ...
Alan Maley invests
some time reading
about the mystery of
global finance.
he world of global economics,

banking and finance is a
mystery to most of us, full of
arcane terminology leverage,
derivatives, hedge funds, securitisation,
etc. Until recently, we stood in awe of
those great minds who could navigate
this world with ease and assurance. Alas,
the last few years have disabused us of
this illusion. We realise that these
politicians and financial wizards are as far
out of their depth as we are. They have
no clue what to do when the going gets
rough except to cry for help from
iStockphoto.com / Steven Robertson
The world of global

economics, banking
and finance is a
mystery to most of us
government. As the UK governments
Business Secretary Vince Cable remarks,
no one fully understands what is
happening or how the current drama will
play out. These little emperors now have
no clothes (though their personal bank
balances remain intact), while the rest of
us are losing our shirts. Alongside this
largely bubble economy, however, there
stalks the spectre of a real world of
swiftly depleting resources and rapidly
mounting problems with disposing of the
pollution created by the monster of
38
unmitigated growth. The books reviewed

here examine these twin issues from
slightly different perspectives.
The Gods That Failed

This book, written by two journalists, is a
blistering indictment of the global financial
system which started to collapse in 2008.
The 12 gods of this system globalisation,
communication, liberalisation, privatisation,
competition, financialisation, speculation,
recklessness, greed, oligarchy, excess and
arrogance are analysed and polemicised
in the succeeding chapters. As the
authors point out: It is an axiom of the
global order that there is never too much
of anything; never too much growth, never
too much speculation, never too high a
salary, never too many flights, never too
many cars, never too much trade. There
is detailed analysis of cases such as the
failure of the UK building society Northern
Rock and the sub-prime mortgage
debacle, and of the speculative
instruments like derivatives, which enable
financial wizards to maximise profit while
passing the risk to others. And the
solution? They cite Stiglitz: What is
required is in some ways simple to
describe: ... ceasing our current behaviour
and doing exactly the opposite ... not
spending money we dont have, increasing
taxes on the rich, reducing corporate
welfare, strengthening the safety net for
the less well off, and making greater

investment in education, technology and
infrastructure. But this is not so simple to
achieve. In the final chapter, they argue for
a New Populism based on the policies of
Roosevelt, old Labour and the European
social democratic parties. This would
entail imposing tighter controls on lending
and credit, splitting retail from corporate
finance, breaking large banks into smaller
ones, strictly regulating all derivative
products, instituting protection for topclass industrial companies, increasing
taxes on hedge funds and private equity
and deregulating small firms and the selfemployed sector. What they dont
question is the return to an economy
driven by growth, something I, personally,
believe to be unsustainable.
The Storm
A similar criticism must be levelled at Vince
Cables The Storm. He makes a detailed
and intellectually-challenging analysis of
the current situation, covering issues such
as the Northern Rock crash, the collapse
of credit, peak oil, food and water
shortage, the rise of new economies such
as China and India, and the reactions to all
of this. His final chapter, The Future a
Road Map, offers his solutions for the UK:
cutting interest rates, government loans to
big firms, the government spending its way
out of recession, quantitative easing (ie
printing more money), nationalising banks,

more regulation of the financial sector,
separating retail from investment banking,
etc. The book was published in 2009. Two
years later, most of these solutions have
been tried and do not so far seem to be
working. What is most concerning is his
touching belief in the free-market system
and his wish to get back to growth, and
his almost contemptuous dismissal of
any alternative view. He refers to antiglobalisation protesters as a ragbag of
discontents and sees political and
economic liberalization as inexorable and
positive forces. He refers disparagingly to
a reassertion of the Limits to Growth
thinking that flowered briefly in the 1970s.
(In fact, most of the predictions made in the
Club of Rome report have come true; see
Meadows, Randers and Meadows.) Only
on the last two pages of the book does
he briefly mention climate change and
the elimination of hunger, poverty and
disease. This myopic concentration on
global market-economy issues is deeply
worrying, especially since Cable is now a
government minister. The willingness to
sacrifice the planet on the altar of growth,
and the unwillingness to consider its
effects, is suicidal. As Seabrook reminds
us: If the creation of wealth itself destroys
and wastes humanity, that wealth, however
vast, will never suffice to repair the damage
it has wrought.
Eaarth
In Eaarth, Bill McKibben reminds us that
it may well already be too late. Its
apocalyptic vision is not, sadly, a work of
the creative imagination. It is all too real.
While the economists and politicians
continue to focus on the chimera of global
growth, this book spells out in stark terms
where we are heading. It focuses on
building the kind of communities and
economies that can withstand whats
coming. The first two chapters lay out
the problems: climate change, global
warming, depleting fossil fuels and the
effects on glaciers, disappearing rain
forests, loss of marine life, extreme
destructive weather, lakes drying out,
drought, etc. McKibben claims that were
running Genesis backward, de-creating.
The earth we thought we knew is gone: all
we can do is prepare for life on what is
left, and it will be tough. He argues that
another burst of expansion will simply
accelerate ecological and economic
collapse. The best we can do is to slow
down and manage our descent. And we
have to do this in the face of powerful
voices such as that of Larry Summers,

Obamas chief economic adviser: There
are no limits to the carrying capacity of
earth that are likely to bind any time in
the foreseeable future. There isnt a risk
of an apocalypse due to global warming
or anything else. The idea that we should
put limits to growth because of some
natural limit is a profound error. This is
so crass it is scarcely credible.
In the second two chapters, McKibben
examines possible survival strategies:
slowing down, making smaller, aiming for
maintenance not growth, localising
production especially agriculture,
fostering bio- and agri-diversity, localising
renewable energy generation, etc. (For
those interested in the precise details of
how this might be done, see David
MacKays proposals in Sustainable
Energy Without the Hot Air.)
Prosperity Without
Growth
Tim Jacksons book takes these ideas
forward, combining economic, ecological
and social perspectives. The book focuses
on the questions: What can prosperity
possibly look like in a finite world, with
limited resources and a population
expected to exceed nine billion people
within decades? Do we have a decent
vision for such a world? Is this vision
credible in the face of the available
evidence about ecological limits? How do
we go about turning vision into reality?
The book then closely analyses the factors
involved, many of which overlap with those
in the books above. Jacksons suggested
solutions come under three headings:
Fixing the limits reducing emissions,
fostering green solutions; Fixing the
economic model structural transition to
low-carbon, labour-intensive activities,
financial and fiscal prudence; Changing
the social logic reducing working hours,
tackling structural inequality, measuring
capabilities for flourishing (life expectancy,
participation in education and the
community, etc), strengthening social
capital and diminishing the culture of
consumerism (eg by media regulation). It
is the authors focus on the social factors
which gives this book its unique quality.
Like Fritz Schumacher, his attention is
focused on re-defining what we mean by
prosperity in terms other than GDP.

These are worrying books, but the global
reality warrants worry! As teachers, we
surely have a responsibility for developing

critical awareness in our students, as well
as teaching them language. In fact, the
two things can be powerfully combined,
as some recent coursebooks have shown.
I close with a quote from Cormac
McCarthys The Road, a bleak vision of a
possible future if we do nothing:
On the far side of the river valley the
road passed through a stark black burn.
Charred and limbless trees stretching
away on every side. Ash moving over the
road and the sagging hands of black wire
strung from the blackened light poles
whining thinly in the wind. A burned
house in a clearing and beyond that a
stretch of meadowlands stark and grey ...
Farther along were billboards advertising
motels. Everything was as it once had
been save faded and weathered. ETp
Cable, V The Storm: The World Economic
Crisis and What it Means Atlantic Books
2009
Elliott, L and Atkinson, D The Gods that
Failed: How blind faith in markets has
cost us our future The Bodley Head
2008
Jackson, T Prosperity Without Growth:
Economics for a Finite Planet Earthscan
2009
McCarthy, C The Road Picador 2006
McKibben, B Eaarth: making a life on a
tough new planet St Martins Griffin 2010
See also:
MacKay, D J C Sustainable Energy
Without the Hot Air UIT 2008 (free
download at www.withouthotair.com)
Meadows, D, Randers, J and Meadows,
D Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
Chelsea Green 2004
Sandel, M BBC Reith Lectures
(www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/special
reports/2009/06/090612.shtml) 2009
Schumacher, E F Small is Beautiful: a
study of economics as if people mattered
Vintage 1973
Seabrook, J The Race for Riches
Marshall Pickering 1988
Stiglitz, J Globalisation and its
Discontents Penguin 2002
Alan Maley has worked in
the area of ELT for over
40 years in Yugoslavia,
Ghana, Italy, France,
China, India, the UK,
Singapore and Thailand.
Since 2003 he has been
a freelance writer and
consultant. He has
published over 30 books
and numerous articles,
and was, until recently,
Series Editor of the
Oxford Resource Books
for Teachers.
yelamoo@yahoo.co.uk
39
LANGUAGE LOG
Im sorry, I havent a clue!

John Potts charts the intricacies and idiosyncrasies,
the contradictions and complications that make
the English language so fascinating for teachers and teaching.
In this issue, he discusses the way language ages.
ts a truism to say that languages never stand still and

that they are constantly changing, with older uses and
meanings dying out and newer ones coming in. The
trouble is, how do we know whats in and whats out?
When does contemporary become old-fashioned or even
dated? Is one persons contemporary usage considered
old-fashioned by another?
process can be traced in a dictionary which gives historical

examples and meanings, such as the Oxford English
Dictionary. A fascinating development is that sometimes
people know only the very new meaning of a word. In
Michael Quinions weekly email from his highly
recommended World Wide Words website
(www.worldwidewords.org), I learnt about uragnosia.
Heres the item as it appeared there:
Slang and idiom are obvious examples, and ones that are
perhaps relatively easy to deal with as they are, to a great
extent, date-stamped. Consequently, because we are
aware that our slang and idiom may give away our age, we
adopt newer, more contemporary expressions, often taken
from TV and the internet. And we also know that these new
expressions are themselves usually ephemeral theyll fade
away with time, like yellowing newspapers. We may be
thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope today,
but we wont be in a few years time. Not unless we want to
sound square, daddy-o.
But what about vocabulary and grammar? Last Christmas, I

asked my brother whether his wireless was now working
properly at home, and my mum chipped in to say that her
father had had a wireless that had never worked very well
either. (I was referring to my brothers wifi network; my
mother was talking about what most people now call a
radio.) This phenomenon of a standard vocabulary item
becoming superseded and replaced by a newer meaning
is widespread. Sometimes, an older, superseded word is
renamed in order to distinguish it from its usurper. Once
upon a time, all guitars were acoustic, so there was no need
to distinguish them from an electric guitar. All music was
once live; all watches were analogue; all trains were powered
by steam. These new-words-for-old-things (acoustic guitar,
live music, steam train) are called retronyms.
The Feedback column in New Scientist has introduced me

to a newly coined word: uragnosia. It was created by
Andrew Ross, who was responding to a query by another
reader, Alastair Beaven. The latter wanted a term for a
person who knows a word only in a novel sense and not its
original. The example he gave was of an interpreter in
Afghanistan who knew about viruses in computers, but not
about biological viruses. Andrew Ross generated his word
from ur-, origin, plus Greek agnosia, ignorance (from
gnosis). So uragnosia means ignorance of origin.
Grammar is equally subject to change. In 1964, the pop

group The Honeycombs had a (UK) hit with Have I the right
to hold you? at a time when many (British) English speakers
still routinely formed questions and negatives without do
when using have as a main verb. Not many would do so
today. However, the old form lingers on in some fixed
expressions many people who today would normally form
negatives and questions with the do auxiliary (I dont have
enough time for hobbies, Do you have any idea what this
means?) nevertheless sometimes still use the older form in
phrases like I havent the faintest idea, Have you no
shame? etc. There is an American English example dating
from the 1954 McCarthy anti-communist hearings (Have
you no sense of decency, sir?), so clearly the form survived
in the USA until the 50s. Recently, Johnson, the language
blog at the Economist, used the headline Have you no ?
to neatly and wittily combine the old grammar form and the
now ubiquitous heart icon.
Other words gradually lose their original meaning and

adopt the new use, as in my wireless example. This
40
LANGUAGE LOG Im sorry, I havent a clue!

He ran hither and thither, trying to serve all the customers.
Passengers are requested to tender the exact fare.
I didnt meant to eavesdrop, but I couldnt help hearing ...
Similarly, some speakers continue to form used to

questions and negatives without the do auxiliary, as in
Used you to like him? (from a 1977 short story by the Irish
writer Jennifer Johnston) and I used not to be so impressed
with Bob Brookmeyer ... (Amazon.co.uk online reviewer,
March 2010). These forms were much more common 30 or
40 years ago, in British English at least.
Once-commonplace activities such as sailing and riding lie

behind these:
I gave him a wide berth.
He says that more changes are in the offing.
There are no hard and fast rules for this.
Now that hes got the bit between his teeth theres no
stopping him.
If hes not careful, hes going to come a cropper.
She gave free rein to her imagination and produced a
great story.
And many British speakers continue to use need as a true

modal verb, in contrast to the semi-modal need to: If she
wants help, she need only ask. You neednt come with me if
youd rather not. Need I say more? Again, this oldfashioned modal may be on the wane certainly, North
American speakers tend not to employ it.
And, from weaving:

In many respects, dialect and idiom are the warp and weft
of English literature, whether it be Coleridges and
Wordsworths Lyrical Ballads or Thomas Hardys Wessex
chronicles. (The Guardian December 2009)
To return to the starting point, paradoxically some idioms

and fixed expressions retain archaic and obsolete words
whose original meanings and references are largely
forgotten these days. Although we may not know what they
mean in their literal sense, we happily use them. Here are
some examples: look them up from an etymological point
of view, if you are curious:
I suspect that if you asked native speakers what these

expressions literally refer to, many would say Im sorry,
I havent a clue ...
John Potts is a teacher and teacher trainer
based in Zrich, Switzerland. He has written
and co-written several adult coursebooks, and
is a CELTA assessor. He is also a presenter for
Cambridge ESOL Examinations.
She succeeded by dint of all the effort she invested.

Shell be suitably rewarded for her work, as is meet and
proper.
The vandals escaped scot-free.
As is his wont, he arrived 20 minutes after the meeting
started.
johnpotts@swissonline.ch
COMPETITION RESULTS
12
13
26
13
26
18
22
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18
22
19
23
16
13
19
19
22
15
13
20
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10
10
11
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18
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17
18
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12
19
25
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W
O
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23
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12
13
M A Anscombe, Lymington, UK
Thomas Checkfield, Atlanta, USA
Luigina Contarelli, Urbania, Italy
Donna Hutchins, Milan, Italy
Lydia Manners, Manchester, UK
Maria Messano, Laveno Mombello, Italy
Sue Mitchell, Paris, France
Ian Paine, Guildford, UK
Eva Beverly Wong, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Catherine Young, Baden-Dttwil, Switzerland
13
U
18
Congratulations to all those readers who successfully completed our

Prize Crossword 48. The winners, who will each receive a copy of the
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, are:
R
6
22
12
26
13
23
19
13
23
13
26
24
13
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Pablo Picasso
41
SCRAPBOOK
Gems, titbits, puzzles, foibles, quirks, bits & pieces,
quotations, snippets, odds & ends,
what you will
Vicious and
virtuous circles
e, it would
In this digital ag
e
ar
ey
Th
ls.
whee
liance on the
Circles, rounds,
seem that our re
en
se
:
n
te
of
is
circle
e is diminishing
everywhere. The
humble disc shap
ols
mb
sy
so
,
r
ge
ion
ct
lon
rfe
are no
as a symbol of pe
cogs and gears
e tangents, are
lik
it,
m
the time, and
ll
fro
te
rt
to
pa
y
that de
necessar
off
ing
go
us
Th
.
ction
us spinning hard
a sign of imperfe
even the ubiquito
(or
t
plo
e
th
ing
los
ans
s, be replaced
at a tangent me
drive will, it seem
of
w
vie
r
Ou
.
...)
one
ent solid state
finding another
by a sinisterly sil
at
wh
me
so
be
be able
r,
ve
You wont even
circles can, howe
vent device.
-in
re
nt
Do
as
here
mputer is
contradictory. W
to hear if your co
s
ha
l
ee
e
wh
e
th
at
es th
course, even if th
the wheel! impli
breathing ... Of
d
an
,
ion
ing
ct
inn
rfe
sp
d pe
tually
already achieve
wheels arent ac
on, going round
ed
ov
still be relying on
pr
ll
im
wi
be
ine
ot
ch
cann
the ma
se,
ca
is
th
in
,
at
th
ts
cuit is a word
in circles sugges
circuitry and cir
al!
ide
m
fro
r
fa
e is
m the circle!
the circular rout
which derives fro
Wheels
within wheels
What is the cheapest type

of bicycle you can buy?
A penny-farthing.
Ive really had it with my dog:
hell chase anyone on a bicycle.
So what are you going to do leave him at the
dogs home? Give him away? Sell him?
No, nothing that drastic. I think Ill
just confiscate his bike.
Grain geometry
Crop circles are circles
(and sometimes comple
x
arrangements of circles
and other geometric
shapes) found in ripe
cornfields before harves
t.
They are made by flat
tening the corn in patte
rns,
and usually appear ove
rnight. There are many
who
believe that they are ma
de mysteriously by alie
ns,
but others suspect the
culprits are not small
or
green and that they live
very much on this pla
net
42
Q: What did
the farmer use
to make crop
circles?
A: A protractor.
The wheels on my trolley made a horrible

scraping sound as I pushed it around the
supermarket. Nevertheless, when I had finished
my shopping and saw a woman looking for a
trolley, I offered it to her, saying, It makes an
awful noise, but it works.
Thats OK, she said, taking it. I have a
husband at home just like that.
A: Arent you wearing your wedding ring
on the wrong finger?
B: Yes, I am. I married the wrong man.
iStockphoto.com / Joze Pojbic / stocksnapper
My granny started cycling at the age of 97.

She has been doing ten miles per day and
now we dont know where in the world she is!
Circular
argument
Did you know that in the United States
the standard railway gauge (the distance
between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches?
Thats an exceedingly odd number. Why
was it chosen?
Because the first railway lines were built

by the same people who had built the
rails for horse-drawn trams, and thats the
gauge they used.
Why did they use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the
tramways used the same jigs and tools
that they used for building horse-drawn
wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons use that odd wheel
spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing
the wagons would break on some of the
old, long-distance roads, because thats
the spacing of the old wheel ruts: the
grooves in the road caused by the
passage of wheels over the centuries.
So who built those old rutted roads?
The first long-distance roads in Europe
were built by the Romans for the benefit
of their legions. The same roads have
been used ever since. And the ruts? The
initial ruts, which everyone else had to
match for fear of destroying their wagons,
were first made by Roman war chariots.
Since the chariots were made for or by
Imperial Rome they were all alike in the
matter of wheel spacing. Thus, we have
the answer to your original question. The
United States standard railway gauge of
4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original
specification for an Imperial Roman army
war chariot!
The unbroken circle

is a traditional symbo
l of eternity, so the we
ring symbolises eterna
dding
l love and, some say
, is an indication tha
wearer is no longer in
t the
circulation! Try our we
dding ring quiz.
1 Tradit
ionally, the British roy
3 When
al
was the custom of ha
family have their wedd
ving
ing
a ring for both the bri
rings made out of We
de
an
d
the
lsh gold
groom first made popu
(famous for its purity
lar
?
). How
a) the 1820s
many gold mines we
d) the 1940s
re
operating in Wales at
b)
the
189
0s
the end
e) the 1960s
of the 20th century?
c) the 1920s
a) none
c) two
4 Betwe
b) one
en the 14th and 17th
d) four
centuries, rings often
carried
2 Wedd
secret messages on
ing rings have at variou
the inside
s
face. What were these
times been worn on:
rings
cal
led?
a) the right hand on
any
a) regard rings
finger except the thumb
or
the little finger.
b) posey rings
b) on either hand on
any
.
c) on either hand on
any
finger, including the thu
mb.
d) on the left hand on
any
.
c) pledge rings
d) gemmel rings
d
Its your roun
voices sing
two or more
ch
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Scrapbook compiled by Ian Waring Green
43
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Why did the English people build them

like that?
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England.
Reviews
Being Creative: The challenge
of change in the classroom
by Chaz Pugliese
Delta Publishing 2009
978-1-905085-33-0
The book follows the Delta Teacher
Development Series format, with Section
A as a general introduction, Section B
offering classroom activities and Section
C suggesting activities for the teacher to
develop further.
In Section A there is a useful and
concise overview of the concept of
creativity and how it has evolved
historically, together with possible
applications to the classroom. The aim is
to achieve flow in classrooms: When
everything flows, when the interaction is
smooth we can talk about teaching in
aesthetic terms that is, an experience
that results in a sensorial perception that
not only satisfies the teacher/artist, but
also their audience/groups. When this
happens, teaching ceases to be an action
and becomes an art. There follow
suggestions for strategies to implement
creativity as change: simplicity,
combinatorial creativity making new
associations between previously
unconnected items play and risk taking.
Section B is divided into three
chapters. Chapter One, Classrooms, offers
a wide variety of activities for making the
classroom a creative space. The aim is to
establish a positive atmosphere where
creative responses are actively encouraged
through personalisation and sharing.
Chapter Two, Resources, offers a
large number of activities drawing on
music, song, art and expressive texts. I
found this the richest of the three
chapters. There is at least one innovative
idea on every page, often giving an
established idea a new and creative twist.
An example of this is the activity Story
backwards, where one student in a group
re-tells a story starting from the end, while
another re-tells it conventionally. Half way
through, they change roles.
Chapter Three focuses on Students
their feelings, ideas, thinking skills, physical
activity and reflections on the learning
process. Again, there are some highly
original activities, as well as familiar ones
given an unfamiliar twist: Who Am I?
invites the students to choose which of a
44
pair of terms they are for example,

Are you a dictionary or a novel?
Section C, the shortest of the three,
discusses the creative challenge to
teachers and offers advice on overcoming
fear of change, of failure, of non-conformity
(and its consequences) and uncertainty.
A small number of teacher development
activities follow, focused on reflection on
teaching. I found this the least stimulating
part. Most of the activities simply ask
teachers to think back on some
aspect of their learning or teaching
career. It might have been better to invite
them to apply a heuristic process to their
own practice. For example, Fanselows
famous Do the opposite.
I only noted one other, relatively
minor shortcoming, namely that the
instructional rubrics are occasionally
unclear or ambiguous but this could
easily be put right in a new edition.
I feel overwhelmingly positive about
this book. It is not simply a collection of
highly ingenious and creative activities. It
is also a passionate plea for a change in
the way we view learning. As Pugliese
says: Because I love teaching, finding a
creative voice is the only way I know to
avoid getting stuck in a rut. But more
generally, the book challenges the way
we have become institutionally
accustomed to doing things: the big
pull is towards standardisation, exams,
regimented syllabi, a senseless dont
rock the boat attitude intellectual
shortsight that will do nobody a favour ...
Think how much better off we would be if
public education opened itself more to
creative collaboration with the students.
Yes indeed! Think about it, read the book,
and see how it could be done.
Alan Maley
Fordwich, UK
London Language Experience

www.londonlanguageexperience.com
LLE is a company which offers audio
walking tours of London designed for
language students. These tours are bought
on a monthly subscription by language
teaching institutions and can be
incorporated into general English courses
for long-term students or used as separate
week-long courses for short-term students.
The tours take the students out on the
streets to bring language learning alive.

At present there are four routes available:
Camden (suitable for pre-intermediate
students), Soho (intermediate), South Bank
(upper-intermediate) and Westminster
(advanced). They are designed around a
coursebook, which includes notes for the
teacher on how to run the tours, activities
and lessons, maps, student handouts,
transcripts and additional ideas. Some
courses also involve an interview task in
which the students talk to residents,
visitors, market traders, etc. Subscribers
receive a pack of 16 customised audio
players with all four audio tours,
headphones and the coursebook, plus
training for teachers on the most effective
way to use the material is also provided.
I attended an audio tour of
Westminster, with a group of ten students
from Malvern House school. Their
teacher, Wil, had done some preparatory
work with them, and on the tube from
Malvern House to Westminster, we were
all given a handout of texts which the
students, working in groups, had
prepared in advance about three topics
related to the tour. They had chosen the
Battle of Britain, Number 10 Downing
Street and the London Eye. We read
these on the train as a warm-up exercise
to get us in the mood for what we were
about to see.
The tour itself started on the
Embankment outside Westminster tube
station and facing the London Eye. The
audio players were synchronised, we all
pressed Play at the same time and we
were off, guided every step of the way by
a series of ghosts. We began with
Reggie Watlins, who led us along the
Reviews
Embankment to the Battle of Britain
Memorial, where he gave a vivid
description of his life and death as a
bomber pilot in World War II. He was
followed by Winston Churchill, who led us
past the Ministry of Defence and a series
of statues and monuments to Whitehall,
the Cenotaph and Number 10 Downing
Street, the official residence of the British
Prime Minister. Another colourful character
from British history, Guy Fawkes,
celebrated for his attempt to blow up the
Houses of Parliament and kill King James
I, took over the narration here and swiftly
found himself in a lively argument with
Queen Elizabeth I over religious
persecution and the rights and wrongs of
their age. Queen Elizabeth then took us
back down Whitehall to Parliament
Square, where the tour ended. All the
ghosts spoke very clearly (the impression
of Winston Churchill was particularly
good) and their stories were enhanced by
helpful and exciting sound effects.
Wil then handed out small maps of the
area with the outline of a further tour: one
which the students had to prepare and
record themselves. Each pair of students
was made responsible for one section of
the route and they were sent off to take
photos on their mobile phones of anything
interesting that they came across on their
section of the route. Back at the school,
they would research these things online
and use the information to put together
the commentary for their part of the tour.
Before they left, I asked them how much
of the recorded tour they had understood.
Responses ranged from Most of it to

About 60%. They had all clearly enjoyed
it and were eager now to produce their
own tour, which would be recorded and
then tried out a few days later.
LLE provides a service which is
clearly great fun for the students. There is
more than adequate support for teachers
who want to run these tours and, in the
hands of a talented and creative teacher,
the possibilities for further exploitation
are limitless.
Helena Gomm
West Meon, UK
Teaching Spelling to English

Language Learners
by Johanna Stirling
lulu.com 2011
978-1-4476-0678-9
When learners ask how they can improve
their spelling in English, many teachers
including myself have responded by
advising them to do more extensive
reading and to revisit their vocabulary
notebooks with regard to problem words.
Teaching Spelling to English Language
Learners attempts to enable teachers to
go further than this by providing us with
the relevant knowledge and strategies for
developing learners spelling. Selfpublished by Johanna Stirling (and
available on Amazon), it is divided into
three sections. The first two deal with
issues in spelling and the teaching of
spelling, and the third is an activity bank
of over 50 tasks, some with
related photocopiable resources.
The first section will
fascinate any user of English
who has ever been baffled by
its seemingly complex and
contradictory spelling
characteristics. Beginning with
a brief history of English
spelling, the reader is taken on
a captivating adventure
through the systems which
inform English spelling today.
(Yes, that was a plural form,
as the book demonstrates
that English spelling is not
underpinned by any single
spelling system.) Usual
spelling suspects, as well as
subtler spelling patterns, are
brought to light in accessible, lucid

prose. Though the book predominantly
explores these systems using British
English spelling patterns, there is
comparison with North American English
spelling standards where relevant.
The second section then reflects on
how to bring this knowledge into your
teaching practice, dipping into the
potential quagmires of correcting and
testing spelling. There are references to
teaching spelling to users of English as a
first language, but the book remains
solidly focused on the spelling challenges
faced by ELT professionals.
The third section the activity bank
and resources was, in this readers
opinion, weaker than the earlier two
sections. Many of the activities are very
humanistic and some teachers may not
feel they can deploy these easily in their
teaching contexts. Nonetheless, there are
plenty of activities which will be able to
make it into a variety of classrooms,
though the coding scheme for denoting
levels was confusing and easily
forgettable. As the book is likely intended
for reference and dipping into, this was
an unfortunate, if minor, detraction.
Despite these reservations, this is a
wonderfully useful addition to the ELT
teachers bookshelf. For teachers who
believe that having strategies and
resources is a better situation to be in
than leaving spelling competence to grow
organically and, in many cases, at a
distance from your teaching input, this
book on English spelling in the ELT
context is a valuable purchase.
Peter Lyn
Cambridge, UK
45
R E A D I N G
No gain
without
pain
Peter Wells believes
that the case for extensive
reading needs extensive
re-examination..
46
t is generally accepted that English

coursebooks, and therefore most
courses, do not in themselves give
students sufficient exposure to the
language to ensure retention. A unit on
clothes, for example, might cause the
students to use the words skirt and
socks a dozen or so times, but in the rest
of the book these words will probably
not be recycled. They will, therefore, be
quickly forgotten.
Estimates of the required number of
meaningful repetitions of lexical items
for effective retention vary, but hover
around 50. The figure for grammar is
harder to ascertain, but the answer is
definitely a lot.
So the Holy Grail of ELT is to find
a method of exposing students, in
speaking, writing, listening or reading,
to a large number of repetitions of new
words or constructions. But they must
be meaningful repetitions. Drills, for
example, offer many repetitions, but
they are generally unsuccessful because
they are decontextualised and, therefore,
meaningless. Movies, on the other hand,
offer linguistic items in meaningful
situations, but the number of repetitions
is inadequate, and many of the items
offered are too low-frequency for most
students.
A widely-promoted answer to this

problem is extensive reading of graded
readers, or ER. Graded readers are being
advertised with increasing intensity by
publishers, by teachers who think they
have found a painless way of learning
English and, particularly, by teachers
who write graded readers in their spare
time. The argument runs thus:
1 These books are really interesting.
2 Therefore, as soon as you introduce
them to students, they will become

hooked on them, and get what is called
the reading habit (which sounds like
compulsive nail-biting).
3 This will induce them to read,
willingly, thousands of words, including

hundreds of repetitions of words and
constructions at the right level for them.
As the stories are interesting, these
repetitions are meaningful, and will
therefore be retained in their memory.
In the words of a writer of a former
generation (Geoffrey Broughton) the
patterns of collocation and idiom are
established almost painlessly.
The subtext of these advertisements is
particularly attractive to administrators:
4 Because the students are learning
English swiftly and efficiently while

happily reading enjoyable stories, they
dont need so many lessons. Books are
cheaper than teachers or classrooms.
The logic of this train of thought is
impeccable, but if any one of the
premises is factually incorrect, the
conclusion is false. What if, for example,
the books are not interesting? In that
case, few students will get the habit.
What is more, the many carefully-devised
repetitions will be not meaningful, but
meaningless, and therefore ineffective.
Interest and enjoyment

Graded readers were first used in the
Reading Method of learning English,
associated with Michael West, the
originator of the General Service Word
List. However, it is not often
appreciated that in Wests method the
readers were not an extension or
optional addition to the course; they
were the course. Wests readers usually
adaptations of classics were intended
to introduce vocabulary in the right
order, based on the Word List, and
consolidate it by carefully-paced
repetition so that students in Bengal
could learn to read and write English
without a native-speaking teacher to

help them. As such, the books some
of which are still on library shelves
today contain comprehension
questions and writing exercises.
Proponents of graded readers also
invoke Stephen Krashen, of
Comprehensible Input Hypothesis fame.
His approach to reading, called Free
Voluntary Reading, has given rise to a
practice called Sustained, Silent
Reading. SSR, which, ironically, is not
voluntary, consists of a session in which
all the students in a class are obliged to
read for about 15 minutes. However,
apart from being compulsory, SSR is
entirely different from the Reading
Method. Students can read whatever
they want and they dont have to finish
their selections. Also, they are not
required to prove they have read their
books. There are no book reports, no
assignments and no grades. The idea
Most students,
when asked what
they need or want
from their English
classes, say speaking
or conversation,
not reading
behind SSR is that the students will find
that they enjoy reading so much that
they voluntarily read even more books
outside school.
Like the practitioners of SSR,
modern proponents of ER have realised
that most students will not read
anything without compulsion, so they
have developed a battery of devices to
ensure that the students do read. In
addition to, or instead of, compulsory
silent reading in class, they stipulate a
mandatory number of books to be read
in a given period for homework, chosen
from a restricted range of books
specially written for the purpose
graded readers. They give rewards for
reading books, or sanctions for failing
to read them, sometimes based on
quizzes (eg from www.xreading.com).
They also use oral or written book
reports or worksheets, or exploit a
range of fun activities such as writing
letters to one of the characters, writing
a poster for a film of the book, acting

out a scene from it, etc. However, such
activities, whether successful or not, are
not extension programmes. They are
just ordinary, integrated classroom
English lessons, plus homework. The
original claim that students are
motivated to do extra work by reading
for pleasure has evaporated.
Volume and speed

A key emphasis in the modern approach
is volume. For example, according to Rob
Waring (www.robwaring.org), in order to
encounter the 50th most common word
in English, like, 50 times, and thus to
really learn it, students need to read
20,739 words, or about six elementary
graded readers. The number of words
required for learning a new word by ER
rises rapidly as frequency levels fall. To
encounter the 2000th most common word
(stumble) 50 times, students need to read
1,156,250 words, which would take about
168 hours. Along with other practitioners,
Waring recommends that elementary
students read 34,000 words per week,
intermediate students 12,00015,000
and advanced learners up to 50,000.
Assuming reading speeds of 80100
words per minute, this is asking the
students to read for between one hour a
week, at the lowest level, and eight
hours, at the highest.
Questions and
considerations
If your students are prepared to do this
amount of homework, or voluntary
work (and its a big if), should you use
this time for ER? Youve probably got
some graded readers in your institution
and feel theyre a resource that should
not be wasted. However, before you
embark on an ER programme with your
students, I advise you to ask yourself
the following questions:
1
Do your students need

principally spoken or written
English?
If the former, then there are many
online sites for listening (eg
www.elllo.com) or even speaking (eg
www.englishcentral.com) which would be
a better use of their spare time than
reading. This is assuming they have no
access to native speakers of English,
which most students these days do have,
if only online. Most students, when
asked what they need or want from

their English classes, say speaking or
conversation, not reading. The English
of oral communication is very different
from that of novels (even from direct
speech in novels).
2
If they do need to learn to read,

what sort of reading do they
need?
Students of English may need to learn
to read (depending on their overall aim)
advertisements, blogs, emails, forms,
handouts, instruction manuals, leaflets,
letters, notes, notices, product
descriptions, reference books, reports,
signs, textbooks, web pages, and so on.
Graded readers, however, are extended
narratives, most of them fictitious, with
a content whose main interest is
emotional. The skill of reading literary
narrative is quite simply the wrong
reading skill for nearly all our students.
Reading a story about two people
falling in love will not help a
backpacker to answer the question
SEX? on an immigration form, or a
gynaecologist to study the latest
research in English. Reading novels
might be regarded as a minor goal of
learning a language, but never as a
major tool.
3
What is the place of the novel

in your students culture?
Most graded readers are based on novels,
or are novelistic in nature, and this
Western genre is alien to many cultures.
Before you impose these books upon
students from such cultures, consider
how acceptable they are, and how much
pre-teaching would be required.
4
Even if their culture does have

a tradition of writing novels, do
your students read them?
Out of all the possible language
activities you can give young people,
especially boys, reading a book is the
one least likely to interest them, with
the possible exception of learning lists
of words. Reading novels is a solitary
and passive activity, which requires long
periods of concentration. Young people,
by contrast, are gregarious and active,
and tend to have short attention spans.
So their reading of graded readers tends
to be reluctant and desultory. In two
recent surveys in my university, the
respondents (pre-intermediate, nonEnglish majors) placed reading library
books firmly at the bottom of a list of
47
No gain
without
pain
possible English activities in terms of

how useful or enjoyable they were.
According to Nicky Hockly, people
in Generation Y read eight books a
year, as opposed to 2,300 web pages and
1,281 Facebook profiles. Very few young
people in any country voluntarily read
classic or even modern novels. There
are, these days, so many other
interesting things to do. If your students
dont enjoy reading novels in their own
language, how can you possibly expect
them to enjoy reading them in a foreign
language?
Theres a serious danger that, by
forcing your students to read graded
readers, you might create a degree of
resentment, which could harm your
relationship with them and affect the
rest of your work with them.
5
Do you yourself enjoy reading

novels?
Many ELT teachers, like me, come from
a background in English literature, but
others do not, and some of the latter are
not lovers of literary fiction. They are
perfectly entitled to hold this opinion,
but they are not entitled, while holding
it, to insist that their students read
novels on the grounds that they are
interesting. That would be hypocritical.
If, on the other hand, you love
literature, are you happy about forcing
your students to read the travesties of
novels found in most graded readers?
See the next question.
6
Have you read any of your

institutions graded readers
yourself?
If you havent, your students will
quickly spot that you know nothing
about the books theyre reading, and
this will demotivate them. If youre not
interested, why should they be? You will
be unable to advise them on their choice
of reading or discuss with them what
theyve read. Its quite easy to acquaint
yourself with a large number of graded
48
readers in a surprisingly short time. The

easiest ones can be read in a matter of
minutes, and youll find you know quite
a few more from your previous reading
or movie-watching.
An additional reason for reading
some of the books yourself is that, after
reading them, you may think again
about foisting them on your students.
You will find that the simplified classics
often contain errors, due to clumsy
omissions, and that all the features that
make literature interesting the voices
of the characters, the style of the
author, the atmosphere, the little
significant details, nuances of feelings
and motivation, descriptions of peoples
appearance and settings have been
expunged in the interest of brevity and
simplicity. The stories lack cohesion and
coherence: Henry Widdowson once
described them as not instances of
genuine discourse but contrivances for
language learning.
As for original stories written to fit
the various student levels, while these
avoid some of the pitfalls of
simplification, the restrictions on
expression caused by the elementary
linguistic level still apply.
Additionally, due to the need for
economies of scale, the content of these
books has to be acceptable to people of
different ages and cultures, resulting in a
nearly universal blandness and failure
to deal with issues that interest young
people, notably sex. Here, for example,
is an account of a weekend of carnal
passion from a graded reader in which
the sexy stranger, Dave, has lured Anna
away to London to have his evil way
with her:
Anna enjoyed the weekend. They
arrived in London late on Friday evening
and stayed at a big hotel. On Saturday
they went shopping and in the evening
they went to a cinema. On Sunday they
went to a park.
Wow! Steamy stuff, eh?
7
Do you know what reading a

graded reader is like for your
students?
This is not the same question as the
preceding one, because you will read
graded readers in English as a native
speaker, at skimming speed. For the full
experience, you should try reading a
graded reader, as I did, in a foreign
language you have tried to learn. You will
find that the characters do not come to
life, that the reasons for the protagonists
decisions are either boringly simple or

incomprehensible and that you get very
little pleasure from the experience. You
wont particularly want to know how
the story ends, and you certainly wont
want to answer a quiz on it.
If you cant do this experiment,
imagine what it would be like to see a
movie in black and white, with no
sound and the speech in subtitles. Or
just read the film script. Literature
devoid of literary features is just like
cinema devoid of cinematic features.
8
What benefits can you

reasonably expect from the
amount of ER you can
persuade your students to do?
If you ask an elementary class to read
one elementary reader per week, as
Waring recommends, after ten weeks
your students will have read about
35,000 words. Going back to Warings
table, you will find that this gives them
about 50 repetitions of the 100th most
common word in English (hear), and
about ten of the 500th (present). So
after six or seven hours of compulsory
reading they should have learnt the
most common 100 words in the English
language (which surely they knew
already), and will be beginning to learn
some of the less common.
This sort of gain is pretty minimal,
and it assumes they find the stories
interesting and read them alertly and
enthusiastically, which many of them
dont. Is there a better use of this
homework time? Why not, for example,
ask them to write for about 40 minutes
each week instead (say, a personal
journal)? (OK, I know. Youd have to
mark it.)
9
Do you have reliable evidence,

from published research or
your own experience, that ER
is the most effective extension
activity available to your
students?
The research evidence that ER is an
effective tool of English teaching is
patchy and unreliable. David Hill, an
internationally famous supporter of
ER, recently admitted: What all we
enthusiasts do desperately need is hard
evidence first that extensive reading
benefits at least a proportion of students
in improving their general proficiency, or
one of a particular range of language
skills. Unfortunately, this is very difficult
to obtain.
My own experience has not been

encouraging. Coming from an L1teaching background, I have
enthusiastically pushed ER in Africa,
Singapore, the Middle East and Japan.
But everywhere I have found the same
listless and unproductive response to the
texts. In a large-scale study in the late
70s in Malawi, with 360 students over a
one-year period, I found no correlation
whatsoever between the amount of ER
they had done and their success in
external and internal examinations in
English. This, presumably, is because
even if the students are interested in the
stories, their focus is maximally on
content and only minimally on form.
Whenever a study claims to find
significant gains from an ER
programme, you invariably find on
further examination that it was neither
an extension programme nor solely a
reading one, but an integrated one.
Therefore, it is impossible to say if the
gains came from the reading or from
the writing and speaking activities
associated with it.
It is not enough to show that students
who do a standard course plus voluntary
extensive reading make more progress
than those who just do the course.
Students who are prepared to read books
outside class without compulsion are
more highly motivated than their
classmates, and therefore probably work
harder at all the activities. What is needed
to prove that ER works (or doesnt) is
serious, large-scale, properly-conducted
research comparing the benefits of a
range of different extension activities,
including ER, done by students who
took the same basic course. So far as I
know, this has never been done.
10 If you still want to go ahead
and use ER, do you know how

to find the most interesting and
best quality graded readers?
Some graded readers are better than
others. The Extensive Reading
Foundation (www.erfoundation.org) holds
annual competitions for the best new
graded readers. The 2008 winner in the
Adolescents and Adults Intermediate
category, for example, was Billy Elliot in
the Penguin series. This book is quite a
pleasure to read, and does, courageously,
address the homosexuality of Billys
friend Michael, as well as other issues
such as gender stereotyping. Unlike
many simplified readers, you dont need
to have seen the movie or read the
original book in order to follow it.

Another way to find the most
readable and engaging books is to ask
your own students to grade them. This
can be done on a class website or
classroom chart, or by sticking a sheet
into the front of each book and asking
each reader to give their opinion of it.
I also have considerable sympathy
with the view of Britt Jepsen (ETp Issue
70), who advocates the use of authentic
materials, though of course these are not
accessible to elementary students. The
language of such materials may not be
controlled in the approved ER manner,
but the content is usually incomparably
more interesting, and that must count
for something (bear in mind that SSR
allows students to read whatever they
like). It is probably the case that ER
works better with more advanced
students than with elementary ones, and
better with highly-motivated ones.

In conclusion, if youre an enthusiastic
reader, have read all the graded readers
in your library and have made sure that
theyre all of good quality, then, for
highly-motivated students at a fairly
advanced level ER might be one of a
range of activities you could offer them
to increase their exposure to
comprehensible input. This is a far cry,
however, from the increasingly strident
claims of publishers that by purchasing
ER libraries we can create a situation in
ENGLISH
EACHING
Tprofessional
which all types of students can learn

English swiftly and painlessly, by reading
for pleasure, without the expense of a
teacher or a classroom. There is no gain
without pain. Few of our students are
like T S Eliot who, we are told, learnt
Italian by reading Dante. For most
students, learning a language is hard
work and requires constant skilled
supervision and direction. ETp
Broughton, G, Brumfit, G, Flavell, R, Hill,
P and Pincas, A Teaching English as a
Foreign Language (2nd ed) Routledge
1980
Hill, D Extensive reading a way
forward Extensive Reading in Japan
Journal 2(2) 2010
Hockly, N Five things you always wanted
to know about blogs (but were afraid to
ask) English Teaching Professional 63
2009
Jepsen, B Carry on reading! English
Teaching Professional 70 2010
Widdowson, H G Teaching Language as
Communication OUP 1978
Peter Wells studied
English and Applied
Linguistics at Durham and
Manchester Universities,
UK. He has taught English
and trained English
teachers in Africa,
Singapore, Japan and
the Middle East. Beside
teacher training, he is
interested in discourse
analysis and the teaching
of writing. He is now living
and working part-time in
York, UK.
peter_wells@hotmail.com

Do you have ideas youd like to share
with colleagues around the world?
Tips, techniques and activities; simple or
sophisticated; well-tried or innovative;
something that has worked well for you?
All published contributions receive
a prize! Write to us or email:
ENGLISH TEACHING professional

Fax: +44 (0)1243 576456
TALKBACK!
49
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
Community spirit? Me?

Crystal Hurdle asserts her right to keep her thoughts to herself and shes not alone.
t an educational retreat, I discover

that I am not a touchy-feely
person. Being invited to come to
the sharing circle and participate in the
lighting of the candle at its centre makes
me want to vacate the premises. On the
first night, we are all invited to say what
weve left behind to be here. Having been
briefly introduced to my room with its
nun bed, not to mention the communal
bathrooms, I long to say jacuzzi tub,
but that would not be conducive to
discussion, and I want to be a team player.
All by myself
The next morning, I take my plate, bowl,
mug and glass off my tray and spread
them out. May I join you? asks a voice,
but its a statement more than a question
or, if a question, a rhetorical one. This
happens again and again. The table,
reputedly for four, was already full with
my breakfast. My elbow now rests in
someone elses yoghurt, and somebody
drinks my water. Ah, community. Isnt this
what life and education have come to be
about? And whats a poor, pitiful introvert
to do in a world of extroverts? What has
become the role of thoughtful reflection in
a world of shared feeling and blablablah?
After breakfast, the conference is ripe
with feeling. Apparently, we learn through
the cognitive, affective and psychomotor
domains, but rarely do we get off our
chairs in the healing circle except to waddle
off for more food. I sit and steam, and its
not the good steem of self-esteem, about
which I hear entirely too much. Versions of
How do you feel? are asked repeatedly. My
current seven dwarves are Sleep-deprived,
Disenchanted, Sluggish, Dopey, Resistant,
Bitchy and Disbelieving. Others say
Replete, Energised, Happy, Joyful and
just to mix parts of speech, thereby irking
the cognitive part of my brain that is still
functioning Community, Creativity and
Sharing. Its as if their Disney movie has
been spliced with mine by David Lynch.
We talk (or rather, they talk and
talk and I listen) about self-actualising,
authenticity, visualising. One man does
so in a soporific monotone that has me
nodding and not in agreement. I will him
50
and others to please stop talking and then

to please shut up and then to just shut
up! But to no avail. When people talk too
much, I go silent, erroneously believing
that giving up my turn will bring the
session to completion a bit sooner. As if.
Sometimes all 16 of us are called
upon to share. One at a time. The emoting
soon has the reek of damp cabbage. The
extroverts breathe it in as aromatherapy.
Wanda
My sister, Wanda, is involved, miles away,
at an educational retreat, too, specifically
a World Caf: a creative process for
facilitating collaborative dialogue and the
sharing of knowledge and ideas to create a
living network of conversation and action.
Its hype, written in the passive voice, with
words such as ambience and, especially,
cross-fertilised, which seems another,
kinder word for bullshit, intrigues her as
much as it does me. She emails: World
Cafs as group activities are the new rage,
and Id rather be shot in the head.
After shes moved from table to table,
each with its own issue or question, with
the table host summarising the previous
conversations, she writes: I dont give a
tiny rats ass about the mom who is
breastfeeding and cant make her babys
immunisation appointment on time because
she has to take a bus and missed it because
she discovered puke and poop on her sleeve.
Now, theres a convert! Now, thats
compassion! And why is she able to move
physically from beyond the circle?
Whats with all the sharing? And
why is every idea, even a stupid one,
given credence? Is it because of
blogging? Reality TV? The cult of
celebrity? Everybodys 15 minutes of
fame has stretched to hours?
Brian and Sam

Brian, my friend, a law professor, is
dismayed by the move towards group
processing in education. Specifically, he is
aghast at a faculty proposal to teach more
to the emotional and spiritual needs of
its students. Did I mention he teaches
corporate tax law? He formulates possible
questions for his students: How do you
feel about the dividend tax credit rate? Are

you spiritually OK with that? I tell him to
join my healing circle and to help me with
the lyrics for our new group song about
the joys of group processing. Colleague
Sam says he will have to be dosed on
Ativan before he shares, or joins, a circle.
But were the exceptions, right?
Sally
Friend Sally has been taking a workshop
about finding your bliss. One suggestion
is to ask your parents what you were like as
a baby or a toddler. Maybe I never learnt
properly about sharing. Maybe I was an
only child for too long before my sister
came along. (Then whats her excuse?) Or
maybe World Cafs and their ilk are just
cheap and cheesy ways for employers to
get out of sending their employees on
much deserved vacations to Gay Paree,
crowding them instead around faux French
bistro tables to discuss increasingly lame
ideas as if they were manna from heaven?

I dont want to rain on anyones parade,
dowsing a lit candle in the process, but
its ironic that so little time is spent on
solitary reflection. Is this payback for the
cognitive domain having been privileged
for too long? Now were mired in the
affective domain? Can you spare a share?
If a World Caf is implemented at my
university, Ill be the one at the bistro table
for six, with all of my stuff (including
preventative Ativan) spread out, marking
my territory. The issue/question sheet
will be left blank. If you want to see
something through a new lens, be
empowered by your verbal diarrhoea or
be self-actualised by sharing, sharing and
sharing, ask to join me at your peril! ETp
Author of After Ted &
Sylvia: Poems (published
by Rondsdale Press),
Crystal Hurdle teaches
creative writing and
English at Capilano
University in North
Vancouver, Canada,
where she lives without
arranging her chairs in
a circle.
churdle@capilanou.ca
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
Real
reection 2
Simon Brown proposes that trainers make good use of trainee feedback.
ELTA trainers ask their

trainees to reflect on
everything they do at every
stage of the course, not
simply because it is a requirement of the
award but because we instinctively know
that reflection is an integral part of the
developmental process. After each
lesson they teach, we hand them a
formatted reflection sheet and ask them
to commit their immediate thoughts to
paper. We ask them for a general gut
reaction, we ask them to reflect on
what worked and what didnt work, how
they would change the lesson, what they
feel they need to work on and what
points they would like to raise with the
tutor in group feedback. These
reflections vary greatly in terms of
detail and reveal to us how self-aware
the trainee is. I can think of several
occasions when these hot reflections
have swayed a final decision on the
grading of a lesson, whether it be a
sway upwards or downwards. We then
ask the trainees to fill out a further
delayed, or cold reflection on the
lesson, armed with the tutors official
feedback and notes taken during the
group feedback.
We ask them to go through pages 12
to 17 of CELTA 5, the official
Cambridge ESOL document which
narrates and records the progress of the
trainee. These pages guide the trainees
through a self-assessment procedure at
the halfway point of the course,
requiring them to reflect upon a
52
When do we trainers
give ourselves the
time to consider what
worked, what wed
change and what wed
like to discuss?
daunting set of criteria, culminating in
a balanced, reflective, overall grading of
themselves. Again, this is a necessary
and important process, which helps us
to assess their own self-awareness. We
also give them an assignment Lessons
from the classroom and ask them to
reflect upon the whole experience of
teaching and observing. As much as the
CELTA award is about assimilation and
implementation, it is about reflection.
Reflection goes both

ways
So, when do we trainers officially
reflect? When do we sit down and
commit our own reflections to paper?
When do we give ourselves the time to
consider what worked, what wed
change and what wed like to discuss?
While we may have many
private/internal thoughts about the
points above, and while we may make a
few passing comments to a fellow
trainer, it seems to me that these
reflections merit expression in a more

structured, focused format with a
developmental aim in mind. Designing
a trainer feedback sheet should be fairly
simple as it is bound to mirror what we
ask our trainees to reflect upon.
Consider the following examples of
what you could include on such a sheet:
How did this course compare to the
previous one(s)?
How did your input sessions go?
What input sessions are you a little
bored with?
What input sessions havent you
delivered yet?
What would you change / How would
you develop the sessions that you
ran?
you develop the feedback you gave?
you develop the tutorials you gave?
Were there any challenging trainees
on the course and how did you deal
with them? / What have you learnt
from them?
What points would you like to raise
with the team / head of TT / main
course tutor?
The final reflection we ask our trainees

to do is to give feedback on the course
itself. A typical course feedback sheet
will ask them to comment on the
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
administration, the facilities, the
delivery and the content. Essentially, we
are asking them to reflect on our school
and on us.
And what do we do with these final
reflections after weve bathed in the glory
of how supportive and professional we
are and after weve laughed at some of
the surreal suggestions they have made
(one trainee on a recent course suggested
that we should do input sessions in the
style of famous people ranging from
Graham Norton to Lady Ga Ga)? We
file them and forget them.
And what about the negative
comments they make about us from
time to time? Do we petulantly dismiss
them? Do we internalise them and feel
deflated for a few hours? Do they
prevent us from going for that end-ofcourse drink? Are all the comments
forgotten when Monday morning comes
and we find ourselves back in the
classroom or starting another CELTA
course? All of the above certainly ring
bells with me and I have been guilty of
all of them from time to time.
Mirror, mirror on the

wall ...
While moving premises last summer, I
packed up a particularly dusty file
which contained over 200 feedback
sheets and I decided to go through them
all again, just to remind myself of how
supportive and professional we had
been. There were, however, one or two
little ego dents along the way and I
decided to make a note of all of these,
with the intention of running some kind
of developmental workshop for the
trainers here. This has not yet
happened. The comments below are all
genuine comments from CELTA
trainees, and they are presented to ring
some bells and hopefully create
discussion within the CELTA training
community. They are, above all else,
intended for the aforementioned
community to reflect on.
1
Being told that your lesson plan

isnt going to work approximately
one hour before you teach is not
helpful as it simply causes panic.
I felt a little uncomfortable when
my Not to standard lesson was
discussed by the group.
I felt there was a lot of dead time

around the teaching practice. The
discussion in the preceding hour
often completely left out a lot of
the group, as did the post-lesson
feedback.
It would be useful to get feedback

on our lesson plans the day before
the teaching practice session.
Conflicting advice was given by

different tutors, so I was marked
down by one when implementing
the suggestions of another.
I would appreciate clearer

definitions of what is expected
from us at each stage of the course.
Teachers and colleagues should not

be scared to point out teachers
weaknesses during the feedback
stage; its not very helpful to focus
only on what the teacher did well.
It would be useful to see a

professional teacher giving
correction.
We noticed the other two tutors

involved up until 1.15 and until
5.30, whereas we often stopped by
12.30 and 5.00.
10 Perhaps more detailed guidance
could have been offered before

teaching practice in the last week.
11 If X could be a little less direct and
Y could be more so, theyd be

perfect.
12 To be told that some people arent
meant to be teachers was not very

motivational. I cried a lot.
13 It would have been helpful to have
a clearer system of grades for

lessons.
14 How about teaching a lesson from
someone elses plan?

15 Why did I have to teach grammar
in my last lesson?
Reflecting on the
reflections
I am not suggesting that any of the
above comments have prescriptive
solutions, but I am suggesting that they
are all pertinent and worthy of debate.
Numbers 1 and 12 clearly point the
finger at the language the trainer uses
and how that can seriously affect

morale and motivation.
Number 10 suggests that the trainee
has failed to assimilate and appreciate
the progress toward autonomy.
Numbers 2 and 3 create an
impression that the trainer was not
promoting and maintaining a solid
group dynamic in which the highs
and lows were dealt with collectively.
Numbers 5 and 9 appear to criticise
the teamwork of the trainers and,
while this is almost an inevitable
and I would argue a desirable
hazard, we do consistently need to
reassure the trainees that we are
singing from the same hymn sheet.
Numbers 6 and 13 are two of the
most frequently expressed comments,
and over the years we have tried
different ways to make general
expectations and specific gradings
more transparent. My personal
feeling is that the system you adopt
should be made clear to the whole
group at the beginning of the course
and that the written feedback of the
trainer on the teaching practice will
be the ultimate guiding light. (We
need to encourage our trainees to
read what we write, rather than just
look to see which box weve ticked.)
Number 8 is one of those comments
which can too easily be dismissed as a
trainee hallucination, but correction is
one of the techniques which trainees
always seem slow and reticent to
adopt, so perhaps this should be one
of our modelling priorities in our
demonstration lesson on day one of
the course.
For me, number 15 is the most
frustrating and the saddest comment
on the list. I wonder how this
obligatory final lesson went? ETp
Simon Brown has taught
in France, Spain and the
UK, and he is now a
freelance teacher,
CELTA tutor/trainer and
assessor. He is
interested in the welfare
and motivation of CELTA
candidates as they
progress through their
intensive training, and is
an enthusiastic
advocate of teachers as
humanists rather than
linguistic technicians.
snickolas2002@yahoo.co.uk
53
T E C H N O L O G Y
The battle of
the boards
Sarn Rich defends the
interactive nature of the
non-interactive board.
54
f, like many ETp readers, you have

little access to an interactive
whiteboard, or if, like most
teachers worldwide, you have never
even seen one, you might envy the lucky
few who have these devices installed in
every classroom. Please dont.
My objection to these things is not
that they occasionally break down (they
may, but will do so less often as the
technology improves), or that some
teachers find the technology daunting
(they might at first, but really it is not
that difficult to master), or that they are
so expensive. Of course, they are
horribly expensive but perhaps this,
perversely, is one of the attractions. I
know of a language school which,
having lost a lucrative teacher-training
contract because they were told they
had no interactive whiteboards,
seriously considered investing in one for
a display classroom, purely to impress
agents and potential clients with this
ostentatious display of wealth.
No, the objection in this article is
that the traditional board (black or
white) which the IWB is supposed to
supersede is in ways that really matter
better.
Before explaining why, let me begin
with a grumble about the name:
Interactive White Board. (After all, if
any professionals ought to question the
names given to products by those that
want to sell them to us, it is surely those
of us involved in language!) Interactive
has a nice buzz about it, but ought not
the thing that gives us a buzz be
interacting students, not teachers
interacting with bits of technology?
And White is strangely modest: the
screens on these things can be any

colour you like. Here is a better name,
to distinguish it from the traditional
MUB (Multi-User Board): SUB
(Single-User Board) or DUB (DualUser Board) for the latest versions. This
would reflect how limited it is when it
comes to how many people can actually
write or draw on it at the same time.
Often we worry about TTT (Teacher
Talking Time) and try to cut down to
make more space for our students to
speak. Should we not also address TWT
(Teacher Writing Time) and make more
opportunities for our students to write?
The more we hand over the boardwork
to students simultaneously writing, the
Interactive has a nice

buzz about it, but ought
not the thing that gives
us a buzz be interacting
students, not teachers
interacting with bits
of technology?
more practice they get. When issuing
timetables and books at the beginning
of a course, perhaps we should issue
chalk or board markers to our students,
too? Enthusiasts for the new boards are
apparently excited that they can invite a
student to the front and hand over the
pen, but at a traditional board,
depending on its size, you can have any
number of learners working at once.
In defence of democracy
According to advocates for the new
technology, you can bring democracy to
the classroom by allowing all the
students at once to pick options on
electronic voting devices, and have their
responses displayed in colourful,
computer-generated graphs. The
democratic ideal is thus reduced to
occasional permission to choose from a
restricted range of options. Admittedly,
it might be argued that political
democracy amounts to little more than
this in practice (a point made by the
graffiti which sometimes appears during
national elections, consisting of a short
row of crosses and the tag: Here is your
lifetimes supply of democracy), but
surely in our lessons we can aspire to a
deeper notion of democracy than this?
Far from being deeply democratic or
participatory, the pedagogic model for
the computerised board is of a (no
doubt benevolent) dictatorship, or a
priesthood, with its miracles flashes,
spotlights and zooms to entrance the
flock, perhaps with a selected student to
hold the sacramental pen and assist at
the ceremony, all slickly and seamlessly
presented. There is a serious point here
for teachers who want their learners to
engage critically with how ideas are
delivered and to take ownership of the
learning process. The slicker and more
seamless we make these things, the less
accessible their inner workings become
to scrutiny, the less confident our
students may feel about subjecting them
to critique, and the more we
circumscribe their questions and
engagement.
In defence of the real

world
Of course, unthinking technophobia is
no more desirable than uncritical
techno-enthusiasm. We should not, for
example, simply scorn the opportunity
to display relevant, interesting texts or
websites. But we should be aware of
how teaching tools incline us to teach.
Whole class heads up concentration on
what is on the screen, for instance, helps
teachers to see who is paying attention
and to control and synchronise
everyones reading of the material, but
compared with books, photocopies or
computer monitors handled individually
or in pairs offers less encouragement
to students to engage and respond in
their own time and in their own way.

And does the use of exciting
multimodal displays really do much
more than desperately drag the learners
attention toward the screen, when what
we ought to be doing is to encourage
(or allow) them to pay attention to each
other? And not just each other: with its
internet links and webcams, the screen
may be a window onto the real world
out there, but surely we have the real
world right here. If a students eyes are
wandering toward the window or a
friends doodles or the clock on the
wall, lets make a resource of the world
outside the window, the doodles and
whats on the walls.
Does the use of

exciting multimodal
displays really do much
more than desperately
drag the learners
attention toward
the screen?
This is another reason to rename
this device a SUB. It is a SUBstitute for
the world (and that includes our
students) immediately at hand. Perhaps
it also substitutes superficial sensory
stimulation for depth of thought and
individual reflection (an illuminated
screen does not make for illuminated
learners). It SUBverts a valuable lesson
from communicative language teaching:
of the benefits of learning by doing;
instead, it encourages reverting to
teaching by showing. It leads
technologically forwards and
methodologically backwards.
In defence of the
students
And what about the traditional board?
At its best it is everyones, not just the
teachers. It is a communal noticeboard,
a graffiti wall, a canvas for collaborative
artwork, a background for a collage, a
part of the classroom carnival, an
invitation to take the limelight or to
share an insight, a huge slab of scrap
paper for drafting thoughts and work in
progress (not an intimidating piece of
perfection that it seems blasphemous to
defile with anything but a finished

product), a refuge for the amateur, an
asylum from sterile slickness, a space for
learners to present themselves and to
approach others in designs and doodles,
writing and drawing, announcements
and murals, messages and mess. A
computerised board can be these things,
with a bit of thought and a bit of time
and a bit of know-how (Tom Waltons
blog is well worth looking at for ideas:
http://blogs.ihes.com/tech-elt/), but the
traditional board demands little more
than willingness to let it happen. You
dont even have to turn it on!

Admittedly I am not keen on either
chalk dust or board marker fumes (but
then the rumble of a computerised
board digesting its electricity supply can
be pretty irritating, too), and it is true
that SUBs have some handy features if
you want a big stopwatch, for example,
or to find your place quickly in a
coursebook listening exercise. But if we
want to maximise our students
individual engagement and interaction
with each other, they are very little help
at all. Meanwhile, they can pose a
menace: the pressure, once they have
been installed, to make use of them,
more to justify the financial investment
(or perhaps to impress an observer
sitting at the back of the room with a
tickbox for use of technology) than for
the actual good of the learners.
No doubt there are teachers who
make excellent, impressive use of the
SUB, just as there are teachers whose
use of the MUB is limited or inefficient.
But, however impressive the benefits
appear to be of having our boards
digitally enhanced, we must always
beware of being digitally bedazzled.
On page 56 you will find a list of 12
activities which I believe the old board
does better. ETp
Sarn Rich taught in a
dozen countries in Asia
and Europe before
settling in the UK, where
he now teaches and
learns about language
and learning from
colleagues and students
at Canterbury Christ
Church University, and
from his family at home.
sarn.rich@canterbury.ac.uk
55

In defence of the old board

A dozen activities which the old board does better
1
Collecting names
Mark off a column on either side of the

board, and get one student to write the
names of half their classmates in one
column, and another student to write the
rest of the names in the other. This is
good for practising basic questions
(Whats your name? How do you spell
it?) and the pronunciation of letters, and
for working out instructions (E, not I! L
before A, not after A), as well as for
learning names. It works best with
minimal teacher involvement.
2
Studentstudent dictation
Get some students to write two or three

sentences each (all different) on the
board, dictated simultaneously by their
classmates. If they have just done an
exercise involving ten sentences (for
example), divide the board into three,
and get three students to write up
sentences 13, 46 and 79. Whoever
finishes their batch first can do number
10. This is good for listening, speaking
and spelling practice, and useful for
getting answers up on the board in order
to check homework or classwork.
3
Deductions from pictures
Give each student a word to read in

secret and to draw a picture of on the
board, within a strict ten-second time
limit. When everyone has drawn and
signed their name by their picture, put
the students into pairs and get them to
discuss what they think the pictures
represent, using adverbs or modal verbs
(Maybe Alis picture is a house. No, it
must be a car its got wheels. Could it
be a bus?)
4
Listening race
Write words or phrases on the board and

give different coloured markers/chalk to
several students, who race to circle the
words as they hear them (in a song or in
a recorded conversation, for example).
Whoever circles the most is the winner.
5
Writing race
Divide the class into two or three teams,

each lined up facing the board. Give
markers to the students at the head of
their teams (those closest to the board).
56
Tell everyone they will have to write

words of a particular kind (for example,
body parts, personality adjectives, past
simple verbs, etc). On your signal, they
run to the board, write a word, pass the
marker/chalk to the person behind and
dash to the back of their line. The next
person runs to the board, writes a word,
passes the marker back, and so on, until
you signal the end of the race.
Whichever team has the most different
words wins.
them, you or the coursebook on

whatever topic youre working on).
Listen in and write up on the board
some things you overhear (A few
people think that cats are cruel. Karel
could only marry a cat-lover. Dogs
seem quite popular in this class, for
example, if the topic is pets). Bring the
mingle to a close and get the students
to add more comments to the board,
based on what they have discussed.
10 Drawing to revise vocabulary
Work for early finishers
While the class are working on an

exercise, write up several similar
questions on the board. The first three or
four students to complete the exercise
can come to the board and write their
answers to these extra questions. They
can be checked by the rest of the class
once everyone has finished the exercise.
7
Reporting on classmates
Divide the board into a grid with every

box labelled with the name of a student
in the class. Hand out several board
markers/pieces of chalk and get
everyone to write up a sentence about a
classmate, and then to pass on the
marker to another student. When all the
boxes on the board are full, everyone
can sit, and you can all read and discuss
and/or correct what has been written.
(This is a good follow-on from activities
in which students have been telling each
other about themselves.)
8
Discussion write-up
After pairs or small groups of students

have been discussing a topic or
brainstorming vocabulary for a while,
appoint two or three students to go
round separately gathering ideas and to
write them up on the board together, for
everyone to look at and check and
consider as a class. For example, they
might collect arguments for and against
a proposition, or verbs, nouns and
adjectives to use in writing a story, or
words which feature specific phonemes
9
Post-mingle write-up
Get the students up and mingling, asking

and discussing questions (devised by
and spelling
Divide the class into two teams, each
with one writer, who stands by the
board, and one artist, who stands next
to you. Whisper a word to the artists,
who run to the board and elicit the
word from their team mates only by
drawing pictures (they may not speak
or write). Their team mates shout their
suggestions to the writers, who each
try to be first to write the word,
correctly spelt, on the board.
11 Collaborative labelling
Brainstorm a large number of

vocabulary items on the board
(preferably written up by several
students), then get the students to
label the items with symbols or letters
to indicate what they know or feel
about them. For example, the items
could all be food, labelled sweet,
crunchy, delicious, etc; nouns
(abstract, countable, formal ); animals
(dangerous, beautiful, four-legged ).
The students check the labels
together, and question and/or justify
them. This is useful for consolidating
vocabulary, distinguishing between fact
and opinion and degrees of certainty,
and for discussion.
12 Up to the learners
If you have a mid-lesson break, or the

students are still in the classroom after
the end of the lesson, hand everyone
some chalk or a board marker before
you go. You never know what you
might find on your return, but you may
well find something on the board worth
seeing, reading or knowing, or
something to learn or teach from.
Webwatcher
Web
thought it might be interesting to look at an actual lesson
which formed part of a series of experiments we have been
recently doing at the University of Warwick, UK. The focus of
these experiments is on using technology to get the students
speaking more outside class and several of the techniques we
have tried out have been very successful.
A while back, I mentioned a tool called MailVU. It allows you
to make video emails, so instead of simply writing an email, you
can record yourself speaking using a webcam and then send the
message. MailVU lets you make recordings of up to ten minutes
and it is very easy to use; in fact, it only takes three clicks to
make a recording and send it. What is even more impressive is
that the service is free!
Events in my life
The lesson was with a group of 25 Japanese students.
Part one
I started the lesson by drawing the following timeline on the board
and explaining that it showed some important dates in my life:
1979 1983 1986 1988 1993 1997 1999 2000 2008 2009 2010
I began to talk about some of the dates, explaining what
happened and telling the story behind each event. This lasted
for about ten minutes. (When you put up a timeline, you can add
a few notes under each date if you want to give the students a
few clues as to what happened on that particular date. This is
especially good if you are going to get the students to ask
questions about the dates, rather than simply talk about them.)
Part two
I then put the students into groups and asked them to talk about
the dates and what they had understood from my talk. As they
did this, I moved around the class, listening and taking notes.
Part three
I then gave some feedback to the students about mistakes with
grammar and vocabulary that I had heard, and we talked a little
about describing events in our lives and any verbs and adverbs
that might be useful.
Part four
I then asked the students to draw their own timelines. I
encouraged them to add lots of events, such as starting a
certain course or school, meeting friends, holidays, travelling,
important social events, etc. I told them to add one or two notes
to each date to help them explain them.
Russell Stannard
celebrates the connected classroom.
Part seven
All 25 students made recordings. I listened to them and made
notes in Word for each student, explaining any mistakes they
had made with grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. I sent
the feedback directly back to the students.
Part eight
In the next lesson, I played two of the best recordings and talked
about why they were so good, focusing on the elements I liked best.

This was a very successful activity. Follow-up questionnaires
indicated that the students liked it a lot and realised they could
make further recordings in their own time to improve their speaking.
Some of the students explained that they had made the recording
several times before sending it in other words, they had spent 30
or 40 minutes speaking and practising to get their recordings right
and this is exactly what I was hoping for. The great thing about this
idea is that it can be used for so many different scenarios and the
technology is incredibly easy to use. Students pick it up in minutes
and they will probably find uses for it outside the ELT classroom.
Some might even see that they can use this tool as a way of
developing and keeping a record of their fluency development.
Other scenarios you could use it with might include the following:
talking about a best friend

holding up an object to the screen and describing it
talking about their typical day
describing a great holiday or day out they have had
talking about future plans and ambitions for the future.
The key point here is that, for activities like this to be successful,
we need to connect what we do in the classroom with the
speaking activity we want the students to do at home.
The more you prepare your students for the speaking activity,
the better they will do the recordings at home. Some teachers
have likened the idea to a task-based approach to teaching: the
goal is to get the students to record something at home and send
it to the teacher, so there is a task for the students to achieve. I
particularly like these types of activities as they get the students
speaking and using technology outside the class. This may not
be a lesson that you can do at the moment if you are limited by
internet access or the level of computer penetration in your
country, but keep it in mind as in the future an opportunity to try
something like this will probably be available to you. ETp
For help on using MailVU, go to:
www.teachertrainingvideos.com/mailVu/index.html
Part five
I then put the students in pairs and asked them to explain their
timelines. Again, I moved around the class, listening and taking
notes.
Part six
I then told the students that for homework they had to go onto
MailVU (MailVU.com) and record themselves talking about their
timelines. I showed them how to do this and explained that they
should send their finished recordings to me.
Russell Stannard is a Principal Lecturer in ICT at the

University of Warwick, UK, where he teaches on the
MA in ELT. He won the Times Higher Education
Award for Outstanding Initiatives in Information and
Communications Technology in 2008, TEFLnet Site
of the Year in 2009 and a 2010 British Council ELTon
award, all for his popular website
www.teachertrainingvideos.com.
Keep sending your favourite sites to Russell:

russellstannard@btinternet.com
57
T E C H N O L O G Y
In this series, Nicky Hockly
Five things you always wanted to know about
crowdsourcing
(but were afraid to ask)
Ive heard of outsourcing but

crowdsourcing?
The term crowdsourcing first appeared in

a Wired magazine article in 2006
(www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/
crowds.html). The concept is, indeed,
similar to outsourcing, and means putting
out a public call (to the crowd) in order
to find solutions to an issue. Think of it as
a crowd brainstorm. The advent of Web
2.0 collaborative technologies has made
crowdsourcing a lot easier, and has given
birth to crowdsourced collaborative
projects like Wikipedia, where the general
public (the crowd) have contributed to
the largest encyclopedia in history.
Can you give me more

examples of crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing has been used in politics:

for example, in 2010 the British
government asked its citizens for
suggestions of outmoded laws to be
repealed. It has been used in business:
after the disastrous BP Gulf of Mexico oil
spill in 2010, suggestions for how to stop
the spill were solicited from the general
public after BPs first efforts failed. Its
used in science: if youre an astronomy
fan scanning the skies for new astral
bodies, you can add any findings to a
public database. Its used in computing:
open-source software such as Moodle or
the Linux operating system were
developed by a crowd of interested geeks.
So its just collaboration under

another name, right?
Er, yes. In fact, Jimmy Swales, the

founder of Wikipedia, dislikes the term
crowdsourcing, and points out that not
everyone is equipped to offer solutions or
input on all topics. A certain degree of
expertise may be needed to solve certain
issues (such as the BP oil spill) or to
provide meaningful input on a certain
topic (such as a quantum physics
Wikipedia entry).
58
explains aspects of technology

which some people may be
embarrassed to confess that
they dont really understand. In
this article, she explains how
you can source the crowd.
So the trick is to get the right crowd to

input into your issue more on this below.
What does crowdsourcing have

to do with language teaching?
Nothing on the surface. But think about

it: collaboration, aided by technology, is
increasingly the way we work. Many of
our (younger) students are already using
their networks on Twitter or Facebook to
work on or share answers to school and
university assignments (see the Visitors and
Residents project from Oxford University
for more on this: http://bit.ly/q9H7ZE). As
teachers, we are no longer limited to just
swapping ideas and activities in the
staffroom. We can now go online and
bounce ideas off colleagues from all over
the world via online teacher discussion
groups, or via our own PLNs (Personal
Learning Networks) on Facebook,
Google+ or Twitter.
But how can crowdsourcing

help me?
Let me share an example: for this article I

decided to crowdsource a topic that you
might be interested in if you are a regular
reader of this column. I asked my own
PLN to contribute one tip for teachers
about using technology in the classroom.
The response was overwhelming. Youll
find these crowdsourced tips on my blog
at www.emoderationskills.com/?p=629.
To get this great list of tips together, I had
to ask the right crowd: namely techsavvy experienced language teachers.
Well, I have lots of these in my PLN.
ENGLISH
EACHING
Tprofessional
This is your magazine.
We want to hear from you!
I didnt set up my PLN overnight. Its an

ongoing project which has lasted several
years and is a permanent and significant
part of my continual professional
development. For you to ask the right
crowd, youll first need to find it by
setting up your own PLN. Below are
some resources to get you started with
that. Good luck!
How English language teachers
can go with the Twitter flow,
a recent Guardian Weekly
newspaper article by fellow
ETp writer Russell Stannard:
http://bit.ly/ngchcO
An official Facebook for
Educators site with guides
and tips:
http://facebookforeducators.org/
Google+ for Educators:
http://bit.ly/njThOH
See also my article on PLNs in
ETp Issue 69.
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.
She is co-author of Teaching
Online (DELTA Publishing),
which was nominated for a
2011 British Council ELTon
award. She maintains a blog at
www.emoderationskills.com.
Contact Nicky at nicky.hockly@theconsultants-e.com and
let her know of any other ICT areas youd like her to
explore in this series.
Visit the ETp website!

The ETp website is packed with practical
tips, advice, resources, information and
selected articles. You can submit tips
or articles, renew your subscription
or simply browse the features.
www.etprofessional.com
In this column
Rose Senior explains why certain teaching techniques and
class management strategies are effective, and identifies specific issues that can assist
all language teachers in improving the quality of their teaching.
RICE on the menu

and put on their ordinary person masks
n this article I present four principles that
Olympic gold medallist from another country, a
from time to time. There are myriad ways
language teachers should keep in mind
teacher might bring the topic closer to home
that teachers can maintain rapport with their
as they go about their daily teaching:
by eliciting from the students knowledge about
classes, ranging from smiling and making
Rapport, Inclusivity, Connectedness and
key national sports or local sporting heroes.
spontaneous, appreciative responses when
Engagement. The acronym RICE is easy to
When teaching in their students home
individuals say or do unexpected things to
remember because, being the staple diet of
countries, language teachers can seek to
apologising to the class when they forget
millions of people around the world, rice is a
select materials, topics and tasks that are
something or make an error.
commonly-known foodstuff. It also reminds
relevant to local contexts and that reflect
Related to the principle of rapport is that
us that, just as its successful cultivation in
current areas of interest. By so doing, they are
of Inclusivity: keeping in mind that all classes
traditional rice-based economies is based
implementing the principle of connectedness:
are composed of students with individual
on the allocation of water resources for the
ensuring that their students readily connect
linguistic strengths and weaknesses,
mutual benefit of the whole community, so
with the overall content of the lesson.
combined with unique personalities,
successful teaching depends
The final RICE principle is that of
It is easy for teachers backgrounds and personal
on creating classroom
Engagement: providing classes with the
environments in which all
to notice high-ability, circumstances. Teaching is such a opportunity to be actively engaged in the
complex, all-consuming business
class members (including the
learning process. The notion of engagement
extrovert students that it is easy for teachers to notice reflects the third part of Confucius dictum: I
teacher) are able to flourish.
high-ability, extrovert students and to ignore
The first RICE principle is that of
hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do
the quieter ones. Teachers whose behaviour
Rapport: teachers developing an open,
and I understand. There are countless ways
is governed by the principle of inclusivity seek
trusting and empathetic relationship with
of encouraging student engagement. At one
ways of drawing low-profile students more
their classes. Although some teachers
end of the spectrum there are speaking
fully into the collective learning experience:
believe that children and young adults need
activities, such as information-gap tasks,
showing that they value their contributions by
to be treated in strict, unbending ways,
roleplays and communication games, that
displaying their work, ensuring that they have
increasing numbers realise that this
involve and enliven students as they seek to
the opportunity to answer questions, and so
approach is unsustainable: once students
get their message across, while at the other
on. Inclusive teachers also foreground loware alienated and the battle-lines are drawn,
end there are activities and tasks that involve
profile students when the opportunity arises:
teaching becomes far more of a struggle. In
students at a more reflective, cognitive level.
inviting them to share with the class a
contrast, once rapport has been established,
These include hands-on activities, such as
personal circumstance (that of being a twin,
a critical mass of students within the class
shifting word cards around to create different
for example, prior to the class
starts to behave in responsive, learningcategories, or making word
reading a passage about twins). There are countless maps to signify understanding
oriented ways. As a result, peripheral class
Teachers guided by the principle ways of encouraging of a text. Even doing routine
members influenced by the behaviour of
of inclusivity also behave
the main group start to behave more
tasks in different ways, such as
generously towards problematic student engagement having the students shut their
responsively, too. Even though classes may
students: regarding every student as a clean
contain individuals who persist in pursuing
eyes and try to recall what is on the page,
slate at the start of each lesson and ensuring
their own agendas, once they sense that
can make learning more engaging and,
that they give praise where it is warranted.
the majority of the class is on-side,
therefore, more memorable.
The third principle, the principle of
teachers become more relaxed, teach more
Each of these principles relates to the
Connectedness, reflects a key understanding
enthusiastically and pay less attention to
notion of class-centred teaching: a concept
from cognitive psychology: people learn best
the behaviour of wayward individuals.
which helps teachers keep in mind that
when they can relate what they are learning to
The beginning of each new course
classes are communities of learners, whose
their personal experience, knowledge or
provides a golden opportunity for teachers to
success depends on the degree to which
worldview. There are many ways in which
start off on the right foot with their classes.
individuals function collaboratively for the
astute language teachers can help students
To initiate the development of rapport,
mutual benefit of everyone. ETp
make connections between their learning and
teachers need to show their students that
themselves. When focusing on a linguistic
they are human: revealing snippets of
structure such as the second conditional, for
information about themselves, such as their
example, a teacher might ask the class to
enthusiasms or phobias. As a famous
Rose Senior is a language teacher educator
who runs workshops and presents at
write sentences on what they would do if they
educational psychologist once said, teachers
conferences around the world.
had a million dollars to spend in any way they
need to be prepared to come out from
rsenior@iinet.net.au
liked. If a class is reading a passage about an
behind their conventional teacher masks
59
Prize crossword 51
ETp presents the fifty-first in our series
of prize crosswords. Send your entry
(completed crossword grid and
quotation), not forgetting to include your
full name, postal address and telephone number, to Prize
crossword 51, English Teaching professional, Pavilion
Publishing (Brighton) Ltd, PO Box 100, Chichester,
West Sussex, PO18 8HD, UK. Ten correct entries will be
drawn from a hat on 10 March 2012 and the senders
will each receive a copy of the second edition of the
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners,
applauded for its unique red star system showing the
frequency of the 7,500 most common words in English
(www.macmillandictionary.com).
8
12
22
17
15
25
22
16
26
19
25
23
25
19
23
12
25
12
17
12
24
3
10
9
To solve the puzzle, find which letter each number represents. You can keep a record
in the boxes below. The definitions of the words in the puzzle are given, but not in the
right order. When you have finished, you will be able to read the quotation.
VERY FREQUENT WORDS
*** Like most people or things of the same
kind
*** Indefinite article used before nouns that
begin with a vowel (in two places)
*** A place where people sell goods on stalls
*** ___ Bertrams Hotel (novel by Agatha
Christie)
*** A small amount
*** To give money in order to buy something
*** A single unit of written or spoken
language
*** __ You Love Me? (hit song by The
Contours)
*** A level of quality or achievement,
especially one that people consider normal
or acceptable
*** ___ Crooked Vultures (rock group)
*** Who you are, or what your name is
*** The science of the management of
money
*** To move or travel to somewhere else
*** ___ the Beach is an apocalyptic novel
by Nevil Shute. (in two places)
*** The part of something that is furthest
from its centre
*** Information kept about something that
has happened
*** ___ Country for Old Men (film by the
Coen brothers)
*** The final part of a period of time
*** Rather cold, often in a pleasant way
*** The part of something that is furthest
from the sides or ends
*** To make a choice about something
*** Paintings, drawings or sculptures
*** ___ Kill a Mockingbird (novel by
Harper Lee)
*** A long time ___ in a galaxy far, far
away (Star Wars)
*** Near the beginning of a period of time
22
17
16
D
16
25
26
23
17
16
16
13
25
25
12
9
12
6
6
1
25
24
12
24
13
22
13
10
26
25
22
25
17
22
10
12
17
15
22
18
17
5
12
14
10
6
25
25
25
2
22
23
17
26
24
22
13
11
12
22
14
9
22
26
26
17
12
16
10
5
2
10
2
9
16
12
25
26
12
5
9
23
24
10
11
12
13
23
24
25
26
22
24
6
17
25
26
13
13
20
22
O
25
16
14
25
19
21
25
12
13
12
17
26
25
20
O
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
22
26
24
D
25
26
24
25
23
13
12
24
10
25
60
12
17
17
25
22
24
25
13
10
25
11
24
23
13
John
Kenneth
Galbraith
FREQUENT WORDS
** An amount of something
** To make the body well again,
particularly after an injury
** To risk money by saying what you
think will happen
** An object for a child to play with
FAIRLY FREQUENT WORDS
* Poisonous or harmful
* An extremely unpleasant and often
long-lasting experience
LESS FREQUENT WORDS
A soft fruit with purple or green skin
and many small seeds
All the people in your family
Not changed or influenced by
something
To check someones character or
reputation to see if they are suitable for
a job
The yellow part of an egg
Something said or done to make
people laugh
A small bed for a child
An old word used to tell someone to
look at something
An expression used to show surprise
or incomprehension
Full of energy and enthusiasm,
particularly in matters of politics or religion
A police officer involved in drug-related
crime
The organs of animals that are eaten
You feel this when you think you are
going to vomit
Something that doesnt happen very
often
Severe and rigid economy
To move suddenly in a jerky and
uncontrolled way
Southwest (abbreviation)
An informal greeting used for attracting
attention
Well known and representative of a
particular idea
To move around and talk to different
people at a social event

English Teaching Professional 78 Jan 2012

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English Teaching Professional 78 Jan 2012

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ENGLISH

The Leading Practical Magazine For English Language Teachers Worldwide

The power of circles

Community spirit? Me?

The battle of the boards

Jill Hadfield reviews some theories of motivation

COMMUNITY SPIRIT? ME?

Crystal Hurdle resents the tyranny of the

Simon Brown believes trainee feedback

Sonja Wirwohl suggests that silent speaking

ELF IN THE CLASSROOM

Simon Andrewes outlines suitable tasks

THE BATTLE OF THE BOARDS

Sarn Rich speaks up for traditional technology

Brendan Ries promotes harmony and respect

HOLISTIC GRAMMAR TEACHING 6

Rod Bolitho wonders what if ...

Russell Stannard sets his students talking

FIVE THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO

Nicky Hockly gets in with the in-crowd

Maxine Mangat puts more emphasis on vocabulary

THE WONDER OF WARMERS

Alicia Artusi and Gregory Manin break the ice

HELPING LEARNERS TO LEARN

RICE ON THE MENU

Claire Gibbs advocates autonomy

OVER THE WALL

Alan Maley recommends books about the

NO GAIN WITHOUT PAIN

Peter Wells evaluates extensive reading

TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS

Greg Davies nurtures the very young

Yuvaraj Arokiyadas teaches grammar through

Includes materials designed

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 78 January 2012

ou may detect a slightly circular theme to

to find that extensive reading of simplified novels has

this issue. From crop circles and wedding

the same efficacy. Graded literature has many

rings in the Scrapbook to articles on very

supporters, so some readers may disagree with him.

different types of circles by Brendan Ries and Crystal

Whatever direction we are coming from, our goal is

I am reminded by the different viewpoints taken on the

be like to be a successful learner, as Jill Hadfield

value of circles that English Language Teaching is a

advocates in our main feature, or by getting them to

broad church, encompassing both complementary and

sit in a circle and share their thoughts, our aim is to

conflicting perspectives. So whilst some might view

do our best to help our students become successful

the circle as a reflection of perfection and a symbol of

peace and harmony, the sort of circles Crystal Hurdle

that although T S Eliot is supposed to have learnt

Italian by reading Dante, few of our students are likely

PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 8HD, UK

Fax: +44 (0)1243 576456

Editor: Helena Gomm

Cover photo: iStockphoto.com / coloroftime

Advertising Sales Manager:

Published by: Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd,

Issue 78 January 2012 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

Theres no desiring without

rising sea temperatures and sea

rapidly retreating glaciers

lengthening growing seasons

the finely sliced whites of the leeks

plenty of salt and pepper

a fake social security ID

the National Center for Missing and

The New York Police Department

the worlds largest high-energy

European Organization for Nuclear