SATEFLNews! February2016! SATEFLNEWS’satefl.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SATEFL-News-February-20… · an! ‘ELTpics! ideas! site for! teachers’.! Here! teachers!share!the!ways!inwhich!they!have!

SATEFL News February 2016

SATEFL NEWS In this issue

Scottish Association for the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language

Website: www.satefl.co.uk

Facebook:

www.facebook.com/satefl.org

Twitter: www.twitter.com/satefl

Forthcoming SATEFL Events For further information, please see our posters, website and Facebook page

Saturday 5th March – Glasgow – Claire Hunter

Using TED Talks to critically engage and motivate learners

Saturday 14th May – Perth – Steve Brown Emancipating, indoctrinating or somewhere in between? Exploring the purpose of ESOL in Scotland

Saturday 1st October – Stirling – Péter Medgyes

SATEFL Day with Péter Medgyes

Forthcoming events Meeting reports

Action research report Teaching resource: ELTpics

IATEFL Conference Book reviews

The SATEFL newsletter

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The very first SATEFL newsletter was published in May 1981, eighteen months after the inauguration of SATEFL itself. A regular newsletter was then published for over 25 years, until a few years ago. Now, however, after members have requested that we revive it – and following positive responses to the trial issue – we’re going to try to put one out more regularly. We’ll send it out by email so that it can either be printed out for staff rooms or forwarded on to colleagues, or both.

In the very first newsletter,

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Jean McCutcheon, long-‐term newsletter editor, called for contributions. Anything, Jean emphasized, would be welcome. Subsequent issues contained a wide range of interesting articles, including book reviews, reports on conferences and talks, teaching ideas, links to online resources, and news from the institutional members.

We would like to reiterate Jean’s call. Anything of interest to SATEFL members will be very welcome. Please see the last page for more details about contributing.

SATEFL News February 2016 Page 2

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At our main event in October, we thoroughly enjoyed the two sessions from Fiona Mauchline, as well as the chance to catch up with each other over lunch in the sunshine at the University of Stirling campus. Fiona, originally from Scotland but now based in Western Spain, had lots of practical activities for us to try out and to bring back to use with our learners.

The two sessions – Integrating skills, integrating people and ‘Me’ is for memorable, meaningful – combined a bit of theory with lots of very practical ideas and enjoyable activities. For one of the activities, Fiona showed a picture from the ELTpics collection. Using this photo, she suggested how you could start by brainstorming vocabulary with learners and collect this on the board, clarifying as you do. Then, ask students, in small groups, to make up a story about the picture. This is all helped along by the questions:

What could he hear? What could he smell? What could he feel? What could he see? How did the air taste? Why? Where? Who? What?

By engaging the senses in imagining and telling the story, the language is made more memorable, Fiona suggested. As a follow up,

SATEFL Day with Fiona Mauchline

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learners can go to choose a picture they would like to write about.

Fiona’s workshops included several very useful and engaging activities. She even had some of us rapping with the help of a ‘useful language’ box like those found in many course books. We heard about new ways to do dictogloss, ways to encourage learners to listen more intently, and further ways to use photos. There is not enough space here to outline them all, but some of them can be found either on Fiona’s blog:

https://macappella.wordpress.com

or in the articles she has written for the British Council Teaching English website:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk

Fiona also maintains two blogs related to ELTpics and there is more information on that on page 6. All well worth exploring!


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Action Research Project Using Mobile Devices in the Classroom Kirsty D´Ambrosio

After listening to so many inspiring speakers at IATEFL 2015, I decided to do an action research project to put into practice some of the things I had learned.

I did one lesson on music with my young learners class using mobile devices in the classroom. I didn´t have Wi-‐Fi access so I had to download some apps on my iPads to use in class.

I used an app named Skitch (a note-‐taking application) to brainstorm vocabulary relating to music. You can take a picture or screen shot and then students can write/type text on top of the image. I wanted to activate students’ knowledge of lexical vocabulary related to music through visual images. Images generated quite a lot of lexis, though students did need some technical

support. I then wrote some different questions on the board and got students to interview their partners to find out about their music preferences. Students were given some preparation time before recording the interview on Voice Morph (an app which transforms voices) to encourage them to develop their answers. Students were encouraged to record a few times to improve accuracy/pronunciation. Students then listened back to themselves and changed their voices using the morph tool. We then conducted a short discussion on using mobile phones outside class to make personal recordings to encourage learner autonomy.

The voice recording activity worked quite well and encouraged shyer students to speak as they were keen to listen back to their recordings using the voice-‐morphing tool. However, some students were more interested in changing their voice than actually listening to utterances, so opportunities for self-‐correction and upgrading language were limited.

The most successful activity was a QR code treasure hunt,

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which required students to follow some “musical” clues, which took them to different locations outside in the centre of Edinburgh. The clue required them to follow some directions and answer some short questions, e.g. what music instrument can you see in the shop window? Students came back to class buzzing and were keen to show pictures and selfies taken.

I now realise the potential of using mobile devices in the class, though I have learned that using iPads without an Internet connection is limiting and designing purposeful tasks with clear goals is really challenging. Students also need a lot of technical support until they are familiar with applications/functions.

I hope to continue using mobile devices in the future, and I now have a good awareness of theoretical and practical issues which should allow me to make more informed judgements in the future.

Using mobile devices in the classroom Continued from page 3

IATEFL Conference 2016 -‐ Birmingham SATEFL is an associate member of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL), who are holding their 50th annual conference in Birmingham this year from 13th-‐16th April.

Plenary speakers for this conference are David Crystal, Silvana Richardson, Diane Larsen-‐Freeman, Scott Thornbury and Jan Blake. There are more details of the conference on the IATEFL website, www.iatefl.org

SATEFL has awarded grants to two members and will also be represented at the Associates Day on 12th April, and we look forward to hearing about their experience.

IATEFL Online

In association with the British Council, the annual conference is also available online at no cost. Plenaries are broadcast live, as are interviews with key figures. About 50 talks are recorded and made available for anyone to watch, and talks from the last four years are still available on their website.

http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org


Tradition and innovation An example of collaboration in designing a course for a local context

December 2015 SATEFL Talk in Edinburgh with Penny Hands

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At our December event in Edinburgh, we heard from Penny Hands about her experiences being part of a British-‐Indian collaboration to design the localized course from Collins, Exploring English, for Indian primary schools.

When asked to be part of the collaboration, Penny described how initial research and discussions revealed that English textbooks designed for schools in India were just that – books of texts – and these texts had been taken from literature written quite a while ago. She wondered about the need for children to spend time on words like ‘sidle’ or ‘meander’, and how useful such language would be in the world today.

But, rather than brush this traditional approach aside to be replaced with a more familiar course book organizational structure, Penny and the rest of the team started to appreciate the value of good literature and stories for language learning, and looked for high-‐quality children’s literature from around the world and also commissioned up-‐and-‐coming children’s authors to create new vibrant and thought-‐provoking materials. Texts were selected to provide meaningful topics for discussion and information-‐rich content to widen the students’

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horizons, and as such met the requirements of the national curriculum.

Authors selected included Michael Morpurgo, Sigrun Srivastav, Valerie Allen, Roald Dahl and Lauren St John. Poets included John Agard, Vikram Seth, Pam Ayres and Spike Milligan. Some of the reasons identified for texts that all the team agreed on were that there was suspense, vivid images, that they touched people and embraced idiosyncrasies. Using the texts that they had found or commissioned, lessons around topics such as ‘People who are differently abled’, ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Magic and fantasy’ were developed.

The study of meaningful texts, Penny explained, allows students to practise the higher-‐order thinking skills of subtle inference, extrapolation and critical thinking, vital in today’s world, where it might seem that all knowledge is ‘googleable’.


Teaching resource: ELTpics – eltpics.com

When Fiona Mauchline talked at our October event in Stirling, she used ELTpics for some of the activities. People who attended were interested to find out more about it, so here is a bit more information about the resource.

The ELTpics website – eltpics.com – is where you’ll find all the information you need to know about this project. Essentially, though, ELTpics is an ever-‐growing collection of photos taken by people around the world – mostly language teachers. These photos are then available for use by teachers with learners, organized into sets useful for the language classroom.

There are sets of ‘Clothes and Fashion’ photos, ‘Food’ and ‘Colours’. One of the sets is labelled ‘-‐ing’, another ‘Imperatives’. There’s a particularly interesting and useful set called ‘Every picture tells a story’ and a fun one with ‘Idioms’.

Anyone can contribute their own photos through Twitter or Facebook, and there are details on how to do this on the site. And anyone can use the photos in their teaching.

Ideas on how to use the photos can be found on ‘take a photo and…’, a blog run by Fiona as an ‘ELTpics ideas site for teachers’. Here teachers share the ways in which they have used ELTpics with their learners. This can be accessed from the main ELTpics site:

www.eltpics.com

“The collaborative project began life in October 2010 after Victoria Boobyer (at that time a teacher in Vietnam), Carol Goodey (an adult ESOL & Literacies worker in Scotland) and Vicky Loras (a teacher in Switzerland) became friends on Twitter. They were aware of the cavernous differences in the everyday life around them and thought it would be interesting to share photos taken during a particular week. Over an evening of chatting this morphed into #eltpics.” http://www.eltpics.com/eltpics/eltpics/about.html


Consectetuer:

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Business Result (Intermediate) John Hughes & Jon Naunton (OUP, 2014) ISBNs: 9780-‐194739399; 9780-‐194739474; 9780-‐194739443 This course targets adult students wishing to ‘learn the communication skills they need at work today’. The workbook says the series is aimed at students on Business Studies or MBA courses. The range in general may be ideal for those students plus others studying in FE or private language schools. The useful components include: the Student’s book with an interactive workbook and videos; a Teacher’s book containing the class DVD and a Teacher training DVD; the usual class CDs plus a ‘Skills for Business Studies’ companion workbook that provides reading and writing skills practice. The Student’s book has 16 units with set objectives and contemporary topics that include working life, security, decision-‐making, innovation and performance. It offers a blend of classroom teaching and self-‐study, with an emphasis on flexibility and time-‐efficiency. Each unit provides around four hours of classroom material with the potential of two to three hours of additional study. There are no longer reading texts in the units and, with an emphasis on listening and speaking, written exercises are kept to a minimum. Instead, students are directed to the Practice File at the back where there are supplementary materials and grammar notes. The Interactive Workbook DVD-‐ROM comprises a range of self-‐study material to help review, consolidate and extend their learning. Each unit has three main sections – Working with Words, Business Communication Skills and Language at Work, plus a case study to establish and test skills learned. I like its contemporary feel and helpful Teacher Training DVD for anyone new to this series or who needs info (i.e. it doesn’t matter if you lack a business degree!). A small concern is that some

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teachers may feel overwhelmed by the amount of resources and will need to filter.

Clare Hayward INTO, University of Stirling

Business result (upper-‐intermediate) Student's book – Michael Duckworth & Rebecca Turner (OUP 2008) Teacher's book -‐ John Hughes ISBNs: (SB) 978-‐0-‐19-‐473940-‐5; (TB) 978-‐0-‐19-‐473945-‐0 This is a fairly comprehensive Business English course set at B2/lower C1 levels – it is well supported by the accompanying resources. We have been testing it in small group and 1:1 situations, and have found the scope particularly flexible thanks to the support of listening and video activities, interactive workbook and case studies based on real live businesses (not always the case!). Each unit has three sections: 'working with words'-‐ useful language (particularly collocation) is presented carefully, allowing for plenty opportunity for practice in the safety of the classroom; 'business communication skills' – well represented throughout, with ideas for consolidation and practice; 'language at work' – grammar points which do not need to be studied in depth. The 16 unit topics can all be related to a variety of occupations and it has been possible to use elements of the course alongside other tried and tested materials. Clients like the fact that the Student's Book contains not only audio scripts and information files for activities, but also the Practice File (two pages per unit) and a handy two-‐page 'Useful Phrases' section. A major disappointment is the lack of authentic listening materials – understanding native speakers at natural speeds is one of the main concerns for most of our clients, and although these listening exercises do feature different accents, they are obviously staged and acted. It is

Book Reviews

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also frustrating that the separate conversations are not divided on some of the CD tracks, so they are difficult to locate for repeat listening. The course is definitely enhanced by the teacher's pack – The Teacher's Book is clear and provides good ideas – especially helpful for the less experienced teacher, as is the teacher training DVD. Progress tests for each unit provide useful revision. There is also welcome variety on the Class DVD – some acted-‐out situations, some graphics – i.e. suited to different learning styles.

Alison Hiley Confluence Scotland

Open mind (beginner) Dorothy E. Zemach (Big Tree, Macmillan 2014) ISBN: 978-‐0-‐230-‐45815-‐4 Open Mind beginner student’s book is aimed at level pre-‐A1. This book comprises six units preceded with a classroom-‐language section. The contents grid is easy to navigate, making it useful for finding sections in the book quickly. At the end of each unit there are Study Skills with suggestions and checklists of how, where and when students can practise English out of the classroom. A Language Wrap-‐up section also appears here. Additionally, there are Communicative Wrap-‐up sections with speaking activities after units 2, 4 and 6 to consolidate the language learned in each pair of units. The book concludes with grammar reference, audio scripts and answer keys. Each unit comprises topics with relevant reading, listening, speaking and writing tasks, which are clearly, attractively and colourfully laid out with a mixture of photographic and non-‐photographic images. The images appear, in the main, contemporary, with (for example) smart-‐phones being used in an exercise for prepositions of place. People of varying nationalities are depicted in the images, most of whom are in the younger age

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range. This aspect might make the book less appealing to older learners, although the topics covered are relevant for any adult age group. Instead of the customary CD-‐ROM or audio CD, a code is provided allowing students to register for an online workbook and student’s resource centre. This provides additional interactive exercises, vocabulary lists, grammar points for review, as well as access to the audio and video parts of the course. This facility also provides a score-‐keeping feature with which the student can chart their progress, thereby highlighting areas requiring extra revision. Overall, I think the book lives up to its blurb and I will use it in my classes.

Mary Gillespie Open mind (elementary) Mickey Rogers, Joanne Taylore-‐Knowles, Steve Taylore-‐Knowles (Big Tree, Macmillan 2014) ISBN: 978-‐0-‐230-‐45815-‐4 Open Mind elementary student’s book is aimed at level A1. This book comprises 12 units preceded by a useful grammar review section covering pre-‐A1 beginners book grammar. The contents grid is easy to navigate, making it useful for finding sections in the book quickly. As well as speaking, listening, reading and writing activities and tasks in each unit, a Life Skills feature covering Self and Society, Work and Career, and Study and Learning themes alternates throughout the book. At the end of each unit there is a Language Wrap-‐up with alternating Speaking and Writing Workshops. The book concludes with grammar reference, audio-‐scripts and answer keys. Each unit comprises topics with relevant tasks for all four skills, which are clearly, attractively and colourfully laid out with a mixture of photographic and non-‐photographic images. The images are contemporary and feature up-‐to-‐date technology and celebrity photos, both of which will, of course,

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date very quickly. People of varying nationalities are depicted in the images, with the emphasis on the younger age range. Another point to consider is that the book focuses only on heterosexual relationships and parents, which doesn’t address the diversity of relationships we, as tutors, come across. As with the beginner’s book, instead of the customary CD-‐ROM or audio CD, a code allows students to register for an online workbook and student’s resource centre, providing additional interactive exercises, vocabulary lists, and grammar points for review as well as access to the audio and video parts of the course. The score-‐keeping feature allows the student to chart their progress, thereby highlighting areas requiring extra revision.

Mary Gillespie Work on your accent. Clearer pronunciation for better communication With audio and video content Helen Ashton & Sarah Shepherd (Collins 2012) ISBN: 978-‐0-‐00-‐746291-‐9 This book is aimed at B1-‐C2 level and is suitable for self-‐study and classroom use. It is divided into six sections starting with an introductory chapter explaining the book’s objectives, anatomy of

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speech and the IPA system. The rest of the chapters are devoted to individual sounds, connected speech, and rhythm followed by practice exercises. The book works very well as supplementary material in speaking classes. The very thorough descriptions of the process of sound articulation and the video demonstrations allow students to understand how to pronounce various sounds and features of speech and help them to reproduce them successfully. Each chapter starts with a photo depicting lip position and a diagram. This is followed by an explicit description of making the sound, spelling rules and practice exercises. The DVD which accompanies the book provides a range of videos and audio files and can be used in class as well as for independent study. Overall, this book provides a range of awareness-‐raising exercises allowing students to understand articulation of the English sounds, intonation and rhythm. The main focus is placed on articulation of the sounds; however, there is an extra section with 15 pages of further practice exercises. I enjoyed using this book as part of a speaking and pronunciation course; I felt that the explicit instructions really helped my students with perfecting their English pronunciation. This is a very good source as a supplement for speaking classes or independent study. However, more practice exercises online or in the book would make it even more useful.

Aneta Marren

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CONTRIBUTE TO THE NEWSLETTER We welcome all contributions to the newsletter that would be of

interest to SATEFL members. Reports on meetings, talks or conferences – book reviews – teaching ideas – online resources – news from our members – letters, etc.

Our next newsletter will come out in September 2016, so please send anything you would like to contribute to [email protected] by the

end of August.

Documents

SATEFLNews! February2016! SATEFLNEWS’satefl.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SATEFL-News-February-20… · an! ‘ELTpics! ideas! site for! teachers’.! Here! teachers!share!the!ways!inwhich!they!have!