Vol 22 No 3 www.tttjournal.co.

uk

The

Teacher Trainer
A PRACTICAL JOURNAL FOR THOSE WHO TRAIN, MENTOR AND EDUCATE TESOL TEACHERS

2 A practical session plan on teaching grammar

6 Comparing pronunciation to drawing – a novel approach
9 Teacher and student online library and book club
10 Course books written by the teachers who use them!
15 How to organise a Pecha Kucha
17 The several identities of a teacher
20 What do CLIL teachers need to know?
25 Late age language learning is perfectly possible

Includes regular series:

Practical Training Session, News in our Field, Language Matters,
Trainer Background, Training around the World, Article Watch and
Publications Received

Publication

ISSN 0951-7626 Autumn 2008

www.tttjournal.co.uk Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 1

Contents
Practical Training Session
Ways of working with grammar
Andy Caswell
2 Editorial
News in our Field 5 Dear Subscribers and Readers,
Susan Barduhn Welcome to the last issue of 2008, Volume 22 Number 3. I hope you enjoy this very full issue.
Language Matters 6 Now…..here’s the thing….!
Pronouncing on the right side of the brain
Helen Fraser We haven’t raised the price of the journal for some eight years now. While prices of paper,
printing, postage, et al have risen steadily (and sometimes meteorically!) we have kept
Trainer Background 9 absorbing them. But now that the pound is a little weaker we feel it is a good time to raise our
Encouraging teachers and students to prices so that we can cover our costs again. This is because the rise will effect other currencies
read more in the target language much less than it would have done over the last few years. So our new rate for 2009 and
Chris Lima beyond is:

When teachers write course books 10 One year subscription £30

Harsh Kadepurkar but don't forget that you can reduce this, as many of you already do, by subscribing for 2 or 3
years thus:
Improving conferences: organising
a Pecha Kucha event 15 Two year subscription £55
Lindsay Clandfield Three year subscription £80
All prices include postage to anywhere in the world!
Thoughts on teachers’ professional identity 17
Thanks as ever to all our article contributors, advertisers and subscribers. It is fun working for
Sari Pöyhönen
you and with you all.
Training around the World 20 Happy reading!
Content and language integrated
learning in Estonia Tessa Woodward
Peeter Mehisto
Editor
Teacher development –a worm’s eye view 22
Amol Padwad

Late age language learning 25

Anita Pincas

Article Watch 26

Publications Received 27

Tessa Woodward Seth Lindstromberg Marian Nicholson

Editor Assistant editor Administrator
editor@tttjournal.co.uk

Don’t forget to have a look at our website!

www.tttjournal.co.uk
You can now subscribe online!

This is a Pilgrims publication, published three

times a year.

Editor: Tessa Woodward

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contributions, please contact the Editor.
About “The Teacher Trainer”
The Teacher Trainer is a practical journal for those involved in modern language,
especially TESOL, teacher training. Whether you are a teacher who tends to be asked
questions by others in the staff room, or a Director of studies with an office of your
own, whether you are a mentor or a course tutor on an exam course, an inspector
going out to schools or a teacher educator at a university, this journal is for you. Our
aim is to provide a forum for ideas, information and news, to put fellow professionals in
touch with each other and to give all those involved in training, mentoring and
educating teachers a feeling of how trainers in other fields operate, as well as building
up a pool of experience within our own field.

Views expressed in the articles are not necessarily

The journal comes out three times a year and makes use of a variety of formats e.g.
those of the Editor or Pilgrims. articles, letters, comments, quotations, interviews, cartoons, spoofs. If the idea is good
Designed and printed by the University of Kent, and useful to trainers, we’ll print it no matter what voice you choose to express it in.
Design & Print Centre, Canterbury, Kent, UK.
2 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
Practical Training Session
Introduction
The idea of this series from Andy Caswell
is to suggest, to the less experienced
teacher trainer or workshop leader, a
possible approach to a number of popular
topics often discussed in teacher training
sessions.
Each plan is photocopiable, with reading
references at the end which the trainer may
wish to check out before giving the session.
To pre-empt any possible confusion of
terms in the plan, the trainer or workshop
leader will be referred to as the trainer,
seminar participants as Ps. The terms
teacher and students thus refer to the
players in the language class.
Plan no. 4a
There are two parts to this training session.
Part one, in this issue, starts with a
historical overview of changing attitudes
towards grammar teaching and then
focuses on two different lesson shapes a
teacher could use to practise a particular
area of language. Part two, in the next
issue, will explore more lesson shapes and
conclude with a workshop.
Topic Ways of working with
grammar
Participants Native or non-native EL
teachers with some
teaching experience
Length of 60 mins
session
Materials Visual display of a
historical overview +
criteria for reflections
Hand-outs for individual
lesson shapes
A historical overview
The Trainer could introduce the session by
giving a brief overview of changing
attitudes towards grammar and grammar
teaching over the past 50 years using a
visual display.
• ‘Changing attitudes’ could mean any of
the following:
• the very definition of grammar has
changed
• linguistics research has informed our
work
• an individual pedagogue has provided a
fresh insight or method
• we have changed the materials we work
with
• the lesson shape or activity type has
changed
• the unit of analysis has got bigger or
smaller e.g. sentence grammar vs.
discourse analysis
All these various factors are involved in the
angles presented below. It should also be
borne in mind that often in practice
remnants of earlier ways of working are still
present in later ones. Thus, many of the
separate points below emerge in hybrid
forms in real classes.
A Grammar Translation. Lessons might
begin with an explicit statement of the
rules (a deductive approach), followed by
translation exercises.
B Audiolingualism. Partly based on the
Behaviourist view of learning as habit
formation, the deductive approach was
rejected in favour of an inductive approach,
in which language structures were thought
to be learnt through repetition, with no
overt focus on grammatical rules.
C Chomsky. Although insisting that his
views were primarily referring to first
language acquisition, Chomsky influentially
stated that language learning was not habit
formation but rule-based creativity. A
child possessed an internal blueprint for
language, and language learning involved a
process of trial and error as the child
experimented with rules.
D The 3 Ps lesson shape ( Presentation,
Practice and Production).This drew from A,B
and C and was a modified inductive
approach, involving firmly guided
discovery of the grammatical rules on the
part of the learner.
E Communicative Language Teaching.
The view that communicative competence
consisted of more than simply the
knowledge of grammatical rules led to the
emergence of the functional syllabus and
the use of communicative methodology,
including meaningful tasks. This
development coincided with a general
movement in education towards student-
centred learning.
There were weaker and stronger versions of
CLT: in the weaker one, grammar still
figured prominently in syllabuses even
though it was disguised under functional
headings. In the stronger version, known as
task-based learning, grammar played a
secondary role, or no role at all, and the
syllabus was composed of a series of
communicative tasks.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
F Krashen and The Natural Approach.
Inspired by Chomsky’s ideas of 1st language
acquisition, Krashen applied them to 2nd
language learning, drawing a distinction
between acquisition – an unconscious
process- and learning, a conscious one.
According to Krashen, acquisition was
central and learning only of limited value.
Thus, grammar teaching was marginalised,
and exposure of the learner to
comprehensible input was the key element
in promoting acquisition.
G Discourse Analysis. As a reaction to
what many felt to be a narrow focus by
grammarians on grammatical structures in
individual sentences, discourse analysts
moved beyond the sentence level and
explored the way language operated over
longer stretches of authentic discourse,
looking for patterns and trying to make
useful generalisations.
H The Lexical Approach. In recent years,
there has been a growing recognition of
the importance of lexis, and this approach
derives from the belief that the building
blocks of language learning and
communication are not grammatical rules
or functions, but lexis- namely, words and
word combinations, including formulaic
expressions such as ‘If I were you..’.
Dave Willis, in a 2003 article, suggests that,
instead of beginning with grammar, we
should start by teaching words and phrases
and encourage learners to make themselves
understood with a minimal grammar.
Gradually, they should be exposed to more
demanding activities and input which will
encourage them to extend their grammar.
I The importance attached to collocation in
the Lexical Approach – and the advent of
large computerised databases- has led to
the emergence of a Data-based
approach. Thus, the use of concordance
data has begun to appear on courses both
for lexis and grammatical structures. This
has proved to be a more reliable guide to
what to focus on than teacher intuition.
J A Grammatical Revival. Recent research
has suggested that without some attention
to form, fossilisation can occur. Related to
this is the notion of consciousness-raising;
despite Krashen’s claims, acquisition is felt
by Richard Schmidt (in Thornbury 1999) to
involve conscious processes, and thus
pointing out features of the grammatical
system may help learners to acquire
language.
This has also led to a reconsideration of the
word ‘grammar’. Is it a set of rules as in
Grammar Translation -or an emergent
process within the learner as in Task-based
learning – or both?
www.tttjournal.co.uk
For further background reading on this
area, refer to Thornbury 1999, Richards and
Rogers 2001. For a critique of task-based
learning, see Swann 2005.
Two Lesson Shapes
The aim of this section is for the Ps to
compare two lesson shapes that are
focusing on a similar language area, namely
‘have got’. In the 3Ps lesson, this structure
is the sole language focus whereas the
task-based lesson naturally involves more
than just this one language pattern.
The most interesting way to do this might
be to divide the Ps into two groups and
have one group read/reflect on one of the
plans, and the other group reflect on the
other. Later, the groups can share their
ideas.
To provide a clear focus for their reading, Ps
should:-
a) try to identify the influences that are
being illustrated, with reference to the
historical overview above. Thus, for
example, Ps might come to the conclusion
that a particular lesson plan reflects a
deductive approach, inspired by Grammar
Translation, but the final speaking phase is
influenced by communicative methodology.
b) comment on the plans, considering the
following criteria:
• the level of students this particular plan
would be suitable for
• the language assumptions the teacher
would be making about the students
with regard to the grammatical area. For
example, would this plan be an initial
presentation, or would the teacher be
assuming some familiarity with the target
language?
• the likely degree of difficulty of the plan
for the learner
• the amount of preparation time needed
for the teacher
• the roles the teacher and learners play in
this particular lesson. For example, is it a
very student-centred lesson?
• the anticipated interest level of the plan
for the learner
It might be helpful if the Trainer provided a
visual display of these criteria.
When both groups have collected their
ideas, a representative from one group
could present their plan to the other group,
perhaps role-playing certain stages (to bring
the lesson alive!). Next, a different
representative from the same group could
then summarise the group’s reflections and
comments on the plan. This could then lead
to general discussion. After this, it would
be the other group’s opportunity to present
their plan.
The final phase of discussion could be to
compare and contrast the two plans in the
light of the criteria mentioned earlier.
Lesson Shape 1
Step 1: Begin the lesson by introducing the
topic of housing and ask the students what
factors about a property are important if
you are thinking of buying or renting a
house or flat e.g. size, location. Write a list
on the board and ask the students to note
down these factors.
Now, explain that the aim of today’s lesson
is to find out about different properties in a
particular town, and later to try to decide
which property would be most suitable for
a particular family.
Organise the class into pairs and provide
each pair with either Text A or B (both
typical estate agent descriptions)
Sample Text A
Brown and Brown estate agents
Address: Heath
House, Portchester
Rd, Fareham
Situation: A 1930s
semi-detached house
in good decorative
condition, situated
in a quiet residential
area of Fareham. It is within easy reach of
shops, schools and a swimming pool, and
only ten minutes from the town centre.
Accommodation: Heath House has 2
double bedrooms, 2 reception rooms and a
well-equipped kitchen. There is gas central
heating, double glazing and a double
garage. The house has a small back garden.
The price is £245,000.
Sample text B
Brown and Brown estate agents
Address: Briar
Cottage, Rose Lane,
Valesham.
Situation: Briar
Cottage is a
charming 250-year-
old house, situated
in the village of
Valesham. It is 30 minutes’ walk from
Fareham and ten minutes by bus. In the
village, there is a shop, a pub and a post
office.
Accommodation: The house has three
bedrooms, a bathroom and two reception
rooms, one with an open fireplace. There is
also an attractive large kitchen which needs
some modernisation. The house has a large
rear garden with apple trees. The price is
£220,000.
(This idea is adapted from Watcyn-Jones
1978)
Students should read their text and take
notes on their property with reference to
the factors written earlier on the board.
Having done this, they should then prepare
a simple questionnaire to find out about
Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 3
the other property e.g. How old is it?
Once they have prepared their questions,
combine two pairs who have read about
different houses into groups of 4. The
students should then exchange information
about the two properties. At the end of this
phase, the teacher should get some
feedback on the task.
Step 2: Now play a recording of 3 fluent
English speakers discussing Text A and ask
one or two gist questions such as: Which
house are they discussing?
Next, hand out the transcript and ask them
to find language that might be useful for
the task e.g. questions. Then elicit ideas
from the group and write them on the
board. For example:
When was it built?
• What kind of heating has it got?
• Is it convenient for public transport?
• How many bathrooms are there?
• Can you tell me if it’s got a garage?
Step 3: Divide the class into 3 preparation
groups, with each group being given a new
and different house description. The
students now return to refine the questions
they prepared earlier in the light of the new
input.
When everyone has done the necessary
preparation, form new groups of 3
students, containing one student from each
of the preparation groups (each student will
have a different description). Explain to the
newly formed groups that they first need to
find out about each other’s properties, and
then try to come to a decision about which
property (including the two discussed
earlier) would be most suitable for a
married couple – David and Ann Robinson
– who have just moved into the area. The
couple have 3 young children of school age
(2 boys and a girl). The Robinsons can
afford a house up to £250,000.
At the end of the discussion, the students
should report back on the task with a view
to seeing how much consensus there is in
the class.
Possible reflections
This is clearly a task-based lesson, drawing
from the stronger version of CLT. The
purpose of the lesson is to achieve a task
outcome, and the language focus in the
middle of the lesson acts as a resource
which the students can draw on if they
wish to. This particular plan would be
suitable for a pre-intermediate class who
should already be familiar with most of the
question forms needed for the task. The
lesson would be fairly challenging for such
a group, as it would be for a teacher from
a preparation point of view.
This is clearly a student-centred lesson, with
the teacher playing a back-seat facilitating
continued >>>
4 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
role. The students would be very involved
throughout, and if the texts were well
balanced in their advantages and
disadvantages, the students should find the
lesson motivating. A possible criticism is
that more grammatically orientated
students might prefer a clearer and
stronger grammatical focus.
Lesson shape 2
Step 1: Introduce the topic of houses. Ask
the students where they live. Do they live in
a house or a flat?
Show a picture of a very rich man and a
palace, and establish that this is the Sultan
of Brunei who lives in the biggest palace in
the world. Show a picture of a swimming
pool. Beside the picture, write ‘x 5’ and
elicit:
It’s got five swimming pools
Step 2: Highlight the form orally, including
the natural stress and intonation and get
the students to practise.
Then, elicit further examples of the
structure through pictures e.g. ‘It’s got
1,000 rooms, 18 lifts, central heating and
double glazing in every room, and a
beautiful view of the sea.’ Get the students
to practise.
Now, introduce a contrasting character
through a picture e.g. Amy, an
impoverished student living in London.
She shares a small, cold
1-bedroomed flat with
another student. Show a
picture of central
heating with a cross
through it. Elicit the
sentence:
It hasn’t got central heating
As before, highlight the form orally and get
the students to practise. Follow this with
substitutions e.g. ‘It hasn’t got a swimming
pool, double glazing, a garden, but it has
got a view of a car park!’
Next, elicit and practise some questions e.g.
‘Has the palace got a swimming pool? How
many rooms has it got? Has the flat got a
pool?’
Finally, write examples of the forms on the
board, marking the stress and intonation.
Highlight the rules of form e.g word order
in positive, negative and questions.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
Step 3: Now, explain to the class that Follow- up
they’re going to ask questions to their
partner to find out about their house or If the Ps were unfamiliar with either type of
flat. Divide the students into pairs, and lesson shape, they could be encouraged to
hand out this questionnaire: try it out before the next seminar and then
report back on the success of it.
At the end of the session, the Trainer could
Your partner remind the Ps that the next seminar will
House or flat continue with further lesson shapes to
discover and discuss.
No. of rooms
No. of bedrooms Bibliography
Garage How to Teach Grammar (1999) by Scott
Thornbury (Longman)
Garden
Approaches and Methods in Language
Central heating Teaching (2001) by J. Richards and T.Rogers
(Cambridge)
View
Language Not for Talking (2003) by Dave
Double glazing
Willis (from The Language Teacher July
Swimming pool 2003)
Legislation by Hypothesis: the Case of Task-
based Instruction by Michael Swann (from
The students should interview each other Oxford Applied Linguistics journal/Sept
and jot down their answers in single words
2005/ pp 376-401)
on the form. Elicit some questions first
before they do the activity. Also, if the Act English (1978) by Peter Watcyn-Jones
answer is yes to the questions, encourage (Penguin)
the students to find out a little more
information e.g. ‘What kind of view has it
got?’ After the activity, students report The Author
back about their partner. Andy Caswell is an
experienced language
Possible reflections teacher and trainer, currently
working at Hilderstone
This is a typical 3Ps lesson – with a
College in Broadstairs, Kent.
modified inductive approach. The lesson
Previously a Chief Examiner
has a very clear language focus, and the
for the Cambridge DTEFLA
student is led in a clear and controlled
scheme, Andy has lived and taught in France,
fashion from one stage to another, the
lesson ending on a freer note. Spain, Austria, Romania, South and Central
Africa. At Hilderstone, in a training capacity,
This particular material would be suitable he has worked with native and non-native
for an elementary group who could be teachers and his particular interest is drama,
meeting the language structure for the first both in and out of the classroom!
time. The lesson would not be particularly
demanding for the student, nor for the AndyC@hilderstone.ac.uk
teacher, from a preparation point of view. It
is clearly a teacher-centred lesson, although
there is some scope for creativity at the
end. The context chosen is fairly
memorable, so it should maintain the
students’ interest. The main criticism could
be that it is linguistically narrow in its scope
– and very teacher-centred and controlled.
Having discussed the individual lessons, the
session could end with a contrast between
the two plans.
Don’t forget to have a look at our website!
www.tttjournal.co.uk
You can now subscribe online!
www.tttjournal.co.uk
News in our Field
By Susan Barduhn, USA
Hello Teacher Educators,
I welcome you to this, my last contribution
to this column. I have enjoyed searching
out noteworthy items for you these past
two years, but now it is time to make space
for other responsibilities in my work, one of
which concerns this first message:
Online teacher trainer
development courses
The Teacher Training and Professional
Development Institute at the SIT Graduate
Institute will be offering the following
online courses:
Autumn: September 29 – November 7, 2008
• Teaching Teachers to Reflect I:
Experiencing and Describing
• Teacher Training for the Peaceable
Classroom
Winter: January 26 – March 6, 2009
• Teaching Teachers to Reflect II: Analyzing
and Taking Intelligent Action
• Honoring the Mosaic: Helping Teachers to
Discuss Culture and Social Justice in the
Language Classroom
• Principles and Practices of Mindful
Leadership
Spring: March 23 – May 15, 2009
• Classroom Observation: The Art of
Observing and Note Taking
• Educational Philosophy for Teacher
Trainers
• Participants who take six of courses from
the Institute may earn the Certificate in
Teacher Trainer Development. For more
information, see www.sit.edu/tti.
Macmillan teacher training
workshops in Bulgaria
Between January and June of this year over
200 teachers were trained and networked
in Bulgaria. Topics covered included:
listening, reading, writing, speaking, drama,
vocabulary, and project work. Reports on
the workshops have been uploaded along
with images, video and materials from the
workshops at:
http://www.factworld.info/bulgaria/
For more information about any of the
workshops, contact:
Keith Kelly (Education Consultant)
email: keithpkelly@yahoo.co.uk
New online journal on
teacher education
English Language Teacher Education and
Development (ELTED) – ISSN 1365-3741 – is
an annual peer-reviewed journal for the
worldwide ELT community which is
produced by the Teacher Education and
Development Research Group of the Centre
for Applied Linguistics (formerly, CELTE),
University of Warwick.
It seeks to provide a medium for the
exchange of ideas and information on
issues pertaining to English language
teacher education and development. The
journal is targeted at all those involved in
English language teacher education and
development worldwide, for whom, at
present, there are very few published
journals dealing specifically with this
interest area. (The Teacher Trainer Journal is
one of these and has a rich website with e-
only articles on it now too!)
All back issues and the current issue have
recently been made available for free on
the following website: www.elted.net
Contributions to the journal on any aspect
of English language teacher education and
development, in the form of articles,
reports, work-in-progress and letters or
comments on previously published articles
are always welcome. Contact Richard Smith
(R.C.Smith@warwick.ac.uk) for further
information.
The “Thinking Approach”:
Course in Latvia
The Thinking Approach is a new and
innovative method of language teaching
and learning, which aims at an integrated
development of both language and
thinking skills. One of its beliefs is that the
modern language teacher is responsible not
only for the language competence of his or
her students, but also for their preparation
for life. The TA project is additionally
concerned with the development of the
educational technologies necessary for this
kind of teaching.
You can find information about TA at:
www.thinking-approach.org.
Two courses on Thinking Skills in Language
Education will take place in Jurmala, a
famous seaside resort 20 km away from
Riga, the capital of Latvia.
Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 5
Course dates:
Option 1: January 25 – 31, 2009
Option 2: April 19 – 25, 2009
These courses are included in the
Comenius/Grundtvig catalogue of the
European Commission. This means that any
participants who come from a country
participating in the EU educational
programmes can apply for a grant to cover
their participation in the course. The
preliminary programme of the course can
be found at:
http://ec.europa.eu/education/trainingdatab
ase/index.cfm?fuseaction=DisplayCourse&ci
d=9769.
For further information contact Alyona
Makhmadmusoyeva at:
go_in_advance@mail.ru.
Join an Online Reading
Group
The ELT e-Reading Group was created by a
collective of English language educators
from all over the world with the support of
the British Council, keeping in mind those
professionals who work in special
conditions; teachers who have little access
to libraries and books in English; who work
in remote areas or conflict zones where it is
almost impossible to guarantee safety and
the right to public gatherings and/or who
cannot expect support to start a reading
group in their workplaces.
Four times a year one of the members will
be invited to choose a novel to be read and
discussed by the group. All texts are
available for free to download from the
internet. Books chosen may come from
English and American literatures as well as
other literatures in translation into English.
For more information go to:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-literature-
creativereading-eltereading.htm
(See also the interview with Chris Lima,
the project co-ordinator, on page 9 of this
issue!)
Susan Barduhn, Associate
Professor School for
International Training,
susan.barduhn@sit.edu
6 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
Language Matters
Pronouncing on the right side of the brain
By Helen Fraser, Australia
The Background
Many English teachers avoid teaching pronunciation because
they feel they do not have sufficient knowledge of phonetics and
phonology to explain the rules of pronunciation to students
(Macdonald, 2002). This is unfortunate, since knowledge of
phonological rules is not essential to helping students acquire
pronunciation skills. Indeed, too much focus on phonology can
mean students end up knowing the rules – but stating them in
pronunciation which violates those very rules. Readers of this
journal will require little persuasion (Arnold, 2003; Ur, 1990) that
what students most need is not information about the
pronunciation of English, but practice in the doing of English
pronunciation (by which I mean not just segmental articulation
but all aspects of speaking clearly). This practice can be provided
to a useful extent through classroom activities which simulate
real situations in which students need to use English
pronunciation (Ellis, 2003).
As many teachers who use such 'implicit' pronunciation teaching
methods will attest, however, just 'doing' is not always enough to
enable learners to achieve the proficiency they desire. At certain
points, a pronunciation teacher, like a coach of any skill (Morley,
1991), needs to provide explicit feedback and guidance on
learners' performance. The question is, what kind of feedback and
guidance is appropriate in coaching the skill of pronunciation?
In this short article I would like to explore an analogy between
teaching pronunciation and teaching drawing that might offer a
way for teachers to develop answers to this question suitable to
their own classroom situations.
The ‘Explanation and Model’ method
Many readers will have been subjected to unsuccessful drawing
lessons at some time in their education. For example, a drawing
teacher who focuses on technicalities such as colour theory and the
rules of perspective may help students with a skillbase that allows
them to use such information, but others, even if they attain some
proficiency in technical exercises, can find it difficult to translate
the theory into the skill of drawing a cat that looks like a cat. To
help with this, a drawing teacher might encourage students to
copy masterful drawings, and observe how the techniques they
have been learning are embodied in real art.
Pronunciation teachers take a similar approach when they provide
a native speaker model for students to imitate. They are sometimes
puzzled, however, to find just how difficult it can be for learners to
imitate the model (Fraser, 2006). Considering the analogy with
drawing may shed some light on that puzzle.
When students are asked to copy a drawing, it is assumed they are
able to keep the model in front of them long enough to study it,
and to refer back and forth to it while perfecting their copy. This
assumption does not hold for pronunciation. An auditory model is
very different from a visual model. The moment the model is heard,
it is gone. Expecting a learner to imitate a pronunciation model
accurately after one hearing is rather like expecting a student to
copy a drawing shown to them for a few seconds then whisked
away. The latter expectation is ludicrous. Yet somehow many
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expect language learners to imitate a model pronunciation after
hearing it only once or twice – and despairingly invoke a 'critical
age hypothesis' if they can’t.
This raises the first practical suggestion for teaching pronunciation
by analogy with drawing. Language learners can actually improve
their pronunciation considerably just by imitating model sentences.
However, they need to hear the model many times, either via a
recording, or via a speaker repeating the model in a consistent
natural manner (i.e., without exaggeration). This is a particularly
useful method in that it requires little specialised knowledge from
the teacher – beyond the crucial knowledge to resist the
temptation to 'explain' learners' mistakes to them. This is an ideal
activity, then, for native speaker assistants working alongside a
language teacher.
Ideally, practice should be set up which allows the learner to listen-
speak-listen-speak until they get bored – which, since copying
pronunciation is no less challenging than copying a drawing, often
takes much longer than a teacher might predict. Indeed, for some
learners, Quality Repetition, in chorus, is all they need to acquire
excellent pronunciation which translates well to spontaneous
speech (Kjellin, 1999). In my experience however, repetition alone
is not always enough. Just as with drawing, useful as it is to work
from a model, the copy is liable to fall short of the model in ways
which the student cannot identify and correct without guidance
from the teacher.
In the case of drawing, where the student has previously learned
about colour theory, rules of perspective, etc, it can be useful for
the teacher to remind the student of these explanations while
pointing out differences between the copy and the original.
Carrying this analogy across to pronunciation brings us back to the
problem with which we started: the sense many teachers have that
such explanations should be phrased in terms of the phonological
rules of English.
Explaining phonological rules can be useful at this stage of
pronunciation teaching. However, it requires a number of
conditions to be met, beyond the obvious one that the teacher
must know the rules. First, it requires considerable linguistic and
educational sophistication on the part of the learner. To see this,
consider what it would be like to explain errors of perspective to a
drawing student with very limited English, from a very different
cultural and educational background. By analogy, complex
phonological rules may be best suited to tertiary education
situations where teacher and student share a language of
instruction.
Second, the teacher must have the ability to diagnose the learner's
errors in terms of the phonological rules. I would suggest that this
condition is far less likely to be met than the equivalent in drawing.
Since the 1950s, phonological theory has developed in a very
abstract manner. Explaining second language pronunciation in
terms of phonological theory is problematic even for the theorists
(Archibald, 2000). Indeed, there is considerable scholarly debate
about which theory provides the best rules, or whether 'rules' are
even the appropriate way to account for phonological behaviour
(Gussenhoven & Jacobs, 2005).
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Finally, whatever rules are applied to the learner's pronunciation
need to be translated into practical instructions that enable learners
to improve their performance. Returning to our analogy – a
drawing teacher needs not just the ability to diagnose what the
student has done wrong, but the talent of communicating the rules
to students in a way they can act upon to improve their
performance. How to do the equivalent in pronunciation teaching
is a topic phonological theory has addressed to a very limited extent
(Levis, 2005), focusing as it has on learners' speech output rather
than on interaction between teachers and learners, and many
phonology theorists would readily admit to having no experience or
skill in teaching pronunciation.
Drawing on the right side of the brain
All in all, then, the 'explanation and model' method of teaching
drawing does not transfer well to teaching pronunciation.
Fortunately there is another approach to teaching drawing which
might provide a more appropriate analogy for language teachers.
This is the approach known as 'Drawing on the Right Side of the
Brain' (Edwards, 1989). The idea is that, rather than directly
teaching the student how to draw, the teacher helps students
'learn how to see' in a way that indirectly enables them to draw
better. Of course this is a special use of the expression 'learn how
to see'. The student can already see perfectly well. What they need
to learn is how to see things in a way appropriate to the task of
creating a visual representation of those things – as opposed to the
normal way of seeing, appropriate to engaging with the things as
meaningful objects in the world.
Edwards urges students to switch off their normal or 'left brain'
way of seeing things in relation to what they know about them –
for example that tables have rectangular tops, or people have two
identical eyes. With the left brain out of play, students can engage
a new 'right brain' way of seeing things in terms of line, shape,
colour and texture. In this 'right brain' mode, they can notice for
example that unless you are directly above a table, its top has the
appearance of a parallelogram not a rectangle, and unless you are
directly in front of a person, the two eyes appear to have different
shapes.
“…pronouncing is not primarily about doing
things with tongue and lips but more about
learning to hear speech in a different way.”
Once the student starts to see tables, chairs, and people in terms of
line, shape colour and texture, it becomes much easier to represent
those lines, shapes, colours and textures with other lines, shapes,
colours and textures on a page. Of course, this is only the
beginning; it does not instantly turn the student into a da Vinci.
However, Betty Edwards’ website
(http://www.drawright.com/gallery.htm) holds many examples to
show the improvement students can achieve in a short time simply
by being given the idea that drawing is not primarily about doing
things with pencils on pieces of paper, but more about seeing the
world in a different way. This improvement provides a foundation
from which students can work towards whatever level of
proficiency they aspire to.
Application to teaching pronunciation:
difficulties
My suggestion is that similar levels of improvement can be achieved
in pronunciation by helping students understand that pronouncing
is not primarily about doing things with tongue and lips but more
about learning to hear speech in a different way. To follow the
analogy effectively, however, it is necessary to notice some
important differences between drawing and pronunciation.
Edwards' 'right brain' terminology is engaging in its context, and
has helped many thousands of students learn how to draw.
Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 7
However it is slightly misleading in a way that is important to
recognise if we are to use the analogy to best effect in teaching
pronunciation. In 'seeing on the right side of the brain' we are not
so much 'seeing things as they really are' as 'using a different
vocabulary to describe what we see'. For example, rather than
describing a table as 'a flat top supported by four legs of equal
length, used for resting things on', we describe it in terms of lines,
shapes, colours and textures. The latter is just as much a description
of what we know as the former. It just uses different vocabulary –
specifically, vocabulary suitable to describing the form of the table,
rather than its meaning.
Fortunately for drawing teachers, the visual domain has a ready-
made vocabulary for describing the form of objects. Certainly this
vocabulary differs from language to language (Hardin & Maffi,
1997), but anyone who can speak even basic English can talk about
line, shape, colour and texture as easily as they can talk about
tables, chairs, and people. By using this vocabulary, a teacher can
help a student 'learn how to see' in a way appropriate to the task
of representing the form of objects in a drawing ('See you have
drawn this corner of the table as a right angle. We know in reality
it actually is a right angle, but if you look carefully you will see that
visually it is only about 60 degrees.'). Difficulties of comprehension
are relatively easily resolved by reference to the drawing and the
things being drawn: all concrete, stable objects.
Things are very different in the auditory domain. We have already
noted that auditory objects are fleeting, but that is not the end of
the problem. To learn pronunciation, as with drawing, students
must learn to 'focus on form' (Doughty & Williams, 1998) rather
than, as in normal understanding of speech, focus on meaning.
However, there is no obvious equivalent to the 'shape, line, colour
and texture' vocabulary that comes so naturally for describing the
form of visual objects.
To appreciate this, consider how you might describe a sound – say
the sound a cat makes, the sound of a car braking on gravel, or the
sound of running footsteps. We can use terminology like high
pitched, rumbling, or rapid-fire, but these are nowhere near as
objectively definable as square, yellow, shiny and the like. In many
cases, there is no way to describe the sound except by referring to
what makes the sound – i.e., to focus on the meaning of the sound
rather than its form. For example, the description 'the sound a cat
makes' is probably easier to understand than any attempt to
describe 'the actual sound'.
What about pronunciation? How would you describe the sound of
a sentence, say The cat sat on the mat? More importantly, how
would you describe the difference in the sound of this sentence
pronounced correctly, compared to its sound when pronounced
incorrectly by a learner? This, after all, is what is needed if we are
to find an analogy to the 'right angle' example above.
For most people, the description of pronunciation that springs most
readily to mind is one based on the spelling of the word. Teachers
with some background in linguistics may recognise limitations of
spelling-based description (e.g., there is no 'g' sound in 'rough'),
and prefer a description in terms of phonemes, or syllables – for
example, 'you left the /t/ off the end', 'you used the wrong vowel',
or 'you added an extra syllable'. However, though these
descriptions may seem absolutely clear to the teacher, they can be
extraordinarily difficult for the learner to act upon. The problem is
that interpreting descriptions like this requires a level of specifically
English phonological awareness that by definition a learner making
such mistakes does not yet have.
Phonological awareness (the ability to break words into parts, and
describe the parts) is highly language and culture specific. It is
acquired in early childhood (Berko Gleason, 2005, Brown, 1958),
and varies greatly, not just according to which language is learned,
but according to which writing system is learned (Olson, 1994).
Thus, learners from a non-alphabetic literacy tradition may have
considerable difficulty even dividing a word into individual
continued >>>
8 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
phonemes, let alone correctly identifying those phonemes, while
learners with alphabetic literacy in a different language (than
English) may divide the stream of speech into phonemes in ways
quite different from those that come so naturally to English
speakers (Fraser, 2004).
In short, talking about pronunciation is much more like talking
about politeness, family values, religion or other culture-relative
topics, than it is like talking in the relatively neutral, objective terms
of colour, line, shape and texture. However, while most learners
with a degree of intercultural experience recognise that words like
respect or democracy have significantly different interpretations to
people from different language backgrounds, those same learners
quite often believe their own subjective description of speech is
somehow obvious, neutral and objective.
Not an insurmountable problem
This in itself is not an insurmountable problem for language
teachers. Being skilled at intercultural communication, they are
generally well able to deal with situations where learners interpret
information differently from native speakers, and these skills can
readily be transferred to the very similar issues of meta-linguistic
communication that arise when teachers discuss pronunciation with
students.
Where a major problem can arise, however, is when teacher
education fails to alert teachers themselves to the fact that
speakers of different language and literacy backgrounds can 'hear'
a simple sentence like The cat sat on the mat in vastly different
ways to the one that seems so obvious to native speakers.
Without that alert, teachers expect students to understand 'simple'
instructions like 'You said 'shuh' and it should be 'suh'', 'you put
the stress on the wrong syllable', or 'compounds take stress on the
second element when the first element is functioning adjectivally'.
Such descriptions may be perfectly accurate, but still very difficult
for students to interpret in differentiating between what they just
said and what the teacher is telling them they ought to have said.
A teacher who doesn’t realise this might conclude 'I can’t teach
pronunciation', or 'adults can’t learn second language
pronunciation', rather than simply ‘I need to seek a more effective
way to communicate with this student about pronunciation'.
Finding that effective way does not mean discussion of English
letters, phonemes or syllables should be avoided, or other esoteric
terms substituted. It simply means that teachers need to select a
small vocabulary of meta-linguistic terms appropriate to their
teaching situation, provide students with clear, practical definitions
of those terms, then use the terms consistently, checking frequently
that they are fully understood by students every time they are used.
Some practical tips are offered in (Fraser, 2001).
Conclusion
The most effective way to communicate about pronunciation, as
with any communication, will vary dramatically depending on the
learner and the context. There is no 'one right way'. The criterion is
not whether the teacher has followed a manual, but whether the
learner has understood the teacher in a way that enables them to
modify their pronunciation appropriately.
References
Archibald, J. (ed.) 2000. Second Language Acquisition and
Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
Arnold, J. (2003). How to ease students into oral productions.
Humanising Language Teaching (www.hltmag.co.uk) March..
Berko Gleason, J. 2005. The Development of Language (6th
edition). Boston: Pearson Education.
Brown, R. 1958. How shall a thing be called? Psychological Review
65, 14-21.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
Doughty, C. & J. Williams. 1998. Focus on Form in Classroom
Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Edwards, B. 1989. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. New
York: Tarcher/Putnam.
Ellis, R. 2003. Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Fraser, H. 2001. Teaching Pronunciation: A handbook for teachers
and trainers. Sydney: TAFE NSW Access Division.
Fraser, H. 2004. Teaching Pronunciation: A guide for teachers of
English as a second language (CD-ROM, updated). Canberra:
Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Education Training and
Youth Affairs.
Fraser, H. 2006. Helping teachers help students with pronunciation.
Prospect: A journal of Australian TESOL 21, 80-94.
Gussenhoven, C. & H. Jacobs. 2005. Understanding Phonology
(second edition). London: Hodder Arnold.
Hardin, C. L. & L. Maffi (eds.) 1997. Color Categories in Thought
and Language. Cambridge University Press.
Kjellin, O. 1999. Accent Addition: Prosody and Perception
Facilitates Second Language Learning. In Fujimura, O., B. Joseph &
B. Palek (eds.) Proceedings of LP'98 (Linguistics and Phonetics
Conference) at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, September
1998. Vol.2. Prague: The Karolinum Press. 373-98.
Levis, J. 2005. Changing Contexts and Shifting Paradigms in
Pronunciation Teaching. TESOL Quarterly 39, 369-78.
Macdonald, S. 2002. Pronunciation – views and practices of
reluctant teachers. Prospect 17, 3-15.
Morley, J. 1991. The pronunciation component in teaching English
to speakers of other languages. TESOL Quarterly 25, 481-520.
Olson, D. 1994. The World on Paper: The conceptual and cognitive
implications of writing and reading. Cambridge: CUP.
Ur, P. 1990. In language teaching, which is more important,
language or teaching? Teacher Training Journal 4, 12-3.
The Author
Helen Fraser is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
at the University of New England, Armidale
NSW Australia. Dr Fraser studied Linguistics,
specialising in Phonetics and Phonology, at
Macquarie University in Sydney, and the
University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She
taught at the University of Edinburgh, Trinity
College Dublin, and the School of Oriental and
African Studies (University of London), before
coming to UNE in 1990. She teaches at all levels in phonetics,
phonology, psycholinguistics, history and philosophy of linguistics,
and (Australian) English language. Her research expertise lies in the
areas of phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, and writing
systems (especially of South and South-east Asia). Her theoretical
research focuses on the representation of speech sounds, both
'externally', in writing and transcription, and 'internally', in
people's minds when they are understanding, learning and
producing speech. Other research interests follow as applications
of this theoretical work, and include pronunciation teaching,
and forensic phonetics and transcription. http://www-
personal.une.edu.au/~hfraser ; hfraser@une.edu.au
www.tttjournal.co.uk
Trainer Background
Encouraging teachers and students of English to
read more in the target language…
Chris Lima is the coordinator of the ELT
e-Reading Group Project, developed in
partnership with the British Council (BC)
Literature and ELT Departments. She is an
International Association of Teachers of
English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL)
Literature, Media and Cultural Studies
(LMCS) Special Interest Group (SIG)
committee member and the LMCS
discussion list moderator. She is also the network coordinator of
the Critical Literacy in ELT Project, for which she and her team
were awarded the 2007 British Council Innovation Awards. Chris
holds a Degree in English from the University of London and is
currently involved in teacher education programmes and
networking.
TW: Why do you think reading in a target language is important
for teachers, Chris?
CL: I think for many teachers who come from countries where
there isn't a strong tradition of reading books, reading becomes a
sort of process of discovery. Once teachers have been exposed to
texts they realise how much such experience can enrich them in
personal and linguistic terms and a reading habit will develop. The
tricky thing is to get people motivated to start reading. Whole
books look very long to someone who doesn’t have a reading habit
yet! So we have to give teachers the opportunity to engage with
appealing and manageable texts, such as short stories and poems.
TW: Where can teachers get hold of these?
CL: There are some collections of good short stories and poems
published nowadays in quite affordable editions. (See below)
Teachers could create reading groups in their workplaces and even
in their Teachers’ Associations. The British Council
‘enCompassculture’ website has a toolkit with very practical ideas
and suggestions on how to set up a book club. (See address below)
TW: And supposing there are no book clubs near them, how can
teachers discuss what they have read with other people?
CL: Many teachers around the world are in this situation. For one
reason or another they do not have access to a book club or are in
a context where they work in isolation, therefore, creating a book
club becomes an almost impossible task. That is exactly why we
thought of creating an online book club for teachers. The ELT e-
reading group is a virtual space where ELT professionals can discuss
their readings of selected short stories and poems.
There are many good and reliable websites on the Internet where
you can download free texts, from whole novels to short stories
and poems. In the ELT e-reading group we have been discussing
texts that are published in the ‘BritLit’ section of the BC/BBC
Teaching English website, and also texts from the New Writing
website. Each month a new text is chosen and the link to
download it is also posted on the group discussion board.
TW: So, if I am a teacher wanting to read more, I can join your
online book club. Each month I can download a new text, knowing
teachers all over the world are doing the same thing as me! What
happens next?
Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 9
CL: You can decide to share your views on the story and perhaps
respond to someone’s take on it via the website. Then other people
in the group will probably respond to your ideas and share theirs
with you and then it is where the discussion really happens. So, as
an individual, you can be in on online book club discussion with
other professionals! I like quoting Mostafa, one of our group
members who said that ‘the most interesting thing about the
reading group is to read other people’s readings.’ I think this is a
perfect definition of the spirit of a book club and what we are
trying to do in our group.
To post your messages and join the discussion you have to register
in the discussion board. It is a simple process, but if you have any
technical difficulties in doing that, just send me a message at
chrislima90@yahoo.co.uk.
TW: Why do you think it is so important for EL teachers to get the
reading habit?
CL: Perhaps, the main message is that teachers cannot really
motivate learners to read literature in English, if they do not do so
themselves. You can not preach what you don't practice because
students smell it a mile off! Besides that, it seems to me that it is
time to start working on an EL teacher education programme that
goes beyond concerns with methodology, approaches and isolated
language development and moves towards a more comprehensive
development process in which literature should definitely have a
place.
TW: Once teachers are actually doing a bit of target language
reading themselves, how can they get their students doing some
reading in English?
CL: Perhaps the answer can only come to us if we put ourselves in
our students' shoes. I asked my 18 year-old son this question and
he said that everything depends on how teachers present the
reading material to students. If teachers honestly show enthusiasm
for the text and try to engage students, they are likely to respond
in a positive way. Relevant text selection and giving students a
menu of reading options is also important. What kills the joy of
reading is to 'have to read a text you haven't chosen yourself.'
TW: Students can also use a BC website, can’t they?
CL: Well, another important aspect related to the previous question
is that teachers sometimes feel insecure about how to approach
literary texts in the ELT classroom. One of the reasons we have been
using texts from BritLit and New Writing is that the websites also
provide some supporting material, such as language worksheets,
context and characterisation worksheets, glossaries, teachers’ notes
and reader’s notes, which help teachers to feel more confident
about the language, content and context. Once teachers have been
through the process of discussing the texts themselves on their own
discussion group they usually feel more comfortable and
enthusiastic about working with the text in class and using the
supporting material with their students.
TW: Could you say more about this menu of reading options?
CL: We usually choose a text each month; however, discussions on
texts from previous months are still open and teachers can actually
choose which of the texts selected they want to read and post on
at the moment. So far we have discussion threads opened on the
following texts:
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10 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
‘Ullswater’ by Romesh Gunesekera
‘A House in the Country’ by Romesh Gunesekera
‘The Curse’ by A.C.Clarke
‘In the National Gallery’ by Doris Lessing
‘After sharp showers…’ by William Langland
‘Visiting Time’ by Emma Brooks
‘The Landing’ by Anita Desai
‘Clap hands, Here Comes Charlie’ by Beryl Bainbridge
TW: And plans for the future?
CL: Our next step in the reading group is to extend the scope of
texts and start working with other genres, apart from short stories.
We are opening two new sections in the discussion group, one for
novels and another for poetry. In the Novel Choice section, a novel
will be chosen each three months by a member of the reading
group. Texts will also be available online for free download and
group members will be invited to read and discuss the text, either
after reading it or during their reading.
The Poets' Corner will be open to everyone post their favourite
poems at any time. Group members will be invited to comment on
the poems or simply enjoy reading them. It is going to be a very
flexible and democratic space!
TW: Wonderful Chris ! I am going to log on to the sites! Thank
you!
Useful web sites
The ELT e-Reading Group
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-literature-creativereading-
eltereading.htm
enCompassculture website
http://www.encompassculture.com
When teachers write coursebooks...
By Harshwardhan Kadepurkar, India
A story…
A man once claimed that he had taught his parrot three
languages. The news spread like wild fire. Surprised, a number of
people living in the vicinity rushed to his house, expecting to see
the performance. They waited and waited. But the parrot did not
oblige them, did not utter a single sound in any of the three
languages. Irritated, they took the man to task for telling them a
lie. The man, however, said that he had not told them a lie; he
had said that he had taught his parrot three languages, he had
not said that the parrot had learned three languages.
Doesn’t the story illustrate the state of education in general?
Perhaps, it has a special implication for English language teaching,
particularly in the Indian context. Teachers teach and teach and
sometimes overteach. And students? They learn or they don’t
learn. In short, teaching does not necessarily lead to learning, does
not always result in learning. In spite of all the research in the
field, the gap between ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’ remains un-
bridged. Some of the reasons cited in the literature for this ‘gap’
are:
• Inappropriate methodology
• Different learning styles
• Inappropriate materials
• Lack of ‘exposure’
www.tttjournal.co.uk
BBC/British Council Teaching English – BritLit
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/resources/britlit
British Council New Writing Anthology
http://newwriting.britishcouncil.org
The Project Gutenberg – free e-Books
http://www.gutenberg.org
The University of Virginia e-Library – free e-Books
http://etext.virginia.edu/ebooks/
The Poetry Archive
http://www.poetry-archive.com/
The Poem – Contemporary British & Irish Poetry
http://www.thepoem.co.uk/
Useful books
There are hundreds of collections of short stories and poems. Here
are some of Chris’s favourites:
Lavinia Greenlaw & Helon Habila (eds) New Writing 14. Granta
Books. 2006.
Bernardine Evaristo & Maggie Gee (eds) New Writing 15. Granta
Books. 2007.
A.S. Bryatt (ed). The Oxford Book of English Short Stories. OUP.
2002.
Ra Page (ed) Comma: an Anthology of Short Stories. Comma Press.
2002.
Douglas Barnes (ed). Harrap’s English Classics. Twentieth Century
Sort Stories. Nelson Thornes.1999.
Helen Gardner (ed) The New Oxford Book of English Verse. OUP.
1972.
• Lack of motivation
• Inadequate environment
• Top-down approaches
• Lack of ‘resources’
• Negative wash back of exams
• Cultural obstacles
(Holliday 1994, Allwright 1981, Khaniya 1990, Tomlinson 1998 and
others )
Almost all of these ‘reasons’ appear to be valid and all of them,
and perhaps more, need to be considered while developing and
implementing a new curriculum. A number of efforts have been
made and are being made all over the world to bridge this gap. In
Maharashtra, India, we made a similar effort in this direction. All
the major components of the new curriculum – Aims and
Objectives, Syllabus and Materials, Methods and Techniques and
Testing and Evaluation – were looked into, ensuring the coherence
of the curriculum (Johnson 1989).
Background
Maharashtra is one of the largest states of India, with a
geographical area of 307,713 Sq kms and population reaching 100
millions. Around 1.5 million students at Std X and around one
million students at Std XII study English as a compulsory subject. In
18,812 secondary schools and 5271 higher secondary units, spread
over the 35 districts of the state, thousands of teachers are
www.tttjournal.co.uk
engaged in teaching English. The numbers are alarming. The
context is varied—from a small number of schools with all the
required resources to a fairly large number of schools with no
resources and no motivation. Between these two extremes are
number of schools, where one can notice signs of positive change:
enthusiastic and trained teachers, interested students, aware
parents and a steady increase in the infrastructure facilities. Some
of the other problems are: a multi-lingual context, social and
economic inequalities, urban and rural divides and so on.
Maharashtra has had a long history of English language teaching.
Until 1960s, however, the approach was ‘Classical’, with an
emphasis on grammar and translation; the materials used were
typical of the times: ‘Golden Treasuries’ and ‘Prose Selections’,
books compiled by the English and for English children. The
methods of teaching were autocratic and paternalistic.
Significant signs of change were noticed only during the sixties,
when a structural syllabus was adopted. The revised syllabuses
consisted mainly of grammatical items (called teaching points, not
learning points) and vocabulary lists. Although the objectives talked
about the development of basic language skills, the reality was that
English was taught as a sequence of items to be memorized and
this was supported by the examinations. This model persisted for
some thirty years.
Disillusionment with the structuralist model offering little to the real
needs of India in the nineties was at the root of the curricular
changes introduced in 1994-95. The roots of the disillusionment lay
in the social and economic changes that were taking place in
modern India. The problem was immense, considering the large
numbers of teachers and learners involved in the process. How
could we introduce an innovation that would be acceptable and
doable by these teachers and students, without upsetting public
opinion? The State Board, therefore, evolved a model, a
homegrown model, which was a blending of structural and
communicative models. That is, the syllabuses had the familiar
structural base, but the materials and methodology would take a
communicative/ interactive form.
After a period of 10 years, in 2003-04, the Maharashtra State
Board initiated the process of curriculum renewal. The Board of
Studies in English considered the following aspects while designing
the new curriculum:
• the existing syllabuses of English for the classes I to XII.
• views/ opinions of teachers and other stakeholders on the
existing syllabuses
• the curriculums of English in the other states of India and in
other Boards
• the NCERT model syllabuses
• changing needs of learners and teachers
• current thinking in curriculum development
This article, however, will focus only on one of the components of
the new curriculum: materials development.
Materials Development in Maharashtra:
the Rationale
Coursebooks are usually designed and developed by ELT
professionals. Teachers—the end-users--- are neither consulted, nor
involved in the process. The Board of Studies in English took a bold
decision to invite teachers with no coursebook writing experience
to work as members of a writing team.
Education researchers in the field speak almost with one voice
when they stress that innovations in education are impossible if the
teacher is not taken into account (Fullan 1991, Hargreaves 1994,
Holliday 1995). In spite of all these warnings, ironically, while
introducing changes, it is often the case that teachers are either
taken for granted or simply ignored. There are a number of
Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 11
accounts of failures of projects caused by teacher resistance
(Bowers 1983, Foster 1990, Hargreaves 1994, Holliday 1995).
Bowers (1983) emphasizes the need to lay things open. He writes:
‘Quite often those who have a legitimate interest in the effects
of an innovation are given little or no control over it or even
perhaps information about it.’(116)
The Top-down/ Bottom-up metaphor is frequently used, especially
with reference to the initiation of change. Traditionally, innovation
in education has been, and is, top-down; decisions are made in
Ministries or Curriculum Development Centres and plans are
handed down for implementation at school level. As Murphy
(1995) points out,
‘ A frequent problem with the top-down innovation is that it
is done without consultation and demonstrates for the bottom
layer of the hierarchy how out of touch the top is. This
remoteness and distance often contributes to the failure of
initiatives.’ (1995: 15)
It is ironical, however, that almost all accounts of innovation
successes or failures in the literature are top-down innovations.
Examples of bottom-up innovations are either rare or appear to be
only a theoretical construct.
The personnel at the top have obvious advantages: more expertise,
better access to the latest information in the field, wider experience
and exposure, control of resources and a broader vision of the
policy demands and goals of education, necessary for planning the
innovation in the broader context of education and the socio-
political network. The implementers of innovation at the bottom do
have a better knowledge of their own particular context, the
classroom, but do not necessarily have the expertise and experience
required for initiating a change that attempts to meet the
requirements of varied classrooms.
The issue of ‘top-down/bottom-up’ innovation recurs in the
literature of language innovation. Protherough and Peterking
(1995) start the discussion of the question ‘whose curriculum?’
with a story, that illustrates the problem relating to the National
Curriculum in England and Wales very appropriately:
A fairy story. Once upon a time in the land of Ing the people
all did things in their own way, and they argued all the time
about which way was best. The Good Fairy got so tired of all
their squabbles that she waved her wand and up popped a
Magic Curriculum. ‘That is the way to do it’, said the Good
Fairy. ‘Hurrah!’ shouted the people. So then all did things the
way the Magic Curriculum said, and they lived happily ever
after. The end. (1995:1)
However, in the world of reality, Ministries or Departments do not
posses the magical powers of the Fairy. The writers, therefore,
inform us that there have been so many revisions introduced in the
curriculum, that it has become really difficult to know which one is
the final, official document. This example suggests that if there had
been a meaningful collaboration from the beginning, the need for
so many changes might have been reduced.
“It is against this background that the Board of
Studies (BOS) in English took a major decision
to involve teachers in the process of change.”
Appreciating the local rhythm is another aspect to be considered
for ensuring successful implementation of innovation. The perennial
problem with innovations is the difference between people working
in different circumstances: people working in offices planning
things and people in the classroom doing things. Unless serious
efforts are made to bridge the gap between the two layers, by
appreciating the local rhythms and incorporating them in the
project design, innovations in education are not likely to be
successful.
continued >>>
12 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3 www.tttjournal.co.uk

First Stage • approach to Materials Development: the overall design, the

It is against this background that the Board of Studies (BOS) in
English took a major decision to involve teachers in the process of
change. Thousands of teachers teach English at this level. Involving
all of them was obviously impossible. With the help of the members
of the BOS and the Board officials, about 100 teachers were
selected in the first instance. They were invited for ‘Teacher
Development Programmes’, held at Nasik and Pune, in December
2003 and January 2004. The programmes were jointly sponsored by
the Hornby Trust, UK and the State Board. Around 80 teachers were
present. The mode of training was task-based and activity-oriented.
The major focus of the programmes was on ‘making effective use of
ELT materials’. The main contents were:
• Brainstorming: The What, Why and How of Materials
• Identification of difficult areas in Materials
• Materials adaptation: principles and practice
• A Demonstration Lesson on Adaptation
• Support materials
• Using materials for teaching grammar
• Devising ways for adapting materials
• Materials adaptation: a demonstration lesson on simplification
and ‘easification’
• Diary keeping, Interview, Lesson observation
• Understanding the underlying principles of the prescribed
materials and evolving proposals for new materials
• Outlining the follow-up plan
criteria for selection of reading texts, the unit design, the design
of tasks, etc.
• approach to the teaching of vocabulary and grammar
• approach to teaching /learning procedures: the Role of the
Teacher and the Role of the Learner
• approach to Testing and Evaluation
• the design of the Oral Test
By the end of the workshop, participants had finalized the overall
design of the Course books and the Unit format. Since 3 course
books were to be produced, three separate teams of teacher-writers
were formed. Each team had four members. The other members
were kept in reserve. This article, however, will focus from now on
only on the work of one of these teams: the writers of Std XI and
XII Course books:
Std XI/XII Course books in English
Objectives of teaching English at Std XI
and XII
To enable the student -
1. to develop his/her language skills to a fair degree of proficiency
2. to acquire communication skills in English useful in real life
situations
3. to enrich his/her vocabulary
4. to use English with appropriate grammatical forms

Each day ended with an evaluation of the day’s work, which was 5. to develop reference skills and inculcate self-study habits
compiled and presented on the following day, by one of the 6. to use English not only as a library language but also as important
participants. language of communication
7. to cultivate a broad, human and cultured outlook
“…these teachers were not aware that their
names were being considered as members of a Overall Design of the Coursebook: Topical/Thematic
writing team!”
Topics/ Themes
The members of the BOS, working as facilitators, were all the time
1. Self 6. Nation
making their observations on the performance of the teacher
participants. These observations were based on: the teacher’s 2. Family 7. World/ Universe
initiative, language competence, interest in materials production,
3. Society 8. Communication Revolution/
innovative ideas, positive attitude, readiness to work with others in
Globalisation
a team, and so on. 4. City
On the basis of these observations 20 teachers were identified and 5. State
were invited for a training workshop for writers of the new
coursebooks in July 2004. Until then these teachers were not aware
that their names were being considered as members of a writing Unit Format
team! A. Preparation C. Aids to Comprehension
Second Stage B. Listen to the text/ Read the D. Language Study
text I Vocabulary
The immediate task was to produce 3 Course books and 3 Manuals
for the classes IX (one for the English medium and one for the non- The text II Grammar
English medium students)and XI, to be prescribed from June 2006. Glossary and Notes
E. Communication Skills
In the following year, 3 more Course books and Manuals were to be
produced for the classes X and XII.

Objectives of the Training Workshop Third Stage

The broad objectives of the Workshop were to develop an
understanding of:
• various aspects of the Approach to ELT adopted by the State
Board
• the curriculum framework and interdependence of the various
components of the framework and the rationale behind it
• the stated objectives of teaching/learning English and the syllabus
content
The first major task was the selection of appropriate reading texts.
In the context of developing countries, such as India, local
educational attitudes and policies play a very crucial role, especially
in determining the design and content of materials (Thanachanan
1984, Samah 1988, Alptekin 1993). Factors considered were: age
group of learners, sex, social and economic background, needs,
interests, aspirations, societal expectations, un-biased texts and so
on.
www.tttjournal.co.uk Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 13

Since teachers familiar with these contexts were now part of the 23. The cover page
writing team, the task of selecting appropriate texts was less
24. The back page
daunting. For example, look at the following text titles:
25. Introduction (with all details necessary to teachers and students)
1. India 2nd in World Road Mishaps
Writers made sincere efforts to cover as many points as possible.
2. Deluge in Mumbai
Later, a detailed introduction to the course book was written
3. A Village Powered by Sun, Wind and Cowdung explaining the rationale of change and offering help to teachers in
making effective use of the course book. As soon as the
4. Dreaming of a New India manuscripts were ready, they were sent to ELT Experts for review.
5. An Indian Forest Practicing teachers, who were not a part of the writing team, but
were a part of the pre-training programmes were also asked to go
6. To See Tukaram Shakespeare Came Over through the manuscript. After a careful consideration of their
Look at the following titles of texts, selected considering students’ comments, the manuscripts were finalized and given for printing.
interest:
Feedback
1. Is SMS Ruining the English Language?
The Course books are in use now and will continue to be in use for
2. My Family and Globalisers
the next few years. From the feedback received so far, the Course
3. Operation Cockroach
books have been very well received by all stakeholders. It will be
4. Father’s Laughter
interesting to see what students, teacher-writers and ELT Experts
The main criteria for selection were ‘culturally appropriate texts’ have to say about the new course books:
and ‘communicatively relevant texts’.The other criteria were: length
of the text, difficulty level, interesting, value-based, needs-based, From Students:
authentic and ‘fresh’, that is, not used in other course books! 1.…a very compact and comprehensive textbook.
It has been rightly said that though the selection of texts plays an Neha Gupta
important role in language learning, it is the activities generated by 2. The Course book is learner-centred.
materials that assume central importance (Prabhu 1983). In the Kartik
next stage of work, therefore, a number of pre-reading, while- 3. …a very innovative book…it stimulates the students to
reading and post-reading activities were developed, relating to the communicate with each other.
topic as well as the syllabus items. A conscious effort was made to Poonam Gaikwad
make these tasks communicatively relevant, doable and interesting. 4. The cover page and the back page are well-designed. The book
(An example) develops our language skills, enriches vocabulary, develops
reference skills and self-study habit.
The following check-list was developed for the help of writers: Pradnya Mohite
The Course book: Characteristic Features 5. The Course book focuses on learning rather than on teaching. It
tells us to take active part in the classroom and to adopt the
1. Skills-based techniques of self-study.
2. Needs-based Deepali Sonwar
6. This book is designed considering the mental level and
3. Value-oriented background of students.
4. Learner-centred ( addressed to the learner) Jayant Kale
7. The book is very interesting.
5. Composite book: Learner’s Reader, Workbook and Teacher’s Priya Parbat
Handbook 8. The coursebook is skills-based. It is practice-oriented. It is
6. Activity book (Task-based) student-friendly.
Snehal Dagale
7. Inclusion of literary and non-literary texts 9. In addition to the prescribed grammar items, several other
8. Authentic texts grammar points have been covered. Therefore, I don’t need any
other grammar book. Preparation section is useful for increasing
9. Contemporary writing my confidence and stage daring. The book provides a number of
10. Interactive/ communicative tasks activities/ tasks which will prove to be useful in preparing for the
Oral Test.
11. Interesting as well as useful texts Pradeep Raut
12. Appropriate to the context
From ELT Experts:
13. Functional Grammar
1. “Thank you for giving me a copy of the Std XII Course book. I
14. Dictionary entries have now gone through it and found it both innovative in
content and sound in pedagogic quality – something which takes
15. Stress marks (in Glossary)
a lot of time, thought and patient work. It not only conforms to
16. Illustrations but gets good value out of NCERT’s thematic syllabus; it boldly
brings in new texts, new writers and new genres (with associated
17. Clear Instructions to Teachers
new features of language and usage); and it provides exercises in
18. Clear Instructions to Students comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation in time-
tested formats. It is a pleasure to see such devoted work over so
19. Inclusion of language games, puzzles, crosswords
many years.”
20. Indian and British writers/ poets Dr N.S.Prabhu, Bangalore, India
21. The Unit Map 2. “I am now reading your wonderful books! Great! I love the texts
especially. Gosh those students must be good!”
22. The cost factor
Tessa Woodward, U.K.
continued >>>
14 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
3. “The books are fresh, up to date, simple to use, interesting and
develop language skills quite systematically. I think they will be
popular with teachers and pupils. One of the things I like most of
all is that the books are clear that their purpose is to support the
development of language skills ( not to deliver factual content),
there is a strong focus on the development of values and
aesthetics as well. It is this which makes the books interesting.”
Diana Lubelska, Cambridge
From the Teacher-writers of Std XII Course book
1. “I have been teaching English since 1982 at Kurduwadi, a small
“(This experience) has given me insight into
my classroom teaching and has increased my
confidence in making it more effective.”
town. I had no previous experience of working as a writer of
course books. (This experience) has given me insight into my
classroom teaching and has increased my confidence in making it
more effective. The new course book is student-friendly and also
teacher-friendly. In fact, it has become a resource book for me.
As a teacher I really enjoyed working as a writer.”
V.T.Patil (Kurduwadi)
2. “While dealing with the previous course books I was not that
conscious about what might be the process behind it. I felt elated
when I was selected as a writer of the course book for my
students. The job was not easy. Selecting texts for the course
book was the first challenge, as we had to consider the age
group, background, needs, interests and other aspects. I
understood that I must go to the level of my students—become a
student myself and then design any unit.”
S.S.Tiwari (Ambajogai)
3. “The teacher participants, selected carefully, were part of the
workshops conducted by the State Board. We were not aware
that these workshops were part of the selection process.”
“The Convener was a tough task master, no doubt, but he was
always encouraging and the atmosphere was very friendly. The
whole process provided us immense opportunities to improve
professionally and to polish our skills.”
“Initially I was scared before the course books entred the market
as that was the real test. Never before, I was expected to face
such an academic challenge of fulfilling the demands of millions
of students and to face a large number of expert teachers. I felt
like hiding in a cave. But what happened was totally different.
The course books were given a warm welcome and our efforts
were appreciated all over the state. And the credit goes to the
Convener, as it was he who had thought of this novel experience
of involving us, the teachers, in the process of creating the
materials that we teach and worked meticulously on every small
detail that it involved. Hats off to him!”
Pratibha Mistry (Aurangabad)
4. “It was a challenge because it was for the first time that teachers
with not too many academic degrees and a halo of Degree
College experience were entrusted with this job.”
“It was thrilling to be a part of the process of selecting the text
material. Emphasis was on selecting authentic material.
Sometimes I would be boldly persuading why a particular write-
up was worth selecting. At times the persuasion would turn into
a fanatic stubbornness. But soon I learnt to check my enthusiasm
and listen to others.”
“The process of selection taught me 3 things. One, not to be too
judgemental, two, not to view the text material as the blind in
the story view the elephant, and three, to strive to come close to
perfection not forgetting that perfection is still far away.”
www.tttjournal.co.uk
“By the time the actual writing of tasks started, we were
thoroughly groomed into our new avatar of writers. As basically
we were teachers teaching classes XI and XII, we could visualize
the lesson as it would be taught in the actual class. The tasks not
only became interesting and student-oriented, but also
functionally rich.
It was like a tailor stitching a shirt for himself, a task that is very
much creative. Thanks to the Convener, who could think that
teachers could prepare their course books.”
“This assignment revived the student, the learner in me, and this,
I think, is the most significant gain on my part. One thing which I
admired about our Convener was the time and room that he
gave us to understand and discover things on our own, a trait I
still have to acquire.”
Prachi Chitnis (Mumbai)
Conclusion
To conclude, the Maharashtra Language Project has shown that
when teachers write course books, contextually more appropriate
and communicatively relevant course books can be produced. This
exercise has generated confidence not only in the teachers who
were part of the writing team, but also in hundreds of other
teachers who were directly or indirectly involved in the project in
the: scrutiny of draft syllabuses, review of course books, teacher
training programmes, ongoing support activities, and so on.
A question may be asked as to whether efforts were made to
involve learners in this exercise. The answer is, No. Maybe in the
next phase of change, that can be considered. But we always had
in our mind the message of Acharya Vinobaji Bhave, philosopher
and disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Nation. Once a
group of teachers went to meet Vinobaji in his Ashram. At the end
of the meeting teachers requested Vinobaji to give his blessings and
his message. Vinobaji blessed them all and asked, with a smile on
his face, “What do you do?” Teachers said, “We teach.”
“Don’t teach,”said Vinobaji. When he realized that teachers had
not understood him, he explained to them that a teacher’s job is
not to teach, but to initiate and support the process of learning.
Teaching is artificial and relatively new in human history. Learning is
natural and has been there for all time.
References
Allwright,R.L. 1981. ‘What do we want the teaching materials for?’
ELT Journal Vol 36/1 (pp5-18)
Alptekin,C. 1998. ‘Target-language culture in ELT materials’ ELT
Journal Vol 47/2 (pp136-143)
Bowers,Roger 1983. ‘Project Planning and Performance’ In Brumfit
C.J. (Ed) Language Teaching Projects for the Third World, ELT
Document 116.Pergamon.
Foster,Pablo 1990. ‘The Tunician Textbook Project 1969-1977:
Problems affecting materials production’ In Projects in Materials
Design ELT Documents Special (pp198-206)
Fullan,M.G. 1991. The New Meaning of Educational Change.
London: Cassell.
Hargreaves, Andy 1994. Changing Teachers, Changing Times.
London: Cassell.
Holliday, Adrian 1994. Appropriate Methodology and Social
Context Cambridge: CUP
Holliday, Adrian 1995. ‘Handing over the Project: An Exercise in
Restraint’ System Pergamon, Vol 23 No 1 (pp 57-68)
Johnson,R.K. 1989. ‘A decision-making framework for the coherent
language curriculum’. In R.K.Johnson(Ed) The Second Language
Curriculum. Cambridge: CUP (pp1-23)
www.tttjournal.co.uk Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 15

Khaniya,T.R. 1990. ‘The washback effect of a textbook-based test’
In Tony Lynch (Ed) Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics
Number 1. University of Edinburgh (pp48-58)
McDonough,J. and Shaw, C. 1993. Materials and Methods in ELT: a
Teacher’s Guide. Oxford: Blackwell.
Murphy,D/F. 1995 ‘Developing Theory and Practice in Evaluation’ In
Rea-Dickins P. and Lwaitama A.F. (Eds) Evaluation for Development
in ELT: Review of ELT Vol 3 No 3 Modern English Publications in
association with the British Council
Prabhu,N.S. 1983. ‘Procedural syllabuses’ In John Read (Ed) Trends
in Language Syllabus Design. Singapore: SEAMEO (pp 272-280)
Protherough and Peterking (Ed) 1995. The Challenge of English in
the National Curriculum. London: Routledge
Samah,Abu 1988 ‘Materials for language learning and teaching:
new trends and developments: the Malaysian scene’ In B.K.Das (Ed)
Materials for Language Learning and Teaching. Singapore SEAMEO
(138-145)
Thanachanan, Pranee 1984. ‘A self-appraising English syllabus in an
EFL Country’. In John Read (Ed) Trends in Language Syllabus Design.
Singapore: SEAMEO (pp 245-257)
Tomlinson, B. (Ed) 1998. Materials Development in Language
Teaching. Cambridge: CUP
Author
I have been teaching English to the under-
graduate and post-graduate students at a college
at Nasik, Maharashtra, India. Currently, I am the
Principal and Head of the Department of English
in B.Y.K. College, Nasik. I have also been working
as Convener of the Board of Studies in English, for
the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and
Higher Secondary Education. This is an honorary
position. The Board is responsible for curriculum development and
curriculum implementation at secondary and higher secondary
level.

Improving conferences: organising a

Pecha Kucha event
By Lindsay Clandfield, Spain

What is Pecha Kucha? Gavin Dudeney - An introduction to Web 2.0

Jenny Johnson - Things I wish I’d known about ELT before I
A Pecha Kucha event is one in which a number of presenters started
share their ideas within the course of an evening. It follows a 20
x 20 format. Each presenter is allowed 20 slides (on a Adrian Tennant - What’s wrong with ELT?
programme such as Powerpoint), each shown for 20 seconds Susan Barduhn - Teacher as learner, learner as teacher
each. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes and Margit Szesztay - Channelling group energies
40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up.
Jeremy Harmer - Ten things I know about TEFL
Rose Senior - Key pieces in the classroom jigsaw
puzzle
The word Pecha Kucha (pronounced pechatchka with the stress on
the second syllable) comes from the Japanese word for “chit-chat” Scott Thornbury - Eating for Specific Purposes
and was invented by two designers in Tokyo. They were reacting
against long and boring Powerpoint presentations: presentations
with too many slides, or badly designed slides; presentations that What the presenters thought
depended more on the slides and not enough on what the person
was actually saying. Jeremy Harmer wrote a great piece on the Judging from the audience response, and the “buzz” at the
pitfalls of power point in this journal (see Harmer 2006). conference the next day, it was a success. Here’s what some of the
participants themselves had to say about it:
Pecha Kucha by contrast forces a speaker to “get to the point”
and think hard about how best to convey a message with limited Doing a Pecha Kucha
words and images. It has now become quite popular in the design, presentation was one
architecture and photography fields, but has recently stretched of the most terrifying
over to the business world. This year was the first time a Pecha and exhilarating
Kucha evening happened in the field of English language teaching, things I have tried for
at the 2008 International Association of Teachers of English as a a long time. The
Foreign Language (IATEFL) conference in Exeter, Devon, UK. feeling of being ‘out
of control’ as the
I was pleased to organise and facilitate the event, which was called slides clicked away
A snapshot of ELT. We invited eight well-known speakers from ELT relentlessly was
and challenged them to “do” a Pecha Kucha each. The result? A extraordinary. Some
great mixture of entertainment, serious content, humour and people get high (sic)
inspiration. Here are the speakers, and the topics they chose. by climbing
mountains. Pecha
Kucha felt like a
mountain, but it was
fantastic once you’d PB
reached the top.
Jeremy Harmer
continued >>>
16 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
Nothing like having just under seven minutes to concentrate the
mind! Scott Thornbury
Remember Churchill's words – that it takes far longer to prepare a
5-minute speech than it does a two-hour one! Rose Senior
The format of Pecha Kucha gave me a challenge, how to engage
the participants within the framework of a 20 second slide. But it
was great fun to take part in. Adrian Tennant
Having to use 20 slides in such a short time pushed me to use
pictures. Playing around with pictures got me to think in pictures
and metaphors. Then it was the pictures leading, and the words
fitting in (rather than using the pictures for illustrating words-
words-words.) Margit Szesztay
I learnt that we need more of these kinds of evenings, more times
when we get together and laugh and drink and heckle, with a bit
of information thrown in. I learnt that a Pecha Kucha show is best
done as a set of pictures allowing you to go where you want in the
time allotted. That 6:40 is much longer from the audience’s point
of view than it is when you’re doing the speaking. And finally that I
would love to do it again, and again…. It was fun … a ground-
breaking event in ELT. Gavin Dudeney
It was an absolute hoot, and turned us all into instantaneous super
stars. Even the hallway outside my session the next day was
packed!! Susan Barduhn
Tips for organising a Pecha Kucha
At the end of the event, I called on the audience to hold Pecha
Kucha evenings at their local conferences. I’m happy to say that
there has already been interest from two other countries. And
Pecha Kucha will probably be repeated at the 2009 IATEFL
conference in Cardiff, Wales. Could this be the start of a new
conference phenomenon in ELT?
Lindsay’s tips for organising a Pecha Kucha at your
conference
1. Choose a very general theme for the event. If you take
something too specific (e.g. Global English), there is a risk that the
presentations will be the same or very similar (or use the same
images). You’ll need a big room for the audience, with PowerPoint
projection facilities and, preferably, sound too.
2. Pecha Kucha evenings usually have up to 14 presenters. The
event we did at IATEFL had 8, and it felt about right.
3. Let the speakers know LONG in advance about the event, and
warn them that it takes quite some time to prepare. I kept
communication open between all speakers so we made sure
nobody did exactly the same topic.
4. Each presenter prepares 20 PowerPoint slides, and gets 20
seconds per slide. The slides cannot contain animation, or video, or
music. As a presenter you need to know how to use PowerPoint,
and how to set the slides so that they change automatically every
20 seconds. Get a computer-literate person to help you with that. I
got all the speakers to send me their presentations three days
before the conference so that I could put the timer on them and
have them ready in one folder for the evening’s event.
5. Check the timer works on the presentations before the evening!
Ours “broke down” a couple of times during the evening, which
meant I had to time the slides with my watch and then click them
forward manually while the speaker was presenting. This added
some humour to the event though…!
6. A Pecha Kucha evening is also a social event. Therefore it’s best
to have it in the evening, with refreshments available for the
audience. We had a cash bar at IATEFL. This makes it feel a bit like
a “stand-up comedy” night and sets an overall relaxed tone.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
7. It’s best to have a facilitator for the event. At IATEFL, I was the
facilitator. The facilitator introduces the whole thing and explains
what Pecha Kucha is. The facilitator then keeps it going and calls
the speakers to the stage as their turn is up. He/she can also
encourage the audience to clap, whistle, hoot with laughter and so
on. At the end, invite all the speakers back onto the stage for a
group bow. The speakers will feel like superstars!
8. While the evening is a social event, the presentations don’t all
have to be funny. What many people liked about the Pecha Kucha
at IATEFL Exeter was the variety. Some presentations were hilarious,
others much more measured and serious. All of them felt right for
the evening.
9. Schedule an interval between each batch of, say, four
presentations. During our interval I told the audience they could go
get another drink and chat/move around etc (we were in a large
hall). During this time you could have a band playing, or show
short funny films. We showed some funny films from YouTube
(www.youtube.com) that related to English and English teaching.
These were a lot of fun.
10. Finally, there follows some advice for presenters – courtesy of
Rose Senior, who did a fantastic presentation at our Pecha Kucha:
Have a simple, single message or overall theme
Let each slide speak for itself
Don't try to say too much for each slide (I reckon 60 words is about
right – although there can be considerable variation depending
how fast the presenter speaks)
Keep in mind that your prime aim is entertainment
Have confidence in your personal presentation style
Practise on your friends before doing the 'real thing'
Good luck and have fun!
If you’d like to organise a Pecha Kucha evening for your conference
and want more advice, you can email the author at
lclandfield@yahoo.ca
Web links
You can see a sample Pecha Kucha presentation here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NZOt6BkhUg
Or see the actual IATEFL event here
http://exeteronline.britishcouncil.org/
There is also an interesting article about the phenomenon at Wired
Magazine
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-
09/st_pechakucha
Reading
Harmer, J (2006) ‘Ten things I hate about PowerPoint’ in the
Teacher Trainer Vol 20 No 3 Pilgrims publications
Author
Lindsay Clandfied is a teacher, trainer and author
from Canada. He works regularly with It’s for
teachers magazines and the resource website
Onestopenglish. His books include Straightforward
(an adult course from Macmillan) and the award-
winning Dealing with Difficulties (with co-author
Luke Prodromou, published by DELTA). Lindsay is a
regular speaker at conferences and workshops
across Europe. He is currently writing a column on ELT for the
Guardian Weekly and is always interested in trying out new things
– like Pecha Kucha for example!
www.tttjournal.co.uk
Thoughts on teachers’ professional identity
It was at a conference in Rovereto, Italy in
March 2008 that I shared a rostrum with
Sari Pöyhönen and discovered how
knowledgeable she is! Sari is a senior
researcher in the Centre for Applied
Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä,
Finland. Her research and writing deal
with notions of language and identity,
linguistic and ethnic minorities and
language education policies in Finland
and Russia.
Her doctoral dissertation in applied
linguistics (2003) “Teachers of Finnish:
Professional Identity in Transition” was an
ethnographic study on Finnish language
teachers’ professional identity at the peak
of the transition period of Russian
education. The teachers worked in state
schools (primary and secondary)
specialising in Finnish as foreign
language. Professional identity was
analysed through factors related to the
teachers’ career paths, their relationship
to their work and profession, and their
position in Russian schools and society.
Ethnographic studies during the transition
period in Russia are very rare, particularly
from the point of view of linguistic and
ethnic minorities.
TW: Sari, thanks for agreeing to be
interviewed. I have found your work on
teachers' professional identities really
fascinating. As teacher trainers, educators
and mentors we should think about this
more deeply, I believe. Is it possible for you
to prise some general thoughts for us away
from the specific work you have done with
Russian teachers of Finnish in St Petersburg
and Petrozavodsk?
SP: Yes, I’d be happy to do that and at the
same time give a voice to the teachers who
participated in the study, too.
TW: First of all could you say a bit about
the dialogical framework you used?
SP: Dialogism is inspired by Russian
language philosophers Mikhail Bakhtin and
Valentin Voloshinov and developed further
in the West. In dialogical interpretation,
professional identity – or any identity – is
inherently a social phenomenon: dynamic,
multi-voiced, process-like. However, a
dialogical framework doesn’t
overemphasize the social dimension but
also takes individuality into account: a
person’s unique experiences and views on
the world. This is why instead of one stable
identity we could talk about several
identities that have different meanings in
various situations. This also applies to the
relationship of different languages. In my
study, for example, the teachers’
relationships with Finnish were multiple. To
some, it was the mother tongue while to
others, it was a second or foreign language
learned as adult. Also, their experiences of
how the Finnish language was positioned in
Soviet society or now in Russia differed and
brought about various emotional
relationships.
“Generally speaking, I believe
that teachers we work with
have several identities and
various relationships with the
language they are teaching.”
TW: So for us teacher trainers then, it
would make sense for us to think of the
teachers we work with (and indeed
ourselves) as having several identities and
various relationships with the language that
we are teaching?
SP: Precisely, it was actually very interesting
to observe in the classrooms and to
discover in the interviews with them that
instead of one Finnish language (in schools
it was officially a foreign language) there
were several Finnish languages in schools:
mother tongue, second language, foreign
language, “imported Finnish” etc.
Therefore, the dualistic view of language as
either “national” or “foreign” or “first” or
“second” can be questioned. Also, we
consider identities as being as flexible and
multiple as possible. Generally speaking, I
believe that teachers we work with have
several identities and various relationships
with the language they are teaching.
TW: I know that you think that career paths
are significant.
SP: They are indeed significant from the
point of view of professional identity at
least in the case of teachers of Finnish who
took part in my research. In the early 90s
Russian society was in transition: many
people lost their jobs and had to rethink
their professional future. During this time
some teachers “remembered” that they
spoke Finnish and that had Finnish
background. Perhaps they had spoken the
language in their childhood and after a
long period of not using the language they
started to memorize and use it again. So,
one of the career paths could be called
returning to one’s ethnic and linguistic
roots. The teachers’ previous occupations
were varied: e.g. a retired ballet dancer, an
engineer, a commercial artist, physics
teacher. Changing occupation represented
a very conscious choice to return to their
ethnic and linguistic roots. It also made the
teachers think very consciously about their
teaching profession and the language they
were teaching: for some it was a lost and
found language while for the others it was
Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 17
PB
a language of emotions and “the inner
me” that they had had to be silent about
for such a long time. Some teachers
regretted that they had not wanted to use
the Finnish language with their parents or
talk about Finnish traditions or Finnish
culture in general. For example, Alina wrote
in her autobiography: “Only now, as an
adult, I have come to realize that they [my
parents] tried in every way to preserve the
precious thing which the system had
wanted to wipe out from their lives. […]
Why didn’t I talk more about these things
with them? Now, when they have passed
away, I would like to know more about my
own roots, but it’s too late. All I can do and
have done is to teach the mother tongue.”
TW: I guess teachers’ relationships to the
English language might be a little different
since English is in many situations a fairly
high status language which in some
settings is actually causing the decline of
other languages?
SP: The teachers’ relationship with the
English language was distant but at the
same time they had a lot of respect for it.
Most of the teachers had studied English at
school translating sentences from English to
Russian and vice versa. Many of them said
they could not speak the language at all. In
their own work, however, they used
professional literature for English teachers
for developing their methodological
knowledge. Especially when Finnish first
appeared in the curriculum, Finnish
teachers formed their own subculture that
had poorer facilities than teachers of
English. English was seen as a competitor
and the teachers acknowledged that pupils
would have preferred to study English. For
many pupils Finnish was a difficult and an
insignificant language.
TW: Yes, I see.
SP: Moreover, ethnic background
distinguished the returnees from the other
teachers of Finnish at school, for they were
considered to have an ethnic duty to
continued >>>
18 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3 www.tttjournal.co.uk

enhance Finnish culture and to maintain the
knowledge of Finnish in Russia. Also, the
teachers themselves regarded it as their
important duty to continue the tradition and
to further the Finnish language. Those
teachers who had a Finnish background
were often considered a special group
because their cultural capital and generally
good command of Finnish distinguished
them from Russian teachers. Finnish
teachers were valued members of the
teaching community. However, cultural
capital could also be a cultural ballast.
Another indication of the cultural ballast
was that the authenticity of the Finns’
ethnicity could be in doubt, particularly if
their command of the language was not at
the same level as that of an imaginary
native speaker of Finnish. Thus language
and ethnicity were intertwined, which made
the research on professional identity even
more delicate. Dealing with emotions and
sensitive issues of language and identity was
challenging yet rewarding for both the
participants and me as the researcher as
well.
TW: Were there other kinds of teachers in
the teaching community, too?
SP: Yes. These so-called career teachers had
taken the straightest route to becoming
teachers of Finnish. After finishing school
they had applied to university as students of
Finnish and after graduation had started
working as teachers of Finnish. These
teachers had a very strong professional
identity and they were self-confident about
the methods they used and the pedagogical
thinking behind the methods.
TW: So we could say that career teachers
seem to have a stronger professional
identity whereas returnees to their mother
tongue and their own ethnicity may perhaps
feel stronger emotions but potentially may
feel more at sea pedagogically?
SP: Exactly. The returnees felt they had to
invent the wheel again and again, while
career teachers seemed to have a clear
picture of the goals and methods. They
were a bit reluctant to re-evaluate their
pedagogical thinking. This came up in the
interviews.
SP: The professional career paths of all
these teachers (both returnees and career
teachers) were formed by the choices of
each individual in connection to important
others. The members of the family,
classmates, former teachers, colleagues and
the society as a whole were involved in the
decisions the teachers made, especially at
crossroads in their career paths. These
important others were supporters but
sometimes also opponents. Tatyana
remembers one difficult moment in her
career: “In 1971, I got a job in the [--]
junior secondary school where I worked as
a teacher for eight years. At that time,
people felt differently about the Finnish
language. I remember that, during the first
lesson, I had had no time to give
homework to the children; the bell rang,
the lesson was over, but I kept talking. The
teacher of the Russian language and
literature entered the classroom and gave
me an order in front of the children: “Stop
it now! A Russian lesson is about to begin
in this classroom and it is more important.”
I remember tears coming into my eyes. But,
fortunately, times have changed.”

Would you like to TW: Gosh! That’s awful!

SP: Yes, the memories were quite often

send something in to very sad and painful, but at the same time
they seemed to overcome all these troubles
and be more confident about their career

“The Teacher Trainer”? choice. They were very committed to their

work as Finnish teachers.
TW: Apart from finding out about teachers’
The Teacher Trainer comes out three times a year, but for contributors there attitudes towards the language, ethnicity
are no deadlines as such. Articles are printed once they are ready and after and pedagogy, were you also interested in
finding out what kind of relationship the
they have queued up for a while. There are no special issues, but there are teachers had towards their work?
specialised series running in most issues. Examples of these are “News in Our
SP: Yes. The views the teachers had on
Field”, “Practical Training Session”, “It’s a Wired World” etc. Please check a teaching and learning led me to the
recent copy of the journal for house-style and article length. If you would like interpretation that learner-centred and
to send us an article, please write in an accessible, non-academic style. Length teacher-centred cultures co-existed at
schools. Even though the teaching culture
should normally be 800 – 4,000 words. Send your first draft in double spaced
showed signs of change, and particularly
with broad margins. Keep your headings and sub-headings in upper and lower the younger generation teachers
case throughout. Please give an accurate word count and brief bio data represented a more learner-centred view,
at the end. We will also need a current photograph. the unofficial, covert school culture was still
dominantly teacher-centred. This could also
We can accept paper, disks or email. Your article will be acknowledged by be seen in the hierarchical teacher-pupil
roles which supported teacher-centred
pro-forma letter or email. It is normal for contributors to receive editorial culture: the teacher was responsible for the
comments later so please do not take this as a sign of failure! learning process and his/her most important
Once you have finalised your draft in negotiation with the editor, we will let task was to give out information. To put it
simply, the role of the pupils was to receive
you know the format. If you are sending a disk, please ensure its packaging is
information and to do exercises. The
clearly marked with your name, the title of your article and the file or teacher-centred culture was visible also in a
document name. teacher’s great authority. Although the
younger teachers’ authority was sometimes
We will try to publish your article within about four issues, but if it is an questioned, it was a significant factor
awkward length, it may be longer. You will receive a complimentary copy of defining teacher-pupil roles.
the issue in which your article appears. We look forward to reading your TW: So as trainers we should expect there
article! to be multiple approaches going on in
parallel classrooms in the same school?
www.tttjournal.co.uk Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 19

SP: A multiplicity of approaches is quite
understandable, isn’t it? But sometimes it
seemed that the various Finnish teachers
lived in different worlds. According to
school documents, the official, overt culture
in schools specialising in Finnish followed
the principles of a learner-centred culture.
In the interviews however some teachers
represented more learner-centred views
whereas their teaching practices revealed
more of the unofficial teacher-centred view.
Those teachers who represented a more
teacher-centred culture, had more
consistent views and practices that also
represented the school’s prevailing culture.
However, they thus contradicted the official
learner-centred view. In sum, I could say
that the teachers of Finnish had an
ambivalent relationship to their work. There
are many reasons for this, but one good
explanation could be that there were
different values and attitudes coexisting in
the schools and in individual minds as well.
SP: It was also very interesting to find that
the features of both teacher and learner-
centred cultures became very apparent
when I examined teachers’ views on the
traits of a good teacher and good pupil.
During the three years of the research I
interviewed the teachers twice and often
discussed this topic with them. In the
interviews I asked them to characterize a
good teacher and a good pupil.
The most significant basic characteristics of
a good teacher mentioned by the
interviewees were professionalism and
expertise, psycholo¬gical and interactive
skills, ability to organise and educate, and
personality. The views of the Finnish
teachers on what makes a good teacher
were thus partly fairly traditional, that is
they regarded a good teacher as civilised,
competent and good at organising.
Nevertheless, their views also revealed
values that reflected a more learner-centred
culture, such as the good teacher’s
attempts to identify with their pupils’
position and to work as their colleague. In
addition, a good teacher was considered a
second, institutional mother and they were
thus supposed to “love their children”.
Their ideas about the traits of a good pupil
also included features from both teacher-
centred and learner-centred cultures. A
good pupil’s basic characteristics reflected
teacher-centred thinking: a good pupil is
hard-working, clever and obedient for
example. Those characteristics connected to
pupils’ communica¬tiveness, ability to be
creative and to work on tasks
independently also reflected a more learner-
centred culture however.
TW: What did you find out about the
teachers’ position in society?
SP: The Finnish teachers both in St.
Petersburg and in Petrozavodsk considered
their socio-cultural position in Russian
society to be weak. The teaching profession
is less valued in Russia than it was in the
Soviet era, and teachers’ position as a
professional group in general has become
more and more marginalized. One reason
for their weakened position could be that
the field is dominated by women. In
addition, in St. Petersburg the status of the
Finnish language is not yet established and
this was also reflected in the teachers’
unstable socio-cultural position. In
Petrozavodsk the Finnish language has
gained a stronger foothold but teachers still
thought their work was not much valued.
However, Finnish teachers regarded the
status of the Finnish language as a more
important factor than the profession itself
in defining their socio-cultural position and
social prestige.
TW: What do you yourself feel about the
relevance of your study?
SP: Teachers of Finnish represent a very
small group of teachers in Russia. However,
their work is closely linked with the
transition happening within the Russian
education system, thus reflecting Russian
teachers’ situation in general. In this respect
the findings of the study could be used as a
basis for interpreting the role of transition
in Russian teachers’ lives too. But I also
think the stories and life experiences of the
Finnish teachers give us much to reflect
upon. They could help us to be more aware
of the coexistence of professional and
personal identities and the parallel realities
we live in, as well as the many differing
relationships we teachers have to the
languages we teach and the pedagogy we
use.
TW: Thanks very much Sari!
References
Bakhtin, M. M. 1981. The Dialogic
Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin.
Ed. And translated by M. Holquist and V.
Liapunov. Austin, Texas: University of Texas
Press
Pöyhönen, S. 2008 (forthcoming). Ethnic
Duty and Other Obligations: Multiple
Identities of Ingrian Finnish Teachers in
Russia. In Alejandro Cervantes-Carson & Ilse
Josepha Maria Lazaroms (eds.) Contested
Recognition: Cultural Claims and the
Problems of Belonging. Oxford: Inter-
Disciplinary Press.
Pöyhönen, S. & H. Dufva 2007. Identity and
heteroglossia: Negotiation of identities of
Ingrian Finnish language teachers in Russia.
In R. Alanen & S. Pöyhönen (eds.) Language
in Action: Vygotsky and Leontievian Legacy
Today. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 160–178.
Voloshinov, V. N. 1973.
Marxism and the
Philosophy of Language.
New York: Seminar Press.

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20 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
Training around the world
Content and language integrated
learning in Estonia
By Peeter Mehisto, Estonia
Estonian Context
Now a member of the European Union, Estonia regained its
independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Estonia's
population is 1.34 million. Estonian is the official state language.
Today, there are both Estonian and Russian-language schools.
Approximately 77 % of students attend Estonian-medium
schools and 23% Russian-language schools. Publicly-funded
universities offer the vast majority of programming in Estonian.
Several private post-secondary institutions offer instruction
through Russian or English.
With the re-establishment of independence in 1991, the
curriculum of Russian-language schools was harmonised with
that of Estonian-language schools. The number of hours
dedicated to the study of Estonian in Russian-language schools
was increased. Estonian was taught as a second language
beginning in Grade 1 for 45 minutes per day. Children usually
enter Grade 1 at the age of seven.
Standard second language teaching methods did not lead to
widespread fluency in the state language among members of
this segment of the population. Estonia explored language
learning options and chose to adopt voluntary CLIL (Content and
Language Integrated Learning) programming. Considerable work
was done with a wide range of stakeholders to plan
programming, raise awareness of the CLIL option and to reduce
resistance to the innovation.
In 2000, Estonia launched a voluntary Estonian-language CLIL
programme for seven year-olds in four Russian-medium schools. In
2003, a late CLIL programme was established beginning in Grade
6. The early and late programmes have expanded rapidly to include
a total of 54 kindergartens and schools.
A Language Immersion Centre was established to coordinate
programme management, the creation of learning materials, the
training of educators and administrators, research efforts and
public relations.
Student achievement in the early CLI programme has been studied
extensively. Students are achieving curriculum expectations in all
subjects. In general, they have learned to speak Estonian well. They
perform equally well or better on Russian language tests as the
control group students studying only through the medium of
Russian. Late CLIL student achievement is currently under study.
What does a teacher need to
know/understand/learn before becoming a
CLIL teacher rather than a regular content
or language teacher?
Good CLIL practice goes hand in hand with good practice in
education in general. However, as CLIL is initially taxing for both
students and teachers, it is particularly important that general good
practice in education be applied with particular care. Moreover,
there are also some aspects of teaching in CLIL that are in some
way unique.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
PB
CLIL does not simply involve changing the language of instruction,
it also requires a shift in teaching practice. CLIL content teachers,
be they, for example, teaching maths, science or geography, are
also teachers of language. CLIL language teachers are also teachers
of content. They support the acquisition of both the language and
the content needed for the subjects being taught through the CLIL
language.
What else do CLIL teachers need to keep in
mind?
Language is an emotional vehicle. Emotions touch the core of who
we are. They can help or hinder learning. Working through a
second language carries with it a certain stress. The learner in CLIL
will face difficulties in finding the right words or likely feel restricted
in expressing complicated thoughts and emotions through simple
language. Thus, in CLIL, managing the emotional dimension takes
on a particular importance. The CLIL teacher works to guide
students in harnessing positive emotions and managing destructive
ones.
In part, this is done by guiding students in better understanding
and managing the learning process and their expectations. CLIL
students cannot expect to understand every word they read or hear.
They need to accept a certain degree of ambiguity. They require
support in keeping this in mind. At the same time, the student’s
own learning strategies need to be analysed and developed so the
students can take greater control of their learning and reduce the
ambiguity. Students can also benefit from being provided with and
encouraged to use a lexis for speaking about feelings.
Moreover, CLIL teachers work to build a secure learning
environment where students feel safe in experimenting with
language and content. Such a learning environment is free from
sarcasm, is constructive in nature, and sufficiently challenging.
Above all, as with all students, teachers need to believe that their
students will succeed. CLIL is not just for the gifted. Although it
may be counter-intuitive for some people, it is important to know
that average students are successful in CLIL. They simply require
that their learning be properly scaffolded.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
How do CLIL teachers build that
scaffolding?
Chunking of information into smaller more manageable parcels;
using graphic organisers, tables and diagrams; co-constructing and
negotiating meaning; providing language support by organising
and displaying needed discourse patterns and vocabulary are all
ways of scaffolding learning in CLIL.
In CLIL, there is an emphasis on active learning and peer
cooperative work. As a regular diet of teacher-centred lessons and
extensive teacher-talk can be de-motivating and disempowering,
they are avoided so as not to rob students of opportunities to
explore and apply learning. This is particularly important when one
is learning through a second language. CLIL students need to use
and apply both language and content in the here and now, if rich
teacher input is to translate into rich student intake and output.
Thus, CLIL seeks to provide ‘just-in-time’ language so that students
can immediately enjoy the payoff of actively working with their
peers in applying meaningful content.
How does the ‘just-in-time’ concept apply
to language?
In Nicaragua, when deaf children were for the first time ever
brought together into specially established schools for the hearing
impaired, educators tried to teach them lip-reading and speech. In
general, those schools failed to teach those skills. Students,
wanting to communicate in the here and now, started using
various signs and gestures creating what would eventually become
a local sign language. They were not prepared to wait to learn
language, in this case lip-reading and speech for future use. They
wanted to communicate in the here and now and found a way to
do just that.
“CLIL is a ‘just-in-time’ approach as opposed
to a ‘just-in-case’ approach.”
Since in CLIL students would not get very far inventing their own
language, teachers identify what the students want to say in the
here and now and provide students with the basic discourse
patterns and other bits of language required to immediately put
content and language to use. CLIL students are not learning a
language simply for the sake of language learning and future use,
but are putting just-learnt language to immediate use while
learning and manipulating content that is relevant to their lives.
CLIL is a ‘just-in-time’ approach as opposed to a ‘just-in-case’
approach.
What do teachers need to keep in mind
once students become more adept at
communicating through the CLIL
language?
As students progress in CLIL and are able to readily communicate
through the second language, it is tempting for content teachers
to leave language to the language teachers. This is likely to slow
language learning down to a crawl. Only by having all the CLIL
teachers expecting and supporting continued language
development will students be able to maintain the ongoing
development of language. Students need to be kept in what
Vygotsky calls the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Building on
Vygotsky’s original ZPD definition and on Ohta who redefined the
ZPD for language learning, I would say that in CLIL: the ZPD is the
distance between the actual developmental level as determined by
individual manipulation of content and language knowledge, and
the level of potential development achievable through the
collaborative manipulation of content and language knowledge
Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 21
with (an) adult(s) or peer(s). It also includes the distance between
the actual management of one’s own learning and the potential
level of self-management of learning when working with (an)
adult(s) or peer(s).
Interaction with peers and adults acts as a form of scaffolding
helping to support the construction of meaning for existing words
and structures, for the content contained within the words, and for
grammatical form. However, it is also a CLIL teacher’s aim to
develop in students a capacity to self-instruct, to build or otherwise
access their own scaffolding. By interacting with others or even
imagining interaction with others, a learner can perceive his/her
short-comings in expressing him/herself.
Learners, who have several years of schooling, can self-instruct and
self-evaluate by searching for terms in dictionaries or databases or
by reviewing grammar rules. They can seek out summaries of
content topics in the form of précis or charts. Learners can also
acquire, apply and hone a variety of other learning skills such as
effective ways of studying, problem-solving, goals-setting and
managing their own feelings and attitude.
Once a certain segment of self-instruction has been completed, the
learner can seek opportunities for applying the learning while also
seeking support from others in refining this self-acquired knowledge
and skill.
In short, CLIL’s three-fold focus on language, content and learning
skills needs to be maintained throughout the life of the programme.
Is CLIL a passing fad, today's quick-time
solution?
CLIL-type practice has been around for thousands of years. Already
some five thousand years ago, the Akkadians, who had conquered
the Sumerians, used Sumerian as a language of instruction to learn
subjects such as theology, botany and zoology. Despite roots that
reach far back in history, CLIL is very much a modern democratic
tool. It is respectful of local culture and language. It aims to support
the development of a region's first language and the CLIL language.
The world is becoming increasingly integrated. Global competition,
cooperation and communication are on the rise. Inter-disciplinarity is
increasing and technologies are converging. CLIL is an efficient
fusion of content and language that helps students to meet the
demands of the modern world. It is a solid success story. I believe it
is here to stay.
References
Ohta, A.S. (2005) Interlanguage pragmatics in the zone of proximal
development. Pragmatics in Instructed Language Learning 33 (3),
503-517.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher
Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Author
Peeter Mehisto has worked with a wide range of
stakeholders to develop Estonia's national CLIL
programme. He is a winner of several awards in
education. Originating from Canada, based in
England and Estonia, Peeter is currently researching
CLIL programme management and pedagogy.
Author, trainer, manager and educator, he has
extensive experience in working with teachers and administrators to
support the implementation of best practice in CLIL programming.
His has worked with educators and administrators in North
America, Asia and several European countries. He is the lead author
of a new book entitled Uncovering CLIL: Content and Language
Integrated Learning in Bilingual and Multilingual Education
(Mehisto, Marsh, Frigols, 2008, Macmillan Education).
22 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
Teacher development – a worm’s eye view
By Amol Padwad, India
Introduction
Teacher development (TD) is an important
aspect of educational policies and
programmes. It has a crucial bearing on
the quality of services and products of
any educational enterprise. Ensuring
continuous professional development of
teachers after entering the teaching
profession is a major concern for policy
makers, programme designers and
educational managements alike. This
issue is further complicated by the diverse
views of professional development held
by different stake-holders. The present
article attempts to look at the views of
teachers from an Indian context about
professional development and to suggest
some implications of these views for
teacher development theory and practice.
First a brief description of the context
and the profile of teachers will be given.
This will be followed by a discussion of
the prevalent (academic) views of teacher
development vis-à-vis these teachers’
views on the matter. Finally, some
implications for teacher development
theory and practice will also be discussed.
Background
The worms in the title represent the
teachers working in resource-poor areas of
central India, teaching English as a second/
third language. These teachers usually have
poor language competence, little useful
pre-service training or qualification and low
self-esteem. Many of them have become
teachers not by choice, but by compulsion.
Their context is characterized by:
• High social (‘prestige’) status of English:
Ability to use English effectively is not
only a passport to upward and onward
social mobility, but also to higher social
standing for the user.
• Huge, centralised and alienating system:
Education at all levels is centrally
controlled, involves millions of students
and several thousand teachers; an
individual student or teacher feels lost in
the system; their voices find little scope in
the system. (But please see Kadepurkar,
2008 for a refreshing exception to this)
• Uniform syllabuses and centrally
prescribed textbooks: Since the system is
state-sponsored and controlled, there are
usually uniform syllabuses and textbooks
prescribed for very large number of
learners, irrespective of the diversity of
their contexts, needs and abilities.
• Examination- and quantity-oriented work:
The main (and often the sole) yardstick of
‘success’ is the students’ performance in
year-end examinations; teaching-learning
is strongly conditioned by the
examination patterns and policies;
monitoring and measuring of
achievement is done quantitatively;
qualitative growth is usually ignored.
• Culture of ‘teacher as knower, filler of
learners’ heads’: the traditional paradigm
of education, which sets the teacher in a
position of authority and source of
knowledge, still holds strong; classrooms
are marked by a clear hierarchical division
between teachers and students.
The irony of the situation is that the
teachers have to work under the heavy
burden of expectations from students, their
parents, the society at large and the
educational authorities, while there are
neither incentives, nor pressure, nor scope,
nor support to develop professionally.
Another irony is that a significant number
of teachers seem frustrated with the
situation, but hardly anyone seems to go
beyond blaming the system and reconciling
themselves to it. These teachers come with
little awareness of ELT theory and practice,
since a typical pre-service professional
course consists of a one-year general
teacher training programme with a small
component of teaching English. Once in
service, they get very few opportunities for
further development. The mandatory in-
service training is usually for about ten days
every five or six years. There are occasional
training programmes focusing on
immediate needs, for example, on a newly-
introduced textbook or reforms in
evaluation. These training programmes
serve only short-term instrumental needs
and are usually not designed to make any
contribution to long-term developmental
goals.
The metaphor of ‘worm’ is deliberately
chosen, and it is not entirely negative. The
comparison of these teachers with worms is
intended to suggest that they are numerous
but insignificant, faceless members of an
enormous system, where they do not seem
to possess any individual identity or voice.
They do not have any role in or control over
policy making, syllabus design, materials
production, selection of textbooks,
evaluation patterns and methods, or even
much of their classroom practices. For all
practical purposes their job is restricted to
carrying out as faithfully as possible what
has been assigned to them ‘from above’
often without knowing what, why or how.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
But as already said, not everything is
negative about being ‘worms’. Worms are
closer to the ‘ground reality’ and if they do
not know what happens ‘above’ at the top,
they have a first hand knowledge of what
happens ‘below’ in the actual field.
Ultimately it is these numerous faceless
teachers who ‘battle it out’ in the field and
are responsible for how a teaching
programme is implemented in practice. So
these ‘worms’ have the potential of making
or breaking an innovation or initiative.
It is therefore crucial to try to understand
‘Teacher Development’ from these ‘worms’’
perspective. An understanding of how
teachers think of professional development,
what their attitude towards and
expectations from professional development
are, may help in better tuning of the
policies and programmes of professional
development to the actual needs and
interests of teachers. The present article
does not claim to suggest ways of
achieving such fine-tuning, but only aims to
present some vital questions that have
come up in course of an on-going long-
term experiment in teacher development in
a small region of central India.
This is about teacher
development
The notion of ‘development’ is used in this
article in a specific sense, much broader
than and different from ‘training’ and
‘education’. It is important to bear in mind
that the entire focus in this article is on
‘development’. Both ‘training’ and
‘education’ refer to processes that are
short-term, aimed at specific and narrow
goals and are usually managed by others.
Both serve a rather limited range of
purposes and are often tightly associated
with more or less clearly defined and
achievable (short-term) objectives. Both
notions of ‘training’ and ‘education’ seem
to assume that teachers are passive
recipients of knowledge and skills; both
undervalue the role a teacher plays (or does
not bother to play) in his/her own
development. ‘Development’ on the other
hand is a much broader concept, implying a
continuously on-going process with no
ultimate end-point, that is primarily fed by
one’s personal urge and interest in self-
development. Another important difference
is that ‘training’ and ‘education’ seem more
formal processes, involving outside agencies
and inspirations, while ‘development’ is
more informal and voluntary and is usually
not an outcome of outside compulsions
(though the process may be triggered by
outside causes). The process of
www.tttjournal.co.uk
development is often less tangible and
visible, as against ‘training’ and ‘education’,
which frequently have well-defined and
measurable goals. Generally ‘training’ and
‘education’ are assumed to be a part of the
larger ‘developmental’ process, and are
expected to contribute to continuous
professional development of teachers.
Teacher development theory and practice
seems to project ‘development’ as the
overarching goal for a teacher. It is
expected of a teacher that s/he keeps
growing continually both professionally and
personally during his/her lifetime. This
process of growth takes him/her on the
path of becoming increasingly more
effective and achieving greater success as a
teacher.
The views of practicing
teachers
Against this backdrop of the theoretical and
idealist perspective on development, it is
enlightening to consider the views of
practising teachers. When one tries to elicit
the views of an average teacher on
development, one finds that their beliefs
and attitudes are quite different. A small
group of teachers, who fit the description
of the ‘worms’ above, were interviewed
during an experiment in teacher
development. (More details of the
experiment are given below.) When asked
about their thinking about and engaging in
their own development, these teachers’
typical responses were: “Why develop at
all?”, “What’s wrong with what I am doing
now?”, “Development? That’s for the
intellectuals!”, “We’ll think of developing
when there is need!”, “Of course, I am
developing! I have attended many training
programmes!” The teachers’ reactions,
which are quite representative, imply that
• many teachers do not seem to see
‘development’ in its broad, continuous
sense;
• many teachers do not see any concrete
need for personal/ professional
development;
• many teachers lack interest in self-
development and feel themselves
incapable and undeserving of it;
• many seem quite comfortable with their
well-settled routines and feel insecure
about trying out anything new, or feel
threatened by the demand to develop;
• many are reluctant to take even those
few opportunities that come their way.
English Teachers’ Clubs
Given this situation, it should not be
surprising that hardly anyone seems to take
the trouble to engage in personal and
professional development. However, an
innovative experiment of English Teachers’
clubs (ETCs) going on for over four years in
some rural places – especially in Bhandara,
Wardha and Amravati districts – in
Maharashtra and Hyderabad in Andhra
Pradesh (central India) shows that
professional development is possible within
this pessimistic situation too. ETCs are small
groups of 10-20 teachers with low
confidence and competence, frustrated
with the given situation, similar to those
described above, but differing in their
interest1 in self-development and their
willingness to try it. The first ETC was
formed originally by a small group of
motivated teachers in and around Bhandara
coming together during a crisis triggered by
radical syllabus reform.They showed
inclination to stick together for continuing
self-development even after the crisis was
over. Under a pilot project supported by the
Hornby Trust, UK and the British Council an
attempt was made to shape this group into
an ETC and also to launch a couple of more
ETCs in Bhandara. Later more ETCs were
launched with different degrees of success
in a few other places in Maharashtra and
also in the neighbouring states of Andhra
Pradesh and Chhatisgarh under a slightly
larger project supported by the British
Council and ELTeCS. The entire project
report and its findings are available with
the present author and can be sent to
anyone who is interested in them.
The more successful clubs meet regularly,
plan and carry out need-based activities,
share ideas, experiences and anxieties, and
provide a strong emotional support to each
other. These clubs are characterized by
collective work, planning, decision-making
and funding. The participation in ETCs has
led to some concrete gains for its members
as detailed further below. These details are
based on my close personal observation of
the members of at least two ETCs which I
am in constant contact with all along.
These observations are also corroborated by
the regular feedback and interaction with
the ETC members in the periodic meetings
of these two ETCs and by the reports from
other ETCs2. Here are two quotes from the
member-teachers’ feedback:
“I must very clearly and openly declare that
my participation in the workshops, seminars
and meetings of ETC proved to be
helpful…. [T]he participation in the
abovementioned programmes boosted my
confidence and courage. I was motivated
by the lectures of the experts whom the
ETC had invited.” (NJ – a higher secondary
teacher, June 2007)
“From my personal experience I can say
that ETCs offer teachers a space to voice
their concerns and make them feel that in
facing problems they are not alone.
Moreover, it helps them in drawing job-
satisfaction from their routine work offering
them personalized ways for learning and
development.” (KD – a tertiary level
teacher, August, 2007)
Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 23
The tangible gains from these clubs in the
last four years since their inception are:
• greater confidence among the member
teachers;
• higher language competence: the
members being able to handle English
more effectively both inside and outside
classrooms;
• a positive attitude to work: as reflected in
their willingness to innovate and
experiment in their classrooms, their
acceptance of the possibility that they
could ‘do something’ and a noticeable
decrease in their grudge against the
system;
• more job satisfaction: the member-
teachers increasingly enjoying their work
and being enthusiastic about their
teaching and considerate to their
students;
• more professionalism: e.g. more time and
serious thought being given to planning
their work, making efforts to supplement
their teaching with more ideas and
materials;
• greater professional awareness:
significant increase in the participation in
professional events like seminars and
conferences, greater understanding of
theoretical concepts/ frameworks and
ability to relate at least some of these to
their routine work;
• a move towards autonomy in
development: e.g. the awareness that
development is a long-term and less
tangible process, member-teachers
looking out for more sources of
information and knowledge, undertaking
voluntary reading and discussion
activities, some enrolling on self-study
courses;
• higher professional standing in their
workplaces, with colleagues and
authorities increasingly recognizing their
improved performance and occasionally
giving them greater responsibilities.
Apart from these gains, the experience with
the ETCs has also raised some issues. In all
places where ETCs are working, they
typically involve extremely tiny portion of
the teaching community, and fail to attract
the remaining vast majority. In order to
understand why the idea of an ETC does
not appeal to most teachers, I have been
constantly comparing the beliefs and
attitudes of the members and non-
members of ETCs. Over the past four years I
have come to realize that:
• Most teachers seem happy with ‘training’
and do not see any need for
‘development’. However, to be fair, there
seems no justification in blaming teachers
for having such a feeling.
• Probably many teachers have only
‘training’ needs and may not want to
venture onto the path of ‘development’.
This realisation may largely explain why
continued >>>
24 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
only a tiny number of teachers joined the
ETCs or seem interested in self-
development. It appears that most
teachers do not feel and may not have
developmental needs.
• Development seems essentially a small-
scale activity, given the small number of
interested/ motivated teachers. Besides,
smaller groups seem better able to cater
to the various kinds of needs and
challenges of development.
• A professional development programme
can be effective and sustainable if it is
limited only to those teachers who are
really interested in self-development. As I
said in the section on TD, development is
primarily fed by one’s own personal urge
and interest in self development. It can’t
be forced.
• Even when teachers are seriously
interested in self-development, they need
strong emotional support to initiate and
sustain their development.
• Development is a voluntary activity, hence
interest/ motivation is a top priority.
• Development is a highly individualised
activity. Whether in small groups or large,
there cannot be one common
programme and recipe for the
development of all the diverse
individuals. Hence it is necessary to help
teachers to personalise their
developmental process, to gradually
identify their personal needs, plans and
strategies, which again cannot be
identified once and for all, but will keep
evolving throughout.
• Development is an individual activity, but
it seems to thrive in a group, apparently
because of the emotional support a
group can generate through caring and
sharing.
The theory and practice gap
While this is what the actual experience of
working on teacher development suggests,
the existing TD theory and practice seem to
present a different picture. One may
particularly single out some broad
assumptions that seem implicit in the
existing TD theory (and practice) and
contrast them with the points above. These
implicit assumptions are:
• All teachers are interested in and
motivated for self-development.
• A teacher understands what professional
development implies for him/her.
• All teachers perceive the need to develop
professionally.
• Every teacher can and should develop
professionally.
The ETCs experience implies a reality
different from these assumptions. It
underlines the need to take a critical look
at these and other similar assumptions and
to put them to test. Some of these
assumptions may look idealistic and good
on humanitarian grounds, but may not
stand the test of reality. For example, if it
turns out that most teachers are interested
not in the long-term voluntary process of
development, but in short-term need-based
training, it should not be wrong to question
the expectation that engaging in
professional development should be a
universal goal for all teachers.
Implications
So what are the implications of all this
discussion for TD Theory/Practice? It seems
that there are some simple but
fundamental questions, like the ones
below, that TD theory/ practice needs to
address. These questions seem extremely
important in the particular context in which
we have been working, but it needs to be
investigated if these or similar issues are
relevant for other contexts too. I suspect
that they are significant issues for many
other contexts as well.
• Is it true that only a few teachers are
interested in professional self-
development?
• Why do only a few teachers want to
develop? Why isn’t everyone interested in
self-development?
• Is there anything like an ‘aptitude’ or
‘innate urge’3 for development, which is
responsible for some teachers going for
self-development, and others staying
away from developmental process?
• Is it justified to expect/ assume that every
teacher should strive for professional
development?
• How can one find out who wants to
develop?
• How can the interest in self-development
be created in those who do not want to
develop?
• Why waste money, time and efforts on
those who don’t want to develop, if
there is no need, nor benefit nor
interest?
These questions lead to the following
points of implication for TD theory and
practice:
• It will be useful for a TD programme to
find out if the participants are interested
in development. If they are, the
programme is likely to be more effective.
If they are not, it will be advisable to pay
attention to developing interest first,
before embarking upon the actual TD
programme.
• Emotional support is crucial in initiating
and sustaining development. So it is
necessary to try to build in emotional
support in TD activities and programmes.
• Since emotional support is difficult to
come by in a highly formal setting and in
large groups, a TD programme needs to
devise and/or support various forms of
informal and small-scale networking.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
• Since development is an individual
process, each individual needs to evolve
his/ her personal take on development in
terms of his/ her needs, interests, goals
and plans. TD theory and practice need
to include ways to help personalise the
developmental process for every
participating teacher.
Notes:
1. The terms ‘interest’ and ‘motivation’ are
used interchangeably in this article,
though they may not be synonymous,
since I believe that these two are
inseparable. The basic point of the
argument is they are a sine qua non for
anyone to engage in and sustain personal
and professional development.
2. There are two studies focusing on the
ETC experiment so far: one by K. K. Dixit
on ‘facilitator development’ for the ETCs
as the M. Ed. dissertation at the College
of St. Marks and St. John, Plymouth, and
the other by Sanghita Sen on the role of
ETCs in professional development as M.
A. dissertation to the Institute of
Education, London (both 2007). These
studies also give some details about the
impact of ETCs.
3. The terms ‘aptitude’ and ‘innate urge’
are used, for want of better alternatives,
as very vague expressions of the notion
of some innate quality or faculty that is
responsible for a person’s taking interest
in a particular thing. The basic point of
the argument is that there is a likelihood
of the existence of such ‘aptitude’ for
development in some and not in others,
and TD theory and practice needs to take
this into consideration, at least to
investigate if this is really so.
Reference
Kadepurkar, H (2008) ‘When teachers write
coursebooks’ in the Teacher Trainer, this
issue page 10.
Author
Amol Padwad is currently Head,
Department of English, J.M. Patel College,
Bhandara (India) and has 24 years of
teaching experience at different levels. He
also works as teacher trainer and ELT
consultant. He has published several
articles, reviews and translations and
successfully managed some innovative
national and regional ELT projects. His areas
of interest are teacher development,
ESL/EFL, translation studies, Marathi
Grammar, bird watching and science
popularization.
Email: amolpadwad@gmail.com
www.tttjournal.co.uk Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 25

Late age language learning

By Anita Pincas, UK

http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.aspcid
Ellen Bialystok of York University, Canada, has been widely quoted as suggesting that =882&882_1=830&var1=3&var2=MAMODIET
speaking two languages slows the brain’s decline with age, on the basis of a study that MA
compared various cognitive test results for monolinguals and bilinguals (Bialystok, et al
(2004). Dr Paul Iverson of University College London Centre for Human Communication Aldridge, F. and A. Tuckett (2007) What Older
likewise achieved some publicity when he maintained that later life difficulties in hearing People Learn: The Whys and Wherefores of
and understanding a second language are not an inevitable effect of ageing. Through Older People Learning. Leicester: National
training, the adult brain can be retrained to cope with the sound system of second Institute of Adult Continuing Education
languages. We can essentially change the 'perceptual warping' produced by the habits (NIACE).
of the mother tongue so as to acquire a new set of phonetics (Iverson et al 2005). http://www.niace.org.uk/publications/W/WOPL.
asp.
Dr. Gitit Kavé, a clinical neuro-psychologist from confident about their learning abilities. Another Bialystok, E., et al (2004) “Bilingualism, Aging,
Tel Aviv University, has been quoted in recent UK survey found that 15% of all and Cognitive Control” Psychology and Aging
numerous popular science journals for her undergraduate students are over 50. One of Vol 19 p.290 -303]
recent finding that senior citizens who speak my doctoral students, Rosemary Westwell
more languages do better in cognitive tests. (Westwell 2006) recently completed a thesis Iverson P. et al (June 15-17 2005) "Plasticity in
The results for groups of bilingual, trilingual, examining her success in learning Spanish while Speech Perception” Workshop, Centre for
and multilingual individuals between 75 and 95 in her mid-fifties. These and similar findings Human Communication University College
showed that the number of languages spoken elsewhere have renewed interest in discovering London,
correctly predicts good cognitive test scores whether there is genuinely a third age sector at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/psp/index.html
beyond the effect of other factors such as age, the far end of the lifecourse. Of course, adult Jamieson, A., (2007) Higher Education Study in
gender, place of birth, age at immigration, or learning has been recognised for decades, but Later Life: What is the point? Ageing & Society,
education. Those who reported being most older adult learning has not. I now run a one 27(3) May-June, 363-384.
fluent in a language other than their mother term master’s course in older learning*, as well
tongue scored higher on average than those as a special research group around this topic at Kavé, G. et al (2008) “Multilingualism and
who said their mother tongue was their best the Institute of Education of London University. cognitive state in the oldest old” Psychology
language. She has been quoted as saying that and Aging Vol 23(1) 70-78
There has been very little research into how
“knowing and speaking many languages may Nikolov M. et al (2006), “Recent Research On
older people approach and succeed in
protect the brain against the effects of aging, Age, Second Language Acquisition, And Early
language learning, but at least two recent
although the cause is not known” (Kavé et al Foreign Language Learning” Annual Review of
reports have been of particular interest. One
2008). Applied Linguistics Vol 26, p. 234-260
presents a detailed analysis of the evidence for
Why should such ideas arouse interest? and against the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) Ohly, K (2007) “Older learners of German and
Because the Critical Period Hypothesis (Nikolov 2006) and indicates that age-related their use of language learning strategies” in
(Singleton & Ryan, 2004) is still a matter of decline is subject to compensatory mechanisms. Gabrielatos, C. et al Eds Papers from the
argument among language acquisition Given that older people can learn an L2 by Lancaster University Postgraduate Conference
researchers, and is certainly still a commonplace using declarative rather than procedural in Linguistics and Language Teaching (LAEL PG)
belief for the public at large. And also because memory, for example in vocabulary acquisition Volume 1,
in recent years we have all been made aware of and grammar, their competence is not http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/pgconference/v01.h
our increasing longevity, with the consequent susceptible to the CPH, and many show tm
interest in discovering more about what the extremely good L2 retention. An investigation
effects of ageing on the healthy brain really are. of the strategies used by good older language Singleton, D., & Ryan, L. (2004) Language
For a very long time, it has been an accepted learners (Ohly, K 2007), demonstrated that they acquisition: The age factor (2nd edition).
fact that retirement should take place at age 60 rely on metacognitive strategies to control, plan Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.
or 65, and that there is little point in and evaluate their language learning, on
Westwell, R., 2006 “The Development of
attempting to learn very much after that age cognitive strategies to memorize, make
Language Acquisition in a Mature Learner” PhD
because memory declines so severely that only inferences and guess, and on social/affective
Institute of Education, London University.
exceptional people could achieve any success. strategies to control the more emotional
Now, however, these views are being
aspects e.g. self-encouragement or seeking Author
clarification by native speakers, as well as also
overturned all around us, with overwhelming on sound communicative strategies. In other Anita Pincas is Senior
evidence from such sources as the University of words, they seemed to be good at learning Lecturer in the Department
the Third Age, and adult education colleges generally and then at applying their skills to FL of Continuing and
across the world (especially in Europe and the tasks in particular. Professional Education,
USA) that not only do older people want to Institute of Education,
continue learning, but are extremely good at it. So it seems to be no coincidence that many University of London. Her
In many UK Adult and Community Education language schools now offer “Club 50+” scholarly interests, research
colleges they mingle in the same classes with courses and that foreign language study is and publications are in
younger students and show consistently cited by NIACE among the most commonly critical pedagogy as relevant to school and
satisfactory outcomes {Jamieson 2007). chosen subjects of the older (55+) learner in higher education, applied linguistics, and e-
the UK. And why not? teaching and e-learning. She was among the
Most recently in my own college, the Institute
first to offer an MA TESOL by internet (1993),
of Education of London University, where we References: and still runs the pioneering Online Education
teach only post-graduate courses, between 7-
10% of students are over 50, some over 70. *Issues in Educating and Training Mature and Training distance training course for
We conducted a small survey of these older Adults (50+) language teachers and others.
students and found that they were very http://www.ioe.ac.uk/english/OET.htm
26 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
Article Watch
Below are brief summaries of relevant
articles from other journals.
ELT Journal. 2008. http://eltj.oupjournals.org
Vol. 62/1: pp. 3-10. ‘Critical incidents in ELT
initial teacher training’. Thomas S.C. Farrell.
Eighteen trainee teachers on an English
language teacher education course in
Singapore reflected on critical incidents that
occurred while teaching. Results indicated
that, while analyzing critical incidents can be
useful for trainees, language teacher
educators should realise that classification of
such incidents into neat categories may be
problematic. When giving a critical incident
assignment, care should be taken, especially
in the handling of ‘lows’ in teaching.
Vol. 62/1: pp. 37-46. ‘Integrating feedback
and reflection in teacher preparation’.
Caroline Brand. Outcomes of recent research
into short, intensive TESOL certificate courses
suggest that feedback is a contentious and
problematic component. The author
proposes a new approach to the post-
teaching-practice meeting where feedback
and reflection are integrated in the form of
reflective conversations. A number of
features are suggested to address the
problems identified in research – e.g., the
presence of language learners and a non-
evaluating facilitator in the meeting.
Vol. 62/2: pp. 139-47. ‘Teacher research for
professional development’. Derin Atay. A
study conducted at the English preparatory
school of a state university in Istanbul,
Turkey, aimed to discuss the research
experiences of Turkish EFL teachers in a 6
week research-oriented INSET programme.
Sixty-two teachers took part in the
programme which comprised modules on
theoretical knowledge of ELT (2 weeks),
issues for investigation (2 weeks), and
investigating the classroom and doing
research (2 weeks). Topics came from the
teachers. Data was gathered from teachers’
nrratives and journals. It seems that the
teachers developed their research skills,
became more aware of the teaching/learning
process, felt fresher about their work and
collaborated with colleagues. Despite several
problems with the experiment, the author
feels that the focus on teachers actually
doing their own research within an INSET
programme leads to good professional
development.
English Teaching Professional. Issue 56,
pp. 54-55. May 2008.
www.etprofessional.com
‘Improving through integrated workshops’.
Emilce Vela was asked by her school
supervisor to run a four-year series of
workshops in a teacher development project
for primary teachers in Argentina. She had
been working as an English teacher for about
10 years but had never been a co-
ordinator/mentor/in-service teacher trainer
before. In this article she describes how she
went about preparing the project. Interesting
reading for would-be or starter trainers.
Language Issues (The journal of NATECLA),
vol. 19/1, pp. 4-13. Winter 2008. ISBN 0263-
5833.
‘Theory, practice and professional identity’.
Eva Illes. The author questions presentation
of theory and practice as opposing concepts
as this causes a distrust of theory on the part
of teachers, assumes a hierarchical
relationship between theoreticians and
teachers, creates a tendency to pendulum
swings in classroom practice (in, e.g., the
teaching of grammar), and reinforces the
status of English native speaker teachers.
Instead, the writer supports an interactive
model where theoreticians connect to
practice and teachers do classroom research
and articulate what they come to know. The
implications for ESOL of adopting an
interactive model are discussed.
Language Teaching Research. 2008. ISSN
1362-1688. http://ltr.sagepubl.com
Vol. 12/1: pp. 105-24. ‘Trainee teachers’
understanding of content/language
connections’. Rita Elaine Silver. This paper
explores the developing understandings of
language and academic content connections
of pre-service teacher-trainees preparing to
teach in Singapore’s bilingual education
system. In parallel, it explores the author’s
own developing understanding of the
teacher-trainees’ perspectives. It is thus an
example of ‘exploratory practice’ (EP), being
about both teacher and trainer development.
Vol. 12/2: pp. 161-82. ‘Looking beyond the
teachers’ classroom behaviour: novice and
experienced ESL teachers’ pedagogical
knowledge’. Elizabeth Gatbouton. A study
was set up to discover what pedagogical
knowledge novice ESL teachers have
internalized after having completed a teacher
training programme and how this knowledge
compares to that of more experienced
teachers. The knowledge was examined
specifically in relation to language
management, procedural issues and handling
student reactions and attitudes. Implications
for teacher training are discussed.
Modern English Teacher. April. 2008.
www.onlinemet.com
‘About Language’, pp. 15-20. Three
contributions:
‘ELF at the gate’, Jennifer Jenkins; ‘What sort
of standard does ELF need to reach?’, Mario
www.tttjournal.co.uk
PB
Rinvolucri; ‘ELF: a response to Jennifer
Jenkins and Mario Rinvolucri’, Nick Shepherd
(MET’s language editor). These pages present
three short extracts from Jenkins’ original
article of 2004, a counter article by
Rinvolucri, and a piece by Shepherd in which
he (1) tries to find some middle ground
between the combatants and (2) looks at the
question more from the learner’s point of
view.
RELC Journal. Vol 39/1: pp. 25-50. April.
2008. http://RELC.sagepub.com .
‘A functional analysis of teachers’
instructions’. Richard Watson Todd, Intisarn
Chai-yasuk & Nuantip Tantisawetrat. This
article attempts to describe the functional
structure of teacher instructions. The authors
examine nine sets of transcribed instructions
from four lessons taught on an EAP course
at a Thai university. On the basis of an
analysis of the transcripts a potential
structure of directing-transactions is
suggested.
Teachers and Teaching: theory and
practice.
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/listings/t.asp
Routledge. ISSN 1354-0602. The journal of
the International Study Association for
Teachers and Teaching. Vol. 13/6: pp 587-99.
Dec., 2007.
‘The advantages and disadvantages of using
ICT as a mediating artefact in classrooms
compared to alternative tools’. May Britt
Postholm. The aim of this interesting article is
to describe and show the conditions that
have to be satisfied if ICT is to have an
advantage over alternative tools in a
classroom. The main focus is on the
importance of the context of the learning
activities, in which the teacher plays an
important part.
www.tttjournal.co.uk Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 27

Publications Received
The purpose of these notices about recent
publications in ELT and related fields is to
broadly indicate topic and to point out
likely points of interest to mentors, teacher
trainers and teacher educators. Print size is
noted only if unusual. Dimensions are
indicated only if exceptionally small or
large. E.g., 148pp+ means “148pp plus an
informative roman numbered preface,
etc”. All books are paperback unless
otherwise stated.
Dealing with Difficulties: solutions,
strategies and suggestions for successful
teaching. L. Prodromou & L. Clandfield
(2007) Delta Publishing. ISBN 978-1-905085-
00-2. 128pp; nearly A4. This is a teacher’s
resource book mostly of recipe-like
procedures organized in a three-level
hierarchy. For example, section 1 (Large
classes and classroom management)
comprises eight sub-sections (e.g., Managing
big numbers, Engaging students with the
material, Moving students around & Drilling).
The sub-section on managing big numbers
comprises seven distinctly titled procedures.
All in all, more than 150 procedures are
presented. Sections 2-6 are: Discipline
problems, Mixed-level classes, Homework,
Teaching exam classes & Professional
development (3pp). Each section has an
informative introduction. In addition, there
are a few relatively discursive sections
headed ‘Tips and techniques’ (ca. 2 pp.
each). For example, on pp. 42-43 there is a
section entitled ‘Diffusing discipline’ which
presents short tips and options under six
headings (e.g., A rewarding system [sic] &
Sanctions). In the final third of the book,
many of the procedures seem relevant to
dealing with difficulties only in the sense
that you can forestall some kinds of problem
by being an interesting teacher with a large
and varied store of teaching moves. Written
for TESOL teachers, this book is very
recommendable, although experienced
teachers may find a considerable proportion
of the procedures very familiar – the
following, for instance. Present students with
the jumbled up letters of a long word from
which students try to make as many other
words as they can. No index; one page of
recommended further reading.
The following four titles mainly concern
pre-secondary education:
Teaching Young Language Learners.
A. Pinter (2006) Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-442207-0. 180pp+. This book is
in the publisher’s long-running series of
‘handbooks’ for ESOL teachers (and, to a
degree, foreign language teachers
generally). Teacher trainers are also
mentioned as potential readers. This a
background- rather than a resource-book or
a book of bit-sized tips. Basic, theory-
grounded information is presented about a
wide range of core issues under the
following chapter headings: Learning and
development, Learning the first language at
home and at school, Learning a
second/third language at home and at
school, Policy: primary ELT programmes,
Teaching listening and speaking, Teaching
reading and writing, Teaching vocabulary
and grammar, Learning to learn, Materials
evaluation and materials design,
Assessment, Research in the primary English
classroom. Each section ends with
suggestions for further reading. At the end
of the book is an appendix of action
research tasks and a glossary. Unlike most
of the titles in this issue’s set of book
notices, this one has a proper index and
bibliography. It is recommendable
particularly for pre-service and novice
primary teachers. Experienced trainers are
unlikely to find a great deal in it that is
new, and in at least one respect the
author’s views seem outdated. Namely, in
recent years considerable doubt has been
cast on the factuality of Chomsky’s
Universal Grammar (see, e.g., M. Tomasello.
2003. Constructing a Language. Harvard
University Press).
Time for a Story. J. Rűdiger-Harper (2005)
Chadburn Publishing. ISBN 3-033-00366-4;
ca. 100pp. A4. This book, by a very
experienced EFL teacher based in
Switzerland, includes eight original stories
for use at primary level (ca. 8-14 years of
age). The stories, which are in large font (to
make reading easier), range from about
three to eight pages in length. Every fifth
line is numbered. For each one, there are
plentiful questions and tasks for pre-,
during-, and after-listening. Each of the
PB
eight units exemplifies a different
approach to using the stories; e.g.,
sometimes pupils hear the story (from the
teacher) before they read it themselves;
sometimes they read it without first
hearing it. The author’s aim has been
“primarily to engage students in the use
of language at a level where
comprehension and meaning is
paramount” (from Preface and Teaching
Notes). This book supplies something
important that few coursebooks provide.
There is an inserted, stapled A4
supplement of English-German wordlists
for the stories, but the book itself is not
bound to any particular national setting.
100 Ideas for Primary Assemblies. F.
Sedgwick. (2006) Continuum. ISBN 0-
8264-9101-4. ca. 13x19.5cm. 148pp+.
The author, a former UK headteacher,
presents his varied ideas for enlivening
school assemblies in the following
sections: Autumn/Winter (e.g., China, A
mathematics assembly, Snowy weather, A
Sikh story for November or December,
Why is a good story like an onion?),
Spring (e.g., Skills, Anger, The runaway
son), Summer (e.g., 4th July, Exercise,
Robin Hood, Bigotry, Dr Barnardo’s) and,
with just five ideas, Dealing with special
days (e.g., A death in the school). Highly
UK-centred, but nevertheless a likely
source of inspiration for anyone who
leads assemblies.
continued >>>

Humanising Language Teaching

Pilgrims pioneering free web magazine read by over 4000
teachers world-wide every week: www.hltmag.co.uk
28 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3
101 Essential Lists for the Early Years. P.
Tassoni. (2006) Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-
8863-3. ca. 13x19.5cm. 115pp+. An “early
years trainer”, the author offers her lists in
the following sections: Starting out (e.g.,
Your essential kit; Websites, books and
magazines), Layout and organization (e.g.,
Managing snacks and toilets, The dough
table), Planning (e.g., Different types of
planning), Ideas for activities (e.g.,
Encouraging pre-reading skills, Favourite
books, Favourite nursery rhymes), Working
with children (e.g., Dealing with tantrums,
Helping children to concentrate),
Observation and assessment (e.g., A quick
tour of observation methods, Sharing
information with parents), Parents (e.g.,
Showing new parents around, Moans and
complaints), Special needs and inclusion
(e.g., Early identification, Watching out for
hearing loss, Support, websites and
resources), Staying safe (e.g., Signs of child
abuse, Dealing with threadworms, Your
own back care), Coping with management
and inspection (e.g., Working with
assistants and volunteers, Preparing for
inspection), and Moving on (e.g., Making
the most of training, Where to look for a
job). The lists vary in length, with few being
longer than one page. For example, List 58
(keeping in contact with parents), has a
two line introduction and then seven
reminders, e.g., “Webcams – these are
really controversial, but some parents like
being able to see their child at any point”.
This could be a real eye-opener for pre-
service teachers, ones thinking of working
in the UK in particular.
www.tttjournal.co.uk
ERRATUM
In the bibliography section in the last
issue, the bibliographical data was
incorrect for one book. It should have
read:
Wright, T. and R. Bolitho (2007)
Trainer Development. www.lulu.com
The book is available on Amazon.
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trainer-
Development-Tony-
Wright/dp/1847532322/ref=sr_1_1?ie
=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215606497&sr
=8-1], other online book dealers and
through all normal booksellers. ISBN:
978-1847532329
T
www.tttjournal.co.uk Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 29

Postgraduate degrees in Applied Linguistics

by distance or on campus
macquarie
UNIVERSITY SYDNEY M acquarie Universit y ~ Sydne y
The Department of Linguistics is home to six research centres and groups and has more than 850 current
postgraduate students in over 30 countries.

I Rigorous and challenging programs I Combination of on-campus and distance modes

I Applied Linguistics, TESOL, Literacy, Language available
Program Management and Teaching English for Specific I Working at your own speed, taking from 1 to 4 units
Purposes strands each semester
I Certificate, Diploma, Masters and Doctoral levels I No residence requirements for distance students
I Modular programs offering flexibility I Admissions twice-yearly
I Payment per unit for part-time students I Credit for previous study available

www.ling.mq.edu.au

Linguistics Postgraduate Office

Macquarie University • NSW 2109 Australia T el: (61 2) 9850 9243 Fax: (61 2) 9850 9352
Email: lingdl@ling.mq.edu.au W eb: www.ling.mq.edu.au

MA IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES

INTERNATIONAL academy MA TESOL

Special Features of the programme:

I Flexible, modular structure allowing part (up to four-years) or full-time study
I Transferable credits may be accrued as follows:
60 credits – Certificate TESOL
120 credits – Diploma TESOL
180 credits– MA TESOL

All modules are based on the principle of linking theory to the ESOL
classroom and professional development e.g. active participation in
classroom observation.

Programme offers core modules plus a range of options allowing

specialisation.

A non-assessed Graduate Study Skills course provides help and advice

related to both study and professional development.

International Academy, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester C04 3SQ England.
Telephone: +44 1206 872217 Fax: +44 1206 873107 Email: dilly@essex.ac.uk www.essex.ac.uk/internationalacademy
30 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3 www.tttjournal.co.uk

MA in Teaching English to Young Learners (by Distance)

The Centre for English Language Teaching, Department of Educational Studies,

University of York, is the only centre in the UK to run this highly specialised MA in
TEYL.
The MA in TEYL is a two-year programme comprising eight multimedia self-study
modules, plus participation in an annual Preparatory Course which can be followed
face-to-face or online. The face-to-face Preparatory Course will be delivered at three
different times of year: during July in York, during November/December in Singapore,
MAininCanada
and in Spring 2009 Teaching(to beEnglish to The online Preparatory Course in
confirmed).
February each Young Learners (by Distance)to attend any of the face-to-face
year is available for those unable
Preparatory courses.
Assessment is by eight module assignments, some of which require the carrying out of
small-scale classroom-based research projects. Emphasis is on the linking of theory and
practice, making extensive use of material from authentic classes. Students can choose to
focus on one of the following age groups: 6-11 years, 11-16 years, or 6-16 years.

Visit our web site: www.york.ac.uk/celt/teyl/ma_teyl.htm

For further information contact the MA Programme Administrator (ref TTJ07/08)

CELT, Vanbrugh College, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
Email: celt-teyl@york.ac.uk / Telephone: ++44 1904 433688 / Fax: ++44 1904 432481

Norwich Institute for Language Education

NILE offers a range of professional development courses for teachers and trainers of English.
Please see the website for full details—www.nile-elt.com

Teachers’ Courses 2009

• Advanced Language and Intercultural Awareness
• Advanced Language, Materials and Methodology
• British Studies: Language, Literature and Life
• CLIL for Primary Teachers/CLIL for Secondary Teachers
• Creativity in Primary ELT
• Discover Contemporary English
• Literature in the Language Classroom
• Management in ELT
• Materials Development in ELT
• From Teacher to Trainer: Developing Trainer Skills
• Teaching EAP
• Teaching English to Young Learners
• Teaching English in Kindergarten (Very Young Learners)
• Technology Assisted Language Learning
• Testing, Evaluation and Assessment
• Trainer Development – a Course for Teacher Educators
• MA in Professional Development for Language Education
(with Leeds Metropolitan University) inc. CLIL module
• CELTA—Cambridge ESOL Certificate in Teaching Adults

All of NILE’s Teachers’ courses are eligible for Comenius funding

Norwich Institute for Language Education , 82 Upper St Giles Street , Norwich, NR2 1LT
Tel/Fax: +44(0)1603 664473/664493 email: sarah@nile-elt.com www.nile-elt.com
www.tttjournal.co.uk Vol 22 No 3 The Teacher Trainer 31

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32 The Teacher Trainer Vol 22 No 3 www.tttjournal.co.uk

Teacher
Education Journals
FROM ROUTLEDGE
NEW TO ROUTLEDGE FOR 2008 Routledge
Online
Pastoral Care in Education:
Services
An International Journal of Personal,
Online Sample Copies
Social and Emotional Development A fully searchable sample copy of
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journals or visiting the relevant
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EDITOR
Personal, Social and Emotional Development is directed Educational Research
Colleen McLaughlin, at teachers and researchers everywhere who are concerned Abstracts online (ERA)
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Volume 26, 2008
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TeachingEducation

www.educationarena.com
DELTA is changing:
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Three modules:
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www.CambridgeESOL.org/delta