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Learning and Language Boundaries

By Ruthie Iida

Like many other native English speakers who began teaching in Japan in the 1990’s, I was barely trained (a six-week TESOL course in the U.S.) and unprepared to face classes of 40 elementary school students. At that time, there were no guidelines or set teaching materials. I had a mentor named Yamaguchi-san, but after an initial meeting and the obligatory Welcome-to-Japan drinking party, he abruptly fell off my radar screen and was not heard from again.

With no syllabus to follow and a dizzying number of classes to be taught, I kept myself from panicking by doing what I did best: storytelling. Unlike some of my fellow ALT’s (assistant language teachers), I was fluent in Japanese and knew how to both charm and discipline my students in their native language. Attempt to teach forty small Japanese children in English? Far too risky! I couldn’t tell jokes or clever stories, and if they failed to fall for my charm and misbehaved, I couldn’t scold them properly, either. So I taught what would best be termed as “cultural lessons”, using Japanese and giving key vocabulary and phrases in English. Apparently, this was fine with the Board of Education and homeroom teachers as well, but it certainly couldn’t have been called English conversation.

After my stint in the elementary schools, I opened a private language school for children. I began using more English, yet teaching in a Japanese framework had become so comfortable and familiar that I was reluctant to try teaching by immersion. By using my students’ native language, I was able to explain in detail, to teach grammar, to tell funny stories, to give cultural information, and to discipline little ones who tested my patience. All this seemed reasonable to me, and since I had few teacher friends at the time, no one was around to give me a gentle prod and suggest otherwise.

I taught in a mixture of English and Japanese for over ten years until I closed my school temporarily to attend graduate school in Tokyo. At university, immersing myself in the formal study of SLA (second language acquisition), I began to scrutinize my own teaching style according to the empirical studies I read. What were “principles” exactly, and did I have them? What kind of practical changes could I make when I re-opened my school to ensure that students were actually acquiring language and not just enjoying the songs and games? I was especially curious to see what SLA research had to say about ESL and EFL teachers’ use of their students’ mother tongue, but there seemed to be no clear answers. My Rod Ellis survey of the history of SLA research included several studies of teachers who used their students’ L1 to teach English. Ellis summarized the findings by suggesting that when it was easier to use the students’ mother tongue many teachers did so, switching back and forth between languages at their own convenience… gulp … just as I had been doing??

Finishing up my TESOL degree, I was determined to give my students more and richer input in English and to challenge them to work out meaning for themselves rather than handing them the explanation in Japanese. Yet when I re-opened my school seven months ago, I chose not to teach by total immersion, but instead to set clear boundaries for language use. Here’s basically how it works.

Lessons begin with a circle time on a large, soft carpet; that’s the “All English area”, where I work on communicating rather than “teaching” per se. Students expect to listen to and respond in English and, though the first few weeks were pretty hairy, it’s not such a big deal now. Why had I not believed my students could do this in the first place? For me, the most miraculous part about the carpet time is that even the youngest children are relaxed and well-behaved without physical place markers such as chairs or cushions to sit on. They come closer naturally when they’re interested in a book or an object, and move back a bit when they need their own space. Since the carpet time is about communication in English, I have stopped using the phrase “Repeat after me!” Actually, it’s a huge relief, as those words never came naturally to me in the first place. Communication is about give-and-take rather than repetition, which in the case of small children takes care of itself through songs and chants. And so I spend the first 30 to 45 minutes of each lesson (depending on the age of the students) turning myself inside out in order to be intelligible and interesting to my students, and to draw out appropriate, enthusiastic responses. My friend Scott calls this “Emotional Positioning”, and when the lesson content is genuinely interesting and meaningful to my students, I know it by their response.

From the carpet, we move to the table for a short snack break. As the students eat rice crackers and drink tea, they exchange stories from their various elementary schools… in Japanese. This is not only allowed but encouraged as group bonding time and also as fodder for my carpet time lessons. I get a feel for what the kids are interested in and what excites them. It’s also a brain break after the intense concentration of the immersion session.

And lastly, we move to the “Phonics Area”, where I use both English and Japanese to tell silly stories about alphabet shapes, guide students through pronunciation challenges, and help them to decode (or code) words and sentences. They’re allowed to use Japanese to ask and answer questions, but mostly they’re absorbed in the sounds of English and engaged in matching them to written words or transcribing them into writing.

Am I a better teacher now, with a TESOL degree under my belt? Well, I’m certainly more passionate about the process of meaningful communication (rather than focusing on class control and teaching in an additive fashion ). I’ve also drawn clear boundaries according to language learning principles: time spent immersed in meaning-focused L2 input; time spent recharging the brain and relaxing in the students’ L1; and time spent using both languages to work on literacy skills. Most importantly, I’m now hyper-aware of how my students seem to learn best and what things they want to know. After all, that’s the starting point, rather than a syllabus of structures and vocabulary that they should know. And it’s worth all the time and trouble when young learners begin to use language spontaneously. In fact, that’s when teachers like me stop worrying about our own charm and let ourselves be charmed by our students. They’re in the process of forming an interlanguage, and while we may not be the directors, we’re the witnesses. How about that as an awesome reward after a long day’s work? I’ll take it, thanks!

Four qualities to be a better language teacher

Aziz Soubai

By Aziz Soubai

Not just anybody should be in a teaching position. You don’t need to choose a teaching career, because if you have what it takes, the teaching career will choose you. It is not easy to teach and it is very tough to succeed in what you do if you are not interested in it in the first place. The first most important quality in a successful language teacher is loving your job. Otherwise, you’ll experience a total fiasco; no matter how intelligent or knowledgeable you are – you will fail miserably. I’m not going to talk about a certain magic recipe of how to be a successful educator because there is no such thing. Human beings are unique, learners are unique and there is no single way of successfully teaching English. So, what I’m going to do in this post is share with you some of the ideas and insights I gained in my classroom practice over the past few years.

There are so many traits of a great language teacher but I will choose four of those qualities that I think are most significant to be a better language teacher. These ideas have worked for me and that does not mean they will work for every teacher; it depends on many elements and factors, such as a teacher’s readiness to apply the tips, their motivation, and most importantly their teaching context.

The first quality is, as I mentioned before, loving what you do. It means getting up every morning with a burning fire inside you, a huge passion for your job. It means also that when you teach, you feel alive. I believe that, unfortunately, this quality of a teacher cannot be acquired or gained over time. It is either there or it doesn’t exist!

Of course, passion and love for the job is not enough to be a successful educator and teacher. We need something else. Our language classrooms can sometimes be full of uninterested, unmotivated students and this creates additional classroom issues and a huge burden for EFL teachers. Therefore, the second quality to possess is patience. A language teacher should suppress his/her anger and know how to control emotions. Being patient doesn’t mean allowing and tolerating bad behavior. It means teachers have to find alternative ways and strategies to deal with daily issues faced in class. One of those strategies is applying the humanistic affective approach, which in my context works most of the time. In other words, you need to create certain bonds between you and your students. Make them your friends and try to see the human side in them, not just knowledge that they have or don’t have. A ten-minute open discussion with your learners from time to time will undoubtedly make them respect and trust you more.

Once we have ensured the passion and patience are there, students will be receptive, ready and even highly motivated to learn. The next quality to have is being a good organizer and planner. Good lesson planning is a crucial process in teaching English effectively. Plan very detailed lessons because doing that will make you avoid unexpected learning and teaching issues. There are, of course, so many techniques for creating a lesson plan. I would recommend the following:

Start with reviewing the previous lesson and link it to the next one.
Use some kind of warm up. My students like tongue twisters, which are great for practicing pronunciation, grammar, and other language points.
Write and discuss the lesson objectives with the class. They need to know where you are taking them and why.
Model and instruct. Use examples for your learners and show them how they are supposed to accomplish their tasks.
Use guided practice. Intervene, offer guidance, and help when you see something goes wrong or when you feel that your learners are off-task.
Finish your lesson with a sort of assessment. It might be a short ungraded quiz, writing a lesson summary, or peer feedback and assessment.

The fourth and final quality is trying to be innovative and creative in your teaching style. Attending as many conferences as possible will help you to reach that goal. Share your experiences with the public, seek advice and guidance from mentors and experienced teachers.

Because teaching is a pretty challenging job, we as language teachers must be prepared not only in terms of materials and input but also on other important levels like the ones mentioned in this post. We need to understand our learners’ needs and social background; we are dealing with human beings after all. Doing all this won’t necessarily guarantee great teaching and learning experience. However, it would at least set us on the right track toward success in our professional life.

Extensive Reading Issue

Do you teach reading, or especially Extensive Reading classes? What are some ways we as teachers could use to help ignite the passion and joy of reading? In this issue, our bloggers Stewart Gray, Chris Mares, and Kate Cory-Wright suggest some ideas and share their tips for a better reading experience for students.

Making stories your own

Teenagers HATE reading!

Creative and critical follow-up activities for Extensive Reading classes

Making stories your own

By Chris Mares

Many of my students are not regular or passionate readers in their first languages and seldom read for pleasure. By the same token, a lot of my students can “read” in English and yet rarely do so voluntarily, or for pleasure. In most cases, in fact, my students only read in English only when they have to.

This situation is, of course, not uncommon and not a surprise to many of you. The question is, what can we do to engage our students in reading? To this end I would like to report on a pleasing success I have had recently with my students.

I have never met students who do not like a good story that they can relate to. Stories are told in all cultures. They are part of the fabric that binds us together through shared experience and the transmission of values and knowledge.

With the above in mind, I wanted to get my students engaged in listening to stories, then reading them, then ultimately writing their own. And so, the Richard project began, in a class that met four days a week for 50 minutes, entitled “Story Telling.”

As a reader with a life-long interest in writing, I decided I would write my own stories for students – about me, but presented through the eyes of Richard. My thought was to write about things that we can all relate to: the first day at school, making friends, making mistakes, getting to know oneself, having parents and siblings, loss, part-time jobs, etc. I wanted to make them authentic, simple, understandable, and most of all, stories my students could relate to. The stories are around 800 words in length. I use short sentences, direct speech, and try to inject useful language which I then recycle in subsequent stories. I try to craft the stories in the style of “sudden fiction” with a hook, a body, and satisfying ending. I have found that students enjoy the humor and a full range of human emotions, especially those that reveal uncertainty, doubt, love, pleasure, and all the others that make us human.

So far I have used the stories in our regular core program plus two intensive programs, one with Mexican students, the other with Japanese students. I have also had one of my colleagues use the Richard stories with success.

Over time, students began to look forward to the stories and request that they be in them. Consequently, with ongoing groups of students I would write some stories that included them, and incidents we had discussed or that had happened in class. I found that not only were the students eager listeners, they also valued reading aloud, and would voluntarily re-read the stories at home. Another interesting development was that some students in my Personal Writing classes began to write letters to Richard, or write their own Richard-like stories. What I am reporting is anecdotal, but true. Finally, a couple of my students asked me about the University Library as they would like to find books themselves to read, stories, they said, like the Richard stories.

With my Mexican students who were very motivated I developed a worksheet on how to write a Richard story. It worked much better than expected as the students not only wrote wonderful stories but clearly enjoyed reading each other’s. Below is the handout I used in this class.

Writing a Richard story

When I write a Richard story, I first try and think about something that has happened to me in my life that you might find interesting or funny. Usually it’s something that I think you will be able to relate to in some way. For example, your first day at school, making a mistake, falling in love, or making new friends. I find it difficult to write in the first person. For this reason I write in the third person. I like to use direct speech in the stories. I keep the sentences very simple and often quite short.

I chose the name Richard because it seems very English to me and doesn’t have any particular associations. It isn’t the name of any of my friends or relatives, for example.

It normally takes me about 45 minutes to write a Richard story. It might take you a little longer.

The Process

Think of a particular time in your life.
Think of something fun or interesting that happened to you at that time.
Note down the names of the other people who will be in your story.
Choose a name for yourself.
Think of a title.
Get writing.

Giving it a try

Like many things in life, it takes a bit of time and practice. If you find it hard to begin (get going)… Just write. Start with the name of your character. Visualize him or her. Have a picture in your mind. Where is he or she? What is he or she wearing/thinking/doing? etc.

It is possible to get students engaged in stories and interested in reading. The stories need to be accessible linguistically and culturally and have a universal appeal. They also need to be short enough to be read in one class including the time available for schema-raising, which is to say, getting the students hungry for the story.

If you are interested in reading a short selection of Richard stories, please email me at si********@ho*****.com and I will send some to you.

Teenagers HATE reading!

By Kate Cory-Wright

Seven Tips for Motivating Reluctant Readers

Extensive Reading is often defined as “reading a large amount of books for pleasure.” Sorry? Did someone say “reading” and “pleasure” in the same sentence?

Personally, I can’t think of a better way to spend an evening than curling up with a book. I can’t think of a better way to improve my foreign languages than by reading. Reading is pleasure for me. However, I recognise that for many students, reading is about as boring and alien as boxing or wrestling is to me. So how can we foster a love of reading in students who are reluctant? The following tips are based on my experiences of extensive reading with tweens and teens over the years.

Consider your method.

The only time my school teachers successfully put me off reading was when we all had to read the same book and classes were spent analysing it to death, completing worksheets, etc. Is this the way to foster a love of reading in a reluctant reader? Unlikely. In fact, that is intensive reading, not extensive reading. Nowadays I have developed a method that treats the books like movies that students can watch in their free time. In other words, reading is:

optional;
not accompanied by tests or worksheets;
students’ responsibility: they choose what, when, and how to read. If they don’t like the book they have chosen, they can abandon it and try another, just as they would change channels if the movie was unappealing.

So, how does this work in reality? Six months ago, I introduced my students to extensive reading. After explaining the benefits, I invited them to choose a book from my library and reminded them that it was optional to borrow a book. A few students took the lead. They chose books because they wanted to read. Others followed suit, slightly hesitantly. The last two students shook their heads and said “No, thank you.” My response? No comments, no persuasion. Their peers did the job for me! After two weeks of watching their classmates bring back books and borrow more, the last two decided to participate. It was their choice. One of those two is now the most avid reader in the class.

2. Provide Variety.

To foster the habit, students need to read a lot of books. But which books? Before now, I’ve made the mistake of choosing for them, but I failed. I remember suggesting a James Bond reader for Brandon, a 13-year-old student. He pulled a horrible face and instead chose a book about an Indian girl who gets sold into slavery! One tendency I have noticed over the years is that teens often borrow “information” books. At the British Council, we had a huge selection of genres, but the fantasy, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and adventure books often went untouched. Many teenagers preferred to read about nature, planets, history, etc. You can of course make suggestions, but be prepared for students to turn their nose up at your notion of “interesting.”

Since we have no idea what they will enjoy, variety is the key. Offer plenty of genres and topics. Readers are not the only option: try magazines, multiple-path books (see Atama-ii books), plays, audio books, ebooks, etc. Old books are fine, too. My students often choose “Tintin”, even though it is an old dog-eared comic book from my childhood!

Easy does it.

Christine Nuttall suggests using the SAVE rule to promote reading. Offer students books that are Short, Appealing, Varied, and Easy. The focus here is EASY. If students struggle with unknown words in every paragraph, they are likely to give up. In intensive reading, we tend to study books that are higher than the students’ level. Extensive reading is the opposite. Easy does it. My current group of students uses the “five finger rule”: they choose a random page and spot how many words they don’t know. If it exceeds five, then it is probably not the right level for them.

Your role.

If you are an avid reader, your students can pick up the habit from you. Tell your students about the wonderful things that they will gain from extensive reading, be a model. If students ever read in class, read a book yourself. Read the students’ books, too. And from time to time, show students a book that you’re reading. Spread the joy!

Be creative.

Creating reading games or challenges can promote reading to reluctant students. For example, students who need some extrinsic motivation might enjoy reading their way through a bingo card. This way, they can feel their progress. Younger learners like to draw pictures and make dioramas, based on the book. Older learners enjoy technology, for example they can “pin” the book, or adapt their reading to a social activity.

Note: we do not need to provide post-reading activities. In the words of Bamford and Day (1998), the best post-reading activity is to read another book!

Celebrate reading.

Children across the world celebrate books on World Book Day in March, but why only March? Choose your event and consider a fun activity:

* Dress up as a character from your favourite book. Take selfies, holding the book.

* Visit a bookstore to buy your first ever book or get your first card from a library.

* Hold a book fair (you can even raise money for the library).

* Make food and drink for a party. Name the food items after people in the books.

* Act out a scene from a book with your reading buddy.

Trust your students

Marco is a 12-year-old student who sometimes fools around in my English classes, so I admit that I secretly doubted he was reading the books that he borrowed. Until one day there was a knock at the door… The man standing there, dressed in building overalls, introduced himself as Marco’s father. As we talked, I learned that he was illiterate but thanks to Marco he was learning to read. He was almost in tears as he described how he and Marco regularly read books on the sofa together in the evenings. I was almost in tears myself. Marco was not only reading, he was helping his father to read. How had I underestimated him so badly?

For many teachers, giving students the freedom to read with no post-reading task or test is an odd concept because it requires trust. “But how will I know if they are really reading the book?” teachers ask. The fact is, you don’t. School is full of tests. Extensive reading is a rare occasion when kids can do something for pleasure.

Wishing you every success and happiness in your extensive reading!

Sources

Bamford and Day (1998): Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom

Nuttall, C. (1996): Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign language

If you would like to learn more about extensive reading, you are cordially invited to join an iTDi Advanced Course in April. “The Power and the Joy of Extensive Reading” will be run by Malu Sciamarelli and Kate Cory-Wright. During the 4-week course, we will cover: extensive reading, setting up and running a reading program, and setting up a library.