Learning Twigs

Taking your teaching online - what to teach and how to find your students

  

The web is out there, gathering ever more droplets, and we're all connected... But if we're going to teach online and make a reasonable living from it, what do we teach and how do we get connected to our potential students?

   

In 2006, after five years full time language teaching in an EFL context, I returned home to Australia for a quick break. One of the things I did during that break was check out language teaching opportunities there (or now, here), basically because my wife and I had just had our first child and plans were starting to form to make a return to my home country a little later on. It didn't look all that promising or appealing in terms of income or career prospects, and there certainly wasn't much in the way of escape from the heavily institutionalized format of language teaching I was already starting to somewhat loathe based on my EFL experience.

At about the same time, as audio and video finally made its way into Web 2.0 in more accessible formats, I decided that one of my more promising futures possibly lay in online teaching. I imagined connecting directly with students, avoiding schools and "middle men" as much as possible, being my own boss, and harnessing the burgeoning power of the Internet to possibly access an almost infinite number of willing students.

I returned to Australia in early 2009. Now, in early 2010, I have my own sort of online school (if I might call it that - given that I'm the only teacher and also the director, content writer, webmaster, and designer!). I make triple the income I ever made (even in senior management positions) in institutes or universities, working roughly half the amount of hours - all of which I decide myself in terms of scheduling. I have students from more than 40 different nationalities from more than 25 countries globally. I take my little boy to kindergarten, mind our little daughter two days a week while my wife attends her classes, do the shopping and a fair amount of the cooking as well, and - for the first time in a decade - I have a three day weekend that I can devote almost entirely to the family.

Sounds like bliss, doesn't it? Well, it is!

I've been contacted by a lot of people recently wanting to join in or at least get tips on how to set up something similar. If you're an experienced teacher in an EFL setting thinking about your future, with better income, more creative freedom, and the priceless prospect of more family time, either where you are now or once you head back to home turf, I definitely recommend giving online teaching serious consideration.

But here's the thing. To do it well, and to make serious and stable money from it, teaching online is not an overnight decision followed by instant success. This is the hard advice I need to give a lot of people who contact me about this sort of thing. It's not like just looking for a new place to work. For me, it was a process that began in 2005 and only came to fruition of the full-time income sort in late 2009.

If you're going to teach English online, there are plenty of very helpful guidelines about the place, but I would recommend you seriously think about the following four factors in particular:

- WHAT exactly are you going to teach?

- HOW are you going to teach it online?

- WHERE and HOW are you going to find paying students for your teaching services?

- WHEN are you going to start teaching online?

  

Now, I'm going to skip the second element there for the purposes of this post, mainly because I think a lot of teachers are already aware of the different technologies at their disposal for teaching online (or can easily find out more about them). I want to focus more on the first, third and fourth considerations there, because I do think this is where so many prospective online teachers slip up.

   

 

1. WHAT exactly are you going to teach?

Doh - I'm going to teach English of course! If only it were that simple, and anyone who has taught English in any setting will tell you it certainly isn't. There are a multitude of strains within ELT, but the ones with the most potential for online teaching with a half-decent prospect of getting paid well for what you do are:

- Preparation for formal English tests

- Business English

- English for Academic or Special/Specialised Purposes

 

I do a bit of business English and ESP, but by far and away my runaway success has been with preparing students for formal English tests - especially TOEFL, IELTS and TOEIC.

Let's get something straight here. I don't particularly like tests, or teaching "to" them. In a perfect world I would much rather teach English for the communicative and interactive sake of it. But the facts are that formal English test-based qualifications drive a massive part of what the world does in terms of teaching and learning, and results on these tests can be life changing (or alternatively "life limiting") for so many students.

The weight, influence and overall importance of test results makes this an area where your specialisation will be very attractive to a large number of students who are actually willing to invest financially in their own development. Generally speaking, I've found that students who want casual conversation practice with a teacher are most usually expecting to pay that teacher far less per hour than the spotty teenager in the local McDonald's earns by flipping burgers (including not having to pay anything at all). Students who go online to look for teachers who can help them pass crucial language tests are more willing (generally) to pay that teacher a good wage for a professional and highly relevant service with potentially highly beneficial outcomes for them.

However, even within the testing sphere, there are particular specialisations that are more relevant and attractive to online students than others. By this I am referring to specific kinds of skills - most especially speaking and writing. These are the areas of tests that are the most difficult and intimidating for most of the world's EFL students. They are also the areas that benefit most from actual interaction and application with a live human interlocutor. The plethora of free or pay-for multiple choice automated webpages out there can't really help most students to learn to speak and write well. These are still the skills where a good teacher shines and has (what should be) unassailable advantages over webpages and coursebooks.

Another hugely important bonus to focusing your online teaching business on test-prep skills is that you are selling your services to potential students who usually already have a fair amount of proficiency with the language. This means you can market your services in English and interact with students who can (for the most part) actually understand you (crucial for avoiding misunderstandings about the actual services and how they will work online) - which of course also means you avoid the limitation of only attracting students of particular nationalities or first languages. You have a wider net to cast.

 

So, budding online English teacher, my first pieces of advice to you (remembering that I'm only advising from my own targeted experience here) are:

- Focus your online teaching on test preparation, business English, and specialised forms of English (but in that order!)

- Focus on services that build and develop more proficiency with speaking and writing in particular

   

2. WHERE and HOW are you going to find paying students for your teaching services?

Most newbie online teachers start looking for online students and end up at one of two sorts of places:

- online "marketplaces" offering services that connect teachers and students

- actual online schools or companies that on-sell online teaching services

  

There are real problems with both of these avenues. They can be good for getting a bit of initial experience with online teaching, but if you're already fairly good with basic web 2.0 technology options, already good at teaching and want to build something that can actually make you a decent and sustainable income, I'd be advising you to avoid these places like the plague.

Why?

Well, if you've taken a look at companies who directly hire online teachers, the answer will be obvious to you. I haven't seen any that paid more than $20 per hour - and those that were generous enough to offer $20 were exceedingly rare: most pay in the range of $5 - $15 per hour. They also almost without exception come with a whole set of frustrations about when you can teach, what you can teach, how you teach, and to how many students at a time. Welcome back to McEnglish. Might as well stay in an institute and teach - at least you'll have sympathetic colleagues to bitch and complain to/with/about, and there will still be chances to hit the pub at the end of the week and "take the edge off" with like-minded teachers :-)

The online marketplaces aren't that much better, albeit for different reasons.

The way most of these so-called marketplaces have panned out, basically teachers are getting more students based on their willingness to lower their prices to what can only be called ridiculously low levels (see some excellent comments on this sort of thing from the very clued-in Kirsten Winkler). On the one hand, welcome to the prospect of potentially earning about $5 per hour in order to compete with hundreds of other teachers. On the other hand, welcome to the prospect of having say 10 years teaching experience and earning the same pathetically low rate as the newbie who has entered the marketplace with (or even without) the most paltry teaching qualifications.

Oh, and then pay the actual online company anywhere from 15-30% of your earnings for the privilege of having your specialised teaching services potentially reduced to a sort of commodity where all that matters is who can do it for the cheapest rate...

These companies will tell you that they're actually finding you students. Yes, they are - students who are mostly after a bargain, and see you in a massive line up with other teachers - all of whom are competing with you. These companies also tell you that they give you the chance to share lesson plans and ideas with other teachers. Yep, right - let's all help each other compete (um, with each other) and reduce our individual value as teachers even further!

There appear to be some exceptions to this, including a new line of marketplaces that charge a universal set price to all students irrespective of which teacher or course they elect to go with. The advantage here is that teachers start to compete based on their skills and rapport with students rather than on price. But for me, well - sorry - this is potentially a return to McEnglish again, and I don't particularly want you telling me how much I should earn per hour or telling my students how much they should be willing to pay me.

There are other (more promising) exceptions, too. I particularly like italki because it has such a handle on China (such a massive market, and one which is generally insulated from seeing most options out there on the broader web) and is very flexible and non-prescriptive in terms of what teachers charge and which particular interactive platform they choose to use. They also have one of the lowest commission fees going at present.

I'm also really excited about Engo.net, and not just because I know the owner/designer personally and had some input in the design and direction of the service. Engo.net is being built by a designer who seriously listens to both teachers and students, and finally maximises the potential of asynchronous audio applications, which I believe have been overlooked in the hype of live video and miss a lot of what makes learners tick, and what can be achieved across different time zones. But more on Engo.net on this blog fairly soon...

Yet another important exception (in my opinion) is English360, which is going in exciting directions in terms of actual content for online learning (including opportunties for teachers to actually profit from the materials they make as well as the learners they teach). They are also doing an outstanding job of not rushing anything and doing a lot of listening to both teachers and learners.  English360 is a professional outfit which I think will only really attract professional teachers, and I'm happy to plug and support companies like them :-) 

I should stop this line of thought now, and just finish with the point that most of these online providers and "connectors" (noting the exceptions listed above) are good if you're just dipping and playing with the idea of teaching online. They are not the best option if you are seriously looking to become independent, get noticed and build a real niche with excellent income-earning potential.

 

I've learned three very important things when it comes to attracting the right students to you as an online teacher in your own right:

- Online learners are usually independent, and results-oriented. Evidence is very important to them.

- Most learners begin their quest for an online teacher with a search on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

- Social media is by far the best way to connect with potential online learners, and in fact is also the most effective way to get the best listings in search engine results.

  

So what did/do I do? All of the following:

A. I make a lot of teaching videos and upload them regularly to YouTube

B. I participate in a variety of different forums where English language learners come for help or advice

C. I have my own forum where I distribute free materials, videos, comments etc.

D. I have a Facebook page dedicated exclusively to my online teaching business

E. I blog regularly about English (not here on this blog - elsewhere) for language learners 

 

Note that all of these activities also focus on the area of English I already identified above (test preparation). Note also that I don't treat all of the various social media mentioned above as a free advertising medium - I use it as a social media participant and use it to generate evidence. I use it to create a range of places where potential learners can not only find me, but also get to know me a little, interact with me personally, and see whether I know what I'm talking about.

If you can learn to respect social media for what it is and use it to maximum effect, it will bring you a lot of prospective students in its own right. One thing, however, is to set some careful and effective boundaries in terms of what you're willing to do online for free and what is more suitable for setting aside as pay-for language teaching services.

But (and here's the thing) the search engine spiders attached to Google, Yahoo, and Bing love things like YouTube videos, blog entries, tweets, and forum comments. And those 400 million Facebook users? A specialised fan/business page on Facebook can have a very long and targeted reach indeed...

Want to test out my theory here? Go to any search engine you like and type in something simple like >TOEFL speaking<. Depending on which engine you use and from which geographical location, you will find between 2 and 5 links to my online teaching business on the very first page of search results (and in many cases I appear in the number one slot).  

  

Then there's the majorly important issue of generating student testimonials. Based on my own research of sign ups to my pay-for services, something in the vicinity of 60% say they went with my services because a friend recommended it to them and/or they read a positive account of me on one of the various social media platforms. With my focus being on test preparation, many of my students get good or even great scores on their tests. Given that this can result in life-changing opportunities for them, they're understandably ecstatic and usually comment about it to anyone willing to listen. Actual test score achievements reported by actual learners is pretty powerful stuff - more of that all-important evidence I've been harping on about in this post. If you're good at what you do and it generates genuine results for your students, to some degree you won't have to worry about marketing your online teaching business. Your students will happily market it to other potential students for you - and they'll probably do it much more effectively than you ever could.  

   

So, basically, what I'm trying to point out to you here is that there are much more effective ways of finding potential students than using some of the so-called online learning marketplaces. These methods can give you great search engine listings in your own right, and through the magic of social media actually help you to connect with these students and generate the all-important evidence that you might be worth a student's investment.

Now, of course these sorts of things don't happen overnight. Don't expect to make a couple of YouTube clips, start a Facebook fan page, tweet a few times, and end up enrolling students the next day. And this brings me to my final point - which is all about timing.

 

3. WHEN are you going to start teaching online?

This could happen very soon for you - even tomorrow, but chances are it's going to take significantly longer than that, especially if you're going to stay independent and not pay others to bring students to you.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, there was a period of roughly three years between me making a decision that I eventually wanted to do a lot of independent teaching online and then actually ending up in a position where I had a viable online teaching business.

This is not to say that three years is like some sort of industry standard 'gestation' period for building online teaching services. It's not so much the actual amount of time in years as it is the sorts (and volumes) of action undertaken as a build up.

Here's a bit of a list of some of the things I did - not necessarily in strict order, as several overlapped or are still overlapping - over that period of three years:

  

- I began to focus more of my teaching skill (in face-to-face institute settings) on test preparation.

- I bought a lot of test preparation resources and studied them fiendishly (but also critically, determining what they were doing well or not so well).

- I offered various supplementary classes in my institute targeting test preparation for free.

- I began to write a lot of my own test prep materials, and let my institute use them as well.

- I got some of the more enthusiastic face-to-face students to try some online classes with me (with the permission of my employer), to learn about how the online medium was different to f-2-f teaching, and also which applications were the easiest to access and use for both myself and the learners.

- I started writing blogs and participating in forums where test preparation was being discussed. A little later, I started my own forum and then began to make YouTube clips.

- I offered a lot of free access to practice materials and help/advice through the various social media applications I was becoming more active with.

- I started giving free feedback for online speaking and writing submissions from test takers. Prior to shifting to a pay-for model, I'd scored and commented on something in the range of 2,000 speaking submissions and 3,000 thousand essays.

- Based on all the free materials and teaching, I started generating a lot of positive testimonials from students.

- I created a couple of different websites where my experience, materials, etc. could be gathered and began to link my forum and YouTube entry signatures to this centralised location. 

- When all of my resources reached something of a critical mass (not just in number but also in terms of quality, overall views, search engine listings and PageRank), I sectioned off some for pay-for access only, and made these pay-for services extremely cheap.

- Things began to become clearer in terms of what was feasible to offer for free and what should be pay-for. I made some decisions, stuck to them, and continued to work on both aspects (free versus pay-for). The "free" aspects basically became quick comments and advice in the forums, blogs, YouTube and Facebook endeavours, while the pay-for products became more numerous, more detailed, and (gradually) more expensive.

- Finally, once I'd moved country and given up all of my f-2-f and coursebook writing commitments, I launched the online teaching business as a full-time focus for me. In what I think was a very important twist, I did not lauch or commit to the business until I was in a financial position to not need income for at least 6 months.

So there - in terms of the "when" and "how", that is what worked for me. Other online teachers may be making a lot more than me, and may have graduated to this stage more quickly or via other means. It's only one account and you would do yourself a service by reading around and hearing how other teachers have "made it" online.

But I will say these things in finishing:

- It is possible to teach online and make a very good living from it, if you're willing to focus on the right areas and work really hard at them

- It is possible to build your own independent business, and free yourself (and your online learners) from the institutionalized curse of ELT

- You can find more (and better) students willing to pay you a reasonable wage for your specialised service through things like social media applications than most commission-charging "marketplaces" will ever be able to provide

- Teaching online is enormously enjoyable and rewarding, and can bring you a bigger range of students than most f-2-f EFL teachers are likely to experience

- With each passing day, there are more potential learners coming online, and they're becoming more skillful and confident with this medium

- Teaching online and preparing material and techniques for online delivery are constant discovery processes, which generate their own special kind of motivational energy

- Teaching online is about the closest I've ever come to genuine freedom and flexibility in English language teaching

 

Still considering teaching online? Both of this blog's ravens (Huginn and Muninn - "thought" and "memory" respectively) advise you to definitely give it a whirl - but be ready for a long haul!

   

:-) 

 

 

 

 

What has EFL done to my English?

 "Where you from, Nash?" a detective asks Highlander's Connor MacLeod, trying to find out why so many people are "losing their heads" in NYC.

   

In answer to the question above, actor Christopher Lambart - playing an immortal champion who has been around since the 1500s and travelled all over the world - mutters nonchalantly "Lahtsa deefrint plesses..." (= lots of different places, said with an absolute mangling of different accents).

  

My close personal friends often quip this line from the movie when we meet other people who enquire about where I come from based on my accent. Highlander is a bit of a cult classic among my friends, but this quote - complete with mangled accent - is also not entirely too far from being an apt description of what my English has been like for several years now. It's from "lots of different places." 

  

When I was 21, I got a scholarship that allowed me to continue my Melbourne University studies on exchange at Uppsala University in Sweden. For almost one year, I spoke nothing but Swedish. When I arrived back in Australia, people remarked curiously that I sounded more British than Australian. It was almost as if, having deprived myself of English for a year and replacing it with a Scandinavian language, when I reverted to English again it sounded more clipped, with vowels closer to British English than Australian.

 

Not so long after that, I went to teach English in South Korea. The school was very adamant about their courses being American English, and they came straight out and said they were very nervous about employing an Australian teacher (I was the first non North American to work at the school). As a result, I did my best to emulate the speaking patterns of the (mostly) Canadian teaching colleagues I was working with.

 

After about a year of this, I returned home to Australia to be the MC at my sister's wedding. Every time I took the mic, my relatives winced in shame as a distinctly American accent tossed out introductions and jokes. When my father got up to do his father-of-the-bride speech, he began by apologising to all the guests and adding "but don't worry - he actually sounds like a Canadian, and that's gotta be better than having one of those Yanks for a son..." 

 

Realising that things had definitely gone too far, when I returned to Korea I made a distinct effort not to speak with any particular accent unless it was absolutely called for. I focused instead on clarity and occupying a very middle range position that swung about to (or between) British, American and Australian English as the teaching or socialising situation demanded or allowed. To some degree, I think I quite successfully mastered (and became used to using) a very neutral, international version of English.

As an EFL teacher (then school manager, then touring coursebook writer) in Korea, this paid some serious dividends. Students, parents, and local teachers all frequently remarked about just how easy it was to understand me, even compared to the Canucks, Yanks and Brits I was working with.

  

And, after 10 years of EFL in Korea, this very neutral "international" version of English has become a natural part of me. Back in Australia now, I even hear it being passed on in some ways to my little son. Focusing more now on online teaching with Internet-based students from a huge variety of countries, this neutral accent dedicated very much to clarity has also become a definite asset. Irrespective of where my students come from (say Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and North America) and which variety of English they are most accustomed to, I never EVER get comments about the comprehensibility of my spoken English.

   

But EFL and a long sojourn abroad have had other, possibly somewhat detrimental, effects on my English. You see, for almost 10 years I spoke English to children and adults who needed the language kept to a manageable minimum in terms of complexity. I wrote learning materials (and later, coursebooks) which dealt with the language mostly at its basic and intermediate levels. An exception to that were perhaps the TOEIC, TOEFL and IELTS materials I made. I didn't read a lot of books other than those dedicated to language teaching methodology. I didn't have time. Most of the time I was reading students' essays... 

   

Then there's the interesting dilemma of trying to convert your written English back to Australian (basically British) norms from American English. Now I know how EFL students feel when grappling with the differences between British and American vocabulary preferences and spelling!

  

Thus, despite leaving the University of Melbourne (usually considered one of Australia's most prestigious) with a degree majoring in English, 10 years of EFL teaching in a very foreign context have left my own English ability in a rather curious state. The quest to keep things simple and comprehensible to non-native speakers of the language means a lot has been lost, I have to admit.

  

You may see examples of this right here on this blog - even here in this post, for that matter! Certain turns of phrase come out sounding awkward. Some words and expressions I use look/sound like I've dragged them up out of very old dusty chests stored somewhere in a long unvisited attic, and sometimes they come out somewhat frayed and battered from long lack of use. I may sometimes use both American and British spelling within the same sentence! It gets rather frustrating at times...

  

I knew I may have developed a bit of a problem when I (cheekily) tweeted that Ken Wilson had "a penchance for writing long winded tweets." Quite rightly, Ken was all over me in an instant.

"Penchance?" he tweeted. "As in, like Pirates of Penchance or something? Or did you perhaps mean PENCHANT?"

OUCH.

 

In any case, I'm working on the problem, and thanking the Internet Powers that Be for quick online dictionaries to help me check my own word choices at times. Now that I have access to huge (English language) bookshops again, I'm also doing a LOT of reading. Slowly but surely, my non-EFL English is returning and allowing me to act and communicate more like a genuine member of an educated English-speaking community.    

What about other people out there? Has immersion in an EFL context had effects on your English? Have you experienced any difficulties or frustrations when you returned to your home country and had to start using your English again?

Interested to hear your thoughts!

  

:-)

 

   

ELT Academy Awards - make your nomination!

I think the ELT blogosphere fulfills its role admirably well when it comes to whining, griping, arguing, finger-pointing, etc. So I thought I would go with something a little different here, and focus more on some of the great things that are happening for teachers of English around the world.

Announcing... the English Raven ELT Academy Awards!

Let's try to stick with English academies (and other forms of "private English insitution) just to keep some focus here.

For English teachers out there, is there anything your academy does (or has recently done) that you feel warrants praise and recognition?

It could be anything you feel has made your teaching life better, or a better situation for your learners, or even just exemplifies excellent educational practice.

Just to help you out here, I can think of some examples from institutes I've worked for in the past that I felt at the time warranted particular praise. For example:

- The institute owner who paid and provided a bus so that all of her teachers could attend a teaching conference at the other end of the country;

- The institute owners who took the entire teaching staff on a 4-day all expenses paid trip to gorgeous Jeju Island after the school surpassed a set enrollment number;

- The institute that encouraged teachers to commence MA TESOL programs, and provided a fund to help buy the books necessary for MA study;

- The teacher who started his own tiny academy and stuck to his principles about YL English education for more than 10 years, even with all the glitzy chain academies setting up next door and breathing constantly down his neck, and ended up being the "last school standing" with the highest and most constant enrollment.

   

There are many other examples I can think of, but I'd now like to turn it over to you...

 

Anything your school or teaching colleagues have done that you think deserves a public pat on the back? Let's hear it then!

 

:-)   

When will video kill the radio star in English language tests?

   

Classmates help each other prepare for their next English language test...

More than 30 years ago, The Buggles had a hit with the classic Video Killed the Radio Star - a song with a nostalgic theme which expresses the time of change as television began to supercede radio as the main medium for creating musician stardom. Interestingly enough, Video Killed the Radio Star was also the very first music video to be broadcast on MTV when it first went to air in the United States in 1981.

I think it would be pretty fair to say video has become fairly ubiquitous through Internet applications, and in terms of online and computer-based language learning applications, there is veritable plethora of video-based programs and services that can be accessed and utilised with relative ease.

There is, to some degree, an assumption that online learning is all about connecting real people and - with video applications like Skype, Tokbox and Eyejot (not to mention the video messaging function now usually inbuilt into applications like Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, etc.) - teachers and students would relish the chance to have technology resurrect the sort of visual face-to-face interaction they get in physical classroom environments.

I run a thriving online business helping students to prepare for English tests like TOEFL (and in particular the speaking and writing sections of such tests), and I recently did an informal survey with my online students to get a feel for their preferences when it came to audio-only or video based interaction (with me as the teacher and also with each other). 

The results of that survey were rather surprising - but then again, perhaps not. 95% of my students preferred audio-only communication and test item practice with their teacher and with each other.

As in, no video, thank you very much. Headset and mic only, if you please... 

Delving into their rationales, some of the reasons made a lot of sense. Using just microphones and speakers, there is no need to worry about one's appearance - or the appearance of one's physical location. For a lot of people, there is a feeling that there is still some semblance of privacy to the communication, a sort of holding back on full disclosure which feels appropriate considering interaction is taking place between people who have never actually met in the physical face-to-face world.

Personally, I can relate to those rationales. While I generally much prefer to see my online students face to face through any of the very accessible video chat platforms out there, I have to confess that one of the things I love about teaching online using audio only is that I can teach in my pyjamas (or what passes for pyjamas in the Raven household - and no, we won't go there).

But by far the most influential factor, according to my online students, is the fact that the tests they are preparing for involve listening that is completely audio-based. They need to improve their ability to handle spoken English that is delivered to them through a headset only, so it only makes sense to them to have their practice and instruction delivered to them in the same format.

Aside from the fact that this is a pretty good example of test washback at it most (and somewhat dismaying) extreme, it does raise the question:

When are English language tests (and those delivered through computer and Internet-based programs in particular) going to start featuring videos of speakers and conversations instead of the incredibly one-dimensional and situationally limited format of audio-only scripts?  

In short, when will video kill the Buggles' radio star within the paradigm of English language testing?

I ask this question not simply because I believe the technology is now there and accessible enough for us to make this happen without too many complications. I ask the question because, essentially, the audio-only format of pretty much all English listening activities (and particularly those on high stakes international English tests) is one of the most serious breaches of validity I can imagine when it comes to giving learners exposure to language and also testing their real ability to comprehend it.

You see, the current common method of delivering spoken English to students assumes that they are going to have to either shut their eyes or turn away and imagine they are looking at the stark walls of a classroom (or else a computer monitor) while the spoken delivery takes place, and based on that, we are going to somehow get an accurate picture of their listening ability. Another alternative is to assume ELLs are going to be dedicating all of their spoken English skills to telephone conversations.

Yet another (albeit far-fetched) theory could be that English language tests may be trying to bequeathe advantages to visually impaired people within the language learning population. Then again, bearing in mind that English testing organisations are not exactly renowned for their charitable goals or processes, I daresay this is an unintended consequence.

All of this AUDIO-ONLY English delivery might go some way towards explaining the confused glazed (and often panic-stricken) look a lot of English students exhibit for the first couple of weeks they spend in English language speaking contexts. Not only do they have trouble focusing on what they are hearing on account of an unexpected barrage of visual distractions, they may be grappling with the no-doubt difficult task of superimposing a vision of a classroom or a computer screen over the current scene in front of them in order to help them focus on what they are hearing. If you see their hands twitching, it may be because they want to pick up a phone.

Non-verbal aspects of communication (including paralanguage) are completely thrown out the window in audio-only applications of spoken language. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in a foreign language context with pretty much any level of proficiency will tell you that the non-verbal aspects of spoken interaction are potential life-savers when it comes to understanding what is being said to or around you.

Hey, it helped my wife and I when we first met! Without the simple charms of non-verbal language and paralanguage, I might go so far as to say there would be no well-decorated Raven's Nest from which to send this post, and no gorgeous little fledglings trying to interrupt me while I type it... 

Currently, the non-verbal and situational aspects of communication are seriously (VERY seriously) lacking in both coursework and formal English language tests. I do personally think it comprises a serious threat to the validity of a lot of our teaching, and most of our testing (when it comes to listening and speaking skills). While video is now becoming more common in many classroom contexts - not to mention much more accessible through Internet applications - it is still mysteriously absent in all the formal English language tests I've heard of.

In fact, rather than using an Internet-based running system to help improve this aspect of its listening tasks, ETS has gone even further into the relative blindness of an audio-only paradigm. The speaking section it introduced into its new iBT TOEFL format requires students to record their responses directly into their computers. Not only do the students speak to a text-filled computer monitor (rather than to any remote semblance of an actual human being), those aspects of non-verbal communication that might genuinely benefit their spoken communication (and which would definitely come into play in the real world) are utterly excluded.

In this respect, I still think that IELTS and its face-to-face interview format for speaking is communicatively miles ahead of its TOEFL counterpart - not just in terms of validity and accuracy, but also basic fairness.

   

So come on testing organisations... The time of the radio star in your tests should well and truly be over by now, and its high time video got its chance to kill him off. We may be 30 years behind MTV, but it's never too late to do the right thing. 

Of course, video instead of audio in testing may well mean I have to change out of my Raven household pyjamas and put on something more decent (as well as move the plate with half-eaten baked beans on toast out of the camera shot) while teaching online. But hey, it's a sacrifice I can live with - especially if my students get a chance to express themselves more naturally and efficiently.

:-)  

   

Image used with permission under creative commons license:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wouterkersbergen/513459895/

 

Is teaching a matter of trust?

 

 

Apologies in advance if this comes across as too wistful or an unnecessary sharing of one of those "things that occasionally keep me awake at night," but I'd like to pose a simple question for you...

How much of what we do (and rely on) in teaching boils down to a matter of trust?

In the teaching profession in particular, I see major problems and challenges that almost always echo on from this major issue of trust.

  

First, there's a major lack of trust in our profession.

Governments and parents don't trust schools to fulfill their role(s) properly. Schools in turn show lack of trust in their teachers. Teachers learn to not trust themselves, nor their learners. Out of all this distrust we see the overwhelming reliance on standardized exams, pre-set course materials, mainstream ways of going about teacher training, and teaching practice. 

And of course, learners learn to distrust anybody or anything, including in many cases their own instincts and abilities.

It's almost (if not absolutely) a case of "guilty until proven innocent" when it comes to teachers and teaching, and "innocent" now usually translates to an ability to conform to a set standard which is safe in mediocracy.

   

Then - at the opposite extreme - there's the blind trust.

I don't know whether blind trust builds as a natural product of distrust, but I'm constantly amazed and alarmed by the blind trust I see in things like media reports, exams (and exam results), certain teaching methods, coursebooks, etc. It can also be worrying just how immediately and completely some learners are trained to "trust" the teachers, methods and overall educational philosophy they have forced down their throats. These days, there's also a certain level of blind trust in things like technology to come along and rescue education from its past and present woes.

Blind trust is fed by the assumption that it's safer not to question, not to challenge, and to accept and excel with "the tools we have at our disposal."

   

If you thought I was building up here to some sort of insightful conclusion and vision of a path forward, then I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you...

   

But this helps me personally negotiate the quagmire that is the profession of teaching:

Teaching (and teaching language in particular) is all about communication. Communication does not exist in a vacuum - it is a shared product of people who are reaching out to each other in some way. Effective communication between people requires a certain level of trust, but also in particular circumstances an ability to be wary or sceptical.

Both blind unquestioning trust and a deep sense of distrust are counterproductive to effective communication. They are also inhibit effective teaching and learning.

But everybody needs to start somewhere, and the most positive step forward is to first trust (assuming innocence rather than guilt), and only withdraw that trust when there are clear grounds for doing so.

   

Schools, parents and governments: trust your teachers until there is a clear rationale for not doing so.

Teachers: trust yourselves and your learners until there is a clear rationale for not doing so.

And if and when that rationale for withholding trust eventuates - make sure you question and challenge until the cows come home. That's when it is time for trust to be earned, not given.

  

:-)

  

  

Image at top used with permission:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/27687364/in/set-626455/

Into a great wide open

  

Can coursebooks really teach English? Image sourced from here (interestingly enough, a forum posting giving advice about how to choose course books for language classes!)

I was recently looking over a sample from a new coursebook series, and really admiring the thought and work that had gone into it. After perusing (with a genuine sense of admiration) through the texts featured in the unit, I suddenly paused - my eyes lingering on the many boxes and sidebars featuring grammar and vocabulary "noticing" prompts, as well as speaking prompts, comprehension questions, gap-fills etc.

The unit was literally brimming with things to notice and work on. A treasure trove for a busy teacher who wanted a complete course all in/on one plate to serve up in classes, with - of course - the potential to add or subtract something here or there to put his/her personal touch to the unit.

As amazing and thorough as I found this new coursebook unit (and the course's overall emphases and approach), I couldn't help but wonder... If, as a profession, English Language Teachers could be assumed to be getting better at what they do as time has gone by, why does each new coursebook that comes out up the ante on how much is squeezed into a book, and feature ever more activities, prompts, exercises, etc.?

Basically, in looking at the global coursebooks on offer, it appears to me in some ways that there is an assumption that teachers are becoming less skilled and need more ideas and activities provided for them on the page. Publishers, in their professionalism and benevolence, are ensuring that these poor, increasingly unskilled (or dare I say it: de-skilled?) teachers have courses ready made to order - with a good deal (if not almost the whole deal) already done for them in advance.

[A brief digression, if I may: I've been hearing that sales of methodology and resource books for ELT have been on the wane of late. Considering how thoroughly coursebooks are put together these days, I can't help but wonder if this is because teachers figure all the methodology and ideas they need to know about will already be encapsulated in the coursebooks they choose. But, anyway, back to the original stream of thought!]

I've read some very interesting posts around the blogosphere with appropriately critical positions on what sort of content should be in coursebooks. What I'd like to explore a bit here, however, is not so much what kind of content could or should be featured in coursebooks, but what we might want to consider taking out completely. And, in doing so, what sort of knock-on effects would this create for teachers and learners?

This is going to necessarily involve some coursebook butchering, so I figure it is only fair I take out the knives and go to town on a sample from my own coursebook series (Boost! Integrated Skills Series - a strand-divided series of 24 books designed specifically for mid to high level tweens and teens).

 

Take a look at the 4-page unit from the reading strand of level 1 below:

It's too small to make out in detail here, but the following summary should sufficiently give you the gist of what is happening in this unit.

On page 1, learners get a picture and discussion prompt introducing the theme of fantasy stories. There is a basic reading skill description for finding main ideas, then below that a diagram-based discovery activity to help learners identify quick and basic ways to grasp main ideas. Page 2 features the main reading text (about the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series), followed by some quick reading comprehension questions. Page 3 features specific comprehension questions applying the afore-mentioned skill of finding main ideas, then a vocabulary section allowing students to match highlighted words in the text to simple English definitions for each word. Page 4 introduces some new (but thematically related) content in the form of an integrated activity involving reading, listening and speaking. Finally, there is a space for learners to write about and then present their own favourite fantasy stories.

As a reading unit, it is relatively thorough. Plenty of skillwork and activities have been provided, and there is ample opportunity to work on integrated as well as specifically reading-oriented skills. This is without mentioning or showing all the supplementary worksheets and activities included in a teacher's book and accompanying resource website for the series.

  

Right (he says, sharpening a hefty butcher's knife in the background)! Let's say this coursebook content were to be presented somewhat differently - like this:

It would be stating the ludicrously obvious to say that a coursebook designed like this probably wouldn't sell well - if at all (because, let's face it: no self-respecting ELT publisher out there would allow something like this go beyond the email inbox - a publishing proposal from a deluded teacher somewhere who clearly hasn't got a clue). However, having used (deliberately designed) materials a lot like this in some of the schools I have managed over the years, I hope you'll bear with me...

  

Let's frame this as a situation where a teacher has been given this material to use in their class, and this poor lad/lass has come to me - the teacher coordinator (or some other senior, training, or management-style position). Here's how the conversation might possibly progress:

  

Teacher: Hi Jason - erm, about this reading unit...

Me: Oh hi! Reading unit? Oh, yes, that one.

Teacher: Yeah, this one. The one with a whole lot missing.

Me: Missing? It's there with wide-open arms, waiting for you and your learners to make something of it.

Teacher: Sorry? You mean, I have to fill up all this space... myself?  

Me: Well, you and your learners - yes, I guess so. What else would you do with it?

Teacher: Make paper aeroplanes, perhaps? Sorry... But, you know, this is going to be a whole lot of work for me, if I have to go filling these pages out with exercises and activities and all that.

Me: Depends on how you approach it. And, well, the more work you do for this unit, generally the less work the learners are going to end up doing, and the less investment of time and attention, the less learning that will take place...

Teacher: How do you mean?

Me: Well, why do all the work for them? Just because most coursebooks do that doesn't mean you have to. Have the learners fill out these spaces themselves, and stick to facilitating and helping with some occasional stuff on the whiteboard.

Teacher: I'm not really on the same train with you here yet... But anyway - okay then... Well, here on the first page, what should I do?

Me: You've got a picture there and a unit theme title. What do you think you should do?

Teacher: Erm, well... a warm up of some sort?

Me: Okay, that could work. What do you mean by warm up?

Teacher: Like, get the students talking about this theme - something like that?

Me: Sounds good to me. Oh, and look - there's a space there for you to give the learners a prompt to talk about. Or you could even have them make their own prompts and start chatting with a partner or in small groups.

Teacher: Right, right, yes!

Me: Yeah - and now that you've got your learners talking, what do you think you might like to do with that space beneath the picture?

Teacher: Well, they could take some notes about what they heard about fantasy stories from their classmates. Couldn't they? 

Me: Absolutely. Do you want to give them any feedback about their chatting at this stage?

Teacher: Do you mean like corrections?

Me: Yes, or suggestions or ideas about some language they could have been using, based on what you heard while you were wandering around and they were chatting about the initial prompt.

Teacher: Yes! I could put some of that stuff up on the whiteboard and the learners could jot them down there on the page. Okay then, good, good... Now this next page - there's the main reading text of course, but there's another space down here under it. I've seen other units with quick comprehension questions - should I do that?

Me: If you want. Just an idea, but why don't you make the comprehension questions fully oral?

Teacher: As in...?

Me: Well, you ask some comprehension questions about the text orally, and they jot down their responses.

Teacher: Sure, right! Then they could share their answers with the class and we could compare responses. There would also be some listening practice there for them, not to mention speaking - and by goodness my students need more of that! But - well, I'm going to be sort of pressed with time, with this new teaching schedule and all. What if I don't have time to get some comprehension questions ready for the text?

Me: Do it when you're in class? After you read the text together, you could ask the questions you immediately come up with or feel are important to an understanding of the text, there on the spot.

Teacher: Oh... Well, what if - you know - the questions I come up with aren't all that good, or the most appropriate for this sort of text?

Me: I'd say two things in response to that. One: you've been teaching for a while, and applied hundreds of reading comprehension questions and queries in class. So go with what feels natural. Back yourself. And two: how different is this in fact to the way real texts are discussed by real people in the real world?

Teacher: Erm, you've lost me a bit there. But thanks for the vote of confidence - I think I can give it a shot.

Me: Great! You know, you don't HAVE to have comprehension questions there straight after a reading text. You could even do a vocabulary building exercise here...

Teacher: Yes, yes, that would be another option. They could choose words they don't know from the text - or don't feel confident about, you know - and we could work on them as a class to provide simple definitions.

Me: Sounds pretty darned good to me. But you probably wouldn't want to do both of those applications here in this little space - would you?

Teacher: No, but hey - there's plenty of space on the next page to apply one of them, or I could just hold off on the vocab stuff for this lesson and use that space for vocabulary work in the next unit, which looks to have the same gap there beneath the reading text...

Me: Hey, variety is the spice of life, as they say.

Teacher: You know something? Given that this whole theme and reading text is about fantasy stories, here on the next page - which has all that space - I'd like to have the learners write something about their favourite fantasy heroes or actors, or even... hey! What about they do an imaginary interview with J. K. Rowling? Or maybe... Anyway, I like to make connections between reading and writing with the learners whenever I get the chance.

Me: Sounds like you've got a variety of ideas there. You could even share them with the learners and let them help you decide what to do there on that page - or perhaps even let them choose individually or in pairs.

Teacher: What? Let them choose what to do? That wouldn't work!

Me: Why not? Have you tried doing that before?

Teacher: Well, no... but, you know -

Me: No, I don't know, actually. And neither do you, and you won't until you give it a whirl.

Teacher: [with a rather dubious tone] Right, right...

Me: Anyway, look - this book has an online resource page with suggestions for teachers. The designer has included literally hundreds of potential applications for all these open white spaces, most with actual samples. I suggest you come up with some ideas of your own first - just like you've been doing here right now - and then go online if you get stuck and need a bit of inspiration.

Teacher: Cool. Yes, alright then.

Me: One last suggestion...

Teacher: That doesn't sound like you... Go on.

Me: I think Mandy did this unit last month with her learners, and perhaps Steve did it, too. From memory, their approaches were very different, but very interesting as well.

Teacher: Oh - I didn't know that.

Me: Might have something to do with having those iPod earphones on every time you're in the staff room... Anyway, go ask them and see if they'll show you what they did with this unit in their classes. They'll no doubt have some good comments about what did or didn't work so well, too.

Teacher: Right. Hey... you know, thanks.

Me: No problemo. Now if you'll forgive me, I have an appointment with a newspaper and a throne like device that'll help calm my temperament before the school owner comes in and wants to have a meeting with me about the most recent complaints from parents... Anyway, see you around!

  

And so the conversation hypothetically goes, though I have to confess to having had a LOT of conversations just like this one with the many teachers I've worked with over the years.

There are a couple of things worth noting from this conversation:

1. The ideas the teacher came up with for applying the 'spaces' in the book are rather different from the original unit set up (in the first/top example), but equally (and in some cases even more) valid in terms of ways to work around a reading text.

2. This conversation (and the layout of the book) assumes the teacher does have his/her own good ideas about teaching, and given the right space and prompting, they begin to come out rather like a treasure chest falling over and spilling its contents across the sand...

3. The teacher is able to consider the needs of his/her own class in terms of the best activities to apply, and for what reasons.

4. There is ample room to include the learners themselves in activities and activity selection as part of their coursebook application(s).

5. This approach encourages really thought-provoking and motivating discussions amongst teachers, as they share ideas about ways to apply similar units. Discussions amongst teachers tend to be somewhat different (and, in my experience, somewhat less frequent) when they are all applying the same very busy, fully-fleshed out coursebook material.

6. Even for newer or less imaginative teachers, it would be relatively easy to include teacher support materials for a book like this, along the lines of suggested applications. The teacher would still be given the important decision-making authority without needing to feel small or insignificant in the activity selection process.

 

There are a couple of dozen other things I could say about all this, but I've been long-winded enough already (even without an accompanying newspaper and throne-like device).

  

I'll finish by addressing one quick question I have no doubt at least some readers came up with as soon as they saw the "modified" coursebook design:

Looking at the new form of the unit, it's basically just a reading passage with some accompanying blank pages. What's the difference between this and just downloading a text off the Internet and taking it into class with some blank paper?

Quickfire response: That's precisely the point.

Additional comments: Using pre-set reading texts that all teachers use with the same levels means there is more potential for the teachers to all have something central they can share and build ideas around (ideas that are likely to have immediate relevance and application). Also, in certain ELT contexts (correlating closely with the ones I've been involved with), having the reading texts all prepared in advance can give school, learners (and parents) something that at least looks like a pre-planned syllabus (which could be an important requirement for attracting or retaining enrollment), while at the same time removing significant layers of shackles for teachers and facilitating creativity and variety in the actual classroom teaching techniques. 

Personally, I'd like to have teachers all choosing their own texts for their classes, or - even better - creating classrooms where the learners are choosing and bringing in the texts. But so much of ELT involves making concessions and working within boundaries outside our control, doesn't it?

  

:-)

  

 

The trouble with teaching unplugged

Kurt Kobain from Nirvana does his "thang" unplugged for MTV

  

Readers of this blog are probably already aware that Teaching Unplugged - Dogme in English Language Teaching recently picked up one of the coveted British Council ELTon UK awards for innovation.

I was genuinely happy to hear this, not just because I've read the book and found myself really relating to it on all sorts of levels, but also because it represented a great achievement from one of the relatively "smaller" ELT publishers out there (Delta Publishing) - at a time when publishers of all shapes and sizes appear to be scaling back their commitment to producing guidebooks focusing on methodology.

However, I can't help finding an award for innovation for a work of this nature somewhat amusing. Teaching Unplugged doesn't so much represent new findings or new ways to go about our teaching as it does a very logical (and perhaps even dignified) stripping away of so much of the "clutter" that has been built up around and become so much a hallmark of our profession. I think most teachers out there have had their fair share of "dogme moments" (as Scott Thornbury tends to call them) during their time, where things were relatively unplanned and lessons flowed out and on from the learners' own interests and contributions, without the coursebook page flipping or poring over handouts. For these teachers, Teaching Unplugged is likely to "reek of common sense" (as I so delicately put it in a very early review of the book here on this blog some time ago). Hence, I find it interesting and slightly amusing that a book advocating and demonstrating a return to this basic and uncluttered method of teaching should be called "innovative."

But not inappropriate, mind you. Perhaps some of the very "innovations" needed in the ELT profession are those that encourage us to get rid of so much of the unnecessary crap (sorry - I mean bells, whistles and thistles) we've surrounded ourselves with (and subjected ourselves to) and just get on with the basic job of teaching the language and using the learners themselves as the starting and finishing points for our lessons.

Dogme language teaching (in a very crude nutshell: teaching live on location, in a materials-light fashion, focusing on conversation and learners' own emergent language) is based on the avant-garde filmmaking movement of the same name. I didn't know much about either sort of dogme for quite some time, though I had been teaching "unplugged" in various settings for a long period - and I think this applies to a lot of other teachers as well.

Personally, I quite liked the term "teaching unplugged" when I first heard it. Before I ever had a chance to make connections between a language teaching approach and a group of gritty low-budget films, I was remembering the first time I saw a famous music group doing an unplugged gig on MTV. It was the very early nineties, and it was Nirvana. I recall being mesmerised and delighted as I watched this grunge band do their songs on accoustic guitars, up-close and personal with a small audience seated comfortably around them. Without all the huge amps - or, for that matter, a music studio - these guys were still genuinely good. No, they were better! The music felt warmer, more genuine, more... there!

I thought this version of "unplugged" would be great as an inspiration and ideal for a language learning classroom.

Now, without a doubt, my fondest memories of teaching the English language have all been "unplugged" ones in some form or another. There were the occasional (gradually becoming more regular) rebellions in highly systemized foreign language academies where I would declare to the students "put those books away - we're not going to need them today!" (which ALWAYS brought a glow to the learners' faces and often even a whoop of triumph). Then there was the entire academic writing course at a university based around the learners' own topics and emergent language. And the absolute pinnacle: a year-long business English course at one of Korea's foremost power and energy companies where one day I would find we were learning English around a discussion about the pros and cons of lean manufacturing, and the next there would be a whole lesson springing up out of a complicated negotiation-gone-wrong with a Chinese steel producer.  

These were wonderful experiences that filled my teaching veins with the sort of fire that makes you love and venerate the whole teaching profession. Unfortunately, to some degree they also demonstrate quite clearly to me why dogme language teaching is probably going to be something that happens on the fringe of English language teaching - when we consider what ELT has become, what it represents.

In short, there is trouble with teaching unplugged, and teaching unplugged creates trouble.

 

Let's begin with the "trouble with teaching unplugged"...

In something of an ironic twist, to be good at teaching unplugged, you need to be pretty switched on. As a teacher, you need to be able to create relaxed and collaborate learning environments - in contexts where this can be culturally difficult or challenging on account of more practical issues (for example, very large classes of very mixed-level students). You not only need to be able to create the sort of environment where learners will feel they have something to say and actually want to say it, you need to be able to "let go" at the right times and let the learners direct the play. The notions of "leadership" I see promoted in many teacher training courses don't always quite prepare teachers for this more subtle skill set. Likewise, the emphasis on lesson planning in many teacher preparation courses doesn't often promote the idea of going in and "gliding" - letting the lesson unfold in a more organic fashion (which I differentiate from the more negative connotations associated with "winging it"!).

And let's not forget the important facts that (1) there are a voluminous number of English language teachers out there with no formal training whatsoever, and (2) there are a considerable number of teachers who have not yet actually mastered the language they are supposed to be teaching. Creating conversation-driven classes without predetermined topics and clearly signposted key language items is always going to represent a challenge to a majority of the world's current English language teachers.

Most challenging, however, is the intuition and language knowledge required to be able to understand, pinpoint and work with emergent language "on the spot" - which I might go so far as to say is an important prerequisite skill if you are going to reap the full benefits of teaching unplugged. You really need to know the language you are teaching inside out (at least to a fair degree). It strikes me as no coincidence that the "father" of Dogme ELT (Mr. Thornbury himself) is also one of the most recognised experts and prolific writers when it comes to grammar and how it relates to language teaching. There is no doubt in my mind Scott could sit down with any group of learners anywhere in the world and, working from a warm conversation, gently tease out interesting aspects of the language and explain them in logical and practical terms for the learners. Even in my own case, I generally believe that my background in linguistics (my minor at university), history and structure of the English language and a variety of foreign languages before becoming a teacher gave me the grounding I needed to go into any given class and deal with pretty much any language that came up/out in a way that could help the learners use and understand it better.

But not many teachers coming into the EFL fold have these backgrounds or skills. Ironically enough, many teachers develop their 'specialised' knowledge of English grammar and lexis over time... from the coursebooks they are using in class! In other words, it takes 3-4 years of learners acting as sort of guinea pigs while the teacher learns the real ins and outs of the language he/she is supposed to be teaching. After that, a teacher might be more or less equipped to start handling emergent language in the classroom without too many embarrasing pauses or re-casts, but there is also a fair chance a teacher will be so hooked on coursebook-oriented instruction by that point that he or she will be quite loathe to go into the classroom without books or highly pre-planned lessons.   

Basically, for all its beauty and merits, teaching unplugged is still pretty inaccessible for most of the world's current teachers. That's not to say that it has to stay that way, and I should also point out that the wonderfully practical approach to Dogme ELT portrayed in Teaching Unplugged can hopefully inspire more teachers to at least try out some "dogme moments."

However, then there's the trouble caused by teaching unplugged...

ELT has more or less become highly institutionalised and systematic in many if not most of the contexts in which it is offered. It is dominated by chain schools, fed by publishers offering highly organised and well designed coursebooks, and driven by all-important international and local tests that focus primarily on reliability (and claim to represent validity - but this has always been a sticky point of discussion for me, considering cultures and contexts). There are, of course, exceptions to this probably quite sweeping generalisation, but I doubt there are many who would seriously challenge that this is (and has been for quite some time) a fair characterisation of the ELT "industry."

The syllabus is the defining foundation in this system, and the meticulously laid out and pre-prepared suites of language courses are the ones learners (or their parents, in the case of younger learners) most often opt for. Language courses are generally judged in advance, based on the planning demonstrated and the 'evidence' represented in the coursebook content.

Pre-set tests. Levels. Predetermined syllabi. Coursebooks. Teaching Unplugged.

Choose the odd one out. Or, put another way, see if you can spot the giraffe with sunglasses trying to bluff his way into a "polar bears only" night club...

Dogme ELT offers a 'product' at the end of a language course, not in advance - because the whole approach takes the learners as the starting point (not a predetermined syllabus), assumes a lot of the content will flow from the learners themselves (not from a coursebook), and works with language as it emerges from the learners and their interactions (not from a grammar syllabus). Hence, there's not much room for flashing neon signs to advertise the merits of dogme-based language schools. You'd have to put the sign up at the end of the course rather than the beginning - and even then, the sign wouldn't be representative of the next course to happen anyway. A new group of learners means a completely new course and language learning experience.

In many ways, teaching unplugged is at apparently complete odds with systematic ELT as most of the world currently knows and experiences it.

I mentioned above some of my own experiences with dogme language teaching. In almost all of those cases, my unplugged teaching either didn't threaten a pre-existing system in which dozens of teachers catering to hundreds of carefully-leveled learners operated, or I could (for a variety of reasons) "get away with it" and not cause (too much) unscripted pandemonium within a well-oiled, highly consistent and "reliable" ELT machine. My unplugged teaching happened independent of, or at the fringes/between the cracks of broader more mainstream ELT courses.

As a school director, I once tried to take some of the characteristics of dogme ELT and embed it into a schoolwide approach for almost 30 teachers catering to close to 1,000 learners. I stripped back a lot of the coursebooks, had conversation classes focus on learners' own Q&A prompts, and used these conversations plus students' writing (with all its emergent language) as the basis for an ongoing grammar syllabus for each class. The changes were planned well in advance and rolled out gradually, teachers were trained extensively, and a robust support network for the teachers put in place. Everyone saw the logic in it, apparently, but overall the system failed. Parents of students complained that there was no pre-set grammar book, and the writing and conversation books were BLANK at the start of the course (heaven forbid!). Grammar teachers complained that it was too hard to design lessons based around learners' own mistakes, or that it was too hard to teach this grammar in English. The fact that each class (even within the same level banding) used different content and language constructions - based on the language that had emerged in that class over the course of the term - gave rise to accusations of inconsistency (from parents) and too much work (from teachers). Generally speaking, unplugging from coursebooks and plugging in to learners' own output was causing a lot of headaches and even a bit of a hit to our enrollment numbers. A vote amongst staff at the end of the term resulted in a clear preference for a fully coursebook and pre-set tests oriented curriculum, and that was my last major foray into doing the "teaching unplugged" thing at a language institute.

Based on all this, my own take (for now) is that institutionalised ELT as it currently stands can tolerate some "dogme moments" from teachers, but not a wider and more robust unplugged teaching approach per sé. Perceptions about ELT from its learners and teachers and the risks to the many stakeholders who make enormous amounts of money from ELT the way it is now mean you can expect to see dogme ELT nodded at nicely from time to time - so long as it stays on the sidelines.

I'm sure anyone who got to sit in on the Nirvana Unplugged gig would say it was the most fabulous experience possible with that band's people and music. But everyone would also agree that a studio recording that can be mass-produced and mass-distributed is by far and away the best way to reach the widest possible audience and - of course - make the most amount of money.

 

I'd like to finish this off with a recollection of a conversation with my wife, who at the time was floating the idea that we return to South Korea and open our own language school there. "Sure," I told her, then elaborated my requirement that we call the school REAL (Renshaw English Activation for Learning) and base our whole approach on teaching unplugged.

My wife sighed and said, "Guess we're not going back to Korea any time soon, then... We'd be broke within three months!"

  

:-)

  

 

Riddles (in the Dark) for English Language Teaching

  

When I was nine, I managed to get my hands on a copy of the Hobbit and I read it ravenously - a lot of the time hidden under the bed covers with a torch. One of my favourite parts in that story is when Bilbo gets lost in caverns under the Misty Mountains, happens upon the frightful Gollum, and ends up engaging in a riddle contest with him.

Here are two of the many riddles from the chapter "Riddles in the Dark" that have - for whatever reason - stuck with me ever since:

Thirty white horses on a red hill,
First they champ,
Then they stamp,
Then they stand still.

   

Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.

   

The answers (just in case you're not familiar with The Hobbit, or else can't guess them straight off!) are "teeth" and "fish" respectively.

My main point here is that almost everybody likes riddles. They capture our imagination and throw down a sort of cognitive gauntlet that human beings just can't seem to resist! You'll hear riddles in playgrounds, but also around the table at dinner parties, or around campfires.

   

Bearing in mind this "irresistible" aspect of riddles, I've always enjoyed using them in English language learning classrooms as well - and they are surprisingly appealing across a very broad range of ages and levels.

I've used certain riddles time and time again in my classrooms. These are more situational cause-and-effect style riddles (where we state the main broad "effect", and it is up to the learners to ask a variety of questions to flesh out the relevant details and then make an accurate guess as to the "cause"). Basically, once they hear the summary, the learners are then allowed to ask me any questions they like - bearing in mind that I can only answer "Yes", "No" or "Maybe". This gives them very active practice with Yes/No question formation, but within a very context-rich and motivating communicative activity.

Here are some of the most common riddles I've used!

 

 

1. A man is driving down a highway late at night, and he's quite tired. He eventually pulls over at a motel, but sees that it is on fire. He gets out of the car, stares at the flames and screams "Nooooo!"

So why is the man so upset?

Okay - this one is easy, and I usually use it as a warm up for students (if you'll forgive the potential pun there). The man is upset because he is the owner of the motel, of course!

  

  
2. Mr. Higgins lives in a seven-floor apartment building. He lives on the sixth floor. Every morning, Mr. Higgins comes out of his apartment, gets in the elevator and goes down to the first floor, and then goes to work. He comes back from work around 5 p.m., gets in the elevator and goes up to the third floor. He gets out there and walks up the stairs to his apartment on the sixth floor. He does this every day.

So why does Mr. Higgins get out on the third floor and take the stairs? Why not take the elevator all the way up to the sixth floor?

I'll let you try to work this one out, but for now I can tell you that Mr. Higgins doesn't take the stairs to get exercise each day, and he doesn't visit anybody on the 3rd-5th floors, etc.

   

  

 

3. There is an old log cabin deep in the woods. Inside, there is a man tied to a chair, covered in blood.

What happened?

This one is my all-time favourite, and gets my learners really absorbed in figuring out the mystery. The man is dead, but hasn't been murdered. He hasn't committed suicide, though he was the one who tied himself to the chair. Further questioning can reveal nobody has visited the cabin in years, the man didn't drive or walk there, the cabin door is locked, there is a mess of broken wood covering the floor, and a whopping great hole in the roof...

I'm sure you can figure that one out now, but it sure has my learners guessing and asking loads of questions for a long time before the actual answer emerges.

   

So what about other educators out there?

Do you use riddles in your language learning classrooms? Which ones go down well with your learners?

How do you use riddles to maximise not only interest/motivation, but also language learning and application?

:-)

New white picket fence bars my trip to Turkey for ISTEK

  

Well, we're moving house - away from the beach to a more central location in Geelong, Victoria. The owners of our current house gave us a rather sudden notification that they wanted to move in, which means we had to shift out. The result was absolute chaos for my wife's school program and our son's pre-school enrollment, but we have finally found a suitable pad (see above) which allows us to continue on with all our various familial commitments!

Unfortunately (and I use that word as a major understatement), the only available timeframe for us to make the move coincides exactly with the ISTEK event in Turkey, where I was due to give two workshops. I was mad keen to meet teachers in Turkey, who have been fantastic supporters of the Boost! Integrated Skills Series, and I was also wildly looking forward to catching up with some people like Ken Wilson, Lindsay Clandfield, Shelley Terrell, Gavin Dudeney, Marisa Constantinides, Jeremy Harmer - just to mention a very few of the great ELT personalities due to gather at that event.

So my humble apologies to all the teachers in Turkey for having to cancel this trip, and more particularly to the awesome Burcu Akyol, the tremendously talented organiser of the event and someone I really wanted to meet in person!

I am actually quite gutted about not being able to attend the event, but housing for family had to take precedence - of course.

 

I can only hope there will be a future invitation to an event in Turkey some day, and that the perilous state of housing in Victoria Australia will not interfere with it!

:-(