Connecting the M and C to ELT

It is by no means a new thought to say that learning a language should not be limited to Grammar and Vocabulary and some course book adopted by your teacher. Language learning requires a far broader spectrum of inputs and I am sure that any of you listening to this already include a massive amount of additional material to each and every lesson which would clearly backup that thought. But even when we do that, I think more often than not we are again looking for the lexical elements or cute little turn of phrase that we can pass on to our students. Now when it comes to film and the extensive and wonderful use of youtube I am consistently seeing a far greater reach in what teachers are asking their students to do with that film clip which go far and beyond standard G&V. But when it comes to that so loved desire to use music and songs that creativity seems to dry up a little still.And I find myself asking: why?

Maybe its simply because music and what it could mean for us in contrast to what we want it to do in a lesson are vastly different starting points in thought. But I wonder why? I mean Music. It represents entire parts for modern culture, it defines generations and style and fashions. it leads the way in news and gossip and it is the one single art form every single body on this planet and I mean all 7Billion plus of them appreicate in some way or another. But even more incredibly, in english, it has formed created and supplied us with ways of talking, turns of phrases, abbreviations and the highlighting of spoken and written english. It has unified american and english english. it has changed the use of endearing words. and above all it has influenced the use of curses, their acceptance in everyday language and it has forged the way in defining how we talk and how that reflects our current culture settings.

So here are a few ideas based on the use of a single song. And what we can do in the classroom to expand and work on both Music, Culture and language. And to do this we will take a theme song. We will develop that song and use it as a “fil rouge” to tie everything together.

EMPIRE STATE OF MIND

Emmett G Price III, PhD points out that “Language is a product of society, as it changes so does its language.” Just like education, it is not a production line which starts here, takes the next step in line here, here and here, to finish here, it is organic, as Sir Ken Richardson pointed out in 2009 in one of his TED Talks. And therefore being organic and a product of society as contemporary culture adapts, morphs, new words and phrases and expressions are created to represent and interpret those changes. Just seeing the expansion of any common english dictionary you can see the results. Nearly a thousand words are added every year from a wide range of influences including science, technology, and of course modern culture. But none have altered the english language as rapidly or as fundamentally as this last category – modern culture. And it is the subcategory of Music which is doing that in an exponential manner. Or shall I say one music culture in particular which is CLICK HERE
Hip Hop hit the front line of modern culture when Time Magazine in February 1999 described the US as “the Hip Hop Nation” but the roots go back a bit further than that.
During the 60’s and 70’s New York was not the a place you could stroll through as if it was a walk in the park. Violence, shootings, drugs, the whole place pretty much decayed into a social demise. But it sparked the start of something that would become very special indeed. Young, multiethnic innercity kids started to create their own way to deal with teh situations they found themselves in by unifying what was already around them – graffitti, rap, dance and deejaying. It provided an outlet to express what they were living and what they hoped for.

By the mid 70’s this local phenomenon was largely ignored by mainstream america. Yet only a few years later as we headed into the 80’s the phenomenon was not only a national presence but it was being looked for globally and movies such as Wild style and Beat street not only opened up the culture to international audiences but most importantly the unique approach to speaking and writing in English LL cool J back in the early 90’s in an interview about the use of language.

The words you see explained here were taken on by communities outside the Hip Hip culture as they deciphered and understood the context and meaning. But it has been Hip Hop in its music form to inform and open up mainstream western culture to this change in language.

Words such as “hot” “swing” “hip””cool” “soul” “chill” and “smooth” were redefined and and mixed into hiphop making it a sort of current generations answer to “what’s new?”

“bling-bling” was added to the dictionary in 2003, “crunk” in 2007. Hip hop has changed the nature, sound and rules of English Language. Words such as “hood” – short for neighborhood, “crib” – residence, “whip” – car have become part of everyday language. Other examples are “what’s up?” – as we saw in the opening video, “peace out” – goodbye, and “chill out” – relax. And it is not just in youth but also in generations and society levels we wouldnt have thought possible, as Conservative MP Tony Baldry rightly says:

“Allotments are in big demand for growing fruit, flowers and vegetables, or just as a great wat to chill out”
The influence on Language has become ever more deeply rooted than just an MP slipping the odd word or turn of phrase into his conversation. The shortened forms of traditional grammar structures such as Wanna /gotta / shoulda/havta/gonna et al all stem from the shortened clipped spoken english of those same innercity kids who tapped out a beat on some table top with a spoon and told stories of their lives to the beat. But the influence hasnt remained there. The Urban Dictionary launched in 1999 by Aaron Peckham, has proven the point more so than anything else by laying out and offering meaning and context to the slang and expressionism in spoken english of subcultures beginning with those that form Hip Hop culture.
But it has been the move into a digital age that really married hip hop language as part of modern everyday speech. And most significantly in two areas: Media and instant messaging.

Media, i will come to a little later on but first let’s take a look at instant messaging.

The short cropped wording by rappers to fit words and rhymes around the beats led to changes in spelling as they wrote those words down just like our theme song for today:

• Me I’m outta tha bed sty
• But I Ain’t A Crip Tho,
• But I Gotta Gang Of N—-s
• Walking With My Clique tho
• Welcome To da Meltin Pot,
• Corners where we sellin rock

Have married into the essence of texting and messaging whether through SMS, status updates and comments on facebook, tweets or Whats APP – a pun on the “hello” phrase “ What’s up” – direct hip hop influence even in the name of the apps we use on a day to day basis.

As David Crystal pointed out in regards ot current language changes: “…written speech has been pulled some way in the direction of speech rather than spoken language being written down..”

But it isn’t only in language that the Hip hop influence has made its mark. Literature now begins to leave room for Rappers including Eminem, Notorious BIG and Jay Z with the words and rhythms gaining similar critical and educational acclaim as that which was once only given to poets such as Blake, Wordsworth, Byron and Whitman to name a few. And the recent publication by the scholar Adam Bradley: book of Rhymes: the Poetics of Hip Hop  which not only puts Rap up there with the greatest poets of the ESW but clarifies why through the dissection of lyrics by the late Notorious B.I.G, or the onomotopoeais of KRS-1’s “Whoop Whoop”, the apocopated rhymes of Pharoahe Monch, by stating “preserving the integrity of each line in relation to the beat we give Rap the respect it deserves in poetry”

Two examples are:

“Out on bail, fresh outta jail,
California dreamin’Soon as I stepped on the scene,
I’m hearin’ hoochies screamin”
Tupac Shakur

“The last batter to hit, blast shattered your hipSmash any splitter or fastball—that’ll be it”
Pharoahe Monch

The first a “small marvel of “rhyme (both end and internal), assonance, and alliteration,” given extra propulsion by Shakur’s exaggerated stress patterns.

In the second Bradley appreciated Monch’s use of “apocopated rhyme, as when a one-syllable word is rhymed with the penultimate syllable of a multisyllabic word (last / blast / fastball).

The importance the understanding of language and the ability to apply it to fit the needs is followed up again when reading through decoded by Jay Z:

“When a rapper jumps on a beat, he adds his own rhythm. Sometimes you stay in the pocket of the beat and just let the rhymes land on the square so that the beat and flow become one. But sometimes the flow chops up the beat, breaks the beat into smaller units, forces in multiple syllables and repeated sounds and internal rhymes, or hangs a drunken leg over the last bap and keeps going, sneaks out of that bitch.”

Rap lyrics have taken their place in literature. And as shocking as that may sound – to have students  studying Hip Hop at university for their degrees in Social Sciences, Human resources, History and Literature and Language at some of the top universities in the world. Hip hop culture and its influence as a common cultural platform has taken even further steps in education: reading between the rhymes

But more than that Hip Hop as a culture has become an integral part of ESW culture and that of Non ESW cultures.

It may have started in New York, but it didnt take long for Hip Hop to start influencing that most English of English Speaking countries – the UK.
As Ekow Eshun, director for the Insitute of Contemporary Arts says: “ Young…people found a way to articulate thier hopes, desire and dreams on record. That desire spread to Britain. That’s what youth culture in Britain is about – to live as large and as fully as possible. This isnt just about reality TV. I see it in the clothes people wear and the way they speak…”

Hip hop has gone a step futher. It has provided the world with a cultural platform for expression despite an element of demonisation by critics citing rappers as encouraging gang culture and misogynistic imagery.

That Cultural platform has provided a variety of very positive influences. The recent multitasking of people such as Will Smith, Ice Cube moving into film and Jay-Z balancing rapping with a fashion label has encouraged a very visible “can do” attitude in the UK. Something that has been missing since the mid 90’s and now acting as the inspiration for this generations wave of entrepreneurs.

As Jay-Z pointed out in a recent interview “ whats the point in living a mediocre life”

Within fashion Karl Lagerfield used Hip Hp as a source for inspriation back in the late 90’s and this has continued through to today with brands such as Reebok, Nike and Addidas, Guess, Calvin Klein, Gucci incorporating Hip Hop as both design influences and communication influences. You could almost take any single article of clothing and find the hip hop influence , dont believe me? Well, hands up if you are wearing trainers? Take a look at this: infographic sneakers. Or even last years annual Victoria’s Secret show with Kanye West
And from there Media and advertising have done the same by incorporating design and communication which reflect contemporary culture in order to sell. From Graffitti to art through to internet design and typography to the adverts we see in Tv, magazines and billboards all over the city like this

So what does all this mean? Well let’s put it in a simple message: Learning a language is like looking at the same thing from a different point of view. And to do that you need to forget your influences and understand others.

You don’t learn language by knowing the rules of grammar and a variety of lexical groups. Langauge is organic. And to apply it more efficiently you need to understand what it represents and where it comes from. Hip Hop as a culture in the ESW is not just a musical genre. It is a mainstream cultural that has changed the way we speak, writem express and communicate. We may not like it but we cannot ignore the importance it has on modern language and therefore culture.

And if it aids us in communicating then that can only be positive to us all.

Connecting Langauge Learning through Culture and Music. As we’ve seen with just a single theme song running through we can explore and understand the way culture and lanaguage are inexplicably interlaced and dependant one on the other. I used hip hop because of its unquestionalble current influence on the English Language. You could however use something else – Just the video and one single line of the song opens up a mass of information on Style Cultural icons, the 60’s social movements and the repurcussions today. Jagger and the rolling stones and influences on contemporary singers, bands, songwriting and performance.

Hip Hop in the last 25years has defined and changed the language we know as English. Even more so than rock music or dance or any other current genre. It represents a global community and culture allowing people from all ethnic backgrounds and walks of life to be a part of it, understand it, personalize it and attach their dreams to it. It is representative of the English language itself as being a meeting point of communication globally because every one can access it. And maybe JayZ and Alicia Keys were on the ball when they say it is an “empire state of mind”.

Peace out.
R

Thanks to the BBC, Adam Bradley, Jay Z, www.america.gov, Emmett G Price III, eJournal USA, miller-mccune.com, blog.sfgate.com (Dean Radar) , blogcritics.org (clyde smith), the observer, the guardian, the daily mail, reading between the rhymes, (links to all materials and books to be added shortly through verified channels)

Was I… or Were you…? said Tech to Ed

For some time now the issue of technology in education has been a focal point and was highly debated at a fairly important ELT conference towards the end of last year. I wasnt actually there, I admit but, with the wonder of twitter I managed to sneak in on some of the thoughts and questions that were flying around. there was a lot of great stuff said and a lot of thoughts to make you think and even whìant to apply but somehow it seemed to me that noone was asking or questioning the one single blazing trend that seemed to shine through. And it is still very much present every time I log on or enter a school or catch up on what publishers and education companies are doing. And that trend is RELIANCE. I find it altogether somewhat worrying.

Why?

Well, imagine this. You walk into class, plop yourself down at your desk, wink at the pretty girl four rows down who’s looking at you, tweet, fire off an email and a FB link, something from YouTube and maybe open your bag and pull out that “thing” the elderly refer to as a book. Then the teacher waltzes in. Slips a USB key into the computer, and there right in front of you are images and video and little things running all over the screen and occasionally the teacher says something but all that colour and moving image is soooooo much more interesting than anything the teacher actually says. And then the bell rings. You head out thinking “cool, great lesson, can’t wait for the next!”

Now, imagine this:

Cool. Monday first hour, two 3 minute clips from YouTube from that cool tv show I like, which will get them “engaged”…then link to FB page and ask a couple of questions based on themes from the clips. Ok. Infographic on third conditional. (which i’ll email them for reference) then page 56 from the book…but link to the CNN about that issue and pull out a couple of Key words – link to online dictionary with audio so they get the pronunciation and stop. If I got extra time we’ll check twitter for National trends on the first two clips. Cool.
Ok you gotta admit both sound really good! Really positive and I cannot doubt in any way that the students are engaged on something during the lesson and that the teacher really did want to have some kind of learning objective for that lesson. The problem i’m beginning to see is that TOO many teachers REALLY WANTED to have a learning objective but kind of “got caught up in the ENGAGE the students bit”.

Dont get me wrong. I use technology in the classroom. I use and train teachers on using IWB’s, online learning environments and how to incorporate social networks and LMS’s into their planning and course management. There are classes who study Agricultural Science and use Farmville as a way of extending, practicing and applying appropriate language in correct context. BUT the point is that -  appropriately and in context.
Technology in Education isn’t a chicken and egg issue. How can it be? We, designed, dreamt and built the tools that we use in the world around us and in the classroom to aid us in communicating and teaching our students what they need to know more effectively and efficiently. We should not and must not RELY on that technology to provide the lesson we are be teaching. It can’t replace practice and production and should not replace explanations. And on a long-term basis it could create more damage more than we as teachers can even imagine. The amount of planning that was put into lessons 5/10/20 years ago is still required today. the lesson today should not be about what media I present in today moreover WHAT OBJECTIVE DO I WANT MY STUDENTS TO REACH TODAY.
Dont get me wrong. I am connected. I am a digital immigrant who is more than happy to present material and concepts digitally IF that is the best way to convey the message, BUT I also disconnect to reconnect. And maybe this is something we should be thinking more about as teachers while we plan our lessons and think of how we are managing our presentation.

Best

R

Harry Potter and the Hallowed Classroom

….ummm…ah yes!

“Aparecium!”

Harry Potter has without a doubt been named and mentioned, seen and read, breathed and dreamed by more people than I care to envisage over the last 8 years or so, and although I cannot admit to being an avid fan, I must say that the phenomenon is really quite something.

Now, I wont go into a rant or rave regarding Harry Potter – although when I abbreviate it I can’t help but think JK Rowling got his name from a rather famous sauce J – but rather, I shall dive on in to today’s task: Using HP in class.

Now, if I google HP there really are a million and more worksheets and discussion boards and lesson plans and interactive games that are all, to a lesser or greater degree, interesting to use in the classroom…

BUT….they just don’t convince me. So bowing to the pressures of students and teacher’s alike on doing something with HP I decided to actually sit down and think about HP and the classroom. And I came up with this:

To begin with you have to decide if you want to work via the books or the films. Across all levels it is impossible to consider them one and the same and they will each lead you in different independent directions. So I chose Film. Bearing in mind that although being fairly faithful to the books they are still visually subjective to the film makers vision.

So what’s next? Well, HP really isn’t realistic in any sense of the word and neither is a lot of the language used. So although there might be wonderful dialogues and phrases and a potion full of terms and jargon – for the student to apply in the real world of communicating in English I felt HP ran a little short of material. So I went for something else.

I divided the possibilities of working with HP into two: Literature or Drama.

Literature is a massively important part of learning, especially when considering the applications and use of english as well as aiding in developing range, style, delivery and expression. And HP offered a wonderful opportunity to explore literature in a very stimulating way.

The work on literature was then divided into two options – Discussion, comparison and interpretation and Drama.

The reasoning for this was based purely on a natural progression from the films themselves by focusing on Influences. And the list that came out was fairly long. However I decided to guide the students towards literature which maybe they had never heard of or better yet had come across but would shy away from were they ever to hear such names uttered again!

So that meant the following: EMMA, MACBETH, THE PARDONERS TALE, THE BIBLE, THE ILIAD, THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

With Tolkien, the issue was simple – using youtube clips we would compare and comment on the visual and literature similarities between Voldemort and Sauren, the horcrux and the One ring, Gollum and Kreacher, Gandalf and Dumbledore: for language I was focusing specifically on passive’s, opinions and expression.

The Iliad had a direct reference between HP saving of Cedric’s body and that of the actions of Hector, Achilles and Patroclus and “the idea of the desecration of the body” as JK Rowling pointed out in an interview in 2007 with EW.  The scenes themselves are fairly powerful, but it provided the hook to bring students into looking at literature such as the Iliad in a new light – once they also understand that there is the possibility of dealing with the text through scenes with Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger there was an obvious extra motivation factor.

The point however was to open doors to literature and then comment and extract language – especially when looking at expression, tone, punctuation and range. It is not imperative that we use the original works for this – the whole point is to capture students attention in a way that they can relate to and then guide them towards something that requires greater language work on their behalf.

Biblical themes and references run throughout the HP series and as Rowling points out herself: they’re very British books…So on a very practical note Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones…” You can find links to the resurrection, God, and quotes directly from Matthew and also the Corinthians.

Emma by Jane Austin, was something a little more subtle to link to but important nonetheless as it brought the link to endings. Or more precisely endings with a twist. And for the students the realisation and importance in storytelling of how to bring a tale to an end and keep your listener/readers guessing. I spoke about curiosity and the importance of cliffhangers in a previous blog in relation to lesson presentation, but often the troubles in Language learning are a little different: I find students are more than capable of using english with a wonderful range but when it comes to telling or recounting events both fictional and non, they lose their way when it comes to concluding. Emma and the comparisons with HP and almost any other great work be it film or book cannot be beaten in my opinion in showing how to structure and conclude successfully.

Finally MacBeth and the Pardoners tale – both of these are heavily borrowed from in HP. The first in regards to Voldemort hearing the prophecy ( what if he never did?) and Macbeth meeting the witches ( what if he never had?) the Macbeth question lies behind it all – would any of this ever happened if they hadn’t? From here discussions in class are almost limitless – you can focus on third conditionals above all looking back at the events of anything!

For the latter the story of 3 brothers who attempt to cheat death and the 3 rogues in Chaucer’s tale who find gold are incredibly similar both in moral and actions but I believe these two elements can best be linked to our second main option in working with HP – Drama. Re-enacting this tale full of greed, blood, death and a little horror but with a wonderful moral could be a magnificent stage play for a class to do – the characters are easily divided between main parts and limited lines – and you can get the class working on the dialogues and interaction as they are not written in the film or book, which you can see here.

Drama and theatre in class are not only an excuse to have some fun. They offer the possibility to work on something fundamental in all students: embarrassment.

Overcoming the fear of speaking and making mistakes is probably the biggest hurdle any singular student will have to deal with. Theatre and Drama – roleplaying and acting, which provide an alternate persona almost and de-personalise the action for the student aids in overcoming that fear. Using lines and phrases they only have to learn and not create, tone of voice and pronunciation, delivery and timing are all skills we need to speak and communicate in english – and Drama really is the most effective way of working on those skills without the hinderance of the fear of embarrassment.

Linking these to HP why not try re-enacting the above mentioned scenes by inverting the characters from each work – Macbeth in HP and HP in Macbeth!

You see? It’s not always about vocabulary worksheets when we use film as a basis to our lessons. They can be the driving force behind doing so much more!

But for now all I can say is….

“Evanesco!”

ELT moves like Soap opera and Jagger

One thing that has always struck me everytime I have watched another teacher teach is presentation of content. Over the last ten years or so it seems the materials we use in class have become evermore homogeneous with little or no difference between them. Every so often a coursebook stands out among others because someone started watching what teacher’s were doing in the classroom. However, as much as we would like there to be the perfect book never is it going to be able to substitute or be as creative or appropriate with content presentation as we, or better YOU, are with (y)our classes.

And presentation, kiddo, is what we’re going to look at today.

Believe it or not what pulled this thought thread together was doing a lesson around the title of the song in this post’s title. and clicking here will get you music lyics and kareoke but it wasnt what the lesson was about ( ok so we did sing it out loud and strut our stuff at the end but you kinda have to, with them kids, dont you? ) – promise we’ll come to music in class in another post

Moves like Jagger got me thinking about presentation and style (along with this article) without a doubt two of the  most important elements to teaching in class. I am constantly hearing teachers complain about demotivated students and that it is difficult to get them to do anything in class at times. And I wonder what the real cause of the issue is. When I look at students in the classroom from the front the first question that comes to mind – or maybe better, the first FEAR that comes rushing up through the body is: Does what I have in mind provide CURIOUSITY for these guys?

And that is where I think we should be starting when we plan our lessons. Curiousity.

Lets ask ourselves a little question: why do we follow or watch a particular TV series or Soap Opera with such avid dedication? I may be wrong, and you may not agree, but two words come to mind: Curiousity and Identification.

When it comes to lesson preparation most of us are often in that unfortunate situation of having limited time or simply arent paid for putting in the extra time and therefore its easy to relax a little and do things as quickly as possible. I totally understand that BUT thinking about HOW you are going to present material can actually be done while doing other things!

The Curious Classroom

What makes a classroom curious? Well, put frankly, YOU: the teacher.

Quite a bold statement Ii know but like enthusiasm – if you are not enthusiastic as a teacher your students will pick up on it very very quickly, the same can be said about curiousity.

But how do we instill curiousity and cliffhangers into those pillars of English teaching known as Grammar and Vocabulary.

Well, its not quite as difficult as it might seem, and a lot of people out there are already doing it but let me taje you through a couple of ideas starting with that “G” word.

Grammar is generally nothing more than an explanation. Explanation is a multiple action because of the infinite options you have at hand to do it. However, BEGINNING the explanation is key to creating curiousity.

Beginning by saying something along the lines of “the present perfect is….” Or “we use comparative adjectives to….” Really isnt all that interesting. So let’s think a little out of the box.

All of the following ideas here below both for Grammar and Vocabulary presentation are the fruits of reading up a little on the Suggestopedic elephant. Suggestopedia is a method of instruction introduced by the bulgarioa doctor and phsycotherapist George Lozanov which became popular in the 1970’s. The Elephant part I came across in a book by Mark Fletcher refe ring to the poem The Blind men and the Elephant by J.G. Saxe

Puzzles:

Grammar can be explaioned through structure. Structure is nothing more than a series of parts peiced together in the correct  order. It could a building, lego, furniture, an organisation or anything else, although in our case it is a series of wrods placed together in a particular order.

When working with grammar structures one idea is to find a peice of text which uses the structures I want to explain. I then eliminate them from the text and replace them with Numbers. I then place a series of cards around the classroom – each has a number on oneside and a picture which represents the eliminated structure on the other.( to get the images I just google the structure in google images) On an empty table in the class there are another set of cards with the missing structures. The students have to place match the pictures to the structures. Once this is done I ask them to do two things: the first is to relate what they are seeing in the structure to anything they have studied/learnt before. What is important here is that you give them limits in which to think ie TIME or CONFRONTATION or HYPOTHESIS. The second is to ask them WHAT they THINK the structure is doing now.

Occasionally you will need to push them a little in the right direction but you’ll be surprised how quickly they can work out what the structure does.

Colour Codes and Dominoes

Dominoes is a fantastic game where you peice together matching elements. With structures which include Prefixies and Suffixes you can get your students to discover what is going on in the phrase and how it works. Just split the example phrases you worte on the board into parts ( seperating the prefix/suffix )and get the students to place them into the correct order – if you have divided the paerts correctly they will be forced to use the correct suffix/prefix. Once they have done this again ask them to relate to what they already know and identify the difference now.

To aid them even further you could colour code the structure you want to teach in that lesson and guide them to look explicitly at that. You could also collacate images to the various structures ie: Collocations are bridges, Verbs as actions, prepositions as indicators and auxillaries as helping hands

For the “V” word life can be even more simple. And probably the easiest of all is to use storytelling.

When dealing with vocabulary we all know that visual collocation is incredibly important. HOwever I like to take that a little further by not only connecting word sto pictures but by presenting those words to those pictures by telling a story.

Whether the story really makes sens or not doesnt matter – so dont worry about having to elaborate some kind of novel! What you do is group 25 or so words together and invent a tale to tell.

Another great way is mixing a lexical group to something completely different again through stories and this link will show you how.

Using links from the BBC wildlife programmes really are one of the best sources like Jamie Keddies lesson here, but you could also look at documentaries from National Geographic  for example.

So Presentation and style or more importantly CURIOUSITY. Keep them in mind as you flick throuhg your content for the next lesson. These here are just a few simple ideas but how you deliver them in class really depends on you. But above all FIND your STYLE, BECOME the ICON and MOVE LIKE JAGGER.

Best

R

treasure maps, secrecies and hidden frequencies

The last couple of weeks have been filled with the wading through of a barrage of presentations, talks, thoughts and links with the avid enthusiam I tend to have in all places from trains, to planes, hotel lobbies and traffic jams to that wonderful think tank we all use so well called ‘The Loo’. And if any of you claim you don’t, well, I for one just don’t believe you! – I mean there are people who put a blackboard in there to jot down thoughts – might even have been someone famous too – but I’m sidetracking….

A couple of questions have been secretly laying their structures within my head and as a result I found myself sifting through that most archaic pile of them all – paper based hand written lesson plans! (It’s true! For all you “ipaddicts” out there – those frequencies do still exist! I have seen them with my own eyes! I have held them within the palms of my hands!) – in an attempt to answer them. And obviously how do we address them in class? Well….

Frequencies. Let me explain: Classroom observation is a real positive negative. Negative for Who is being observed on an emotional level and positively fun for Who is observing ( especially when you consider that age old human characteristic: Love To Criticise). I personally prefer positive criticism whichever end I’m on, but in this case, as observer, one question sowed its seeds in my head and got me thinking, and it was: What can I do to reduce literal translations by students between L1 and L2?

@mariansteiner tweeted recently “Language determines the way we “see” the world. Each language sees the world differently. Learning a language uniquely broadens our mind.”

And I think he hit the nail on the head. Quite often when we learn another language we find ourselves up against the “illogical” because we cant relate it to the way our mother tongue works, especially when grammar structures are contrasted with information structures. I mean there are often things that are grammatically correct but we just wouldnt “say” it like that. So what can we do?

As a way to understanding this concept, I tend to liken languages to perspectives or points of view. Not in the sense of an ideology but more to the physical plane. There are two activities I like to do in the classroom which I always refer back to when students at a later date ask that wonderful favourite question of a three year old: why?

Let me show you:

Imagine I am holding this tshirt up in front of you. I’d like you to draw it for me. I am going to do the same.

Now your picture will probably look very similar -  I mean its not that difficult

And mine would look something akin to this:

Are you sure its a different T-shirt? …

So what happened? Our perspectives are different. But we both drew the same T-shirt.

Let’s try something else.

Stand on your chair and take a look around the room. What’s different? HAHA! YESSSS! The perspective! And that dear student is why some things are different to the way you do things in your language!

That you can reach the same destination in more than one way, or use a different frequency to communicate the same message is the key to allowing another language to function smoothly within our minds. The trick sometimes is to render it tangible to the student in front of us. There are probabaly better examples but I find that working on a physical level will often render comprehension far easier than using words which are often far too ethereal.

Secret codes and Treasure maps

I came across the following chart oneday in a coursebook:

well , to be honest I didnt come across it oneday, it was more like everyday. It is, in fact, in every single coursebook ever published. It might actually be on every wall of every classroom in the world. But when was the last time you ever saw someone USE it?

I decided to run a little survey whereby I asked teachers this question: How would you use the phonetic chart in the classroom? ……”long pause” could be the unanimous answer. So I thought I might let you all in on a little secret: This could be the most fun thing to teach in the world!

HOW? Well, little teachers let me show you….

Why not start the lesson with this:

and then move to this:

Or this:

Aye me ‘earties, ye would be surprised at what’cha can be doin’ wit some there symbols and codes….

The trick is to set it all up. Create that sense of looking for something, deciphering codes…of a good CIA thriller!

Relate phonetic symbols  to exactly what they are – symbols. Not so different from heiroglyphs or any other character based language. But you need to capture the attention and Archeaology ( Indiana Jones style) or Pirates ( Cap’n Sparrow) are often the best. One other would be the Da Vinci Code.

Now get them looking for a set of symbols in their books.  Now how you do it is up to you but your objective must be that the students believe these symbols will take them to treasure. The treasure will be knowledge and that knowledge will be pronounciation.

As with anything, if you are teaching kids then they will learn quicker, but even with adults you can have a lot of fun.

There are three simple steps the students need to take.

The first is visually repeating the symbols: copying and recreating ( rearranging things on the walls in the classroom was a fun one!)

The second is correlating the sound to each in order to comunicate: translating pherases and information into phonetic “code”.  From here you can do deciphering games, treasure maps with clues to be translated and anything else you can think of

The third and final step is the reversal of step 2: translating from sound to code: soundf to symbol and then symbols to words.

Now before you say anything, YES it does take time and indeed cannot be done in a 90minute lesson. What I like to do is prepare everything at the beginning of the year based on the pronounciation activities in the coursebook I am using. It is the Delivery that is so important. Phonetics can be fun and added in as additional activities to any lesson almost as a break from what you are doing. However the final objective is remarkable: almost perfect pronounciation of any new word.

How you deliver the activities you do, how you create the stories and codes is really down to your imagination. What you need to keep in mind are those three steps. The whole point is to bring students into phonetics not from words but from symbols. It is far easier to relate sunds to symbols than to deconstruct words and then try to fit those sounds to funny sguiggles – to a student it just doesnt make sense. And don’t even think about trying to explain with MORE words! Remember, like I said before, there is always more than one way to get to your destination.

Best

R

I Have a Voice – Lesson’s from Bertie

I was recently invited to introduce and open a season of films in English to which of course I graciously accepted before really registering exactly what I would have to do. Which was introduce the film that was due to screened with a 30min talk relating said film to the ELT classroom. Easy you might say – although if you think about it carefully maybe it isnt!…the audience was to be a mix of Students and teachers with levels of english ranging from B1 to C2 and I was not allowed to talk about the story of the film or its history!..ah yes…now I got you thinking “indeed not quite the walk in the park!”
Solution? Well, lets see…
The Kings Speech has been named and awarded for a variety of reasons and quite rightly so, but lessons for the ELT classroom? Actually, I was quite surprised what I managed to bring to the English Classroom and the skills it developed but in order to do so I had to enter that most horrible of places for most teachers – lessons without grammar and vocabulary!
And indeed even before you comment I can already hear someone screaming in fright through the radiowaves of this internet connection!
But let me explain.
I believe grammar and vocabulary are important and I do indeed do my fair share. But shocking as it may seem to some of you GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY ARE NOT THE BE ALL AND END ALL to Langugage Learning. And yes, dear English Student, I have your attention now, don’t I? =D
Let me continue. Language, whether its is L1, L2 or LX, is about communciation. A little fact that often can be forgotten in the push to grammatical perfection, certification strategy and word list memorisation. Dont worry, I’m as guilty as the next teacher sometimes. But as I was watching the tale of Bertie’s struggle to overcome the repercussions of childhood oppression and become the King and Voice of an Empire, I realised there were indeed lessons as a teacher to learn and also as a student in regards to learning a second language. And here are four lessons I picked out from ‘The King’s Speech’.

Speech Mechanics:
Have you ever drawn a picture such as this on the board?

Any reason why not? Sounds and phonemes change from language to language and often it is very unnatural for us to reproduce a sound that does not belong to our own mothertongue, examples could be the rolling ‘R’ in Italian for germanic speakers or the ‘th’ in english for latin speakers of the ‘NG’ for anyone who chinese. Rendering the student conscious of how the mouth works on a physical level can iad them in pronounciation. Obviously just showing them a picture in class in not going to make any difference but two little things I like to do, and which students of all ages love are the following:
Working on the ‘th’ sound in English, I find it very successful to exagerate the sound and then tone it down. How? By playing a game or better introducing a punishment. And no its not as harsh as it seems. I introduce the sound by asking my students to all stick thier tongues out, but with the mouth closed. They now have to talk for 30 or 60 seconds, depending on the level, like that – tongues out! What it does is exagerate the positioning of the tongue when the mouth produces the infamous ‘th’. To keep things interesting, when a student is talking too much in thier mothertongue in my lesson as punishment every time they speak over the following 10 minutes they must do so with the tongue out!
Another physical game you can play – although please not with young children! – came from the auditions done by Marlon Brando for the Godfather – yes indeed! Placing two cotton balls in your cheeks and talking! What this does is physically encourage you to have to speak slowly and exagerate the pronounciation in order to be understood. The whole point is to render the physical movement of the mouth conscious to the student. Once that has been achieved it is far easier to improve speaking and diction because the student has something tangible to work with.

Public Speaking
To make a film about public speaking is a pretty tall order. But Tom Hooper with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush did do a fantastic job. And all you need to do is google the film to find a million sites talking about the 5 lessons in public speaking the film gives. But I thought there was one part of the whole public speaking thing which really did relate to language learning. And that is the act of speaking in front of others. What got me to thinking about this was watching a lesson in a school not so long ago whereby in preparing students for the speaking part to an Exam, the teacher called the student to the front of the class, sat them in a chair facing the rest of the students and basically said “speak about this pictue”. I dont think I need to describe the scene to you so lets just leave it at “embarrassing silence followed by frustrated teacher”. Using techniques on public speaking is more than anything a great way in building confidence for students speaking in L2 with their teacher, classmates, friends, examiner and most importantly in the REAL world

Intonation Pronounciation and Fluency
There were some tremendous scenes in The King’s Speech regarding these three elements of communicating with the spoken word but I think the one single fun thing we can do in class which really can improve all three skills is ‘Learning Accents’. I mentioned this to a teacher the other day and their simple reply was: “ Fine, but I’m not mothertongue, so I can’t.” I was shocked. Basically this teacher just stated that only Mother Tongue English People (preferably Teachers) can ‘Do’ accents. Are you all crazy????? I mean, accents are based on the skill of listening and reproduction. That single one skill we all did as children when first learning our own mothertongue language, and the reason our accents respect the places we live. So why not get your students working on them in class? Short clips from youtube are all you need plus a theatrical sense to the activity. It really is that simple. DOnt back away as a teacher – even if you aren’t good at accents yourself, learn with your students, enjoy the challenge and become their peer for a moment in the classroom. The benefits not only to thier speaking skills but also to the relationship between Teacher/student are immense.

And finally Confidence.
I think The King’s Speech, and more specifically Bertie’s stammer and the cause of that stammer, really is a lesson in Teacher Behaviour in the classroom and towards our students. Bertie’s stammer came from the oppression and continual put-downs received from his father. Let me ask you, Teacher, how often have you entered into your classroom, looked at your students, identified the weaker ones and thought or even said “ you are never going to make it, kid” ? Our attitude, our belief in our students really does make a massive difference in the success of that student in learning and communicating in a second language. If we are not there, as Lionel was for the King, believing and never giving up that belief in our student then each and every one of our students will gain thier voice. Don’t be the cause for their failure. Be the cause of their success.

Best

R