IH Journal 20_cover 20/4/06 11:57 am Page 2

20 Spring 2006 ihjournal of education and development

F ED L O UC A A N T I R O U N

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The IH Journal – 10 years on A

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I 10 Life Before EFL – How I Became an EFL Teacher D

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Vocabulary? Stick it in the Tin! D

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1996-2006E E

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E M L P Action Research Projects at IH Cordoba O Running a Young Learner Department Young Learner DVD Training Course from IH Madrid Knowledge Management – What Organisations Need to Know Understanding Expectations – The Client Approach to Teaching In-Company Songs for Swingin’ Teachers One Size Doesn’t Fit All – Everything you ever wanted to know about the IHCo (IHC online) Life After EFL – Out of the Language Training Pan and into the Management Consultancy Fire Grammar is Dead. Long Live Grammar! Introducing IH Campus at IH Palermo Centro Storico IH Journal 20_cover 20/4/06 11:57 am Page 3 journal of education and development Issue 20 • Spring 2006

Contents

Editorial 2 Articles The IH Journal – 10 years on by Charles Lowe 3

Life Before EFL - How I Became an EFL Teacher by Bernadette Walker, Micaela Carey, Jon Wright and Helen Rouse (DOS) IH Malaga, Spain 3

Vocabulary? Stick it in the Tin! by David Tompkins 6

Action Research Projects at IH Cordoba by Rebecca Foreman, Hannah Murray - Pepper, Wilma 7 Dyer and Susan Mulquiney

Running a Young Learner Department by Jenny McKane 11

Young Learner DVD Training Course from IH Madrid by Steven McGuire 13

Knowledge Management - What Organisations Need to Know by Andrew Nye 14

Understanding Expectations - The Client Approach to Teaching In-Company by Christopher 17 Holloway and Kate Baade

Songs for Swingin’ Teachers by Mark Lloyd 20

One Size Doesn’t Fit All - Everything you ever wanted to know about the IHCo (IHC online) 23 by Diane Thurston

Life After EFL - Out of the Language Training Pan and into the Management Consultancy Fire 25 by Susanna Dammann

Grammar is Dead. Long Live Grammar! Roger Hunt interviews Ron Carter and Mike McCarthy, 27 authors of Cambridge Grammar of English

Introducing IH Campus at IH Palermo Centro Storico by Marco Faldetta 28

IHWO News Book Reviews Move Intermediate – reviewed by Simon Gillow, IH Barcelona Move Upper Intermediate – reviewed by Christopher Cooke, IH Manzoni, Rome Grammar – reviewed by Roger Hunt, IH Barcelona Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development – reviewed by Barry Tomalin, IH London

Editor: Ian Berry [email protected] Editorial Board: Steve Brent, Pippa Bumstead, Michael Carrier, Roger Hunt, Jeremy Page, Scott Thornbury Advertising: Alex Monk [email protected] +44(0) 20 7518 6959 Subscriptions: Ania Ciesla [email protected] IH Journal, International House, 106 Piccadilly, W1J 7NL [email protected] +44(0) 20 7518 6975 Editorial IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006

EDITORIAL

Alex Monk Ian Berry Ania Ciesla Advertising Editor Subscriptions

reak open the champagne! Cut the cake! It’s time to that this might inspire them to share their experiences by PARTY! Alternatively, you can calmly leaf through this, the contributing themselves. B20th issue of the IH Journal of Education and On one front, at least, it would appear that I have got the Development, and reflect on the fact that we are celebrating 10 ‘balance’ all wrong! As I was putting together the contents years of publication or indeed take neither of the above options! page for this issue, it suddenly struck me that this is very Back in April 1996, the IH Journal first started to fall through much a ‘Spanish’ issue, with contributions from IH schools in the letter boxes of IH schools all over the world, the product of Barcelona, Cordoba, Madrid and Malaga to the fore. You an idea conceived by Charles Lowe, at that time Director of IH might even be forgiven for thinking that with the editor being London. Charles edited Issue 1 himself, and I am very pleased based in Lisbon, it is an Iberian Peninsula monopoly! Let me to say that he has written a retrospective article for this issue assure you this is not the case, but it is merely ‘how the IH to commemorate the Journal’s 10th birthday. In re-reading his cookie crumbled’ (Please keep the articles flooding in first editorial, I was immensely satisfied to discover that what wherever you are). I hope however, that on reading the we are doing with the Journal today remains true to Charles Journal you will agree that if not in geographical terms, at least Lowe’s credo when putting Issue1 together: I have got the balance right in terms of content! Whilst on the topic of contributions, Charles Lowe was keen “The International House Journal of Educational that “Anyone and everyone” could “have their say”, and I still hold Development was conceived as an in-house educational with this. However, there are practical limitations and it is not forum for International House teachers throughout the always possible to include all the articles we would like to run. To World Organisation, coming out twice a year. It is written by this end, we will be establishing ‘NetArticles’ on the IH Journal teachers for teachers. Anyone and everyone can have their site www.ihjournal.com where we can post articles that, for say. It will contain articles on action research (i.e. whatever reason, have not made it to the pages of the Journal. I classroom investigation) projects, conference papers, recently received an excellent submission from Margaret practical ideas, news items, and work in progress from Horrigan, a teacher trainer from the IH Rome Manzoni school. For leading thinkers within the organisation. We want to the last six years, Margaret has been researching and pioneering encourage debate, give people a platform, create new the use of a colour-coded phonemic chart for use with Young ideas, refloat old ideas, debunk myths and generate a new Learners. Although an excellent article, its content cried out to be sense of adventure.” reproduced in colour. However, I am pleased to tell you that it will be one of the first batch of articles to appear on NetArticles. A visit to the IH Journal site will also enable you to find a Action Research was on the agenda in ‘Number 1’, with an comprehensive list of songs that accompanies Mark Lloyds’ article written by Martin Parrot and curiously enough one of the Songs for Swingin’ Teachers article, an updated version of our first proposals I received for Issue 20, was a write up on a ‘Author Index’ new additions to our ‘Back Number’ archive, series of Action Research projects conducted by teachers at which you can access in PDF, and a ‘Preview’ of the current issue IH Cordoba, ably guided by their DoS, Simon Armour. Whilst for those who currently do not subscribe. maybe not exactly ‘refloating’ an old idea (Has AR ever really It would appear that our Life Before and Life After EFL have gone out of fashion?) it is an excellent example of how hard- also struck a chord with teachers within the organisation. In working teachers within IHWO can share the fruit of their this issue Helen Rouse, DoS of IH Malaga, and three of her research with their colleagues worldwide. I have to admit that teachers take us on their personal journeys through EFL, whilst from my privileged position as editor, I have already tried some former IH Editor, Susanna Dammann, gives us an insight into of the excellent practical ideas contained in this article with my the world of Management Consultancy. I’m still working on students and I know many others will follow suit. procuring the ultimate Life After EFL scribe, a certain JKR, who Back in January, I attended the final day of the IH DoS was once a humble EFLer, here in my beloved Portugal, no Conference and I took encouragement from the feedback I less, before moving on to, if not fresher, certainly more lucrative received on the Journal. Many of those that I spoke to pastures. Personally, I think being a multi-millionaire is a bit remarked on the ‘eclectic mix’ and ‘balance’ that the Journal overrated. Where’s the challenge? I bet she misses wiping has today, and I am quietly confident that we have achieved those runny noses, dealing with under challenged teenagers that again in the ‘Birthday Issue’. We have articles on Young and their disgruntled parents, not to mention writing reports! Learners, Business English, Teacher Training Developments, Well, on that slightly tongue-in-cheek note I will sign off. I Practical ideas for the Classroom, The use of Songs in Course hope you enjoy this issue and will continue to do so for the Books and a thought-provoking piece on Knowledge next 10 years. Happy reading. Management. I like to think that teachers within the IHWO network, wherever they may be, can pick up the IH Journal and find articles of particular interest to them and furthermore, Ian Berry - Editor

— 2 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles

ARTICLES The IH Journal - 10 years on Charles Lowe

have observed with paternal satisfaction the development of that point I knew it had legs, because of the sheer energy of the the IH Journal over its first 10 years. Unlike many house ideas and experiences people wanted to share. For that issue, Ijournals, it has not only kept going, but it has also gone from I was ably helped by Matthew Barnard, and I was then very glad, strength to strength. and lucky, to be able fully to pass on the baton to Matthew for The original concept was to bring together every teacher and the next period of issues. With his design skills and persuasive manager in the IH World Organisation. I wanted it to be more ability, he was able to take it to the next level. Subsequently, than a super-newsletter, providing an information board for Paul Roberts took over for a while and, to the very practical feel events and developments within the organisation. I wanted, of the journal, he added a more theoretical dimension. Then, firstly, to make each person feel they were not stuck in a remote under the joint stewardship of Rachel Clark and Susanna fort on the edge of the empire, with London slightly ignoring Dammann over a number of years, some great pieces were them and preoccupied with its own parochial concerns, but commissioned and it went forward to a level of real reputation that there was one big inclusive organisation and that they were and credibility. And, recently, I have been relieved and delighted part of it. Secondly, I wanted to persuade IH staff everywhere that Ian Berry has taken it on and continues to nurture both the that, whatever their interest or background or level of Journal, and perhaps just as importantly, the pulling-together experience, they could contribute their ideas for the rest of us role that it has within the IH World Organisation. to benefit. Third, it was important to create a forum for debate There have been some seminal articles in this Journal over in a range of fields – on practical teaching and training ideas, on the years. What is more, I do believe that, as a regularly theoretical issues, or on school management matters. And published document, it has achieved considerable weight in finally, I hoped to give contributors a place to the profession as a whole. Both in breadth and in depth, it is exercise their writing skills, and to increase rightly admired as representative of the extraordinary quality OF EDU AL C their confidence for further writing. that is International House throughout the world. I want to N A R T congratulate everyone who has made it what it is, editors and I From my observation, it has done, U O and continues to do, all those things. contributors alike. O N

J The IH Journal of Education and Development really does

H A I remember first pitching the idea to

I 10 N

what it says on the tin. So my best wishes

group of eager but sceptical IH School D

T YEARS

for a Happy 10th Birthday, and here’s to N

1996-2006 D Directors at the Barcelona Conference in

E

E

V M the next ten years! E P L O May 1995. By November, we had produced our first tentative issue. And at

Charles Lowe, Director IH London 1993-1996.

Life Before EFL Bernadette Walker, Micaela Carey, Jon Wright and Helen Rouse (DOS)

esponse to the first article in this series (Issue 19) has tongue would not be good enough. I did manage to secure a been very positive, with many teachers keen to share summer job as a roaming English ‘tutor’ and strategically Rtheir own personal ‘EFL journeys’ with us. In this, the planned to attend a TEFL course during the slow month of second article, three teachers and the DOS of IH Malaga, August. I even took the opportunity to travel some more and Spain tell us how they became EFL teachers (Editor). did my course in Prague. The summer camp work proved to be a good introduction to teaching - letting me discover some of my own skills and techniques through trial and error. As well Bernadette as this, the camps based their curriculum on drama, songs Being completely commitment phobic, suffering from travel and games, giving us some base material but expecting us to lust and finding myself rather broke towards the end of college improvise and create the rest. It was basically like a two and (aka university if you’re British) I dreaded the question common a half month course on making English learning fun and easy. to all seniors (final year students) “So, what’s next?” The only So far the EFL world was doing very well by me. thing I knew as I sat down to begin my last semester was that September didn’t quite go as planned though; I had a I really wanted to return to Italy where I’d spent the previous couple of weeks of summer camp work to keep me going year studying. But how? Backpacking was not an option - back in Italy but still no job options in sight. How was I student loans and an empty wallet severely prohibited that. supposed to know that a fresh-off-a-course teacher wasn’t Working? My Italian was decent after a year of study abroad, likely to be hired a few weeks short of October? Just as I was but I truly doubted that anyone would actually hire me. Then losing hope (and running out of couches to crash on) I got a a brilliant friend suggested teaching EFL and I thought “I can call from IH Campobasso. It was a Tuesday; “Can you be here do that!” After a bit of research it became clear that just by Friday?” asked the voice on the phone. I couldn’t say “Yes” showing up in Italy with my college degree and very own native fast enough! I learned the ropes there in CB within the family-

— 3 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 like atmosphere created by the super sister duo, that is Mary for. I've worked at a number of language academies, and this and Antonietta Ricciardi. One of the most formative episodes is the first that has really made me feel challenged and has was actually right at the beginning when the school hosted the made me realise that developing my skills as a teacher is YL conference in November of 2003. Within a month of important. I think I've found my niche, at least temporarily, entering the EFL world I was surrounded by people with years and I'm excited about all the possibilities to learn and grow as of experience from all over Europe and, for the first time, a teacher that IH provides. realized that I could actually make a career out of this. I worked in Campobasso for two fantastic years and then Jon my wanderlust started to kick in, leading me here to IH Malaga. After the cold and snowy climate of Campobasso (don’t be Dreams Fulfilled: Do you remember seeing pictures of the fall fooled by its southern positioning - Campobasso gets A LOT of the Berlin Wall? And the protests and tanks in Tianmen of snow between November and March!), I am happily Square? The vivid images of those extraordinary times, enjoying the true Mediterranean climate and keeping busy people standing together, united, celebrating their new-found outside of class learning Spanish. Like many others I’ve freedom, touched, moved and inspired me as a teenager, wondered at times if this is a ‘real’ job - how can it be, when it instilling a desire to reach Eastern Europe and build the Brave allows me to travel, meet loads of new interesting people, learn New World that was emerging. The ‘What’ was clear, but the different languages, and pretty much live a life not too ‘How’ took a while longer. dissimilar from the one I’d dreamed of while in school? Then I Russian wasn’t available at school so the next best thing was remember that, yes, I actually do get paid to do this... cool! German. After all, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary, and even Eastern Ukraine had a distant background of German as a second language. The great Micaela preparation was underway. With an A-level grade A, I took a gap Studying abroad changed my life. At university, I studied year, working as a greengrocer for 6 months, then 6 months as Psychology and Spanish, and in order to improve my Spanish a campsite courier in Switzerland, in the truly gorgeous Berner I went to Madrid for two months during my third year. After Oberland. There, I even managed to acquire a Swiss accent only two months, I had fallen in love with everything Spanish - (yay!). Next came 3 years at Southampton University. the food, the language, the music, the people, the culture in Being interested in people and what made them tick, I general... I had no desire to return to the States. My plans for studied Psychology, spending summer holidays working in the future were to continue my Psychology degree, hopefully Switzerland and Austria. Following the finals I worked for 2 completing a Masters and I even saw a Ph.D waiting for me in months as an au-pair in Poland, looking after (not that they the distant horizon, but after my study-abroad experience I needed it) an 11-year-old boy, who knew all the words to ´Stan´ decided to 'take a year off' upon finishing university. That year by Eminem, and his 17-year old sister, who didn’t. After that, I somehow turned into a number of years, including one year did the backpacker thing, working and travelling in New that I spent in the States teaching Spanish to middle and high- Zealand and Australia for a year each. One claim to fame is that schoolers in order to save money to come back to Spain. I've I auditioned for Lord Of The Rings, was accepted, and turned now been in Málaga, a small city on the southern coast, since the part down due to visa constraints! Oh, if only I’d known… October of 2001. Finally, in the summer of 2000, I saw that getting to Poland My first real teaching experience was that year I spent back would be easiest through EFL. I did a summer camp, then in New York State. I loved it. I had never taught before and had the CELTA, then, in the autumn of 2000, I got my first never even taken an education course at university, but I felt so teaching job at IH in Bydgoszcz, northern Poland. At last! comfortable in the classroom. I looked forward to the novelty Every day seemed wonderful and exciting. The tower blocks, of every day and the interaction with my students. I think it the snow, the broken heating, the grey skies, the national was easy for me to motivate them about Spanish because I ´victim´ identity, but there was hope and optimism in the air! was so excited about the culture and the language. Solidarity. In February, I moved to IH Lviv in Ukraine. Though When I returned to Spain I took a TEFL course in Madrid I got mugged twice in the first fortnight, it was truly a and immediately started teaching private classes and at a character building experience. I even came within 10 metres language academy. I began teaching EFL because it was my of Pope John Paul when he visited. The following year I best option as an ex-pat living in a country where English is returned to Poland, working in Rybnik (an independent high in demand, but in the end I find that I enjoy teaching very school where Jerzy Dudek, the Liverpool goalkeeper, had much. I've taught most levels of EFL, from very young been one of the school’s students). There I had the learners to adults, and I find the work challenging but opportunity to explore southern Poland, Slovakia and the gratifying. Although I did not formally study Education at Czech Republic, and Budapest. Gorgeous. After two years university, I think that my Psychology degree prepared me in abroad I came back to London, initially for a summer, then many ways for teaching EFL, with adults and children. ended up staying 3 years, working in three fantastic central My upbringing has also played a large role in where I am London schools and doing my Diploma. I’ve come abroad for today. My parents are very special people. They are very open my sixth, and for the foreseeable future, final year in EFL, to new things: cultures, foods, music, languages… . As here at IH Malaga. children, my brother and I travelled to different places, met Several skills and abilities gained before going into teaching people from different cultures, tried new foods, and even have proved valuable in the EFL business. Most obviously, learned some Spanish. My mother is a Spanish professor studying languages, especially Latin at school, has been useful (which also had an enormous impact on my decision to learn in being confident with using grammatical terms and Spanish). I was raised believing that learning and discovering understanding the basics of how different languages are put is not only beneficial but an essential part of life. This concept together. Also, my interest in Psychology gave me insights into of being open to new ideas and to new challenges is reflected learning theories and how different people can be motivated in my daily life as an EFL teacher. I try hard to include this way (i.e. not everyone is like me!). Learning musical instruments of thinking in my classes and encourage it in the students. and playing in bands gave me confidence in rhythm, At this point it seems I'll be in the EFL field for quite a long pronunciation and intonation, even once playing the guitar and time and I'm looking forward to delving deeper. I've realized leading a whole class of teenagers in ‘Yellow Submarine’. In that the IH world can provide me with the depth I'm looking fact, more than all of these, having two parents, brothers,

— 4 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles sisters and cats gifted a lot of practice in social skills. As children, my parents encouraged us to learn new things, whatever took our fancy - I´ve dabbled in archery, shooting, karate, piano, dog-racing, gardening, cooking, banking and more. That enthusiasm has always been present. Countless times, I´ve encouraged students to ‘Have A Go’. Why not, eh? What´s the worst that can happen? And how often does it...? It’s been a totally fabulous adventure, every step of the way. Changing career direction next year to charity fundraising consulting, I’m excited. I look back on every experience with pleasure and look forward to whatever comes next with an undimmed passion, building a world in which people stand together, in freedom and peace. It’s better than television! L-R Helen, Micaela, Bernadette, Jon Cert, my Diploma, various other qualifications and worked my Helen way up from cowboy academies to the Official Language Coming from a long line of primary teachers and headmasters, School, the British Council and IH, and opened my own the one job that I always thought I definitely didn’t want to do language business. I weathered direct methods and audio- was teaching, especially kids. It just wasn’t for me, I wanted visual methods, and functions and notions and taught from Travel, Excitement and Independence. Although I had already Mangold, English 901 and Kernel, (not forgetting countless travelled a fair amount by the time I was 18, I got these in larger Headways!) and I taught, translated, wrote, published and measure during my university course, which involved time travelled. I moved back down to Granada, where I was spent, supposedly studying, in Spain and France, and the originally sent to study, and met my husband. We then moved result was that, like so many others before me, I fell completely further down to Nerja and Málaga, and I became a DOS. I’ve under the spell of southern Spain. come to love my job and the people I come into contact with, Meanwhile I’d been deciding that work in the still burgeoning and particularly the work involved in being a DOS, and I Travel industry would probably satisfy my three goals. So in especially enjoy my YLs’ enthusiasm and affection. the summer of my finals, as a taster, I got a seasonal job as a My upbringing by liberal and open-minded parents combined Tour Rep for Cosmos in Zarsis, an oasis in the south of Tunisia, with the contact I have had with other countries and their people and here, once again, I had travel, excitement and both within Europe and other continents, through leisure, independence in spades, this time even more than I’d exchanges, work and study has widened my horizons and envisaged (in fact at times, more than I’d wanted!). helped me a lot in my EFL work, which, in the end is about However, before committing to a definite career, Spain dealing with people. In addition, having learnt two modern beckoned me back for a year to ‘perfect my Spanish’ as the languages (apart from giving me a sound knowledge of euphemism goes, and this had to be funded by me this time, grammar), I am able to identify with the triumphs and problems so… I became an English teacher. In those days, the mid 70’s, my students experience in their learning. I feel, in my the CELTA or Prep. Cert. as it was then called, was hardly ever monolingual situation, that they appreciate the fact that I’ve been required for a job, so after an interview in a hotel in Mayfair, I through it too, with their own language. Two other skills from my was dispatched to an EFL post in Valencia, Spain, where I was background which I have also noticed come in very useful with inducted in how to teach the conjugations of the verbs ‘To Be’ YLs are music and sewing! Children respond amazingly to and ‘To Have’ and how to tape them onto cassettes for the learning with music and rhythm and love dressing up. students - but only temporarily, of course. Over the years my goals have changed, but my initial 30 years later and I’m still here, and even teaching kids. three: Travel, Excitement and Independence have absolutely Time passed, and I grew with the profession. I got my Prep been fulfilled.

Vocabulary? Stick it in the Tin! David Tompkins

f you ask most language learners at the end of a hard week Drink more Coffee in the classroom What vocabulary have we learnt this week?, Get hold of a large tin (one of those large coffee tins with a Iit is probable that they may look blankly at you and not be plastic lid is perfect) and label it if you want. Cut up a few A4 able to recall any of it without referring to their notes. Too sheets into about 24 rectangular slips per page and you’ve got many teachers subconsciously believe that once is enough one of the most powerful vocabulary learning tools a language when teaching new vocabulary. Personally, I am an appalling classroom could have. No, seriously! Every time a word or language learner who needs to hear and say a new word at phrase comes up in the lesson and you focus on it, quickly least five times before it stays in my brain. Why should most write it onto an individual slip (with its part of speech and stress of my students be any different? if you want) and throw it in the tin. Get into the habit of adding to the vocab tin on a daily basis Once is not enough and before long the more conscientious students will be In the language classroom, new vocabulary is often sent ‘out there’ dipping their hands into it at break and testing themselves. only to vanish into thin air after, never to return again. The teacher Once you’ve built a reasonable stock of vocab slips in the tin, cannot often recall most of the words that have come up in their you can do a number of activities. Here is a selection of ideas: lesson (especially after a hectic week!). A simple vocabulary tin can provide an essential record for you and your students for 1. Word Games successful recycling and, ultimately, retention of new words. • Make typical word games (e.g. ‘hangman’, ‘back to the — 5 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006

board’, ‘charades’) based exclusively around vocabulary floor) and share out the contents of the tin so that each in the tin. I always find that the students rack their brains group gets a random selection. The students sort through harder if they know the word has already been ‘out there’ the words and then decide which words or phrases they are and feel good when they remember or guess correctly confident enough to get rid of or ‘cull’. Each group can then compare their choices, explain words the other groups don’t know and then make a final class decision on which 2. Spelling Activities ones to dispose of. This task not only revises all the vocab • You could give a classic spelling test based around the in the tin, but makes students collude together to revise the lexis in the tin. This reminds them of the words as well as words and the phrases. Like all good learner-centred tasks, checking their spelling students are taking responsibility for their learning and • To make it more fun, you could divide the students into making the decisions as to what they need or don’t need to groups, give them a number of slips and one person in be reminded of. Rather than bin the words they want each group reads out the first letter of the word or phrase binned, you can store them for a future surprise test on the slip. If the other team can’t guess the word, they • Students can also sort the words into groupings of their read a second letter then a third until the other team gets choice. The most basic is parts of speech, but they could it. You can devise a sliding points scale according to how devise more advanced groupings such as character many letters they need before they can get the word descriptions or physical objects • A more kinaesthetic activity is to get students into pairs • Students take a set number of slips and then they have to and have them ‘skywriting’ the vocabulary (this works best make a crossword (with self-written clues) out of them for if students are side-by-side to avoid the mirror effect of homework. They exchange crosswords amongst face-to-face skywriting) themselves at a later lesson. This works particularly well at higher levels.

It is an essential part of a 6. End of Term Destruction! • You or the students could cut all the words and phrases language teacher’s job not just to exactly in half and students have to piece them all together. Sounds easier than it is if you have amassed assume acquisition of new lexis over 100 slips (even in spite of regular ‘culls’).

but to recycle and check they The Bigger Picture When someone attends a language classroom, it is not have acquired it enough that they make progress but that they feel they are making progress. Without this feeling, demotivation can set in. Many teachers admirably recycle and revise grammatical 3. Pronunciation Activities structures constantly, but forget to do the same with • Give each student a few of the slips from the tin and they vocabulary. Getting words and phrases permanently fixed into have to mouth it silently to another student, moving on if the head is instantly rewarding for the student and the teacher. they guess correctly. As well as reminding them of the It is an essential part of a language teacher’s job not just to vocabulary, this can improve pronunciation as words have assume acquisition of new lexis but to recycle and check they to be strongly mouthed to enable successful have acquired it. comprehension • Students could group words together according to similar Having something as simple as a vocab tin can help you do stress-patterns (examples of which you can model on the this as it performs the following functions: board) • It provides an instant record of vocabulary dwelled on in the class (for you as well as the students!) 4. Vocabulary Lucky Dip • It is learner-centred in that your students can use it and revise the words at any time. They could also add words • Dead simple but a great warmer or end of lesson activity. of their own that they learnt ‘on the street’. The teacher offers the tin to a student, they pull out a slip and elicit the word to the class (i.e. by giving a synonym or • It is always at hand for immediate warmers and time-fillers antonym) and the first person to guess it wins the card if another activity takes less time than anticipated and then takes their turn to elicit. The winner is the • It provides a physical reminder to the class of the student with the most slips. You could make this a team importance of new words and lets students know that game if you have a lot of students lexis in your lesson is precious - It will not just be thrown ‘out there’ once, but returned to at a later time 5. Learner-centred Tasks • Students become confident that their ‘word power’ is increasing and this builds confidence in you as a teacher! • About once a month you can get the students to dispose of words that they feel they ‘know’. You can divide the class into 2 or more groups (if you can, this works best on the

David Tompkins did the full-time DELTA at IH London in 2003, has been a Director of Studies for a number of years and a freelance teacher trainer since 2004. He is currently the DoS at the Waterloo School of English near the British Museum.

— 6 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles Action Research Projects at IH Cordoba _

• Primarily, classroom charts can be incorporated into class routines. Routines have many benefits, but in this case it is the element of repetition that is crucial. By repeatedly exposing students to the same language point over a long period of time, their chances of retaining it greatly increase. • Secondly, classroom charts can make the language memorable, which obviously has a positive effect on students’ motivation to retain it. • Finally, classroom charts can encompass a fun element. L-R Wilma, Hannah, Becky, Susan They can be used for games, competitions, and classroom reward systems. The advantage of this usage Introduction is that students focus on the fun aspect of the activity, The following Action Research projects were carried out at IH while inadvertently absorbing the language at the same Cordoba between October and December 2005. This was the first time. In this way, a chart can disguise the language, time we had formally carried out such projects as part of the In- making it seem more fun. Service Development Programme. There were several aims: for instance, to test out some theories about EFL practice over a Research focus longer period of time, to exchange these ideas, once tried and tested, with all the staff (and the organisation), or to do something In the past, I have noticed that many students have difficulty a little different alongside the typical In-Service Development remembering, retaining, and reproducing ordinal numbers. Oral Programme formula of seminars and observations. and written reproduction of ordinal numbers is often challenging for students. For this reason, I decided to create a classroom While some academics involved in EFL regret not having enough chart that could be used to recycle ordinal numbers. My focus contact with real students in the classroom to test out their was a collaborative group effort to make a ´class calendar` with theories, the average EFL teacher often has the opposite problem a class of 9 year-olds. The calendar could then be used as part – too many classes to prepare and teach, hardly any time to reflect of future classroom routines in order to recycle ordinal numbers. on what she/he is doing. For busy EFL teachers, Action Research can provide this missing ingredient: it’s almost like using a class as an experimental laboratory. Prior expectations Perhaps the greatest benefit of Action Research is that it backs Prior to conducting my research I had an idea as to what my up a theory with much more weighty evidence than the usual “I findings would be. I was aware that using the chart would help tried that with a class and it worked really well!” It may be true, but most students remember ordinal numbers. I also hoped that it so many questions are left begging here. How did you try it? What would enhance their pronunciation and accuracy when were the group like? What evidence have you actually got to show reproducing ordinal numbers. What I was unable to foresee was ‘it worked well’? For this reason, the teacher conducting Action the extent to which it would do this. Furthermore, having decided Research should ideally present their findings to some degree, like to use a chart made by the students themselves, I was curious research scientists do. For example, by comparing findings with a to see whether or not this would have any effect on their ability control group, or by producing results (e.g. comparing students’ and inclination to remember and reproduce the target language. abilities before and after a teaching sequence) which are measurable in some way. Key findings from the target group Initially, teachers were asked to do a short (100-150 word) write up, a lot of which were accompanied by worksheets or results My findings from the target group were numerous. Primarily, tables. The four articles that follow, describe the projects and students were extremely motivated when making the chart. present the findings in longer, article form They were keen to put their own individual stamp on it and were extremely proud to have it displayed on the wall. This had a positive effect on subsequent motivation to use the chart. To what extent do classroom charts aid Secondly, the chart has worked enormously well as part of the memory? (Rebecca Foreman) class routine. I now begin every class by eliciting the date, and a different student fills in the chart every lesson. Students were so keen to be the ´chart monitor` that I had to make a rota for Background information it. Initially, this immense enthusiasm for the chart surprised me. It is widely acknowledged that the use of visual aids in the However, I now believe that it is because the students had an classroom can be highly advantageous. However, in order to active role in creating it. Furthermore, I have found that the chart exploit the use of visual aids to their full potential, it is necessary works well as a ‘settling’ activity at the start of every class. As to consider what we are using and why we are using it, as this students are so keen to use it, I have also been able to will have a significant bearing on their effectiveness. I was incorporate it into the class reward system. interested in exploring the benefits of using a visual aid over a In terms of written accuracy, the chart has had a great effect. long period of time to help students remember language. For The target group are able to spell ordinal numbers correctly with this reason, I chose to focus my action research on visual aids few errors. I believe this is because they are repeatedly exposed in the form of classroom wall charts. My research concentrated to the written form of the language every single lesson. With on the extent to which classroom charts aid memory. regards to pronunciation, the results have also been pleasing. I believe that the element of repetition involved in using a chart is key here. The chart provides an ideal moment to drill the date The benefits of using Wall Charts in the classroom each class, and as the students are repeating the language In which ways can classroom wall charts aid memory?

— 7 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 over and over, the margin for pronunciation errors diminishes. became more informal and less uncomfortable. I believe that Finally, the target group are now in no doubt whatsoever that the introduction of background music has also led to an ordinal numbers should be used for dates. The calendar is a increase in energy levels among the students. If the music tangible and real example of this usage. played is upbeat and energetic, the students tend to lose their general air of lethargy and tiredness and concentrate better. I have often noticed their feet unconsciously tapping along to the Findings from contrasting the target group music as they complete worksheets or read texts. As well as and the control group improving the classroom atmosphere, the introduction of the Conflicting evidence from the target group and the control music has also inspired students to take more of an interest in group highlighted how the use of the chart improves the learning English as popular music is an aspect of the English- students’ ability to retain ordinal numbers. Compared with the speaking culture that they enjoy. When they hear a song in control group, the target group are noticeably better at using class that they like they often ask me about the artist. This the target language and have retained it well, as subsequent interest can be exploited to make classes more fun by test results have actually proven. The control group are able to incorporating the songs on the CDs into listening activities or reproduce ordinal numbers orally, but not written, whereas the warmers such as song bingo. target group are entirely accurate at both. I also find that the music can be used to provide a structure to the class. When the music is at a reasonable volume the Future implications students know they are allowed to talk (in English!) and when it is turned off this signals that they must listen to the teacher. In With regards to my initial query, my findings strongly suggest that addition, it is possible to capitalise on the students’ interest in classroom charts undoubtedly aid memory. Furthermore, it is this aspect of the English language by encouraging them to explicitly clear that individual student input and personalisation can bring in their own music. Thus background music can be used significantly enhance motivation to use them. My findings from this both for a reward and for discipline. If students are well- research project have also reinforced my belief that repetition and behaved they can bring in their own music to make the recycling play a vital role in language acquisition. I am more aware classroom a place they want to be in, whereas if they speak now of how effective wall charts, and visual aids in general, can Spanish the music is turned off and they have to work in be. The beauty of using a chart in class is that it ensures long-term silence, which they dislike. revision and recycling of a specific language point. This is not only helpful to students, but to the teacher as well. Increasing teenagers’ motivation to learn English is of course a very important factor in teaching, as the students show The future implications of this research for my own teaching much greater willingness to learn in a more relaxed, teen- are varied. I plan to exploit charts as much as possible, perhaps friendly environment. However, the biggest improvement that not limiting their use to young learner classrooms but with background music has made to my classes has been evident adults as well. in fluency activities. Whenever I ask students to speak, I turn I also plan to maximise the use of materials that are made by up the volume of the music so that in order to hear each other the students themselves, as this had such a positive effect on students are forced to speak more loudly. This encourages motivation and interest. I plan to extend this to other visual aids, them to articulate clearly instead of mumbling, improving their such as flashcards and posters, and I will be interested to see delivery. It also addresses the fundamental problem of the if the results are the same. students’ lack of confidence. A large part of their reluctance to speak arises from their self-consciousness and fear of looking stupid in front of their peers. I found that before I introduced Motivating Teenagers through Background background music into my classes the students would speak Music (Hannah Murray-Pepper) at a level barely above a whisper because they did not want My class of ten thirteen-year-old Pre-Intermediate teenagers other students to hear them. In addition to impeding their pose many challenges, especially with regard to fluency delivery and cutting short fluency activities, this tendency activities. When asked to speak, the students tend to mumble made it extremely difficult for me to correct their pronunciation, or whisper the bare minimum before fading into an as I was unwilling to further undermine their confidence. embarrassed silence. When I first started teaching the class I Thus my use of background music has greatly increased the found it very difficult to persuade them to try out new language value of speaking activities. The students’ delivery has and to regard speaking as a fun communicative activity rather improved and they are willing to speak for longer as they no than an arduous task imposed by the teacher. I identified the longer have to worry that other students are listening. They main causes of the students’ unwillingness to speak as lack of have also proved to be more willing to experiment with new confidence due to their low language level, the acute self- language and ask for help. While formerly students who were consciousness that is natural to many thirteen-year-olds and a struggling were unwilling to ask for help in front of the others in general lack of interest in the English language. the class, they now feel able to ask me for new vocabulary and To address the problem of the students’ motivation I decided for feedback on whether they have said something correctly. to base my action research project on popular music, which is The music has also enabled me to do much more error often the only contact that teenagers have with the English correction. A lot of the students have great problems with language outside the classroom. I made several CDs featuring pronunciation and I can now spend time correcting them and English language artists who are generally popular with drilling individual words as the students, secure in the teenagers, such as Eminem, Britney Spears and Coldplay. knowledge that the others cannot hear, are no longer crippled During the three months of my action research project I played by self-consciousness. Now that they are less embarrassed this music every class, keeping the volume low during reading about speaking, the students are starting to regard fluency and writing activities and turning it up during speaking activities. activities more as a fun part of the class and less as a potentially humiliating experience. The introduction of background music had an immediate effect on the students’ motivation. Because this particular Now that background music is an established part of the group of students are quite shy, most classroom activities had class routine, I am planning to experiment with lots of follow-up taken place in virtual silence, which was not conducive to a activities. By capitalising on the students’ interest in the music, relaxing or fun classroom dynamic. As soon as I started playing I hope to make their classes more interesting and relevant to music in class, the students visibly relaxed and the atmosphere their lives through listening activities with songs and also

— 8 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles through readings, internet projects and writing activities picture which he thinks corresponds to the word. He then involving some of the artists whose songs I regularly play. By passes the picture card to C and takes the word cards to choose inviting my students to bring their own music I am trying to one, and so on round the class. encourage a classroom atmosphere that is based on Some of the twelve recorded words came up in classwork, but negotiation between teacher and students and that provides a I took care not to pronounce them. At the end of the project period comfortable and relaxed learning environment for everyone. I gave each student his or her word card and asked them to look up the word again with a view to pronunciation. I then recorded The Phonetic Chart (Wilma Dyer) the students again, and later compared the two recordings. Nine out of the eleven students who had previously pronounced wrongly The aim of my research project was to ascertain to what extent now produced correct pronunciation. The other two pronounced a knowledge of the phonetic chart could make students more the sounds correctly, but stumbled over the stress - I had not autonomous in their learning of pronunciation, and to discover clearly pointed out the dictionary’s symbol before the stressed whether there were other benefits from learning the phonetic syllable. However, students were generally able to discover and chart for the students. I had not taught the phonetic chart correctly produce the pronunciation of words for which they had systematically since the 80’s, when it was more fashionable to had no model, just by looking at the phonetic transcription. do so. Meanwhile it had just hung neglected in the corner Hopefully they would begin to feel more independent of the teacher except when, occasionally, I heard a dreadful rendering of a and encouraged to try out new vocabulary. word, and would triumphantly tap the correct phoneme. As a follow-up students listened to the recordings, Students would gasp admiringly as I gave the pronunciation of appreciating the improvement, and were asked to find out how the alien-looking symbol. They tried to imitate me, and then the dictionary could help them to produce the correct stress. generally sighed with relief when I moved on to something else. With dictionaries closed they pointed to the phonemes on the My subjects for the project were a class of twelve 13-14 year- chart which corresponded to their words. In subsequent old students beginning Pre-Intermediate level and the project classes I recycled other vocabulary by writing the phonetic took place over a period of six weeks. My reservations were that transcription on the board, or when asked the pronunciation of some teenagers might not take pronunciation work seriously, a word. If necessary, I wrote transcriptions for new vocabulary. especially the production of single sounds, which might lead to I found that there were many subsequent benefits for the general hilarity and discipline problems! I also wondered students. Confidence in speaking grew, as their first attempt at whether I would have time to fit phonetics into a tight schedule producing a word was generally correct after consulting a preparing for level exams and KET. It was a two-hour a week dictionary or from my indication of the correct phonemes. There class and language needed a lot of recycling after the Thursday was less TTT, which teenagers appreciate as they don’t like to Tuesday interval. being ‘modelled at’ too often . The phonetic chart or cards with The procedure was as follows. I chose twelve words, which phonemes and pictures for distinction games provided a I felt, would cause problems of pronunciation because, firstly, change of focus, and the teaching or recycling of items could many English words are not pronounced as they are spelt, and be integrated with pronunciation work. Intensive listening also secondly, students tend to use the five Spanish vowel sounds improved with the new awareness of sounds. They were able to attempt to produce the twenty vowel and diphthong sounds to record the pronunciation of new items. Although at first the in English! The words were as follows: students found the sounds amusing, this only served as a little light relief. They were genuinely interested in learning the sound receipt queue although advisable breath draught system (perhaps because this age-group finds codes fascinating), and they found it a change from the input of the encourage lettuce nautical bargain humour enough usual language items. I felt that the students paid special attention as they felt that they were learning something that could not be taught in the same way elsewhere. I was fairly sure that the students hadn’t been taught how to pronounce the words at this level. Each student was given one Monolingual classes often feel that pronunciation ‘doesn’t word on a card and asked to look up the meaning in a dictionary. matter’, or are not even aware that they are pronouncing I then recorded each student pronouncing his or her word. Only incorrectly. After a short time, a native English teacher begins one of the students later claimed to have studied the phonetic to understand and overlook the mispronunciation, which may chart at school, but his pronunciation of ‘draught’ was wrong, so cause communication problems with an outsider. While he was either not very well taught or not used to checking the appreciating the current trend to accept a ‘just understandable’ pronunciation in the dictionary. The rest of the students also level of pronunciation, especially between non-English pronounced the words incorrectly, except for one, ‘queue’. I can speaking nationalities (students can’t be expected to acquire a only assume that he had heard a good model of this word. native-speaker accent), I feel that an imbalance exists. With knowledge and teaching of the phonetic chart, however, Over the six weeks I taught the class the consonants, students become more autonomous, and both the students concentrating on those which are pronounced differently in and the teacher see pronunciation as being just as important as Spanish, the single vowels, and the dipthongs. Initial practice achieving a high level of proficiency in the four skills or acquiring activities included production, matching recorded sounds with a large number of language items. I shall certainly continue to phonemes, recalling the example word on the chart when shown make use of this helpful tool hanging in the corner! the ’phoneme-only’ side, finding more examples of words with the same phoneme, and odd-one-out exercises. I used several warmers for reinforcement, for example, mouthing sounds for Homework in Company Classes students to guess, which really focused the students’ attention at (Susan Mulquiney) the beginning of the class. Another one they enjoyed consisted of tapping out a word by indicating phonemes on the chart. You This can be an area of frustration for teachers and a stone around increase speed as students become more proficient and the best students’ necks, which then develops into a vicious circle of guilt. students can take over the tapping. The following is a ‘golden Many company students truly have difficulty finding time to do oldie’ to practise minimal pairs, such as ‘hat’ and ‘hut’. Draw a homework, especially in companies where they are working until picture of each item on either side of a large piece of card. Write 10pm (very frequent in Spain), before going home to young families. the words on two very small pieces of card. Student A secretly This Action Research Project is based on the theory that chooses one of the words and pronounces it. B shows the adult students will do reading homework (as opposed to

— 9 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 written) if it is based on work or personal interests, i.e. if seen to be left as coffee table reading for non-class colleagues. as a source of information relevant to their company, or simply English classes (and homework) can have a wider impact on thought provoking, rather than as ‘homework’ or language the company as a whole. practice. Students tend to shy away from the word All reading homework was the basis for a minimum 10 minutes ‘homework’ (‘flinch’ is probably a better word) and respond (sometimes extended to 20, depending on student interest, more readily to any euphemism, such as “Have a look at this if questions and ideas generated) of language analysis and practice you’ve got time: it’s quite interesting”. at the beginning of the class. A lot of preparation is involved. Various steps were followed: Step 1: Students filled in a Course ‘Winning’ by Jack Welch (ex-president of General Electric) Objectives sheet (See Appendix 1 below) in which they were was an excellent source of reading material asked to prioritise various components of the course. Homework was, in fact, given very low priority by the three students in two different classes. Step 2: Students then answered a Class Survey Appendix 1.Course Objectives (See Appendix 2 below) in which question 6 asked them to rank What are your priorities? typical homework activities in order of usefulness. Results were: 1. Put numbers 1-5: 1=very important Workbook exercises. 2. Newspaper articles. 3. Other (Speak Up, DVDs, CD ROMs, novels, exam practice etc). 4. Internet 2=important activities. However, when discussing question 7 (Which of these 3=not very important homework activities is the most reasonably do-able in terms of 4=not important at all time and motivation?), students made the point that articles and 5=not sure photocopies were easier to carry around and whip out at any dead moment. They don’t have to be in front of a computer, or carry around cumbersome books. ■ Base classes on topics rather than grammar Two of the students are in the habit of surfing English ■ Become more fluent in speaking websites (especially BBC, CNN and Academy website links) for ■ Practise business vocabulary 15-20 minutes each morning, especially before class but this was not considered ‘homework’! One student, who has young ■ Improve listening skills children, likes watching Disney films, satellite TV etc. in English ■ Reach an English-only situation in class with them, but, again, would never consider this as homework. ■ An emphasis on grammar in class All three regularly read business management manuals and articles by business gurus (e.g. Peter Drucker, Jack Welch) ■ Continue with intensive newspaper article reading practice translated into Spanish: giving them the original English to read ■ More systematic monitoring of homework activities (downloaded from the internet) has been extremely motivating. ■ Step 3: A list was kept of all homework given during the 3 ■ Greater use of the internet in class months, and whether or not it was actually done. ■ Focus on writing practice in class

Findings Appendix 2. Class Survey Despite the high priority given to exercises in the initial survey, 1. When was the last time you: these were very rarely done. Reading of newspaper articles was spoke in English always carried out, but not if the task was grammar/lexis read in English outside class? based. Typical instructions that seemed to work best were: wrote in English Read and think about - how you would answer the questions in the article listened to something in English • whether or not you agree 2. What motivates you most? • your recommendations. • how this affects your company. 3. Are there any class activities that you consider useless or de-motivating? Their favourites were anything in the form of a questionnaire or bullet points (e.g. excerpts from ‘Winning’ by Jack Welch ). 4. Can you remember any class where you came out feeling Surprisingly, the one time an Internet activity was set as you had really achieved or learnt something? homework was the one day two of the students decided not to indulge in their usual morning routine. This is possibly because 5. What do you find the most difficult? their perception of the activity had changed and it was now ‘homework’, i.e. to be avoided at all cost. 6. Tick the activity that you consider the most useful as homework: What next? ■ Exercises from the class textbook There is a need to follow up the idea of student perception of ■ Exercises from the internet what constitutes ‘homework’: something they will never find time to do because they are too busy reading English ■ Reading and listening on the internet (e.g. BBC English) property/construction/business magazines, leafing through ■ Reading newspaper articles related to your work and/or ‘Hello’, surfing the Internet, watching ‘Shrek’ in English for the interests 210th time with their kids and dipping into the latest best-selling ■ Other? (e.g. Speak Up magazine and CD, DVDs etc.) management book with a dictionary! This research could perhaps be extended to other company 7. Which of these homework activities is the most reasonably classes/ IH schools, in order to compare findings, as my target do-able in terms of time and motivation? group was extremely small. N.B. Some of the newspaper articles have been considered 8. What do you think you do well in English? so useful that students have taken them to the company lounge

— 10 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles Running a Young Learner Department Jenny McKane

rior to becoming Children’s Co-ordinator (my job title) at IH Córdoba, I was a full-time teacher and had no we run an IHCYL Course for new Pexperience in Teacher Training or Academic Management. After a year of being Children’s Co-ordinator, I then attended a couple of courses in Hastings both of which teachers recruited for the following were to help me enormously in the running of the YL Department.. year and they gain a lot of practical As I see it, the job of a Young Learner Co-ordinator can be divided into five clearly defined areas: help and ‘know how’ from the

1. School Management course before the term starts. 2. Class Organisation about their child’s progress, behaviour, performance etc. I find 3. Teacher Care and Development that it is very important to always be available at certain times of 4. Student Care and Development the day so that the parents, who are our clients, can come and 5. Self-Care and Development talk to me about any aspect in the process of their child’s learning of English. Experience has taught me that, when we explain what we do and how we teach in the classroom, then 1. School Management we have to make it very clear to parents that we know exactly This involves a wide variety of activities which are vital for both what we are doing and make them see that learning English with the daily-running of the school as well as achieving the long-term us is a worthwhile investment. goals of any academic year. In any YL Department, at any time This leads me onto the subject of a Study Plan. One of the in the year, there are always a number of issues that need to be most frequent questions asked by parents at IH Córdoba is “My seen to on a daily basis. I like to start the day by talking to the child has been here for X number of years. How much longer secretaries so that they can fill me in on any appointments I have does he have to be here before he gets any kind of diploma?” with parents. I have a diary, which is kept in the main office, and This is where the Study Plan is very effective and shows that the secretaries are in charge of giving appointments to those there is coherence as well as continuity in what we teach. It is parents who wish to consult me or who I would like to speak to as if it were “the backbone” of the entire YL Department and

— 11 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 without it, neither the daily running nor the long term planning can inform you of how the children cope with the course books. of my YL Department would run so smoothly. Other areas of At the end of the academic year a detailed feedback form, filled School Management which need careful planning and in by the teachers, will help you to decide if the book was a preparation are: success or not and therefore allow you to decide whether or not it should continue to be used the following year. Enrolment: Choosing the right time in the academic year to enrol children allows for a more organised form of enrolment and Timetables: Once the enrolment procedure is well under way, helps me get a clear picture of students who are re-enrolling as I have to set up the teachers’ timetables for the following year. well as reminding those who forget or re-allocating those who Students usually continue in the same groups, at the same need a change of time or day. Once all of these students have times, unless they specifically request something different. By been assigned their groups, then new students can do the end of June I have got a very clear picture of the timetable placement tests in order to be allocated a place in the already for the following year and so the next step is to allocate teachers established ones. We do enrolment in the month of May for those and groups. Every teacher has got a minimum of three to four students who are continuing from one year to the next, as well as classes of children between the ages of four and twelve. for any of their brothers and sisters who are enrolling for the first Children can come either two or three hours a week depending time. As from the beginning of June, enrolment is open to anyone on their ages and preferences. On receiving their timetables for who has never previously studied at our school. the coming year, at the end of September, teachers also receive their course books along with the course objectives and targets for the levels they have been assigned. They are also informed if Reports and Report Cards: As YL Co-ordinator you need the class is eligible to do an ESOL exam so that exam training to think about how often you want to send out reports to can commence at the beginning of the year. parents, what information you would like to pass on to them and how you intend to express that information. Report cards are an important link between the teacher and the parents. 3. Teacher Care and Development However, in the case of a weak student or one who is not Before the new academic year begins, we run an IHCYL progressing for a wide variety of reasons, I feel then, that it is Course for those new teachers who have been recruited for the my duty as YL Co-ordinator to contact the parents as soon as following year. This course replaces any other form of Induction a teacher expresses his concern for that student. I always try for teaching both children and adolescents because as our to be one step ahead of parents and prefer to be able to tell teachers have such a high percentage of these classes and them about any difficulty which has been detected. Parents they gain a lot of practical help and ‘know how’ from the course don’t appreciate nasty surprises being sprung on them in the before the term starts. Throughout the year we have follow-up form of a report card at the end of a term. They like to be told seminars every fortnight which help to reinforce and put into straight away about their child’s difficulty, misbehaviour etc, are practice what was learnt on the IHCYL. There are also a series willing to co-operate with the school and take a great interest of observation rounds throughout the year, which are based on in the follow-up of their child’s conduct, attitude, learning etc. seminars or input sessions given previously. We also encourage Monthly meetings with teachers are a good way to keep in teachers to give seminars, do action research and go to touch with what is going on in the classroom, as well as for seminars as well as doing peer observation. talking about students, their progress or lack of it, and class targets and objectives. 4. Student Care and Development The role of the YL Co-ordinator for a child is a very significant ESOL Exams: One of the objectives of the YL Department is one. I feel that the children need to see him or her as a friendly to prepare the children for ESOL YL exams. Course books are figure who can be approached for help and guidance in the chosen accordingly and exam preparation takes place during same way that any parents can. Sometimes students need normal class time. For the YL Co-ordinator, this means deciding extra help in the form of explanations in the mother tongue, which levels and / or age groups are eligible for the year in back-up classes or to talk to someone in authority who they question, informing parents of all the exam information can share their problem with. (Problems can range from not including enrolment and preparing the children for both the having an excuse note to bullying). It’s vital for a YL Co- written and oral exams. ordinator to be ‘seen around the school’ and to be available at the time when the children are having classes. Parents and Statistics: One area of my job, which is most revealing, is that children alike enjoy being asked about how the classes are of working out statistics within the YL Department. It’s very going and appreciate a smile or a ‘sympathetic ear’ at times. important to be able to know if and why your YL Department On the other hand, a YL Co-ordinator also has to be prepared has grown or not. This enables you to think about what to show the serious side to their character and deal with direction the department is going in and what you need to do children who are misbehaving or are causing havoc in the about it. If you want a YL Department to be a success, you classroom. We have to remember that parents are paying for need to know if children return every year, if they bring their their children to learn English and this is what we advertise we brothers and sisters, how they found out about your school etc, do, so, if a child is not responding correctly, we need to do and if a child doesn’t come back, or drops out during the something about it. The child may need a talking to, and the school year, it’s vital that you know the reasons why. All this parents informing, so that everyone involved can help put the information can help a YL Co-ordinator give a better quality of child ‘on the right track’ by deciding on the action to be taken. service to his/her clients. The YL Co-ordinator then needs to ensure that everything discussed is carried out and follow-up meetings scheduled, to help keep parents in touch with how their child is responding to 2. Class Organisation the action taken. Course Books: Choosing the ‘right’ course book is always a difficult task but if you are aware of your students’ needs and 5. Self-Care and Development take into account the books available on the market, then you can make firm decisions about which books to use with the It would be very hard to run a YL Department without the help and children. Teachers can also be of invaluable help because they support of others. A YL Co-ordinator is only one member of the

— 12 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles human resources team, all of whom are essential in the smooth done. Without this reflection it would be almost impossible to running of the YL Department. It would be impossible for a YL Co- make an honest appraisal of the Department. It also helps you to ordinator to do all of the things all of the time, so he/ she needs to learn from your mistakes as well as to evaluate your successes organise everything on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis in and therefore motivates you to make plans for the future. co-ordination with the rest of the team. Learning to prioritise your To sum up then, I would say that a YL Co-ordinator needs to work is probably one of the hardest things to learn to do. Time work closely with office staff, teachers, students and parents in management is crucial, especially when you only have a certain order to run a YL Department successfully. All of these people number of hours within your timetable to deal with the entire play a vital role in the daily running of the school as well as in running of the YL Department. What’s to do? Be prepared to the long term goals set by the DoS team. Without the help and delegate, learn to listen to people, prioritise, organise and try out cooperation of all these people, the work of a YL Co-ordinator different coping strategies. One of the most important things to do would be much more chaotic, difficult and stressful. is to ‘think’. Thinking time is reflective time and allows you to reflect on what’s been done, what’s being done and what’s yet to be

Jenny started working with International House in 1979 in Sabadell where she worked for two years. She then taught for a year in IH Gerona. In 1982 she moved to Andalusia and started teaching in IH Córdoba where she has been working ever since. She has been Children´s Co-Ordinator in Córdoba since October 1995.

Young Learner DVD Training Course from IH Madrid Steven McGuire

he YL DVD Training Course came about after a need to foreign language to adults provide example classes on film to show parents at and children. T school presentations. In 2002, I was asked to prepare a I made a pilot film called short film of typical classes for the parents of potential students ‘Revision Games’ which in private schools in the Madrid area. We felt that although the featured Neil Armstrong, usual PowerPoint presentation of the facts was useful, what Director of the IH Madrid the parents really wanted to know was what happened in the Young Learners department, classroom. I set about filming a range of levels and different organising a game which was classroom activities which aimed to show the parents, and the set up to revise one use of the school authorities, that our classes were communicative, present perfect - but it dynamic and fun! showed much more. Neil demonstrated how a group of children can Shortly after the presentations, and with about 4 hours of filming be encouraged to work together negotiating, guessing, and still in my digital camera, it occurred to me that this footage could practising the target language before offering an answer to the be put to another good use - that of teacher training. One of the teacher in order to win a point for their team. The film also issues for teachers embarking on teaching young learners for the demonstrated good examples of eliciting, nominating, checking first time is knowing what to expect and how the children behave meaning, and effective classroom management. and react in the classroom. Unlike observing adult classes, children From there, I set about filming a range of levels and lesson types. often act very differently when other adults, apart from their The first films were made on VHS and a year later we had six titles teacher, are in the room. As our young learners’ department was under our belt. The most useful for me, as a teacher and trainer, rapidly growing it was clear that the possibility of organising were the infant sessions. I had a number of years of teaching observations for a vast number of teachers was simply not viable. primary children but my CELTA, DELTA and seven years’ We needed a way to allow a large number of our teachers to watch experience of teaching kids at International House Madrid never a range of classes - from infants to teenagers - without disrupting really prepared me for three to five year-olds. These modules, our day-to-day teaching schedule. This is how the ‘Video Project’, ‘Essential Planning’ and ‘Using Toys and Realia’, really broadened as it was then called, was born. my understanding of how to manage classes of very young I thought about my own experience on CELTA and DELTA learners. Having had the opportunity to teach a group of three- courses, watching filmed classes as part of the observation year-olds the following year, I can confidently say that the component of the course. I remembered that the trainers set a series approaches and techniques that I saw Neil demonstrate in these of tasks for the trainees to work through while viewing the videos. I films really work. My own personal favourite from the course is also remember not doing as well as my colleagues, perhaps ‘Children’s Stories’, where Kate Pickering shows how to fully because I wasn’t watching out for the right things or maybe I was exploit a story and make it into a complete lesson. After watching focusing on something else. It occurred to me that it would have this module, teachers should be able to apply the model to a been helpful to have had an experienced teacher sitting right beside number of other classic stories. me, guiding me through the lesson plan and prompting me to watch I continued to film and expand the range. ‘Reading and out for the ‘important bits’. This made me think about an on-screen Listening’ shows Steve Ward, one of the best YL teachers I have commentary that would highlight key teaching techniques, as and ever observed, lifting a reading lesson from the coursebook and when they were happening. This would allow teachers to focus on making it into a very hands-on, communicative class. ‘Pairwork essential elements of a good young learners’ lesson: classroom and Groupwork’ shows older primary children preparing their own management, giving instructions, clarifying meaning, correcting and dialogues for a fun celebrity interview. ‘Movement and Dance’, with rewarding children. I was convinced a film of this kind would help the abounding energy of Lucy Brown, clearly highlights the degree underscore the main differences between teaching English as a

— 13 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 to which children, with a very low level of English, can understand teaching techniques of the lesson and includes answers for the and respond to the language and it underlines the benefit of only post-watching activities. If Directors of Studies or teacher trainers speaking English to our young students. use the modules as in-service training, the full course constitutes As more schools moved over to DVD, we decided to do the about 8 hours of YL seminars. Many International House Schools same with the training films. The obvious advantages are the use the DVD training films as a supplement on the IH CYL course quality of the film and the ability to skip forward and back through and they are an invaluable component in our own training of infant, the film to re-view key scenes. It also means that we can package primary and secondary state school teachers here in Madrid. the whole course on two DVDs and ship it in one box. If you would like to know more about this training package then The films can be used as a stand alone training package but you can view a trailer which shows a small clip of the 8 titles they work best when viewed by a group of teachers who can share currently available at our sister web site their own experiences, no matter how limited, with their www.languagetoolbox.com You can also contact us at colleagues. Each module comes with a worksheet of tasks for International House Madrid for more information. I hope you get as teachers to tackle before, during and after the film. Each film has much enjoyment out of the modules as I have an on-screen commentary which picks out the key elements and had filming them.

Steven McGuire is Director of English Teacher Training at IH Madrid. As well as CELTA and the IH Madrid YL Certificate Course, he also trains primary and secondary state school teachers in Madrid. www.ihmadrid.com

Knowledge Management - What Organisations Need to Know Andrew Nye

The last few years have seen a rapidly growing successful companies are those that know where knowledge interest in the topic of knowledge management. resides, disseminate this knowledge through the organisation, Today many large organisations have some form of and embody it in services, ensuring continuous innovation and knowledge management initiative - some have improved customer service. Knowledge is therefore widely recognised as a critical organisational resource irrespective of created knowledge teams and a few have appointed economic sector or type of organisation. CKOs (Chief Knowledge Officers). Knowledge is firmly on the strategic agenda, but what is knowledge management all about? Knowledge management Definitions of the complex, multilayered, multifaceted concept of knowledge management abound. Broadly, it is an approach to Many years ago, when I was living in Brazil, the eccentric owner of adding or creating value by more actively leveraging the know- the school where I was working insisted on taking me for a game of how, experience, ideas and judgement that resides within an golf one weekend. The young Brazilian at the club who offered to organisation, in order to improve its performance. Most large firms carry my bag round the course did far more for me that afternoon only capture and act on a fraction of the knowledge contained than save some of my energy and track my wayward balls; he gave within their organisation. Sometimes this knowledge is hidden me accurate advice for the best strategy in playing the course, within dozens of databases, reports and information systems. In which club to choose and where the flag was located. Without other cases, knowledge is locked inside someone’s head, and is knowing it as such at the time, I had benefited from some lost to the organisation when that person leaves the business. A knowledge management, and this knowledge was of far more use vast amount of resource is wasted in corporations by unwittingly to me than the basic information contained on the card of the repeating the same mistakes or failing to repeat useful discoveries. course would have been. Knowledge management is one of the Knowledge management describes a range of strategies and most talked about business developments of recent years. Does it tools that try to capture this valuable knowledge, to deliver it to have anything relevant to say or should it be dismissed as just other people who can benefit from it, and to ensure that another management fad? information can be acted on swiftly to the firm’s advantage.

Knowledge and the new knowledge economy What kind of knowledge? Knowledge, and the systematic transferring of knowledge, has An odd paradox is that many organisations are drowning in data arguably always had, in varying degrees, some part to play in and information, but lacking in useful, actionable knowledge. With human economic and productive endeavour. All management is, technology plunging in price and soaring in capability, it is all too and was, about managing knowledge, and all firms are (and easy to be persuaded that what is required are elaborate and were) in essence knowledge organisations. The concept of complex databases to try to capture, store and codify knowledge. ‘knowledge workers’ is also not a new one, however the This perspective of ‘explicit’ knowledge views it as independent of difference today is that the principles of management take human action, and that which can be appropriated by account of the critical role of knowledge, and also that a greater organisations or exchanged as any other commodity. As this stock of knowledge supports a higher level of productivity. There perspective presumes that knowledge can be separated from the is now a greater amount of knowledge in any organisation which minds of individuals, this goal of knowledge management is people at all levels have accumulated about what customers therefore to convert the knowledge residing in the minds of people want, about how best to design products and processes, about into structural assets owned by the firm and stored in the firm’s what has worked in the past and what has not. In an era knowledge management system. Once codified, the knowledge characterised by rapid change and uncertainty, it is claimed that can then be transferred, shared, built upon and retained. — 14 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles

Such explicit knowledge is likely to be ‘knowing-what’, feel committed to their organisation, are kept well informed and whereas the often more valuable, but harder to transfer, ‘tacit involved in decision-making, and believe its leaders are worth knowledge' (‘knowing-how’) is neglected. Know-how embraces supporting. Where the processes of people management are the ability to put know-what into practice. The importance of neglected, and there is a misunderstanding of what knowledge people as creators and carriers of knowledge has forced is and how it is created and shared, the practice of knowledge organisations to realise that this inimitable, ‘tacit’ knowledge that management is dogged with difficult and persistent problems. provides competitive advantage is not stored in its databases (nor can it be) but in its people. It is widely believed that for the great majority of companies, know-how rather than know-what Leadership and senior management support is the more important productive resource. Knowledge management of course takes place in every This organisational, or social process, perspective is one organisation, even if it is not recognised as such, nor which views knowledge as being embedded in the interactions systematically applied. Any time and place where people meet between stakeholders, influenced by organisational structures and share ideas and experiences knowledge is being enriched, and cultures, and in which knowledge is continually being re- but to share and synthesize ideas for making informed decisions created through interaction and social networking. Experience at that will serve customers and stakeholders better, then senior work creates its own knowledge, and as most work is a management’s ongoing support is essential. collective, cooperative venture, so most knowledge is less held Little will be achieved unless (senior) management buys into by individuals than shared by work groups, and embodied in the the importance of knowledge management and into a organisation’s personnel and in the routines that govern their formalised knowledge management programme, grounded in working relationships with colleagues and customers. People do the company’s strategy and linked to its strategic goals so that not learn how to do their work from impersonal sources of knowledge-sharing activities evolve in a coherent way and information, but through interactions with others, therefore the whose impact on organisational performance can be assessed. goal of this perspective is to connect experts with knowledge Employees often complain that they do not have the time to seekers through discussion, mutual engagement and exchange. share and that the organisational structure does not really support effective knowledge sharing. Clearly articulating the link between knowledge and organisational benefits and then The challenge companies face embedding it in the practices and processes of the organisation, Realising the vast potential of this tacit knowledge companies as a sustained process not a quick fix, will ensure that staff have hold, but often are unable to harness, requires certain strategies the time to participate. and conditions, without which there is a danger of organisational amnesia. It is often hard for employees to get the information they need because of internal divisions: valuable information is How can infrastructure and knowledge processes trapped in silos in organisations, and cannot therefore be help to make information and knowledge available? shared. The costs of non-cooperating organisational fiefdoms In a culture that supports connection, forums, tools and and silos are immense. Real knowledge that people can act on opportunities for informal networking can be provided to comes from the generative, dynamic aspect of collaborating encourage and support the active sharing of knowledge. Many employees who choose when to invest their knowledge, and collaborative tools may already exist in an organisation, such as how much knowledge to invest in their company. An discussion forums, mailing lists, internet chat, but how much organisation’s knowledge can only be enhanced by catalysts participation is there in discussion forums? Are the experiences that encourage these decisions. Simply employing an individual gained from face-to-face meetings well captured? Could they be is not a guarantee that the investment will be made, so instead shared with a wider audience? Is data, information and the organisation’s task is to stimulate this investment by creating knowledge available from past projects? the appropriate conditions. ‘Managing knowledge’ therefore Changes in culture are recognised as being difficult to means managing the owners of that knowledge effectively and achieve, and even then are likely to take considerable time. For creating the organisational, enabling conditions for employees to organisations that want to leverage more quickly the collective engage in the sharing and creating of valuable, tacit knowledge knowledge of their workers, the building and nurturing of which is unlikely to be found in a database. A supportive Communities of Practice may offer a faster route. organisational culture is therefore a key prerequisite for knowledge sharing. Communities of Practice Organisational culture Communities of Practice are groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise. Even if all knowledge was codifiable, (which it is not), and even They are different from teams and functional units as they are self- if perfect IT systems existed, (which they do not), employees organising systems allowing members to decide what matters to would still have to be willing to contribute their knowledge to the systems to make them work. Knowledge management describes The assumption is often that the introduction of a new tool that provides the ability to diffuse knowledge, automatically a range of strategies and tools that produces an incentive to do so. Technology is an important element in getting results from investing in knowledge but is subsidiary to that of an organisational culture which allows it to try to capture valuable knowledge flow freely. The ability to generate a culture which emphasises commitment, trust, collaboration, appropriate rewards and deliver it to other people who can responsible autonomy is key to the task of knowledge sharing, as is the constant attempt to break down barriers and benefit from it, and ensure that hierarchies, and communicate better. This culture of collaboration will only work if the right incentives are in place to information can be acted on swiftly persuade people to work in unconventional ways. Employees can only volunteer knowledge – it cannot be forced out of them. However, they will be more likely to share their knowledge if they to the firm’s advantage — 15 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 them, what to hold each other accountable to, and what their be asked if one knows something in the context of a need is lifespan should be. Their purpose is to develop knowledge, not more likely to elicit a response, than to be asked to try and codify based on business or functional units, but instead across knowledge in the absence of that context. business units or other forms of organisational boundary. Research has shown that people most freely share Blogs experiences in such informal and self-organising networks, and such socially constructed communities are the true mechanisms Information in context is the driving idea behind weblogs, through which people learn, and work gets done. Although they described by Fortune magazine as the number one business work outside formal structures it becomes necessary for technology trend for 2005 and included in the Harvard Business organisations to create and promote these environments; they Review list of breakthrough ideas for 2005. Blogs encourage need to be supported by managers so that the learning people to share their context with their particular community in generated by them can be effectively utilized. Their potential order to communicate experience and transfer learning. fragility suggests that a nurturing and cultivating, rather than managing, leadership style is needed to make the best use of Post project reviews / learning histories them. Over-managing them will just produce another Knowledge sharing becomes embedded when members of hierarchical reporting structure. (project) teams regularly take time to reflect on their performance Recent studies have suggested an association between moral (e.g. through after action reviews, post project reviews) and distil obligation to the community and levels of knowledge sharing. them into processes (i.e. lessons learned) that will help others by The development of a strong network of like-minded individuals making tacit knowledge implicit. The processes which were who share a common understanding is conducive to the undertaken are written up, and the list of lessons learned is then development of an environment typified by high levels of trust, available to be instrumental in improving future performance. shared behavioural norms, mutual respect and reciprocity. Such Learning from mistakes and failure can also be addressed in this an environment has been identified as being high in social way, so that staff record the equally valuable learning from capital, and has been linked directly with the processes of the ‘failed’ or unsuccessful projects and from the logic and creation and sharing of knowledge. Indeed, it is suggested that assumptions which underlay decisions. Learning from good and a Community of Practice functions as an engine for the bad experience, and then sharing that learning, aims to avoid development of social capital, which in turn creates wasting resources by unwittingly repeating the same mistakes, organisational value. Specifically, four broad areas that or failing to repeat useful discoveries. Communities of Practice benefit have been noted:

Conclusion • decreasing the learning curve of new employees by helping them locate experts and foster relationships, and Tacit knowledge is the real gold in knowledge management and by helping them understand the larger context in which unlocking, and leveraging, this hidden treasure will improve they perform their day-to-day tasks and how these impact knowledge flows and often provide the catalysts to begin the other individuals and processes. process of cultural change. However, just because knowledge can be collected does not mean it will be; employees must be • responding more rapidly to needs and enquiries, motivated to do so by the organisation’s culture, measurement particularly the case when expertise is separated by and reward system, and the statements and role modelling of organisational boundaries. senior management. The old paradigm was knowledge is • reducing rework and preventing ‘reinvention of the wheel’ power, but today it needs to be explicitly understood that by reusing existing knowledge assets. sharing knowledge is power. I have no idea how the system • spawning new ideas for products and services by the worked at the Brazilian golf club but if caddies are willing to sharing of a variety of perspectives and bringing in new share what they know with other caddies then they may all earn and divergent points of view. bigger tips from satisfied golfers. The golfers play better because they benefit from the collective experience of the caddies, and the golf club secures more repeat business from these satisfied As one of the important influences on the formation of a golfers posting better scores and more new business as word Community of Practice is not the proximity of its members, or a gets round about the club. The end result of a well-designed shared culture, but the trust relationships operating between knowledge management programme is that everyone wins. groups and individuals, communities can also exist virtually. Although lacking the richness of face-to-face dialogue, the benefit of online discussion forums is that the conversation References becomes accessible to the whole of the community and can be Ardichvili, A, Page, V. and Wentling, T. (2003) ‘Motivation and archived and accessed by other members. Similarly, a single barriers to participation in virtual knowledge-sharing request may generate many responses and points of view. In communities of practice’, Journal of Knowledge Management, globally dispersed companies, (that disrupt the social nature of Vol. 7, Issue 1, pp.64-77. the workplace community where tacit knowledge lives and Beaumont, P. and Hunter, L. (2002) Managing Knowledge thrives), virtual Communities of Practice supported by Internet Workers. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and technologies are among the few viable alternatives to live Development. interactions and knowledge exchange. Boddy, D., Boonstra, A., and Kennedy, G. (2002) Managing One approach to knowledge management is to create a Information Systems. Harlow: Pearson. system where all information goes to everyone, which is hugely inefficient. Another tells people what others think they need to Brown, J. and Duguid, P. (2000) The Social Life of Information. know, which may not match their real needs. The third enables Boston: Harvard Business School Press. them to find out for themselves whatever they want to know and Economist Intelligence Unit (2005) Know how. Managing Communities of Practice represent this ‘pull’ strategy where knowledge for competitive advantage. London: The Economist. users access knowledge when they need it, as opposed to the Grant, R. (2000) ‘Shifts in the World Economy: The Drivers of ‘push’ strategy of the first two approaches, where information is Knowledge Management’. In Despres, C. and Chauvel, D. (eds.) widely disseminated, irrespective of users’ immediate needs. To Knowledge Horizons. Woburn: Butterworth-Heinemann. pp.27-53.

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Hansen, M., Nohria, N., and Tierney, T. (1999) ‘What’s Your Snowden, D. (2003) ‘The Knowledge You Need, Right When Strategy for Managing Knowledge?’ Harvard Business Review, You Need It’, Knowledge Management Review, Vol. 5, Issue 6, Vol. 77, Issue 2, pp.106-116. pp.24-28. Kelloway, E. and Barling, J. (2000) ‘Knowledge work as Stewart, T. (1997) Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of organizational behaviour’, International Journal of Management Organizations. London: Nicholas Brealey. Reviews, Vol. 2, Issue 3, pp.287-304. Storey, J. and Barnett, E. (2000) ‘Knowledge management Lesser, E. and Storck, J. (2001) ‘Communities of Practice and initiatives: learning from failure’, Journal of Knowledge Organisational Performance’, IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 40, Management, Vol. 4, Issue 2, pp.145-156. Issue 4, pp.831-842. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, Nahapiet, J. and Ghoshal, S. (1998) ‘Social Capital, Intellectual and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Capital, and the Organizational Advantage’, Academy of Wenger, E. and Snyder, W. (2000) ‘Communities of practice: Management Review, Vol. 23, Issue 2, pp.242-266. the organizational frontier’, Harvard Business Review, Vol.78, Sharatt, M., and Usoro, A. (2003) ‘Understanding Knowledge- Issue 1, pp.139-146. Sharing in Online Communities of Practice’, Electronic Journal of Witzel, M. (2005) ‘Lifeblood must keep Knowledge Management, Vol. 1, Issue 2, pp.187-196. flowing’, Financial Times, 23 August, p.10.

After teaching at a variety of language schools in Greece, France, Brazil, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the UK, Andrew Nye became DoS at IH Porto. Between 1998 - 2003 he was ADoS and DoS at IH Lisbon where he completed the IH Diploma in Educational Management. He studied for an MBA last year and is currently working at Cambridge Assessment.

Understanding Expectations - The Client Approach to Teaching In-Company

Christopher Holloway and Kate Baade

“This business would be fine if it weren’t for the clients” The manager’s lament

o a great extent the ‘client’ approach can be seen as a clueless figure (at least as far as language training is juxtaposition of the ‘student’ approach. In other words, concerned). As we have argued elsewhere (Baade & T the language class has to be seen in the context of a Holloway, 2005), the client needs educating in appropriate circular process, which begins and ends with a client. methodology for language learning. How often have you Students, of course, are always clients paying for our heard: “you’re the experts” and “no, we only want 2 groups, services, but the crucial difference is the point of view. When can’t the beginners and intermediates go together” in the we begin to see students as clients, they fit into (admittedly same breath? trite) expressions such as “the customer is always right” which Furthermore, when dealing with executives they may not underline the fundamental cause of educative discomfort for only be our immediate client (i.e. our one-to-one students) but TEFL teachers: this is a business. The business is a school, may be responsible for the purchasing of our colleagues’ yes. But this is a business. services as well. In some cases the approach to teaching one Let’s take a moment to reflect on how we, as clients of other executive could make or break a key contract for the school. service providers, expect to be treated. As a client you don’t Although it can be rather intangible, there are certain expect to be told what to do, told who to do it with and features of the client approach which are useful for us as warned 1 minute before you have to stop doing it. teachers and course providers to understand. In this article, No, you expect politeness, respect, well-trained and we will give an overview of: the sales process; differentiation informed staff. Do our clients expect any less? Are we and value-added; results (product) oriented teaching; and delivering according to their expectations? finally the role of the teacher within this. The short answer is “yes and no”. Yes, reputable schools usually provide qualified teachers with appropriate (Understanding) The Sales Process infrastructure (materials and pedagogical supervision etc), The sales process begins with an initial contact between quality lessons prepared within a wider syllabus framework. supplier and client. This may take one of many forms, for And…no, by ignoring the student’s role as a client, we are not example, cold call, mailshot, client approaches supplier only neglecting to ask why they come to our school as following recommendation (word of mouth), tender or opposed to our competitor’s down the street but also why advertising of some sort. they should stay with us in the future. After the initial contact, some sort of presentation is made In General English (GE), probably the best way to retain and to the client. This could be (a) a written offer or (b) an oral raise student numbers is by ensuring the consistent quality of presentation, detailing the services, prices, value-added the teaching. Easier said than done, I know, but a student who products, testimonials from satisfied customers etc. is happy will be a client who is happy. In Business English (BE) on the other hand, the waters are muddied by the intervention Usually, the offer is negotiated, the supplier will try to get the of a remote “client”, a mythical, demanding and arguably highest possible price and the most interesting timetable for

— 17 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 him; the client will try to get the lowest possible price and the Another aspect of presentation is the presentation of materials. most interesting timetable for him. For the supplier, the best As with a scruffy t-shirt, a scruffy photocopy will smack of hurried, timetable will probably be outside peak hours of demand, for thoughtless preparation. Materials should, therefore, be the client within peak hours (e.g. breakfast, lunchtime). presented as professional business documents which one would Inevitably, there is an immediate conflict between supplier and deliver to a client. After all, remember your students are clients client. Hopefully, a compromise is reached, the client unable and what you deliver are the documents of your business. to ‘give’ on the timetable, ‘gives’ on price, the supplier faced Like GE, many course in BE are based on course books, but with more classes at peak times and therefore more pressure this may not always be so, in which case consideration should be on staff at key moments of the day will unlikely give on price given to the consistency of presentation as well as the quality. A (preferring to maximise earnings at peak times). house style should be adopted and the consistency and The supplier will also try to negotiate ‘block’ hours, i.e. uniformity of presentation adds to the brand value of the product. classes back to back in order to maximise the efficiency of the teacher’s time. Unfortunately, this is not always possible and the supplier may give on price in order to get a more attractive Value-added timetable. Adding value to the product is extremely important in the Sometimes a demonstration lesson is given. This is our differentiation of similar products. In a world of web sites, which opportunity to educate our clients in communicative compare products according to scales of criteria or methodology and broaden their expectations beyond specifications, what is to stop the discerning client from doing grammar-translation or audio-lingual based classes. In fact, it likewise for his language training supplier? In fact, with large is fundamental that we seize this chance to prove that our contracts that is very likely to be what is going on behind the methodology works. Too often complaints are based on scenes. conflicting expectations of what sound methodology is. Our Language schools will need to add plug-ins to their basis is recent research and proven applied linguistic theory, courses, offering additional services free or ‘discounted’ to their basis is previous learning experience. clients including: Online courses, free ‘e-lessons’, access to Once the offer is accepted, the details are passed from the library / Self-Access Centre facilities, personal client attention sales department to (what we can call) the operations team / Account Management, personalised materials, Personalised who organise the students, level testing, grouping, language programmes (PLP). timetabling, syllabus and delivery. At this stage the teacher Schools might find it useful to use quality and reputation to becomes involved. The class is attributed to the teacher who differentiate from competitors such as: Institutional quality then becomes responsible for the delivery. marks (ARELS, EQUALS etc), links with stylish / quality brands But the sales process doesn’t end there. Don’t forget (Cambridge exam suites, British Chamber of Commerce etc). you’ve got a client in your classroom. And clients as we all know are fickle. Every lesson you give is loaded with the Results (product) oriented potential to lose a client! It is currently fashionable to see language learning as process- We try to retain students and increase student/client loyalty oriented rather than product-oriented. That is to say that language by showing how we are better than the others. Essentially it’s develops globally and in a non-linear fashion as opposed to linear corporate boasting but we like to call it ‘differentiation’. development culminating in passing exams. Although this may have the edge according to applied linguistic theory, it is a hard- Differentiation sell to a numbers man, which all business people are at the end of the day. So, inevitably, results must be measurable. As I have just mentioned, differentiation (in business)1 is simply creating a clear difference between us and our competitors. We Everyone’s time is valuable, but corporate clients, more than achieve this in many ways, perhaps the most blatant means of anyone, need to see that their time is not being wasted. differentiation is branding. Therefore, both courses and individual classes need to be clearly structured, aims shared with the client (ideally both at How many of you have Levis jeans? How many of you drink the training manager and class participant levels) and aims Coca-Cola? Why Levis and Coca-Cola as opposed to lesser achieved highlighted regularly. Measuring progress is then known brands? made more efficient, as progress checks and evaluations can A brand is reinforced by the famous four Ps of marketing be focussed, on these clear achievements. (Product, Price, Place and Promotion). Let’s look at how we as teachers (product) can support the value of the brand. Quantitative results In order to provide objective, measurable results of progress, two Presentation criteria are necessary. Firstly, the testing body must be external to “The world more often rewards signs of merit than merit itself” the teaching provider. Secondly, the results should be numerical. La Rochefoucauld How we present ourselves to our clients will influence how they External testing body perceive us. If we arrive in jeans, t-shirt and shabby trainers, we An external testing body acts as an objective watchdog over the can expect to be treated as badly prepared, unprofessional, progress achieved (and thus the return on investment) by the teachers just after an easy life. In some cases we may not (quite student. Nevertheless, since testing is a lucrative rightly) be allowed through the door. If we arrive in a suit and tie complementary business to teaching, many schools are then we can expect to be treated as professionals who are there registered test centres for a variety of testing bodies (UCLES, to provide a quality service. ACT, ETS etc). Schools should take great pains to ensure the This is all, of course, a gloss on the real service which must independence of their test departments from their operations come from the quality language classes delivered, and will departments. ultimately be the determining factor as mentioned above. Tests such as BULATS2 also provide added value, as Nevertheless, where the products are all alike (i.e. CELTA mentioned above, since they bear the mark of a prestigious qualified teachers), you buy the best packaging. institution (in this case Cambridge University).

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External tests, however, have problems; for example, with the Cambridge main suite exams, preparation is needed in exam technique in order to maximise the students’ performance in the Consider the old British maxim: test. This leads to the so-called backwash effect, which describes the effect an exam has on teaching (in this case, “Those who can, do. Those who encouraging a focus on exam techniques rather than, for example, communicative ability or making presentations, etc.) can’t, teach”. In your local context

Numerical results there may be a stigma attached to Pedagogical levels are generally divided into global descriptions such as ‘pre-intermediate’, ‘advanced’ etc. Whilst useful to being a teacher. Conversely, there teachers, these labels mean very little to training managers and even less to purchasing managers. These people need to see maybe positive associations: The that on a scale of 1-100 their employees score, for example, 47. Armed with a score of 47, they ask two questions: what can my old ‘pillar of society’. Either of employee do in English? And, how many points does s/he need to be able to do X in English? these attitudes will affect the But languages are notoriously difficult to (accurately) score on a points scale. The CEF3 provides perhaps the vaguest (yet arguably most useful) level descriptions and offers only 6 distinct client’s expectations of you levels.

The Role of the teacher in the clients’ companies. Although there is a base or psychological home (i.e. staff room), this figures much less in the Within the framework of the client-approach, the teacher has life of the BE teacher than the GE teacher. The cumulative a very challenging task balancing sound applied linguistic psychological effect of this lack of permanent workspace, principles and teaching with measurable, quantitative results. coupled with the stresses of travelling (usually) on public Furthermore, the teacher faces social, intellectual and transport, is one of alienation. This alienation effect is felt with psychological factors which can affect the client-supplier regard to colleagues, superiors and (worryingly) the school itself. relationship. The physical distance from school’s base seems to create a Consider the old British maxim: “Those who can, do. Those corresponding distance between the teacher and employer. This who can’t, teach”. In your local context there may be a stigma is to say that the teacher does not necessarily see himself as attached to being a teacher. Conversely, there maybe positive part of the school. associations: The old ‘pillar of society’. Either of these attitudes Alienation can therefore seriously affect the business. A will affect the client’s expectations of you. teacher who does not align himself with the school will not be a One of the greatest differences between GE and BE is good ambassador for it. Managers (DoS’s and Directors) need territorial. In GE, students come into your classroom. The power to recognise all these factors individually but also the cumulative relationship is, therefore, balanced in your favour. Students’ effect of them together simultaneously and over time. expectations are that you are a knowledgeable, professional language teacher. In BE, you are entering the students’ territory (e.g. office). Inevitably, the power balance is against you as an Conclusion outside intruder. One manner of addressing this is to give In the end, this article has been about understanding classes in a mutually neutral zone. Not Switzerland necessarily, expectations. Expectations can only be understood if they are but a meeting room rather than an office or ideally a purpose- acknowledged and this will only happen if they are dedicated training room. communicated. We started by saying that this was a circle There will obviously be a knowledge gap between you and which begins and ends with a client. The client communicates your students who are professionals in their chosen business his needs and expectations, sales teams listen, communicate field. I think it is important to recognise this but to remember two their capabilities within those needs and expectations. Sales further things: 1) you might not know the business, but they teams communicate with operations teams and we don’t know the English and; 2) this knowledge gap exists in GE communicate with students who, as clients, communicate with as well. If you can get your students to acknowledge point 1 sales who communicate… then you can have some extremely fulfilling classes as you learn together, negotiating between specific aspects of their business 1 This term is also used in pedagogy to refer to catering for different and English. Understanding point 2, is understanding the nature levels of ability or performance in the classroom. of different expectations. The knowledge gap still exists, but 2 Business Language Testing System (BULATS), Developed by the students don’t bring it with them to class. University of Cambridge, Alliance Française, the Goethe Institut and the University of Salamanca Alienation 3 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, Council of Europe www.coe.org All BE teachers will be working the majority of their contact hours

Kate Baade is Recruitment and Quality Manager for IH Madrid. She is responsible for training in the Business Departments. Christopher Holloway is DoS of the In-Company Language Training department of IH Madrid. He is also coordinating work on the forthcoming Modular Business English Course to be published in September 2006.

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Songs for Swingin' Teachers

Mark Lloyd reetings, pop-pickers! And to start today’s show, here’s course that there just happened to be a guitar occurring a tricky question for all you music trivia buffs out there: naturally in the classroom. Gwhat do Eminem’s Cleaning Out My Closet, Leaving aside these external factors, and assuming that the Bananarama’s Love In The First Degree and Eddie Cochran’s format of the book allows for or requires a certain number of Summertime Blues have in common? songs to be included, it seems to me that course book writers Musically, at least, one might struggle to find anything at all probably choose songs for one of the following reasons: to connect these three classics of their time, but those of you who, like me, tend to judge a book not by its cover, nor indeed 1. the general subject matter of the song mirrors the theme of its syllabus, but rather by the quality or otherwise of the songs a particular module or unit, so that in addition to listening which appear in it, will doubtless have immediately spotted and reading practice the song can be exploited either for that all three feature in current ELT General English course vocabulary development or as a stimulus for discussion. books. Yes, times have certainly changed since that day of 2. the song contains useful, authentic examples of a linguistic unbridled excitement many years ago when I first set eyes on structure which is to be presented and practised in the book. Headway Elementary and found myself counting down the 3. the song contains phonological features which the writer days before I could finally expose my unsuspecting students to feels can be exploited at a particular stage of the course - Wonderful Tonight. Even the potentially devastating discovery this might simply mean rhyming words, but might also that the version on the tape wasn’t actually Eric Clapton’s extend to more complex prosodic features such as original didn’t manage to take the edge off. intonation or the modification of individual sounds in So, partly in the interests of analysing the pedagogical connected speech. criteria underpinning the selection of course book songs, but 4. the song (or indeed singer/group) is well-known and therefore mainly to help me get over my frustration at the continued likely to be familiar to students already - this may be failure of Half Man, Half Biscuit to break into the ELT market, I something teachers can exploit during a pre-listening or pre- decided to conduct a little staff room research. But first, a quiz. reading stage in order to aid comprehension, or it may simply In pairs, discuss the following questions: be motivating for students if the song is one they like. 1. Which singer or group has the highest number of different 5. the song may make the book seem fresh, modern and songs appearing in ELT course books? relevant to its target audience, particularly if it is a recent song, a new version of an old classic, or if it has been used 2. Which singer or group is best represented if we also count on the soundtrack of a popular film or television series - this songs which appear in more than one book? is risky, as a song can quickly lose its appeal and become 3. Which song(s) turn(s) up most often in different books? over-familiar, although this is perhaps less of a concern in an 4. What is the oldest song that appears in current ELT course age when new, updated versions of course books are books? published with increasing frequency. 5. And the most recent? 6. the limited linguistic complexity of the song is such that it is 6. Which one of the following singers or groups does not (yet) likely to present few real comprehension problems for have at least two different songs appearing in current ELT students, so that the song becomes a convenient example course books? of comprehensible authentic text. a. Jennifer Lopez 7. the writer may like the song and may wish to share her appreciation of it with the readers of the book, whether they b. The Crystals be students or teachers, simply for humanistic reasons. c. David Bowie d. Chuck Berry At the risk of trying to second-guess the writers of the books e. Dido featured, I spent a few idle moments amusing myself by f. Madness pondering which of these reasons governed the selection of g. Roberta Flack some of the songs in today's course books. Perhaps there were some useful insights into changing trends in English h. The Corrs language teaching just waiting to be revealed? Or maybe the (Answers below). kinds of songs being used in course books nowadays reflected more fundamental changes in the language itself. It seemed to On what basis do course book writers decide which songs me that these were important issues. After all, with the growing to include in their books? To some extent the decision is acceptance that language cannot be taught independently out of their hands, influenced as it is by the whims of the from culture, choosing the wrong song could potentially have editor and by the willingness of record labels to grant dire consequences for the learning process. permission to reproduce the lyrics or use the music. The same copyright technicalities presumably explain why the majority of songs in course books are not original versions. Theme Of course, there is little to prevent purist teachers from The most common theme in course book songs, and in songs neatly negotiating this particular obstacle by bringing in generally, is love and relationships, and unsurprisingly the usual their own copy of, say, Phil Collins' But Seriously album, suspects are to be found in abundance: the aforementioned except perhaps fear of the staff room ridicule to which this Wonderful Tonight appears twice, as does Elton John’s Your insight into the darker recesses of their record collection is Song. The Beatles are represented by Yesterday, You’ve Got likely to leave them vulnerable. Supporters of the DOGME To Hide Your Love Away and Eight Days A Week, all of ELT movement would probably suggest the teacher went which are clearly love songs although I suspect they were not even further and sang the thing herself, assuming of chosen for thematic reasons. The same might be said about

— 20 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles the two Righteous Brothers standards, You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling and Unchained Melody - more on these later. Other love songs which turn up appearing to offer little apart with the growing acceptance that from a handy thematic link, include The Bangles Eternal Flame , Madness’s My Girl, The Human League’s Don’t You language cannot be taught Want Me? , All Saints’ Never Ever, Everything But The Girl’s Missing and a couple of timeless sixties classics, Chapel Of independently from culture, Love and Then He Kissed Me. I’m also fairly confident that Lou Reed’s Perfect Day was selected for its superficial allusions to love and emotional fulfilment rather than because choosing the wrong song could it is arguably the greatest song ever written about heroin addiction, but I might be wrong. The undisputed, if you will, potentially have dire ‘King’ of the ELT love song, however, must surely be Elvis: both His Latest Flame and Return To Sender turn up twice, consequences for the learning while Love Me Tender, Suspicious Minds and Always On My Mind are also to be found. Although his universal familiarity process and the relative linguistic simplicity of his songs are surely key factors behind the ‘King’s’ successful career in ELT, it is difficult to see beyond the romantic common denominator. Your Song: Who could have guessed that the writer of the Leaving love aside, however, there are many other traditional immortal lines “If I were a sculptor, but then again, no. Or a course book themes, which are explored through songs: man who makes potions in a travelling show” would grow into the national treasure he is today? (Actually, the words were Friendship: Stand By Me; You’ve Got A Friend; I’ll Be There written not by Elton himself but by his long-term lyricist Bernie For You; With A Little Help From My Friends Taupin, whom I like to think was having a private joke at the Money and Poverty: Money, Money, Money; Who Wants To great man’s expense.) Be A Millionaire?; Money (That’s What I Want); Another Day In Paradise; Streets Of London Media: Feel; News Of The World (the press and media) Familiarity Family: Father And Son; Cleaning Out My Closet; Girls Just If students already know a song (the tune, that is, rather than Want To Have Fun; Daniel; She’s Leaving Home the lyrics), or at least if they are familiar with the singer or Travel and holidays: Planes And Boats And Trains; Summer group, this provides them with a certain amount of Holiday; Fast Car; Holiday; Leaving On A Jet Plane; psycholinguistic scaffolding to support them as they listen to Driving In My Car; Homeward Bound; Space Oddity the song and attempt to decode its meaning. They may not ‘Big Issues’: Blowin’ In The Wind; Imagine; Strange Fruit; like the song, of course, although I would suggest that the New Way, New Life; Where Have All The Flowers Gone? brain’s musical taste buds are to some extent deactivated by Other ‘no brainers’ when it comes to choosing songs to the fact that the song is sung in a language which is not their complement a theme include Nine To Five & Manic Monday own. This may be because the brain enjoys the challenge of (work); Fashion (clothes and fashion); It’s My Party (parties); understanding the words, because the song sounds Love In The First Degree (crime and the law): and Another attractively exotic, or because it is more difficult to recognise Brick In The Wall (Part Two) (education and school). crass lyrics for what they are if they are sung in a foreign language. Either way, it probably explains why I can happily Language listen to Gloria Estefan singing in Spanish but instinctively Many songs - too many to list - contain excellent examples of reach for the off button if one of her English songs comes on present and past simple verb forms, and often have a clear the radio. And it is surely no coincidence that the four most narrative structure which can also aid comprehension. well-represented singers or groups in course books also Exploitable examples of more complex structures can also be happen to be four of the most internationally well-known and found, though - the following songs are used in course books most enduringly popular - The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Frank primarily to present or provide controlled practice of a Sinatra and Queen – whilst of the five songs which each particular language structure: appear three times in current ELT course books, three of them are among the most widely-recognised popular music Tom’s Diner; Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay; Raining In anthems of all time – Imagine, We Are The Champions, and My Heart (present continuous) I Wish It Would Rain Down Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay. (hypothetical meaning with ‘wish’ etc.) I’ve Never Been To Me (present perfect for life experiences) Tower Of Strength; If Modernity You Were The Only Girl In The World (unreal conditional Including a recent song in a course book is risky for several structures) When I’m Sixty-Four (‘will’ for predictions) reasons. Although the market for English language popular Love Me Tender (possessive pronouns and adjectives) music is increasingly international, musical trends within a country often reflect subtle aspects of that country’s culture Phonology and may therefore never catch on elsewhere. Also, the waste Many songs, of course, are made up of rhyming couplets, a bin of pop music history is packed full of records whose shelf fact which writers are often able to exploit in order to provide life was so short that if they had been used in a course book students with practice in discriminating between different they would have dipped below the horizon of public sounds. The undisputed champion in this category must be consciousness almost before the book was even published. Hello, Goodbye, which appears in three different books (all of When Beginner’s Choice came out the writers probably took it which, incidentally, are for low levels). Sting’s unquestionable for granted that Dire Straits would be up there with The Rolling ability to find rhyming words in the most unlikely places also Stones at the top of the longevity league, such was their reveals itself, in both Every Breath You Take and Moon Over worldwide popularity at the time, yet how many of today’s Bourbon Street (how about “It was many years ago I became students (or indeed teachers) could confidently hum the tune what I am. I was trapped in this life like an innocent lamb”?). A to So Far Away, taken from their mega-selling Brothers In personal favourite in this category is Elton John’s debut hit Arms album? And how the writers of the new edition of New

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Clock, Eight Days A Week and Baby, Please Don’t Go. Songs can cross level boundaries as well, the best example being the appearance of She’s Leaving Home in both Headway Elementary and Think Ahead To First Certificate.

Favouritism I know from experience how frustrating it feels to stretch one’s creative powers to the limit in order to find a valid linguistic reason for including the likes of You’ll Never Walk Alone, I Am The Walrus or Bermuda Triangle (“…try to see it from my angle…”), either for silly sentimental reasons (as in the case of the first), because you love a challenge (as in the second case), or (in the case of the latter) because you just can’t resist a bet. That’s why I have nothing but admiration for those writers who have somehow succeeded in shoe-horning a personal favourite into their own contribution to the staffroom resources shelf. Hats off, then, to the authors of Cutting Edge Advanced (Tears Of A Clown), Framework 3 (Strange Fruit), New Headway Upper-Intermediate (new edition) (Nick Drake’s One Of These Things First) and (particularly impressive, this one) Advanced Gold (Bare Naked Ladies’ When You Dream and Men At Work’s Dr Heckyll & Mr Jive). But without doubt the clear winner of the prize for ‘Not Letting Pedagogical Concerns Get In The Way Of A Good Tune’ must be In English Pre- Intermediate, which keeps light years away from the relative safety of the middle of the road, where Collins, Clapton and the Fab Four lumber along in their musical 4 x 4s. How the writer managed to slip Eydie Gorme & Steve Lawrence’s I Want To ALEX MONK Stay, Maurice Williams & The Zodiac’s Stay (Just A Little Bit [email protected] Longer) and Gene McDaniels’ Tower Of Strength into one pocket-sized volume, I cannot begin to imagine. Suffice to say that IH Bath might well be using In English Pre-Intermediate with its elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper- intermediate, advanced and IELTS classes next term! Headway Pre-Intermediate must have cursed when it was announced that the TV series Friends (along with its Answers to quiz: horrendously catchy theme tune) was to be axed, no doubt the 1. The Beatles, with 8, followed by Elvis Presley (7), Frank day after they’d paid for the rights to use the song. Faced with Sinatra (6) and Queen (4) these hazards, however, course book writers have come up 2. The Beatles again, with 12 (compared with a lacklustre 1 with an ingenious solution: use songs which are both timeless from The Rolling Stones!), followed by Elvis with 9. classics AND modern hits, for instance old songs which have 3. A five-way tie, with Hello, Goodbye, Imagine, She’s been granted a second lease of life by being covered by Leaving Home, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’ and We contemporary artists or by being included on the soundtrack Are The Champions all turning up three times. of a new film: both the Robbie Williams/Nicole Kidman and the 4. Without spending too much time checking this, it seems the Frank and Nancy Sinatra versions of Something Stupid oldest song by far is Nat Ayer and Clifford Grey’s If You receive a mention in English File Elementary, whilst Unchained Were the Only Girl in the World, written in 1916. There is Melody, You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, Pretty Woman then a jump to Let’s Do It (written by Cole Porter in 1928), and Stand By Me were chosen for course books not because then Strange Fruit (written by Lewis Allen in 1940), they were big hits in the sixties but because they appeared in followed by Bill Haley’s Rock around the Clock in 1954, hit films in the late 1980s. Love Is All Around falls into both and then Elvis’s Blue Suede Shoes, Sinatra’s How About categories simultaneously, having been re-recorded by Wet You? (from Songs For Swingin’ Lovers) and Who Wants Wet Wet for use in Four Weddings And A Funeral, hence its To Be A Millionaire? (originally from the musical High inclusion in Pre-Intermediate Matters. Society), all from 1956. 5. At the time of writing, the newest songs appearing in EFL Simplicity course books are probably Dido’s White Flag and Don’t Unlike other texts, perhaps, songs (along with poems) do not Leave Home, both taken from 2003’s album Life for Rent. have to contain language which is in any way complex in order 6. Jennifer Lopez as yet has only one of her songs (Feelin’ So to be considered sophisticated. This fact alone is enough to Good) in a course book. All the others have at least two. make songs attractive to writers, because it removes the need to spend long hours editing the text for the level concerned. Visit the IH Journal site www.ihjournal.com for a comprehensive So, even in very low-level course books writers can safely list of songs in current course books, compiled by Mark. You expose students to such faultless examples of the song- can also find an IH Seminar on using songs, by Diana England, writing craft as Raining In My Heart, Rock Around The on the Seminar pack CDROM in your school. (Editor)

Mark Lloyd has been Director of Studies at IH Bath for the last three years, having previously spent nearly six years as Assistant Director of Studies at IH Madrid Serrano. He is also a co-author of Framework 4 (published by Richmond), and is currently involved in writing material for other components of the Framework series.

— 22 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles One Size Doesn’t Fit All – Everything you ever wanted to know about the IHCo (IHC online)

Diane Thurston HWO has plenty of schools and needs plenty more at all by their employers. For schools upgrading the skills teachers. Many of these teachers are CELTA qualified and of their staff, it is an expensive option too - particularly as Isome have followed an International House Certificate in they are without their staff for the duration of the course. Teaching Languages (IHCTL – formerly known as the IHC) • In some cases the context where the candidate is course. In both cases the majority of our teachers do these following the course is not the context they will be / have courses intensively over four weeks. Over the years that I been teaching in. have been training, I have noted some real strengths in the • The above point is linked to the disorientation that four-week course. candidates may experience when they follow the course Candidates have opportunities to observe teaching, to away from home. While this may be an exciting option, the experience teaching techniques as learners in a range of reality is often that candidates take time to adjust to the seminars, they have the opportunities to teach and receive new context, and have little time to enjoy the new setting feedback, and to reflect on their experiences. This mimics the until the course ends! recursive experiential learning cycle described by Kolb, 1984: • An intensive course does not suit all learning styles. Reflective learners may find the pace too much or find the • Concrete Experience requirement to give immediate / face-to-face feedback to • Reflective Observation colleagues after teaching practice a bit of a trial. Equally, some candidates find it hard to accept feedback. • Abstract Conceptualisation • Some components of the course will be more stressful for • Active Experimentation some candidates. For example, in the case of TP feedback (where feedback often takes place on the same day as the So, within the IHCTL, candidates have opportunities to go lesson or the day after), there is little time for candidates to through the full cycle: reflect and take an objective view of their lesson, before they are required to open this up to group debate. • teaching a real group of learners (Concrete Experience), • Not everyone gets on, and this can be an added pressure • reflecting on this alone, with colleagues, and with their over the four weeks where candidates spend a lot of time tutor (Reflective Observation), together. Competitiveness can be an issue and unhelpful • relating this experience and reflection to guided learning in cliques can form. seminars (Abstract Conceptualisation), • Many people have family, work, personal commitments or • and trying out new approaches in the classroom (Active health issues which do not allow them to follow the four- Experimentation). week course. Of course, though, there are limits to what can be achieved on a four-week course: Kolb’s experiential cycle does not fit Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much in the way of comfortably into the four-week course and the process can be alternatives to this option to date. There are a few part-time quite wearing for some participants. courses but some of the issues above may still apply. Online courses exist, but teaching practice is not included, which is What’s wrong with a four-week course? clearly not satisfactory: Don’t get me wrong, I love working on face-to-face intensive teacher training courses, and of course, there are But surely the main objective of an effective ELT course must opportunities to follow these courses part-time. But, the pace be the development of trainee teachers’ personal theories of does not suit everyone, and there are other potential action; and hence its main focus should be an ELT pedagogy drawbacks for some candidates. course into which teaching practice and observation is integrated, and which uses a variety of experiential techniques • The very intensive nature of the course means there is little as well as lectures, reading, discussion. as Penny Ur time to assimilate information. This can put a great deal of concludes in her article: ‘Teacher Learning’ pressure on candidates. So current courses do not necessarily provide a structure to • This pressure can manifest itself in a variety of ways. facilitate the development of reflective practitioners. Therefore, Some candidates find they are getting little sleep and are we need other alternatives combining the strengths of the working hard in the evenings and at weekends and this face-to-face IHCTL and CELTA courses with added flexibility, can have an impact on their performance on the course. to suit more people in a range of teaching contexts. As one candidate wrote on a ‘hot’ evaluation form directly after teaching: ‘How can I concentrate when I’m so tired!’ One size doesn’t fit all (CELTA candidate, IH Newcastle Jan / Feb 2005). IHWO has commissioned the writing of a course which includes • Another potential frustration, particularly for candidates teaching practice and which can be followed extensively. Over who have previous teaching experience, is that, although the last twelve months, a team of tutors at IH Newcastle has they are being exposed to new ideas, materials, and developed and modified the IHCTL course to allow for approaches to teaching, there is little time to experiment extensive learning and to offer a real alternative to the four-week with all the things they want to on the course. This would experience. The first pilot of this course will take place in March be really useful, particularly as during the course, they 2006, and at the end of the course, candidates will receive the have the option of getting feedback on these experiments. same IHCTL certificate as candidates who choose to do the • It can be a relatively expensive option. The candidate has four-week intensive option. This new version of the IHCTL to take a month off work and this may not be subsidised course will be known as the IHCo (The IHCTL online).

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The IHCTL: Key Features The IHCTL course has a long pedigree running back to the Questions 1960s and was the forerunner of the CELTA course. The course has been run continuously since the 1960s and each Who should do the IHCo? course meets the following minimum requirements. Like the face-to-face IHCTL, the IHCo is suitable for: Total Course Hours of 120 include: • people who have no or little teaching experience, and want a recognised qualification. • 60 hours input / seminars • English teachers with experience who would like a • 6 hours observed and assessed Teaching Practice (per recognised qualification. candidate) • experienced language teachers who would like to expand • 4 hours guided observation of experienced teachers and develop their teaching skills. The challenge is to devise an online version of the course with It will also be useful for: the same strengths. • qualified and experienced language teachers who want a refresher course, a more practical qualification or a more The Distance Course: Key Features of the IHCo internationally-recognised qualification • a mix of face-to-face training and learning online • teachers of other languages or other subjects who are • a mix of intensive learning (face to face) and learning at able English speakers and who would like to update their your own pace (online) teaching methodology. • six hours of assessed teaching practice per candidate • 4 hours of observation of experienced teachers per Of course, all applicants will need access to a group of candidate learners during their course. There will be two components: In addition, the IHCo will add flexibility and will suit teachers Orientation Course (Face-to-face) 15 hours who would like to continue working while they study. It A three-day course at the beginning of the programme, often provides an alternative to intensive and part-time face-to-face a weekend, led by an approved IHCTL tutor. Candidates will courses and allows candidates to work at their own pace, to teach one unassessed lesson and one assessed lesson, be reflect on the ideas and theory they are presented with and to observed by their colleagues, and get feedback on their incorporate these into their own working environment. This teaching. may be particularly useful for ‘provisionally’ affiliated schools The three-day orientation course also aims to familiarise who need to upgrade the standard of teaching and candidates with the course, to ensure they can competently qualifications of their teachers. access course materials and contribute to the online section of the course which follows, and to allow them to experience What support will candidates get during the course? teaching techniques as learners in seminars. The first course Throughout the programme, there will be a team of assignment will also be set. experienced IHC tutors working with candidates to ensure All IH schools can apply to IHWO to run these courses as they gain as much benefit as possible from the programme. long as they meet the criteria for IHCTL centres as set out in Candidates will be part of a ‘virtual’ study group (maximum the IHCTL handbook for centres. This means that candidates 12 participants) that will participate in online discussions, will be able to select from a range of centres and choose the monitored by an experienced tutor. Based on my own most convenient for them - based on geography, finances or experience of face-to-face courses, and as a learner on the personal preferences. IHCOLT course, the value of being part of a learning community should not be underestimated. This is emphasised Distance Modules by Adrian Underhill in his article exploring how other people Nine modules will run over nine months on the same syllabus can promote teacher development: areas as the face-to-face IHCTL. Candidates will complete ‘While this kind of personal or professional development can tasks and read online, and will also submit tasks to the learning only be carried out by myself on behalf of myself, other people platform, and interact with fellow course participants and their can play a very important, even decisive, role in helping me distance tutor via discussion boards. mobilize my resources for change, My learners and my colleagues form two such groups, and within these groups Assessed Teaching there can be created a very definite kind of psychological Candidates will teach 8 assessed lessons (nine in total, including climate that can support the growth of this kind of experiential the assessed lesson from the orientation course) which will be enquiry.’ Underhill, A. 1991 observed by a local supervisor. The candidate’s lesson plan, self-evaluation and the local supervisor’s observation report will The Local Supervisor will provide extra support, giving informal be sent to the distance tutor to be graded. tutorials and will observe teaching.

The Platform What qualities / qualifications will Local Supervisors Candidates will access the platform to view learning materials need? and course resources, and to contact their tutor and other All participants on the IHCo need to choose a person who will course participants. Candidate assignments will be uploaded act as their Local Supervisor during the course of the to the platform at set deadlines. programme. A Local Supervisor should: Portfolio • be an experienced and qualified teacher. The Local Candidates will maintain an online portfolio. This will be Supervisor will not necessarily be a teacher trainer. In monitored by distance tutors, and tutors will give online many schools, this role will be taken by the DoS, or a progress check tutorials to the candidates at three points in Senior Teacher. the programme. • have experience of teacher development work or have worked as a teacher trainer

— 24 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles

• be working in the same school as the candidate, or very access and IT skills to enable them to follow the course. These nearby. include: • be willing to spend approximately 2 - 3 hours per month • access to computer facilities with CD ROM drive, Internet watching their candidate teach, monitoring progress and access offering support. • adequate word-processing skills to enable them complete written assignments Local Supervisors may also volunteer to work with more than • being a competent user of the Internet and e-mail one candidate. • regular access to internet facilities (minimum one hour per week) What support will Local Supervisors get? • regular access to adequate word-processing and email All Local Supervisors will be given a briefing pack before the facilities course begins. The briefing pack contains: • anti-virus protection regularly updated • An observation standardisation task • Course guidelines The next step? Designing the distance IHC has been a rewarding, exciting and Why become a Local Supervisor? sometimes scary (!) experience. The first pilot course will take Developing teachers is part of the DoS role. For some Senior place in March 2006 with the orientation course taking place in Teachers or DoSes, this supervisory role could be a step Pamplona. Two other pilots are scheduled to start in 2006, towards teacher training. And, of course, it’s intrinsically before the launch of the course more widely. Hopefully we’ll be rewarding. able to update you on our progress in another issue of the IH Journal. One thing is certain, it will be an interesting year! How will Teaching Practice be assessed? The lesson on the orientation course will be assessed by the References tutor(s) running the course. Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experimental learning. Englewood Cliffs, During the distance component, the Distance Tutor will N.J. Prentice Hall, Inc receive all lesson plans, self evaluations and Local Supervisor’s Underhill, A. (1992) The Role of Groups in Developing Teacher reports and will assess the lesson. The Distance Tutor will keep Awareness in ELT Journal 46/1 a record of the strengths and action points for each lesson and Ur, P. (1992) Teacher Learning in ELT Journal 46-1 will give progress check and virtual tutorials. For any further information on taking the course, becoming a What technology will candidates need access to? local supervisor or an IHC Online centre, contact All candidates on the IHCo programme need to have adequate [email protected].

Diane Thurston started her ELT career in Egypt (happy memories!) and has been teaching for 16 years and working as a teacher trainer for the last ten. She is the Head of Teacher Training at IH Newcastle and works on IHC, CELTA, DELTA and DDOC courses and whatever else is going. She’s recently started to get into all things online since taking part in the pilot for the IHCOLT and signing up to a rash of discussion forums. She enjoys a challenge, which is just as well!

Life After EFL - Out of the Language Training Pan and into the Management Consultancy Fire

Susanna Dammann

hat is it to be today? Chunking, phrasal verbs, Whichever it is, I’ll have to be there, on time, alert, functions? - or shall we have yet another go at inspirational and funny, ready to think on my feet but also to W sorting out the present perfect? Will they all be there, get through the syllabus, to make sure everyone gets value for or will it be the usual suspects, bright enthusiastic girls from money and nobody is left out. Ready to pander to the one-to- Asia, and earnest young men from anywhere, to be joined later one client’s slightest whim, and to keep a spare pair of eyes by the also-rans, yawning and sluggish, rubbing the results of in the back of my head to spot goings on in the back corner, last night’s over-enthusiastic partying out of their eyes and whether it’s small people having an L1 chat about football, or wrecking the group dynamic so carefully fostered in the first bigger ones getting an affair off the ground. Whatever goes on half of the morning? Or will I be waiting for the CEO of one of in my classroom, it’s up to me to make it happen, or not Turkey’s most important textile companies to roll in, possibly happen, on time, entertainingly and informatively and above two hours after the start of his one to one class. Or today will all energetically. I be sitting on the floor with a group of five-year-olds, I’m exhausted just remembering; there comes a moment in exhausted after a day in ‘real’ school, chanting “One two the life of many teachers (not all - some are really ‘born buckle my shoe” or colouring in shapes for a listening teachers’ who can think of nothing more satisfying, fulfilling comprehension? and worthwhile than to continue sharing their gifts and spirit,

— 25 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006

So becoming a business advisor began to look like a viable option rather than just a vague idea. However there after years learning more about was the considerable problem of credibility: the average widget maker is unlikely to accept that an ex-teacher could managing businesses from the possibly have anything useful or helpful to say about his business (I say ‘his’ advisedly – the vast majority of MDOs, executives and CEOs in my or Managing Director Owners, of the vast majority of SMEs are still men). Actually, the vast majority of MDOs take some convincing that anyone could have anything helpful to say English for Business classes, about their business; if things aren’t going well, the problem must be the market, the staff, the suppliers, the accountant, than they ever learnt from me anything rather than management skills or systems or, more likely, lack of them. about the Present Perfect, I So, how to get started? I did what anyone does these days with a question to answer - put ‘business advice’ into knew that I could perhaps Google and came up with a range of options. One can set up as a business advisor with minimum preparation; all you transfer my training and need is a phone, a laptop and a great deal of cheek. One can also fail spectacularly; it’s a good idea to join some kind of support network and they come in all sorts of communication skills to the shapes and sizes, from those who will relieve you of about £10,000 and offer a fantastic training package and a full business world marketing service, to simpler outfits who will offer modular training and a website information service at a slightly less till the day they turn up their toes) anyway there comes this eye-watering price. moment when you think ‘I’ve had this for a lark: I’m tired of One thing became clear very quickly – to make any kind of never being able to go to the doctor or the dentist, without a go of this you need to have a speciality. For ELT teachers, inconveniencing at least three people and possibly up to the obvious areas are cultural awareness and, connected to twenty, from the class itself, faced with a strange face and this, corporate communications (both internal and external) possibly work they’ve done before, to the wretched standby and the foot in the company door achieved by delivering who has to mug up a topic they know nothing about, and the training can lead to a more hands on and operational poor old DOS who has to ensure that the above doesn’t relationship, and eventually perhaps a regular consultancy happen and deal with the complaints when it does. I’m tired of contract. In my case a passionate concern with the having to think of new and exciting ways to present the same environment and with the need to deliver quality customer language, to get people to actually use it, and keep being service were added into the mix. Oh and I specialise in bright eyed and bushy tailed ALL THE TIME!’ businesses owned and run by women. I reached this point a few years ago, when on return from I’m so new in this game I don’t feel in any position to hand out an overseas management post, I realised that even after a advice; however here are a few pointers if this is a way you think six-month break from the class room, I was looking for ways you might go, when you hand in your register for the last time. to do the job as easily as possible rather than as well and as effectively as possible. I was stale, and a stale teacher is a 1. Wait till you’re older – this is one of the areas where age is bad teacher. So it was obvious really, I needed to get out of actually a plus! the classroom for good; and after a stint working with the IH 2. Look very carefully at training deals – some are useful, some World office, and particularly acting as an IH Visitor, which are really not worth the time or money. And letters after your gave me a wonderful insight into the multifarious ways name are less useful than hands-on experience. language schools manage their people, balance their books 3. Select a speciality – culture, communications, marketing, (mainly) and look to diversify their offering, it became clear whatever you feel confident enough to tackle that although they are all gloriously different from one 4. Offer a specific service, with specific aims and outcomes, another, what they have in common is that they are all SMEs and make sure it ties in with the needs of the company (Small or Medium-sized Enterprises) and share the bulk of 5. Be ready to network – contracts come through contacts their problems with other SMEs, whether they are producing 6. Make sure you have another source of income – until you’re widgets or providing a comfortable and welcoming night’s established, fees which look very fat compared with what accommodation. one earns as a language trainer, are nonetheless few and Moreover, after years learning more about managing far between businesses from the executives and CEOs in my English for Business classes, than they ever learnt from me about the My clients currently include a small business start-up (café Present Perfect, I knew that I could perhaps transfer my offering mouth-watering organic food) a medium-sized training and communication skills to the business world business start-up (amazing new eco-project combining food without having to leap over too much of a knowledge gap in retailing, two restaurants, a wine bar, and a cookery school the process. Production management, operations under one environmentally sound roof) an adult education management, people management and the systems to college, and several corporate training support them, had become more than just collocations. colleges. Whatever else life after EFL is, it’s certainly varied – and very busy!

Susanna worked with IH London for several years as a business and language trainer; with IHWO as Academic and Membership Co-ordinator; and is now dividing her time between various projects and spoiling her grandson. She is also a former editor of the IH Journal.

— 26 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles Grammar is Dead. Long live Grammar!

Roger Hunt

elow is an interview that Roger Hunt of IH Barcelona sociolinguistics and work in ELT on the importance of conducted with Ron Carter and Mike McCarthy the seeing lexis and grammar as interdependent. Bauthors of Cambridge Grammar of English. As you will see, Roger was very impressed with the approach of these Question: The book seems weighted in favour of spoken two seasoned EFL writers and even more so with the outcome language – was this intended? of their extensive research. (Editor) Yes, we wanted this to be the first grammar that had more Firstly, let me say examples drawn from spoken varieties than written. But that I feel this is the we also wanted to ensure that we didn’t go too far. There most significant book is still a lot in the Cambridge Grammar that describes to be published in the written English. For example, there is a long chapter on field of grammar for a academic English; that is, on the very kinds of structures very long time. needed by students to study advanced level academic Nothing compares courses such as post-IELTS university courses in a range with it; it is of subjects where the ability to manipulate highly formal groundbreaking and written structures is crucial to success. But we do see the Ron Carter and Mike McCarthy the in a word exceptional. future of international communication through English authors of Cambridge Grammar of depending more and more on successful spoken I was fortunate English interaction, in both formal and informal contexts, and have enough to be able to tried to reflect this in our examples and in the way the interview the authors (albeit by email) and include here, in full, book is structured. We are particularly pleased with the their answers to my questions, as I believe their first hand way the CD-Rom has turned out. It is vitally important that account of the background, rationale and approach to the book the emphasis on spoken language is backed up by is better than any second hand account that I could provide. learners having an opportunity to hear as well as read example sentences and utterances from the Grammar. Question: What was the motivation to write the book? We have both spent many years of our professional lives Question: How did you work together? Did one of you take looking at real spoken language and trying to find ways of responsibility for a particular section or was all work describing it effectively, mainly with teachers and students collaborative? of English in mind. We have always felt that it has never It wasn’t an easy book to write so we tended to pass been accorded due significance in the study of grammar. chapters back and forth between us. The chapter on Most grammars are either based entirely on written modality, for example, passed between us over thirty examples (sometimes only on invented examples) or we times in various drafts over a period of five years. It is an find that the spoken language only really gets attention example of a chapter that brings together spoken and towards the end of the book. We have put spoken written examples, in the process trying to say something grammar first on the grounds that speech is primary and new about modality. It’s perhaps no surprise that neither on the grounds that most of our daily communication is of us could do it on our own. And along with other through speech. chapters too, we benefited greatly from the advice and We also felt that you can never really get to the heart of hands-on commentaries we received from the members language, especially spoken language, without the of the Cambridge Grammar Panel. evidence that a large corpus can give you. The Cambridge International Corpus is now the largest in the Question: What sources (apart from CANCODE - Cambridge world and totals nearly 900 million words. We spent a lot and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English) did you use in of time contributing to the spoken corpus elements of this your collection of language examples and data? computerised collection. It took a lot of time to build the CANCODE was a major source. But the Cambridge corpus but we were motivated to stick with it because it International Corpus as a whole was mined for information does give us the evidence we need from speakers in a and we often looked at examples of American English in wide range of social contexts. And the software enables that corpus for purposes of contrast and comparison. We us to describe patterns and structures that are both also drew on our own collection of examples from our own frequent and salient in modern English. teaching over the years: examples of ads, literary examples, favourite newspaper stories, bits of data Question: The book is multifaceted in as much as it includes gathered here and there in the kind of way that all English lexical, utterance, discourse level etc views of grammar – was teachers collect such examples magpie-like over the years. this with a view to combine much of what has been written independently on these various facets into a whole? Question: What influence do you expect CGE to have on the Yes, we were conscious that a lot of grammars are way grammar is described in ELT course books and structured on the basis of words and sentences only, with approached by teachers in the classroom (I realise this is the sentence often the upper limit for description. There is asking you to predict the future!)? thus a danger that you only look at language bottom-up, That’s not for us to say. Our only hope is that teachers will starting with the smallest units but never reaching through see the importance of rules being based on examples of into discourse or context in any meaningful way. We have real English, not invented English. We also hope that the tried to write the Cambridge Grammar of English so that book underlines strongly what all teachers of English top-down and bottom-up descriptions sit alongside each know: that successful written and spoken communication other. We feel this gives a richer picture of the language. depends on appropriacy. We hope the examples and Of course, in writing the more top-down discourse-driven evidence we provide will go some small way to reinforcing parts we have been massively influenced by existing work that vitally important stance. in discourse and conversation analysis, work in

— 27 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006

Question: If you had to start writing the book again would you pages under the title ‘Real do anything differently? Conditionals’. These nine pages, to We would probably pay even more attention to the my mind, destroy the first, second importance of clusters and chunks. Michael Lewis, John and third myth once and for all. I Sinclair and others have been very influential over the mention this as this book breaks years here and clusters are a vital part of successful fluent ‘rules’ and replaces them with use of English, in speech and in writing but especially of reality throughout. fluent conversations. We have devoted our first Appendix As a final word let me say that this in the Grammar to this topic and have used corpus must be the first time that I have read research to illustrate key features. We are still, however, a grammar book cover to cover (and not wholly clear about the theory and practice of these this one is 973 pages long including ‘chunks’, nor about how they function, how we most the glossary, index and appendices) effectively describe them and how we use a corpus to and I found myself fascinated attest them. But we feel this is a very big topic and would throughout. If this doesn’t represent hope to make it more central to a second edition. a very strong recommendation to you to read this book then nothing will! Perhaps one of the most significant features of this book is that I would like to thank the authors for their full and informative it starts with authentic data – real speech and written text – as answers to my questions. opposed to sentence level fabrications invented to exemplify a thesis. I was delighted, for example, to read the section on Cambridge Grammar of English by Ronald conditionals which starts with just under a page on the first, Carter and Michael McCarthy is published by second and third traditional descriptions then follows with nine Cambridge University Press (2006)

Roger Hunt is Director of Education at IH Barcelona

Introducing IH Campus at IH Palermo Centro Storico

Marco Faldetta his article focuses on the use of the IH e-Campus at IH privileges (access to methodology database, student Palermo Centro Storico where it was launched in monitoring pages etc.) T October 2005. • materials for lessons, homework and blended learning IH Campus is the IHWO online learning environment for IH tasks can be chosen among the activities available on the students and teachers. It offers thousands of highly interactive system language practice exercises, listening activities, games and • pathways can be added via a Paper Pathway grammar reference units. IH Campus is a fun teaching/learning tool that can be used Screenshots at all levels. Being online, it is a resource that can be used Listening wherever there is an Internet connection and at any time. Therefore, IH Campus can be used in class, in a self-access centre, at home or at work. The access point for all IH schools using this program is www.ihworld.com/campus.

IH Campus varies according to who is using it. • Students will find hundreds of exercises and a pathway to follow; • Teachers will find a methodology database and student monitoring tools • Schools will be able to assign and revoke usernames and pathways according to courses, terms and student levels.

Online Pathway Syllabus for Headway More specifically students will: • receive a username (i. e. IHDNIPRO0054) and password. • access from www.ihworld.com/campus • use the numerous different learning tools under their teacher’s guidance and within the parameters syllabus

And, on the school administration side: • students are added to the system and administered throughout the year • teachers can access using a teacher login with special — 28 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles

News Items in collaboration with The Guardian students – this of course completely defeats the object of Campus – it is important to keep the channels of communication open with your teachers and ensure that they are following the new system properly”. “The teachers’ initial response to being told not to use the workbook was that the students preferred the workbook. This negative attitude by the teachers was probably passed on to the students in this case”. “Encouraging teachers to be enthusiastic about the programme obviously has an effect on the students’ perception of it”. Therefore, one problem that schools may face, is that teachers may be inclined to avoid the new system and stick with what they know. Most teachers are used to assigning homework and tasks from books or photocopies. It can be News Items in collaboration with The Guardian difficult to do without the trusted support of paper. “It would be ideal logistically to enforce homework tasks by lesson on the teachers, although classes do not always do things at the same speed or have the same needs. It would be limiting on the teacher to enforce such restrictions”. The solution IH Palermo Centro Storico adopted was to use a Customised Pathway Syllabus. With a Customised Pathway Syllabus the DOS merely recommends the materials that correspond to the work teachers are doing as part of the general syllabus. Teachers can then assign specific tasks and select homework from the Customised Syllabus. Students can opt to do the minimum required by the teacher or look at the syllabus on the website and do as much as they want. Other Features available: In contrast with the teacher’s initial reactions, students • generic pathways and book-related pathways responded positively to this new instrument and it has been observed that many of them prefer IH Campus to other • paper pathways (via the Administration Console) computer learning tools already available in the self-access • online dictionary with UK and American English centre at IH Palermo Centro Storico. Training is still required, pronunciation but it is generally fun for students, as it can be done within a • grammar reference units normal lesson. • search engine to find more exercise on a given learning One obstacle may be presented by student technophobia, topic especially in the case of older students. • web projects While technophobes may fear the worst initially, they • methodology database for teachers generally end up enjoying it! Many older students are also happy to be shown how to use a computer – most people • and much more! (contact Marco Faldetta via email – today realise what an important skill this is and don’t want to [email protected]) be left out. Encouragement is needed to make the most of the system, but younger generations are very keen. IH Campus is a wonderful instrument and can significantly In December 2005 IH Palermo Centro Storico did a small aid both the learning and the teaching processes. Like most survey on sixty students and the results can be seen in the new things however, an adjustment period is needed! Many IH charts below. Schools already use various computer-based instruments in their resource centers. IH Campus requires some planning, but it can yield excellent results, give your school great visibility and The Questionnaire show that you are already in the fast track of English learning. The questionnaire asked three questions, whether IH Campus One of the most important challenges IH Palermo Centro was useful, whether it was fun and whether it was better than Storico faced was to make sure that all members of staff a workbook. quickly became familiar with this new system. We decided to When students were asked if Campus was useful to them assign passwords to all students following pre-intermediate the general answer was ‘it is very useful’. A small percentage classes and above and to have a teacher login for every level: chose the option ‘it is quite useful’ and a tiny percentage pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate and seemed unimpressed or described Campus as ‘no use to me’ advanced. Most courses at IH Palermo Centro Storico use the (see Chart 1). Headway series. Chart 1 It was not difficult to explain that exercises for the Headway Student books were available online, and it was soon clear to everyone Survey – is IH that homework and general study could be done on the system. Campus useful Mary Woodiwiss (DOS at IH Palermo Centro Storico), writing for to you? the DOS Conference in January, explained the positive aspects of the system and made some recommendations for improvement: “Initially we did have quite a few teachers that were making photocopies of the workbook to give as homework to their

— 29 — Articles IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006

Some student comments gathered in the survey: • “It’s very useful to listen to the dialogues and texts in the correct pronunciation by very English people” • “It’s something useful and fun, but sometimes I haven’t got the time to go here!” • “I like studying with web computer. I can use it when I stay at home” • “I don’t have Internet at home” or “the Internet is expensive”

The second question asked in the survey was whether it was fun to use. The results were similar to the previous chart, with a majority finding it ‘lots of fun’ or ‘quite fun’ and a smaller amount being unimpressed or finding it ‘boring’ (Chart 2).

Chart 2 Student Survey – Is IH Campus fun to use?

• each user costs £16, which can be either a student or a teacher password. The third question was whether IH Palermo Centro Storico students thought IH Campus was better than a workbook. Finally, here are a few considerations that should be kept in Here the answers were evenly mixed, making it impossible to mind: establish whether the students are taking a clear position • IH Palermo Centro Storico’s experience shows that in (chart 3). The most selected option by a couple of points is: general this new system works well, students like it and ‘It’s ok’. The least chosen is: ‘It’s ok but not better’. Equally teachers quickly warm to it. Introducing IH Campus is selected are ‘Yes’ and ‘No, I prefer the workbook’. relatively easy, but it does need planning on behalf of the DOS who along with the teachers should know its ins and Chart 3 outs as well as the book(s) used. Student • On a commercial/marketing level, students feel they are Survey – Is IH getting the most up-to-date methodology and are Campus better therefore likely to stay with your school rather than head than a for the competition; workbook? • Blended Online Learning encourages learner autonomy, which can boost confidence and productivity. • Students who are really busy who have little or no time to spend in the school find this program a great asset and have done a lot more homework than usual! • Although IH Campus can be used as a self-access tool, it Interested in IH Campus? would be limiting to use it only as such and its potential • order your users from IHWO (Anna Ingram - should be exploited to the full. mailto:[email protected]) you will receive an excel spreadsheet with all usernames and passwords • personalise your school users and classes with the The few difficulties that may be encountered when introducing Administration Console access is limited to DOSs and IH Campus can be overcome with patience and planning. In Directors. A tutorial is provided and Marco Faldetta is the end, it is well worth the effort. always available for help • every user needs a computer with an Internet connection and Basic IT literacy

Marco Faldetta is the IT Specialist at IH Palermo. He is also IH World Administrator for Online courses, YL Keypals, which he created in 2004 with Mary Woodiwiss, and IH Campus.

— 30 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles

— 31 — IHWO News IH Journal • Issue 19, Autumn 2005

IH WORLD NEWS Michael Carrier Executive Director, IHWO

New Schools We are currently piloting the IH Certificate in Business In 2006 the IH network has grown further, to 135 schools in 50 English Teaching (IH BET) which trains teachers in the special countries worldwide. New schools joining the IH family this skills needed for successful Business English teaching, and year include: prepares them for the LCCI FTBE examination. Kazakhstan - IH Almaty Serbia - IH Belgrade IH Online Spain - IH Vitoria In addition to the Teacher Training materials online, we now also provide an Online Placement Test so that prospective France - IH Paris students can test their proficiency and assess which IH Slovenia - IH Ljubljana language level would best suit them. Check this out at www.ihworld.com/opt There are many other new schools with whom we are in affiliation discussions, and the network will continue to grow IH Study Abroad and bring the benefits of IH educational quality and innovation to new locations. Helping students worldwide decide which IH school to study at is part of the job of IHWO. As well as the popular Study Abroad CDROM, which gives information and photo guides to IH Resources the schools teaching 16 languages intensively around the The creativity of IH teachers is well-known, and each year world, IHWO has added new promotional resources. more of them contribute to the shared resources of IHWO, The new IHWO Video is available on CD and DVD, and is a made available to all schools online in the members' area of short video presentation introducing IHWO, for schools to use IHworld.com. In the last months we have published several in conjunction with their own video promotions. more packs for the online Resource Bank. Just published also is the new IH Study Abroad Catalogue, which is a global catalogue promoting all Study Abroad English for Lawyers, a course in legal English for schools to schools with detailed descriptions course offerings, and a use in setting up ESP courses locally, was published in 2005 separate set of course dates and prices. This is designed for and the next in the series will be English for Vocational schools to customise, and in some cases, translate locally, Training, developed by teachers in IH Riga.. without their having to design the whole brochure themselves. Download a copy at www.ihworld.com/studyabroad We're working on the Grammar Clinic, a booklet of Grammar reference and Practice Exercises for students to use outside Fairs and Exhibitions class, which will be available later in 2006. IH has been or will be represented this year at many industry fairs and conferences worldwide such as: The IH Dictionary – a special edition of the Cambridge University Press Learners Dictionary on CDROM – is being re- BIT Fair Milan, AISLI, IH Portugal Symposium, TESOL printed after we sold out of the first edition, and it can be Arabia, Language World, EAQUALS, Expolangues, ordered via the IHWO office. IATEFL, EDUCA, World Education Fair Kyiv, BrazTESOL, ICEF and others. Not all new resources are academic - to help schools with their promotion, we also provided them with a CDROM of Calendar of IH events 2006 copyright-free photographs of IH students and learning scenes so they would not have to pay inflated prices for commercial photos. Event Date

IH Teacher training IH Directors' Conference April 29 - May 3, 2006 The IH Certificate Online is now being piloted and will be IH Prague Educational available to all schools via the IH Online VLE described in the Conference May 20, 2006 last issue. IH London Educators' Conference May 19-21, 2006 The IH COLT training course for teachers who want to teach online is now being run regularly, and is available for schools IH YL Conference November 2006 who want to run it with their own trainers. IH Modern Languages Conference November 2006 Similarly the IH Certificate in 121 Teaching is now available IH DOS Conference 2007 Jan 3-5, 2007 for schools to run independently.

— 32 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Articles

— 33 — Book Reviews IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006

BOOK REVIEWS

‘anecdotes’ from Inside Out. But never mind, we can still role Move Intermediate play an argument with our housemates. Angela Holman, Bruce Milne and Barbara Webb Macmillan have a market in mind - schools who liked Inside Out but couldn’t get through it all; teachers who are Macmillan, 2006 comfortable with their working practices and who are not seeking any seismic shift in their classroom practice; and s a teacher, trainer and teachers who run short courses and require a higher level of author, I’ve learned not to flexibility -such as myself. And for these people Move would, A expect surprises from unsurprisingly, be a good choice. publishers. After all, with a market as diverse as English language students Reviewed by Simon Gillow, IH Barcelona and teachers, there are not too many ways in which innovation and surprise can sidle their way between the covers of Senyora Coursebook. Move Upper Intermediate I remember being impressed by Sue Kay, Jon Hird, Peter Maggs Inside Out, however. Sure, there was Macmillan, 2006 far too much material and the listenings were tough but there was an edge of ‘realness’ about the language, a seemingly genuine attempt by the oursebook meetings in my authors and editors to involve students in the learning process. school always grind to a halt when deciding which text to My first reaction to Move was New Inside Out. Macmillan C use with the upper-intermediate have even denied us the surprise of a new layout, new icons. level. In a market increasingly geared But this version of ‘the popular Macmillan course’ does have toward external examinations, one surprise. The book is divided into three modules, with teachers often have very different each module subdivided into four mini-units. Units focus on a expectations about what students at different aspect of the main topic area, and each module has that level need. a revision section and four pages of standard grammatical controlled practice activities. Move has now arrived on our table, aimed at a market of adults and This tinkering with structure isn’t necessary, of course - young adults. The layout is teachers are capable of dividing their current course into colourful and lively. An abundance of questionnaires and workable chunks - and in some cases it’s annoying. For quizzes provide opportunities for personalisation and example, it’s easy to refer to the grammar reference at the enjoyable discussion. The authors have used authentic back of the book but more wearisome when it’s divided into material and a creative twist to address the problem of how three sections. But for short courses of young adults this book to make a topic covered at previous levels interesting and would be a good choice. As a CELTA trainer this sort of relevant. Joss Stone, Laura Bailey, Keane and the organisation means I can plan my teaching points easily, with ubiquitous Jamie Oliver all make appearances to make the everything broken down into neat little bites. book modern and appealing. There are no surprises in topics and tasks, especially if The book is divided into 3 modules - People, Things and you’re familiar with other Macmillan courses. Lifestyle, travel, Places - and each module into 5 units. The grammar hobbies and free time activities, neighbours from hell, etc. A reference section, wordlists and communication activities familiar blend of safe pop topics, traditional activity types and appear at the end of each module together with extra communication games. The advantage of this, of course, is practice and listening scripts. To my overworked brain, this that teachers will already have their own routines for exploiting created some initial confusion, but I can appreciate that this these topics, making this book easily exploitable and format could help in setting short-term learning objectives teachable. and a sense of cohesion for testing and revision purposes. Units are designed to integrate skills and language work within a ‘no surprises’ structure. ‘Lead in’ moves to ‘reading and vocabulary’, moves to ‘speaking’, moves to ‘listening and But what about the language content? writing’. There are the usual range of grammatical structure Each unit has sections under language study, vocabulary and lexical areas. There is some useful exposure to a good and main skills. Sometimes the language study is what range of language structures with a few surprises thrown in for would once have been labelled ‘grammar’, covering the good measure. We are, for example, instructed to include such likes of ‘uses of the infinitive’ and ‘passive and active’. sentences as ‘That smelly cheese you really love makes me Other categories provide clever umbrella topics to present feel sick” into our ‘shared house’ role play. the type of language so often omitted from coursebooks as There are a range of information gap and discussion it doesn’t come under a neat heading. In this way ‘be activities which aim to develop fluency and accuracy. As usual, supposed to/be meant to/be going to’ are included under speaking is seen as a form of pronounced grammar practice. the heading ‘talking about the past’. The anticipated A surprise here is that they decided not to included the squeals from students - and some teachers - about the lack — 34 — IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 Book Reviews of grammar is surely a small price to pay for the inclusion of ‘interesting’ examples of the future passive. This is because real language so often missing in other coursebooks. The traditional grammar is concerned with a focus on form – how language focus boxes require students to analyse the structural patterns can be used to express a particular structures presented to work out rules and to notice meaning or use. Grammar practice books intended for use by patterns before referring to the grammar section at the end students in or out of class usually take this sort of approach as of each module. well, with the focus on the student producing accurate The vocabulary sections are particulary rich in useful and examples of form. As can be seen by a quick look at any contemporary lexis thanks to the abundance of authentic authentic text we don’t always conform to these rules. For readings and listenings. A series of interviews with women example consider the conditional ‘type’ of the following on what they look for in a partner presents expressions such authentic examples taken from a magazine: ‘If your employer as “God’s gift to women”, “not much up top” and “full of is not aware of benefits that are not taxable you could be himself”, which should put students in good stead in a missing out on some excellent perks.’ ‘If you have not been to number of social situations. a comedy club in eons because they are just too depressing and predictable, check out a new one just off Baker Street.’ The practice activites that the book provides are Clearly neither of these conforms to the rules of form we find contextualised and enjoyable while the extra practice in grammar and course books, but the fact is that our students activities at the end of each module could be integrated by are confronted by authentic English all the time on the internet, the teacher into the lesson or given for revision at home. in music and films and in publications they may read. They All good so far, so what bothers me? I would like to see a need a grammar that describes the English all around them, more detailed comprehension grammar reference section for not that which describes the antics of a black cat sending your this level of student. The section on ‘talking about the future’, breakfast off to Canada. for example, doesn’t provide nearly enough information on A large number of the activities in Thornbury’s ‘Grammar’ the nuances in meaning between the different future forms, involve students working with text with a focus on helping let alone enough attention to form. students notice grammatical features within the text. In other Pronunciation too is lacking in both the grammar and words, rather than prescribing a structural pattern, the vocabulary sections. There are a few activities addressing students work on whatever they encounter. They are assisted problem sounds and word stress, but not enough to help in making sense of what they find then encouraged to put it students with the significant phonological problems so into practice in ways of their own. They are also encouraged to common at this level. explore authentic English with such activities as Internet hunt Would I use it though? Yes. It is appealing and fresh and where they are shown how to discover authentic examples of I see it as ideal for mature teenagers or young adults with a such things as conditionals. solid background of grammar-based learning who need to There are a number of old favourites in the book as well with work on fluency. I would supplement it with exercises on activities involving situational presentations, dialogue building pronunciation and point out that it was time for students to and parsing. One small niggle here with the parsing activities is buy a decent grammar reference book. With students who the way Thornbury calls adjuncts ‘adverbials’. A lot of adjuncts are heading towards an FCE preparation course, I would also are adverbial of course but not all. One of his own examples supplement Move with more writing exercises to avoid the ‘Julia was reading a book in bed last night’ includes an last minute panic and refer them to the well-designed CD- adverbial adjunct ‘last night’ but the other adjunct ‘in bed’ is ROM, which includes practice activities similar to those in the prepositional. Regardless of terminology these types of ‘Use of English’ paper. activities help students with the very basic building blocks of English syntax and are invaluable in showing students Reviewed by Christopher Cooke, IH Manzoni, Rome essential differences between English grammar and that of their own language. A particularly noticeable feature of the book is its very Grammar student centred approach with the majority of the activities designed to help the student work out meanings and patterns Scott Thornbury. Series editor: Alan Maley of form for themselves. There is also a lot of fun in the book Oxford University Press, 2006 with activities such as Language bingo and Grammar poems. The book is for teachers who can select whichever of the his is another must have book activities they find of relevance to their classes. It is divided into by Scott Thornbury. Traditional three main sections the first of which is concerned with word T grammar and grammar books grammar, the second with sentence grammar and the third with look at language at the sentence text grammar. The aims of each activity are clearly expressed level, very often using inauthentic and recommendations are given as to the level of student each examples to illustrate a point. For a activity is suitable for and the approximate time it will take. good example of this sort of thing see In all, there are sixty-two activities in the book but the page 96 of ‘The Good Grammar majority are generic, rather than one off ideas, which means Book’ By Michael Swan and they can be applied again and again using different texts and Catherine Walter (OUP). You will see examples which can be selected by the teacher and student you can form such sentences as to meet the needs and interests of a particular individual or ‘Next week breakfast will be sent to group. All in all this is a highly practical book full of excellent Canada by a black cat.’ and ‘In twenty years your clothes will teaching ideas which go way beyond the norm in current be washed by a small man in a raincoat.’ And many other publications and take students into the real world of English — 35 — Book Reviews IH Journal • Issue 20, Spring 2006 grammar in challenging, engaging and enjoyable activities microgenesis, mental development in specific areas in a specific designed to help students make sense of the authentic English time span.. Obviously in second language learning ontogenesis all around them. and microgenesis are the most relevant time frames. Mediation describes the hypothesis that we don’t act on our world but our actions and language are mediated symbolic Reviewed by Roger Hunt, IH Barcelona artefacts (language, numeracy, concepts and institutions) and material artefacts and technology and social relationships. Mediation affects things like cognition and concept formation. Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Lantolf and Thorne distinguish between mediation through Language Development private speech (internal dialogue, formation of intellectual James P Lantolf and Steven L Thorne concepts) and mediation through others in social speech. Internalisation is the process whereby interpersonal and Oxford University Press, 2006 ‘person-environment interaction’ affects mental functions and activity theory describes the influence of cultural activity on ames P Lantolf, lead author of individual and group psychology and its influence on language this book, is Greer Professor in development. The zone of proximal development offers a JLanguage Acquisition and model of development processes and a tool for understanding Applied Linguistics at Pennsylvania mental capacity. Finally, activity theory emphasises cultural State University and a student of the activity as the principle of psychological function. linguistic and social theories of the The final part of the book relates these ideas to the theory Russian psychologist, Lem and practice of second language learning, both through Semyonovitch Vygotsky(1896 Vygotsky’s principle of conducting teaching through scientific –1934). In this book he aims to apply principles and ‘dynamic assessment’ a pedagogical approach socio-cultural and activity theory to grounded in ZPD (the zone of proximal development). the understanding of second The conclusions are interesting. Lantolf and Thorne trace the language acquisition. As such it evolution and application of Vygotsky’s ideas through more provides theoretical support to teachers, learners and recent thinkers about language, such as Chomsky and researchers involved in second language education research. Krashen and ask whether second language learners are able Vygotsky’s studies of human consciousness and his theory to adapt to a new language and conceptual system learned of signs explained how children internalise language in the from adolescence onwards. Short term evidence suggests course of their cultural development. According to Vygotsky, that second and foreign language learners lack the cultural to understand how individuals function mentally can be background to be able to fully appreciate lexical concepts, but understood from the social and cultural influences from which these can be learned. However, as far as Lantolf and Thorne their mental process derives. Vygotsky called his approach are concerned, the jury is still out on this. ‘cultural-historical’ but his theory has become known as the What is more interesting is Vygotsky’s conviction that that a socio-cultural theory or SCT. He identified the zone of proximal degree of formal teaching before language use yielded far development or ZPD as the key area of influence and the better results than the building of language experience and process by which the child internalises these influences as drawing the grammar rules from it. Lantolf and Thorne cite ‘inner speech’. Inner speech describes how the mind evolves examples from Moscow, where children showed above to reflect the external reality. average results in reading and writing if they were taught rules For Lantolf and Thorne culture is independent of any one first and practised afterwards. For Vygotsky, building the individual and rooted in shared social practice as it has evolved conceptual framework was an essential precursor to over history. The development and use of language is at the successful language use. core of how people characterise their culture. A socio-cultural Vygotsky reacted against the idea of language as a approach, according to Lantolf and Thorne, seeks to freestanding formal structure independent of social influences understand the relationship between human mental function as was modelled by Saussure and others. He developed a and its cultural, historical and institutional influences. The conceptual system of cultural influences and processes primary concepts of Vygotsky’s theory of socio-cultural theory influencing psychological and linguistic development, which were the genetic method, mediation, internalisation and the Lantolf and Thorne go to great lengths to explore and validate zone of proximal development. in the light of more recent research. Weighing in at almost 400 Vygotsky also added an additional concept which has pages, this is a heavy academic tome but written throughout become a theory in its own right, activity theory. Each chapter in a very clear academic style with good signposting. Not an of the book explains the theory and later commentaries and easy read but a worthwhile one for teachers wishing to get to research on it, including relevant case studies. grips with the applied linguistics background to second Briefly summarising each of Vygotsky’s key concepts, the language learning and with Vygotsky’s theories of genetic method defined four genetic domains (historical time psychological development and their application to language frames) through which one can observe mental development. learning. They are phylogenesis (emergence of modern man as a species), sociocultural development of human culture through Reviewed by Barry Tomalin, Director of Cultural Training, history, ontogenesis of individuals during their lifespan and IH London

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