On Rapport

I do Bikram Yoga. There, I admitted it. Just to get that out there before we move on. I also need to tell you that I have as much flexibility as some thin steel at absolute zero (though without the steel) and am, concomitantly, rubbish at Bikram yoga. I’ve had about 45 classes now, still can’t even touch my toes and nearly die at least once during the arduous 90-minute lock-step torture that not even the Inquisition dared employ. Ok. Confession over.

Yogi Bugbear

The reason I mention this is because there is a distinct difference between the two instructors I see most often. Let’s call them Rita and Laura. While both are technically very proficient and even gifted at what they do, know the 26 poses inside out (not an unapt expression for yoga) and offer helpful suggestions for getting a position right or improving your own practice, the classes with Rita are just much better than those with Laura. Why would this be so and what does it have to do with ELT?

The answer is: rapport. But just what is that? The MacMillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners defines rapport as “a relationship in which people like, understand and respect each other” (which suggests I failed to establish rapport with a couple of ex-girlfriends.. ). Narrowing the scope more to ELT, Jim Scrivener describes rapport as: “the quality of the relationship in the classroom: teacher – student and student – student. It is not primarily technique driven, but grows naturally when people like each other and get on together” (Classroom Management Techniques p40). So, basically, it’s about people liking each other and getting on well together, which is all very well, but how can it be achieved?

One of the problems with rapport is that some just seem to have it naturally, while others can struggle. While it’s difficult to say exactly why one teacher might have better rapport than another, there are certain behaviours that a teacher can work on to help them get there. To this end, Scrivener goes on from the above quotation to list “authenticity”,” good listening”, “showing respect and support”, and “a good sense of humour” as highly desirable in achieving a good rapport with a class. While in How to Teach English, Harmer adds “recognising students” to the list, as well as “being even handed” (pp26 & 27). So, now we have a fairly complete list, let’s see how it manifests itself in my yoga classes.

A rapport diagnostic: how to aid and hinder rapport-building

In this section, we’ll look at some of the ways that Laura manages to create a negative atmosphere at times, and some suggestions for how to remedy this.

Problem One

What the instructor does: singles late-comers out, stops the class to tell people off for being late and implies that they’re not taking the class seriously.

The problem: in a room full of adults, who are there to improve in some way, this sort of public reprimand is unhelpful, has a negative effect on the atmosphere in the room and can even be somewhat cringe-worthy.

What the instructor should do:  be understanding. Everyone coming to yoga has a job, often a high-pressure job in this part of the world, and the traffic is a nightmare.

It’s hot, y’know

Perhaps they just got held up and couldn’t get there on time. At least they tried! Why not simply brush it off, continue and maybe after class have a quiet word, asking what the problem is and hinting that it’s not ideal to arrive late, but at least they’re making an effort to come.

Problem Two

What the instructor does: singles out only strong participants for praise

The problem: those less proficient at yoga are rarely – if ever – encouraged and can feel that they’re not up to the mark and that their efforts are futile (I know; I’m one of them!)

What the instructor should do:  Be even-handed. Distribute praise evenly throughout the group when the situation demands it. If someone has put in some extra effort, improved on a posture last week, is noticeably suffering (very common!) and needs encouragement, praise them. Don’t praise everything, or it loses its effect, but don’t just praise strong students as this can be counter-productive. Not all of us can put our foot over our head while balancing on one-leg and hold it for 25 seconds…

Problem Three

What the instructor does: reprimands people for getting things wrong or for, accordingly, “not listening”

The problem: mistakes are part of the learning process and just because someone makes one doesn’t mean they weren’t listening!

What the instructor should do:  show some respect and support. Demonstrate the posture again and highlight the part that’s gone wrong, not singling anyone in particular out. Simply deliver the ‘correction’ in a more supportive manner, telling a few students that they should continue to work on a certain part of the posture (nothing wrong with demand high yoga…). Perhaps offer some individual guidance while monitoring (yes, in yoga too) and don’t stop the class to tell people they’re not listening just because they’re not 100% perfect (I’m pretty sure this is actually some teacher insecurity hindering learning here, but that’s a blog post for another time..).

Problem Four

What the instructor does: knows the names of the stronger participants, but not the weaker ones (though oddly, she knows mine – must be a case of going long enough that she can’t not)

The problem: as with the praising, weaker students can feel discouraged or even slighted.

What the instructor should do: recognise students. It’s hard, very hard, to do, but a little more effort would go a long way. It’s particularly hard with a “drop-in” like event like this particular yoga class (an open group or rolling intake in ELT), but after a couple of weeks there really is no excuse. Even I know the names of some others I’ve barely spoken to. She could make some notes pre-class to help her remember or talk to people before they go in, asking how they are, etc. (she does this to a point, but only with the stronger ones or long-term regulars like me).

Problem Five

What the instructor does: delivers the class as if it were training session on how to kill enjoyment, rather than a collective exercise in, well, exercise.

I’m flagging at 23…

The problem: there’s very little humour, or give, in her classes. They can be isolating. Sometimes it can seem monotonous, as if I have to get the most out of it for myself, without being gently nudged along by the rapport the teacher creates.

What the instructor should do:  have a sense of humour and reference the group effort. Rita has a good sense of humour and uses it well: “you’ve paid for the pain, make the most of it”, “only four postures to go before that glass of wine”, etc. I’m not saying she’s yoga’s Eddie Izzard, but in times of stress like the last third of a Bikram class, a little light banter goes a long way, helping you feel normal and part of a group. Yes, part of a group. This is exactly what Laura fails to do. And not having a sense of humour which, when used effectively can help create a group atmosphere, does not help.

Problem Six

What the instructor does: insists that postures are done by the book, regardless of individual issues with any one position in particular.

The problem: everyone is different and has different strengths and weaknesses and these should be catered for; it’s not a one-size-fits-all thing, the human body: my bad ankle is your dodgy hip. I guess it’s the yoga equivalent of learning preferences, in ELT terms.

What the instructor should do:  listen to the learners. It took about 2 months before I convinced Laura that I simply cannot do a couple of postures due to my knees. It’s not a case that I’m simply being a recalcitrant pest – that’s my knees. Rather than trying to push me to do a posture (three actually) in a certain way, help me round it by suggesting something else. I’m being slightly disingenuous here as she has now done this, but it took a while. Learners are individuals and should be treated as such.

Taking a Position

So that’s my list of ways in which rapport is not built in my yoga class, with the parallels for the ELT classroom needing no further explanation. I bet you never thought a Bikram Yoga class and, say, a pre-intermediate English class could have this in common, but they do. The same would apply to many other situations, such as group work, leadership, or even talking down the pub with your friends. If the rapport isn’t there, it’s just not going to work out as well. Of course, rapport can actually have a detrimental effect, and we’ve probably all seen those teachers who get by on it alone – the entertainers whose teaching may not be wonderful, but whose students sure have a good time in class (Scott Thornbury writes about this here). However, it’s clear that rapport is an essential element of good teaching, for me, and I enjoy my yoga classes far more with it, than without. And the same goes for my CELTA groups, my friendly games of doubles badminton, my office, my Spanish classes, my IELTS re-certification training… you name it. It really can be the rapport what makes it.

The Spanish Acquisition

I’m just back at work after a wonderful three week break. The first 9 days of this brief sojourn to pastures greener were in Spain, first Valencia for a couple of days and then a week in Andalucía. I was confronted for the first time with prolonged exposure to Spanish Spanish, in its various forms, (let’s not get into the politics of that here) which, for someone who learned their Spanish primarily in Costa Rica, was a fascinating linguistic adventure (isn’t this why everyone goes on holiday..?). However, it brought to my attention once more something which I’ve pondered before: the difference between learning a language and actually using it (I use myself as an example in this post simply as I have much more evidence about myself than anyone else – skip the next five paragraphs if that interests you not!).

A short anecdote

During my brief trip to Spain, I experienced something I’ve often struggled with in the past: Spanish. Ok, that’s not quite right. Using Spanish would be more accurate. I think I’m pretty good at learning Spanish: I know my subjunctives from my imperfects, notice things people say all the time, pick up on collocations, like the grammar and enjoy reading. My problem comes when I try to use the damn language (the same used to happen to my French too). It doesn’t happen all the time, but often when I try speaking Spanish I can become completely tongue-tied (or brain-tied), despite having passed the DELE C1 exam (which suggests I should be better than I am). I often just can’t think of how to begin to say the simplest thing and can’t quite seem to get over this in the moment.

In Sevilla, I had to buy an adaptor for my phone charger so I could plug it in. More specifically, I had to buy a USB adaptor which would then allow me to connect it to the mains. Having got to the centre of the city, I set of in search of one and within 5 minutes had stumbled across a small electronics shop. In I went and spoke to the man behind the counter, explaining what I needed.  He got an idea of what I wanted and then, when I said “I’ll show you it [the USB cable]”, he simply stared at me blankly. After eventually completing the transaction for a bargain 1.50, I left the shop and wondered why the breakdown in communication occurred.

Now, I hadn’t really spoken Spanish for about 6 months, but still, I should have the necessary lexis or ability to paraphrase my way out of most given situations. The grammar isn’t difficult for this type of description or request.  I was at a bit of a loss. I hadn’t been at my most fluent, but was out of practice with the language and felt a bit nervous due to this. Then it dawned on me, or rather, smacked me in the face so hard I could have been in Monty Python’s fish slapping dance. Instead of saying to the man “te lo muestro” (I’ll show you it), as intended, I actually repeated 3 times “te veo” (I see you), which makes so little sense in this situation as to be absurd.  Oddly enough, he was somewhat confused by my telling him in mid conversation about an adaptor that I could see him. Why did this happen?

Using Spanish?

The situation is made all the more frustrating for me by the fact that there are times when I’m really very fluent and have no problems at all speaking. I have puzzled about this a lot, trying to find reasons or spot a pattern and one or two things have suggested themselves. I principally have problems when I’m nervous or unsure, when I think a lot, with certain individuals,  when I’m with people I perceive to speak the language better than me, with L1 Spanish speakers who speak English to a high level. All of this really does point towards some sort of psychological/affective issue, but for the sake of writing something, let’s look at some other ideas.

In the following paragraphs, I’ll outline some potential theoretical accounts of why I might have the problems I do. This is not intended to be exhaustive or authoritative, merely some ideas that might be a useful introduction to such things for DELTA module 1 candidates.

Not So Smooth Operator

One of the aspects of speaking in an L2 which is difficult for learners is that, outside the contrivance that is the language classroom (to paraphrase Ellis), speaking takes place in real-time conditions or real operating conditions; that is to say, that instead of having time to prepare what I’m going to say about a given topic, for example, I’m thrown head first into the cut and thrust world of a real conversation in which, amongst other things, the topic may suddenly change, lexis I do not know may be used/needed, I may have to suddenly respond to something said, the grammar might be quite complex or there may be a group of native speakers having a good chinwag and I get lost. There is also the element of listening to consider, for spoken interaction wouldn’t really work without it (see ‘mansplainer’). In real operating conditions, there’s a lot for your brain to handle and so sometimes it’s just overload and you lose fluency or accuracy or both.

“I can’t control the way I’m movin my lips… it’s automatic, it’s automatic”

In order to cope with the above, learners have to develop a degree of automaticity. This lovely combination of six syllables basically means that, when speaking, the learner does not need to focus their attention on putting the language together, but rather can devote a greater degree of brain power to getting their point across i.e. they are what is perceived to be fluent. There are numerous aspects to this, such as relying on chunks, fillers and other discourse features, as well as having had enough practice at actually speaking to make it more automatic (like riding a bike, say).  If you think about recounting an anecdote in an L2, for example, you probably don’t do it so fluently the first time you find yourself doing it; however, by the fifth time, you’re probably regaling everyone as if you were a native. Why? You’ve thought about it, practised it and started to make the things you had to think about before more automatic; in other words, you’ve developed that degree of automaticity.

Performance Anxiety

Most teachers (and many learners) will be familiar with the problem I outlined above: the learner knows the language quite well in class and on paper, but when it comes to using it, it just doesn’t work out for some reason.  This seems to me to mirror what Ellis in SLA Research and Language Teaching, following Chomsky and Sharwood Smith, describes as the difference between “linguistic competence” (knowledge of the formal properties of the language) and “performance 2” (actually using the language receptively and productively). Thus, a learner may have a reasonable degree of linguistic competence i.e. I know the ‘rules’, lexis, quite well, but a low performance ability i.e. I can’t always turn that knowledge into successful language use to communicate, and hence comes across as not fluent to some degree.

Krashen Burn

Krashen proposed five hypotheses for SLA (Second Language Acquisition). I’m only going to discuss three here, as I feel these are the most germane to the topic of this post, but the other two are but a Google search away.

The first of these hypotheses is that there is a distinction between “acquisition” (all quotations from The Natural Approach pp26-27) and “learning”; that is, the former is “natural”, “unconscious” and achieved through “using language for real communication”, while the latter is “conscious, “formal knowledge of a language” aided by formal instruction (or ‘teaching’, to you and I). Krashen uses this distinction to suggest that fluency would be directly linked to acquisition, not learning, and so only that which has already been acquired would be used fluently in a given situation. How this is measured is anyone’s guess, but that’s more or less what he says.

The Medium is not the Monitor

Another hypothesis, the third, was that of the Monitor. This proposes that what we have learned in the L2 is only really useful in terms of monitoring what we have acquired and is thus not particularly useful for fluency, which relies on the acquired system. In other words, this implies that our fluency is directly related to what we’ve acquired and that our learning only comes in to check this (for Krashen, this can happen before, during or after an utterance – make of that what you will). So, if I over-use the Monitor, I will be thinking too much about being ‘correct’, this disrupting my fluency and, possibly, communicative success; if I under use the Monitor, I won’t be focussed on accuracy at all, but distinctly on the message. Furthermore, I have to be aware of any rule to monitor before I even use it i.e. I haven’t studied or been exposed to the present continuous at all, so I ain’t going to be using the Monitor to check my accuracy with it. However, for the purposes of this post, the thing to take away is that Monitor over-use can have a very negative effect of fluency.

Personal Affects

An affective filter?

The fifth hypothesis was the Affective Filter. Here, Krashen describes how affective factors i.e. factors linked to feelings or emotions, can affect language acquisition. His basic point is that if the learner is motivated, has a positive self-image and is relaxed, there will be “deeper” language acquisition if there is sufficient input as the Affective Filter will be low to allow the language in; conversely, if the learner is incredibly nervous, in no way open to learning or lacking in self-esteem (these can of course all be linked), then the Affective Filter will be high and the chances of acquisition severely dented.

Krashen is talking about SLA, but I see no reason why the same should not apply to performance (and indeed often see the term low Affective Filter used to describe having a good classroom rapport so that learners aren’t afraid to speak). You could then extrapolate that if a learner is nervous in any given situation, than their chances of being able to speak fluently will be severely dented due to a high ‘Affective Filter’. So, a learner may be very well aware of the language they need to communicate their message, but unable to access it and perform due to affective factors such as self-esteem, nervousness or pressure.

In Conclusion

So, there’s some ideas to think about next time you have a learner who’s having problems with their fluency. There are others and so why not mention one in the comments below. My own idea about my problems is that it is something affective and thus very much out of my language learning control. Perhaps NLP is the answer… or perhaps not.

The Past Simple and Present Continuous Walk into a Bar. It was Tense.

This is a summary of a DELTA session I did recently introducing the notion that time and tense may not actually be the same thing. It largely follows Michael Lewis’ The English Verb, which comes highly recommended, and I touch on aspect at the end.

How Many Tenses Does English Have?

This may seem like quite a tricky question to answer, if you start counting all those coursebook tenses up: present simple, present continuous, past perfect… However, it’s actually much simpler than that. English has but a mere two tenses, which are present (or non-past) and past. This assertion may seem surprising, but should become clearer as you read on.

The reason that English is said to have two tenses is the definition of grammatical tense which, according to Lewis in The English Verb, involves “a morphological change in the base form of the verb” (p50). You can see why this limits English to two tenses if you then try to work out what morphological changes are permitted in English verbs. Take the verb say”, for example. In the present we can say “he says”, while in the past “he said”. However, for the future, we have to add something else, we can’t simply express futurity with a change to the verb and get examples such as “I’m going on holiday with Marion Cotillard next week” or “I’ll say yes when Marion proposes”.  Other languages, such as the Romance languages, have a conjugation to express futurity cf. “je dirais” in French or “yo diré” in Spanish, where there is a morphological change in the infinitives “dire” and “decir” (other ways of referencing the future can also be used).

Only 2 Tenses, But Time?

Of course, we have more than two ways of thinking about time. In the West, we’d probably say that time is conceived of in terms of the past, the present and the future (that said, Steven Pinker’s idea of our core notion of time in The Stuff of Thought is “before-or-after” and “at-the-same-time” (p 85), which is more or less the same idea, I guess, though I’m straying a bit from the point here). Thinking of past, present or future gives us three notions of time, but only two tenses, and so leads to the conclusion that time ≠ tense. After all, time is a semantic notion, whereas tense is grammatical. They can certainly correlate, as when I say “I hung out with Marion yesterday”, where I am clearly using the past tense to reference past time. However, consider the following and think about the tense being used and the time being talked about

• “If I went for a drink with Marion Cotillard, we’d talk about the English tense system”
• “So I go to meet Marion and she says to me ‘let’s talk tenses’”

In the first one, we have the past tense (went) but referring to a hypothetical present or future; in the second sentence, we have the present tense (go, says) referring to past time (I’m narrating a past event here). Indeed the present and the past tense can each be used to refer to past, present or future time. Another example of seemingly strange present tense referring to past time occurs in sentences like

• “Marion Cotillard marries Chris”? [as a newspaper headline]

The event clearly happened in the past, but is referred to using a present tense.

Distance Relatives

Great, huh? It’s a total mess. Why is English so complicated? It’s ok, take a breath, breathe, there’s some underlying logic at work here. Following Lewis, this underlying logic is that of remoteness (or “distance” as Alex Tilbury labels it in IH LAC). If we look at some of our sentences from above again, this becomes clearer

• “I hung out with Marion yesterday”
• “If I went for a drink with Marion Cotillard”

In the first, there is temporal distance; that is to say, the past tense is used to show that the event happened at a point in past time remote from now, in this case “yesterday”. In the second sentence, the distance here is from reality: I use the past tense to show that I am not talking about reality, that I am distancing what I say from it and thus dealing in hypotheticals. Now think about the following sentence

• “Could you pass me the claret, Marion?”

Here, “could” is seen as the past of “can” and is used to create a social distance between the speaker and the listener, which is interpreted as a more polite way of asking this question as it’s seen as less direct.

So, we can conclude that when the past tense is used, it’s because of one of the three types of distance that we wish to express, namely temporal, hypothetical or social. The present tense would be used in all other cases and for this reason is also called the “non-past” by some. This helps explain the seemingly odd “Marion marries Chris” on a newspaper headline – the present tense is employed to make the event seem less remote and more urgent now, which is what the headline writer would try to do to capture the reader’s attention. The same could be said of the present tense being used in narratives, making the events being described more urgent for the listener or reader and thus keeping them on the edge of their seats, so to speak.

What distance is being employed in the following sentences?

1. “What was the name, please?” [said by a receptionist in a doctor’s]
2. “Jessica got a job in Turkey the a couple of weeks ago”
3. “I wish Marion was reading this”

The answers are that the first is social, then temporal and finally hypothetical (she isn’t reading this, is she?). The last one, though, is different in another way too as the verb form isn’t simple.

That’s only one aspect of it

Ok, so two tenses which can be used to refer to the past, present or future. But what about the present perfect or the present continuous, I hear you cry? Well, these are examples of the present tense in conjunction with another grammatical concept known as aspect. Grammatical aspect is the speaker’s use of auxiliaries, affixes, etc. in the verb phrase to indicate their interpretation of events, such as whether the event is perceived as a completed or in progress. Take our sentence from above, for example:

• “I wish Marion was reading this”

This would be analysed as the past tense with the progressive aspect to give a verb form described as the ‘past continuous’. As another example, the ‘present continuous’ would be the present tense combined with the progressive aspect, as in

• “Marion is enjoying my blog posts”

English has two aspects, progressive (continuous) and perfect. The perfect shows “the relationship between one state or event and a later state, event, or time” (p391), while the progressive “indicates that an action is incomplete, in progress, or developing” (p427) (both quotations from the Longmann Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics ). Scott Thornbury has a couple of good videos discussing these in more detail on his blog here

Let’s take the progressive as an illustrative example. We form this by using auxiliary be and the –ing form of the verb:

• “Marion is enjoying my blog posts”

If the auxiliary is in the present tense (is, in the previous example), then we have the present continuous; if, on the other hand, it is in the past, as in

• “I wish Marion was reading this”

then we have the past continuous. Here, both examples probably indicate that the events in question were in progress (enjoying, reading), and so I use the continuous to express this. Compare

• “Marion enjoys my blog posts”

This indicates that I see this as a timeless fact, that it isn’t temporary or in progress, and so I use an unmarked simple verb form. So, if we unpack all the meaning from “I wish Marion was reading this”, we see that the past tense is used to show hypothetical distance and the progressive aspect employed to indicate an unfolding event in progress. Note that it now seems natural that the past tense would be used after “wish”, as this automatically triggers a sense of hypothetically (you could look up colligation here too, which is the grammar that certain lexis triggers i.e. past tense after wish structures)

And with that, I’m off down the pub. If Marion weren’t so hypothetical,  she’d be present too.

Quick IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 Activity

I was reading something EFL-related today and thought of an IELTS writing activity that would be quick to prepare, with minimal materials and useful for the learners too. With the Academic Part 1, one of the biggest problems candidates can face (and I know this from my experience as an IELTS examiner) comes when they have to analyse the data. They have to pick out salient features and avoid writing irrelevant information like their opinion. In describing the features of the given information, they also need some quite specific lexis for describing trends, etc. This activity should help with both of these things.  So here it is…

Aim

• To help learners prepare for Academic Writing Task 1 by developing their  skills for analysing the input material

• To raise learners’ awareness of some common lexis for describing graphs, charts, etc

Sample IELTS Academic Writing Task 1

(Task taken from ielts-exam.net)

Procedure

• Prepare a list of 10 statements about the chart, some true and some false (see below for examples)

• Give the learners the chart and let them look at it for 30 seconds so they can get a feel for what it’s about and start mentally processing it

• Now dictate the statements without the learners seeing the chart

1. In general, Australian household spending was higher in 2001 than in 1991, though by a small margin

2. Average expenditure on transport decreased by almost a third

3. Average expenditure on transport increased sharply from $75 in 1991 to $120 in 2001

4. The spending decrease on clothing can be explained by cheap imports from China

• The learners now compare together what they’ve written down, thinking particularly about spelling and punctuation. You could hand out the printed statements here, display them or simply write them up yourself so the students can see the correct versions

• They  now look back at the chart and decide which statements are correct, incorrect or inappropriate (see no.4, for example)

• You can now do some language work by having the students analyse the dictated statements for collocations, fixed phrases, topic-specific lexis, etc, which they can use when they write their own version.

Brief Analysis and Variation

This is done as a dictation for the listening practice, which may well help them with the types of texts that might appear in the listening exam. That said, you could easily get the learners to do this for each other, either dictating their own statements or simply writing them before swapping with another group and repeating the above. It would be more difficult to do follow on language work from this, but it would give them great practice in analysing data. You’d also have to monitor quite closely here to make sure their analysis was along the right lines.

Don’t drill! Drill it! Drill it now!

Two recent related but separate occurrences inspired this blog post. Firstly, I have done a lot of observations recently and seen some very good classes, some excellent classes, but I haven’t seen much drilling; secondly, a colleague told me I drill more than he does. So, I got thinking. I looked up drilling in Penny Ur’s A Course in Language Teaching and it gets a mere perfunctory mention on page 54 (Ur 1995: 54). Why don’t teachers like drilling? This post explores this question a little before describing some drilling techniques further down.

What is Drilling?

Basically, drilling is a form of repetitive practice that has been used throughout the years to practise a various things, from grammar structures to connected speech. For anyone trained as an EFL teacher pre the 1980s, it probably conjures up images (sounds?) of grammar drills, audio-lingualism and a faint hint (smell?) of behaviourism. However, for those of us trained much later, drilling was that thing we had to do when we presented new language, which we elicited, and we weren’t allowed to do it if we’d already written the form on the board. You did chorally first, then individually and just made sure you did it as it might get you an above standard.

From my experience as a CELTA tutor and from conversations with working teachers, drilling is usually frowned upon either for the first reason outlined above – that it’s out of date – or because teachers do no feel confident having a room full of people repeating stretches of language – they feel awkward and like they’re patronising the class. However, if done well, I see no reason why this latter point should get in the way and the former point involves a link to a now discredited methodology which we can surely see past.

Repeat, but not ad nauseum Repeat, but not ad nauseum Repeat, but not ad nauseum

Anecdotally, I can tell you I like drilling. I mean, just try saying estrategicamente if you’re not a Spanish L1 speaker, and if that was easy why not try “desafortunadamente, se regocijó cuando el venezolano lo hizo estrategicamente”.. Drilling can help with ‘getting your tongue around’ a word, a chunk, or even an individual sound. In this way, it can help learners develop the muscle action of the L2 and can perhaps help them remember features of said language’s pronunciation better. Think to yourself how difficult it is to say certain things in an L2 (or 3 or 4..) the first time you encounter them. For me, I have to repeat them to myself a good few times and then I start to feel it becoming easier. Why shouldn’t the teacher help their learners with exactly this? That said, teachers have to be careful of not overdoing and forcing a learner to repeat ad nauseum a sound they find very difficult. After all, the learners have to be able to recognise that sound first and if they can’t, they won’t be saying it any time soon and prolonged repetition would be a very demoralising experience.

Returning to the Spanish sentence above, it basically means nothing (something like “unfortunately, she/he/it rejoiced when the Venezulan did it strategically”). This is another reason that drilling fell out of favour. In a communicative approach, we are supposed to ensure meaningful communication takes place in our classes and sentences chosen simply for a grammatical or phonological pattern are not encouraged as practices as they don’t involve the learner really interacting with meaning. However, that being said, I see no problem with incorporating a light form of drilling as part of a language presentation, providing that it is done within an established context and with natural sentences.

Back-chaining

If we drill relatively briefly and with short chunks of language, drilling can be motivating and beneficial. On his blog, Scott Thornbury mentions two ways out of this: an “eight-to-ten syllables max” rule and backchaining. The former is Scott’s personal preference, and a good idea to boot, but the latter is an established technique in which “the sentence is drilled and built up from the end, gradually adding to its length. Certain parts may be drilled separately, if they present problems. Each part of the sentence is modelled by the teacher, and the students repeat” (Kelly, 2000: 24). A recent example from one of my classes is:

“a camel”

“riding a camel”

“used to”

“get used to”

“get used to riding a camel”

“have to”

“‘ll have to”

“he’ll have to”

“he’ll have to get used to riding a camel”

Notice that this involves focussing on natural chunks of language. It would be very odd to drill “to riding a camel” as this doesn’t follow a natural pattern of English chunking. This type of technique also serves to promote noticing of features of connected speech. That is to say, the learners are exposed to natural chunks modelled in a natural way and I always highlight what happens with weak forms, sentence stress and any features of linking as we go. That way, while they may not immediately improve their pronunciation, this may help them recognise fluently delivered English better. I would also probably go through this three times maximum to make sure the learners didn’t disengage or feel patronised in any way.

Other Techniques

Some other ways to go about drilling include:

Mumble /Silent Drilling – the teacher models the language and the learners repeat it to themselves, under their breath or quietly. They can also work with a partner to do this. This breaks the reliance on the choral-individual technique and may be more beneficial to certain learners as they can repeat the item as many times as they want and at a speed they’re comfortable with.

Changing Emotions – the learners repeat the teacher’s model, but after a couple of times, the teacher changes the emotion from a ‘normal’ one to, say, sad. The group then repeats as if feeling very sad. Try another one like ‘excited’, or ‘happy’, etc. This can help break any monotony associated with drilling and be a fun, engaging activity, which has the double bonus of raising awareness of different intonation patterns.

Jazz Chants – Jazz chants are an area teachers tend to shy away from in my experience (I have been no exception in my time) but which are basically drills disguised as fun. Popularised by Carolyn Graham, these should involve the repetition of “short, multi-word sequences and should have a consistent rhythm” (Thornbury 2005: 66). You can see a video of Carolyn here talking about how to create your own jazz chant (http://www.teachingvillage.org/2010/05/23/how-to-create-a-jazz-chant-by-carolyn-graham/). These chants again have the benefit of raising awareness of sentence stress, intonation and connected speech. They can also reinforce grammar/functional structures (kept short) and can be used effectively with adults and YLs alike. The fact that the meaning should be clear from the context may even help make the chunks in the chant more memorable as the learners are, in a sense, interacting with the chant on a meaningful level too and the rhythm may help some learners remember the chunks better too (if you can get the tune of “First She Gave up Smoking” out of your head after doing it, you’re a better man than me…).

Substitution Drills – These are commonly associated with very restricted grammar practice and work along the lines of “there is a car” [dog] “there is a dog”, etc. The learners repeat the modelled grammar but with the new information substituted in. They do get more elaborate than my example, but that’s basically the gist. It’s important to ensure these are not mindless like the above example, but that there is some cognitive challenge. Instead of “dog”, for example, you could say “dogs” and so the learners would have to think to produce “there are some dogs”. This stops such drills becoming dull and mechanical.

Change Accents – If you’re confident about your ability to pull of a variety of different English accents in class, why not have the learners repeat after you model a different accent each time. This has the benefit of being quite good fun, but could also raise learners’ awareness of different accents. I’ve found this is especially effective with YLs, their preferred accent usually being Italian, complete with gestures.

Vary the Speed/Volume – Start the drill slowly and gradually get faster and faster and until it becomes clear the class can’t cope any more. Alternatively, do exactly the same but with the volume, gradually getting louder. Or combine the two. Again, this is very popular with YLs and can lead to some quite noisy classes!

Jim Scrivener lists a large range of different types of drills on pages 258 and 259 of Learning Teaching (2005) for those who’re really interested.

And this post’s a wrap!

Some Useful Sites

Sue Swift with some handy dos and don’ts
http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/2006/10/using-repetition-drills.html

Scott Thornbury discusses drilling, the whys and the wherefores
http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/d-is-for-drills/

Some ideas for drilling from Phillip Kerr
http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/minimal-resources/vocabulary/minimal-resources-drilling/146558.article

Jason Renshaw has some good ideas here http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_renshaws_web_log/2009/09/supplementary-speaking-activities-part-iii-using-and-expanding-speaking-drills.html

Printed References

Kelly, Gerard (2000) How to Teach Pronunciation, Pearson.

Thornbury, Scott (2005) How to Teach Speaking, Pearson.

Ur, Penny A (1995) A Course in Language Teaching, CUP.

Over on Pura Vida Dogme

My blog has been pretty quiet of late, but I have been blogging on my other blog, Pura Vida Dogme. The latest post can be found here. My colleague Ben also blogs here and there’s lots of Dogme posts for those that are interested.

Dogme Research in Costa Rica

My colleague Ben and I have recently started a Dogme research project here in Sunny Costa Rica. It’s called Pura Vida Dogme and you can get to our blog by clicking on the this link (not the picture below, which is just a picture..). The idea is basically to research learner motivation and dealing with emergent language in a 4 month project with a group of 10 local learners. We’ve been greatly assisted by the Academia Pi Mas here in San José, who have kindly let us use their classroom for free. Anyway, visit the blog and share your thoughts/ideas/suggestions/comments. All welcome!

On Being an Observer

In response to Dave Dodgson’s post which raised questions about the merits of common observation/feedback procedures in language schools, I thought I’d post one or two thoughts about the exact same thing – but from the other side of the coin, that of the observer. I don’t claim to speak for all observers here, but this is the situation as I see it. I’m also talking about observing working teachers, rather than trainees on initial CELTA, for example.

What’s the point of an observation?

A younger me after having been observed for the first time ever during my CELTA. Couldn't have been that traumatic...

Observations are there to help teachers develop. They should be carried out with this in mind and with both teacher and observer fully aware of this point. In theory, this should help reduce anxiety on the teacher’s part and help create a space for open reflection, both before and after the class.  After all, if teachers are to develop, they need to reflect, in exactly the same way that tutors on training courses should do too. The key words for me would be reflection, guidance, support and advice.

Observations of teachers are not there to tell people how to teach, to take a teacher’s lesson to bits, to criticise, to push a certain pedagogical agenda or to show off the observer’s supposed greater experience and knowledge. I know that this is how they are often perceived, but that doesn’t mean that view is right!

How should observations be organised?

If there is a supportive environment for professional development in your school, this shouldn’t be a problem. The teacher can choose the class they want to be observed on and, assuming this fits with the observer’s schedule, the observation organised for this class. This is particularly important in reducing stress for newly qualified teachers as they can choose a class they’re comfortable with. Ideally, there should be a conversation before the class between observer and teacher in which the background to the class is discussed along with any particular points the teacher wants support with.

I ask the teacher to write a lesson plan (I’d say planning is part of the reflection), with help from me if desired.  I then follow it in the class and we discuss it in feedback, thinking through the rationale for different stages, etc. It seems to me that teachers often find this quite useful in terms of thinking through why they’ve chosen certain activities or why they decided to approach the grammar in a certain way. Again, this is for reflection and development and is not critical.

There is another kind of observation, of course: the “walk in” observation, whereby the observer simply turns up to watch a teacher’s class unannounced. I have to say, I cannot stand these. I see management might think they’re important – make sure the teacher is doing everything right, etc, however this simply does not fit with the ideas I outlined above about development. This turns observations into assessments and pressures teachers to teach in a certain way – a way liked by the observer and not necessarily suited to their class, who they know. These observations can increase stress and can make a normally relaxed teacher noticeably nervous in front of their class. Not good in my book.

What should an observer look for?

In class, I have the teacher’s plan and I’ve spoken to the teacher about the group and possibly even the lesson prior to the class. What I’m looking for is successful teaching. I really don’t mind

what particular approach a teacher takes, as long as it falls within a communicative framework. And that it’s done well. If there is a good atmosphere, the learners enjoy the class, it’s as student-centred as seems possible, the presentations are clear, meaning focused on, skills work well-staged and useful and no-one leaves the room confused, I’d say we have an example of successful teaching.

Feedback

I believe there should be both oral and written feedback. In many institutions, the latter is an official document that is kept in the teacher’s file, but this doesn’t mean that oral feedback is simply reeling off what’s been written down. The other reason for written feedback is so that the teacher can have a copy to keep and to refer to in the future if they want to.

Is this good teaching? Doesn't look like I'm doing much and I was being observed by a peer.

Oral feedback is, for me, the most challenging part of the observer’s job. It is paramount that this be carried out in a relaxed, supportive environment and with the teacher’s development at the very heart of the process. It also depends on the personal preferences of the teacher: some people like to be given a list of things to do, for example; others prefer space and time to reflect and open discussion about the class, approaches to teaching, etc. The observer has to play this by ear and cater to what the teacher seems to want. After all, you can’t teach every class in the same way, so why should every feedback session be exactly the same? Teachers are individuals and observers need to remember that. As an example,  I’ve conducted feedback with teachers who wanted to take DELTA and we’ve agreed to pretend the observation was the “diagnostic” DELTA observation, with feedback focusing on some really seemingly pedantic points that might well come up in DELTA (I’m not a DELTA tutor, by the way, but I do remember that particular observation well..). But again, this isn’t for everyone.

Personally, I like to start with a general discussion based on the teacher’s self-evaluation, in which points raised by the teacher are discussed in turn, with practical suggestions offered as and when it seems apposite to do so. As I said above, we’ll often talk through the lesson plan and discuss the teacher’s rationale in choosing activities or why set that particular context, etc. This helps the teacher see the lesson as a whole, rather than a set of randomly chosen activities.

And the best feedback I ever had as a teacher? It was the most direct and critical and I benefited enormously. When you walk in, sit down and the observer starts off by saying “Hi. Let’s start. Well, your instructions certainly aren’t the best thing about your teaching, are they?” you know you’re in for it… That style suits me as a teacher, but not everyone.

Post-Feedback

It doesn’t just end with feedback, of course. The observer should be available to help the teacher with any points that came up from the observation. This could involved helping with lesson planning, suggesting reading, checking language awareness if requested, etc. I know this isn’t possible in every school, particularly large ones, but if there is a good professional development structure there will be a mentor or senior teacher who can take on this role if the observer can’t. After all, how is a teacher supposed to develop with support? Out of thin air? Magic? It’s a process and takes time, reflection and practice. And some teachers need more support than others.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced as an observer is uncooperative, and even confrontational, teachers who simply do not want to be observed, do not see the point and take it as a threat to their abilities in the classroom. What to do with these people? My approach is to be as diplomatic as possible, listen to their concerns (rants?) and frame my feedback very much in terms of offering suggestions rather than telling people what to do. I also try to explain the point of the observation and am patient to the point of, well, I don’t know what, but very patient. While there are bad observers out there, there are also uncooperative teachers.

Then of course there are the teachers who get incredibly nervous during feedback. I admit, someone did cry once during my feedback, and I was making a positive point at the time! This is obviously a very delicate time for teachers and so, as I said above, I think it’s imperative that feedback be carried out in as supportive a manner as possible.

There are also defensive teachers who need to explain absolutely everything about the lesson in the minutest detail and tell you all about how they had to do things differently in previous jobs. Again, I understand this. Getting feedback can be traumatic if it’s handled badly and it would seem there are a lot of bad observers out there. Patience is again the key here and framing things in terms of supporting the teacher, not attacking.

Job satisfaction

The best thing about being an observer, teacher trainer or mentor, is when you see somebody teach for a second time and you see an improvement in some aspect of their teaching. It’s very very rewarding and makes the job worthwhile. It tells me that the initial observation and feedback were worthwhile after all and that the teacher has taken something positive from what was discussed. Occasionally, you even get an e-mail thanking you for your feedback or when teachers leave the institution they tell you, out of the blue, how useful their observations were and how much they feel they’ve developed as teachers.

Right, well, I hope that’s put the observer’s case and that teachers can see we’re not all evil or useless. Some of us actually care about what we do and want to help people. Anyone got any suggestions about how I can improve my observing?

Dogme, Lexis and Fiction

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged so it’s about time I did so again before I forget how. This time, a slightly different one once again. I’ve been meaning to start an occasional series of posts of my experiences as a language learner and relating these to wider teaching and learning issues, and so here’s number 1.

Some Background

I’m preparing for the DELE C2 Spanish exam and am in a class with two others, both of whom find themselves in the same exam boat (if you’re lucky, one day I might post a rant about the lack of validity of said exam, but I’ll save that for a rainy day..). The others are Ben and Dónal, both of whom are incredibly fluent and confident with their speaking, something which used to intimidate me somewhat. The class is taught by Fernando, who has been my teacher for 2 years.  The classes usually have an exam focus for about a third of the time and then, well, it’s quite difficult to describe in the remaining 80minutes. Ben has blogged about this class before.

There is usually a great deal of lexis floating around and I’d say that this would be what I take most from the class – chunks, new words, expressions. Given how lazy I can be as a language learner, this lexis is invaluable to me and the memorising of it very important, not just for the exam, but for my overall development as a speaker of Spanish.

Whose Story Is It Anyway?

A while back, I read one of Dale Coulter’s lesson skeletons on his blog, in which he described an activity in which the learners created a fictional story by adding one line to a text and then passing the pen to the next person. They continued this until it came to a natural end and then Dale analysed the emergent language with them. I then read the following comment from Scott Thornbury on this activity.

“My tiny doubt: if the learners are taking turns to continue the text, whose ‘story’ is it? Presumably it becomes fiction after the first writer yields the pen. Does this matter?”

This got me thinking. I consider myself very much a Dogmetist – though possibly not an absolute purist – and like to think I conduct my classes as much in this direction as teaching context and situation allow. Given that I would happily use an activity similar to Dale’s (I have blogged before a Mexican joke the learners came up with in class) I found myself asking if I am indeed a Dogmetist or whether I have misunderstood certain aspects of the approach (if it’s safe to use that word). Furthermore, as there have been various attempts to work on definitions of Dogme recently, I thought this might be of interest.

“Un Puerco Espín Con Un Pincel En Su Boca” O “Un Querubín Llora”

This all came back to me recently during a Spanish class in which Ben and I created a fictional story about a porcupine artist subject to persecution for his obvious artistic talent. Now, this is not an example of one of our personal stories, but was co-created and incredibly funny (for us, don’t ask Fernando..). This has made it all the more memorable for me and some of the vocabulary that came up seems to stick. I’m delighted I now know how to say “porcupine” and “paintbrush” in Spanish, two things that do not figure much in my daily life. Now, it must be said that this exercise was actually to recycle lexis that from previous classes, and that there was no focus on form. That said, there was the new lexis such as the aforementioned.

Another example from a recent class would be a segment in which Dónal, myself and Ben had to create new laws that should be introduced. I forget the characters now, but through a process of random selection I remember that Dónal was a Libertarian from Vanuatu. We then had to argue in favour of our laws, and against those of the others, from the point of view of these roles. This was another frankly ludicrous class that was thoroughly enjoyed by all and involved us “owning” the language in the room by being playful and creative with our ideas and indeed the language itself. I learned how to say “cherub”, the Spanish equivalent of “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and “labyrinth”. Again, this lexis is not likely to come up much if we were to exchange personal stories as there just aren’t that many labyrinths and cherubs in my life.

It’s Nothing Personal

So far, so good. So what’s this got to do with Dogme? Here’s a quotation from How to Teach Vocabulary, which goes as follows and is not discussing Unplugged Teaching:

“…the associative links in the second language lexicon are usually less well established than mother tongue links. To extend the metaphor: learning a second language is like moving to a new town – it takes time to establish connections and turn acquaintances into friends. And what is the difference between and acquaintance and a friend? Well, we may forget an acquaintance, but we can never forget a friend” (How To Teach Vocabulary p20)

If this is so, our job as teachers is surely to try and make lexis as memorable as possible to help strengthen the less well established L2 associative links. However, to do this as Dogme teachers, do we need to always and only work with learners’ personal stories in class or can we allow for more creative, fictional, texts to be used to focus on lexis, providing the learners a space to say what they want and supplying new lexis as a need arises?

To take it one stage further, what about other emergent language? The two examples from my Spanish class were not exploited into a focus on form, the first being a revision exercise and the second a fluency practice. However, would it have been ‘wrong’ in deep end Dogme to do so? Could these only be used as practices/revision, or not at all? Had I been the teacher, I certainly would have exploited these opportunities for a focus on form of some sort as the learners were really engaged in the exercises. Given how memorable the incidental lexis from these classes is for me, would other emergent language not be equally so? And would this not pass into the class ‘folklore’, as it has done with us, creating a class story that is equally as valuable as one of our personal stories – making it a “friend” rather than just a passing “acquaintance”? And would that be incompatible with Dogme? If so, it seems I may well be a Principled Eclecticist, but that’s a whole other debate…

Post-CELTA Professional Development

In a departure from my usual Unplugged posts, this time there’s some technology to contend with. I’ve created a rough Prezi for a forthcoming CELTA session on professional development, and am looking for suggestions on how to improve it in any way, shape or form.

The idea is to play it and describe the various parts of it as I go, taking any questions en route. You’ll find (a now updated one) here. And I know I probably can’t justify that Unplugged sky picture in the middle, but, well, is it really so bad?

Please have a look and let me know what you think. All comments welcome.