Effective Language Learning Skills:

Participating in Seminars

Although the word seminar might take different connotations in EFL teaching settings, in terms of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) it accounts for group discussions and oral presentations. It is needless to mention that these two types of oral activities are carried out by students in their classrooms with the help of their teachers. Both can be great opportunities for both students and teachers. The former can have a great chance to practice his/her oral skills, and the latter can get a great chance to assess his/her students’ progress.

Keeping in mind this idea of seminars, and as part of my EFL language training in the 2011 Bell Teacher Campus at Homerton College in Cambridge, GB, our instructor Ian Chitty, stressed some interesting ideas on how to go about group discussions to fully account for better teacher practices in the language classroom and student performance. Let’s take a look at the discussion skills involved in an oral task like this presented by Prof. Chitty and discussed in class:

Discussion Skills

1. Giving your opinion

2. Agreeing and disagreeing

3. Explaining

4. Making suggestions

5. Interrupting

6. Questioning

7. Reporting

8. Dealing with questions

[Taken from Anderson, Maclean & Lynch, Study Speaking, CUP 2004]

What is listed above is then a group of language skills that students should be able to handle when being part of a panel discussion or discussion group. However, as Professor Chitty stated in class, it is also important to have students take specific roles in the discussion to ensure participation and discussion. This can be achieved by assigning very specific roles to all students involved in this particular task.

The roles of students in a panel discussion

1. Start the discussion by presenting facts, arguments, or opinions about the topic.

2. Introduce ideas from an article you have read which are relevant to the discussion.

3. Admit that you are unsure about something and ask for information.

4. Remind someone of a point they made, and try to take the idea further yourself.

5. Elicit ideas from someone who has not contributed much to the discussion.

6. Reformulate another speaker’s point to check if you understood it.

7. Summarize the discussion and try to take it in a new direction.

8. Take the floor politely so you can make your own point in the discussion.

9. Remind someone of a point they made earlier, and try to get them to take it further.

[Taken from Academic seminar strategies, EAP Essentials, Garnet Publishing Ltd. 2008]

Depending on the amount of students that you have in a group discussion, it is useful to decide which roles are necessary based on your knowledge of the class. Some of them might be unnecessary, but others might need to be added to complete all possible roles of students in a panel discussion.

Now if we turn our review of seminars in the EFL classroom towards the oral presentations, another set of skills are necessary. Students should be able to …

1. Structure a presentation

2. Speak in an appropriate style

3. Deliver the speech using emphasis and phrasing

4. Use visual aids

5. Refer to visual aids

6. Introduce a presentation

7. Conclude a presentation and

8. Make a presentation interesting

[Taken from Anderson, Maclean & Lynch, Study Speaking, CUP 2004]

Although oral presentations can be individual, in pairs, or small groups, it is important that all students have clearly in mind that they must follow a given or specific format for their presentation. Of course this also implies that the instructor must show sample presentations for them to be certain of what is expected from them. Along with the oral presentation preparation, students must learn how to introduce their topic in an academic fashion, not just by saying “I’m going to talk about,” but by being able to gather the audience attention, stating the purpose of the presentation, and quickly reviewing the important points to be covered.

Likewise, students also need to know how to go about concluding their oral presentations in an academic fashion (based on standards previously discussed by the teacher according to his/her pupils’ field of study) and getting ready to answer questions coming from their audience (usually partners and the teacher in class). Furthermore, the making of presentation an interesting speech event is something that combines the elements described above, good pronunciation and enunciation, and a good use of the technological elements available.

In addition, understanding that an oral presentation is a kind of speech event with certain “standards” to meet, a more elaborate language needs to be used away from slang or colloquialisms. This idea of the “standards” is closely linked to the delivery of an oral presentation; that is, how language is used –from a phonological point of view- with emphasis (sentence stress on key words) and phrasing (the use of thought groups).

An oral presentation must also be related to the use of visual aids to enhance the conveying of the message to the audience. With so many technological ways of reproducing visual aids (pictures, videos, and the like), the student must be aware of the best way to use them to create the desired intention on the audience (shock, surprise, attention gatherer, etc.). And s/he must keep in mind that the visual part of the presentation is just an aid, not the presentation itself. Thus, the instructor must train students on how to use or refer to visual aids effectively.

Jonathan Acuña

EFL Instructor / Curricular Development

San José, Costa Rica

Email: jonacuso@gmail.com

After participating in a Bell Educational Trust program at Homerton College, Cambridge GB (August 2011), in a workshop given by Lorraine Kennedy, we participants were confronted with the following idea about teacher observations and reflective teaching. Can we actually get feedback from a blind observation? It is important to state the most of us had never heard of that way of observing classes before.

To start with, let’s define the meaning of the term blind observation. This sort of “observation” is actually a question-guided reflective task with a peer rather than with a supervisor or mentor. Although this could actually be used by mentors or supervisors as well to help their supervisees reflect on various aspects of a lesson that has been taught, Ms. Kennedy, -our instructor-, stressed the fact that in her British teaching context, blind observations have worked much better among peers, rather than with a supervisor.

Taking into account that an observation is always a situation in which the teacher’s affective filter is very high due to “fear” or “discomfort” because of the presence of a mentor or supervisor grading his/her performance, could observations be actually guided by a peer? And does his/her peer actually need to be present during class time?

If we bear in mind that what we teachers are actually behind is teacher development, a blind observation can be the answer. We always wonder why certain things happen in class, but sometimes out of fear we do not necessarily ask others what the explanation could be. Having in mind that this is a peer-to-peer session to help us teachers reflect in the good and the bad things that happen in class, a blind observation can provide and be a source of interesting information about one’s teaching style, techniques, etc.

As reflective teachers, it is important to keep in mind that not all that happens in class can be predicted or controlled. And the learning outcomes that are written down are not necessarily met at the end of class. Here is the right moment to start reflecting on what went right or wrong, analyze the class in its various components (lesson plan, classroom management, etc.), and point out the possible causes that trigger the good and bad results. But how can my colleague help me find out what took place in class with my successful or unsuccessful teaching?

A peer can actually work with a partner to discover –through reflection- the little details that can be overseen by the teacher. Ms. Kennedy suggested that a questionnaire be prepared to guide this “heart-to-heart” talk between a teacher and his/her peer. Let’s take a look at some of the questions she provided us for a reflective task we had as part of the workshop:

BLIND OBSERVATION FEEDBACK; REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS

01. What was the aim of your lesson?

02. Were you able to achieve your goals?

03. What teaching materials did you use? How effective were they?

04. What techniques did you use?

05. What grouping arrangements did you use?

06. Was your lesson teacher dominated?

07. What kind of teacher-student interaction occurred?

08. Did anything amusing or unusual occur?

09. Did you have any problems with the lesson?

10. Did you depart from your lesson plan? If so, why? Did the change make things better or worse?

11. What was the main accomplishment of the lesson?

12. Which parts to the lesson were most successful?

13. Which parts of the lesson were least successful?

14. Would you teach the lesson differently if you taught it again?

15. What 1 or 2 changes would you make if you were to teach the lesson again?

Main learning point? (What did you learn through this experience?)

Main action point? (What are you planning to do to repeat a successful experience or correct an unsuccessful learning outcome?)

It is important to remember that this questionnaire can be, and must be, modified to cater for one’s particular needs in one’s particular teaching environment. Some of the questions listed above can be modified or substituted to fit one’s teaching context. In this way, through hindsight, the teacher can mull over his/her class and develop him/herself professionally and successfully.

My Ideal Pronunciation Class

EFL/ESL colleagues, who have worked with me at Universidad Latina or at Centro Cultural Costarrincese-Norteamericano and know me from ESL/EFL teacher conferences, area fully acquainted for my passion towards English pronunciation. In terms of lesson planning for these particular courses that I teach at Ulatina, I really enjoy digging the Web to find suitable material for my classes, to provide students with further practice to be done at home anytime they want, and to consolidate the expected language learning goals for pronunciation.

In the sample plan I provide below, exercises that will be monitored by me, the instructor, are labeled so. However, the idea is to have students work on the plan themselves to become responsible for their pronunciation learning. Of course, if they are able to bring their laptops to class, for those of them who happen to have, the lesson plan will be highly effective.

Most activities planned here are intended to be part of a long-term plan regarding regular past tense pronunciation. Some questions or extra activities might arise spontaneously, but we have a computer connection in class to troubleshoot doubts and the like.

Enabling students to use higher level thinking skills can be achieved by going beyond the application of pronunciation rules and by having students analyze, synthetize, and self-assess the way they are pronouncing regular past tenses. For this purpose, students will be required to give a two-minute presentation to talk about a memorable moment in their childhoods. This can be recorded before class and uploaded to a class wiki to be later used in some kind of peer correction task.

Give this sample lesson plan a try, and then let me know how it went. Please, feel free to contact me to jonathan.acuna@ulatina.ac.cr or jonathan.acuna@centrocultural.cr.

Sample Lesson Plan: The one-computer classroom / Past tenses ending in -ed

Class: BIN-06 Pronunciation II

Duration: 2 hrs. 30 min.

Materials

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M7xIwAqy9I

Other material:

· Speakers

· Textbooks

Introduction

As we have already studied in previous lessons, we have already noticed that –ed regular past tenses vary in their pronunciation. Here we will review the concept of voicing to fully understand when and why –ed is pronounced as /t/, /d/, or /ɪd/.

Objectives of this lesson (tell students about them):

Once students have reviewed the concept of voicing and watched a video explaining the –ed pronunciation in past tenses, they will be able to apply the rules to pronounce past tenses with 80% accuracy while reading or speaking.

Procedure

· Presentation

o There will be no real presentation by the teacher at this point.

o Students will watch a video in which a teacher explains how –ed in past tenses is pronounced and classified.

o Students will be asked to take notes.

· Tasks’ sequence

o Activity 1: Group work: Students will be asked to work in groups of three to analyze the information provided in the following link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/11966921/Pronunciation-Of-the-final-ed. This will help them match the importance of consonant voicing and –ed pronunciation, as well of the exceptions.

o Activity 2: Quizzing students: The next two links that will be used –with the whole class- will be a way to review/quiz/assess student understanding of the rules. The links provide two interactive quizzes, so it is a nice way of assessing student understanding of rules.

§ Quiz 1

§ Quiz 2

o Activity 3: Assessment: Students will be give a copy of the article published by the BBC on Monkeys recognise 'bad grammar'. They will work in pairs to highlight the past tenses ending in –ed and to practice reading the passage.

o Activity 4: By changing partners, students will be asked to talk about the possibility of animals to understand language. They will be asked to tell their partners to discuss about their pets when they were kids. And if they believe in animal communication. (These questions will be shown to students on power point.)

· Learning styles addressed: sensory/intuitive learners (procedural info); visual/verbal; sequential/global; logical/mathematical [A wide range of learners are addressed with this practice.]

· Technology alternative (in case things don't work as planned): book CD and additional worksheets

Review before the end of the class session:

Before the class is over, a general review of the rules will be given to students. At random, students will be asked to provide how each rules works.

Homework:

· In the class blog, a couple of links will be provided for students to continue practicing: http://www.english-room.com/pasttense_6a.htm and http://www.eslgold.com/grammar/simple_past.html

· Besides, students will be able to prepare a two-minute presentation talking about a memorable moment in their childhood.

Lesson Plan developed based on Deborah Healey’s proposed lesson plan with technology. American English Institute/Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon

P.S. Find a digital downloadable copy of my pronunciation lesson plan at http://www.scribd.com/doc/27776445/Pronunciation-Lesson-Plan-Sample if you feel like using it.

Jonathan Acuña

Universidad Latina

Costa Rica