Webinars

The DIESOL Podcast

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Digital Integration - with Ixchell Reyes and Brent Warner (webinar)
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Thanks to the power of the PLN, after a tweet I sent out a couple of months ago, we were joined by the fabulous hosts of The DIESOL Podcast, Ixchell Reyes and Brent Warner. Ixchell started out as a kindergarten teacher, but always wanted to teach language and has been teaching in adult education for around the past 12 years. Brent started working in ESOL during college and spent a few years overseas before returning to California where he and Ixchell met. Brent used to run another podcast which Ixchell listened to before they met as there was a lot of resistance in her context to integrate tech into lessons. Their idea for The DIESOL Podcast came from a similar idea: that they couldn’t find what they were looking for and also wanted to share their passion for edtech with others. Even before the pandemic, learners and teachers had access to so many resources that they could use to make the language learning process more effective but there was often a feeling of ‘why do we need to add something new?’ in many contexts.

How do they develop an episode?

They get a lot of inspiration from what’s happening in the broader edtech world and see what people are chatting about on Twitter. The podcast sometimes involves an interview with either someone who’s working in ELT and integrating tech into their lessons, or with someone who’s working in edtech but not necessarily limited to the world of ELT. Then they also run shows to look at a product or topic. They start by sharing some background on the topic – and one thing I love from their website is that they talk about “thoughtful, pedagogically sound approaches” – and then go on to share some practical ways to integrate tech into the topic or classroom. Sometimes it can be a problem-solving approach, as if they’re aware that something is an issue in their own context, it’s likely it’s happening in other contexts too.

Jumping the gap

We talked a little (obviously!) about the impact of the pandemic on edtech and how many less experienced teachers suddenly became the experts people turned too as they were more familiar with edtech and how it could be used effectively. Ixchell made a great point as well that if you let the gap between you and tech grow, the jump you have to make to close the gap becomes scarier the larger it is. When we were suddenly forced to jump, some people had a small gap to cross; for others, it felt like a chasm. But, it’s definitely part of your mindset as well and those who have the support to learn and are open-minded towards the process will be able to bridge the gap more easily.

What are their top tech tools?

Brent says Google and the G-Suite tools are in his classes everyday. They give learners easy access to everything you’re doing in class, plus you can add comments and annotations easily.  There’s also a great add-on, Mote, which allows you to add audio into the Google file. There were some comments in the chat around the use of Google from concerns around it being an omnipresent data gatherer to the challenges of learners using Google Translate and submitting poorly written assignments and how we can teach them to use the tools available to them – perhaps not to encourage them to use them in class but to give them the skills to use them effectively in the future.
He says podcasts are also a great resource for learners as they can listen to English and pursue their own interests – a huge boost for their intrinsic motivation. We’ve chatted in the Hub before about how we rarely consume audio content without visual support nowadays and so encouraging learners to listen to podcasts also provides them with that exposure to audio-only content, particularly useful for learners who are preparing for exams with an audio component.

For Ixchell, Google docs is also a big favourite, particularly as it allows for learners to collaborate in real-time (and asynchronously). Another bonus of using Google docs is that learners don’t need an account to be able to contribute. Access, particularly when working with students based in different countries, is an important factor to consider with edtech as there might be limited access to certain apps and websites in some places.
Flipgrid is another firm favourite with lots of great features such as allowing learners to hide their faces or adding captions. If you’re looking for inspiration on how to incorporate Flipgrid into your lessons, check out this episode of the podcast.
Adobe Spark is a simple interface which allows learners to illustrate without requiring a lot of tech skills (more on how to use it in this episode). This is fabulous for allowing your creative learners an outlet and also a great tool to provide visuals as a teacher. Brent adds that these last two have really inspired learners to do more outside the classroom as they’ve enjoyed using the tech so much.

For more of their favourites, check out the episode 21 Tools for 2021.

The ‘bells and whistles’ of edtech

There are a lot of apps for language learning which aren’t developed by linguists and are probably developed for the market to make money rather than actually support language learners. Brent and Ixchell are keen to promote free resources which support language learning and will empower teachers to explore the tools available to them, so they spend time researching tools and identify how effective the tools they present will be. Ixchell talks as well about getting feedback from the learners about the tech she uses in class as a way of measuring its effectiveness and whether to use it again in the future. Brent mentions how learners (and teachers) access the tool as well: is it an app that needs to be downloaded? Is it a website that people can access easily from anywhere? What about wi-fi connection and memory?

New to Clubhouse

Speaking of apps which are limited to only one platform, Clubhouse is now available on Android after originally being developed as an Apple product. And Ixchell says that another joy of working in edtech is that just when you think everyone’s tired of a particular product, you realise that it’s new for someone. 
It’s like talk radio in an app so you can choose from different rooms to go into and listen. However, if you do want to interact, you can raise your hand and might be invited to the stage to ask a question or add a comment.
It’s not limited to ELT, so there are rooms on a wide variety of topics and you can come and go as you like. For example, Ixchell mentions a lullaby club – a group who get together and whisper their songs around 11pm. Brent says there are a lot of conversation clubs happening too, with langauge learners from around the world coming together to chat – another way that tech is empowering learners to take learning into their own hands.

Will tech ever replace teachers?

Brent feels that top-down teaching may be on the way out – lecture halls might disappear as learners will be able to access this type of content in a different format. Labs and small group contexts which allow learners to interact will become more important. Furthermore, in terms of the teacher, a person who can give feedback and make adjustments as a learner goes through the process (‘the guide on the side’) will continue to be important. As well, learners will continue to need support in how to take responsibility for their learning, so someone who can provide them with vetted, effective resources will still be required. 

Ixchell agrees that there’ll be a shift but that we won’t be replaced (phew!). She says that while students can still learn without having a physical teacher, the motivation of engagement and interaction can’t be fully replaced. She says that an online search might be the first step but that she then goes on to look for a human guide, adding that there’s something technology and algorithms will probably never be able to replicate.

This question generated some lovely comments in the chat on Facebook too, with some people talking about a move towards coaching or mentoring more than teaching and the role of the teacher to facilitate, rather than direct, learning. For more on encouraging independent learning, check out this episode of the podcast.

Bringing tech to life

We touched briefly on the challenges of showcasing tech tools in an audio-only environment. Ixchell highlighted that the podcast is less about teaching people how to use the tool, but rather giving them ideas for how to incorporate it. They hope that the podcast motivates people to look into the tools available and although they would like to do some ‘deep dives’ into topics or products, it’s sometimes difficult to make this content engaging for listeners. 

How has podcasting helped them as teachers?

Ixchell says that listening to other people’s podcasts in preparation for high-interest episodes helped her to grow as a teacher and increased her knowledge of the tools that are available. SHe says as well that introducing her students to podcasts has really helped them in their preparation for the TOEFL exam as they are able to listen to topics that interest them and this in turn helps build their vocabulary.  Brent adds that it gives you the opportunity to interact with other people, especially in the world of teacher podcasters. He says teachers who podcast tend to be very motivated and motivating so can give you a boost when you need it.

We hope you enjoyed the chat and take a listen to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or via their website (and please leave a review if you’re listening on iTunes).

If you’re interested in getting in touch with Ixchell and Brent, you can find them on Twitter:

They’re also interested in hearing from teachers to get involved in the podcast, so do get in touh if you’re using a particular tool or a special edtech focus.

Some questions to reflect on:

  • How has your relationship with edtech changed since March 2020? How do you think it will develop moving forward?
  • Is the tech you’re currently using in lessons pedagogically sound?
  • What tools have you heard about that you’d like to try? How can you find out more about them?

Demystifying CLIL

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Demystifying CLIL - with Elen Evans (webinar)
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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?

A Renewable Twist to your TEFL classes

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A Renewable Twist to your TEFL Classes - with Harry Waters (webinar)
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It was wonderful to have Harry back again for another session after the success of his Zooming Around webinar back in January.

We started out by chatting about where Harry’s passion for Renewable English came from. After becoming more eco-conscientious following illness, he realised when his daughter was born that he could (and should) do more for the environment; then when he started working at a language school, he realised that he had access to lots of young minds! And not just in terms of telling them what they could do, but also raising their awareness of the power that they had to enact change. When Covid hit, he realised he had the time to devote to building the project, with the idea of reaching as many people as possible with a positive message of what we can do on a small scale. As with any sustainability journey, it starts out with what you can do but we also need to strive to make changes and part of the project involves seeing changes they can through collective action. He also felt that coursebooks introduced the topic of the environment in a boring which, which often induced eco-anxiety.

Harry started with a fun activity of ‘where are you on the scale today?’ in which there’s a series of images on a theme for people to choose which one that most identify with at that moment. A really nice idea for the classroom – you can use characters or personalities that your students are familiar with or get a student to create one each lesson as a nice way to bring their own interests into the classroom.

We then kicked off with a Menti presentation – a great tool for using interactive presentations in your lessons. The first question was about going off-topic in classes.

Tangents are a way of allowing students to express themselves, as well as working with emergent language – we’ll come back to tangents in a moment!

He then shared some of the objections which people sometimes have to introducing the environment into the classroom. Katherine Bilsborough and Ceri Jones presented a webinar back on January on Re-inventing the Green Wheel and you can find a summary of the webinar on the MaWSIG blog.

There is always a question of time and many of us might feel like we don’t have enough ‘extra’ time to allow for tangents or to dedicate time to sustainability. Harry suggested encouraging tangents to be environmentally related or planning in a five-minute slot into every lesson to allow for some chat around eco projects – some sustainable reflections or some eco-mindfulness.

We then chatted about some of our reasons not to incorporate the environment into our lessons:

We looked at the question of whether students find it boring and Harry went on to talk about his passion for vexilology (the study of flags) and how this has rubbed off on his students – and (on a tangent) there was some interesting discussion around our own views of flags in the chat. 

Going back to the Menti, eco-anxiety is real and it’s important to look at the positive things which ARE happening. It’s also great to show our students some positive (young) role models – particularly when they see how many followers some of these activists have! For example, Amy and Ella Meek of Kids Against Plastic or Sarah Goody who founded Climate Now found their passion in their early teens and are doing things because they genuinely want to help, rather than for the followers or the adulation.

Another response for eco-anxiety is: don’t get sad, get angry. Rather than punishing yourself when things go wrong – as nobody’s perfect – do something about it, but know that you can’t do everything.

Harry also chatted a little about the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and suggests looking at your materials at the start of the year and how you can introduce one of the SDGs into a topic or lesson. They are about different social justice topics, not just the environment, so are a great way to raise students’ awareness of other issues around the world.

Producing your own materials does take time, but there are lots of resources out there. Harry has some fantastic free lessons on the Renewable English website (and you can donate here if you like to help keep it going) and you could also check out ELTSustainable.

Some practical tips

Listen to your students and take action – this shows them that they have a voice. It can start with something simple, like a student requesting a lesson on a particular topic – if you do a lesson on that, it shows them that they can be heard and they have the power to enact change.

Write a haiku on an acrostic poem about a sustainable topic related to the unit. It’s great to get students being creative and can be an easy routine for each unit.

Organise a swap shop at your centre for books, clothes, toys and more! And check out Vinted or other secondhand (pre-loved) sites if you’re looking for things yourself. And if you’re interested in living with less, check out The Minimalists.

Teach the buzzwords as they’ll be seeing them popping up all over social media and with the language of protest being English, it’s a fabulous way to teach new language. As a language learner, you might see the word frequently and get the gist of what it is, but you won’t know the word automatically. Get learners making protest signs – check out Harry’s Instagram to see examples of what his learners have been up to.

If you have exam-prep classes, get students to source their own sustainable articles or podcasts and then have them create an exam-style activity from it.

After exams at the end of the year is a great opportunity to do some projects with your students. You could do an upcycling project with your VYLs and have them create something from ‘rubbish’ related to one of the topics from their coursebook. They can then create a story around the object they create.

A litter-pick challenge is also a fun activity to bring the outside world into the classroom (remind students of the safety issues involved). Picker Pals’ Patrick Jackson likened litter-picking to a gateway drug to sustainability! There was a video shared in the chat about children in the UK doing a beach clean, though it might not be available to view outside the UK unless you have a VPN. If you can access BBC Newsround, it’s a news programme aimed at children so could be a good resource for your lessons to engage learners in current affairs.

Charts are a great way to engage students, e.g. who brought their snack in a Tupperware box rather than wrapped in clingfilm? Having a visual helps to encourage people to get involved and they can be really easy to create on Canva.

Get your older students to make eco action Insta-ry or TikTok-y and have a challenge for who can get the most views. Get them to put the hashtags that will get their videos seen by more people (remind students about online safety and check your school’s policy about encouraging them to share).

We can also a planet cooler at the end of the lesson with a quick tip for what they can do (we can also do a planet warmer to start the lesson, but real we want to cool the Earth!). It could be students sharing what they’ve done that week (both the good and the ‘bad’).

A final reminder that you can watch Harry’s lessons on the Renewable English YouTube channel – he’s coming to the end of series one later in June but already has plans for series 2 (how it works) and 3 (the path to activism). He’s doing a fundraiser in the run-up to his last lesson on Thursday 24th called Caps off for Kids Against Plastic and will be shaving his head live during the lesson! If you want to get involved, you can donate on the Just Giving page J

The lessons are really well structured, with some vocabulary to start followed by some UnFun Facts. Then there’s an interview with an expert and a Planet Promise at the end, all mixed in with some comprehension questions.

He’s currently on a campaign to get Greta to come along as an expert – so please do get involved and add some likes to Harry’s posts there!

Feel free to get in touch with Harry – we’ve shared all his social media so far except the Renewable English Facebook page!

Huge thanks to Harry for joining us to share his passion and with a slight tangent to finish, he did some awesome streaming trickery during the session using a programme called OBS.

Learner choice in the online classroom: another step towards autonomous learners

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Learner choice in the online classroom: another step towards autonomous learners - with Claire Thomson (webinar)
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Claire Thomson has been teaching for many years and since moving into ELT, has developed a passion for learner choice, which she also worked on for one of the research projects for her Trinity DipTESOL. She looked at choice with three different age groups, starting with a group of 10-11 year olds, a group of teens and a group of adults and the results encouraged her to investigate further. Interestingly, in her research, she’s found that adults tend to be more resistant – possibly due to previous educational experiences. Feedback from the other groups demonstrated that they were more motivated to come to class and to complete homework. Her work started pre-pandemic and so with the shift online she has now been looking at how to incorporate learner choice into the virtual classroom. This is particularly important to take the focus away from the teacher as the main face on-screen.

Choice gives your learners a voice in the classroom, which they so often lack. As Claire highlighted in the webinar, when we think about the choices our learners generally have, many are made for the learners by other people (parents, school policy, teachers):

As one Hub member commented in the chat:

Today’s kids are used to the internet, where choices are infinite. If all that choice is taken away in the classroom situation, it’s like tying their hands behind their backs.

Why? Claire went on to talk about the pedagogical benefits of offering choice:

  • promoting a learner-centred approach
  • encouraging agency – allowing learners to act and take responsibility for learning
  • increased engagement and motivation
  • learners take ownership for their learning
  • fostering autonomy
  • supports differentiation – between levels, abilities, learning styles
  • provides a safe environment for them to try new things
  • helps learners discover how they learn and develop learning strategies, as well as identifying the tools they need to learn best
  • they can find it easier to reflect o their learning as they’re more invested in the process

Who? Learner choice is for EVERYONE!

When? introduce it at any time – and there’s no need to tell them you’re doing it! However, remember that similarly to games, too much of a good thing isn’t great!

What? There are lots of opportunities to offer choice:

  • interaction patterns
  • homework (deadlines or how to complete)
  • activities
  • projects
  • debates and discussions
  • topics and syllabus (perhaps trickier depending on your context)
  • testing
  • class for that day

How? Overcome the fear – offering choice isn’t giving up control of your classroom.

The choices you offer need to be pre-planned – why are you offering your learners this choice? Is it to motivate them? To allow them more flexibility (e.g. if they have a lot of homework, you might give them a choice of when to hand in work)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each choice and what’s the benefit for the individual learner?

Remember as well that you should always bear your learning outcomes in mind – the choices you offer should always lead to the same place.

At the start, you might want them to make the ‘wrong’ choice so they can reflect on the process of making the choice and why they need to think critically about the decisions they take.

Also, start simple as you’ll need to put a lot of thought into the choices you offer and planning for learners choice will take much longer. You’ll also need to devote more class time to preparing your learners for making choices so that their choice in informed J

Claire also suggests giving learners time to discuss the options in groups before making an individual choice: this gives them the opportunity to hear other opinions and make a more informed choice.

There was a question about ‘the tyranny of the majority’ which is perhaps less of an issue in the online classroom where choice can be more anonymous. Offering a choice supports quieter students to feel noticed and valued.

Some ideas for how to implement choice:

  • Send out a form before class with the choice of the lesson (e.g. letter-writing or passive), with the rationale for why each is important. Remember to make sure that they don’t need to have done one before they do the other!
  • Learning stations in the classroom, particularly useful for younger learners
  • For exam prep, give them a choice of three reading texts which practise the same part of the exam
  • Offering a choice of deadlines for homework – have them look at their schedule so they take responsibility for their learning and develop time management skills
  • allowing them to choose how to complete a project (on your own, with a specific person, with A.N.Other, in a group…). Again, explain the effect of each choice, e.g. If you want to work on your own,, you’ll be responsible for completing all the work and do you feel you have time to do this?
  • how to show understanding of new vocabulary (multiple choice activity, gapfill, writing a short story, creating your own flashcards)
  • Choice boards – an ocean of opportunities!

Claire shared an example of one of the first choice boards she used during her initial research project, which was “an unmitigated disaster”:

However, she was able to reflect on what went wrong and why – an overwhelming amount of choices and not dedicating enough time at the planning stage to explain the choice board and the rationale for it to the learners. She says they spent the entire next lesson discussing this choice board – which led to them being better-informed when the next choice board was offered.

Learning from experience, the best way, thanks for sharing that!

And, learning from experience, Claire showed another homework choice board which was a success:

Rather than leading to a shared learning outcome in terms of linguistic content, this one practised the different task types which they would need to demonstrate in an exam.

Claire shared a blank choice board to allow Hub members to share ideas for a B1 group of adults on the topic of news and media. Here are some ideas which people shared:

  • Write a tweet about a news article you have read (no more than … words)
  • Make a one minute video explaining the main news items for today
  • They can use something like speakpipe instead of filming themselves, speakpipe is only 90 seconds long so could be nice for students: https://www.speakpipe.com/
  • Read an article, present it next week to a partner, say why you read it, what you knew about it before reading it, what you learned, how did it make you feel?

Some useful links from Claire and from the chat:

Normalising environmental issues in our classes

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Normalising environmental issues in your class - with Daniel Barber (webinar)
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Daniel Barber has had (and continues to have!) an extensive career in ELT, working as a teacher, teacher trainer, learning coach, materials writer and more. He’s one of the founding members of ELT Footprint and is passionate about the environment and how we can do more in the climate emergency. The group has over 3,500 members and has been going since the 24th May 2019, so soon to celebrate its second birthday. It’s a place for ELT professionals to share ideas, lesson plans and projects about how we as a profession can reduce our carbon footprint and become more sustainable in the long run.

There was a great new format in this webinar: we started with a typical webinar format and then Dan shared a padlet for people to share their own ideas.

What do we mean by ‘normalise’? It’s a bit of a buzzword at the moment with ‘the new normal’ but it’s difficult to define what ‘normal’ is…your normal might be very different to someone else’s. We’ve adapted quickly to taking a mask with us wherever we go now (though some of us still sometimes forget) and the idea is to make talking about the environment a part of our daily routine in the same way.

Ideally, on a teacher training course, one of the criteria that we use for assessment would be: How does your lesson address issues of sustainability and the climate crisis? This would help it become a more automatic part of our lessons, thinking about the language learners are looking at, the lesson objectives and how we can integrate the environment into that.

1. Dan says the first reason is a no-brainer and quoted Greta Thunberg: “I want you to act as if your house is on fire – because it is.”

We’re doing so much at home (recycling, upcycling, watching our water consumption) that we should be doing it in our professional spaces too as the crisis extends into these spaces.

2. The 21st century is facing up to be a very different century than that which we imagined back in 2000 and Dan suggests that our learners will need a greater awareness and understanding of the climate emergency as we prepare them for the future. Evaluating human activity and its consequences on the planet is a key skill for the next generation.

3. There was a recent article in the EL Gazette about how English is the language of protest, even in places where a small percentage of the population speaks English. Using English puts the issue much more on the global stage as it will be covered more by international news agencies. As English teachers, we can equip our learners with the tools they need to fight social injustice and to be activists on the global stage. A lot of the recent global protests (#FridaysforFuture, Extinction Rebellion) have been taking place with people from around the world holding up placards and banners in English. We can easily incorporate a lot of eco-tweaks into our lessons, such as a lesson on writing placards to get a message across in an attention-grabbing or a lesson writing a letter to your local MP and an environmental issues. Steve Brown was mentioned as we were talking about social justice in education and there’s also an interesting article on his site about the sustainability of ELT conferences, but his site is also packed full of interesting articles about a variety of topics in ELT.

“There’s no such thing as neutral education. Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.” – Paulo Freire

4. There’s a British Council report (coming out early-summer) which highlights that a clear majority of teenage learners would like to have more environmental topics in the classroom. It also demonstrated that teachers would like more training on how to introduce these topics into the classroom. Check out The Climate Connection through the British Council and ELT Sustainable for more support.

How can we integrate the environment into our professional life?

Lesson content

Tweak the coursebook content – add critical thinking questions to have your learners think about the information included (and more importantly NOT included) in a text, or have them think about the purpose for the text – who benefits from the text, what was the writer’s motivation? Look for resources outside the book – what more can you find out about a topic?

Also, many of us have coursebook or syllabus constraints – adding in eco-tweaks as part of every lesson is more sustainable than doing one-off lessons when we find the time.

Classroom

Daily routines, the posters on the wall, the furniture and so on – Dan suggests sharing the current CO2 level with your class and comparing it to previous levels.

School / institution

It could be a survey about how much paper is used and how much of it recycled.

People’s lives outside of school

For example, imagine you cycle to school – leaving your helmet on the desk might encourage learner to ask questions about it. Using yourself, or your students, as a role model to encourage others to think about their habits and changes they can make.

Dan shared a link to the padlet for the community to add to – during the webinar and afterwards – with ideas on eco-tweaks for these four areas. There are also some great resources in the first column to learn more about these issues. And in the final column, there are ideas for What next?

Whilst people started posting, we carried on chatting about various things (I won’t write down all our chat!). We also looked at the padlet at points, so I won’t add those here again!

The difficulty sometimes people can face within institutions if they want to instigate change because of company policy or because there isn’t a climate of social activism within the company. It seems that this isn’t the case in ELT (yippee!) at school level, but perhaps when we think about other areas of ELT, such as publishers: glossy coursebooks, flying speakers across the globe for events, etc. it might be more difficult to effect change.

Greenwashing – the idea of covering over your environmental inequities by promoting something green you are doing. For example, an airline company which advertises how fabulous they are for swapping single-use plastic cutlery to metal (whilst still contributing to the climate emergency by flying). There’s an interesting article shared in the chat about carbon offsets. It’s important to be vigilant and teach our learners critical thinking skills so they’re more able to spot it too.

The term ‘carbon footprint’ was actually invented by BP back in the 1980s! It shifted the blame onto the individual, when in fact it was the large companies. Read more about it here.

There was some chat (in the chat too) about the climate crisis in the media. It’s becoming more integrated into shows, with characters buying their coffee in a reusable cup or talking about the climate emergency in conversation.

Dan mentioned as well using storytelling and personal anecdotes to raise our learners’ awareness – his example was of cleaning bugs off the car as a child when there was much more insect-life about. You can check out the WWF Living Planet Report for information about wildlife and habitat changes. And a link to A Manifesto for Rewilding was also shared in the chat. And here’s a link to the research article which Dan mentioned about the reduction in biomass distribution.

Green Standard Schools is a recent initiative in which schools can be inspected and awarded accreditation for their dedication to the environment. FECEI (a Spain-wide association of language schools) has a similar initiative (in Spanish), as does IH World.

It was an incredibly engaging session and the idea of using a padlet to turn it into more of a workshop was very well-received: you can always add ideas after the event or listen to us nattering on and focus on sharing ideas during the session!

Huge thanks again to Dan for coming along and to everyone who has posted ideas so far – it’s a great community-generated resource for us all to use and add to.

Developing and selling self-published materials

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How to develop and sell self-published materials - with Fiona Hunter (webinar)
Watch now

In this webinar, Fiona shared her self-publishing adventure which started when she was creating materials for her own after-school classes, working with stories and crafts for young learners. Not using coursebooks with these groups meant that she spent a lot of time sourcing materials and then adapting them to her own environment. From there, the natural step was to create her own resources.

What are the benefits of self-publishing?

 “I’m making what I’m using” – if you’re selling resources you’re creating for your own classes, it’s fairly low-risk and it’s satisfying to see others making use of your materials

  • there are no external pressures of deadlines and second drafts
  • it enables you to build a portfolio which you could use to approach publishers in the future
  • it’s a way of earning some money alongside your teaching hours
  • you can get direct feedback from the people using your materials
  • you have 100% creative control and are tied to the type of exercises, structures or vocabulary which you have to include
  • it widens your skill set if you take on the website design as well or make your own clipart packs – Fiona is self-taught and suggests checking out YouTube videos to find out how to do things or check out sites like FutureLearn and Udemy which often have courses for graphic design, web design, coding and so on
  • there are no content restrictions in terms of what you provide – Fiona mentions differentiated packs which she offers, allowing teachers to use the same storybook with different ages
  • you don’t have to be so concerned on selling to a wide market as coursebook publishers often do

One thing Fiona suggests doing if you’re thinking of selling your own materials is to set up a focus group with people who can trial your materials and get feedback from them.

How is it different to creating things just for yourself?

 The aesthetic quality (‘prettiness’) is a big aspect of materials to think about when trying to make them appeal to other people and as well ensuring that your instructions are clearly communicated to those who will be using the resource.

Another aspect is to think about copyright as using content for commercial purposes is different to using something within the confines of your own class.

Here are some open-source image sites – remember to credit the author when you use an image:

You can use a programme such as GIMP – which is similar to PhotoShop but free. You can use it to adapt images, make colour images black and white in order for them to be photocopied more easily and it was also suggested for making memes.

Fiona also suggests using PowerPoint for creating materials – it allows you to layer, move and manipulate things much more easily than Word. PowerPoint also has some tools for allowing you to change the colour of images.

How did Fiona build her brand?

There are certain things to think about, such as creating cover pages for packs and a logo – Fiona has Winston, who she can easily adapt to have him holding scissors for the craft packs, for example.

Other aspects are the fonts you use and your colour palette so that you can be consistent across platforms and people will associate certain colour or a particular font with your brand. It’s important to think about whether you can use fonts in different programmes. Fiona uses dafont – which allows you to donate to the font creator – and you can then upload that font to use it different places.

It’s also important to think about how things will look as a thumbnail or when you share things on different social media sites. You can easily google the best dimensions for different sites. If you get a premium Canva account, you can resize content easily (110€ a year – not cheap, but if you’re sharing a lot of content, it’s a timer-saver). In PowerPoint you can also change the size of your ‘slide’ so you can create thumbnails easily there too. Handy tip is that you can type in px after the number so give you the size in pixels rather than cm. In PowerPoint you can also create a jpeg to use as an image for your marketing – this creates a better quality image than if you use an image-snipping tool.

If you’re thinking of sharing craft resources, an important tip which Fiona shares is to document the process of creating your materials, either by videoing or photographing yourself making them, as these can be useful for marketing the product too.

You can of course rebrand at a later date!

Where can you sell things?

The benefit of using a platform is that you can reach a wider audience.

Teachers Pay Teachers is a big one. You can create a basic seller account which gives you 65% of the price or you can get a premium seller account which gives you 85% of the sale. This site also allows you to see who’s buying your resources – Fiona found that a lot of her customers weren’t in ELT, but perhaps working in speech therapy and other areas.

TES is another one – though it’s trickier to show good previews on there, making it difficult to showcase your resources.

boomcards are digital tasks, allowing you to create interactive activities for your learners to use which you can then sell.

Etsy is also another possibility – although it’s largely craft-based, people are starting to sell worksheets on there too.

One thing to be aware of is how the taxes differ: Teachers pay teachers is a US-based platform whereas TES is UK-based.

Another question is around who your target market is so it’s worth seeing who other materials at the site are aimed at (e.g. VYLs, Business English, etc.) to see if it’s the best place to try and sell things.

In terms of thinking about pricing, it’s worth having a look around at what other people are charging. Think as well about the amount of time you spend on creating a material as well.

One aspect to be aware of if you’re looking to sell on different international sites is whether teachers will be using American or British English – another benefit of self-publishing, as mentioned above, is that you can have differentiated versions for language variety too.

Other places for sharing resources include liveworksheets, ESLprintables, iSLCOLLECTIVE and teachermade – though these are sites which don’t charge for downloads, it can give you an idea of how interested people are in a material and you could also include a link to one of your ‘selling’ sites within the download.

What about setting up your own site?

 When Fiona first created her site, Kids Club English, it was more a place for her to curate materials for herself and to share resources with parents to use at home so she has lots of great lists of YouTube videos and songs by theme, as well as her materials.

Easy digital downloads and WooCommerce are two ways you can sell materials from your site. Be aware that if people are paying through a third party, such as PayPal, you may also need to pay commission on the income and that you’ll also need to look into how to pay taxes for any earnings.

In terms of setting up a site, WordPress is a popular option and Fiona also said she’d heard about the free website guys but hadn’t used them herself.

If you’re interested in using one of Fiona’s resources, send her a message and she’ll send a free download – she’d love to get your feedback on how useful the resources are, what works well and constructive criticism on how to improve.