Introduction

In reflecting on this module I want to describe how my concept of materials has changed, how important the reflective process is to materials design, and how coursebooks fit into teaching and learning.

Developing the concept of materials

At the start of the course my aims were fairly simple, mainly to improve my materials. My concept of materials at the time was towards the worksheet. Immersive learning, such Paul Driver’s concepts of technology-based play, Jane Wilis’ task-based learning, visual story telling via comics, and research on using video in class, such as Jamie Keddie’s story telling based teaching approach, have offered me a possible, and exciting way forward in materials design. In all of these narrative are the basis of learning (possibly arguable with Willis, but I would say that a task has a purpose, and so a story). A recent TESOL conference keynote speaker’s back projection said “story telling is at the heart of teaching and learning” (seen on twitter, source unknown/lost). In response I have started to create lessons with a central ‘story’, such as a recent class based on (real) text messages to learners from an absent (not real ) learner, in which they were asked to help on a shopping task. This involved using public space, real communicative tasks (asking shopkeepers about produce) and writing practice.

Coursebooks

As a specialist ESL teacher (teaching English to settlers in the UK, working to an exam-based, separated skills course), I had a problem with connecting with the classes in this module that focused heavily on coursebooks, as most of the material is not applicable to my work. I also held a sceptical view of them, along with a large proportion of ESL teachers worldwide. However, it needs to be accepted that coursebooks make up the majority of materials used in classes, and interestingly, they are viewed much more positively by those in the class who have used them to learn English. Of course, the truth is that materials are only as good as the teacher that uses them. The simple solution to the issue of suitability is to ‘lift them off the page’, or as Maley suggests: re-order, omit, reduce, add, extend, re-write, replace, or branch (2011). Coursebooks could be designed with this in mind, and steps are being taken by schools like Brighton Language College (see previous post) to develop more flexible materials.

Conclusion- the reflective process

a reply to a post on this blog on the complexity of the materials process made me consider it more carefully. my response was that I agree that materials development can be a complicated process, but this shows that the process is at least being considered, which is the most important thing, whether it results in amazing materials or not. I am more wary these days of announcements of ‘revolutionary’ or ‘simple’ ways to create great lessons, whether it’s via a learning approach or a resource. Even valuable ideas like Keddie’s videotelling or Thornbury’s ‘dogme’ approach are not going to work for everyone, and often are just advertised for commercial gain, academic target completion, or ego-boosting. As teachers we can be susceptible to this as we are looking to improve our teaching and help learners. But what I have learnt from the course, and experience, is that it is working and discussing with others and going through sometimes tedious processes like the reflective one above (Jolly and Bolitho’s ‘a teacher’s path through the production of new or adapted materials’, pg 113)  that really creates good materials or teaching.

References

Mcgrath, I. (2002) Materials evaluation and design for language teaching, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.

Tomlinson, B., Editor of Compilation. (2013) Developing materials for language teaching, London, Bloomsbury Academic.

I have been reading a book about the history of fonts ‘Just my type’, by Simon Garfield,  and considering the role of the font in materials design. An important part of effective worksheet design is the layout, the visual style, including the text font. Interestingly, despite this there is very little research on this in any academic literature (that I could find), and hasn’t come up as a discussion point on the course so far. This could be partly because any text is usually either only  a few words, or at longest, a page or two of text. And yet, text is an inevitable part of most materials design and so needs to be considered as much as how it is placed, or images that go with it. Fonts are designed with very specific aims in mind. Some are designed for their visual elegance, or mood. These are often used by advertisers to give their product a certain image. Other fonts are designed specifically to be easy to read. In choosing from the huge array of fonts, teachers need to have some awareness of this.

Font design is as old as writing itself, but proliferated after printing was ‘invented’ by Johannes Gutenburg in the 15th century. Since then thousands of different fonts have been designed, with even more speed as computers enabled easier creation of them.

The choice of font by the materials designer is dictated by certain constraints. I believe this includes:

the needs of the learner

the topic of the resource

the fonts available to the designer

the demands of the institution in which the designer is working

the personal preferences of the designer

the amount of text being used

the style or mood desired

Choosing a font- readability or memorability?

As mentioned previously, fonts are designed for different purposes. The choices made here are about supporting the learner. It may be assumed that a clear, easy to read font should be chosen for worksheets. However, according to Jason Cranford Teague’s article ‘Design 101 for educators: Choose your fonts carefully’ (2013),  research found a correlation between the effort it took to read text and the ability of subjects to remember that information for later testing.  Information presented in a “harder-to-read” font — such as Comic Sans — was better remembered than the same information in easier-to-read type. One theory is that making the subjects work harder to read text forces them to focus on the text more acutely, engaging deeper parts of their brains than if they could simply breeze through it

Personally, I can’t stand Comic Sans (along with most of the world’s designers; it is universally despised) and always change it if I have a document using it. However, this is for aesthetic reasons and ‘readability’ has nothing to do with style; in fact it is the opposite. A font that is memorable may be harder to read than a less stylised one.

Materials designers need to remember that many learners are reading a script very different to what they are used to: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese or Korean for example and the font chosen needs to be as clear as possible to avoid confusion. Arabic speakers for example often confuse ‘b’ and ‘p’ so choosing a font that makes these clearly different would help them. For those learning the alphabet Comic Sans is popular due to its clearly letters, especially ‘a’, ‘g’ and ‘i’. It is also effective with dyslexic readers.

Although only one part of the range of considerations when designing materials, font choice has an impact and needs to done carefully. This choice needs to be base on what is best for the learner, not just the teacher’s preferences or lack of consideration.

I leave Roger Domeneghetti to have the final word:

A font should only be used after much consideration to appropriately reflect the context and content of what you’ve written.  Again, it’s depressingly simple.  If you want to go through life sounding like a child, well, fine but no one is going to pay much attention to what you have to say although there’ll be a long queue of people wanting to give you the arse-kicking you so richly deserve.

Especially if you’re a teacher.

References

Domeneghett, R, 2013. Comic sans: the worst font in the world, Sabotage Times website. Accessed May, 2016.

http://sabotagetimes.com/life/why-i-despise-comic-sans

Garfield, Simon (2011). Just my type: a book about fonts, Profile Books.

Teague, Jason Cranford (2013). Design 101 for educators: Choose your fonts carefully, Edutopia website, accessed May 2016. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/fonts-help-students-remember-read-jason-cranford-teague

Introduction

Another interesting session today on materials design, among what has been a series of interesting sessions on the subject. This session looked at the ways vocabulary needs to be considered when creating an app, and how a language school discarded coursebooks, and created their own set of in-house materials . In describing both parts of the session I will be exploring how they made me reflect on my own practice, how they made me think about the issues involved with developing materials into digital form, and the learning theories and research behind them.

Part 1- Developing a vocabulary app

The first part of the session focused on how to present vocabulary via an app, specifically the verb ‘get’. We were asked to choose a specific group of learners to consider and chose Japanese teenagers on a short, general English course in the UK as this reflected the experiences of one of those in my group.  This quickly became a fairly complex task, as the word can be used in a huge variety of ways, being used  in grammar, idioms,collocation, multi-word verbs, and as a synonym for a large number of verbs. Of particular interest was Manami pointing out that in Japan the word get is not taught other than to mean ‘acquire’. Her insights into the difficulty of using it in so many other ways was revealing and made the activity much more meaningful, as the learners point of view became more concrete. (One of the joys of this course has been the variety of viewpoints, especially those very different from mine, as many people in the class have quite recently actually experienced being a language learner, and often have much more sympathy for coursebook materials, for example).

In the following task we were asked to decide how we would teach it. Whether vocabulary should be taught at all is discussed in Mishan & Timmis’ chapter in ‘Materials Development for TESOL’ (2015). They argue that it is not enough to promote incidental vocabulary learning through texts but that it needs to be explicitly focused on in order to ensure learners effectively learn and retain vocabulary. It is interesting that the question of whether to teach it explicitly or not didn’t arise, or at least the idea of exposing learners to it indirectly didn’t. However, we did discuss the idea of presenting it in a narrative-type text. This was inspired by my reading of Mishin and Timmis discussing Folse’s view(2004) on grouping vocabulary, who argues that teaching vocabulary in semantic sets isn’t effective and a better approach is to present it in thematic groups, such as a story.

As the word ‘get’ has a huge range of uses we first needed to decide what was to be taught. An interesting point on this is made by Mishan & Timmis that though frequency should be an important criterion for this, using corpora for example, it should not be the only criterion (pg.140). For example classroom language, essential to the learner, would not necessarily be high on a corpus’ list. They list a number of other criteria, such as range- choosing words that can be used in a variety of contexts rather than only in specific contexts- such as an academic one. What interested me most was that of ‘learnability’. Whilst high frequency words may be the most relevant they may be hard to teach in the early stages, such as those with abstract meanings. It is therefore worth considering including words that can be more easily understood, even if not so highly frequent.

Our group decided we would start with ‘get’ in questions and responses, such as ‘have you got a….?’ This is a common use of ‘get’, used in every day informal conversation, especially in the classroom (have you got a pen?), and pronunciation of the aforementioned. This was decided upon by knowledge of the areas that our focus learners would need.

Creating technology-based materials

In the next stage we adapted the vocabulary chosen to use in a mobile application (app). One of the problems with using technology to create materials, epecially apps, and especially vocabulary, is that the  main approach is a behaviourist one, such as using simple memory tests, which doesn’t  exploit the full learning potential, or the multimodality, of new technologies. There have been some that do, such as the MASELTOV project. In presenting their ideas to the class, other groups suggested using a reward system to encourage engagement, or incorporating a form of picture book to aid learning. As our group’s learner needs prioritised pronunciation, we suggested creating an app that included a tpye of soundwave visualiser. The user could see how phrases were spoken in a visual format, they could attempt to replicate the sounds, and then compare their own effort to the original. They would be able to then modulate their pronunciation if needed, to be closer to the original, using the visual replicator.

Part 2- Creating in-house materials

Vocabulary ideas for elicitation and development

General notes- grammar

References

Mishan, F. & Timmis, I. (2015) Materials Development for TESOL

Mcgrath, I. (2002) Materials evaluation and design for language teaching, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.

Mcgrath, I. (2013) Teaching materials and the roles of EFL/ESL teachers: theory versus practice, London, Continuum.Tomlinson, B. (2012) Materials Development for Language Learning and Teaching. Language Teaching, 45 (2), 143-179.

Tomlinson, B., Editor of Compilation. (2013) Developing materials for language teaching, London, Bloomsbury Academic.

Introduction

In this post I am going to describe my experience of adapting the worksheet create last week for use in digital form. I will describe the positive and negative experiences I had with it and it’s implications for the exploitation of technology in learning and materials design.

In my limited experience of researching technology use in education some of the drivers for it’s implementation seem to be companies who can see huge profits being made if their product is picked up and used in schools nationally, education managers who see it as a way of replacing teachers, thus lowering costs and the problems of dealing with staff who may disagree with you, enthusiasts of technology, and those who see it as a way to enthuse teenagers or children to be more engaged in the classroom. Those who are against it seem to be those who feel threatened by its potential for removing the need for a teacher, or at least a teacher in the traditional sense of being centre-stage, those who don’t want to have to learn new skills, and those who are naturally sceptical/ realistic about trends and want to be convinced before buying into it. There is of course a huge body of educators who believe in the importance of implementing technology and are creating exciting forms and approaches to learning with it.

Teachers like to be able to adapt materials and ‘re-mix’ them (Pregrum, 2009). Technology can aid in this, and make materials more suitable for the learners’ needs. Through the use of internet-based resources more appropriate, and more up-to-date resources can be found.

Blake (2008) describes successful technology-enhanced language learning as student-centred, carefully planned, technically well-supported and pedagogically well constructed.

New technologies and writing

I am focusing on writing as the worksheet I created was practising this skill. Writing is one of the areas that new technologies have some of the greatest potential to support. This includes using the spell and grammar check in ‘Word’ documents, the comments facility and collaborative writing in google docs, creating blogs and wikis or social network sites. However, writing is also on a wider scale of formality and use of modes, such as emojis or photos. This ranges from more spontaneous writing such as tweets or texts to more considered writing like reports or personal statements, or longer, denser texts like essays or narratives. Unlike speaking, writing does not have the opportunity for instant feedback as to communicative success. Technology offers this via comments on blogs, online documents social networks or text replies.

Considerations before developing worksheet into digital form

According to Kervin and Derewianka in their chapter ‘new technologies to support language learning’ from Tomlinson’s ‘Materials Development in Language Teaching’ (2013), teachers need to consider the following when using electronic materials:

• why am I using it?
• what’s it’s connection to the scheme of work?
• how does it match my beliefs about language learning?
• how will my students engage with it?
• how does it support learning needs?
• what information and skills do the students need to engage with it?
• what modelling and scaffolding do I need to do?
• how will they be able to analyse and evaluate the input provided?

Developing a digital resource

One of the main issues with converting a worksheet into digital form is the diversity of  formats that resources can be created, and saved, in. The original worksheet I created for this course was made using Google Docs. In attempting to create resources from it in Bookcreator, Piktochart and other infographics apps problems arose due to the difficulties in compatibility. I also found it very difficult to use the infographics to create a traditional classroom based lesson-based worksheet.

In the end I used ‘Explain anything’ to create a video of myself explaining the worksheet activities.Despite the feeling that I had failed to create something new, and more interesting, on reflection I think that this was an appropriate match between existing material and technology. This actually became a valuable resource as it was shared via Moodle and learners were able to review the lesson or use to catch up. (It has been viewed 21 times, so it has been watched more than once per student). It also worked well in this format as I could move the worksheet around easily and use the highlighting device to show the various language patterns and phrases that were being used in the text. It also gave learners some listening and pronunciation practice. This was especially valuable in a course that is focusing on writing as the main skill, consequently the other skills being less practised.

Here is the video. (At around 6 minutes there is an example of use of the highlighting tool in Explain Everything)

In attempting to evaluate the resource using the questions earlier

• why am I using it?

To support learners who missed the class or who wish to review it.

• what’s it’s connection to the scheme of work?

The current scheme of work focuses primarily on writing, which this covers. In addition to the lesson however, it offers self-directed study, and listening practice.

• how does it match my beliefs about language learning?

The way I have used it has been very teacher-oriented, but at this stage I don’t know how it could not be, due to the manner of the program. There is no facility for interaction from the student. I full support the idea of learners taking responsibility for their own learning and this certainly encourages outside study.

• how will my students engage with it?

There are instructions given on the video so learners should have created a piece of writing by the end of the video.

• how does it support learning needs?

It would potentially benefit learners who prefer to reflect on what they have experienced in the classroom. It helps reinforce what has been done in the classroom.

• what information and skills do the students need to engage with it?

It is a short youtube video on low resolution, so it can be easily viewed on any device with internet connection. The exercise is self-contained so no previous instructions or knowledge are necessary to engage fully with it.

• what modelling and scaffolding do I need to do?

As above, none.

• how will they be able to analyse and evaluate the input provided?

Ultimately though, apart from some minor augmentation, such as the highlighting of different parts of the text to show their form, this is little different to videoing the lesson and putting it online. Many other ways of exploiting this worksheet are possible. One of this is using ‘hot potatoes’, a free piece of software that teachers to create different types of grammar or vocabulary exercise. Despite being around for a while it is easy to use, and to share with learners, via Moodle. In this case, a gap-fill could have been created to practise spelling or vocabulary retention.

Learners could create a video in response to mine, creating a text using the information gained from the video and showing how they have used it. Or the video could be some kind of re-enactment of the text made. It could be questions about my video or their own instructional video. The topic- describing a scene- would potentially be a fruitful source of interesting developments on this theme. The potential for bringing the text alive, or using it as a part of, or as a springboard for using other skills via video or other means is an exciting one. In fact, I think I’ve planned my next lesson!

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are two things to be learned from this brief foray into digital materials augmentation. I am still at a stage of learning how to co-ordinate different systems and these difficulties remind me why technology is not as much a part of the teacher’s tool-kit as it should be. It also reminds me why software like ‘kahoot’ and ‘socrative’, online interactive student response systems, that are easy and quick to use in exercise creation, are more popular than others. It also reminds me how important it is to engage with it as feedback from learners on the video was very positive and reminds me of the need to continue to develop skills and engage with technology. More than this though, it reminds me that it is not the technology itself, and it’s sophistication, or lack of that should be the focus: it’s how it can be exploited to serve a need.

References

Introduction

This blog post is not directly related to any of the topics discussed on the course but is about an  idea that has been inspired by many of the concepts and areas of materials development that have been covered on the course so far. It is about the use of creativity in materials design, and in reaction to the linear format that many coursebooks tend to follow. I believe that language learning and teaching is a very creative skill, and it is partly this that makes it frustrating for teachers to use coursebooks that are created to follow a very fixed format, and do not allow for spontaneity, ideas, and a teacher’s or learner’s needs. I want to look at how the concept of using the cut-up technique in materials design could provide an opportunity for creativity and spontaneity to enter materials design.

The idea came when I started watching a short video that was already halfway through. I decided to continue watching and catch up with the beginning when it started again. Watching this way made understanding more difficult, but it forced me to make my own ideas about what was being discussed.  It made me think about the non-linear aspects of comics that Barbara Chamberlain mentioned in her presentation. There, she talked about how the way comics, as opposed to other art forms, such as films, are presented both linearly and as a whole.  It also brought to mind William Burrough’s practice of ‘cut-ups’ where he would randomly re-order a text, or combine a number of texts he had written in order to create new meanings, an idea he had taken from much earlier experiments in the visual and written arts (At a surrealist rally in the 1920’s Tristan Tzara proposed to create a poem on the spot by pulling words out of a hat). I want to look at if this concept of non-linear presentation could be used in the classroom and with coursebooks, and if so how.

The problem with linear formats

One form of structuring a class is the presentation- practice- produce(PPP) format. This involves presenting a grammar point, a language pattern or vocabulary group, practising using it in a controlled way and then using it in a less controlled way. This form has been in use for a long time and continues to be popular, is taught on language teaching courses and the basis for most coursebook design despite heavy criticism and evidence of it’s lack of suitability for learning (Teaching English website, viewed 2016).

In fact it’s not just the individual units in a coursebook that use this linear approach but the whole book itself. In Ken Carrol’s blog on ‘leadership strategies’, he suggests one of these as being non-linear thinking. In it he uses the way language textbooks plan grammar progression as an example of linear thinking. He argues that this an arbitary form of learning and doesn’t reflect how we learn in real life. Tomlinson (2013) points out that learners learn language through creating their own understanding of it, not what is told to them.

In an article in The Guardian about the positive effects of napping David Ferguson (2016) writes “And then there is that magic, gray state between awake and asleep where thoughts begin to change into improbable shapes and designs. So many times I have snapped awake out of this state with a perfect new idea or a solution to a longstanding problem because suddenly I was able to make connections that I couldn’t make awake. It’s as if my linear, wide-awake self is only capable of looking at a problem from so many angles. Once the walls of consciousness start to fall away, my mind can see its way to new, more expansive horizons”. I include this quote to strengthen the point that a non-linear approach could possibly yield learning development, although perhaps in a different, if equally valid way. This approach could perhaps be used as an alternative if more usual methods fail to help the learner, as sometimes, perhaps frequently happens.

Sam Barlow, a video game developer, interviewed in The Guardian, describes developing a video game called ‘Her story’:

“Ballard was riffing on 60s avant garde ideas – the stories are full of narrative gimmicks. One is told though the index of a fictional autobiography, there’s a story told via a series of vignettes that you’re supposed to shuffle like a pack of cards”….Ballard directed readers of The Atrocity Exhibition to flip through the pages until they found an interesting paragraph and then read around it for more information. This blew my mind, it tapped into the idea of what Her Story was becoming – this idea of the audience as an active participant, surfing the story, looking for particular words or phrases that capture their attention, then diving in and leading their own path through the story. That was such a lovely idea. The fusing of writing and reading sparked something in my head.” (Her Story: how JG Ballard and Sharon Stone inspired the award-winning game, The Guardian, 2016)

This idea was developed by Barlow, and in the game you can use the interface like a search engine, entering words or phrases that might bring up video clips, you watch them then search for new videos base on what  you have learnt.  Because of the way different people discover and analyse the clips in different orders, theories can differ wildly. In other words it is up to the participant to make connections depending on what they find.

We use something similar in activities such as eliciting random words then asking learners to write a story using some or all of them, or when we give them a selection of images with a similar task in mind. We use ‘cut-ups’ literally when we give students a sentence or text cut into words or chunks for re-assembling. Perhaps the text could be designed so that there is more than one way to re-assemble, allowing the learner to create new sentences and ideas. The cut-up technique could allow new ideas to appear through new combinations of imagery, text, grammar and tasks and could create unusual and interesting connections, networks and language output. It offers learners the opportunity to take charge of their learning by having to create their own ways of making sense of information instead of being spoon-fed controlled dollops of safe, sanitized language. Story telling exploits the desire for learners to understand what is going on, to close the information gap. Perhaps this cut-up technique could exploit this need in the same way, by forcing learners to put sense and form where there is none.

Encouraging creativity

Closure in comics is the “phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole” (McCloud, pg. 63). In other words, closure is the act of mentally filling in the gaps of what we observe, thus allowing readers to comprehend the action and meaning between two seemingly unrelated panels. The reader observes two separate panels and mentally pieces together what happens in between them, even though there is no panel containing what actually happened in between.

To a certain extent this reflects the way we collect information using the internet. Instead of reading from beginning to end, we are more likely to gather information at various stages and in various forms. In researching this blog post I gathered information from sources including an online academic article, a youtube video, a blog post, an online newspaper article, a comic book, an academic book.

Much of the way we experience language, especially when first encountering it, is in a random confusion of snippets of language, that could include pieces of conversations, glimpses of street adverts, songs, instructions and announcements on public transport and newspaper headlines. A collage of words read, listened to or overheard. It is the learner’s task to absorb and process it.  This collage of language reflects the ‘cut-up’ style art and writing.

I am not suggesting that it has serious merit but it may be worth considering as a(n extreme) way of breaking free from the tyranny of the linear, sequential, PPP-based coursebook dictated lesson. Teachers often comment that the best lessons are those that move spontaneously away from the lesson plan,  that respond to a question or comment made by a learner that has little or nothing in connection with the lesson. A ‘cut-up’ lesson could allow ideas and topics to come out in the same way.

Conclusion

PPP offers a very simplified approach to language learning. It is based upon the idea that you can present language in neat little blocks, adding from one lesson to the next. However, it is impossible to predict what the students will learn and so a wide exposure to language is the best way of ensuring that students will acquire it effectively. Restricting their experience to single pieces of target language is unnatural(Willis 2007). Despite the earlier quote from ‘Teaching English’ I am not suggesting that all coursebooks slavishly follow the PPP approach. Almost all modern course books have a mixture of approaches and methodologies. Also most teachers decide what methodology or approach to use depending on the aims of the lesson and the learners in the group. However, experimenting with non-linear approaches to materials could have value.

A possibly more productive approach is described by Alan Maley in his chapter of Materials Development in Language Teaching, ‘Squaring the circle’Prabhu’s proposal for using resources. He suggests making a collection of ‘raw’ input, spoken or written texts that the teacher can use in any way that seems appropriate

Maley takes this further with his concept of ‘flexi-materials’. Teachers are given ‘raw’ texts and a set of generalisable pedagogical procedures which can be applied to the texts in any combination. Teachers can decide which texts to use, in which order, and with which procedures. Texts could be replaced or combined with images, audio or video.

This procedure is already used by teachers to a certain extent, with the supplementation or replacement of coursebook materials with a combination of other resources, often found via the internet. A formalised version of this could be highly effective as a method of developing teaching materials.

References

‘A Framework for Task-Based Learning’ by Jane Wills, Longman 1996

‘Doing Task-Based Teaching’ by Dave and Jane Willis, OUP 2007

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/29/her-story-how-jg-ballard-and-sharon-stone-inspired-the-award-winning-game

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/28/sleep-study-workers-deprived-same-as-vodka-shots

For week 8 we were asked to make a worksheet. The criteria included:

• make with a specific group in mind
• Two to three sides
• based around a text (including visual, aural or multimedia text)

It needed to include all or any of the following:

visuals

• an aim/goal/objective for students

• the written text or a link to the audio/video clip

• a lead in

• a gist task

• a sequence of tasks to develop skills and/or

• a sequence of tasks focusing on a grammar point and/or

• a sequence of tasks focusing on lexis

• a record of any language taught on the worksheet

Materials can be informative (informing the learner about the target language), instructional (guiding the learner in practising the language), experiential (providing the learner with experience of the language in use), eliciting (encouraging the learner to use the language) and exploratory (helping the learner to make discoveries about the language).  Tomlinson

As different learners learn in different ways (Oxford 2002) the ideal materials aim to provide all these ways of acquiring a language for the learners to experience and sometimes select from.

Most coursebooks are made with an explicit teaching practice in mind

Materials development has not been researched seriously until the mid 1990s

I made my worksheet with the following class in mind.

Learners- Adult ESOL Students at E3/B1/Intermediate level

Course/Class- second week of 12 week Writing course

Aims- ‘Describe a scene’ To plan, write, edit and improve a text using prepositional phrases, adjectives and descriptive phrases

Relating to previous learning- last week we looked at elements of successful writing and analysed a series of texts. In this lesson we are comparing two texts to decide which is better, using the criteria from last week.

Learner needs- as an ESOL course the emphasis is on practical requirements in writing- the scheme of work for week 2 lists filling in forms as the topic. However, I have decided to delay this as looking at the learners’ initial assessments I saw there was a lack of descriptive writing, varied sentences and planning. Also, the language we will use in the lesson can be recycled for personal statements, CVs etc.

Criteria for evaluation

When creating criteria for evaluation with Sherifa and Adriana most of them were specifically created to evaluate a coursebook. However we created some for overall evaluation, using Brian Tomlinson’s principles (pgs 8-23) as a starting point. As I think they are an excellent set of criteria I decided to use them to evaluate my own materials. They are listed below.

Do they prompt learners to ask questions?
Do they encourage the use of creative thinking?
Do they recycle previous language studied?
Are the activities created using recognised learning approaches?
Does the content encourage learner effort?
Do they provide exposure to authentic input?
Are there activities that focus on meaning as well as form?
Do they offer students choice? (of text, activity, extra work, variety)
Do the students get feedback on the effectiveness of their use of language (did they achieve a communicative goal)?

Other considerations

We have been talking about process writing in the staff-room and some great ideas from colleagues have found their way into my worksheet. As mentioned above I also wanted to develop learners’ general writing skills before focusing on specific writing types. Although this has given my worksheet a more EFL style than ESOL I believe this is beneficial to the learners at this stage.

The worksheet

Entry 3 Writing 2016 Describingascene

Evaluation of worksheet based on criteria

Do they prompt learners to ask questions?

Learners are asked to consider the value of the exercise in relation to real-life needs

They are asked to compare texts and consider which is better and why
Do they encourage the use of creative thinking?

They are asked to imagine a scene and describe it

They are asked to create a text that would persuade people to visit somewhere

They are asked to give reasons why they prefer one text to another
Do they recycle previous language studied?

Language of suggesting has been used before

They are asked to analyse text using criteria for succssful writing which was studied in previous lesson
Are the activities created using recognised learning approaches?

Process writing is a recognised learning approach

Task-based learning also used
Does the content encourage learner effort?

Learners asked to analyse two texts and decide which is better

Learners are asked to find examples of language use and analyse for grammar type

They are asked to find meaning of adjectives via each other or dictionary
Do they provide exposure to authentic input?

Lead-in photo is authentic

Functional phrases are used in everyday life ( ‘I reckon’, ‘I bet’)

adjectives are taken from real travel guides
Are there activities that focus on meaning as well as form?

Main task is designed to focus on authentic text- a travel guide- and purpose is to be positively descriptive, task-based learning
Do they offer students choice? (of text, activity, extra work, variety)

Little, in first task learners can choose any scene to describe
Do the students get feedback on the effectiveness of their use of language (did they achieve a communicative goal)?

Yes-first and final writing task is assessed for it’s communicative skill, not accuracy

Reflections on criteria evaluation

I am very happy with the evaluation as I have been able to cover most criteria. The glaring omission is the offer of choice to learners.

FEEDBACK FROM PEERS

What people liked

Looks appealing

Challenging

asking learners why skills practised are useful

opportunities for personalisation

use of key functional phrases

improving text task

example text

lead-in visual

Queries

reading aloud activity ( too soon, too personal)

staging process (more needed to support writing before it is shared)

To respond to the queries the reading aloud activity is essential for these reasons:  learners may have difficulty reading each others handwriting, reading the text aloud allows the learners to add tone and emphasis to support understanding. It encourages motivation to write for an audience and supports pronunciation practice. It also allows them to understand  themselves how clear their writing is. Also the whole point of the lesson is to look at how to edit and improve an initial text. By supporting and developing it at this stage would take away the process of group writing.

However, in acknowledgement it would be a good idea to inform learners that they will be reading their texts out loud before they start writing so that they will know this is going to happen. I also agree to a certain extent about more scaffolding for the first writing task. When used in a lesson more work was done on what could be written about in the text, for example describing senses- I used the photo on the worksheet to elicit sounds, smells, tastes etc. and I also emphasised that it didn’t need to be a real place.

Issues with worksheet design for evaluation

The problem with this type of task is to assess its value in terms of being a realistic reflection of the majority of materials designed for classroom use. When materials are being observed or analysed, as in for a formal inspection, a lot more time and effort is spent on their production. This obviously means that the teacher is thinking more carefully than usual about their materials but it also means that it is not a true reflection of what that teacher regularly uses.

Another point is that this amount of time spent on materials can actually have a detrimental effect on their quality. When being inspected or observed teachers are required to show they are including all the requirements set by the evaluator. This can result in a lesson that, although it may include a wide range of learning techniques, is constrained, artificial and unsatisfactory for teacher and learner. In having to evidence requirements in this way means that teachers cannot deviate from the script of the lesson plan, or respond to learner need. In creating my worksheet I felt this pressure to include different ‘essential’ elements meant that it became somewhat linear and over-reliant on instructions. This impacted on the layout, making it somewhat cramped, and meant that learners would be able to read later activities. This has given me an important insight into the creation of coursebook materials. My major criticism of them has always been the cramped style and over-use of instructions, various language points (Scott Thornbury’s ‘grammar McNuggets’) and linear style of exercises. I can see now how this can happen when the materials writer is attempting to make the activities explicit to the learner and also include a wide range of skills and language practice.

The solution is of course to ‘pull the material off the page’ and use it in your own way.

References

Matsuda, P.K., & Cox, M. (2011). Reading an ESL writer’s text. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 2(1), 4 – 14.

Subtexts in film and video

Having discussed the power of video in my last post on a practical and pedagogical level, I would like to look at another aspect. This is that the very power of video to make language learning more effective and enjoyable can also be used for other purposes that may not be desirable to the teacher or learner.

The subjective view

In the early days of film-making, film-makers saw the camera as an objective instrument, independent and uninfluenced by the user (Jean Epstein, cited Casetti, pg. 8). As we now know too well it can actually be a powerful tool of deception, propaganda and has been regularly used for these purposes. The film-maker chooses what to show, and what not to show. In his book ‘Filmish’ (2015) a graphic novel on the history of cinema, Edward Ross looks at the way that film has been used to portray a very specific world-view. For example, the dominance of men behind, and in front of the camera means cinema aligns viewers with a male perspective. This influences how not only men are seen but how women are seen through men’s eyes. Not only sexism, but racism and homophobia are all seen in much of cinema.

Video as propaganda

The movies play a vital role in inscribing our moral values and reinforcing social norms and expectations (Ross, pg 131)  Films like ‘Basic Instinct’, made in 1992,  equate independent women with psychosis, Hero (2002), an epic Chinese martial arts film, promotes the idea of China as a unified country, at a time when this increasingly under threat. Films like ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘True Lies’, amongst many others, show Arabs as stereotypical villains- Ross suggests this helps justify military involvement in the Middle East (pg 139). With these values and ideologies smuggled into our subconscious through the medium of, often well-made, exciting and memorable, film, our view of the world is being adjusted and formed by them. This is found not just in films but in much of broadcasting. The major news channels are monitored by those in power to ensure they offer the message that benefits them most. Naom Chomsky describes how consent for economic, social and political policies is “manufactured” in the public mind (1988). As teachers we need to be aware of this when choosing video to use in class and as a medium in general.

How to deal with this in the classroom

This is not to say that all film is trying to offer a reactionary message. Mainstream movies are multifaceted, contradictory and fluid (Ross, pg 150). In developing awareness of this, we can encourage learners to develop critical thinking skills by noticing and discussing how film and video depicts people and events.

Mainstream media no longer dominates. Thanks to developments in technology we are not confined to a limited number of controlled voices. With the ease of making and uploading video through internet-enabled devices and sharing sites such as youtube, we have an incredible range of different videos to choose from, from different parts of the world and society.

And due to this ease of creating video, maybe the most important potential for video is to allow learners to create their own, to share their own stories, their own points of view. In this way they are not only able to avoid mainstream society’s cultural norms and propaganda, but ‘explore different outlooks on the world, spread ideas and challenge the societal norms we often take for granted’ (Ross, Filmish,  pg 151).

References:

Chomsky, Naom. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, 1988.

 Ross, Edward. Filmish: A Graphic Journey Through Film . Harry N. Abrams, 2015

Video- intro

A fantastic session this week on the topic of sound and vision. A group brainstorm on the value of using video brought up many interesting points and presentations showed ways of editing video to create interest and thus generate language and ways to add captions to videos. It made me completely reconsider how video can be used in the classroom and why it is so important.

Why use video?

First I want to look at some justifications for using video over still images, written text or audio alone. Goldstein and Driver (2013) describe four pedagogical roles for video, language focus- where the video provides a contextualised language model, skills practice-listening comprehension, speaking to predict or describe,  reading subtitles and writing about the what has been seen. It can be used as stimulus for creating interest in a topic, for summarizing or discussions. It can be used as a resource– the content of the video offering information that can then be used in tasks. I would argue that many of these roles could be equally served by audio alone, but the combination of sound and vision is highly effective. Video is a very popular form of entertainment and communication and getting more so. Youtube is the second most popular search engine on the internet and processes more than 3 billion searches a month. When you factor in Skype, Vimeo, Vine, vlogging, Netflix, BBC iplayer etc. a picture is built of the huge dominance of video.  And, if it is considered pedagogically important to involve the real world in the classroom then video is one of the most important materials as it is constantly updated. In my own experience learners use video constantly, for learning English via youtube videos, but also in so much of their every-day communicative experiences. Goldstein and Driver write about the ease with which people can, and do, share and make their own videos, re-edit existing videos, make spoofs and becoming the ‘chief cultural resource for many young people’ (pg. 5:2013). This is an area that could be exploited to create language opportunities, student-centred learning and improve digital literacy.

Video storytelling

As part of my preparation for this topic I researched Jamie Keddie’s wonderful use of video, which basically involves using the ‘story’ of a video as the basis for a lesson. He calls this ‘videotelling’, using video to support language learning by creating a void which needs to be filled by language (Keddie 2009). An example of use is on the topic of disability. A common theme in this method is of creating a ‘mystery’. Here the mystery is why someone is offended by a friend’s restaurant recommendation.  Through discussion, language is used and improved by the teacher. In this case the video is barely used (merely to reveal that the offended person is in a wheelchair) but the work has been done and the video is not really needed by now. I include an example below of Jamie giving a model lesson.

What I have found exciting in researching this topic is the potential of video for using narrative, story telling and how this can engage and give meaning to an activity. I have usually considered this to be in the realm of EFL rather than ESOL but I can see how video can be used in a way that is relevant to my learners. When testing out using a video based lesson with my learners, on the topic of ‘castaways’, a student was inspired to show us phone video footage of his journey as a refugee landing on a deserted Greek island. He not only used language from the class but was using it to bring his own life into the discussion.

Examples of use by other classmates

A great way to use video to really engage learners and encourage lots of discussion is to present it in a ‘Memento’ style, showing the ending first and working backwards. Andrea and Alex, two participants in the MA course, showed us how they took a short video, sliced it into four and elicited suggestions from learners as to what was happening, starting with the last part. As they worked backwards more of the story emerged until viewers were able to fit it together and work out what was going on. A very effective way to use what is already an interesting video.

Andrea also showed us a video he had found, downloaded and added captions to. However, rather than captioning all  the speaking as would normally be done, he chose to caption only key words. He found this effective with his learners as they were not overloaded and could focus on important vocabulary.

Notes on class discussion on advantages of video

Some of the advantages of video are that they are short, they don’t destroy the momentum of a lesson, and it is easy to find something that fits lesson or can be adapted as there are many short films, so it doesn’t just have to be Mr Bean. The teacher can use the latest issues or news items as a springboard to learning. you can even make them yourself- using an internet-enabled device you can make and upload a film in minutes. even better, the students can do this.

Zhang, Zhou, Briggs, and Nunamker (2006) conducted an empirical study that showed interactive video groups achieved both significantly higher learning gains and higher levels of satisfaction than the other three groups. This group also had random access to video content whereby they could select and jump from video clips of interest. This has similarities with the array of online video services available today.

Below I include the result of a brainstorming session on the value of using video in the class.

As can be seen the list covers many of the benefits of using video in class, such as exposing learners to authentic language and contexts in a way that no other medium can. Video provide models of language, it mirrors communication in real life, including body language. It is multi-modal, offering image and sound combined, a very powerful form of communication. It can be used outside the classroom, reviewed, analysed, commented on and re-created.

Conclusion

All of the ideas and approaches that I described are developing video in a way that was not so possible before the internet and youtube type video sharing websites. Behind the best ideas, however, lie strong, well thought out and researched teaching concepts. With some of them, such as Keddie’s story telling process, the video becomes almost incidental. Certainly video can be a useful part of a lesson in many ways, as noted above. The idea of passing from consumption to creation is the most powerful concept taken from this research, and one that will be investigated further.

References

A Walker and G White, 2013. Technology Enhanced Language Learning, Oxford University Press.

Introduction

In this blog post I will discuss the purpose of using imagery in materials, looking at Duchastel’s principles,  some of the reasons why coursebook publishers don’t follow these principles, and how image use can be personalised.

A very interesting class this week on the use of images in  supporting language learning. Although a hackneyed quote, the phrase that keeps coming to mind is ‘a picture tells a thousand words’. Used in the right way images are an incredibly powerful part of supporting language learning, and can convey huge amounts of information and ideas, often more effectively than a written description. however, they are now so ubiquitous, with the advent of google images, digital cameras and photo sharing via social network sites like ‘facebook’ or ‘instagram’, that we may be in danger of forgetting how important images are, and how important it is still, or maybe more so, to consider their use carefully. In his ‘Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology’, Jonassen (2004) describes Duchastel’s(1978) ‘grammar of illustrations’, which offers some principles for using images. His three general rules are that they should attract attention, help recall information, and explain information that would be hard to do in spoken or written form. This as a very powerful set of principles to help guide the choice of images.  In my own teaching practice I see the power of an image to engage and support understanding on a daily basis. With lower level learners I can google an image instead of spending hours trying to explain it, and with higher level learners, a well chosen combination of images (such as those with controversial, emotive, or entertaining subjects), can spark interesting discussions. Both of these could be seen to fall into Duchastel’s principles. Photo-dictionaries, books with pages of labelled photos in a theme, are an excellent way to develop learners’ vocabulary.

The PARSNIP effect on image choice in coursebooks

Any materials used in language work should facilitate the use of, or extend understanding of the target language. This would suggest that images in the materials should do the same. However, looking through many coursebooks images are often unengaging and/or unrelated to the language learning taking place. One reason for this is the ‘PARSNIP‘ effect. This is an acronym, standing for : no politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms or pork(Meddings, 2015). In order to be able to offer their coursebooks to the widest possible audience, publishers need to be highly sensitive to upsetting anybody. There are coursebooks that ignore this, such as the 2001 edition of ‘Innovations’, a coursebook by Hugh Dellar. It is full of images like the one below, reflecting a more realistic view of, if not the world, certainly parts of the UK. I know that an image like this would create a reaction in  my students that could be fruitfully exploited for language work as well as for social awareness and personalisation.

Image from ‘Innovations’ Upper-intermediate Coursebook, by Hugh Dellar and Darryl Hocking, 2001.

Of course, it is not just the choice of image that is an issue in coursebooks but how they are used. In Hill’s analysis of three coursebooks he found that over half of the photos were for decoration (Hill, 2013). He also points out that most of these are portraits, and suggests that this is due to it being easier to find agency photos of this kind than images more specific to the language topic. He writes that this is a waste of effort for the publisher and a waste of opportunity for the learner and teacher. He suggests using these photos as part of the language tasks: for example, they could be used as a lead-in by asking the learner to answer questions about the photos, such as how the people in the photo are feeling, or what they are wearing. He argues this would have led to an easier lead-in to the topic, and the picture would have been integrated into the task.

In my own experience of using visuals, and relating back to the ‘PARSNIP’ considerations, it is those with a strong emotional impact that are the most effective. This might just be a humorous image, or a a facial expression. If learners have something to react to, they have something to talk about, just like real life. Referring back to Duchastel’s principles, I have noticed that retention of information is much stronger if there is a connection with an emotionally impacting image. Hill (2013) writes about Pit Corder’s (1966) distinction between ‘talking about’ and ‘talking with’ a picture. The difference is that the first is just using language to describe what can be seen, the second is using the picture to connect language with their own experiences. What Hill suggests coursebooks don’t do, and what is required of images, is to help create this connection, which they have an enormous potential for, as actually it is the ‘PARSNIP’ type topics that make up of much of everyday conversation.  Ultimately, what I would suggest really stimulates learners to use language is photos and images of their own, whether ones they have taken, of family for example, or ones they have chosen because of some personal connection. This could be food from their country, a favourite car or animal, or an image from a newspaper that they want to discuss. With the advent of high quality cameras being now integral to most phones it is much easier to integrate learners’ photos into the class. This suggests that coursebooks need to be more flexible in allowing teachers and learners to adapt them to fit with visuals of their own, or that , ideally, teachers and learners make their own materials.

Dellar, H, and Hocking D (2001) Innovations. Hove: Language Teaching Publications.

Hill, D. A. (2013) The visual element in EFL coursebooks. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed)Developing Materials for Language Teaching. (2nd edn) London: Bloomsbury. pp. 157-166.

Jonassen, D.H. 2004. Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology. Taylor & Francis.