Speed Dating as Vocabulary Review

This fun and useful exercise really works well as a filler or after you've taught a number of lessons and want to check your students have learned the vocabulary taught - either the emerged lexis if you're a dogme teacher, or with items from textbook exercises.

If you're teaching a group of regular students who are coming back after a long break, this activity works as a nice warmer-upper.

SET UP

Ask your students to write down 5 - 7 words that they've recently learned.   

Instruct them that they shouldn't write the explanations or translations on this paper/ phones/ laptops - however they should know these - so as they write, do allow them to use (e)dictionaries. 

If you've been working with a textbook, you can also get different students to go through different units. If you're working dogme, then get them to go through their notes.  If you've been working online, get them to browse through their blogs/flashcards/google.docs.

Set up the classroom's chairs like this:

PROCESS

Give students around 5 minutes to tell each other the meaning of the words they wrote down.   After this time (using a buzzer or bell), get your students to switch pairs/mini-groups.  

Continue doing this until each student has talked to a maximum number of other students.

Feedback

Once you have your students back in the room/ back to the original classroom set up, ask each to tell you the most interesting word(s) they learned and to also create a sentence using this word.

Variations
On a nice day, it's really fun to do this activity outside/ in another area of your school/ courtyard or on rainy days in the hallway and obviously they can also do it while standing up!

Useful links related to this posting: 
What does it mean to know a word?
What do you do with emergent language?
Complicated Vocabulary, Make Cartoons!
Powerpointing me

Best,
Karenne

Have you ever done this activity, how well did it work?   Have you got another variant or perhaps an extra suggestion to add - please don't hesitate to let us know your ideas on how to expand this.   If you like, don't hesitate to print this exercise out/email it and share it with colleagues- see the buttons below.

Let's sell a car...

I get it, I do, that in a lot of cultures this particular picture would be shocking.

So I'm not going to ask the ELT publishers to be so incredibly radical as to include something like this...

But I'm not a book publisher.

I'm an edu-blogger and I live in Germany and I teach adults.

And I like to get my students speaking.

And people here, like everywhere else, are sometimes straight, sometimes gay  and sometimes not anything at all...

- 0 -

But on to the teaching point, shall we?

The other day, I wrote that one of the problems in textbooks lies in having many a pair-work activity and not enough non-even-group activities... and although some of my readers did, quite rightly, point out that you as the teacher can take on the role of one of the people in the activity, I don't actually think this is good all the time - I tend to need to walk around and listen and give feedback on their English.

Yes, of course, sometimes you can get one of the class to help you monitor and feedback on speech, structure but that very much depends on the activity, for that to work, doesn't it?  In fact, to be honest the overall let's stick to an evenness of group sizes bugs me a bit - I just don't see why...  isn't it much more fun when they're not uniformed...

And isn't it better if the language they need to use is repeated several times...


I'll give you an example:

The book I'm currently using... 

(gasp! sometimes I have to and I like this one, gasp! and I can still dogme it, wink!)  

...with my group of intensive automotive students called for one person to sell a car and the other to be buying a car.   A was told he was at an auto fair and B was provided with details of a fictional car, size of the engine, mpg fuel consumption, number of cylinders that sort of thing.  

The standard textbook speaking activity.

But there are three problems with this sort of highly prescriptive activity: one, you really need an even number of students, two it's a bit spoon fed to be giving out random numbers about cars and their costs at random car fairs and it isn't exciting or motivating and finally, three, if you have a large class then they're all going to be talking about the same thing at the same time... and that's sort of naff.

But rather than just moan, I'll tell you how I 

two'd, 

three'd 

and 

four'd it...

I selected some of my students and asked them to think of the next car they'd most like to buy (in some cases if they could afford it) and then I told them that they were all now, officially, car-salespersons.   I asked them to jot down notes about this car, the one they liked so much - what was so special about it including things like how many miles to the gallon, the type of engine, the style...

While those students were busy working on that... I chose different students to "be:"

i) a modern business woman climbing to the top of her career - what car did she want to buy?

and...

ii) a young husband and wife with no thoughts of children in the near horizon
iii) a gay couple
iv) a father and son
v) an older husband and wife with their live-at-home son, who would be sharing their car

The mini-groups of different sizes then had to work together to decide if they were in agreement regarding what would be the best type of car for their personal circumstances and to talk about preferences of engine,  size, features and general style (lexis we'd covered in the units to date).

c) Lastly the purchasers went around the rooms in circles, talking to each salesperson one by one and deciding to buy.


It was super interactive, personalized, fun, the target language was practiced and repeated and yea, we didn't pretend that the entire world revolves around the two-by-twos.  :)

Best,
Karenne
education

I love hearing from you!  Have you ever introduced the topic homosexuality into the classroom or simply ever let it slide in?   Have you found ways to get out of the mould of pair-work?

Please add your thoughts if you enjoyed this piece and you feel like there's something you would like to question, add or say about it - don't worry about perfection or agreeing with me: it's always a pleasure to hear from you and know your own opinions. Worried about spamming me? Spam = you haven't read any of the discussion either in the post or by the other comments yet you want to come to my page in order to advertise yourself... (which probably means you won't have read this either :)). Your comment will be removed. Contribution = you've read the post and the discussion which has been added from other educators (or you want to start one off) and you would like to share your own thoughts, opinions, knowledge and experience. And by the way, have you already written about this specific subject or something similar? Do please add your link as I welcome the opportunity to participate in your conversations too! :-)

A conversation about death, dying and the famous dead

Like all issues of great importance there are those who believe in one thing and there are those who believe in another.

Personally, I reckon that no ill should be spoken of the dead, especially not in their first week of passing.

I wonder if that's a general societal meme regarding the departure of the soul or if it's just something from my own culture?

What do you think?

How were you raised?

You know, while we're on the subject of culture and norms, death is so much a major part of our lives yet it is so rarely discussed in the English language classroom.

Is it because words like funeral, autopsy, grave, headstone, memorial and cancer are not important - that this lexis is a no-go area?

Or is it because it's so emotive and teachers may have to deal with tears?

I remember once, it was such an odd situation because although he was a part of a group, for three weeks straight P was my only student. I have no idea how we ended up talking about it - usually he was a happy, dynamic man who laughed and made the other students laugh - yet when we were alone, bit by bit, the very awful story of his young son's death came out.

The freaky part was that P's son had known he was dying a year before he actually did and it was this that was ripping my student's heart out. His son had actually said things like "I won't be here for that next year," "Klaus will miss me when I'm gone" and "You don't need to buy me a bicycle, I won't use it for long and it's a lot of money."

However, instead of going to see a medical specialist, his parents had taken him to see a psychologist to probe into the boy's death complex.

The autopsy later revealed a brain tumor.

He told me that he and his wife never discussed it anymore, that two years on they were just trying to put their lives back together again however he felt guilty that he hadn't done the 'right thing,' that he hadn't taken his boy seriously.

So I listened and gave him the vocabulary he needed to express himself adequately while helping him let go of some of his pain. And, yes, I corrected his English, throughout his tears.

Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett left us this week and if your students are in the 30 - 60 year old range, there's a real good chance they will want to talk about their passing with you.

So my tip is to do this lesson, dogme style.



You don't really need to prepare anything, it's pretty obvious what will come out in the conversation: Farah's beauty, Michael's skin condition, the controversies, the illnesses, the memory of how Princess Diana died in the same week as Mother Teresa ...if they bring it up, it's simply the most perfect opportunity to deal with teaching this type of lexis and expressions of sympathy and empathy, safely.

So go on ahead and let it RIP.

Best,
Karenne

p.s humor is allowed.

Useful links:

• 6 ways to teach conversation
• On Anger
• On Disappointment

Edu-bloggers on the same subject:
Larry Ferlazzo has put together a list of excellent sites you can use.
Jeffrey Hill has done a posting on using a cartoon of Michael Jackson
Anne Hodgson has typed out the lyrics for Dangerous (for students)

From the media:

Farah Fawcett

• New York Times
• Google videos
  

Michael Jackson

• Guardian
• Huffington Post
  
• Google videos
  

My favorite video of Michael Jackson is below. Which was your favorite? What do you most remember of Farah Fawcett?




Go in peace, Michael. Thank you so much for giving us the music, the dance and the memories.

Farah, may the Angels be charmed by your laughter but may they also send you quickly back.

Use it: Don't Let Them Lose It!

Scenario:
You've just done a really weighty, vocabulary rich text with your English language learners.

It was a great article from Business Spotlight or maybe something you downloaded from an online news source.

Perhaps it was a reading out of a textbook a little above their level (oops!) or you had them review sections from an authentic, bestselling, business book in their field.

You were so keen - it was exactly their interests, you sigh, yet it was just too much vocabulary.

Now you're all feeling a bit overwhelmed and they're looking at you like you are the meanest English teacher in the world.

So you buckled down and successfully explained the words, spent a chunk of class time dissecting the meanings, giving/getting examples with some of the students hitting their translators or looking in their dictionaries.

At the end of the lesson, you had them list the new words in their language journals.

Done. Ready to scurry on out of that failed lesson?

STOP.

There were at least 12 words they had never seen before. It might have been 20. *Blush*

Deep down you know there's a real good chance they may not know them next week either, let alone in a month's time.

Was it important vocabulary, I mean did you choose the article because it was stuff they expressed an interest in, it's topical and relevant to their lives?

So they would benefit from knowing that great lexis. Right?

It's your task now to transfer some of those into their active vocabularies.

Instead of using a whole lesson dissecting words (or rather you teaching them the vocabulary) why not work on a few and put these into active use.

Here's one tip on how to do this:

1. What's important?

Not all of that lexis is stuff they're going to be able to use again. Get your students to individually decide which words are most relevant and encourage them to choose no more than 8 that they can see as being useful.

All the better if they can choose whole phrases, i.e. a prudent investment is stickier than "prudent."

2. Let's share what was so hard
Get one of the students to go up to the board eliciting words and phrases that the rest of the class want to learn. Encourage students to share at least 4 - add numbers when you hear a word or phrase repeated.

At the end of this, draw a circle around these highest ranking words.

3. Why those words?
Look at the highest ranking words and phrases. Ask students why they chose these, getting them to repeat them as they explain their reasons.

4. What's the situation?
Ask your students to brainstorm circumstances when these phrases might be used in a conversation.

Would it be on the telephone? In a meeting? A meeting about what?

At a business dinner? Throw out some ideas and get them to tell you others.

5. Who's using those words?
Tell them they're eavesdropping on a conversation. It's awfully interesting. Who's speaking?

6. What are they saying?
Divide your students into groups and tell them to write out a dialogue. Get volunteers from each group to become the secretaries.

7. The screenwriting event.
The secretaries' post-task activity is to type up the mini-screenplays and bring in copies for the rest of the class.

The rest of the students should either

a) look for examples of these words in context on google (see here) or
b) use at least two words/phrases during the week with their colleagues or clients and report back with the who and how in the next lesson.

You know what's coming next, right?

8. The Oscars
In the next class, check and edit the screenplays. Encourage students to mix into different groups to read and review each others dialogues. Ask for volunteers to do one as a quick play.

Ask some of the students if and how they used the words they chose during the week or if they read them anywhere else.

Over the coming lessons, throughout the following weeks, you now have two different here's-one-I-made-earlier ice-breakers/ warmers /fillers at hand and can get different students acting out the various dialogues or discussing how students have managed to use the vocabulary.

They love that part, especially if they inject the words into a later conversation and you notice.

As always, hope this works for you as well as it does for me!

You can apply these steps to any lesson which involves teaching a lot of lexis in one go.

Before you dash off though, do you have another tip or suggestion for us on making vocabulary sticky?

Share your ideas by clicking comments and thanks very much!






Useful links related to this posting:

What to do with emergent language
Beam their errors on to the wall
Finding articles in your students fields
Noticing the News
Reading turned into speaking

Best,
Karenne

Life is no bed of roses, disappointment as an EFL lesson

If you and your students have been following the Susan Boyle saga (and did the lesson plan) then you'll know that she didn't win the Britain's Got Talent contest last week.

It's disappointing to fail, however, in many respects perhaps it was for the best. Susan's suffering from exhaustion and the pressure may well have been too much if she'd won.

And I'm still very much looking forward to buying her CD!

Have your students ever failed at anything?

Have your students ever been horribly disappointed?

Do they know other people who've tried to do something, who put their whole hearts in but didn't reach their objective?

No doubt.

Life is not a bed of roses and we don't always achieve the goals we set for ourselves. In many respects, this might the reason the world loves Susan Boyle so much.

About 4 years ago I decided that I would finally get on with living my dream, since I was a kid, of being a movie-maker.

I told my bosses that I needed 3 months off work and went to live in a friend's cottage in Virginia, where I sat and typed 'til my fingers bled - from the crack of dawn to very, very late in the evenings.

Life on Purpose was the final product: a 120 page screenplay, action adventure - Matrix meets Von Trier - and was about a 40 year old man who was dissatisfied with life, wife and family. He ended up in a labyrinth World of the Gods and had to make his way out through a convoluted karmic untangling, ultimately discovering his destiny.

Despite interest, it didn't sell, sigh, so nowadays I teach dogme-style instead and write teaching materials and blogs, LOL!

Would you like to turn this theme of disappointment into a lesson with your students?

Pre-task
Ensure they've kept up2date on the Susan B saga - multiple links here. Send this link via email.

In-class
1. Write the word disappointment on the board. On 4 brainstorming branches, write

• ways we express disappointment and regret
• things that people fail at
• phrases of sympathy & empathy
  
• phrases of encouragement and motivation
  

Elicit as much as possible, supplying a few of your own.

2. Go into story-telling mode, sharing a personal story of your own failure at doing something important - don't supply too many details or wrap it up with the positive outcome. Stop short, perhaps 85% of the story and then let them ask you questions.

3. Accept your students' natural oh, I'm sorries, other empathy noises and their encouragements to fall down 7 times, get up 8.

Answer back naturally as if with a group of friends. You can occasionally glance at the board encouraging through your body language that they should be using some of the phrases and expressions there.

Don't overly correct their English at this stage.

4. Now ask your students what grammar structures you used to tell the story, list these on the board.

5. Then ask them to write the following lists:

• 3 personal, professional or academic disappointments
• 2 disappointments of someone in their friendship circle or families
• 2 disappointments of anyone famous (entertainer, movie star etc)

6. Divide your students into small intimate groups, 3 - 6 members each.

7. Encourage them to work in turns, choosing a disappointment they feel comfortable sharing with each other - they'll have ones that are private and others not connected directly to themselves so if you have students who'd, for personal or cultural reasons, prefer to talk in the 3rd person, they won't be left out.

In my own experience, however, students can easily fill a lesson just talking about themselves ;-).


8. Make sure they are using the phrases you brainstormed at the beginning of the lesson in natural context. Circulate, correcting language. Feedback.

To keep a copy of this lesson tip, simply click on the title (so that only this page is open) then go down to the green eco-safe badge and click to email or print it.

But before you dash off, now I've told you my terrible disappointment of not being an award winning screenwriter, want to share any of your own as-of-yet non achievements?

Useful links related to this posting:
The price of water in airports, anger in the EFL classroom
The role of pride in the classroom

Best,
Karenne
p.s. hat tip to woodcutter for prompting me to get on with writing a follow-up posting dealing with Susan B's loss.

The Role of Pride in the Business English Classroom

At the British School in Tumbaco, I once had the brief and unfortunate experience of working for an arrogant pig (no longer employed there and no other word could describe this person) who thought that the Ecuadorian students and their parents were all stupid because they couldn’t speak to him in fluent English.

I remember very clearly his nose stuck about 100 meters in the air as he decried the entire Quiteño population devoid of intelligence while he himself, of course, could barely manage the words Cerveza or Baño.  Idiots aside, one of the things stopping communication from emerging in your adult language classrooms is fear.

Not just the fear of speaking but the fear of sounding stupid.

When teaching adults there is an extra, realistic, element: their fear of being judged as being inferior simply because they don’t know the right words nor how to use them appropriately.

So, today’s posting, part 3 on the art of teaching conversation is all about PRIDE.

As it’s probably this issue that accounts for the majority of students who end up quitting their lessons. Do you agree?

We've all got ego and those at the top have even more. I'm willing to bet you've all heard the following from your learners:

“I sounds unprofessional when I answer the phone. I speak not good so if no one help me, I put down the phone.” Croatian secretarial student.

“Sometimes my brain goes dead. The words I know go away completely and I suddenly don’t know what to say. When I remember it is too late, they are discussing something else.

I feel angry when this happens because in my language I can control the conversation, in English the people I am talking to control me.” German Business executive.

“Words are my life, my work. When I cannot use words I am not me.” Ecuadorian journalist.

Put yourself in their shoes!

Can you imagine what it must feel like to suddenly become that inadequate? 

Earlier that day they perhaps closed a €1.5million deal, are the kings and queens of their worlds yet when they swaggered into your English class they were suddenly unable to construct a simple sentence.

Pay special attention to your students’ lives, their prides about their lives and professions.

Think a little about the non-physical environment you create in the classroom and make efforts to keep it a safe, non-judgmental place: one where it is okay to try new challenges, make errors, be again five year old children or thirteen year old know-it-all-dummies. 

Your role as their English teacher is to nurture, to coach them, to give them the tools which will allow them to express themselves

as themselves

within a foreign language.

One of the things I often do, especially with my captains of Industry is reminding them that I wouldn’t have a job if they were already perfect in English.   No job, no money, no life. We laugh when I say “Come on, please make lots of mistakes so that I can buy more chocolate/ pay my rent/ go on holiday!”

Do you have any useful tricks up your sleeve - things you do or say to make sure your students are comfortable with their errors?

Think about what else you can do to help your students keep their egos intact while extracting and encouraging their English conversational abilities.

Do you praise them often? How?

Are you, yourself, busy learning something new so that you can remind yourself often about what it feels like to be the ‘idiot’ in the room?

Don’t hesitate to let us know your own tips and strategies for managing pride in the adult Business English classroom

To read part one: knowing who your learners are, come here.

To read part two: finding out what your students are interested in discussing, come here.

Conversation materials and activities: www.kalinago-english.com

Where’s the love, y’all?

Part 2 of the Art of Teaching Conversation To Language Learners. To read part 1 first come here.

Last night, after a tough day presenting a educational proposal to a rather tough crowd, I met up with some mates and had a brilliant night listening to a rock band in an off-the-beaten-track club in Marienplatz.

The rockers were Germans, all between the ages of 50 and 60, singing in English and they were shockingly good. In no time at all, we were thrown back in time, belting out the Eye of the Tiger at the top of our voices and all cares and worries were instantly gone.

The passion of these white-haired geezers rubbed off on us and we had the time of our lives.

Enough about me,

are your students comfortable speaking English?

In part one of this series, I mentioned that to effectively teach speaking, you need to know who your students are and how they learn, however, you also need to know what it is that makes them tick as human beings. You need to know what their passions are.

There are several factors which prevent communication and fluency from occurring in your classroom.

One of these is motivation.

What are your students in to?

What makes them wake up in the morning, what do they look forward to, who have they been, what hard stuff have they had to live through?

What makes them mad or frustrated, what do they hope will happen before the end of the year?

What knowledge do they have that they just can’t wait to tell you?

Don’t know?

Find out!

ASK because it is this emotional stuff that drives most of us human beings to be humans.

No one cares to talk about things they don’t care about.

Am I telling it to simply?

Seriously, are you in the mood to discuss HTML and blog design with me?

Okay, maybe if you’re a fellow blogger who landed on this page you and I could have a good old chinwag.

But the rest of you (I know because I can see the snores in my friends’ eyes or hear them down the phone) are not going to sit through a discussion like this, right? This is pretty much what handing over a textbook to your students and then following through from page 1 to page 112 sequentially does.

It’s also what happens when you make photocopies of Spotlight on topics not relevant to their lives or download news articles from the net that are based on your interests, not theirs.

Er, BORING!

Your students have their own

• 
  
  hobbies
• 
  
  families
• 
  
  interests
• 
  
  concerns
• 
  
  ambitions
• 
  
  responsibilities
• 
  
  stories
• 
  
  lives!

Of course, sometimes it can be all about you and your interests. Sometimes that’s interesting as it’s motivating to them to learn about who you are and how you tick because you’re the teacher and they’re curious.

But not all the time.

When you’re working with a textbook or other learning material, personalize it, make it about them, turn each topic around so that it has something to do with their lives and interests.

If you’re lucky enough not to be in a situation which requires a set course book then you can make your entire curriculum entirely about your students needs and interests.

Ask them what these are.

I couldn’t answer or participate in class because although I wanted to speak in English, I wasn’t interested. I didn’t know what to say, I had no relationship to the topic presented.
Beatrix W., Mercedes Bank, 2007 discussing why she didn’t participate in previous English lessons.

For students whose affective filter (the emotional reason a person doesn’t learn) is based on fear or low self-esteem, your very paying attention to their needs will break this down.

Be a little patient with them, consistently show that you care: enjoy their triumphs, compliment their successes and show that you are interested in their lives.

In Scott Thornbury’s excellent book, How To Teach Speaking, he suggests that

‘the conditions in which speaking occurs play a crucial role in determining the degree of fluency achievable.’

He goes on to lay these out as:

Cognitive – familiarity with the topic, the genre, the other people you are talking to, shared knowledge and processing demands.

Affective – feelings towards the topics and participants and self-consciousness.

Performance – being able to monitor your fellow speakers’ responses, opportunities to use gesture and eye-contact, degree of collaboration, planning and rehearsal time, time pressure and environmental conditions.

Find out what your students are in to.

To do this, here’s the link to grab a simple brainstorming sheet from my website.

And here’s a video of me (How embarrassing –a very bad hair day but decided to show it to y’all anyway).

In it, I’m in the final steps of a brainstorming session with my students – I do these every 8 to 10 weeks and it gets easier and more interesting each time.

I hope it helps you out with your own elicitation of topics.

Do let me know how it goes, plus of course, don’t hesitate to ask if you’ve got any questions.


Best,
Karenne
Read part one here or a related article here.


Watch the video we did when we were discussing the Sundance Film Festival, here.

Your style, my style - our ways of speaking

Part one: the art of teaching conversation to language learners

Starting off with the basics is probably a very good place to kick off this series (of at least 7 parts).

Do you know who your students are?

Do you know what they like? Do you know their learning styles and how they learn?

Knowing a little bit about the way people learn anything at all is one part of being a really great conversation teacher.

In general, it's one of those essential life skills, however, when used for teaching English it can help you to unlock your students' great gabbing skills.

Because let's face it, despite the fact that when they are sitting in your classroom they may appear to be all quiet and shy, nervous and uncommunicative, when they're out there with their friends, families, across the boardroom table or with their lovers they probably aren't so very quiet.

In their own language.

And this is probably true, more or less, across cultures.

Okay, okay, maybe some of them are always quiet. But here are some reasons they might not be talking a lot in their English lessons:

* the subject you brought to class isn't interesting.
* they don't like you.
* you aren't teaching them in the way they want you to.

There are many more reasons than the above - hence this is only part 1 - more in the next postings.


For now let's have a look at:

“you aren't teaching them in the way they want you to.”

Don’t switch off the computer just yet, it’s not an attack of your teaching habits. We’ve all been there. The thing is, we teachers, sorry - we humans, often think that the way we do something is the way it is always done, and if not, it should be!

So be honest:

Are you teaching in a way that is

like how they learn,

or like how you learn?

Read through this list of learner styles and have a think, not only about your learners and where they fall into this list, but also yourself and the way that you teach. There is a doorway into getting your students actively conversing, this is one of the approaches that just might work for you:

Visual learners

learn most from things they see.

They love making pictures of new words & phrases and are happy organizing their new vocabulary into little card boxes (color-coded, of course) with little drawings or diagrams to help remember what the words mean.

They enjoy photography and art. Usually they have a good sense of direction and can read maps. When they explain something to someone else, they use a piece of paper so that they can show you what they are trying to say.

Auditory/Aural learners

learn best from the things they hear.

They love music and often can sing well.

They listen to what other people have to say, enjoy audio books and when they are learning a language, they often hear the subtle differences in accents and pronunciation.

They use i-tunes to help them study, especially all the great podcasts.

Kinesthetic/ physical learners

learn most effectively when they use their hands and body, when they touch something.

Usually this type of learner also really enjoys sports and exercise and is very active.

They often talk with their hands - are physically very expressive people and learn from doing.

Activity and movement are what gets these students fired up and interested.

Verbal people

enjoy words.

They like writing things down, increasing and using their vocabulary. They like stories and storytelling.

And boy, do they ever love talking!





They enjoy making speeches and listening to other people's ideas, expressing opinions.

They like words that rhyme, idioms and puns and usually they make an effort to really know the meaning of words they’re using.

Logical people

really need life to make sense. They feel comfortable with security, with rules and systems and actually enjoy learning grammar – it helps them to understand the language and put it into a format.

They think about the placement of words.

They like knowing what’s coming next and being able to prepare –they need to know that what they’re learning is something they can use again in the future.

It goes without saying, right, that you can have visual learners who are verbal and visual learners who are logical.

The logical audio guys love Beethoven, the verbal audio guys like rap.

The next thing we'll have a look at is interpersonal and intrapersonal skills or attitudes. Here we’ll call them social learners and solitary learners:

Solitary learners prefer to study at home and feel good when they achieve something by themselves. They don't mind doing homework, actually like self-study books, think independently, enjoy quiet.

They are pretty good at self-analysis (if they used this blog posting as an activity it would be pretty easy for them, they know their learning styles already).

It’s always a good idea to let them know in advance what you want from them and allow them time to prepare an answer.

Usually, if you hang on for a bit after asking a question, they will surprise you with very well-thought out answers.

Social learners love hanging out in groups and learning together, being a part of a class or community where they can share what they know.

They pay attention to other people's feelings, enjoy making others laugh and learn. They love playing games and activities, doing projects where several people have to create something new, together.

More in the next postings:

Knowing about your students' styles can help you prepare dynamic and interesting lessons. You can get them chatting about the things they care about simply by paying attention to where the key fits and how to turn it.

I’ll be writing about activities to do with each style, discussing motivation in speaking, giving you a list of phrases inherent, making questions and having in-depth conversations, talking a little about cultural norms and how to provide good, measurable feedback to your language learners.

In the meantime don’t hesitate to give me your own feedback and help steer the direction of these postings by asking questions.

Best,
Karenne

p.s Would you like your students to have a look at this and think about some of the issues presented?
Student version: here


Part 2 on the art of teaching conversation to language learners, here.

More information:

See article that prompted this posting (by Jason West of Languages out there), here

Websites on learning styles:

Vark, a guide to learning styles
Learning styles online
Kolb’s learning styles on business balls.com

Books on learning styles:

Knowing Me, Knowing You: An Integrated Sociopsychology Guide to Personal Fulfilment & Better Relationships: An Integrated Socio-psychology Guide to Personal Fulfilment and Better Relationships



Knowing Me, Knowing You: Exploring Personality Type and Temperament

Helping Learners Learn: Exploring Strategy Instruction in Language Classrooms Across Europe (Language Learning (Ecml, Graz))

The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners (Merrill Education/ASCD College Textbooks)

Learner-Centered Classroom Practices and Assessments: Maximizing Student Motivation, Learning, and Achievement

A code of ethics for CEOs

I was browsing around in youtube last night and came across a video from a Columbian youth.

The question was so poignant I immediately knew it would make a great lesson.

Today in Davos, the World Economic Forum begins. To support their activities, other than their website, the WEF have also created an interactive page on youtube for questions and lectures on a number of topics including economy, ethics, environment and politics.

Pablo's answer to the question Should CEOs have a code of ethics was:

You can download the video from here.
Not sure how to take it into class, come here.

I know I'm 100% for this idea, my feelings are "about time" -but what do our business English students think?

Here's a quick lesson plan - don't hesitate to add to it or suggest other uses for these rich and interesting discussions.

• ask students if they know what a "code of ethics" is
• get them to list professions that have one
  

doctors, psychologists, lawyers, journalists, social workers and more

• write on the board - Should CEOs have a code of ethics? Ask why, why not?

• watch the video (possibly more than once depending on your students' levels)
  
• review some of the more difficult vocabulary* (see below, you could also pre-teach)
  
• hold a discussion on the suggestions he makes, feasible?
  

• provide students with these codes of ethics: doctors and lawyers

Quite long: you can split these up into parts or only use some of it,
do a google search for others if you have a large class. Different codes to different students.

• provide this guideline on creating a code of ethics, c.o.e. (or adapt)
  
• get students to brainstorm a new code specifically for CEOs in groups
• encourage them to use some of the 'legal-speak' they've picked up so far
• monitor slightly, remind them of the modals of obligation
  

• choose a presenter from each group to relay their c.o.e, edit as necessary
  
• discuss the pros and cons of their suggestions
  

Important vocabulary

• to be contingent on, to standardize, to compromise
• unethical liberties, human rights, common characteristics, profit-driven
• an international code, international markets
  

Post-task activity

Let your students choose between watching further videos on youtube, listening to podcasts or reading articles, blog postings etc on the WEF and ask them to report back on their activities next week (or next lesson(s)).

You could also ask them to research the people present or behind the scenes. Alternatively, you can also ask your students to look into the history of the Forum and the location chosen.

Or, if you're lucky enough to be teaching a group with great technology skills, teens /youth perhaps, why not get them to make video responses on their cameras or camera phones and actually participate in the debates - such fun!

Best,
Karenne
p.s don't forget you can .pdf this page or send it to yourself/ a friend. Buttons below.

Flight 1549: disasters as fodder for EFL lessons?

UPDATE 8Mar09 - this lesson plan now has an additional animated video which can you use to discuss process with students -especially good if teaching ESP:Aviation students.


Disasters in the news are great opportunities to get your students talking.

Whenever a major crisis hits the news media, words and facts fly out and students begin embedding statistics about the event in their brains.

If your students are anything like mine, after any major incident, they arrive in the classroom bursting to share what's happened (maybe because I'm constantly reminding them that I want them to small talk).

They're often able to tell us in English- even the lower level students - just how many people were involved, where 'it' occurred and the process: the before, during and aftermath.

They have opinions too.

Sometimes in their passion of finally having a story for me, though, I see clear areas of grammatical weakness and occasionally their sequencing adverbs are a little off.

Does this happen to you too?

If you'd like to test this exercise out, the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River is a great example. It's dramatic, it's almost everyone who fly's greatest fear and it had a happy ending.

A very 'real' way to demonstrate the importance of adverbs of sequence/ adverbials of time.

- first
- then
- next
- after that
- finally

get this picture here

If you'd like to spice things up and get your students stretching their linguistic muscles, add things like:

- initially
- firstly, secondly...
- while

Stick up words/ phrases + adverbial clauses like
- by the time
- during this time
- in the aftermath.

What exactly do stewardesses say?

To really hone in on the point, once you've finished discussing the story as it occurred in the news, why not go through in-flight safety instructions.

And for my TwIT teachers, I really don't have to remind you that you can grab videos of flight 1549's crash (here) to turn this into a great multi-media lesson. You can also use this tracking map from the New York Times.

SimplyConversations lesson:
Business Travel (freelancers, institutions)

Any more tips, tricks? Related links? Don't hesitate to add them below in the comments box. Ta!

Best,
Karenne

New:March8,2009

Animation Video



Recommended book: Aviation English
USA + world
UK
Germany

Free Conversation Lesson, New Year 2009

Back to classes so soon?

Back to energizing, inspiring and motivating, getting our students talking in English...

Did you just sigh?

Tsk, tsk. ;-)

Here's a nice freebie for you, a speaking skills lesson, it should provide at least enough material for the first two classes this year!

New Year 2009


Enjoy - some of the answers to the questions in the SimplyQuestTM will be quite surprising!

Best,
Karenne

p.s. You can also pick up a song activity based on Abba's Happy New Year ballad, that's the previous posting, (here.)

Personally, speaking

I received an excellent question via email about a month ago and it made me sit, think and try to work out how to give a reply worthy of the value in the q'. There's nothing harder than having to analyze the very nature of your teaching style, which I'm sure you know too!

Anyway, while drafting up my response, I got to thinking that instead of just replying to my emailer, it'd be best to share it with all of you...

This was her letter:

Dear Karenne

I’d like to thank–you for running such a great teacher training session on promoting fluency/ speaking skills. I’ve been thinking about student-centred learning (again) and have been re-evaluating my teaching techniques (again).

I have a Cambridge CELTA- so my techniques are fairly student-centred.

What REALLY impressed me was the way in which you got the teachers to do the work/learning, through a series of stages that built upon an initial task. I know the power of this type of teaching. I learnt through “doing/ self discovery” as opposed to being “told.”

There is a saying that goes something like this: Tell me and I will forget. Let me do it for myself and I will remember.

I’d love to move closer to this style of teaching and also to be able to write/adapt classroom materials that include more student-centered techniques. I was wondering if you have any advice and suggestions for reading material?

Kind regards,
S.F, Stuttgart

I'm going to go way, way out on a limb here and confess that chiefly "my style" of teaching and creating student-centered lessons actually comes from business guru style books rather than pedagogical/ teacher training manuals!

Yeah, Gods, I expect I'll be shot by the ELT teaching community for that comment!

You know the books I mean?

Pop psychology, basically.

Covey's 7 Habits, Stumbling on Happiness, Wisdom of the Crowds - that sort of thing.

Also, of course, my teaching has also been heavily influenced from traveling and the people I've met globally.

Way back in High School (in the US), when everyone was focused and organized or getting there, figuring out what they were going to be: doctors, lawyers, engineers etc, I only knew that what I most wanted out of life was to see the world.

I come from a teenie-weenie island in the middle of nowhere (sorry, Grenada) and have always found people and culture fascinating.



This doesn't mean I didn't like work - I'm often accused of being a work-a-holic - but it does mean that I didn't study to be a doctor or a lawyer.

Instead, in the beginning of my 20's I thought what I'd most love to become was a wine importer and exotically travel the vineyards of the world on glorious shopping trips.


Yeah, okay, right. But I did study to do this.

And, in an odd sort of way, it was the pursuit of this daydream that kinda, sorta led me to leave London for Australia even though I eventually got waylaid in Thailand on the way.

I was sitting on a beach in Java one late afternoon, after having been backpacking solo for about six months and a man came over and sat down next to me.

I don't have to tell you that initially I was pretty suspicious of his intentions.

But, pretty soon, following behind him tottered over two of his kids. They were adorable darlings and looked at me with wide beautiful brown eyes.

The man began to talk to me.

I tried to explain that my Malay was pretty basic (I had a book I was learning from to pass time on buses - Malay is very similar to Indonesian) - it was definitely not enough to manage conversation.

Part of me just wished he'd go on his merry way so that I could just chill out and watch the sunset. But he continued rambling on and I found myself listening.

A very, very strange thing started to happen.

I knew what he was talking about.

He was telling me about his life, his wishes and his dreams.

He used the sand to describe where he lived, what his house looked like but it was much more than just the scribbles on the sand, there was something magical in his very intent to communicate his experience to me and in my willingness to concentrate.

What can I still tell you about that 2hr conversation with an ageing Javan dressed in a colorful man-skirt, over 15 years ago?

Yes, I still do remember most of it.

I don't remember the small-small-talk about the fine evening, have a vagueish memory that the sky drifted off into deep oranges and purples but I do clearly remember that he was married and had 5 children.

His dreams were to give his kids a good education so that they wouldn't end up having to work the land like he does. He was puzzled by politicians and the future of his country, was Buddhist and thought that the world would be a better place if everyone just loved and talked to each other.

His wife was a good woman who argued with him often (about money) and one of his children was sick.

He wanted to know who I was, who my family were - why I was traveling alone, wasn't I afraid that someone would hurt me?

He was actually quite worried about my safety and he wouldn't like for one of his daughters to grow up to be like me! ;-(

I learned then, right there on that beach, that we are all passionate about ourselves.

This sounds kind of "selfish" but it's not really.

I mean that what we think matters to us.

And what we think about what we think is of great importance.

Sometimes we will share these very deepest beliefs with an absolute stranger, they are that important to us.

Recognizing this intrinsic human quality and applying it to language teaching simply makes sense to me.

Our students want to talk about themselves.

They are learning English in order to discuss their company, absolutely, however actually they want to discuss their relationship to their company. Their job, their project, their colleagues.

They are learning English to discuss the weather appropriately but more than likely they want to talk about their own experience and feelings about sunshine vs. cloudy days. They are learning English to tell their personal stories.

Textbooks all too often are passive, dry and safe.


They are designed to specifically cater for the highest percentage of student ratio: across age, education, occupation and experience. They are designed to be commercially successful and they are produced in a set framework, the publisher's style, (or whom else's that they deem most popular over the last x years - no matter the faults) and the author's frame of reference.

They specifically aim not to offend and in that very lack of risk, they fall flat and don't live up to our students' communicative needs.

Yes, there are exceptions -I'll blog my praise of them later- and no, I'm not dismissing published textbooks nor their value in general. I also acknowledge the enormous quantity of work that goes into producing them.

However our role as EFL educators is to make sure that our tools and materials (even when we're using a course book) successfully elicit student response. We are there to improve their communicative skills.

How do we do that?

By making our students the first aim, the first objective of any lesson plan.

We must put their actual interests way up on the list of priorities. We can not follow a set index, - unit 4, page 32 - we must start with what do you need to learn?

Followed by what do you want to learn? (And sometimes vice versa).

And when we do this, when we get them to buy in to learning, they will learn - even if it's yet another textbook/case-study on advertising.

Because instead of discussing the merits of some random BT (British Telecom) ad from about 5 years ago that almost none of them has ever seen (as it was shown on the telly in the UK, not in Germany or Ecuador or Hong Kong and none of these students even know what British Telecom is, nor do they care!)

Ranting sorry...

But instead, as language coaches, we can turn that case study on its head and ask what ads are on the television currently in their countries and which of these ads are interesting to them.

Then we can encourage them to take charge of the lesson's material, change the case study themselves into something that they are interested in watching and discussing: a product that they are or not buying and while they are passionately engaged in their own experience, we can slide that new vocabulary and lexical chunks in like a nice new shoe and they'll adopt it: because they really need it in that moment, it has tangible value.

And with that last sentence, I'm brought nicely full circle to Stephen Covey's book, the 7 habits of highly successful people.

One of his major habits is "Begin with the end in mind."

What is the "end" we are teaching to? Our students' fluency.

so..
Begin with your students' interests,
start with what they need to say.

Questions, comments?

Don't hesitate to add your thoughts, opinions. Let's make this a conversation about conversation!

Karenne,


p.s. I've put a brainstorming sheet on my website which you can download and use to help determine a plan for your conversations lessons. Change it, adapt it, make it better & send me a copy... it's creative commons. Click here.