Malta Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language … · 2020-03-10 · MATEFL is an organisation run on a volunteer basis by teachers for teachers of English as a foreign

MATEFL is an organisation run on a volunteer basis by teachers for teachers of English as a foreign language. It is dedicated to the professional development of its members by facilitating the sharing and exchanging of ideas and keeping abreast of new developments in the EFL world.

June 2015

Malta Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language

NEWSLETTER

2 | P a g e M A T E F L N e w s l e t t e r — M a y 2 0 1 4

Jean Theuma

Jean is a freelance Teacher Trainer. Her main interests are helping teachers to get—and stay—involved in their own development. Jean is also fascinated by the role of technology in the classroom. Apart from that, Jean loves the theatre and mak-ing theatre costumes. Follow Jean on Twitter at @jean_theuma

Matt Done

Matt has 10 years of general English and exam preparation experience. He has been training on TEFL cert courses for the past two years and is closing in on becoming a CELTA tutor.

Natasha Fabri

Natasha has been an online/offline ELT trainer for well over a decade. She spent seven years freelancing in beautiful Lisbon, Portugal before returning to Malta in 2012. She is passionate about technology in the classroom and giving teacher train-ing workshops. She loves writing, trekking and photography. Find her on her public page dedicated to all things TEFLon facebook: NatashaFabriTEFL

In this issue your contributors are (alphabetically):

We’d love you to get involved

Are you a teacher or an EFL professional who enjoys writing?

Would you like to have your ideas published in the newsletter?

Contact us by emailing Jean Theuma at [email protected]

Daniel Xerri Daniel is a teacher of English at the University of Malta Junior College. He also teaches on the university’s MA in TESOL. He holds postgraduate degrees in Eng-lish and Applied Linguistics, and is currently completing a PhD in Education at the University of York. His main research interest is teacher education and de-velopment in English Language Teaching. More information about his talks and publications can be found here: www.danielxerri.com

Marjorie Rosenberg Marjorie is a lecturer at the University of Graz, trains teachers and works with corporate clients. She has published extensively in business English and is the author of 'Spotlight on Learning Styles’ (Delta). She is currently the IATEFL President.

M A T E F L N e w s l e t t e r — M a y 2 0 1 4 P a g e | 3

Hello TEFLers,

What a busy summer this is turning out to be! I meet people

everyday who complain because they do not seem to be able to

stop and take a breath. Well...I hope you can make time to sit

down, relax and read the latest issue of the MATEFL newsletter.

In this issue Marjorie Rosenberg carries on where her fantastic

Spring workshop left off. Marjorie clarifies the definition of

learner styles and elaborates on different types of styles that

you might be able to pick out in your students or even yourself.

Daniel Xerri discusses what being a ‘creative practitioner’

means. His article gives us food for thought as he challenges us

to leave our comfort zones in the name of creativity. I offer an

article which looks into one of the greatest tools in the teachers’

arsenal—the skill of asking questions. Natasha Fabri explores

Personal Learning Networks in Teacher 2.0 while Matt Done

puts 2 course books through their paces in Course Book face-Off

(Outcomes vs New English File).

Please get in touch if you have something to say. Contact me –

Jean Theuma at [email protected]

Enjoy! Jean

The MATEFL committee are: Alan Marsh (President) Larissa Jonk (Secretary) Caroline Camp-bell (Treasurer) Jean Theuma (IATEFL representative/Editor) Julia Pearson (Website manager/Membership secretary) Ian Scerri (Facebook page) Natasha Fabri (Assistant editor) Matt Done (Newsletter contributor)

MATEFL can be contacted at: PO Box 2 Gzira, Malta www.matefl.org

[email protected] @MATEFLmalta MATEFL (Malta)

Spotlight on Learner Styles Marjorie Rosenberg

4

On Teachers’ Creativity

Daniel Xerri 11

7 Ways we use Questions in Class Jean Theuma

24

Materials Swop Shop

10

Teacher 2.0: a survival guide to

Technology in the Classroom

Natasha Fabri explores PLNs

14

Course Book Face – off Outcomes vs New English File Matt Done

17

Out and About in EFL Jean Theuma takes us teacher training in Peru

19

Fun Pages 21

EFL in a Nutshell 27

The MATEFL Spring Workshop in pictures

28

Inside this issue:

Articles:

Regular Features:

Get noticed by EFL professionals in

Malta

To advertise in the MATEFL newsletter, please contact Jean Theuma at

[email protected] for information and advertising rates.


How my journey began It is always interesting when discussing the concept of

learning styles with educators. Although research has

been carried out over the last fifty years or so it is still

considered by some to be controversial. Those who

feel that learning styles do not exist or have a place in

the classroom can point to a wide variety of websites

and scholarly articles while proponents of learning

styles can also find a large number of journal articles

and research results attesting to the validity of the

theories. My interest in this field began in the early

1990s in a course on ‘superlearning’ techniques where

I heard about visual, auditory

and kinaesthetic learners for

the first time. It was as if a door

had opened for me and I finally

understood why my years of

trying to learn French through

the audio-lingual method had

been so resoundingly

unsuccessful. As a visual and

kinaesthetic learner, being told

‘not to picture the words in my

head’ was the wrong way for

me to first be confronted with a

language. Just listening to the

sounds and finding automatic responses or sitting in a

language lab with nothing to look at did not help me

at all. Years later, when I learned German, I wrote

words down myself, carried a dictionary around to

look words up and made use of a number of visual

aids. This method was certainly more rewarding for

me and suddenly finding out what the difference was

in the two experiences began my journey into this

fascinating area. As a language teacher I became very

interested in finding out how I could help my learners

to have positive experiences both inside and outside

the classroom and discovering and development

different possibilities of doing this became a mission.

Definitions As one of the first questions which comes up refers to

the definition of styles, it seems best to quote some of

the experts in the field. For example :

Guild and Garger (1998:) say ‘The way we

perceive the world governs how

we think, make judgments and

form values about experiences

and people. This unique aspect

of our humanness is what we

call “style”’.

Keefe (1979) contends

that styles are ‘characteristic

cognitive, affective and

psychological behaviours that

serve as relatively stable

indicators of how learners

perceive, interact with and

respond to the learning environment’

Kinsella (1995) comments that ‘learning style

refers to an individual’s natural, habitual and

preferred ways of absorbing, processing and

retaining new information and skills which

persists regardless of teaching methods of

content area’.

Spotlight on Learning Styles

Following her recent workshop in Malta, Marjorie Rosenberg discusses how learners need to find ways of learning which they are comfortable with.

As a language teacher I

became very interested in

finding out how I could help

my learners to have positive

experiences both inside and

outside the classroom


Dunn and Dunn (1992, 1993) and Dunn, Dunn,

and Perrin (1994) say that ‘learning style is the

way each person begins to concentrate on,

process, internalize and retain new and difficult

academic information.’ They go on to suggest

that ‘More than three-fifths of learning style is

biological; less than one-fifth is developmental.’

Importance in learning Moving on to the importance or use in learning is a

subject which inspires debate from all corners of the

globe and from people involved in a variety of

educational situations. An argument is often made

that it is not possible to change instruction to suit

every learner and even in cases where this is done, it

has no particular effect on the success of the learning

outcome. While this may be true, it is only one part of

the equation. However, ‘it is possible to strive for

uniform outcomes but to intentionally diversify the

means for achieving them’ (Guild and Garger 1998).

Jeremy Harmer addresses this issue as well when he

says :

‘The moment we realise that a class is composed

of individuals (rather than being some kind of

unified whole) we have to start thinking about

how to respond to those students individually so

that while we may frequently teach the group as

a whole, we will also, in different ways, pay

attention to the different identities we are faced

with.’

This is not to say that we need to constantly change

our instruction to make sure that we reach each and

every learner all of the time. But a mix of methods can

provide learners with new possibilities and resources

for them to explore outside the classroom including

those which are new and different for them. In

addition, encouraging learners to try out new methods

for themselves can encourage them to become more

independent and autonomous learners, another goal

of helping them to discover their styles.

As Andrew Cohen says:

‘Indeed we learn in different ways and what suits

one learner may be inadequate for another. While

learning styles seem to be relatively stable,

teachers can modify the learning tasks they use in

their classes in a way that may bring the best out of

particular leaners with particular learning style

preferences. It is also possible that learners over

time can be encouraged to engage in ‘style-

stretching’ so as to incorporate approaches to

learning they were resisting in the past’.

Myths and misconceptions As there are a number of misconceptions about

learning styles, this is an important area to cover in

any discussion of the topic. For one thing, learning

styles are not an excuse. Finding out about one’s

strengths and weaknesses does not mean that one is

allowed to simply give up because he or she is not

particularly good at something. The goal instead is to

create a mindset in which the person is made

cognizant of their particular situation and to expand

on it and grow. In any discussion with learners about

their styles, the option of falling back on a weakness

as a reason not to do something is simply not on the

table. It would also be a misconception to assume that

learners cannot stretch out of their styles. Although

the style can be seen as a foundation, most learners

have incorporated methods ascribed to other styles to

learn and acquire knowledge. Being aware of the wide

range of possibilities in learning does not mean that a

learner will not make use of them if necessary to

achieve a particular goal or when learning a particular

subject. And if the learner is successful with this,

motivation may improve resulting in a positive self-

fulfilling prophesy.


Another misconception is that teachers tend to label

or pigeon-hole learners once they know their styles.

This is most certainly not the aim of those of us

working in this field. It is interesting to observe

students and to be aware of their styles as it makes

giving advice to particular questions easier but it does

not mean that a teacher should assume a learner

cannot grow or change. Teachers can reassure leaners

that ANY strength or strategy which will help them

achieve a goal is fine, there is no need to only use ones

most commonly employed by the style. However, they

also need to have the self-confidence to use strategies

comfortable for them, even if they have been told in

the past that these strategies will not help them to

learn.

In addition, styles are not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - they are

valueless. No style is ‘better’ than another style; one

may be more suited to learning a particular skill than

another but each of the styles has their strong and

weak points. Style and competence should not be

confused. In a language class it is certainly possible

that two people with very similar learning style profiles

are at completely different levels of language. So many

other factors must be considered that simply basing

all conclusions about learners on style would be a

mistake. It could also be that a learner is enrolled in a

programme which is not the right one for him or her.

Discoveries about style could lead to making a change

but it may also simply lead to finding new ways to

learn material.

Implementation There are a variety of ways in which learning styles can

be implemented into the foreign language classroom.

In Spotlight on Learning Styles teachers are provided

with checklists which they can go through with their

students and discuss. Particular characteristics of styles

are given as well as tips and strategies. The styles of

both the teacher and the students are looked at and

suggestions are made as to how to expand a teacher’s

repertoire in the classroom. As many of us teach in the

way we prefer to learn, we may overlook learners’

needs whose styles are very different from our own.

Spotlight on Learning Styles has been written to remind

teachers about the types of students in our classrooms

and provide tips, hints and ideas to ensure that

teachers can reach as many of their students as

possible and find both satisfaction and joy in doing so.

Style types As there are a large number of learning styles and

surveys to determine them used by researchers and

practitioners, it was necessary to decide which ones to

focus on in Spotlight on Learning Styles. For this reason

the choice was made to choose three particular areas.

This logical sequence of gathering information led to

the choice of three distinct areas to cover, beginning

with visual, auditory and kinaesthetic modalities

(sensory channels of perception), global / analytic

thought processes (cognitive processing) and Mind

Organisation (behaviour based on perception and

organization of information). By adding on to the

knowledge provided by one style, a more composite

picture of a learner can be made. After doing all three

surveys the individuality of each of the learners

becomes more apparent, the uniqueness of each

learner can be appreciated, and suggestions for

strategies can be tailored to the particular learner and

situation.

According to Cohen:

‘Although numerous distinctions are emerging from

the literature, three categories of style preferences

are considered particularly relevant and useful to

understanding the process of language learning:

sensory/perceptual, cognitive and personality-

related preferences’ (Reid 1995 and Weaver 1996)


VAK Learners The standard model of VAK generally includes visual,

auditory and kinaesthetic learners. These were

researched early on by Walter Barbe and Raymond

Swassing (1979) who defined what they called

modalities as ‘any of the sensory channels through

which an individual receives and retains information.’

However, after working in adult education and teacher

training for some thirty years, it seems that adults tend

to be either kinaesthetic motoric (tactile) learners or

kinaesthetic emotional ones. The exact age as to when

this split takes place has not been determined but it

seems to show up in the later years of high school and

is certainly apparent by the

time learners reach tertiary

level education or take on a

job. For this reason Spotlight

on Styles looks at these two

areas separately and provides

ideas for working with both

types.

Visual learners generally

remember best when they can

see something or write it

down. Examples of activities

for them include noticing

things about them, using colours, drawing or creating

pictures in their minds, recognizing shapes, and

describing items or people in writing.

Auditory learners remember what they hear or say.

Therefore the activities for them include passing on

sentences to each other orally, telling stories or putting

them in the correct order through listening, describing

people aloud, asking questions, and matching

beginnings and endings of jokes they hear.

Kinaesthetic emotional learners need to feel

comfortable with others and want to have the feeling

of belonging. Therefore, they are given the chance to

work together in groups to plan joint events, tell each

others’ horoscopes or fortunes, find positive adjectives

to describe classmates, or tell others how they feel

about a particular topic within a safe setting.

The kineasthetic motoric leaners need to move about

and learn best when they can try things out for

themselves. They are given the opportunity to walk

around and mingle to gather information, create the

moving parts of a machine in a group, pass on a word

by writing on someone’s back, or act words for others

to guess.

The last section has mixed

activities which are designed

to appeal to all learner types

such as describing, drawing or

‘becoming’ pictures, playing

memory games in groups,

remembering and repeating

unusual definitions, as well as

kinaesthetic bingo and gap

texts. Students are also

encouraged to contribute to

the activities and if some are

more successful than others,

they can be asked to help

fellow students or give personalised tips on how to

remember things better.

Global / Analytic Learners Moving onto cognitive processing, we take a look at the

global / analytic learning style. One of the first

researchers to look into these styles was Herman

Witkin (1981) who worked with fighter pilots to

discover what influenced their decisions while piloting

planes. He came up with his theory of field-dependent

(global) learners and field-independent (analytic)

No style is ‘better’ than

another style; one may be

more suited to learning a

particular skill than another

but each of the styles has

their strong and weak

points.


learners based on this research and went on to develop

the ‘Group Embedded Figures Test’, still used today to

determine cognitive learner styles.

Global learners tend to process information holistically

and by remembering the entire experience rather than

just details. They are also relationship-oriented and may

be more emotional than analytic learners. The activities

designed to appeal to them include a group drawing

exercise to create a person, writing stories about others

in the class, coming up with an idea for a class excursion

and playing games like ‘You-Robot’.

Analytic learners, on the

other hand, like details and

structure. They may prefer to

work alone as they prefer not

to be distracted. They are

generally self-motivated and

may be quite goal-oriented.

The activities created for

them include finding

mistakes, solving logical

puzzles, figuring out a

detective story, and creating

rules for specific activities.

Mind Organisation The last of the styles looks at behaviour and is created

by putting together the idea of perception as concrete

(using the senses) or abstract (using ideas and feelings)

and the element of organisation (either systematically

or non-systematically). This gives us four distinct styles

which were created by April Bowie (1997) who began

her research working with adolescents. She devised a

learning style survey called ‘Mind Organisation’ and

used it as a basis for counselling high school students

and helping them to learn. Her four styles include:

Flexible Friends who perceive abstractly through

ideas or feelings and organise non-systematically.

Expert Investigators who perceive abstractly

through ideas or feelings and organise

systematically.

Power planners who perceive concretely using their

senses and organise systematically.

Radical Reformers who perceive concretely through

their senses but organise non-systematically.

Flexible Friends like to work in groups, especially those

in which they like the other people. They are creative

and intuitive and value

personalised learning

experiences. They are also

enthusiastic and express their

empathy for others. Language

activities which appeal to

them include setting personal

goals, writing down sentences

which are true for them in a

dictation exercise, learning to

use vocabulary of emotions

and feelings, completing

sentences about their

partner, and finding things in

common with others.

Expert Investigators are logical and systematic learners.

They tend to be perfectionists so prefer to work at their

own speed. In dealing with others they are generally

logical and rational. They especially like to do research

and to know where they can get information from. The

language activities designed for them include working

with facts and informative materials, finding errors and

doing research for a class excursion followed by a

report on how it went.

Power Planners like to be organised and are generally

detail- and task-oriented. In groups they may take on a

Moving on to personal

research or professional

development, stretching

outside your own comfort

zone, or helping students to

realise their true potential are

only some of the places these

ideas can take you.


natural role as a leader and enjoy hands-on activities.

The language tasks designed for them include putting

processes in order and explaining them to others,

finding explanations and rules for difficult grammar

points, using linking words correctly to create plans and

setting priorities.

Radical Reformers are risk-takers and are often curious

about a number of different fields of study. They

generally rely on their intuition to solve problems but

pride themselves on finding unique ones. They tend to

‘think outside the box’ and value creativity and

ingenuity. In groups, they may inspire others and value

real-life experiences. The activities for them include

realistic role plays, creating and acting out a scenario

based on a true story, buying and selling everyday items

to each other by finding unusual uses for them, creating

statements about themselves which the others guess

are true or false.

Moving on The information presented here is the start; the end of

the journey is up to the readers and users of the book.

As learning styles and the discoveries which occur when

people become aware of them is a never-ending story,

the goal of this article and the book itself is to open up a

perspective on learning which perhaps had not been

considered before. Moving on to personal research or

professional development, stretching outside your own

comfort zone, or helping students to realise their true

potential are only some of the places these ideas can

take you. The excitement of discovery remains to those

who use the information to delve into themselves and

their teaching as well as their students and their

learning in whichever way they choose. The impetus is

here, the joy of further discovery is up to you.

Bibliography Barbe, W B and Swassing, R H Teaching through

modality strengths: Concepts and practices Zaner-

Bloser Inc. 1979

Bowie, A Mind Organisation, The Learning Styles

Institute 1997

Bowie, A Adolescent Self Perceptions of Learning

Styles: A Qualitative Study, Master’s Thesis, Antioch

University, Seattle 1998

Dunn, R and Dunn, K The Complete Guide to the

Learning Styles Inservice System Allyn and Bacon

1999

Guild, P B and Garger, S Marching to Different

Drummers Association for Supervision and

Curriculum Development (ASCD) 1998

Harmer, J The Practice of English Language Teaching

Longman 2007

Keefe, J W ‘Learning styles: an overview’ in Keefe, J S

(Ed): Student learning styles: diagnosing and

prescribing problems Reston. National Association

of Secondary School Principles 1979

König, M E Theory of Learning Styles and Practical

Applications Grin-Verlag für akademische Texte

2005

Reid, J Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom

Heinle and Heinle Boston Publishers 1995

Roche, T Investigating Learning Style in the Foreign

Language Classroom Langenscheidt 2006

Schmitt, N (Ed) An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

Hodder Education 2002

Witkin, H A and Goodenough, D R Cognitive Styles:

Essence and Origins International Universities Press

1981

Let us know if you attended Marjorie Rosenberg’s workshop? Did you enjoy it? What do you feel about Learner styles? Are there activities and things you do in class that take into account different

learner styles?


Material Swop Shop

Ideas for lessons that really work!

If you have lesson activities that really work, please share them.

Email Jean Theuma at [email protected] with a brief description of what you do and why it works.

Share your ideas with others!

“ Murder mystery Game.

This game can be used to practice indirect questions

with an Intermediate class. Students are put into

pairs (student A & student B). The teacher tells the

students some basic information about the crime

e.g. a teacher from the school was murdered yester-

day. Students are told that they are suspects but

yesterday they and their partner were at the cinema

at the time of the murder. Students invent details

about what they did at the cinema without taking

notes. While this is happening, 2 Students are given

the role of policemen. They must go outside the

class and create questions for the suspects. Divide

all the As and Bs into two groups and allocate a po-

liceman to each group. The policeman ask his/her Qs

taking detailed notes about the answers from each

student. The teacher monitors the groups and notes

down common errors. When they are finished the

teacher asks the students to go back into their pairs

and discuss the answers they had given. The police-

men compare their answers. The policemen reveal

the pair that had the most discrepancies and they

are the murderers. The teacher gives delayed error

correction on the board. ”

(Adrian—teaches general English to adults)

“ I think the key to working with one-to-one stu-

dents is flexibility. Ask the student what he/she

wants to do on a daily basis. Their attitude to how

they work and what material they want to cover will

change as the course progresses—and maybe they

are tired or stressed and want to do things different-

ly sometimes. ” (Liz—teaches adults)

“ I often find that my students love talking about

health and fitness, especially if they come from Eu-

ropean countries. Doing tasks related to fitness ex-

ercises helps to introduce or revise verbs that the

students are either not familiar with or don’t know

the exact meaning of. This topic is very versatile be-

cause at beginner level you can teach easy verbs

such as walk, run, sit, stand; mid-levels get tricky

words like kneel, crouch, and crawl; and higher lev-

els get to talk about the difference between lift and

pick up, grab and catch, grasp and cling! The food

aspect of fitness is also good to exploit, leading to

beginner level lessons on basic food stuffs, middle

level lessons about cooking techniques and higher

level lessons discussing the nutritional and energy

values of certain foods. Health and fitness as a topic

can also lead to discussions on work/life balance

and whether we get enough time to peruse a

healthy lifestyle. ” (Joe—teaches adults in summer)

“ Improvisation works a treat with all classes as a

fluency exercise. Give each student a number. Call a

number and give a scenario where the student

needs help—their car breaks down, they are on a

desert Island, they are locked out of their house, …

The student should start the scene looking wor-

ried—Call other numbers and those students must

come into the scene and offer help. They can leave

the scene whenever they want to but can only enter

when you call their number. This can be done with

one large group in the middle of the class or with

several smaller groups working simultaneous-

ly.” (Jean—teaches adults and teens)


Introduction

It seems symptomatic of the social media era that

most people’s diet of inspirational quotes is nowadays

supplied by social networking sites, awash as they are

with the pithy quips and maxims of a host of

enlightened writers, artists and celebrities. What was

once the job of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is

now being done by Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

among others. The original source of these quotes is

rarely cited and almost never given any importance. It

seems as if we have all read Albert Einstein, William

Shakespeare and Mahatma Gandhi, we have all

listened to Steve Jobs’s (2005)

Stanford University

commencement speech, and we

have all watched Dead Poets

Society, Forrest Gump, Rocky

Balboa and The Pursuit of

Happyness. In the process of ultra

skimming through countless posts

and tweets, with some luck such

inspirational quotes are read and

shared. However, if they are not

properly digested the words would not be worthy of

being termed ‘inspirational’. In this article I reflect on

the significance, with respect to teachers’ creative

identity, of a quote I came across recently.

A school in Nicaragua used Instagram to post the

following quote by the American author Joseph

Chilton Pearce: “To live a creative life, we must lose

our fear of being wrong.” This quote was meant to

encourage its students not to be afraid of making

mistakes in their struggle to master the English

language. Pearce wrote a number of books about child

development and this particular quote is perhaps one

of the most famous pronouncements on creativity.

Beyond the school’s use of the quote as a means of

goading students to experiment with the target

language, this sentence should also resonate with

teachers in their endeavour to be creative

practitioners.

Creative Practitioners

Some teachers’ misconceptions about what

constitutes creativity impede them from positioning

themselves as creative practitioners (Xerri, 2013). The

myth that creativity is only about

creating works of art or enabling

learners to be artistic is detrimental

to teachers’ efforts to be creative.

As language speakers we are all

creative individuals. It takes a lot of

creativity for a child to acquire a

language, for a learner to use the

language we teach them. However,

as language teachers we can be

even more creative when we think

of new possibilities for language teaching and

learning. Being creative does not just mean using arts

and crafts, poetry or film in language lessons. While

lessons incorporating activities based on those media

and genres have the potential to act as creative

impulses for learners, the essence of creativity for

teachers goes beyond classroom activities.

Being creative means daring to do things differently,

thus expanding the boundaries of what you know

about teaching and learning in order to discover new

On Teachers’ Creative Life

Daniel Xerri discusses creativity in the classroom ahead of this year’s EFL Monitoring Board

conference on the same theme.

Being creative does not

just mean using arts

and crafts, poetry or

film in language

lessons.


worlds within the confines of your classroom. In fact,

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996) defines the creative

individual as “someone whose thoughts or actions

change a domain, or establish a new domain” (p. 28).

Being creative means you do not just do what trainers

and other experts tell you you should be doing, but

rather trusting your intuitions as educators to break

new ground, research your practices, experiment with

new pedagogies, and try out new activities or spin-offs

of things you are used to doing. Being creative means

you are not just followers but leaders, not just

consumers but creators, not just an audience but

sharers. Being creative means you do not hermetically

seal your knowledge and experience inside your head,

but rather expressing the willingness to share with

others. A community of creative educators is made up

of professionals who are constantly learning from

each other.

Most teachers are all too willing to sit back and learn

from others, fearing that they cannot teach anything

to their peers or to themselves, fearing that they have

nothing new to say, that they are incapable of being

creative. They do what they are instructed to do on a

teacher training course, at a conference, or in a

methodology book. However, possessing all that

knowledge should not hinder teachers from doing

things differently, finding out for themselves what

works and what is unlikely to be effective. There is no

recipe for the perfect lesson; there is no manual that

will ensure success in every single activity with every

single student. Being creative means having faith in

your expertise as a teacher, as someone

knowledgeable about your context, your learners, the

language, and the repertoire of methods and

approaches at your disposal. Being creative means you

do not let the dictums of others straightjacket you, but

rather demonstrating the willingness to question

everything and to apply multiple perspectives to every

issue and problem you encounter.

Creative teachers are not just born creative. Creativity

is a state of mind. It is a boundary that you need to

cross in order to discover your potential to do things

differently and be an inspiration for others. According

to Alan Alda (2007), you need to

Have the nerve to go into unexplored

territory. Be brave enough to live creatively.

The creative is the place where no one else

has ever been. It is not the previously known.

You have to leave the city of your comfort

and go into the wilderness of your intuition.

You can’t go there by bus, only by hard work

and risk and by not quite knowing what

you’re doing, but what you’ll discover will be

wonderful. What you’ll discover will be

yourself. (pp. 21-22)

Most teachers are not creative because they allow

fear to dominate them. They prefer living in the

comfort zone rather than exploring the unknown.

Whilst there are practically no more places on Earth

for anyone to discover for the first time ever, there is

a lot that can still be discovered about teaching and

learning. However, the number of teachers willing to

act as explorers is far too little. Education requires as

many teachers as possible determined to explore new

frontiers.

Being creative means you are not afraid to fail,

especially since failure is a fundamental part of the

teaching and learning experience. Which teacher has

not tasted the bitterness of failure at least once over

the course of their career? The most brilliant

educators are the ones who have failed many times in

their quest to achieve success, whether this be an

amazing lesson, wonderful feedback, or a learner’s

attainment of seemingly impossible aims. Being

creative means you are willing to transcend your fears

in order to discover that you can be right sometimes

besides being wrong at other times.


As Edward de Bono (1990) points out,

The need to be right all the time is the

biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have

enough ideas for some of them to be wrong

than to be always right by having no ideas at

all. (p. 108)

The need to be right all the time is the essence of

vertical thinking, which is a problem solving and

decision-making approach that entails being selective,

analytical and sequential as a means of avoiding

failure. According to de Bono (1990), an “Exclusive

emphasis on the need to be right all the time

completely shuts out creativity and progress” (p. 108).

This is why it is important to use lateral thinking, which

consists of both the willingness to perceive things in

divergent ways and a series of thinking methods that

can be learnt (de Bono, 1982).

Conclusion

Teachers need to lead a creative life rather than just

experience creative moments interspersed among non

-creative lesson activities. Being creative is not

something you do temporarily. It should be a

permanent fixture of your professional life. You do not

stop being a teacher when the lesson ends. Teaching is

an intrinsic part of your identity. Similarly, creativity

should be a constant feature of your teaching and your

professional inquiry as an educator within and outside

the classroom. However, for that to happen you need

to overcome your fear of being wrong. As Ken

Robinson (2006) maintains, “if you’re not prepared to

be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”.

I dare you to lose your fear of being wrong. I dare you

to be wrong sometimes. That is how you can be right

at other times. That is how you can be creative.

The theme of the 4th ELT Malta Conference is Creativity

in ELT. The conference will take place on 22-25 October

2015.

[email protected]

References

Alda, A. (2007). Things I overheard while talking to

myself. New York: Random House.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the

psychology of discovery and invention. New York:

HarperPerennial.

de Bono, E. (1982). Thinking course: Powerful tools to

transform your thinking. Harlow: BBC Active.

de Bono, E. (1990). Lateral thinking: Creativity step by

step. New York: HarperPerennial.

Jobs, S. (2005, June). How to live before you die

[Online video]. TED. Retrieved May 14, 2015

from http://www.ted.com/talks/

steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die

Robinson, K. (2006, February). How schools kill

creativity [Online video]. TED. Retrieved May 14,

2015 from https://www.ted.com/talks/

ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity

Xerri, D. (2013, Autumn). The value of creativity:

Language teachers as creative practitioners.

Teaching English, 3, 23-25.

You do not stop being a

teacher when the

lesson ends.


PLNs – building your professional support system.

Even the most enthusiastic of teachers, armed with

the best stock of course books, can go through a

phase of “been there, done that (for the umpteenth

time)”. There’s a whole plethora of online resources at

our fingertips, if only we knew where to start! I admit I

have passed through this kind of phase at times

myself, especially before joining

MATEFL a few years ago.

However, sometimes, it isn’t

just about finding yet another

handout about the Present

Perfect or a cool new video to

use with your long-term

students. It’s about making

connections with other

teachers and professionals in

our field and discussing what

drives us and worries us. In

short, we want to talk about things which matter to

us.

Last month, I was lucky enough to meet our MATEFL

Spring Seminar guest speaker Marjorie Rosenberg, the

current President of IATEFL. We realised we had

several mutual friends on Facebook and she quickly

suggested some more people I should follow. She

reminded me that we always need to nurture our own

PLN and eagerly told me about her own.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a PLN

(Personal Learning Network) is basically an informal

learning support system of individuals whose aim is to

share ideas and knowledge through interaction. A PLN

is intrinsically a social process and is supported by

social learning theories (Bandura) and

connectivism (Siemens & Downes).

So, what does a PLN for ELT look like exactly? How

does one go about joining one?

Here is a short, non-exhaustive list of PLNs I’ve

participated in, and enjoyed, recently:

ELTChat

http://eltchat.org/wordpress/

ELT chat is a self-professed ELT “social

network” offering mutual support and

opportunities for Continuous

Professional Development to ELT

professionals around the world. Online

discussions about a chosen topic are

held every Wednesday at 10pm CET for

one hour through Twitter. If you cannot

join in real time, you’ll be happy to

know that full summaries of the chats

are then posted on the site http://eltchat.org/

wordpress/eltchat-summaries-index/. It is especially

useful if you’re not a twitter user. A poll is posted

every Sunday to vote for the next topic to be

discussed, so issues are kept current. It is a really good

community of regulars, with the likes of Marjorie and

other IATEFL personalities, regularly contributing to

the discussions.

EDchat

http://edchat.pbworks.com/

Similarly, even though it is not exclusively focussed on

ELT, #Edchat conversations are hosted twice every

Teacher 2.0: a Survival Guide to Technology in the classroom

Natasha Fabri explores 21st century teaching.

a PLN (Personal

Learning Network) is

basically an informal

learning support system

of individuals whose

aim is to share ideas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism_(learning_theory)

http://eltchat.org/wordpress/

http://eltchat.org/wordpress/eltchat-summaries-index/

http://eltchat.org/wordpress/eltchat-summaries-index/

http://edchat.pbworks.com/


Tuesday, at 6pm and 1am

CET. Conversations range from

“current teaching trends, how

to integrate technology,

transform their teaching, and

connect with inspiring

educators worldwide” to

“education policy and reform”.

Shelly Sanchez Terrell, a co-

founder of Edchat also hosts

her own free, 30 minute

weekly webinars every Friday at 10pm

CET.

Joining is simple, log on as a guest

on: Americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell. The

sessions are always lively and useful in content and

Shelly interacts with participants from all over the

world in real time. After each webinar, she also offers

free resources and a Certificate of Attendance if you

fill in a form:

Shellyterrell.com/amtesolcertificate.

ELT Pics

https://www.facebook.com/groups/eltpics/

and http://www.eltpics.com/

ELTPics is a community of ELT professionals who take/

share their own photos on a given theme to pool into

a resource bank of images which can be used freely

for teaching purposes. A new theme is posted every

two weeks on both Facebook and Twitter (#eltpics),

Join IATEFL!

Membership with IATEFL offers you:

Contact with EFL teachers around the world

An annual conference and exhibition at membership rates

An opportunity to join any of the 15 Special Interest Groups (SIGS)

Discounted periodicals

IATEFL Voices newsletter 6 times a year

MATEFL is an Associate Member of IATEFL and as such is able to offer

all its members the opportunity to become an IATEFL member for only €35.00 and €23.00 for each SIG.

Ask for an application form, fill it in and send it to Caroline Campbell, c/o 257, Upper St. Albert Street, Gzira,

GZR 1153 along with your cheque for €35.00 (plus €23.00 for each SIG you choose). Details of available SIGs

are found on the application form and on the IATEFL web-site—www.iatefl.org.

Please note that this offer is only available for MATEFL members.

For any further information please contact Caroline Campbell, Alan Marsh or Jean Theuma at [email protected]

ELTpics is a huge resource of free pictures which are legal for teachers to download and use in class.

https://americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell/

http://shellyterrell.com/amtesolcertificate/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/eltpics/


so it is easy to keep up to date. A number of curators

tag and upload images to the relevant sets to make

them searchable on albums on:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/albums.

The website www.eltpics.com also gives useful tips on

how to use these images in the classroom. Most of us

have a smartphone by now, so it’s easy to see how this

is quite popular!

Map of the Urban Linguistic Landscape

(MULL)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MUrbanLL/

MULL can be seen as a more recent variation of

ELTPics. However, it is more focussed on the mapping

of variations of English around the world. Contributors

post pictures of street signs and other public notices,

commenting on idiosyncrasies of the region and how

English becomes intertwined with the local languages

with some quite interesting results.

English Club

https://www.englishclub.com/

Having a PLN is also great for our language learners

outside of the classroom. A great place to start from is

Englishclub. It caters for both learners and teachers of

English and includes a forum for teachers:

https://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/.

While the PLN is not a new concept, I feel it is a great

way for all teachers, from the newbies or seasonal

teachers to the “veterans” among us, to be reminded

that we operate within a larger community of teachers

worldwide. By connecting to these PLNs, we get to

meet other people who are passionate about what

they do. It’s a great way to get inspired by their

experiences, to fuel our own enthusiasm for teaching

by trying new things and to also build connections and

friendships with our peers abroad. The great thing is

that we also realise that we too have much to

contribute to the community beyond our shores.

[email protected]

ELTchat is a good place to start.

If you are not a twitter user, you can read the summaries of the chat which are archived on the site.

If you do use twitter, you can join the chat every Wednesday at 10pm CET.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/albums

http://www.eltpics.com/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MUrbanLL/

https://www.englishclub.com/

https://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/


Course book face off

Matt Done pits two course-book giants against each other.

For this edition of the good old course book ‘face-off’, I’ve chosen two very different titles that are nonethe-less both personal favourites. That’s right - the legend-ary ‘New English File’ takes on the formidable ‘Outcomes’. Outcomes – Published by Heinle-Cengage, Written by Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley What kind of book is it? Outcomes is very much a unique product in the com-petitive world of EFL materials. Aside from its slightly older cousin ‘Innovations’, which is also co-authored by Hugh Dellar, it is essentially the only leading course book designed with the somewhat controversial ‘lexical approach’ in mind. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the crux of it is that lexis lies at the heart of language acquisition. We don’t simply slot words into the gaps of pre-learned grammatical structures, it ar-gues. Rather, any progress we make as language learn-ers comes off the back of acquiring layer upon layer of lexis. And this belief is certainly reflected in the book, which is bursting with all kinds of words and expres-sions. You won’t see units in this book arranged around discreet grammar items like the present per-fect. What’s good about it? A lot. The thing that leaps out at you most, perhaps, is its emphasis on developing conversations. The ra-tionale is that conversations, at least at the start, de-velop rather predictably, and that we can prepare stu-

dents for this by feeding them a language diet rich in lexical chunks and fixed expressions. Students learn useful things such as ‘What are you doing later?’, and ‘How’re things at work?’ then put them to practice immediately in the several role-play and mini dialogue activities. You really do get a sense that you are help-ing your learners develop their fluency and have real-istic conversations – something which certainly can’t be said for other books. Could anything be better? Well, nothing is perfect in life, but I really did have to scratch my head to find a glaring deficiency in this one. Perhaps for certain students, outcomes may be a shock to the system in that few of the gap-fill activities are really ‘grammar’ exercises. Although there are still notes on rules at the back, your typical grammar-checklist bearing student might not get his fix here. Another potential issue is that, since the series is so content heavy and input focused, it does place a slightly heavier load on the teacher, who might be subjected to a wider range of less predictable ques-tions. This book may, therefore, be better suited to more experienced teachers who are happy to stand in the firing line. Finally, and I’m being nit-picky here, there are one or two expressions taught in the book which might sound odd coming from a student, like ‘Are you taking the mickey out of me?’ or ‘He’s a right pain’. Having said that, for students preparing to live or already living in the UK, these will have high surren-der value, especially receptively.

VS

Heinle-Cengage Oxford University Press


Overall impressions I came across this book for the first time when I was running out of material to use with an advanced class. I was sick and tired of flicking unsuccessfully through higher-level course books, desperate to find some-thing to teach that didn’t sound daft or obscure. I mean, how often do we really say or hear ‘Never be-fore had I held him so tightly’? Outcomes promptly came to the rescue and has been a firm favourite ever since. The thing I love most about it is that I get a very strong sense that I’m actually teaching something of value, which is, after all, what we’re being paid to do. If you haven’t used this book yet, stop whatever you’re doing and buy it at once. New English File – Published by Oxford University Press, Written by Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig What kind of book is it? Few things in life make me cringe as much as a bad cliché, but you have to say that New English File is a book which ‘needs no introduction’. We’ve all used it, we’ve all got photocopies of our favourite bits, and some of us can probably teach some of its units back-wards and with our eyes closed. It’s the book you see under students’ arms as they cross the road while you wait at the lights, and the book you see on café tables as one-to-one lessons take to the streets. New English File is everywhere, and with good reason. Once you look inside, it’s a fairly typical course book. Most units are written around discreet grammar items, and most also conform to the safe and sturdy ‘PPP’ (present, practice, produce) model. There is a healthy dose of what you’d expect – grammar, vocab-ulary, listening, reading, and writing, but also a very strong focus on pronunciation. It’s definitely a meaty book with plenty for teachers and students to sink their teeth into. What’s good about it? Quite a lot. The biggest strength of New English File, as far as I’m concerned at least, is the choice of topics. Most units in the book feature relevant and up-to-date issues which really do get students talking and engaged. There’s also a good amount of humour and light-heartedness, which does wonders for classroom dynamics and of course makes the material itself more memorable. Another plus point is the considerable attention paid to pronunciation. While other books treat it superfi-

cially if at all, English File features very regular pronun-ciation slots, which raise both students’ and teachers’ awareness of how crucial an aspect of language learn-ing it is. The teacher’s book is also an absolute goldmine, brimming with extra activities for practice tests, grammar homework and further communicative practice Finally, unlike with outcomes, perhaps, there’s absolutely no reason why a novice teacher couldn’t pick this up and teach from it – a definite ‘A+’ for being user-friendly. Could anything be better? Well, yes, but again I’m going to have to be quite nit-picky. You could argue that the lesson structure of most of the book, PPP, has been largely discredited. Everything is fairy linear and logical, in that language is first presented, then practiced a bit in a controlled manner, and then used in a ‘freer’ sort of context. However, this doesn’t really match up to what is known about language acquisition, which is more of a messy ‘one step forward, two steps back’ kind of pro-cess. Still, you could level this accusation at the vast majority of books on the market - it’s just how most of them continue to be written. You could, of course, defend the PPP approach in books. After all, it offers students a sense of progress, it makes the language accessible, and it’s easy for teachers to pick up and teach. But this is a debate for another day... Another criticism I have is related to a pet-hate of mine – songs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally against them. I just think that most of them offer pretty unrealistic models of language, in spite of the ‘fun and motivation’ factor. New English File is packed with them, although, to be fair, they tend to be op-tional add-ons rather than central features of the les-son. Overall Impressions My frail attempt at a critique is testament to the fact

that I’m a big English File fan. If they made t-shirts, I’d

wear one with pride. It’s a motivating, fun, and lively

book that has language content to match. It’s little

wonder that it rules the roost when it comes to course

books.

Matt Done

If you’d like to compare 2 course books for our next Course Book Face-off, please contact Jean Theuma at [email protected]


Out and About in EFL

Jean Theuma has just come back from Teacher training in LIMA, PERU

Teacher Training is not always an easy job. Teaching teachers can be hard and Department Heads even more so. So when I was asked to go to Lima in Peru for a week to train a group of University English Department Coordinators I did not know what to expect. Add to this the fact that the first time I was to meet my co-trainer was in Amsterdam when getting on the plane to Lima and I am sure you can understand my ap-prehension. On the flight we did not have seats next to each other, so the first time we had to actually sit down and talk to each other was in the taxi whizzing towards the hotel. Well...I say ‘talk to each other’, but it was mainly both of us looking out the window and taking sharp breaths every time the taxi weaved in and out of hellish traffic. It would seem that taxi drivers in Peru have not grasped the simple fact that they have

a brake and that it is not a sign of weakness to use it! Brian, for that is the name of the co-trainer, and I got out at our beautiful hotel and, all at once, everything seemed fine. My worries evaporated and my excitement at a new adventure kicked in. The training took place at the hotel, and the par-ticipants were also housed in the hotel. This meant that we did not have any travel time to and from the training venue. At the end of each training day, we went to our room, put on our comfortable shoes and within minutes were out the door exploring the city. And what a wonderful city Lima is! Our hotel was in the Miraflores district; obviously the more affluent part of town with clean streets, fancy shopping malls,

The view from the top of the hotel , looking out on to the Pacific Ocean.


tourist trap ‘artisan’ markets and beautiful parks at the end of every road. This was quite a contrast to the streets we saw as we were driving in from the airport. The taxi ride took us past dull, dingy shops which seemed to built into garages, children playing bare-foot in dust-heaps and greasy smelling fast-food joints on every corner. The taxi driver warned us to keep the windows rolled up as motorcyclists have been known to ride by the windows, pluck the handbag off your lap and make their escape through the gridlocked traffic. One of the highlights of the trip was a publisher visit. The publisher, while wooing the University, took the participants and us trainers out to the best restaurant in town. This is The Huaca Pucllana , a Peruvian speci-ality restaurant built on the site of a pre-Inca temple in the middle of the city. Before you wonder whether I have taken leave of my senses, let me explain...Lima is a poor city with very limited resources. When the Pe-ruvian Government found that the strange mound in the middle of the city was an ancient ruin, they looked into how to fund its restoration. The restaurant own-ers were given permission to use some of the grounds to built an elevated deck, put tables and chairs out and serve wonderful Peruvian cuisine. In return for this, the restaurant have pledged to preserve, restore and fund excavations on the site. In fact, last year, 2 preserved mummies were discovered inside the mound and were handed over to the Peruvian Gov-ernment Museums department. Another highlight was a visit to the Larco museum. Another hair-raising taxi ride away from the hotel and

20 minutes later we were walking through one of the best laid out museums I have ever been to. All the exhibits are clearly marked and gathered into sections depicting different aspects of Inca life: cooking, farm-ing, textiles, and, of course, what they are best known for, human sacrifice. And housed away from the main exhibits, the museum also boasts one of the largest collections of pre-Colombian erotic art; a slightly em-barrassing find considering I had only just met my col-league on the flight over! The University Coordinators turned out to be a dream to train. They were eager, enthusiastic and keen to discuss new methods. Like most administrators, they felt as if they were snowed under and had trouble di-viding their time up between the day to day running of their department and the forward planning which would make their lives easier. The group were good English speakers and were well-able to express them-selves on a variety of topics. The course focussed on teacher observations, developing and supporting teachers and working towards meeting standards im-posed by the University on their departments. The week flew past and before I knew it I was back on the plane making a gruelling 48 hour journey home. I left the hotel in Lima on Saturday just after midday and got home on Monday just before midday. I trav-elled trough Amsterdam and Rome before collapsing gratefully into my own bed. But I would do it all again in a shot!

Please let us share your experience of teaching abroad. If you’d like to contribute to the next Out and About in EFL, please email Jean Theuma at [email protected]

A textile sample found at the Larco Museum dating from 1AD

Statue of a bright red bull in Parque Kennedy, also known as Cat Park because it is full of stray cats.


Words in this puzzle appear horizontal, vertical, diagonal as well as backwards!

ASYNCHRONOUS

AUDIO BLOG

BLENDED LEARNING

CALL

CONCORDANCER

COURSE CASTING

DIGITAL DIVIDE

DISCUSSION GROUP

E-LEARNING

E-PORTFOLIO

IWB

KEYPAL

M-LEARNING

MULTIMEDIA

MUVE

NETMEETING

PBWIKI

PEER-TO-PEER

SECOND LIFE

SKYPE

SYNCHRONOUS

VIDEO CONFERENCE

VLE

VLOG

WEBQUEST

WIKI

How well do you know your EFL jargon?

All the words below are related to teaching with the Internet:

E R E C N A D R O C N O C P E

V C S U O N O R H C N Y S U P

G L N S E C O N D L I F E O Y

A D E E P O R T F O L I O R K

G N I N R A E L M E V U M G S

B L E N D E D L E A R N I N G

P B W I K I F L A P Y E K O T

E L E A R N I N G V L O G I S

R A S Y N C H R O N O U S S E

G O L B O I D U A C A L L S U

M U L T I M E D I A O M C U Q

G N I T E E M T E N V E P C B

E D I V I D L A T I G I D S E

C O U R S E C A S T I N G I W

R E E P O T R E E P T O Y D V


The Ultimate Synonym Crossword


Across

1. passage

6. re-run

8. acute

9. warily

10. creditable

12. defrost

14. independent

18. immature

19. youthful

20. payment

22. ascend

24. cable

26. below

28. gilt

30. two

31. yell

32. yearly

36. gorge

37. microscopic

38. answer

Down

2. exceptional

3. precisely

4. dispatch

5. swap

7. roughly

11. battle

13. cat

15. same

16. circulate

17. great

18. cutthroat

21. spotless

23. abruptly

25. purchase

27. authentic

29. commence

30. active

33. haul

34. group

35. housecoat Created using Puzzlemaker at

DiscoveryEducation.com

Answers on page 26

Signs in “English” from China

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk


7 ways we use questions in class

Asking questions is one of the most powerful tools we have as teachers. According to a popular learning pyramid diagram available on the internet, only 5% of what students hear when teachers are in lecture mode is actually remembered, whereas 50% of discus-sion driven information is retained. Although the pyramid has been proven to be a gross simplification of what actually happens, it seems true that being more participatory will aid learning more than ‘just’ listening or reading activities. So when teachers ask questions, even if they are rhetorical, something sparks in the students’ brains and they become more involved; they become part of what is going on, rather than merely onlookers. In Critical Thinking: Basic Theory and Instructional structures, the au-thors propose that all thinking is driven by questions. Asking questions opens up discussion, whereas answering questions clos-es it down. Here are 7 ways in which teachers can use questions in class:

1. To engage students Teachers use questions at the beginning of a lesson or at the beginning of a particular part of a lesson, to create interest in the topic or content. We ask stu-dents to predict or reflect on topic, asking what they know or linking the topic to their own experiences. This has two benefits:

A) For students, it activates background sche-mata – in other words, it helps the process by which the learners combine their own background knowledge with the information we give them about the topic in order to understand the lesson. Students find this very engaging.

B) As teachers, we can find out what our stu-dents already know or feel about the topic, making sure that the lesson is well-received by the students. We can move on swiftly if we detect that the students already know all about it, or are bored by the topic. Equally, we can linger if the students are enthusiastic

and want to develop the discussion.

2. To ask students to personalise the language Scott Thornbury defines personalisation in language teaching as ‘when you use it [language] to talk about your knowledge, experience and feelings’. Many teachers consider this stage very important for learn-ing as it gives the students an emotional connection with the content of the lesson. In course books, the personalisation task is often the final stage of a lesson giving the opportunity for creative practice, letting the students off of the leash, so to speak! Personalising

the language also allows the student the opportunity to explore the ways in which an item of language might be useful to them personally and how it can be incorporated to their active language library.

3. Concept check questions As teachers, we sometimes need to be sure that what we think we have taught correlates to what the students have learnt. What I mean to say is, we might go into a detailed explanation of, say, a grammar point only to find

that, no matter how clearly we think we have taught the point, the students still find it confusing. Concept check questions are those quite tricky questions that we all cover when we are learning how to teach, and for the most part, never really put into practice once we get our own classes. Some teachers might rely in-stead on watching the students flounder in the first practice exercise and then go back to the beginning to clarify and pick up the pieces. Concept check ques-tions should be precisely what is written on the tin – a series of questions which clarify the concepts that we are trying to teach to avoid confusion later on in the lesson.

4. Instruction check questions In my experience as a teacher observer, these type of questions are also often overlooked and forgotten. Instruction check questions allow us those few mo-ments to check that all the students know what they are supposed to be doing and how long the activity is expected to last. I think we should sometimes remind ourselves that our students have not done the exer-

Jean Theuma explores how using question techniques can increase the learning in our classes

Asking questions

opens up

discussion, whereas

answering

questions closes it

down.


cise in the book the 12 million times that we have! They are coming to the task for (possibly) the first time and can easily be confused by the instructions. This is especially clear in older students who have not been to school for many years and those keen stu-dents who want to get it right.

5. To check for comprehension during a recep-tive skills part of a lesson After a reading or listening (the receptive skills), the best way we teachers can find out if the students have actually understood the text is by making them an-swer comprehension questions. In fact, these some-times seem to benefit the teacher more than the stu-dents. Teachers can also use com-prehension questions to direct the students’ attention to certain parts of the reading or listening activity that contain important or inter-esting language. But with regard to students, Mario Rinvolucri sug-gests that they should be encour-aged to gauge their own compre-hension of a text. He recommends activities such as asking the stu-dents to write comprehension questions for each other in order to find the answers. He also pro-poses that teachers’ questions about he texts should focus on the students elaboration or reaction to the text rather than just a regurgitation of it.

6. As prompts during a productive skills part of a lesson Most of us find it quite difficult when asked to speak or write about something on the spot, with little prep-aration. Learners of the language have the added hur-dle of having to organise, not only their thoughts on the topic, but also the very language that they will need to use to express themselves. By providing prompt questions and giving speaking preparation time or time to write a mind-map or speaking notes, the students can better organise their thoughts and their language. Prompt questions can provide a frame-work on which the student can structure their speak-ing or writing and this in itself is an important skill to learn in a foreign language as much of it is culture based and varies from country to country.

7. To create genuine rapport with the students Arguably, the best condition for learners to engage and learn what we teach them in class is when they are relaxed. Stephen Krashen calls this ‘lowering the students’ affective filter’ and he extols the benefits of lowering personal and classroom anxiety. One good way to relax the students is to create a sense of rap-port with them by being genuinely interested in the students as people. Asking them about their day, their health and happiness when they come to lessons is one way. Finding out about their motivation to learn English and how they are comfortable learning is an-other. In the positive atmosphere created by good rapport, student confidence can also be built which, in

turn, is related to progress and learning.

These were just 7 ways that using questions in class can greatly ben-efit our students. I wonder, can you think of any more?

[email protected]

References and further reading:

Benjes-Small, C. Tales of the un-dead...Learning theory, the learning pyramid - available: http://acrlog.org/2014/01/13/tales-of-the-undead-learning-theories-the-learning

-pyramid/

Crangle, T. Building rapport and confidence in ELT classes – A summary - available: http://eltchat.org/wordpress/summary/building-rapport-and-confidence-with-students-in-elt-classes-a-summary Krashen, S. (1982) Principles and practice in second lan-guage acquisition, Pergamon Press Inc. Paul, R.W & Elder, L. (2000) Critical Thinking: Basic Theory and Instructional Structures, Foundation for Critical Thinking Stott, N. Helping ESL students become better readers: Sche-ma theory applications and Limitations - available: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Stott-Schema.html Thornbury, S. (2006) An A-Z of ELT, Macmillan Rinvolucri, M. How useful are comprehension questions available: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/how-useful-are-comprehension-questions

Learners of the language have the

added hurdle of having to organise,

not only their thoughts on the topic,

but also the very language that they will need to use to

express themselves.


Answers to the MATEFL newsletter crossword:

Across

1. pass

6. repeat

8. pointed

9. carefully

10. valid

12. thaw

14. separate

18. childish

19. young

20. fee

22. rise

24. rope

26. under

28. gold

30. both

31. shout

32. annual

36. valley

37. tiny

38. response

Down

2. special

3. exactly

4. send

5. switch

7. approximately

11. clash

13. feline

15. alike

16. distribute

17. super

18. competitive

21. clean

23. suddenly

25. buy

27. real

29. start

30. busy

33. load

34. gang

35. robe

Language is funny like that....

1. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger 2. There are no apples or pines in pineapple. 3. Is cheese the plural of choose? 4. If teachers taught, did preachers praught? 5. People recite at a play and play at a recital. 6. People have noses that run and feet that smell 7. The weather can be as hot as hell and as cold as hell. 8. How come writers write, but fingers don’t fing and grocers don’t groce. 9. When a house burns up, it burns down. 10. When the stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible. 11. How come a slim chance and a fat chance as the same? 12. How come a wise guy and a wise man are opposites? 13. How come an alarm clock goes off by going on? 14. If the plural of tooth is teeth, then the plural of booth is beeth, right?

Source: https://www.englishforums.com ______________________________________________________

Pun fun

What’s the worst thing about having a party in space? You have to planet!

Yesterday a clown held open a door for me. I thought it was a nice jester.

How do you make an anti freeze? Steal her blanket!

It was an emotional wedding. Even the cake was in tiers.

What does a house wear? A dress

There was an explosion in a cheese factory in France. De-brie everywhere!

It’s hard to explain puns to a kleptomaniac. They always take things literally.

Two aerials were on a roof. They fell in love and got married. The service wasn’t great, but the reception was excellent.

I asked a Frenchman if he played video games. He said Wii http://www.buzzfeed/jessicamisener


Facts and figures about EFL students coming to Malta in 2014

The EFL Industry in a nutshell

Source: https://eflmalta.gov.mt/en/Pages/Industry-Statistics.aspx

EFL Students visiting in 2014

Male Female NA* Total

January 1156 1454 1 2611

February 1462 1704 0 3166

March 2700 3805 0 6505

April 2722 3535 1 6258

May 2407 2883 3 5293

June 4172 6228 11 10411

July 6800 10403 4 17207

August 5155 7102 4 12261

September 2317 3357 2 5676

October 2011 2582 1 4594

November 1177 1460 2 2639

December 493 436 0 929

Totals 32572 44949 29 77550

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

20000

Ital

y

Ger

man

y

Ru

ssia

Fran

ce

Oth

er

cou

ntr

ies

Au

stri

a

Sp

ain

Sw

itze

rlan

d

Lib

ya

Po

lan

d

Turk

ey

Bra

zil

Jap

an

Cze

ch R

ep

Ne

the

rla

nd

s

Sw

ed

en

Be

lgiu

m

Slo

vaki

a

Sou

th k

ore

a

Co

lom

bia

Fin

lan

d

26113166

6505

6258

5293

10411

17207

12261

5676

45942639 929

EFL Students visiting in 2014 total

January February March April

May June July August

September October November December

EFL students’ countries

Italy 18572

Germany 10505

Russia 9429

France 7388

Other countries 5484

Austria 4276

Spain 3601

Switzerland 2370

Libya 2052

Poland 2045

EFL students’ countries

Turkey 1947

Brazil 1513

Japan 1499

Czech Rep 1458

Netherlands 1216

Sweden 976

Belgium 793

Slovakia 686

South Korea 610

Colombia 600

Finland 530

In 2014, the majority of students visiting Malta were Italian, German, Russian and French. In fact, 23% of EFL stu-dents hailed from our neighbouring country Italy. The students overwhelmingly flocked to our shores in June, July and August, with more students coming in July than any other month. Throughout the year, 16% more female students graced the islands than male students and they made up 60% of all students coming in July. The poorest month for the EFL industry was December with just under 1000 students coming to learn English.

* No information is available


The MATEFL Spring Workshop

Jean Theuma meets some of the teachers who attended Marjorie Rosenberg’s session in May 2015

Documents

Malta Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language … · 2020-03-10 · MATEFL is an organisation run on a volunteer basis by teachers for teachers of English as a foreign