Teresa

Hub digest – 25th June, 2021

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Another Friday, another Hub digest and it’s been a busy week in the Facebook group, with questions around collaborative lesson planning, our favourite conferences, digital coursebooks which are appropriate for pre-service training courses and a quick look at coaching. The Wednesday Question also got people thinking, as we shared how we’ve stepped out of comfort zone in ELT: the move online was mentioned by some people, as well as trying new methodologies and delivering training in other languages or on topics we’re less familiar with.

There was plenty of chat in the live events too, with the Monthly Management Meet Up and Coffee Breaks to keep us engaged.

Next week, we have a Focused Forum on Tuesday and then on Thursday we’ll be joined by Ixchell Reyes and Brent Warner of The DIESOL Podcast in our webinar. 

We’ve also added a new feature on the Calendar page – a padlet so that Hubbers can add details of any CPD events happening.

To conference or not to conference; FOMO and JOMO!

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We started talking about the recently finished IATEFL conference. Some of us were big fans and regular attenders whereas others had never been. The fans talked about leaving on a TEFL high that carried through to a bounce in our professional step that lasted a while, a feeling of being inspired. Others baulked at the cost (was it really 300 pounds for this year’s online conference?) and we noted that many people are paid for by their workplaces. 

We went on to talk about other conferences too… TESOL-SPAIN got (yet another) honourable mention for the use of the Whova app which contributed massively to the buzz and the connection around the event.

We talked about submitting proposals for upcoming events (ACEIA, Innovate and TESOL-SPAIN). We were chatting about Innovate and how at a previous event they had drop-in sessions – an hour-long slot in the timetable where there were a number of things happening at once with a format that meant you could come and go as you please. We chatted about how this might be feasible in an online conference and talked about how TEFL del Sur tried something similar with themed breakout rooms which you could move around, but we weren’t sure whether this required everyone to be a co-host and whether it would be feasible for a larger event.

We also chatted briefly about the ELT Workshop which offers monthly PD events on Zoom and is a really nice way to connect with other ELT professionals.

And we talked about Clubhouse which is an audio-only app which is now available for Android as well as Apple. There seems to be some weird etiquette, such as introducing yourself each time you speak as people can come and go as they choose. We thought it could perhaps be used as a tool for conversation classes as you can set up a private room but then could perhaps have an open event every couple of months as a way of marketing your classes.

We also chatted a bit about podcasts and the difficulty of when to listen to them. Some people like to listen to them whilst out for a walk, others manage to multitask and get on with other things with one on in the background.

We also talked about both FOMO and JOMO (the fear of missing out and the joy of missing out), that we can’t possibly do everything and we do need to look after ourselves, one way of doing that is by being very selective with what we go to.

We acknowledged that we (as committed Hubbers!) are often really engaged in development in lots of ways but there are also lots of people that aren’t so engaged. There are lots of teachers and trainers who do a fabulous job but aren’t connected with CPD and just continue moving forward in their own way.

Making choices

We agreed that we much preferred conferences and other professional development events that have audience guidelines. Conferences do tend to include descriptors “This session is useful for…” but often webinars and other CPD events don’t. We agreed that having clearer guidelines across all events would make it easier for us to pick and choose what to attend.

We talked about our favourites; John Hughes’ short development videos got a special mention for his authentic, natural and professional approach as did Rachael Roberts’ ELT Resourceful and Lightbulb Moments.

We then talked about some people’s desire to keep studying, always and forever! The MA in Applied Linguistics in Limerick was recommended. One participant said that they’d done the 2 years masters course over seven or eight years!

Career development

We reflected on the fact that there are times in our lives when things just happen to us and we need to respond to unforeseen events. “Oh goodness, I’ve lost my job” can turn into the best thing ever as we are forced to re-evaluate. 

Sometimes career development is seemingly so much about being in the right place at the right time (with the right attitude!) We thought that to “succeed” in TEFL you have to be a “yes” person, to be useful and positive in and around the workplace. We wondered whether this was the same in all professions and across all countries. One participant compared Ireland to France, in Ireland it’s easier to move “up” based on the work done whereas France feels like a more qualification driven country.

Recruitment procedures

We talked briefly about recruitment procedures weighing up experience with qualifications and worrying about Brexit-era work permit possibilities across Europe. One school has a recruitment day where there are two interviews with the DOS and the school principal as well as demo lessons for the survivors (after they had observed the group one).

Observation thoughts

And then observation reared its head, of course. We agreed that observations are always rather odd under nearly any circumstances. We thought the best thing would be to start with an issue, a problem or a puzzle and that observation would then be one of several possible options and then there could be several options around observation. We talked about observation to empower teachers through choice of group and choice of observation style. We identified a few different ways to observe; a traditional “management” observation, peer observation and a ghost (or self) observation. There was also a “selfie” observation, as an addition to the self obs, where the teacher takes pics to use in the observation feedback. This acknowledges that recall is so often so very unreliable and this adds in some evidence based and helps things be more dialogic in approach. Another approach to self obs was filming or voice recording obs and then giving teachers the power to edit their recordings. Recordings could then become part of a teacher’s CPD portfolio.

And in the 5pm hangout, we watched Harry’s shave!

Demystifying CLIL

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Demystifying CLIL - with Elen Evans (webinar)
Watch now

For this webinar, we were joined by the wonderful Elen Evans of STEM Ginger Education. Elen started working in ELT in 1999 and then decided to train as a natural scientist. Nowadays, as well as teaching General English, she combines her knowledge of natural science with teaching. She’s taught a variety of courses, from recycling to adults with an A1-A2 level in Catalunya to virology with high-level students in Italy. Although we often associate CLIL with mainstream education, Elen shows that these courses can also be a stand-alone part of language learning.

What is CLIL?

Elen started out by saying that it’s not a particularly catchy acronym and perhaps suggested ‘subject teaching through English’ as an alternative (though apparently David Marsh, a leading expert on CLIL, believes they are different things). There was also an interesting comment in the chat that teaching subjects through English doesn’t necessarily mean teaching English through subjects.

We had a quick chat about words we associate with CLIL:

  • knowledge
  • expertise
  • broader learning
  • learning a language and subject together
  • other curriculum subjects taught through English
  • interactive and communicative
  • creative
  • project-based
  • inclusive and varied
  • promotes critical thinking
  • motivational

While we teach, we learn

We chatted as well about how it can involve a little extra preparation at the start to help us feel comfortable with the content. However, it enables us to enrich our skills and interests and share our passions with others. It also allows us as teachers to do something a little different, rather than just revisiting the present perfect for the umpteenth time.

Are there any subjects which aren’t suitable?

We imagine that no – any subject which can be taught in one language, can be taught in another. There is obviously the question of the frequency of the language that you’re using, which is also true when you learn the topic in your own language too. There could be some cultural aspect to it – for example, it might be strange to learn Spanish history or Italian geography in English. However, we also noted that some subjects – such as history or religion – may be viewed in a different way from a different culture or country’s context. As a positive, Elen suggests that CLIL can open up borders and give learners a wider view of the world.

Elen also highlighted that although English is often seen as a global language, she’s concerned about it being seen as more important than other languages and languages losing their cultural significance. She suggests that CLIL may be able to provide more balance as the two languages taught are equally weighted.

There was also a question of whether learners are disadvantaged and will struggle to learn adequately in the two languages. Interestingly, that afternoon, a post popped up on my Twitter feed about a school in Valladolid which was abolishing the bilingual system because of some of the concerns around first and second language acquistion (the tweet and report are in Spanish).

However, it’s always true that in any subject there are learners who are more interested in the subject and even a topic: those who are motivated to learn the lexis in their own language will go away and look it up for themselves. Elen also highlights the importance of cross-curricular work so the subject teacher can focus more on the content whilst working alongside the language teacher to provide linguistic support.

Linguistic value and heritage

We took a quick peek at the richness of language – how in some languages they use compass points rather than left and right; how languages adopt newer terms from other languages, such as ‘table smooth’ for ironing board in Welsh; or how in some languages one word replaces a string of words in another.

Elen mentioned a podcast from The Guardian about whether we will lose our knowledge of plants as indigenous languages die out – again, she hopes that with an integrated approach where the first language is as valued as the second langauge, this won’t happen.

We went on to look at some key terminology including hard and soft CLIL, BICS and CALP and LOTS and HOTS. You can learn more about them from Elen’s slides and she’s also shared some other sections of her presentation here. Later on, Elen talked about the different language which we’ll introduce learners to as part of a lesson:

  • content-obligatory / subject-specific vocabulary would be the words which would probably be lower frequency in an ELT context
  • content-compatible / general vocabulary would be key words which we use outside the subject in general English
  • high-medium frequency words, which is lexis learners would be familiar with through their general English (prepositions, quantifiers, and so on)
  • collocations which are specific to the subject but important for the linguistic support

Also in terms of supporting learners, Elen highlighted the importance of providing examples, spending time to look at structures and meaning but also encouraging learners to notice language, and correcting. She also noted that CLIL can be quite laborious in terms of identifying the structures which will be important to teach the subject content. As a way to support each other in this aspect, Elen has set up a FABULOUS folder where we can add and share lesson plans. It’s well worth a look, even if you’re not teaching CLIL per se, as there are lots of great lesson plans in there already.

Other factors which might put people off are the lack of knowledge of the subject. When I was involved in a CLIL project as part of mainstream education, I found it incredibly challenging to gauge what aspects of the subject I needed to include in a course for a group of 10-11 year-olds: was I asking too much of them? It felt at times that the language was too challenging (and would probably be graded at a much higher level due to being low-frequency) but that was the vocabulary that they would have been learning in their L1.

I asked Elen about pitching the level of language and she mentioned that another benefit of CLIL is that it allows for differentiation and can be motivating in different ways – a learner who struggles with the L2 may have good subject knowledge whilst another might be very good at the L2 but find the content more difficult to manage.

Elen’s projects have already brought together learners from Mali, Tanzania, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Portugal and the UK.

She’s written a number of articles about CLIL: 

CLIL: The good, the bad and the not so ugly on SLB Coop

And three article on Freeed:

The 4 Cs

Scaffolding takes you higher

How to approach assessment

 

There’s been some interesting follow-up chat following Elen’s session regarding the approach that some countries have taken to implementing bilingual education, so have a read of the thread on Facebook.

HUGE thanks to Elen for joining us and sharing her expertise and passion for this area of education!

Questions to reflect on:

  • If you are an ELT teacher, what topic areas would you particularly enjoy teaching in mainstream education?
  • What do you feel are the benefits and drawbacks of CLIL?
  • In some areas, a bilingual education system is considered to put lower-income students at a disadvantage. What do you think needs to be done to ensure equity in education in this case?

What’s the best way to prepare for ELT management?

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There were people from schools of all sorts of different shapes and sizes, from huge schools of 100 plus teachers across several sites in several cities through to medium-sized schools with 20-odd staff and smaller schools with just a few colleagues. We agreed that although the scale may differ, the issues are often the same.

Teacher mentors and managers

It felt like in bigger schools it was easier for some teachers to “fall between the cracks” and harder to keep a handle on everything that goes on despite management layers of possibly an overall academic manager, a director of studies as well as various centre managers. We talked about how mentors could help newer or less experienced teachers and one school had mentors for all teachers without a diploma.

In some schools diploma-qualified teachers (DELTA or DipTESOL) are expected to mentor others. Mentoring can also help teachers prepare for management roles as they begin to understand the problems teachers might have. Teachers who are more ambitious tend to do a diploma course looking for career progression, more money and more responsibility. 

Others said that mentoring had been tried in the past but often the mentors found it unmotivating and we agreed that it needs continual work to keep it moving forward well. Mentors also need mentoring! And we talked about a staged process looking at what mentoring is, giving feedback on lesson plans and observations and the role of coaching. All this investment is about training teachers to become managers and appreciating the financial investment from school owners to facilitate the process. 

The EAQUALS competencies framework in management was mentioned too as a good way to frame and measure development as we can move from being a training manager looking at what makes a good manager, into management and then on to senior management in bigger schools.

Moving into management – Top Tips

We talked in more depth about the process of becoming a manager in a language school and how to go about it. 

We all need to invest in our development and a DipTESOL/DELTA is one way to further qualifications and show our commitment, we also talked about the IH management courses and NILE  MA (where you can just take separate modules or do the whole MA). If you’re interested in reading more about the NILE MA programme, Rachel Tsateri has blogged about her experience of it.

We also talked about looking for opportunities and asking the question, “What can I do for the school?” Implicit in this idea is the role of critical thinking and self-reflection, all essential parts of a good manager, we need to show it and do it help move forward in our careers. Another suggestion was to get involved in the life of the school and get noticed that way as well as being prepared to commit to doing a bit more rather than working to rule and expecting promotion. 

Transparency in management

We talked about how some changes had been made during the pandemic and that we had all worked hard to try to carefully explain it all to teachers. For some of us it had meant big changes, and some uncomfortable changes. For example, in one school where they had a proud tradition of always offering guaranteed hours and salaries, during the pandemic they had had to shift to hourly pay without being able to guarantee hours to teachers. In another school things had unfortunately become “less official” during the uncertainty of COVID. We are all hoping that we’ll be able to go back to those “good practices” soon. We are fearful that some of the less desirable practices (like zero-hour contracts, pay cuts, etc.) for teachers and staff might remain. Watch this space!

IA-trouble?

We talked briefly about IATEFL and said that we would have liked to have gone this year as transport and time off would have been less of a problem but several of us were put off by the price tag. We wondered how many people attended and whether the association was under some economic pressure, like so many of us with our traditional business models under threat. One member reported that they had been to one IATEFL conference and had found it a bit cliquey and we thought that, although that was a pity, it was probably inevitable to some extent. We hoped it’d all be ok and very much value the work the association does.

Hub digest – 18th June, 2021

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What a week it’s been in the Hub! There was some great chat on Tuesday in our Focused Forum as we chatted about how to plan conversation classes. The discussion ranged from what exactly we think of as a conversation class, where to find resources and how to measure progress. You can find the notes for the session on the blog.

Then our Wednesday Question was a little different this week as it was an answer rather than a question. The inspiration came from seeing the activity shared on LinkedIn: give your learners an answer and encourage them to write as many questions as possible. There were some great ideas in the Facebook group, including

  • What colour was Prince’s rain?
  • What should I wear when I am an old woman, with a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me?
  • What colour is the tastiest fruit pastille?

Next up, on Thursday, we had a fabulous webinar with Elen Evans of STEM Ginger Education. She talked us through some key concepts in CLIL, shared a folder where she’s set up a space to share resources and introduced us to some of the amazing projects she’s done with students from around the world. The notes will be coming shortly but in the menatime, you can watch the webinar on #catchup if you missed it.

And, finally, we announced that the website is now live! What an exciting way to end the week!

Coming up next week, we have a Monthly Management Meet Up on Tuesday and then the Coffee Breaks on Thursday. Hope to see you there!

How do you plan conversation classes?

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Thanks to everyone who joined us to think about planning conversation classes this morning.

There was a lot of interesting chat during the session about what a conversation class is and how we can find resources for them. Here are some of the questions which came up and our responses to them.

What is a conversation class?

This was quite a big question that we came back to a number of times during the session. We identified that it’s essential that we know what our learners’ expectations, needs and wants are. For example, is their focus more on fluency or accuracy? Do they want to ‘learn’ English and will our role by more that of a teacher or learning coach? 

Is a conversation class just chatting?

For some learners, yes. For some it’s about increasing their confidence in conversation and feeling able to talk on a variety of topics with ease. Some learners want to have a natural conversation, others want more structure. Sometimes a conversation class might involve scaffolding a task with specific language we want them to use; other times there might be more of a task-based or TTT approach in which we do a conversational task, look at how to upgrade their language and then repeat a similar task again. Other times the conversation might be an extended engage stage which then leads on to a communicative task based on the topic, hopefully encouraging the learners to use some of the emergent language which has come up.

How can we plan these lessons?

We talked about who is responsible for planning the topic for the lessons. Some teachers said they liked to have something as a back-up if necessary, but were very happy to let the conversation happen naturally and take the lesson in the direction the learner(s) wanted (more of a Dogme approach). We also suggested having a functional syllabus as this would both allow us to develop our learners’ conversational skills whilst also feeling a sense of progress and structure in the lessons.

There was also an idea that a conversation class should have a linguistic aim, whether it’s functional language or thinking about one of the ‘Can do’ statements, e.g. ‘Can talk about experiences’. Again, this allows there to be a sense of progress within the lesson and provides a focus.

Another suggestion was to think of a broad topic, such as travel, and develop a series of lessons on that theme, perhaps covering a couple of weeks’ worth of meetings. This would then allow you to get into more specific details around the topic, such as ecotourism, local tourism, types of holiday, etc. without trying to cram too much into a single lesson.

What resources can we use?

Some people liked to set the learners a task ahead of the lesson, such as to read an article or think about some questions ahead of time.

Current affairs are a good go-to, though it’s worth being aware that our learners might not have the same background knowledge about a topic.

We talked about picking bits out of coursebooks – love them or not, they are a very useful resource, particularly if you do have the freedom to use the bits you want to without being tied to it.

Another suggestion was choosing a topic and giving learners (in a group class) time to write questions about it, then posting the questions around the room and having them mingle to discuss it. This is a nice way to focus on question formation too, as we noted that natural conversation often involves a lot of interaction through questions.

For younger learners and adults we talked about using ‘show and tell’ – this gives us a starting point for the conversation and also encourages a lot of natural communication in that a huge part of everyday communication is sharing experiences, admittedly perhaps not whilst holding a hoilday snapshot or other memento, but we talk naturally about what has happened to us.

The topic of debates came up as well and that debating in normal conversation can be very different across cultures. One teacher mentioned that she had set up some ‘proper’ debates with a group of teens – including someone to chair the debate – and that they had enjoyed the experience so much that they set up a debating society in their mainstream school. We also noted that if learners are told what their opinion will be, it can oftem make them research a topic more deeply and encourage them to ask for more language.

There were some useful shares as well:

Feel free to add any others in the comments!

What are some of the challenges of this type of class?

From a teacher’s point of view, this type of work can be very tiring, especially if you’re trying to keep the conversation going in as natural a way as possible whilst thinking about how to upgrade your learners’ language, choosing which errors to give feedback on and trying to use a wider range of phrases naturally yourself. We said as well that part of our role as a conversation teacher/coach is to maintain interest in what the learner is saying in a natural, encouraging way.

It can also be difficult to get a sense of progress, which is why it’s important as well to identify what the learner hopes to get from the lesson. We suggested that learners could reflect at the end of sessions as to how much they enjoyed the lesson and how accurate/fluent/confident they felt they were. This also gives you the opportunity to assess in an ongoing way whether the classes are meeting their needs – if they originally said they ‘only’ wanted conversation practice but then feel they’re not making progress, it could be time to negotiate how the lessons take place.

Another option could be to record learners during one of your first sessions (with their permission, of course). You could then record them after a number of lessons and compare the two to give them tangible feedback.

Feedback was also a challenge we discussed, which again comes back to identifying expectations together with your learner(s). How much error correction do they want? And how can we upgarde their language?

We chatted briefly about the possibility of peer correction in a group class with one teacher saying that she set up a ‘Listen and Learn’ session. Although peer feedback wasn’t implicitly advertised, the idea was very much that participants could and would learn from each other.

Another issue is repetition, both in terms of the topics we discuss (which is where some kind of syllabus can come in handy) but also in encouraging learners to use new language so that it becomes more natural. One suggestion was to ban certain words or phrases (such as I agree or What do you think?).

Linking back to the idea of progress, we discussed whether there’s any takeaway from the lesson: do learners write down any emergent language? Is there a handout of any useful phrases if this has been the linguistic aim of the lesson?

At the end of the day, a conversation class can be whatever you and your learners decide it is 🙂