The slides from my lecture on ‘Using Literature in the EFL Classroom’ are available here in pdfformat.
The talk was part of the Summer Seminar for English Language Teachers held at Exeter College, Oxford.
Great to be back in Serbia.
As promised, here are the slides from my sessions in pdf format:
Secondary session 1:
Writing
In this session we will consider the reasons why many teenagers dislike writing in English and attempt to identify those aspects of writing skills with which teenagers tend to experience the most difficulties. Then we will consider a range of simple and practical classroom activities which can help to equip students with the skills and strategies they need to succeed with writing.
1 Secondary Writing
Secondary session 2:
Project work in and outside the classroom
Project work is a tried and tested approach for extending topics creatively, personalising English lessons and revitalising jaded students. So how can we get the best out of projects in the digital age? This session will offer some practical and time-saving ways to make project work more engaging for ‘digital natives’, while also looking at how we can give traditional projects a new twist.
2 Secondary Project work
Primary session:
Writing
Learning to write in English can be hard for younger learners who are just getting familiar with English. What are the best ways to help them develop? We will look at some simple and effective classroom activities. We will also think about upper primary students, especially those who find writing boring and difficult. What can we do to make writing more enjoyable for them? We will try out a variety of fun and imaginative ideas to help learners write effectively and creatively.
3 Primary Writing
Thanks to those teachers who took part in the recent OUP professional development days in Riga and Ventspils, as well as those who attended the LATGALE ELT conference in Daugavpils.
My first session was ‘Exam skills and topics – what teens need’. We looked at a variety of techniques that can boost students’ confidence and motivation to prepare – from unexpected visitors to grandmothers. I promised you a handout, didn’t I?
Then we had ‘Grammar in the spotlight’ – looking at the practicalities of making grammar lessons work with younger learners. There is a handout for this session, too.
If you’re not in Latvia, then make sure you go there some time. Take a camera.
I enjoyed the challenge of getting to grips with the topic of ‘critical thinking and study skills’ from a language teaching perspective. My tech-savvy students certainly know how to get hold of information; what they do with it once they have it is another question altogether.
The session looked at some practical examples of how we can use the context of an EFL lesson to initiate a discussion about how we think and how we study. I approached the topic in class with puzzles, dilemmas and brainteasers, which I have found to be an excellent method for encouraging students to examine their own thinking and decision-making processes.
Links and references can be found here
There is also a handout with some (but not all!) of the classroom activities that we looked at.
And this?
This is water.
To all those teachers who attended OUP’s summer intensive course and conference in Budapest last week, thanks for taking part and for all your positive comments about the sessions. As promised, you can have another look at the slides from all of my various sessions below.
I gave this session to the secondary and adult groups. This was the one with the bit about ‘My grandmother always says’ – I think that particular idea deserves a blog post of its own. I’ll get to work on that next week. The session description reads like this:
In the first part of the session we will look at preparation strategies: looking at topics, vocabulary and exam tasks. We will also focus on effective practice procedures that help students improve as they practise. We will then consider the question of how to deal with grammar mistakes in speaking and consider some practical and engaging classroom practice activities that help students improve their spoken accuracy.
Recycling and Precycling Materials
I only did this session once – unfortunately. Recycling involves turning spent materials into something else; ‘precycling’ on the other hand involves reducing and re-using. I tried to apply these principles to the ELT classroom, thinking in particular about those lessons in which we try to revise, review or go over materials again – perhaps because we are substituting for a colleague. Much of the content of this session comes from a webinar that I did a while back about one-off lessons. I decided to pre-cycle a lot of those ideas 😉 The session description:
This session will look at some practical techniques for breathing new life into teaching materials and ‘squeezing more juice’ out of the coursebook. We will consider effective techniques for recycling materials – ideal for situations when you would like to revise, or if you have to cover for a colleague and need a stand-alone revision lesson. We will also find out what ‘precyling’ is – and look at some ways to apply it to the English teaching classroom.
Plenary talk: Getting the Hares back in the Race
I first did this talk at the IATEFL conference in Liverpool earlier this year and only about 25 people came :(. Anyway, I was really happy to get the chance to reprise it in front of a much larger audience. I added one new slide – the photograph of Darren in front of the BID board in Széchenyi tér in Pécs. The talk description went like this:
I have two types of teenage student. First, there are the tortoises. They feel slow and awkward. They need patience, encouragement and support. The second type are the hares. They are happy with their level of English – in fact, they are in a kind of comfort zone. They can speak well in class – when they feel like it. They watch films and TV series in English outside class without much difficulty. They like and value English. They just don’t want to spend time studying English in class. They would rather sleep!
Does that sound familiar? If so, here are some questions to consider. What is the best way to work with teenagers like this? How can we get them out of their comfort zone? Is there any way to help them rediscover their appetite for learning English? How can we get them back in the race?
Conference session: Back to the Future
Let me tell you a secret. I had been planning to do this session without any Power Point slides at all, just as a way of reinforcing the point I made in-session about the importance of resisting the temptation to allow technology to dictate what happens in our classes. In fact I didn’t even have a presentation prepared, just some typed notes and ideas for activities. Then, while having breakfast (!) on the morning of the conference, I saw that I could segue from the DeLorean sports car in Back to the Future to the Twin-Steer Car drawn by one of my students. By the time I’d had my second cup of tea, I’d decided to build the whole session around the Twin-Steer Car, and to use examples of students’ work (previously posted here on the blog) to introduce the activities. So in the end there was a Power Point – but it was very much a last-minute thing. The session description went like this:
Retro: taking yesterday’s trends and fashions and giving them a modern twist. In an era of breathtaking technological innovations in education, is there still room for retro in the English teaching classroom? This session will offer some practical teaching ideas inspired by the classrooms of yesteryear, but tweaked to appeal to the teenagers of today.
Feedback and comments welcome, as ever. Good luck with the tanévkezdés!
As promised, here are the slides from today’s talk at Exeter College on using literature in the efl classroom upload.
The handout is available here.
I didn’t have to wait long to get back in the mountains again. They might not be quite as grand as the Swiss Alps, but the Matra mountains of Slovakia still take the breath away – especially if you live in as topographically monotonous a country as Hungary. My four-day trip spanned the country from east to west, taking in some gorgeous scenery en route.
Košice / Kassa
The first thing I saw when I stepped off the train was a sign welcoming me to the European Capital of Culture for 2013. I’m afraid this was news to me. I felt a bit guilty, actually. I suppose I really ought to have known, especially as my own home city did no end of bragging when it had its own chance to hold this title three years ago. I consoled myself with the fact that no-one else I know seemed to have heard about this accolade, either.
Prešov / Eperjes
The home town of my host, travelling companion and fellow trainer Roman Cancinov. Roman is a charismatic and entertaining speaker, but never more so than when he is on home turf and speaking to his ‘own’ teachers – often addressing them by name, in fact. There was a great rapport and I could tell that everyone enjoyed the seminar a lot.
My finest achievement was putting up ‘The Wall’ all by myself. This is a clever bit of promotional paraphernalia: a collapsible display board with magnetic strips and glossy poster rolls that clip on the front. It looks magnificent when it is up – and the whole thing fits inside a portable case. I’m a bit of a klutz around the house, so the mere fact that I was able to put this thing up and take it down again attests to the brilliance of its design. And oh, the warm glow of satisfaction it afforded…
Banská Bystrica / Besztercebánya
Nestled high up in the mountains, Banská Bystrica is simply a delight, with one of the most atmospheric main squares that I have seen in the region. The seminar was held in the city library, home to the town’s British Cultural Centre, formerly part of the British Council. Wandering around the beautiful building, I also chanced upon a children’s puppet performance and was shown around an exhibition of musical instruments by a Hungarian speaker.
Trenčín / Trencsén
The final seminar was held in the shadow of this magnificent fortress. Kind of. Well, it was in the same town, anyway. A great place to wrap things up.
Seminar topic
My talk focused on drafting written work. This is one of those topics that it can be difficult to warm to, and indeed one of the things we looked at was why drafting and re-drafting written work can be problematic for both students and teacher.
One practical solution that we discussed was linked to correcting mistakes in written work.
Rather than correcting every single mistake in a piece of written work in red (or green 🙂 ) ink, why not specify what type of mistakes you are going to correct *before* you set the work? If, for example, you have noticed a conspicuous number of prepositions used incorrectly, tell the class that when you look at their drafts you are going to highlight problems with use of prepositions – but leave everything else uncorrected.
Most students can only focus on one aspect of language at a time. Trying to correct everything, every time is enormously time-consuming for the teacher and the result can be demoralising for the students. On the other hand, pre-specifying a correction focus can help students to monitor themselves, increasing the likelihood that they will catch themselves before making a slip. The other huge advantage is that teachers can save themselves time and effort.
If you would like to see the slides of the session in pdf format you are in luck.
Thanks for your continuing interest in the talks I gave in Switzerland.
Take a look at the slides for Friday’s talk in Zürich in pdf format.
Same goes for Saturday’s talk in Bern.
The two talks were simmerent – which is a word that I have just invented. I guess it means pretty-similar-in-parts-without-being-exactly-the-same. Wonder if it will catch on? Maybe diffilar sounds better?
Hello, Swiss teachers! 🙂
I really enjoyed meeting you at the Oxford Gymnasium Event in Zurich…
…and at the Oxford Teachers’ Day in Bern.
I’ve decided to make one handout covering both talks, seeing as there was a fair bit of overlap. Feel free to get in touch if there is anything which is not clear.
Thanks again for your participation, contributions and feedback.
This evening’s OUP webinar for teachers in Croatia was particularly memorable – and enjoyable. It started off with an unwitting Elvis Presley impression, gathered momentum with a serendipitous mug of tea and peaked with a fun activity involving smartphones. A big thanks to all the teachers in Croatia who took part.
My unfortunate Las Vegas moment
Twenty minutes or so before the recording started I thought I would turn on my mic and camera to check the video and audio. Guess what? My younger daughter had been skypeing on my laptop earlier in the day. When I switched my video camera on the people already in the room (mercifully, there were not many of them) were confronted by this:
What do you think? I’ve been known to do Elvis impressions during karaoke – but in a professional webinar? Luckily, everyone saw the funny side, and I banished the King back to Graceland.
Lucky (tea) break
Other things turned out perfectly. After our embarrassing Elvis moment, my daughter was sweet enough to bring me a cup of tea. Only after the webinar had started did I notice she had made it in our summer holiday souvenir mug from the Dalmatian coast – complete with the chequered red-and-white motif of the Croatian flag. All the participating teachers were from Croatia, so there were plenty of appreciative thumbs up. That was nice 🙂
Smartphone activity
The focus of the webinar was motivating young teenagers and there was quite a bit of discussion about the best way to make lessons engaging for young digital natives. One of the most popular ideas uses the technology that all our students carry around with them in their pockets: mobile phones.
For these activities based on describing photographs, all you need is a mobile phone.
The point of the activity is to get students interested in describing pictures. If we ask them to bring in a picture of themselves and their family from home, they often forget. These days, however, most of them carry about entire galleries of photos of friends and family in their pockets.
Here are four simple activities using the photographs stored on students’ phones.
Ask five questions: Work in pairs. Look at the photo on your partner’s phone and ask five questions about it.
Listen and draw: Select a photo. Describe what is in the picture. Students draw. This picture dictation activity can also be done in pairs.
Guess what is happening: Look at your partner’s photo and guess where it was taken, when it was taken, who the people in the photo are, and what they are doing. Your partner will tell you what you were right about.
Tell a story using everyone’s pictures: Work in a group of three or four. Everyone selects a photo on their phone and places it on the desk where the others can see it. Together, construct a short story that includes and combines what is in each of the pictures.