My ELT library (part 2)

Part 1 was about methodology books. Now I’ll focus on some other books for each specific area. As I said before, it’s not my intention to come up with a comprehensive list, nor do I mean that these are the only good books there are in the market. It doesn’t mean, either, that these are the books I abide by and shun anything else. Much on the contrary, I’d love to hear some suggestions on books I have not mentioned so I can add to my own library. Besides, we all know there are tons of grammar books in the field of ELT, which would make it impossible to suggest all of them in one single blog post, right?

Books on Grammar and teaching grammar

1. “Practical English Usage“, by Michael Swan. This is one of the most practical books I’ve seen for teachers who need to find an answer when preparing a lesson. It’s very straightforward and easy to follow. It contains lots of examples to help the teacher better visualise the explanations.

2. Scott Thornbury’s “How to teach Grammar“. The book addresses the issues of teaching Grammar and, just like the other books from the “How to…” series, can be used in training sessions with teachers. Quite insightful.

3. Diane Larsen-Freeman’s “Teaching Language: From Grammar to Grammaring” has been a great asset in my training sessions. Larsen-Freeman writes about the 3 dimensions of grammar and explains the importance of addressing grammar from such a perspective. The book is filled with investigation questions, teachers’ anecdotes and questions, which also render it impossible not to read.

4. “The Grammar Book: an ESL/EFL teacher’s course” was written by Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman. It’s a course for EFL/ESL teachers and it is quite thorough. It brings all sorts of tree diagrams, which might be an inconvenient for some, but, in my humble opinion, is something English teachers should at least be acquainted with. Each chapter end with suggestions for classroom activities which focus on form, meaning, and use of the grammar point of the lesson.

5. If you’re looking for a complete reference book to have at home, I’m actually going to suggest three. I have them at home and they will definitely sort out your questions regarding Grammar. The winners are: “Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English“, a corpus-based grammar packed with graphs with corpus findings; “The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language“, by Huddleston and Pullum; and Quirk’s “A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language“, which was written together with Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik.

6. If you’re looking for a more light-hearted way of explaining grammar and its intricacies, but at the same time you don’t want to go as deep as you would with the items mentioned in 5, you should try “Woe is I: the grammarphobe’s guide to better English in plain English“, by Patricia T. O’Conner. It’s a fun read.

7. Finally, if you’re looking for books to give you some practical ideas to use in the classroom, I’ll recommend two: “Teaching Grammar Creatively“, by Gerngross, Puchta and Thornbury – packed with full lesson plans ready to use in the classroom or to be adapted; and Penny Ur’s “Grammar Practice Activities“, which will also give you some ideas when you’ve got your “teachers’ block” and can’t come up with an activity or a different way to engage your learners.

What other books on Grammar or on teaching grammar would you recommend?

My ELT library (part 1)

I’d thought about publishing a list of ELT books I usually recommend to teachers I work with, but I’d never really got to doing it. There are lots of ELT lists of books for teachers on Amazon and other sites that I thought it wouldn’t be exactly helpful. However, after a very brief exchange of tweets with @thieddu and some talks with teachers I know and who have participated in training sessions, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to mention some of the books. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, and I do believe some readers can actually contribute a book or two.

I’ll start this series with some methodology books.

1. If you’ve been looking for a place to start, and have got little experience or reading, I’d suggest “How to Teach English“, by Jeremy Harmer. The book will cover the basics of teaching and learning, including suggestions for teaching the different skills. It’s also a nice book for teacher trainers depending on the level of your trainees. The Task files a the end of the book give you some food for thought during your training sessions.

2. If you’d like to learn a bit more about the different approaches and methods throughout the history of ELT, I recommend you check “Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching“, by Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers. I highly recommend the first few chapters where the authors discuss some key concepts any language teacher should think about – theory of language, theory of language learning, approach, method, design, and procedure.

3. No methodology library would be complete without H. Douglas Brown’s “Teaching by Principles“. The book contains a wealth of information on many different issues in the field of ELT, and it also leads you to a way forward. In addition, the questions for discussions at the end of each chapter are insightful.

4. Another useful book for teacher trainers and teachers interested in learning more about their profession and grow as teachers is Penny Ur’s “A course in Language Teaching“. It also has good questions that will lead to discovery instead of merely showing the way.

5. If you’ve read the first book of this list, or maybe if you’re more experienced and read, Jeremy Harmer’s “The Practice of English Language Teaching” is a good choice. Harmer expands on the topics introduced in his “How to Teach English”, which make the book much more thorough. The videos of recorded classes in the new edition are a great addition to the book.

6. The last book in this post is David Nunan’s “Second Language Teaching & Learning“. Not only does Nunan provide his readers with practical examples, but there are also questions and tasks to be discussed in training courses. One thing that called my attention was the concept maps present at the end of each chapter.

Which books would you add to or remove from the list? I know there are two other books I’d add to the list, but one of them I haven’t read in its entirety yet (yes, shame on me – it’s Jim Scrivener’s “Learning Teaching“) and the other one I still couldn’t get hold of a copy in Brazil (Luke Medding’s and Scott Thornbury’s “Teaching Unplugged“). Nevertheless, these books would “close” the list.

I hope you find this first list useful. Feel free to criticise it. I’ll be continuing this series with books on other areas of ELT soon.

Speaking activity – Debating about the environment

(Note: before you start reading the post, I think it’s important to tell you that one of the videos I used in the activity does contain some ‘inappropriate’ language to some audiences, and I recommend you use it only with adults. If you feel your learners shouldn’t be exposed to this kind of language, you may either choose a different video, use only the first video and adapt the activity, or simply dismiss the activity out of hand.)

I’ve been giving a lot of thought about what to write as the 20th post. Truth be told, I came to the conclusion that even though it might mean something to me as a personal achievement (I didn’t think I’d come this far and actually miss posting here), it’s likely to come across as yet another post that people may or may not enjoy. As I’m somehow involved with the teacher training programme and recruitment process at the moment, I’ve been sort of away, but something came to mind while listening to the radio and I decided to post an activity here so that not only can I share it with you, but I can also come back to it and remember it later – even though there (still) are no handouts or anything like that to go with it. It’s basically a lesson on the environment with two videos for students to take notes while watching, and sides in a discussion. I’d use it with upper-intermediate or advanced learners (B2+ according to CEF). Here it goes:

1. Start the class by asking them what they know about COPE 15, the Kyoto protocol and how they feel about all the heated discussion on climate change currently on display. Help them with vocabulary they might not be familiar with but focus on what they produce instead of telling them what you want them to learn – you may always contribute a word or two at a later stage.

2. Tell them they’re going to watch two videos which have opposing views on the matter, and they’re supposed to take notes while they watch the videos. The first video is a bit long (about 21 minutes), so it’d be nice if you stopped after every segment to ask some comprehension questions and let them share their notes. The second video lasts about 8 minutes, but as it’s a stand up comedy show by George Carlin, it’d also be nice if you stopped once or twice to let them share their notes. It’d also be a good idea to pre-teach any difficult vocabulary.

(N.B.: depending on the cultural background of your students, or their sense of humour, the second video might be offensive. It is also important to know that George Carlin does make use of some swear words in his speech. However, who’s better to judge how our students are going to respond to something than the teacher himself? Use it at your own discretion.)

3. Put students in two groups and tell them they’re going to take sides – one group believes there is a serious threat to the environment while the other believes this is just propaganda. Allow them a couple of minutes with their groups to organise their ideas.

4. Pair them up, with one student from each group and tell them they are to try to persuade the other person of what they believe in. Before they start discussing, it’s a nice idea to recycle with them some language for agreeing, disagreeing, expressing their opinions, giving examples and explaining.

Here are the two videos:

Video 1 – The story of stuff

Video 2 – George Carlin on Global Warming

If you liked it, go ahead and use it! If you didn’t like it, sorry for wasting your time reading the activity. If you have any contribution, please share!

What about the ‘who’?

I’ve recently noticed that lots and lots of people around me seem to be worried about how to reach others, or what they should do to make sure others pay attention and focus. This is true not only in a classroom environment, but, needless to say, that will be my focus on this (quick) post.

I understand few people conduct studies about the effects of A, B, or C on learning, but many tend to just go with the flow. “Why do you do this?” you ask. “Because that’s how everybody does it,” is the usual answer. Instead of trying to come up with new technologies and how to integrate them into learning, why not worry a bit, just a bit, about the people in the classroom who are there to do he learning? Some learners learn better by the use of different tools, and what is true to you won’t be true to all. Maybe learner A loves using the computer for his learning, but what if learners B and C benefit more from slips of paper?

It all comes down to listening to your learners and understanding what works for them – not what you believe should work for everybody and simply impose it on learners. There have been many thoughts about the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, but what about the ‘who’? Simply saying that we always bear our learners’ best interest at heart is not the same thing as actually doing that. We ought to give them choice, we ought to listen to them and respond to their needs accordingly. And if they choose to use something other than the Internet, computers, and IWBs, we’ve got to be prepared to give that to them. Our ultimate goal is their learning, not their use of what we think they should be using.

Teachers who make a difference

As I’m still in the process of recruiting teachers, I started reminiscing about some of the best teachers/professors/lecturers I’ve ever had and who have made a difference in my life. I tried to focus a bit on how they built rapport with their learners. Even though I was fortunate enough so as to have plenty of wonderful teachers (otherwise I don’t think I’d have become one), there’s one professor in particular whom I’d like to talk about here. What makes me think about her is the fact that I met her at university, and I most certainly didn’t expect to find anything but academia people there. Well, this lady certainly proved us all wrong by showing us that it’s possible to bond with your students, earn their respect and trust, and make sure they truly learn what they’re supposed to. Now, I’ve had some people asking me how to build rapport with the students. In the previous post, I mentioned how important that is in my view. But if I had to give someone some practical advice, I’d recommend you do the following:

1. Don’t be afraid to share your own stories with your students. You can’t forget you’re teaching people, not simply a whole bunch of emotionless brains incapable of having a life outside the classroom.

2. Listen to your students. You’re more likely to find out what ticks them if you stop to listen for a while and have a conversation with them.

3. Show your students you care. This doesn’t mean you have to put up with everything they bring to class. You can do this, for example, by telling them they’re doing less than what they can do (and that you’re there by their side to help them).

4. Take the time to get to know your students. You won’t regret it.

5. Worry more about their learning than about your teaching. Sometimes you will have to abandon that wonderful idea you had when planning your lesson to do something you feel your students are going to benefit more from doing. Don’t take it personal. The classroom is a dynamic environment and, as the classroom manager, you’re supposed to learn how to play it by ear from time to time.

Now, Angela Virgolim (the professor’s name) taught us Principles of development and learning, and she really put her words to the test. She kept a personal file on each student, and she actually even took a picture of each one of us – all 40 or 50 of us. Students from all different fields of studies enjoyed going to classes and learning from one another.

One fact in particular comes to mind when I think about the rapport she had with the students. She threw us all a party, at her house, to celebrate the end of the semester. All students went to the party, even those who hadn’t passed. They knew it wasn’t personal. She made it clear she was there to help us fulfil our full potential. A memorable educator, indeed.

What about you? Have your got any anecdote about a teacher who made a difference in your life that you’d like to share?

About teachers

Coming back to work after a 3-week break was good to me. Not that I couldn’t use one or two extra weeks away from work – I’m not that workaholic. Classes will only start in March, and this will give me time to organise everything for teachers at the beginning of the semester. One of the first things I’ll have to do this semester is get going with the recruitment process we initiated in December. Now, hiring teachers is definitely not the easiest thing to do in the world. Despite training sessions, interviews, sample classes and all that goes into it, one can only truly be assessed in his or her work after classes have begun. No, I don’t think students are the ones who will solely decide whether a teacher is good or bad, but they can definitely give you some insight into your teaching if you listen to them carefully. This is one of the main characteristics I usually look for: can you listen to what other are saying and respond appropriately or are you one of those people who assume you know what your interlocutor is going to say and comes up with an answer even before you hear the question?

As an English teacher, I like to think of myself as a dogmeist- not an extreme dogmeist as I think balance is important in all areas of life. One of the things I learned from the Dogme list is that classes are conversation-driven, materials light, and focussed on emergent language. Now, I won’t really explain anything else about Dogme, but Karenne has written a wonderful post on it, and you can also join the yahoo group to find out more about it. There’s also the book Teaching Unplugged, but I still haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy in Brazil. Anyone, I’d rather go back to recruitment and teachers’ characteristics.

Coming back to the first paragraph, I find that one of the most important things in a language classroom is building rapport with your learners. Rapport facilitates learning, and therefore teaching. It’s that sense of trust you can get from your students that lowers barriers that might prevent learning from taking place. If there is good rapport, you will more likely find out what ticks your learners and how to engage them in meaningful learning activities. However, it’s something that is not easily taught in a teacher training session. Building relationships requires people skills.

Great teachers inspire – Longman’s catch phrase these days. I couldn’t agree more. And one of the things that I guess most training sessions do is asking us to recall a couple of good teachers we had in life and try to list their characteristics. All of my teachers were able to build a very good relationship with learners. They’ve all built a sense of trust. Good teachers don’t necessarily know all, but they try the best to make sure you have all chances to learn as much as you can. Good teachers know it’s not about their teaching, but about their students’ learning. They care, engage, motivate by words and deeds. And, most importantly, they are not all similar – they may be serious, funny, strict or friendly, but they always make sure they do not get in the way between you and what you need to learn. Great teachers listen before they speak.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
William Arthur Ward

2009 wrap-up

2009 has been a nice year. Even though I had to go through some problems, mainly professional problems, in the first half of the year, I believe the year has brought more good things than bad ones. In a nutshell, these are some of my highlights:

- I’ve finally found the time to look after myself. I joined a gym, started eating properly and I hope to keep doing that in 2010. (OK, the very end of the year doesn’t really count, right?) Goal for 2010 – lose 12 more kilos, restart playing basketball, and go to the gym regularly.

- I’ve made my debut in the blogosphere. This is something I’d been thinking about for years, but now it’s finally happened mainly because of all the other great bloggers I met. I also intend to keep it going in 2010. I know I still have to work on lots of things if I want to become a good blogger, and I’ll try to do that in 2010. However, I’ll not lose sight of the reasons why I first decided to create the blog. I’m actually surprised with the results. I didn’t expect to have had more than 500 visits by the end of the year. However, the most important thing was the number of comments and the conversations I had with some of the ‘readers’. There was even a response post to one of my entries. These were the things that gave me the strength to keep writing. Thank you all.

- I’ve given twitter a second chance and created my PLN. I’ve been in touch with great educators ever since and started sharing with them. Slowly, I know I’m building a meaningful PLN for me. No need to desperately try to find followers or to follow people who aren’t going to contribute to my growth. Goal for 2010? Try to show more and more people the power of PLN and help them connect with people that matters.

- I’ve started the wiki project I had in mind for a couple of years now, and I got some teachers on board to help me out. We’re still putting some ideas together so that we can start it with our students in March. Thank you for all teachers who joined me, and those who are thinking about joining it are all welcome. One of the goals of the project is to get our students to start their own PLNs and make friends with people from different backgrounds.

- I’ve ‘met’ wonderful people online, and had the chance to skype with a couple of them. I hope this will happen more often in 2010.

- The MA is still a concern. Running a school and studying at the same time hasn’t been an easy task, but so far I’ve managed to do it quite well.

- 2010 is set to be a very promising year!!!

This blog will not be updated for a couple of weeks due to the holidays, but I’ll be back in the beginning of 2010, and I sure hope to see you all here, on Twitter, on your blogs, face to face conferences and what have you. I thank you all for showing me how to effectively integrate technology in my learning.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

A call for English teachers to collaborate

I’ve been trying to set up an international project with my students for a long while now. I’ve always felt that they could benefit immensely from a project such as pen pals or any other exchange with students from other countries and cultures.

Recently I’ve had some nice conversations with some people from my PLN about cultural matters and I guess this is a nice topic for us to get our learners to participate in a global conversation as long as we can get them to join in. My hunch is that most learners tend to enjoy learning about certain cultural facts and enjoy hearing about the little cultural differences between countries. Who’s better to teach learners about these differences than other learners? I’m aware there are some groups already for classroom exchange on the web, so I’m aware this isn’t a unique and original idea, but my goal is to provide yet another chance for learners and teachers to collaborate and learn how to use a wiki.

The idea for the project came from lots of conversations I had with @bealup, who’s also helping me with the project, but all are welcome to participate and contribute. The more the merrier, right? I’ve just created a wiki and added a couple of suggestions of topics that would probably appeal to learners. The idea os for teachers to join in and share their own thoughts on each one of the topics so that we can have a feel of how this is going to be like for learners when we get the project going. There’s still a lot of work to be done on the wiki, such as finding the right pictures to illustrate it, come up with clear instructions, like Jim Burke did on his blogging project with students.

The idea is quite simple, as you’ll see if you visit the wiki. The aim is to have students from as many different nationalities and cultural background as possible. Teachers will have about two months to tweak the wiki before we kick off with the students. The intention is to officially start using it with students in March.

So, who wants to join?

On Assessment – part 2

The first post of this series has led to a response by Gregory Thompson (whom I also ‘met’ through Twitter on #edchat). I’ve read it and enjoyed all the points he made regarding what I wrote on the first post. I feel like replying to it. I believe the conversation will evolve if I continue with the series as I originally intended to, adding a couple of things his post made me think about.

I finished the post by mentioning rater-reliability. If you remember the scenario that I depicted, you’ll have to bear with me that it’s not possible for anyone to do what is expected of teachers in that condition. It’s not about giving up, or abandoning principles because it’s all a lost battle. Teachers are teachers because they believe they can make a difference. Teachers have been students and know students look up to their teachers. Good teachers know a lot is at stake when they walk into a classroom and this is why they do not give up.

Reliability is how we can assess whether a test is ‘consistent and dependable’ (Brown). Thus, a test is reliable when the results are similar if you give the test on two different occasions to the same student. However, there are some factors that come into play and may affect reliability of a test. In the scenario I mentioned, I believe the most influential factor are the mental and physical conditions of the teacher, i.e. rater-reliability. Ask anyone to read and analyse 50 texts on the same topic and provide feedback for each one of them. This is feasible, OK. However, tell this person that he or she will have 4 hours to do that. Even if the first texts are carefully corrected, some issues, such as fatigue, will heavily influence the results of the tests and the feedback given. When I mentioned I can’t blame teachers who have to assess 800 students for not doing it using an alternative to tests, this is what I meant. It’s not the teacher’s fault, it’s just not possible because of the way these schools, inserted in these educational systems, are organised.

Rater-reliability is not the only issue that may affect the results of a test. Student-related reliability also has to be taken into account, and so does test-administration reliability. However, I guess the second most important reliability issue is test-reliability. Tests which are too long, timed or with ambiguous items are likely to be unreliable. As we’ve discussed on #edchat, and as we can easily see daily, it’s not uncommon for students who know everything they should know to perform poorly on a test. This is why tests must be constantly revised and re-written. It is possible for teachers to design good tests (I’m not talking about assessment just yet) as long as they take enough time to prepare, grade, and then evaluate their own tests and each item individually. It’s hard work, but that is teaching.

Overall, standardised tests tend to score high on practicality and reliability, but they score low on authenticity (remember I’m an English Language teacher when you read the term “authenticity”) and washback. The point is not that we should make sure assessment is not reduced to testing. However, we’ve got to understand the context each one of us is inserted in order to come up with alternatives that truly work. Asking someone who teaches more than 500 students to analyse each student’s progress, provide effective and meaningful feedback and still be able to teach properly is just insane. It’s the same as saying to a CEO of a company that he should have teams as large as 500 people with only one supervisor per team. If you can keep track of 500 people and make sure you’re not lacking in rigour, please let me know how you do it.

Saying that we should change the way we assess our learners is a bit like preaching to the choir. The true challenge is to provide effective alternatives that can be implemented. This means we should understand the context in which we are inserted before we say something is right or wrong. We can’t simply point fingers at people because of their way of doing things until we’ve been in their shoes.

Assessment needs change? Yes. Assessment needs to be seen as not only testing. Assessment is broader than testing. However, teaching is more than assessing. Of all roles teachers play, the role of the assessor is just one of them. If we lose track of what our reality is, we might be tempted to see things from a simplistic point of view. What is true for A may not be true for B, and the only way we can help is by listening and understanding the seriousness of the situation, getting the big picture, prior to making suggestions.

The ultimate purpose of assessment is to enable for ongoing progress. This is the one thing we can’t forget when discussing assessment. And this can be accomplished through both formative and summative assessment. A reflective piece of writing which is marked only with “excellent” or “very good” will be just as useless as a end of unit test that just has an “A” or a “10″ on it. It’s not exactly about changing it immediately, but learning how to make use of the tools we have at hand now more effectively. Once this is done, a change will take place smoothly.

Back to you!

On Assessment – part 1

Yesterday evening the discussion on #edchat was about assessment. As usual, a stream of thought-provoking tweets and a lively discussion took place. I had been thinking about writing a post on assessment and my thoughts on the matter, so I feel now is a good time to do it.

As I see it, there are certain principles which should be taken into account when we discuss assessment, and I borrow these from Brown (Language Assessment – Principles and Classroom Practices) and some other readings.

To begin with, assessment is part of teaching, just as tests are part of assessment. This means that there is the group TEACHING, the subgroup assessment, and, inside assessment, the subgroup of testing. Teaching is more than assessing, just as assessing is more than simply testing. I guess the first problem lies there. Many teachers tend to merely equate assessing with testing. I’m going to start this series talking about testing.

Tests are usually standardised and tend to measure discrete points of what has been taught. They’re tools teachers have to gauge how much students have learned. Tests are summative instead of formative, i.e. they aim at measuring and summarise what has been taught through a period of time, and usually come at the end of a unit or a course. Tests, just as any kind of assessment, may be good or bad, they aren’t necessarily the bad guys of education. The way most teachers have been treating tests is the main problem, I guess.

If we think about the principles Brown mentions in his book (practicality, authenticity, reliability, validity, and washback), standardised tests are high on practicality by nature. This means they’re usually easy to administer and grade. There’s nothing wrong with this aspect of standardised tests per se. However, any kind of assessment should provide learners with meaningful and effective feedback. Learners should be able to use their tests results to find out how to improve and what they need to work on. Unfortunately, most teachers don’t do anything else but giving students a grade, be it a number or a letter. Students need guidance to find out what they need to study. Now, it’s not that most teachers don’t want to give students useful feedback, but, depending on the context, it’s simply impossible.

There are classrooms around the world with 50 students, and some teachers have to teach 16 or 18 groups. This means some teachers have more than 800 students. Not only do these teachers have to plan their lessons, but they also need to design and grade all these tests, and they usually are forced to have reports on students’ progress every other month. Now if teachers have 16 to 18 groups of 50 minutes each, they’re in the classroom around 30 hours a week. Add to that all the time it takes to assess students outside class, planning lessons, and being an educator in the core meaning of the word (worrying about each student and his or her learning, and empowering your learners), then you tell me how such an educator would be able to radically change his way of assessing students, going from summative to formative, using portfolios (for instance) instead of standardised tests, or tests made by the teacher him or herself. This means keeping track of 800+ students’ writing. I can’t blame teachers for not doing that. Besides, if a teacher has to assess that many students, there’s the serious risk of rater-reliability issues. But this is something for another post.

Your turn.