In this my final post, I can hardly believe I’ve written as much as I have. I think it’s approaching 15,000 words. It feels quite epic!
The longest post was on sound and vision (video). As I said in that post, I think I had a lot to learn in that area and enjoyed finding out more about it, but also know there’s much more to know. The Goldstein and Driver book is now part of my workbag toolkit.
In terms of what I wanted to achieve from this module at the start, these were my thoughts:
I want to be better able to review and select material fit for purpose, so it’s best suited to students’ needs and me as a teacher
I want to be able to adapt and supplement material more effectively for the same reasons
I’ve certainly achieved this through completing the coursebook and task evaluation tasks with colleagues and the associated readings and posts. The key message I took away from completing these and listening to the other presenters was that evaluation should follow a process. That is, it should be systematic and answer the question – does it meet my principles?
The same appliesto adaptation and supplementation. Although publishers create and we select materials for a target market, adaptation allows us to add value to what is offered, so it can become even more suitable for the precise needs of the students in our context. Principled adaptation should always put the goals of the students first and should also meet our principles. Roll on flexi-materials!
I want to gain practical skills using different forms of digital technology and examine ways of using it in the classroom. I particularly want to learn how to exploit video.
I did learn a lot about using digital video and still digital images and believe I’m really going to enjoy using them in the classroom more – I plan to. With other forms of digital tech. well, I think I probably just scratched the surface, but discovered some fun and easy applications that enhance the learning process. I know much more about them than I did before the course and am far more willing to give them a fair hearing, to evaluate them properly.
I would like some insight into the design process when creating materials, to inform evaluation and selection and enable self-created supplementation
This was the most challenging part of the module as it brought together pedagogic knowledge synthesised into principles for design of text content, visuals and instructions; desktop publishing skills; sourcing skill; and evaluation skills. It was a challenge but it was achieved. I have no ambition to pursue materials writing in any serious manner, but can and may well produce a decent worksheet from time to time.
So this is THE END. Time to sign off. I feel compelled to end with an emblematic digital image.
In this our 9th seminar we started our conversation on the role of digital technologies in the classroom with a trial of ‘google cardboard’, which Anna kindly brought to class to share with us. It’s a free google app. used on a smartphone in conjunction with cardboard goggles (available for around £5) which are used to view the app’s pictures in the ‘virtual reality’ of the cardboard goggles. It was a hit with the class and we could well imagine students enjoying the experience of language games such as 20 questions, played with this simple and inexpensive tech. We thought students would be affectively engaged – a key principle in language learning. It demonstrated how everyday technologies can complement and enhance learning.
ELT materials have been hugely affected by digital technologies in recent years but there has been some concern expressed regarding their over use. For example, when technology drives the choices of what and how to teach, it bypasses the use of sound pedagogic and methodology principles because of a technologically driven bias. Maley (2011:390) for example as quoted by Tomlinson (2012: 165), accepts many of the advantages of digital technologies but warns of a ‘total capitulation’ to it.
It’s perhaps easy to appreciate the enriching quality of the mobile phone app. described above to facilitate interaction in the classroom. Resources such as YouTube and Google too, used for authentic multi-modal input from which to launch and stimulate interaction have more advantages than disadvantages as a language learning resource. Where some of the reservations regarding digital technology more frequently occur is where they purport to replace or marginalise the interactions traditionally found in our language classrooms. The rise of online learning in the form of formal online courses, virtual worlds, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), online language learning communities such as Web 2.0 and mobile apps such as Duolingo, have all come under the spotlight in this regard to a greater or lesser extent. In a recent ELT Journal publication, Hockley, N (2015), reviews the use of some of these and any associated research into these digital forms of language learning. He concluded with reference to apps, that “despite questions about the pedagogic effectiveness of the learning content and approach, app-based, mobile approaches are now major long-term players in the online language learning space.” (Hockley, N. 2015. p312).
In a previous post on the use of video in the language classroom I reflected on the growing expectations of learners to operate in a a multi-modal environment where text, visuals and sound are integrated. This reflects what society at large is doing and results in less patience for more traditional non-integrated approaches. Kiddle, T (2015. in Tomlinson, B. (eds) p190) also comments on this saying that, particularly amongst those born post 1980, expectations to use digital technology and an awareness of it permeates all of their lives, their language learning lives included. Despite this, observes Kiddle, for multiple reasons, we have some way to go before technology is normalised in the L2 classroom. He goes on to list some technologies that have the exploitation of a digital mode or media as their key concept, but like others, warns that this doesn’t make them ‘good’ or ‘valuable’ per se. Yet again the discourse returns to a debate on principles of L2 learning, and those coined in a referent discussion surrounding interactive whiteboards in 2010 are resurrected by Kiddle for all digital language teaching and learning materials.
These principles are: multi-modality– a central aspect and reason for using digital technology; orchestration – the teacher’s role in effectively exploiting these modes and of shaping how students participate in their use; and participation– the type of student interaction with the technology. He adds feedback as a further key principle. He too concludes that in developing technologies that seek to “add something different and equally or more effective to the learning process” care needs to be taken that it is not “there for its own sake or for arbitrary non-pedagogic reasons.” (Kiddle, T (2015. in Tomlinson, B. (eds) p203).
In preparation for our seminar we were given the option to explore the task of converting the worksheet we’d been working on (for week 7) into digital form, a process known as leveraging. My worksheet used a song as the ‘text’, which is already in a digital format. It certainly exploits multi-modality which is orchestrated by the teacher through the tasks in the worksheet which engender participation (or interaction).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsCPrboDunw
With regard to the worksheet itself, I looked into leveraging the 1st vocabulary task, which was matching lexical chunks with their definitions. I tried Quizlet for this but it wasn’t successful (at the level I tried to use it) as the lexical chunks were metaphorical phrases so there was nothing in the Quizlet database to convert this into simple picture prompt: just as there was nothing in the dictionaries that had the metaphorical meaning either. I could have paid a subscription and then written my own definitions for my terms as I’d done on the worksheet, but chose not to as the costs would have outweighed the benefits. I concluded that this worksheet was not suitable for digitalising more than it was already. Here again is the worksheet for reference.
What I’ve done instead is picked out a worksheet I’ve used and adapted before and leveraged part of that. This is an activity in which students use a questionnaire to ask and answer questions about friendship.There is a suggested lead-in and follow up to the main activity and it is taken from Quizzes, Questionnaires and Puzzles – Ready-made activities for intermediate students by Miles Craven. I like it because friendship is a universal theme that can engage all learners and has a particular resonance with teenagers. I also like it because it’s very flexible in how it can be used and that’s important because often, I don’t know ahead of time the exact level of the students I get on short course. Sometimes, with higher level intermediates I only need to do a quick elicit of relevant language and then it’s straight into the main interactional communicative activity which can be extended into a survey with a reporting follow-up. The relevant language is at the top of page 70. Here is the worksheet.
I’ve done this is a few different ways. One way I particularly like is with role play. As different scenarios are acted out the lexis is elicited in context, boarded and looked at in different ways -syllable stress and phonetically for pronunciation, word class and spelling. It is here that I think a digital activity with Quizlet would complement the lesson by reinforcing the learning of lexis by matching it to pictures in a ‘gamified’ way. Students would use their mobile phones for this. So I created a lexical set on friendship on the Quizlet app which was very quick and easy to do. And I like the pictures they offered although they were quite limited but if you pay the subscription you get more. Here is the link to the app.
I particularly like the games ‘scatter’ and ‘gravity’, but the ‘spelling’ and ‘learn’ features are good too. I also found the audio for pronunciation really clear, though I expect that would vary with device. I think with regard to the discussion above as to whether this digital element would add something useful to the lesson I would say ‘yes’. It’s engaging and varies the activities used to learn the lexis. It is multi-modal and orchestrated by the teacher for a specific task purpose. The students participation is with the technology directly via their mobile phones and they receive feedback directly through the app.
The key to using digital technology in my view, is to evaluate it in exactly the same way as you would other materials. Does it add, not take away from the purpose of your task or lesson? If you subjected it to your evaluation criteria based on your principles (developed in week 2 and 3 and applied to the worksheet in week 7), how would it do? Don’t use it just because its there. Equally, be prepared to try out new ways of doing things as they may represent a considerable enhancement to learning. They may also be easier to use than you think. And that’s coming from someone who certainly wasn’t born before 1980.
References
Hockley, N (2015) in ELT Journal 69/3, July 2015; doi:10.1093/elt/ccv020
Kiddle, T (2015) in Tomlinson, B. (eds) Developing materials for language teaching
Miles Craven (2010) Quizzes, Questionnaires and Puzzles – Ready-made activities for intermediate students.
For seminar 7 we were asked to create a worksheet with a specific group in mind and bring it along to the session to share. Unfortunately I missed this session so missed the sharing bit but here is the worksheet bit!
The group I had in mind when creating this worksheet are C1, 16-18 year old learners.
Earlier in the year I had been looking at figurative language – specifically simile and metaphor through working with a play with learners in this category. The students were quite academic and easily able to transfer the analytical skills used in their L1 to an English language literary piece – so once they’d learnt the English terms they could easily apply them to any text.
The lesson was successful and I supplemented it at the time with a couple of songs laden with metaphorical language – a rich source. In the commentary below on how the worksheet was designed, I have highlighted in bold italics all the ways in which I feel it meets my design and evaluative criteria. Firstly, why did I choose this text and process for these learners?
because I’ll be using the same coursebook and the lesson referred to above with similar ‘summer school’ students this summer and wanted to supplement it to further explore figurative language, in this way it is suited to context
because C1 learners need lots of this type of vocabulary to develop their language use, so they don’t just settle for literal uses
because some teenagers like plays and poetry sometimes, but nearly all of them always love songs so its affectively engaging.
At the time I delivered this lesson my songs were not fully mined for their learning potential. I had simply prepared gap fill lyric sheets to accompany the listening – they were orientated more towards listening skill than vocabulary development and I wanted to switch that round. I dealt with lexis as it arose using the whiteboard – insufficiently in my view. I thought at the time that a more thorough treatment of the complexity of the vocabulary was called for if the learners were going to be able to retain the new language from the text. My text choice therefore, for this assignment, is one of those songs – Demons by Imagine Dragons.
My primary reason for selecting this text then, was for it’s use of metaphor and the examples from the text I aimed to direct students to notice and assimilate. It was also because this band is very popular with young adults and relevant to their real life and therefore motivational. It is also an authentic text. So my expectation is for a high level of engagement from learners wanting to discover the meaning of the lyrics they might already know how to sing along to. I expect to be able to use the worksheet with this song as a much better supplement to the play based lesson mentioned above but it could also stand apart from that, as long as there was an appropriate lesson plan built around it.
In accordance with the guidelines for the task, the worksheet has a lead -in, a gist task, a sequence of tasks to develop lexis (and listening skill as a secondary aim), visuals and a record of the language taught. According to Jolly, D and Bolitho, R (2011, p110, in Tomlinson, B (ed), Materials Development for Language Teaching):
“The physical appearance and production of materials is important both for motivation and for classroom effectiveness.”
As such I turned to Jason Renshaw’s video which provides an introduction to some of the basics for producing an effective and attractive ELT worksheet. Here I found the mechanical knowhow for building a worksheet – with layers of text boxes and fill colours, themes and layout advice. Worksheet design 101 and I needed it all! Here is a description of what is in the worksheet with a commentary on how I got there followed by the link to it.
My lead-in uses a picture which helps to establish the topicof music but I had to modify my photograph choice here as the 1st one I chose was copyright protected. This I think affected the quality of the image I had to use. This was my 1st choice.
And this was the 2nd choice filtered by creative commons licence. But it’s still good enough I feel.I used pair-work prompts to accompany the picture to encourage interaction on the topic of music to set schema. This was both personalised, drawing on the students own experience of listening to music, and interactional so communication was encouragedas students needed to work on a ranking task together to complete the activity. There is no right or wrong answer to the ranking task. It therefore promotes the sharing of opinions, the justification of choices, and gives room for student choice over content.
What are the top 5 songs you are listening to right now? Look through your phone if you can’t remember.
Compare your top 5 with your partner’s. Then rank your combined top 10.
My gist task uses a graphic picture and question prompts to help determine the mood of the forthcoming text.
These lyrics are taken from ‘Demons’ by Imagine Dragons. Work with a partner.
Who do you thing is saying these words and why?
Take a few moments to discuss the meaning of the words and write your thoughts here
The visual gives the idea that we are talking about feelings and emotions here so that the idea of a non-literal meaning is conveyed by combining the 2 modes, text and image.
Again though, my choice of image was a copyright piece. So I found this alternative. I haven’t substituted the 1st for the 2nd in the worksheet however because I would have to rework the space and add in the words which would take too much time right now, but I’d have to do this before publishing it for use. Actually I prefer the second image because it has more impact. I’ve noticed when reviewing that I haven’t enabled students to ‘talk with’ either image and could do this by adding a personalised question – perhaps about a film they’d watched or someone they’s met.
The first lexis development task is a matching one with 9 lexical chunks, 3 of which are here below.
‘cards all fold’
‘lights fade out’
‘ones we hail’
These are matched with definitions. They are in chunks so that the nouns and collocates are learnt together in context. The cognitive load with 9 items is not too heavy and there is a specific cognitive task to fulfil – that of matching. During the task students could use dictionaries to help with individual words. This task is likely to be challenging as the whole metaphorical meaning is unlikely to appear in the dictionary, so some working out and guessing will be needed. At the end of the task students would compare their answers in pairs before whole class feedback. All three of these tasks have plenty of space on the page for students to write, a contrastive background for clarity and straightforward instructions with no clutter. For differentiation purposesthere are several more items in the song that could be deciphered by quick finishers – ‘curtain’s call’ ‘saints we see’ ‘my kingdom come’ for example. Her is the link to the worksheet.
The second lexical development task is to listen to the songwithout visuals and complete the gap-fill lyric sheet. Here I’ve included prompts by providing the initial letter of the missing words. I’m not 100% sure of this feature as it may make the task too easy, but I like the fact that it provides confirmation of the correct phrase as the students are listening and therefore makes it more about the vocabulary than the listening skill. I’m happy to trial this approach.
Students would thenlisten again using the YouTube video with the words on the screen (as above) and sing along to it as a whole group. This would be good for contextualising the lexis, as a pronunciation model, and for giving the students confidence and putting them at easewith using the lyrics and tune.
Then, depending on the confidence level of the group, a karaoke style YouTube treatment could be done. In this, pairs of students take turns to sing parts of the song, with only a backing track and the words on the screen. I got this idea from Goldstein and Driver (2014, p94), and it sounds like a lot of fun. It would also help students to really focus on the words of the song and imitate the pronunciation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsCPrboDunw
A final follow up task could be included too, which I would expect to give as homework. A writing task could be set to use some of the phrases from the song to compose a text of the students’ choice. Or, the lead-in task could be further exploited to choose another song, according to the majority preferences of the students, to provide a future input text for a later date thus enabling student choice. Incidentally these 2 final tasks (the karaoke and the homework followup options) also allow the teacher to adapt to context, giving teacher choicetoo.
And with an eye to recycling the lexis learnt from this lesson, the song could be ‘karaoked’ again at a later date with students taking different parts of the song as their ‘bit’ to sing. This could be practiced, recorded, and played back. (again this idea is from Goldstein and Driver). One further point on the design. By creating a template and keeping the design and instructions simple, I can easily adapt it for use with different input at different levels without too much extra work.
Reflecting briefly now on the process of materials writing it is useful to refer again to Jolly, D and Bolitho, R (2011, p112, in Tomlinson, B (ed), Materials Development for Language Teaching) who provide a summary of the standard process of materials writing and then add two further important elements to the process:
IDENTIFICATION – by teacher or learner(s) of a need…
EXPLORATION – of the area of need…
CONTEXTUAL REALISATION – of the proposed new materials by the finding of suitable ideas, contexts or texts…
PEDAGOGIC REALISATION – by finding appropriate exercises and activities and the writing of appropriate instructions…
PHYSICAL PRODUCTION – of materials, involving consideration of layout…..
In my commentary above, I feel confident I have covered those processes in the production of my worksheet. Job done? Not quite. Jolly and Bolitho go on to highlight the dynamic or iterative process involved in the production of materials so the next steps are:
STUDENT USE OF MATERIALS
EVALUATION OF MATERIALS AGAINST AGREED OBJECTIVES
These two factors are a critical part of the process. In terms of the former, I expect to be able to use this worksheet in the near future. In terms of the latter, it is necessary to refer once more to the evaluation framework used in seminar 3. There, we evaluated a coursebook unit but the framework is equally valid to evaluate the worksheet. Our framework was organised by category thus:
The evaluation framework was constructed on the basis of our shared principles examined in the preceding seminar.
Using the framework it was possible to reflect on the worksheet in a systematic way. During the commentary on its design above, I have highlight in bold italics all the ways I believe the worksheet meets the majority of the evaluative criteria of the framework. – not all as it was a single item.
As part of that process, simply printing out the worksheet and seeing how it looks and reads, led to three reviews. Johnson (2003), in listing the characteristics of ‘expert’ materials designers highlights the evaluative process (when writing tasks) as being ongoing, saying there is a constant sense of review in which tasks can be rejected, maintained or fixed. Working through the tasks in my worksheet as if I were a student, to get a feel for timing, level and achievement of learning outcomes, lead to adjustments to the original worksheet and development of its associated post listening task. This in Johnson’s list of characteristics is a way of ‘concretely visualising’ the tasks from both the teacher’s and the learners’ point of view. It also facilitates exploration of post task types, another of his expert characteristics.
Finally, though myself and others studying this module are by no means expert materials designers, we have to some extent absorbed some of the characteristics they possess by completing this process of worksheet design. In Johnson’s words ” what they (experts) know beforehand helps what they do, but what they do becomes part of what they know also.” (Johnson, K. 2003, p127).
So maybe we’ve all become a little bit more ‘expert’ and have applied out principals without conscious awareness when creating. And these principles, of course, are not fixed in stone but will evolve and adapt to context. We have however always got an evaluation framework from which to evaluate our own materials and those produced by others. I am satisfied with my worksheet, confident it meets my principles, but will revise it again before use. Ultimately however, the ‘post use’ evaluation will probably make the most difference to how I adapt the worksheet further – and I fully expect to do so.
References
Goldstein, B. and Driver, P. (2014) Language learning with digital video.
Johnson, K (2003), Designing Language Teaching Tasks.
Jolly, D and Bolitho, R (2011), in Tomlinson, B (ed), Materials Development for Language Teaching.
Jason Renshaw How to make ELT worksheets video – http://youtu.be/pd4TUrcc2y4
Richardson, K. (2013) How To Write Worksheets, article in One stop english.
For our 8th seminar we were asked to work in pairs to examine a unit of a coursebook to focus on its tasks and ask: what is a task; what makes an effective task; and how do we categorise task types?
Aleks and I used Move Advanced (C1), module 3, unit 1. Published in 2007 – because it was available to borrow and we’d both used it. It aims to appeal to older teenagers and young adults and integrates reading, listening, speaking and writing with vocabulary and grammar input. From this point of view it is well balanced, offering all those elements within the communicative approach on the topic of literature and storytelling.
As we later discussed during the seminar, defining exactly what a task is, depends largely on who you consult and the context in which you ask the question. It might be easy to conflate language learning tasks with task-based learning for example which would be misleading. In the latter, narrower definition, learning is focused on using language in a meaning focused way to convey a message (Ellis 2003). In the former, broader definition, the scope is widened to include “what we give students to do in classrooms” (Johnson 2003:4). Thus, in this broader definition, all the activities and exercises of a unit designed to promote language learning are included for the purposes of task evaluation. And this is the definition we used.
Next, we designed a framework from which to examine our unit so the information we collected could be organised and interpreted. For this we were guided by Ellis’s (1998:227) framework for evaluating communicative tasks. He states that “the evaluation of a task requires a clear description….(that)….specifies the content of a task”. To this end we ordered out finding under these headings as he suggests:
Language activity: such as reading for gist, listening for key information, speaking to exchange information, personalised writing. (the simple description of the activity).
Input: such as pictures, texts, directions (the information the learners are supplied with).
Procedure: such as paired discussion, class brainstorm, table completion, individual reading. (the activities the learners perform to accomplish the task).
Objectives: to answer the question – was the task pedagogic (purely to facilitate language acquisition – e.g. to facilitate lexis acquisition) or real world (something that would happen in real life – the example given by Ellis is ‘writing a cheque’ and an example from our evaluated coursebook unit is ‘having a discussion about books you’ve read’).
Focus: here we used the language of task taxonomy – speculating, ordering, interpretation, analysis, matching, comparing etc. (these are the categories of task types). Defining categories can be done in a number of ways but our taxonomy most closely matched Maley’s (1998) list of ‘generalised procedures’ which included those listed above. He cites 12 in all . (As summarised in McGrath (2002:113). These task types seemed to fit quite naturally with how we interpreted what we perceived to be happening in the tasks we looked at – what learners were being asked to do cognitively. We saw evidence of 9 from that list. It is not however the only perspective from which to view task taxonomy (more on this below).
Principles: under this final heading we referred back to out beliefs about language learning in order to say if the activity was effective, in that it was able to meet one or more of our principles of language learning.
For reference, here is the scanned unit we looked at consisting of 4 pages and the completed evaluation table below that.
We found the process of task evaluation for a whole unit quite involved and time consuming. As noted earlier we relied heavily on Ellis’s procedures and Maley’s taxonomy of tasks and found the fitted well with our approach. What we didn’t achieve in the timeframe was a final stage of the procedure – an analysis of the information collected into quantifiable collated data. We have the raw data, so this could of course be done at a later date. What we did find was a varied range of task types with interpretation and analysis tasks being the most frequently occurring.
I said earlier that a ‘generalised procedures’ taxonomy was not the only taxonomy one could use. I discovered Bloom’s Taxonomy after completing the above evaluation. It seems to add an interesting and very useful dimension to the task evaluation process. In this taxonomy, task types are synthesised into 6 broad categories (see below) and ranked in a hierarchy with the higher order skills at the peak. I think an analysis on this plane would add an extra layer to how we evaluate tasks. Not only would we see the variety of task types used but also the depth of cognitive processes involved in each. I have Anna’s blog to thank for drawing my attention to this type of task taxonomy.
References
Ellis, R (2003) Task-based language learning and teaching.
Ellis, R (1998) The Evaluation of communicative tasks. In Tomlinson B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching.
Johnson, K. (2003) Designing Language Teaching Tasks.
Maley, A. (2011) Squaring the circle – reconciling materials as constraint with materials as empowerment. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching.
McGrath, I (2002) Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching.
From a pedagogic perspective…. all forms of video can allow us to illustrate and focus upon visual elements of life and communication. We can draw attention to non-verbal aspects of communication, focus on authentic language, make cross cultural comparisons and provide good quality listening practice. There is no doubt that engaging with video for language learning is a worthwhile activity.
(Video as a Learning Resource for Language Teaching by Teresa MacKinnon)
In a comment in the first post of this blog I mentioned that using video was one of the areas I particularly wanted to develop in my teaching because it’s something I have seldom used or know little about. So I approached this subject with both interest and trepidation.
In a previous post on visuals in language learning, multi-modality was discussed and Walker and White (2013: p84) stated that “speaking, writing, images, and movement, (are modes) which give learners the opportunity to understand and combine information represented in different ways.” They go on to discuss how computer technology, with reference to video, enables teachers and students to access and combine the modes of image, text and sound in a flexible non-linear way.
It is now common-place to use communication technologies in everyday life which are multimodal in nature. It could be argued that they have perhaps become something that learners expect now to find in the classroom. In fact, Carrington and Robinson (2010) cited in Walker and White (2013), note the reported changes in language use that new technology brings about. They suggest that this trend should be reflected in the L2 classroom where digital and print literacies should co-exist. Walker and White develop this further by considering what it means to be ‘literate’ and predicting that our definition of this will continue to evolve. It will no longer be restricted to text literacy (reading and writing) but expand to include digital and visual literacy.
Keddie, J. (2014,) is more specific in providing reasons for the use of video in the language classroom, highlighting 6 main benefits briefly summarised here:
it provides plentiful spoken language input that is authentic and varied in pronunciation, grammar and interaction patterns
it provides language output opportunities by stimulating discussion, provoking opinion, and providing the platform for a range of pedagogic tasks such as retelling, information exchange, guessing what happens next and so on
it provides introductory or extended content on topics or themes already being studied
it provides skills development opportunities, particularly in listening and speaking, but also could facilitate reading skills (by looking at trailers and comments) or writing skills in post viewing activities. He also mentions critical thinking and visual literacy skill.
it provides models for different kinds of activities, most notably that of student created videos
it provide motivation and engagement for learners.
Keddie has developed a particular use of video in the classroom to exploit short video clips and calls it ‘videotelling’. He has developed a website where he offers these for use with some explanation on how to use them. Here is how one teacher used a video, leaving these comments on the website:
I show the first minute or so and then ask my students to predict what is going to happen or what’s going to be said or done next; I make them listen to the whole video and afterwards they have to tell me in their own words what they have understood. I make them write what they have seen (activity which reveals a lot about my students’ manipulation of grammar), I ask my students to imagine how they would make a short video with the same objective. I ask my students to describe some of the things they see so as to revise that vocabulary.
Much of the above is primarily concerned with the exploitation of video in ELT, but Goldstein and Driver place equal emphasis on video creation saying that ” The primary goals (for doing so) are stimulating language through practical engagement in the creation of digital artefact,” This they say, is “achieved through the process of guided reflection, critical thinking, performance, debate, design, creativity and other competences often referred to as 21st-century skill.” (Goldstein, B and Driver, P. 2014, p117). (Though not in a L2 learning context or specific to video, writing this blog for this module with all its associated tasks is an ideal example of processual guided learning that fosters these very skills!)
The pedagogic underpinning for video creation shares its roots with the interactional school of thought in methodology where the output is the vehicle for meaning making. “The world becomes intelligible to us as we build and negotiate experience in conjunction with others or with cultural artefacts.”(Goldstein, B and Driver, P. 2014, p118).
How can we use it well to support learning?
Using video in the language classroom requires the same evaluative and principled approach as using any other language activity. Therefore, when planning to use it, we need to consider how to maximise its effectiveness from this point of view. Some key elements to bear in mind when exploiting video, that have cropped up throughout the literature and in online guides, are outlined below:
Choose short clips. These avoid cognitive overload –’how to’ videos, trailers, adverts for example are good options, but there is no need to be restricted to these. I found the YouTube filter for length of video very useful when browsing for content. Short clips says McKinnon, (from the article quoted above) maximise exploitation and impact – longer ones should be avoided as learners can become passive.
Think about the key focus or learning point for students. Direct them to the features of the video you have identified. Taking the same approach as with authentic listening and reading where it would be wrong to try to cove all of the language. Being selective in the lexical or grammar item is just as important with video.
Think about where the video should be in order of lesson tasks. The lesson should have stages just as any other lesson would have. Prepare using pre-video activities to warm up and initially leave out the subtitles or captions to explore gist, then build the level of challenge as you explore the video with different activities. Captions could be added later for language reinforcement.
Consider the importance of motivating and engaging all learners. One way to do this would be to enable learner choice in watching material. If working on a theme for example – students could search for a short clip related to that theme and give reasons for their choices. In one of Keddie’s video ideas for example, he suggested students find and bring to class short clips of animals doing funny things. During the lesson the students could describe what was happening before it was viewed and the rest of the class could try to guess the the animal involved.
These funny little animal clips are engaging in themselves, but giving students the choice in selecting their animal video increases their engagement with the content and with the task. There were 100’s of really short clips to choose from and I particularly enjoyed the numerous ways tortoises provide transport for other animals! The important point here though for using video from the point of view of all the authors cited in this post is that it can enable learner autonomy. Not only can learners source content of their choosing (within limits) but go on to make their own videos as mentioned above. One interesting example Walker and White provide, is of students in Malaysia making a video dictionary. Amongst other tasks surrounding the words that students wanted to learn or revise was that of writing and acting out a scene that conveyed the meaning of each word and making a video of it. In this example these videos were later uploaded using YouTube for a One stop english project. The idea of learner autonomy with video can be taken still further in many contexts. Using it as a flipped classroom tool for example. In this scenario, students view pause and play a selected video as many times as they need to outside the class, leaving classroom time freer for interactional activities.
What practical issues must we consider as teachers when using video?
Finding appropriate videos for use in the language classroom requires the same evaluative and principled approach as sourcing other authentic visual material, written or listening texts. There is a huge and growing wealth of material available that can seem daunting to navigate, but it is increasingly apparent that both teachers and learners need to develop this navigational ability in order to take advantage of what video has to offer. Part of this ability is simply to find and curate material, and one way of doing this is is by subscribing to channels on YouTube and saving videos into playlist.
There is however increasing help to navigate this function successfully and time efficiently by using dedicated video teaching resources. Jamie Keddie’s ‘lessonstream’ website in which videos and lessons are packaged together is one example of these curated resources (reference the bunny above). Another is the ‘video for all’ website which aims to bring together current methodologies, ideas and practices that integrate digital video into language learning. It doesn’t have ready made lessons though. It shows different types of video use, with a corresponding pdf which explains key features and tools, plus useful articles. And TED talks have their own site at tedxesl.com plus a number of specifically designed sites and blogs designed to exploit their videos with prepared activities. I’ve been dipping into ‘Language Learning with Digital Video’ a print book by Goldstein and Driver, and its companion website digitalv.net It contains a wealth of video related activities for teaches to use with example videos cited with information about where to find them and updating information at cambridge.org/9781107634840. I think all of these can help enormously in reducing the time input needed to responsibly source, manage and use video in the classroom.
A couple of further key practical tips from the Teresa Mackinnon article on the video for all website, which may seem obvious but could be easily overlooked, also seemed worth recording here. These were:
make sure your video is available where you think it is and you know how to access it quickly
your internet connection is sufficient and won’t be blocked
alternatively download your video (check copyright)
have a non-internet/video back-up plan
watch your video a couple of time to know your content thoroughly and avoid problem content
And the most useful practical tip from Goldstein and Driver on video creation (from my point of view) was:
not to forget the sound quality – many new generation smart phones have a noise cancelling feature
Seminar tasks and concluding remarks
As our preparation for the seminar on this topic, there were different tasks for us to choose from. Making and uploading a video (my choice); exploiting an online video with ‘videotelling’, as referred to above; exploiting a TED talk with specific material designed to be used with it, also referred to above; and developing something using the Aurasma app and a linked video (this app discussed in later post on digital technologies).
As my skill level approaching this task was very much at the entry level I chose the first task and for the record it’s here below. It is very much a processual (learning task) piece of work. I recorded it on my phone. It’s of 2 landscape gardeners installing some fencing and decking, for no other reason than I needed a subject to film and they happened to be around. The sound quality is poor, because it was windy (and my phone doesn’t have a noise cancelling feature) so I decided to overlay it with music. It’s short which is good. I added captions relating to what was happening and to show some dialogue because of the lack of sound. This is authentic speech, though this is transcribed into captions which are read not heard. The video is related to continuous verb forms and lexis connected to building something.
On reflection, this video could be played without captions initially to promote guessing and discussion about what was happening. I wouldn’t paused to predict what might happen next as there is no real narrative to this video. I could use it as a model for students to make their own videos where they script and act out alternative continuous actions of their choice – perhaps on a theme, such as jobs or housework. If students made their own videos they would be integrating their visual, text and digital literacies and there would be considerable opportunity for interaction as the videos were being designed and made (a higher order task). Finally as students shared their videos with each other they would be sharing linguistic content, which would be multi-modal in nature.
Despite highlighting some of the ways I could use this video, I would probably start again if I wanted to us a self made video with students. I’d have better equipment awareness for one thing. I’d make sure the video fitted into my lesson plan for the learners at the time with a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve. I could easily upload and edit it though.
I would now be far more able to source and exploit short on-line video and facilitating students to make their own videos too.
References:
Keddie, J. (2014,) Bringing online video into the classroom
Goldstein, B and Driver, P. (2014) Language Learning with Digital Video
Video as a Learning Resource for Language Teaching by Teresa MacKinnon
Walker, A and White, G (2013) Technology Enhanced Language Learning: Connecting Theory and Practice. Chapter 6.
Do visuals play an important role in ELT? Why? And how can we make the most of them to exploit their power?
Pictures have the power to convey information, ideas and feelings. They have been around far longer than the written word. In ELT they are extensively used for a number of important reasons summarised succinctly in Duchastel’s taxonomy for illustrations in instructional texts as follows:
affective:provided to enhance interest and motivation
attentive: intended to attract and direct attention
didactic: intended to facilitate learning by showing something difficult to convey in words
Here’s a picture I’ve used in the past to help with an understanding of ‘head for heights’. If your knees feel wobbly looking at this, you probably don’t have one! I used it for didactic reasons as ‘head for heights’ is difficult to explain in words.
We use images because we know that ‘meaning making’ is a complex business and that “language is but one of the communicative resources through which meaning is (re)made” (Early, M. et al. 2015). Modes work together to provide meaning, validate it, and deepen understanding. An image exploits the visual mode and images can include static photographs like this one; graphic images and cartoons; and moving images, namely video. To elicit the same idea of ‘head for heights’ and its opposite ‘fear of heights’ I found this YouTube video which serves the same purpose – to illustrate an abstract idea.
It’s interesting from a practical point of view to note here how I found both of these. The first I simply googled on google images as I did when I used it the first time. However, I didn’t check if it was copyright protected at the time. If I had wanted to reproduce or alter it in any way I might have breached copyright. Walker and White (2013) have some useful advice here in recommending the Creative Commons website which filters the images searched for, by those with permission to be used for non-commercial purposes. Not only that, they suggest that it generates more diverse images than a google search and that this could be useful in illustrating abstract ideas – such as the one I was attempting to convey. This is what it says on their home page.
“Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that assists authors and creators who want to voluntarily share their work, by providing free copyright licences and tools, so that others may take full and legal advantage of the Internet’s unprecedented wealth of science, knowledge and culture.” (https://creativecommons.org).
I used it to run my search again and that’s how I found the YouTube video above. On cross checking this process however, I found it just as easy to use the creative commons filter under ‘features’ directly in YouTube. The same applied to google images under their drop down tabs ‘search tools’ and ‘usage rights’. In all cases it changed the images I was offered but as you can see below, and with the video, that doesn’t matter, as they do the job just as well. This was a useful lesson on sourcing images for me.
Ein waghalsiger Pressephotograph ! Gefährlicher Stand eines Pressephotographen an der äussersten Kante des 300 m hohen Deutschlandsenders in Königswusterhausen bei der Herstellung einer Zeitungsaufnahme.
Returning to the consideration of why images are important in ELT, it is necessary to understand the role of multi-modality. Communicative resources or modes, are said to include “image, gaze, gesture, music, movement, speech and sound-effects” (Jewitt & Kress, 2003 p1, cited in Early, M. et al 2015). And as Walker and White (2013: p84) point out, “All learning and teaching involves the use of a number of modes, speaking, writing, images, and movement, which give learners the opportunity to understand and combine information represented in different ways.” (More on this in my next post – Sound and Vision).
This idea, particularly as it relates to images, is supported by the work of Paivao (2006), who proposed a theory of ‘dual coding’ in which he claimed that “words and images are processed and stored in different ways by the brain,….and that images that gave the same messages as words could help learning and memorisation” (Walker and White, 2013: p80). In other words they function ‘retentionally’. This research however has been both supported and contested, so Walker and White advise that assumptions about the positive effects of combining written texts and images should not automatically be made, although combining images and speech is more fully supported. Visuals then, might either enhance or distract understanding when used with written text, so it’s important as teachers to use them correctly. In an article that pre-dates Paivao’s work but covers similar research and associated arguments, Canning (1998) is reported thus:
Pictures help individual learners predict information, infer information, deduce information, analyze today’s world so that it can be brought into today’s classroom and offer social settings which can immerse or expose the learner to new ideas or further promote an already created setting. If a visual is used in a testing or teaching situation it can enhance clarity and give meaning to the text or to the message being communicated.
(Canning-Wilson, C. (2001), in ELT Newsletter 48).
And in the same article, this author refers to learner preferences for visuals to be: in colour, related to a story, related to experiences, associated with events, people, places, and things that are familiar in some way. Going on to highlight some of the ways pictures are used incorrectly, thus making them ineffective as learning aids, the following list is cited from the author’s previous work:
the use of violent scenes
too many distractors
too crowded or cause an overwhelming effect of information
too small or not clearly defined
stereotyped images
poor reproduction
not related to text
irrelevant captioning
offers too much information
unclear picture which doesn’t compliment the text
poorly scaled illustration
cluttered composition that is not aesthetically meaningful
In our seminar session on this topic, colleagues did presentations on different aspects of the relationship between visuals and ELT:
on how info graphics and pictocharts can be exploited.
on how to evaluate photos, images and graphics using Duchastel’s taxonomy and considering some of the potential problems mentioned in the list above.
and on how they have been used in coursebooks – using the above criteria again but also considering whether the visuals have just a functional role or whether they provoke a mental and linguistic reaction.
Hill, D.A. (2013), looked into this latter element and reported some interesting findings. He found, in his examination of 3 intermediate student courseooks, that over 50% of their pictures were purely decorative, which he describes as a “great waste of effort” (Hill, D.A. 2013, p163, in Tomlinson, B. (ed). Even among those that performed a useful function – to define meanings or facilitate tasks for example, he found that they were useful only at a relatively low level, in that they failed to stimulate students “to use the language at their disposal creatively, starting from the pictures” (Hill, D.A. 2013,p162). Hill refers to Corder, P (1966) to make the distinction between ‘talking about’ and ‘talking with’ a picture. While the former is factual and descriptive, useful in some ways: it is limited. The latter could, he says, flow from the former, thus extending the usefulness of a single picture and allowing “learners to bring their own reality to a lesson” (Hill, D.A. 2013,p165). In this way the visuals are a starting point, rather than and a means to 1 specific end. They can create, as Keddie, (2009) points out, a space that can be filled by language.
Referring back to one of my pictures: I would choose the one of the small boy in the glass skyscraper because it is colourful, sharp and uncluttered. Also, because it has no distracting and irrelevant text attached.
I can still use it didactically to help make meaning.
I could also use it descriptively to elicit and recycle associated vocabulary – skyscrapers,floors, lifts, view, clouds, city, for example.
Additionally however, I could use it as Hill and others suggest, to allow students to talk ‘with the picture’ – to bring their reality to it. And to do that, I wrote a few simple prompts to accompany my new ‘legal’ picture.
Have you ever been up a very tall building or to a very high place?
Where and when was it? Who were you with?
What was it like and how did you feel?
Imagine you are this little boy. What’s the story of your day? How does this experience affect your life?
Having evaluated the choice of visual, decided how I might use it to elicit meaning, decided how I might uses it descriptively to talk about the picture, and written some prompts to enable students to talk with the visual, I have got an almost useable activity for a lesson. I don’t have a context in which to use it though – no student need exists at present, and would have to convert it into classroom ready material and evaluate and amend it accordingly. But it’s a start!
References:
Canning-Wilson, C (2001), Visuals & Language Learning: Is There A Connection? In ELT Newsletter 48, February 2001.
Early, M. et al. (2015) Multimodality: out from the margins of english language teaching. TESOL quarterly 49 (3).
Hill, D. A. (2013), The Visual Element in EFL coursebooks in Tomlinson,B (ed) Developing Materials for Language Teaching (2nd edn).
Walker, A and White, G (2013) Technology Enhanced Language Learning: Connecting Theory and Practice. Chapter 6.
In seminar 4 we addressed how, when and why we adapt and supplement materials with a focus once again on ELT coursebooks as we acknowledged they form the backbone (if not the staple diet) of the the majority of language courses. Even after selecting coursebooks for the ‘best fit’ for our curriculum, our students and ourselves, we also universally agreed during this seminar that adaptations were both necessary and routinely applied. In my first post I referred to Tomlinson’s summary of Islam and Mares’ (2003) guidance on evaluation criteria pertaining to adaptation objectives which were:
adding real choice, catering for all learner styles, providing for learner autonomy, developing high level cognitive skills, and making the input both more accessible and more engaging.
I reflected there that this is is one of the key areas I’m looking to gain insight into so that I can more confidently more away from the coursebook to meet the specific needs of students in our materials rich, post-method era.
In our seminar we looked at how we adapted. It seems we did it both consciously in a planned way but also unconsciously and spontaneously during a lesson. We shared some of the ways we did this, such as changing the order of tasks and their pace, leaving bits out, adding extra dimensions or substituting items.
We also discussed when we did it, which was often at the course and lesson planning stage but also during lessons in response to students’ reactions to the material. Unconscious adaptation, such as adding extra student relevant examples also occurred and spontaneous changes such as altering the pace of an activity that seemed wrong or shortening/extending activities to increase the engagement of students or to add challenge and to differentiate. In this way, we, as experienced teachers, reflect Madsen and Bowens’ (1978) description of ‘good teachers’ who as Tomlinson (2012) summarises:
are always adapting the materials they are using to the context in which they are using them in order to achieve the optimal congruence between materials, methodology, learners, objectives, the target language and the teacher’s personality and teaching style.
Madsen and Bowen’s key rationales for adaptation were: to personalise, individualise, localise and modernise materials. These ideas regarding ‘why’ we adapt run through the literature and are represented in the encompassing notion of adapting for ‘context’. Although publishers create and we select materials for a target market, adaptation allows us to add value to what is offered there, so it can become even more suitable for the precise needs of the students in our context. As McGrath (2002) states, – to make them a ” better match for a specific learning context.”
Here below are the key reasons for adaptation according to McGrath – as taken from the seminar slides. It can be seen that some stem from a perceived shortfall in the material itself (e.g. it’s not up-to-date) and some from the need to fine tune to students’ particular needs (e.g. simplification/complexification). What is not included below is the adaptation for teacher styles and personality that would complete the picture as both Madsen and Bowen describe above and Maley (1998) refers to as the “complex trade-off between (these) three major elements in the equation…”. I am sure I’m not alone in having a preferred teaching style with preferred procedures. I’m constantly looking at ways to make my classrooms active and creative, and to reduce or eliminate passive behaviour. Yes, this is for and on behalf of the students, but undeniably part of my preferred style too. In a note to myself however, I acknowledge what Mishan and Timmis point out, that too much eclectic adaptation in pursuit of lively and engaging classes can lead to loss of coherence and focus. Principled adaptation should always put the goals of the students first.
• Localization– Be perceived as relevant to learners
• Modernization – Be up-to-date
• Individualization– Cater for differences of learning style
• Personalisation – Encourage learners to speak/write about themselves and their own experiences
• Humanizing– Engage the whole person
• Simplification/complexification/differentiation – Be appropriate to learners’ level/offer challenge
• Variety – Be varied
McGrath, 2013: 66
The importance attached to addressing the ‘contextualising’ issue at the coursebook design stage has been highlighted by writers such as Saraceni (2003), who, as Tomlinson (2012) writes, proposes that “materials should actually be written with learner adaptation in mind, aiming to be learner centred, flexible, open ended, relevant, universal and authentic, and giving choices to learners.” This approach to materials writing is the ‘fundamental change’ that is needed in coursebook design in order to provide “greater flexibility in decisions about content, order, pace and procedure” according to Prabhu as reported in Maley (1998).
Prabu’s proposals developed by Maley in the same article suggest ‘flexi-materials’ that seek to lessen the constraining influence of coursebook use. Coursebooks that take this approach are certainly welcomed by teachers, offering different pathways through the same raw materials – encompassing different procedures, levels of difficulty and language content and alternative texts. They have the potential to make adaptation more time efficient for teachers and in Saraceni’s model a collaborative process between teacher and students. Essentially and crucially however, the responsibility remains with the teacher to filter, enhance and orientate to context, whether that be in one ‘flexi-materials’ package or not.
In many educational institutions the interactive white board allows adaptations in enhanced ways – making alternative content (additions, extensions, reordering and branching in Maley’s (2011) words) more accessible for both teacher and students. In this way adaptation has evolved to encompass this resource. While not available in the institution where I currently teach, I can see that the interactive white board serves the adaptation and supplementation process well. And since adaptation is intrinsic to what we do, anything that enhances that process is welcomed: white boards, flexi-materials, but most importantly, a principled, responsible approach.
References
Tomlinson, B. (2012) Materials Development for Language Learning and Teaching. Language Teaching 45 (02): pp 151-152
Maley, A. Squaring the Circle – reconciling materials as constraint with materials as empowerment. In Tomlinson, B. (ed). (1998) Materials Development in Language Teaching pp279 -294.
McGrath, I. (2002) Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching, chapter 4.
Mishan, F & Timmis, I (2015) Materials Development for TESO, chapter 4.
For the 2nd part of the seminar in week three the coursebook writer Theresa Clementson, who had written’English Unlimited’ (the coursebook we had just evaluated) shared her insights and approaches from her professional perspective.
She told us that she is usually invited to participate in new coursebook writing when the publishers ‘spot a gap in the market’ and commission accordingly. Cambridge for example, have a 10 year plan. Ultimately of course, materials need to be popular and have universal appeal in order to be able to sell well and make a profit for the publisher.
The perceived ‘gap in the market’ or ‘need’ is translated into a brief from the publisher. For ‘English Unlimited’ that brief was for:
an adult orientated coursebook
with an international flavour (no special focus on UK culture)
using real English based on corpus – using English as lingua franca
recognising teachability
We asked if she used a principled approach when setting about her writing task and how she implemented this and she observed that her approach to writing a book is similar to that of writing a lesson plan. Her chief concern is for all her material to be interesting, and in relation to ‘English Unlimited’, interesting and cerebrally engaging for adult learners.
Further principles for her, based on her knowledge and experience in TESOL were:
Using a text based approach based on real language in us
Facilitating noticing
Using proper communicative tasks
Using lexical chunks
Facilitating learner autonomy
Ensuring cognitive challenge
It was interesting to compare her objectives to our own evaluative criteria and findings based on our principles. We divided our criteria into teacher, student, language, and content categories. The criteria she mentioned were mostly content and language related. For instance, we gave her book a positive high rating of 5/6 for ‘helping students to notice grammar in use’ – which was one of our criteria and one of her stated objectives when writing. We also positively rated her use of ‘authentic texts’ in unit 4, for the stories and pictures based on real life ‘extreme weather events’. Although time did not allow for her to go into all the principles she used and at no point did she refer to using any kind of checklist, it was clear that strongly held universal principles informed her writing and that because of her considerable experience these had become more implicit than explicit – in the way Hadfield (2014) had suggested (discussed in my previous blog entry ‘Principles and Frameworks for ELT design’).
On the subject of process, she commented that writing was both a collaborative and synthesising process whereby ongoing evaluation and redesigning takes place to produce the finished product which often looks nothing like its original conception. And here, from the literature, Jolly and Bolitho’s (2011) ‘principled, practical and dynamic framework’ of a materials design process is reflected. With reference to process she made a few comments about digital learning materials. While they are cheap to produce and cheap to adapt and update, her words of warning were that producing materials quickly affects their quality. And from her experience the process is necessarily lengthy and highly evaluative. My own point of view on this is that, it doesn’t have to be that way. Digital materials are quicker to produce and revise but if subject to the same rigorous principled design and evaluation criteria as printed material, there is no reason for them to be sub standard. I’m thinking here of an analogy with TV advertising. Some do the job impressively and effectively with regard for underlying ‘principles’. Some are utter rubbish. As teachers, one key role is to be highly discerning when using digital language learning materials.
Finally, I was interested in her perspective on post-use evaluation. When writing 2nd editions she explained that publishers seek and receive direct feedback from many sources – although she didn’t give details here due to time constraints, she encouraged us all to critically assess the coursebooks we use and contribute to the feedback loop using the platforms offered by publishers. I very mush appreciated listening to her perspective.
This was a busy week culminating in a very engaging seminar in two parts. Following on from our work on principles for materials design we were given the following task to research and present in the 1st half of the seminar along with 2 other groups.
What framework most clearly reflects your approach to materials evaluation?
Arrive at a materials framework and apply that to the coursebook ‘English Unlimited B1+ unit 4.
Remembering the discussions and reading from the previous week we were minded to recall that an effective design framework, for a ‘constituency bigger than just me an my learners today’, needs to capture the most salient ‘universal’ principles and allow for ‘contextualisation’ – or adaptation to local issues.
In Tomlinson’s view, (State-of-the-Art Article 2012: 153):
The ongoing evaluation of the developing materials should be driven by a set of agreed principles, both universal principles applicable to any learning context and local criteria specific to the target learning context(s).
We used skype, email and two face-to-face meetings to organise and develop the project. We used ‘prezi’ to present our findings (a new tool for me!) Our initial brief was to research one author each to share with each other and inform our project. I read McGrath and I’ve summarised it here:
Notes from McGrath (2013) Teaching Material and the role of EFL/ESL Teachers.
Chapter 3: The professional literature.
Rationale for evaluating materials – principally coursebooks:
Teachers have two broad responsibilities in relation to materials: to evaluate them and to redesign them. These processes are interrelated. They therefore have a “critical and creative stance in relation to materials”.
The role of materials selection is (or should be) a ‘stage’ in the course design process. Material selection should not dictate syllabus design. The design of courses and thus the selection of materials is governed by principles.
(Tomlinson, (2013): ( not from this paper) refers to 6 principles of language acquisition and 4 principals of language teaching combining to produce 30 principles of materials writing and materials writing is closely allied to material evaluation – sharing a concern for the same principles.)
Types/stages of evaluation
Predictive: Most widely used and involving selecting the coursebook prior to use. When there are many options involved it can be done in 2 stages.
Stage 1 is a flick stage, to filter out the least appropriate options. It is concerned with general attractiveness; the blurb; topic choices; visuals; layout. It’s impressionistic. May include price and availability.
Stage 2 is a much closer scrutiny of one or a small number of materials that have passed the flick stage. This involves a checklist which makes the evaluation criteria explicit therefore “providing a common framework for decision making …. (in which) … “systematic attention is paid to all aspects considered to be important.”
(The other types are ‘In use’ and ‘Retrospective’ evaluation which are based on the effects of using the material, but these are not relevant to this task).
There are many published checklists. Which one should one choose?
Most of them have main categories under which a series of sub categories are listed. These main categories are related to: –
How the materials fit with the syllabus/curriculum aims.
How they fit with the students needs
How they fit with the teacher (teacher suited)
How they fit with specific areas of language and skills
Pitfalls in selecting published checklists:
Context: Different criteria will apply in different circumstances” (Cunningham 1995). Local factors are very important. An example of a local factor might be, the availability of the target language outside the classroom, or the exam needs of the curriculum.
Roberts (1996) notes that because of the importance of context, checklist comparison is merely academic, so their main benefit is to promote careful consideration about how to evaluate and what system to adopt.
(Tomlinson provides help with this).
When the checklist was produced: being up –to- date is important because of the changing landscape of SLA research and methodology practices.
Processes of evaluation:
Analysis comes first – of both the materials and the context. This is descriptive, answering the question ‘What is there?’ and is therefore mostly objective.
There are elements such as “what do users need to do? – the tasks and exercises, and ‘what are the aims and principles behind the sequencing and selection of language items and topics?’. With regard to context, ‘what is the syllabus fit, the language policy fit, the fit with the institution’s aims and exam needs?
Evaluation follows that, based on criteria set out in a checklist. It should be carefully designed and systematically implemented.
(More on this in chapter 5 below.)
Format comes last – This is concerned with ‘technical’ issues aimed at arriving at “a design which is fit for purpose”. It is concerned with issues such as: using open or closed questions; using a weighting for more important items; using a numeric or other rating scale; whether it’s a 1st or 2nd stage checklist; how convenient and time efficient is it to use?
The chapter goes on to report on issues to do with adaptation, supplementation and pre/in lesson evaluation and concludes thus:
“Careful selection procedures will not eliminate the need for adaptation, but they can reduce it. The same holds true for supplementation.”
Chapter 5: How teachers evaluate coursebooks – some studies.
This chapter reported on a range of evaluation studies in different locations. After the introductory section 1:
Section 2 reported on a few retrospective evaluation studies.
Section 3 reported on how selection procedures differ greatly across different contexts and found that while some were systematic, most were not.
Section 4 reported on how experienced teachers developed their own criteria. In this section it was interesting to note that these criteria were mainly the same criteria as those occurring in published checklists. An example is provided of a teacher generated checklist, asking:
Does the coursebook……
Cater for all four skills?
Introduce real life topics?
Match the vocabulary needs and grammar level of the students?
Have clear page layout
Have a CD Rom for homework?
Have a teacher’s book with information and resources?
Give an introduction into the culture of the foreign language?
Have appropriate content for the time available?
Section 5 discusses the relevance of in-use and post-use evaluations and notes that published studies of this type are very limited.
The chapter concludes that from looking at these studies, a systematic approach to coursebook evaluation for selection purposes “is the exception rather than the rule.”
Action points for task based on my interpretation of the reading:
Look at some recently published checklists as a starting point (a flick test for checklists! ) and pick one or two for closer scrutiny
Match the criteria found in them to our beliefs as teachers as to what should be included based on our principles (formed from teaching experience and knowledge of methodologies and SLA theory).
Select the criteria for the ‘best fit’ to the above in both broad and sub categories – add in missing criteria or delete criteria that don’t fit our beliefs – (i.e. edit them)
Consider the context – who is this course book designed for and how will it be used?
Consider the technical ‘format’ issues for the framework – for maximum efficiency,ease of use, clarity, time available.
Finalise the design; trial it.
Apply the checklist to the selected coursebook and specific unit, after an introductory ‘stage one’ first impressions and general factors (e.g. price/availability).
Evaluate the process – what would we change/refine/ recommend?
In comparing the process (above) with the one Tomlinson proposes (below) we found an integrated process that we used to devise our framework.
1. Brainstorm beliefs
2. Decide on shared beliefs
3. Convert the shared beliefs into universal criteria
4. Write a profile of the target learning context for the materials
5. Develop local criteria from the profile
6. Evaluate and revise the universal and local criteria
7. Conduct the evaluation
(Tomlinson 2013: 44)
Here is the link to our presentation which contains a framework based on our shared principles:
Comparing our presentation to those of the other groups was interesting as we seemed to approach the task in slightly different ways. Our criteria were grouped into categories where others weren’t; we used statements to agree or disagree with, where others used questions. I think though that the key message we all took away from completing this task and listening to the other presenters was that coursebook evaluation should follow a process. That is, it should be systematic. Equally important it should be contextualised – fit for purpose. Furthermore, the criteria for the checklist that forms the backbone of any evaluative frameworkalso needs to be evaluated.
Checking your criteria:
a) Is each question an evaluation question?
b) Does each question only ask one question?
c) Is each question answerable?
d) Is each question free of dogma?
e) Is each question reliable in the sense that other evaluators would interpret it in the same way?
(Tomlinson & Masuhara , 2004: 7) – as presented on the seminar slide for week 3 #35.
References:
McGrath, I. (2013) Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers: Practice and Theory
Tomlinson, B. (2013) Materials Evaluation. In; Tomlinson, B. (ed). Developing Materials for Language Teaching (2nd ed).
Mishan, F. & Timmis, I. (22015) Materials Development for TESOL, chapter 4.
Seminar number two was primarily a task-based experience; we were charged with the task of coming up with some principles of ELT practice that we believed to be central to our beliefs about how languages are learned (Hall 1995 in Tomlinson 2012) and upon which we would base our (theoretical) framework for materials design. Individually we produced our lists and then shared these in small groups and compared our findings. They were not wildly different but neither were they exactly the same. To complicate matters, a further layer of published ‘design principles from the literature’ was added to the mix and we were asked to eliminate the duplicates and arrive at a list of 16. We were polite with each other, listened to each others’ points of view, made our cases for different elements and compromised in places. It wasn’t easy and certainly provoked much discussion.
The process we experienced seemed to aptly reflect the essential nature of trying to find ‘universal principles’. We all had different backgrounds – in English language teaching; in our experience of this course and our reading so far for this module; in our own educational and language learning experiences; and in our ages and countries of origin; (to name just some of the key variables). In other words, we all brought different ‘contextual’ baggage with us to the table of principles selection. This was the fundamental idea I took away from this seminar, that yes, universal principles based on second language acquisition theory and pedagogic theories can be devised, honed and prioritised, but as teachers we all have different ideas about those priorities and different teaching situations in which we see ourselves applying them. An effective design framework, for a ‘constituency bigger than just me an my learners today’ – and I think these were Paul’s words, needs to capture the most salient ‘universal’ principles and allow for ‘contextualisation’ – or adaptation to local issues. In Tomlinson’s view, (State-of-the-Art Article 2012: 153):
“The ongoing evaluation of the developing materials should be driven by a set of agreed principles, both universal principles applicable to any learning context and local criteria specific to the target learning context(s).”
In that same publication he reviews how some authors set out principles on which to develop materials. Flores, (1995) used 5 principles, Penaflorida (1995) 6, while Tomlinson (1998b and 2011b) suggested 15 principles based on SLA theory and his experience of teaching. To what extent though, have the majority of materials developers used design frameworks based on these or other principles? Disappointingly, not much, according to the literature. Historically, it seems, the main ‘tools’ for materials design have been to replicate or adapt previous materials, to rely on creative inspiration during the writing process, and to refer to individual repertoires of ‘what worked for them’. Our class discussion on this issue left some of us wondering if they used principles at all, in the absence of any explicit reference to them. However, perhaps giving them the benefit of the doubt, we concluded that, as expert material writers who were also (or had at some point been) teachers, their principles had become internalised or implicit. This conclusion was supported with subsequent reference to Hadfield (2014; 320-359) who examined and reported on her own and other materials writers’ experiences, finding that just because these principles remain unarticulated does not mean they don’t exist. Furthermore, while the expert writer might not use an explicit set of principles, novice and developing writers would find having them invaluable.
Writing on task design, Johnson, K. (2003) draws from specific research to identify what makes an ‘expert’ materials writer, identifying the following key behaviors:
Concrete visualisation of activity for student and teacher
Ability to abandon what’s not right
Does things one at a time – and spends time analysing the problem and reviewing it
Highlights important considerations (principles)
Looks at breadth first, then depth in design
Makes higher level decisions before lower ones
Identifies consequences
Constantly reviews, with a view to reject, fix or maintain
Is sensitive to learner context
Explores post task types
Uses repertoire
Creates choice possibilities
Complexifies task beyond necessity
From his analysis we can see that expert writers approach design in a way that draws on their implicit knowledge and results in a patten of behaviors with which they tackle design problems. Some of them also reflect principles more overtly – such as being sensitive to learner context.
Tomlinson’s key principles based on SLA research findings and taken from Tomlinson (2008b) include:
the language experience needs to be contextualised and comprehensible
the learners need to be motivated, relaxed and positively engaged
the language and discourse features available ….need to be salient, meaningful and frequently encountered
the learners need to achieve deep and multi-dimensional processing of the language
In Tomlinson (2013) these were listed:
meaningful exposure to language
effective and cognitive engagement
mental resources used in L1
noticing how L2 is used
contextualised and purposeful communication
interaction encouraged
focus on meaning
Coming into this seminar I had just read the papers in which these principles were discussed. I had recently completed the second language acquisition and methodology modules of this course and I have 5 years of my own teaching experience to draw from. This all fed into the task we were set in class as I produced my own list and reviewing the ‘design principles’ supplied. I’m not sure which aspect influenced me the most – but then that’s the nature of schema. A bit of this and that is added to what’s already there to build a new set of understandings. And this is one reason why no two individuals’ ‘sets of principles’ will ever be exactly the same. So, not surprisingly, my group’s (eventually agreed) list of principles was different to the other groups’ lists and theirs to each others. Here for the record, is my group’s list which was just 15 in the end:
have engaging content
be authentic and relevant to real life
challenge students
be flexible
recognise the need for long-term goals
well presented
Student centred
integrate skills work
Meaningful and accessible
take into account that learners differ in affective attitudes
require and facilitate learner self investment
give multiple examples
direct learners’ attention to linguistic features of input
provide opportunities for outcome feedback
reflect the complex nature of the learning task and made manageable
Where to from here? Given the unlikelihood of finding a comprehensive list of principles that suits all circumstances, it is perhaps equally important to focus on the process of deciding upon those principles suited to the time, place and purpose of use. This is the essential idea behind a framework for materials writing, and Jolly and Bolitho (2011) set out a ‘principled, practical and dynamic framework‘ as a guide to this process. This starts with the identification and then the exploration of needs in which the objectives of the materials need to be clearly defined; it continues with the contextual and pedagogic realisation of materials, such as cultural appropriateness and how the learners might use the materials; followed by production and student use, covering issues of trialling and piloting; and finally (but that’s not actually where it finishes) evaluation against objectives. There isn’t really a ‘finally’ because once the evaluation stage is reached the process starts over again from the beginning – it’s iterative. Our seminar slides flesh out this process (week 2 in class presentation slides 45-61:) as does the literature in which it was reported (Tomlinson 2013). In week three we deal more thoroughly with frameworks and process as they relate to EVALUATION. To prepare for that we were put into new groups and given the following question and task:
What framework most clearly reflects your approach to materials evaluation?
Arrive at a materials framework and apply that to a coursebook.
References:
Johnson, K (2003) Designing language teaching tasks.
Tomlinson, B. (2012) Materials development in language learning and teaching. Language Teaching 45.2.
Tomlinson, B. (2013) Developing principled frameworks for materials development, in Tomlinson, B (ed) Materials for language teaching (2nd ed).
Hadfield, J. (2014) Chaosmos: spontaneity and order in the materials design process., in Harwood, N. (ed) English language teaching textbooks: content, consumption, production.
