Author: Marc Jones

Non-Language Teaching Sites for Language Teachers

Marc Jones / / Links

Happy New Orbit cycle Earthlets. I had a zarjaz time reading 2000AD comics over the holiday. This post is nothing to do with that but is a collection of random resources that language teachers might find useful (and myself, for reference).
Diigo is great for collecting bookmarks to link to later and tag. It’s like del.icio.us used to be before it got swamped with spam. You can follow users and share links.
Pocket is a marvellous app for saving stuff to like Diigo, with offline reading and text-to-speech functionality so you can recommend it to your students and it can help them with checking pronunciation of a text. It works on Android, iOS and in the browser on a computer.
Stack Exchange is useful for anybody doing stuff with analysis of language and spreadsheets or computing, etc. It started as a computing Q&A forum but now there are communities about a lot of different stuff. It can also be a good resource for ESP teachers. You never know, you might even get inspired to write a webapp or set up a website!
 

Japanese New Year – free lesson 'plan'

Marc Jones / / Lesson Plan, Materials, Uncategorized

This is entirely user-generated content. You don’t even need to print out the sheet or give out the prompt cards. It’s basically a Task-Based lesson stewed in a Dogme-heavy sauce.
You have the learners explain and give mini presentations on different aspects of New Year. If you have international students, this will really help the others in their group as they will probably have tons of questions. They could also give differences and similarities between New Year in their countries and in Japan. Feel free to change it up, pass it on, etc. It is Creative Commons licensed.
There is a load of repetition so good chances for Task rehearsal and the tasks should be more fluent by the end. Find the sheet as a PPT and PDF in my Google Drive folder.

Actually Doing Task-Based Teaching

Marc Jones / / Pedagogy

IMG_1650It’s hardly a secret that I love Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT). I think it gets learners using all the language they know, trying to use stuff they kind of know and provides chances for them to realise what they don’t know.
Saying all that, it has a rarefied image and the books that link it to SLA theory sometimes disguise the fact that it is straightforward to do in your ordinary classroom.

Beware

  • You are giving learners the space to use language as they wish. They may stick to overly-simplistic forms. You must correct this.
  • If you have a grammar syllabus to follow, TBLT may not be the best choice because you should be looking at task completion in an appropriate way both in how and what language is used. If you are looking at past continuous and set a task to tell a story, in Task-Based contexts your success criteria is telling a story appropriately; within a grammar syllabus you need to assess grammar. I’m not saying you can’t teach grammar with TBLT but you don’t expect students to use specific structures 100% correctly by the end of the lesson. You’re looking for appropriate communication and learners noticing things they can and can’t do. Monitor constantly.

Planning

The old chestnut of plan backwards. “What do you want the learners to do by the end of the lesson?” The answer to this should not be a grammar structure, though you might focus on this. “Use appropriate opening gambits to start conversations and continue conversations with appropriate questions” would be better. There are some tasks here.
Set the parameters of the task: how long, how many people, what does the output/input look like, expected level of fluency, accuracy, etc.
Is there anything that the learners definitely need to complete the task? Specialist vocab for topics and situations can be elicited as a pre-task before jumping into it. Planning and anticipating steps of the conversation may be another. If there are structures/patterns/collocations to be taught, do it in the Focus on Form.

Focus on Form?

Yes, this is according to Mike Long (2015) a focus on appropriate language use and its form rather than prescriptive grammatical structures.
I often base this on errors/avoidances, like a long error correction but going deeper into usage and further examples. Drills, ‘games’ and such might go here. Focus on form does not have to be just grammar: pronunciation, morphology, pragmatics (appropriacy), and anything the learners have displayed a need for might go here.

Repetition

You can repeat tasks, report tasks, present tasks and so on at the end. Learners need to reflect on what they did in the task and what has been taught. This part should ideally have greater fluency/accuracy/complexity.

This Sounds Long

Perhaps. How much time have you got? I didn’t say it all had to fit into one lesson. Dave and Jane Willis (2007) have a bit about Task Cycles in their book Doing Task-Based Teaching.

The Normal Flow (for me)

  • Pre-Task (Elicitation or some kind of schema activation).
  • Pre-Task (Possibly an exemplar task, reading/listening for info).
  • Task.
  • Corrections/Focus on Form.
  • One of the following: Evaluate and report as a group, Repeat task with different partners, Use previous task info as part of a new task, Redraft/remake previous task output.

If there are glaring errors, let me know. No doubt this is not *best practice*. It is a quick guide. Teachers will find their feet. Play with your lesson timings, don’t be afraid to pause tasks, split or change them if your learners find them too hard. I hope you have fun.

References

Long, M (2015) Second Language Acquisition and Task-Based Language Teaching . Hoboken, NJ: Wiley
Willis, D & Willis, J (2007) Doing Task Based Teaching. Oxford, OUP.

Who's Driving?

Marc Jones / / Pedagogy, Reflection

I finished my DipTESOL last week, thus I have time to sleep (after I wean myself of 7,234 cups of coffee a day) and, well, blog.
I was in a conversation on Twitter last week with another teacher about bullying in the classroom. How can teachers prevent themselves from being bullied in the classroom by students. I’ve also been thinking about levels of classroom autonomy that I give.
Bullying of teachers by students happens more often than people think. It can happen with children’s classes, teens and adults.

Root Causes

My opinion, and reflections of classes where I’ve been bullied, is that there’s a difference in expectation for the classes. I’ve had a bunch of nine-year-old girls complain to the head of the school/franchise owner because I wasn’t ‘fun’, where fun was endless card games and hangman. I did play these but I also made them speak English in actual conversations, the cardinal sin. It was a relief to finish the contract.
There has been a university class where I had to “lay down the law” because only three of thirty five were on task, using English or even L1. I left the class, telling the students they would not be marked present unless they got on with the work they were supposed to do, but made it clear I would be outside if anyone had questions.
Now I have a better relationship with that class. Boundaries were re-established and the learners are aware of their responsibilities. There are parameters set at the start of the lesson that I will only mark learners present after I hear them speak English x times.

Parameters, Boundaries

I think all learners need boundaries and parameters to work within. I think it is one of the things that has helped me use Task-Based Language Teaching, too.
Make clear and negotiate what is OK and not OK at the start of the course (my mistake with the girls). If there is a reason, give it. “Endless hangman means you learn nothing.”
Set parameters and/or success criteria for every task. I do this for almost everything now, about expected language complexity if I know learners will use overly simple language, time limits (asking learners how much time they need), groupings, fluency, etc.

Example:
“Talk to each other about your best friend. I want two details about appearance,” (gesture by running hand from head down) ” two personality details,” (gesture by putting hands on your heart) “and three more interesting details. I think seven minutes is OK but you have ten minutes.”
Board “2 appearance details, 2 personality details, 3 other interesting details, 10 minutes”.

If you can negotiate success criteria with your learners, so much the better.

How About Ambiguity?

Some learners don’t deal with ambiguity and vagueness well, and perhaps won’t ask for clarification and then be paralysed by a fear of doing the wrong thing. The solutions are either rigid parameters and instruction checking (not my favourite, to be honest) or a looser, wider acceptable range of outcomes that foster autonomy of decision making, judgement and let learners follow an aspect of the task that interests them (very much my favourite). That isn’t to say it’s a free for all; you still need to monitor to ensure there’s learning and/or application of learning happening. Don’t be afraid to pause tasks for clarification and stop them when they turn out to be too easy or too difficult, (but have an idea about what to do next).

#ELTchat Summary: Authentic Materials for Low Level ESP Learners

Marc Jones / / Uncategorized

Wow, my first #ELTchat summary. Go gentle on me!
I was really interested in this because of the authentic materials in ESP side than low-levels side of things because I don’t have many low-level students at the moment.
The first thing that was made clear by @Marisa_C was that analysis is important, for student needs, appropriacy, context, etc. One thing that she also said was that it’s important to save or curate these materials for future use. I’d agree but my choice of tool would be Google Drive (as a Chrome and Android user) or Dropbox whereas Marisa advocated Pinterest, Scoop and Facebook save functions among other things. I like Google Drive because you can print to PDF and save directly to your Drive folders.
Readability scales were used by some and not by others. Some mentioned by @angelos_bollas were Read-able and Online-Utility. These basically do Flesch-Kincaid analyses.
@Marisa_C also shared her Pinterest board (which I’ve bookmarked and subscribed to).
Genre was talked about by @angelos_bollas and @Marisa_C who also suggested looking at Google Books for genre. It was also suggested that all teachers could do genre analysis with authentic materials but that not many do.
@Naomishema told us all about using tickets with low levels and that they are particularly good for teaching comparatives, family members and also numbers and dates.
@GlenysHanson told us about having learners make how-to guides, e.g. how a gearbox works, how to give an injection. Very interesting stuff! @Marisa_C then talked about how-to videos on YouTube and that students could add subtitles to these or verbalise the instructions.
I then chipped in about realia (warning posters, financial reports) and stuff from linguistic landscapes and triggered a tangent about using L1. I don’t mind a bit of L1, especially for learners who do a bit of translation despite their level. For this, I normally have them talk about the translation in the material and whether it’s right and how they would improve it. I posted examples of photographs.
I have had tons of students who translate at work just because they are the only ones who bother to study English. A lot of this work is just to make sure that the learners can get the main gist of the text out in English, or get the main gist of an English text and wrangle it into Japanese.
I don’t use Japanese at this point but get the learners to give a quick translation if necessary, or just check their understanding before they might give a rough translation to their bosses. Otherwise, what might happen is that students translate Powerpoint slides into English as best they can and I check they make sense in the context.
I also talked about using my own email and Facebook as materials and @angelos_bollas said he used his Twitter, too.
You should also consider looking at this #ELTchat summary by Sandy Millin about authentic materials.
You might also be interested in my post about using authentic listening.
Here’s the transcript of the whole chat by @SueAnnan
 
 
 

Coursebook Syllabus versus Needs Analysis

Marc Jones / / Pedagogy, Textbooks

I have a class on Thursdays that have really let me get my teeth into needs analysis with them. It’s the first time I’ve taught a class and had ‘What do you need to learn?’ answered with something other than ‘English.’
One of my learners told me that a situation we did as an extended task has taken on even more relevance, seeing as he’s going to Europe with two classmates at the end of November.
The thing is, that task wasn’t in the book. It wouldn’t have been on the syllabus at all had I not performed a needs analysis through a class discussion on training and completing a task to analyse linguistic needs.
OK, Marc, so what’s that got to do with anything?
Well, if we have a look at the set texts, and then have a look at the needs analysis then we get to the stage where a Venn diagram or suchlike would be useful. Where is the overlap between the textbook and the needs. Ideally, the people in charge of selling the course would have nothing to do with choosing (or foisting) textbooks. After a needs analysis teachers should be able to see what they need to teach and then look to see what textbook, if any, best meets the needs of the class. What resources need to be gathered? There will always be other things cropping up in lessons that will require divergence and detours from the main syllabus but if the basics are down, everything else that needs to be rejigged on the fly can be done with a minimum of fuss.
However, if you’re working to a pacing of book pages determined by someone outside the classroom who doesn’t know the learners, whose needs are you meeting? Theirs, but their needs are only wants, and those wants shouldn’t matter.

Why Share Lessons on Your Blog?

Marc Jones / / Reflection, Research

I don’t know whether many teachers are really concerned about what goes on in other teachers’ classrooms. I am, but then I’m nosy. I want to know what their cool ideas are. I want to steal!
That said, I’m not indiscriminate. I want to steal good stuff that I think will work with my learners. In that case, why do I have people in my personal learning network (PLN) based in across the world, when I’ve said before that learning can’t be generalised?
Because I want to get ideas about flow. Because an idea that won’t work for me makes me think about why it won’t work and what I need to do in order to make it work. It’s part of the reason I set up the Tokyo Lesson Jam, which is way overdue another meeting (December, when I finish my DipTESOL?), so that I could steal other people’s cool stuff.
For those of us who never get to do peer observations, reading lesson plans on blogs is like a glimpse into another teacher’s classroom. You get to say ‘I wouldn’t do that, I’d do this‘ (in a nice way, not a smart-arsed way). You might even say it in the comments of the blog. You might also see how somebody else solved a problem that you’re working on, or tried unsuccessfully to solve it. The internet is the easiest way to join a community of practice and people are welcoming. People will still say that your stupid ideas are stupid, but they will often say so nicely. They will then give you a better idea. If an idea or method should be rejected, you’ll be told why, and if anything usable can be salvaged from the wreck.
So, yes, even if my stupid lessons wouldn’t work for your learners, it can still be useful provided you give the reasons why it wouldn’t.

TBLT ELT Ideas: Energy Graph

Marc Jones / / Lesson Plan, Reflection

The Lesson

I did the graph idea from the TBLT ELT ideas board today and it went well, with a couple of changes.

The board just after starting.
I drew a graph to show my own energy expended over the day and first had the learners speculate about what the graph was. (Hence the phrases on the right).
They came close by guessing sleep had something to do with it. I told them it was my energy expended then had them try to imagine what I had done. I gave feedback as to whether their answers were correct and provided written recasts of errors.
The three learners then drew their own graphs and did a three-way swap. They speculated on each other’s activities and then received feedback.

Language raised here:

Collocations with the noun ‘contract’.
One learner then came in late. I had the learners ask him questions to draw a graph of his energy use. This went well, with all four learners speaking a lot.
Another learner then came in. I set one learner as only listening and drawing and the other learners to find the latest learner’s energy use in order to draw a graph within five minutes. He was rather taciturn and evasive so it was more difficult than some of them may have thought.
Next I focussed on question forms, particularly verb choice, an issue raised through the learners’ language, then had them fill blanks on the board.
The final task was an extension exercise. I had them rank themselves according to how busy/active they are at weekends. I told them I was looking for more complexity in their language use. This raised a lot of chunks like ‘hit the gym’, ‘check your blind spot’, and ‘develop a film’.
Finally I had the learners read a dreadful textbook dialogue so I could say we used it and cover myself. They then compared their weekend lifestyle to that of the main character in the dialogue.

What would I change?

I’d probably cut the three-way swap in the first independent activity and just have the learners speculate, perhaps giving them individual time limits for turn taking.

What’s next?

Well, it’s pop psychology in the textbook so I might see if I can get them to give each other the Myers-Briggs test. If not, it’s more interesting ways to describe personality.

Blog challenge: poem

Marc Jones / / Uncategorized

On Josette Le Blanc’s blog yesterday she put up a post, in poetry, that really resonated. It was about the friction inside about trying to make things better in the classroom and in one’s own classroom. Hers is better and more concise. Mine’s self indulgent but it’s my blog and I choose what goes up. Maybe you’ve had learners like mine.
Nobody Dies
I want to tell them that nobody dies,
“Nobody dies,” I tell them;
Everyone laughs, nobody dies.
I want to tell them it’s OK to be shy,
“It’s OK to be shy.”
Nobody speaks but nobody dies.
I want to tell them nobody cares,
“Nobody cares
About mistakes you make:
They’re too busy worrying about their own.”
Nobody’s scared but nobody dares so
Nobody speaks but nobody dies.
I want to tell them nobody knows,
“Nobody knows the perfect way,
So go ahead and try your own;
I’ll let you know about mine,
Which you’re perfectly free to decline,
I won’t leave you to struggle alone.”
Nobody knows who
Suddenly speaks but
Somebody dared
Although they were scared
And nobody cares
And actually
Nobody dies.

Resources for Teaching Children

Marc Jones / / Links, Materials, Pedagogy

There are a large number of freelance teachers who won’t teach children at all because it can be more trouble than it’s worth: behaviour problems, parental disengagement, poor institutional support, dreadful training (or rather the lack of it). However, for those of us who are fortunate to find settings in which teaching children is not a painful experience, there is a lot to enjoy: witnessing the development, often at a more rapid pace than adults; engaging questions; and, lest we forget, a source of entertainment.
Here are some resources that may be useful for teachers of children/young learners.
Primary Resources
Twinkl
British Council Young Learners
Don’t forget that it is totally possible to go Dogme/materials light with kids as well, if you have paper, pens and imagination. If the class want to play games, it’s OK – provided they teach you the rules. Giving them ownership can be a bumpy ride – not a lot of kids are used to it so you might need to prime them by having little bits of control increasing incrementally. By the time they get to be responsible for choosing what they learn, it is more interesting (though it can be more challenging to teach).
Higher-ability kids can handle CLIL or project-based learning. Computer programming, geology and probability in games are all fun and useful.
Also, some cool people who teach young learners are:
Rose Bard
Anne Hendler
Tim Hampson