Sunday, March 16, 2014

TESOL Greece Plenary - David Bradshaw "Motivation in the 21st CenturyClassroom"

The final plenary of the convention is continuing the idea of learning and motivation as it is affected by 21st century issues. 


David begins by clearing the air and stating that his talk is not going to focus on technology nor will it answer the question of motivation which he says is a complicated question to answer. 

He also begins by pointing out that he will refer to negative habits of teachers but he means no personal attacks to the members of the audience. He wants to simply suggest a few changes to make modifications to what we're doing already. 

David outlines his talk as one that will cover personalization, visualization and localization, with a focus on engagement. 


He addresses the fact that our students have an impression of learning English as happening in any context but school. He has the participants discuss what we expect our students to think of when finishing the phrase "school is...". 

Some suggestions "boring", "where I see my friends", "prison", "a means to an end" (for the straight A student). What it's not is "hey this is where I learn English". 

Obviously this is frustrating for us as teachers. Our students are not thinking of all the things we do to help them learn, it's all under the radar and, yes, boring. 

This is where personalization comes into play, even in an ideal class with all students raising hands to answer a question, the knowledge is still coming from the teacher and the students may (or may not) be disengaged from the actual course. 

His first adjustment suggested is for teachers to move away from standing at the front and doling out knowledge, but rather have then turn to each other and draw knowledge from each other - collaborative/cooperative learning. 

He defines cooperative learning as putting students in groups, and assigning tasks where they are responsible for the final product as well as the process of developing their lesson. Additionally, students in these interaction patterns also develop the soft social skills of sharing, cooperating, compromising, and so on. 



He describes the difference between a student centered and a teacher centered classroom where in the former, the teacher is best used as a resource rather than a source questions with right or wrong answers which is too often the case in the latter. Pairwork, collaboration and project work allows for safer use of language which avoids the negative conditioning of being that kid that always gets called on and has the wrong answer.

He moves on to discuss the graph describing that we learn differently depending on the way we engage the material, which allows us to go deeper by making learning relevant to our students. 


He talks about how little things like intentionally using examples that are relevant to their interests (One Direction) or using example sentences that spark their interest ("The farmer was shot by the rabbit", make it active voice). Suddenly you have their attention. 

The shock value of freezing a projector, typing in google images or YouTube and bring it back just when it's ready to show then. The small element of surprise will bring them into the context that you wanted them focusing on. 

For giving homework, small changes such as "watch this YouTube video and think of 3 adjectives before next class" or "find a song that contains (insert grammar structure here) and bring it in next week" can make all the difference when it comes to engagement and personalization. It is no longer a mindless task but an opportunity for the learners to bridge their schoolwork to their interests. Another suggested task is asking students to think of a song that means something to them, and before playing the song tell the class why it's relevant to them. 

Next, David moves onto visualization. He begins this theme with a task for the participants. In pairs we are asked to look for difference in a pair of images, but in a Ping Pong type interaction. A tells B one difference, B spots another difference to tell A, back and forth. 



We take turns pointing out gender segregation, new technology, absence of hats, absence of surgical masks, etc. The Ping Pong interaction keeps us engaged because we must respond. 

He moves on to discuss the problem with current technologies and development. 


There is a focus on the negative effects of a culture where tablets and smartphones are ever present and we no longer look at faces and people but rather stare at screens. Apparently kids and teens now have overdeveloped thumbs from these devices. This particular point is awkward for me as I frantically type with my two "overdeveloped" thumbs to write this post from my iPhone). 😳


We move onto the lack of authentic interactions with modern day uses of texting in lieu of face to face or even spoke phone interactions. 

David's answer to this is that we must face the inevitability of our learners sticking to screens and videos and takes an "of you can't best them, join them" mentality. He gives a set of resources of ready made current video lessons that are regularly updated at the following sites:


Films, current events, tv and other authentic sources are exploited on all these sites. 

However, David proposes that we go further and exploit the fact that our screenagers are also making videos as well as watching them. Developing projects for them to use these technologies. Assigning video interviews, short creative films, redubbing films, etc in class. 

Lastly David moves on to localization. He refers back to personalization where our goal is to make texts relevant to our learners. He addresses the fact that published course books need to be somewhat generic and international to appeal to a world market, but unfortunately does not help drive student engagement. 


He gives the above example of an older English course book designed for the Japanese market that does not fit the culture.


Worse still, he gives the example of linguistic imperialism in the form of the above image where the image on the left may well find itself in a classroom on the right. The impression students in this context take away is total alienation from the context and thus alienation from the language. 

Having personally spent 2 years working in exactly the context on the right (I was a Peace Corps Volunteer Teacher in Guinea and Liberia, West Africa in small rural village schools), I can attest that the cultural difference is in fact an important disengaging factor. At the same time I have to cast doubt on the likelihood that ANY course would be present in the latter context. At least any course book that isn't falling apart from mildew, mold or moth-eaten pages, having been donated "to Africa" from some western public library unloading useless out of date materials in a way that makes them look globally aware. (End of my rant, sorry)

As a final note, David connects these ideas of new technologies and social networking revolutionizing the way that we relate not just with students but also with other teachers. 


He describes the current state of teaching in the 21st century as a giant staffroom with our ideas shared on Facebook, Twitter, and many others...


He hopes to see us all contributing and invites us to connect with him at the sources below. Thank you David, I look forward to it!




TESOL Greece Plenary - Bob Obee "Issues in Vocabulary Teaching andLearning and Mapping Lexis to CEFR Levels"

Bob Obee leads the next plenary talk at TESOL Greece to talk about CambridgeUniversity Press' work in lexis and vocabulary teaching.

He begins with a focus on some numbers  related to vocabulary:


2,000 - the most common words which make up 85% of English in terms of basic use, corrolatable to the waystage level. 

10-12 - the number of words or lexical groups that can be grouped together in a teaching packet (lesson)

54,000 - the number of words in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (which is more than the average native speaker at about 20,000 for someone with a high school education). 

5-17 - the number of times you need to see a word before it starts to becomes part of your productive competence. 

Up to 1,000 - the maximum number of words a learner is able to learn in a year, regardless of learning context. 

4,500 - the number of words needed to achieve a B1 level in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). 

10 to 1 - "the hour when the clock stops in Cambridge".  I didn't entirely understand this last one, but it gets clarified a bit later. 

He moves in to outline the rest of his talk. 


We move on to a task where we see different forms and meaning of the verb "to know" in English, marked by CEFR level where a student would be expected to know this meaning. 

He then moves on to talk about the Cambridge Learner Corpus which is drawn from exam samples from students taking Cambridge exams. The criterial features for these are: positive (at level), negative (not at level) and L1 transfer. 

They also look at the language from a grammar perspective as well, as in the examples below. Analyzing the syntactical function of the language. 

Cambridge's way if dealing with data is to accept only data found to be "at level" when it comes to determining the forms used by speakers of a certain CEFR level.  The same applies to the point where words with similar meaning are transferred into common use by language level. 10 to 1 (remember?) is the ratio of frequency that decides this categorization. If the word's frequency is lower it drops to the lower CEFR level, higher and it fits into the level. 

Bob then moves on to talk about the "how" of vocabulary. Starting with how we understand vocabulary. He begins with depth of knowledge (phonetic and orthographic), it's main meanings of the words, main contexts of use (which makes translation difficult - as in the various contexts of the word "strong"), structure (transitive, ditransitive, role in a sentence, etc), underlying forms or derivatives, network of associations with other words (collocations), as well as connotation (woman vs lady is his example). 


He mentions that we need to work on all the various aspects listed above, but most teachers stop after the first two. E proposes going through the various aspects of words in light of these different approaches. Given the upper limit to learning of new forms this gives lends some great insight to intensive courses. 

He guides the audience through an example with a set of reflection questions on several words associated with paying. 


He brings up the issue of "refunds" being linked to "get back", receipts to "take it back", loans to "pay it back". 

He links this all to Cambridge's English Profile website which allows teachers to explore these various aspects if CEFR graded language. 

He then moves on to talk about memory and learning. Showing an example of a Learner's vocabulary notebook. 


He speaks about the importance of teaching learners to effectively use and plan their vocabulary notebooks. Basing it on mnemonics, schematics, and pragmatics. 

He uses collocations for research and a standard matching activity followed up by a timeline indicating which stages come first and which come later. 


Next comes the role of technology and 21st century tools as they relate to meaningful encounters for language use. 


Lastly, as we approach the end of the talk is the grammaticisation of language. He begins with a standard word formation task from a Cambridge Use of English examination and modifies it to increase the number of decisions a learner is asked to make. 

A second task is a text with select words chosen incorrectly based on register and having students explore all the words at their disposal to find words which fit better in the register. 


To close, Bob talks about the overuse of the meaning focus on language. The need for learners to find other words which connect and link and inform the use of the language. 





TESOL Greece Plenary - Herbert Puchta "Emotional Engagement For AdultStudents"

TESOL Greece opens Sunday morning with the plenary talk that I had most eagerly been anticipating - Herbert Puchta speaking on emotional engagement as it relates to motivation in adult learners. 


He begins his talk with a short clip from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". As a coursework writer he hesitates to share a clip found on "mybooksucks.com" but admits there are few examples as apt as demonstrations of poor teaching. Anyone, anyone...Bueller?


He goes on to think about all the issues that are evident in the film that make the class as boring as it is. Why are they so disinterested? The answer, he says, is their emotional engagement. 

But if learning is associated with the brain, what role, then, do emotions play? Why is success of language learning dependent on emotion. He ventures onto thin ice with the Greek crowd by risking a quote from Aristotle which lists the three elements of persuasion: ethos (possessing credibility), pathos (emotional engagement to the audience) and logos (having the logic behind the arguments). 


He discusses the higher role given to logos and ethos in the Western Hemisphere due to the rise of academia and celebration of knowledge. However, modern neuroscience is now investigating how important emotions are to neural processing and reasoning. "Emotions and intelligence go hand in hand, which is why we humans - highly intelligent creatures - are so emotional." He introduces the theme of the talk that positive emotional feelings have an impact on the memory pathway and neural processing our learners go through (stating the caveat that he is not in fact a neuroscientist, but rather bases his arguments on research in the field, particularly that of James Zull). 

He moved on to a quote from an adult who has learned 6 languages, 4 from self-study. 



This quotation serves to show how intrinsic motivation derived from an authentic love of language and enjoyment of the learning process can drive successful learning. The flip side of the coin being that anxiety, stress and other forms of anguish inhibiting learning. 

He discusses the idea many teachers and learners have of teaching and learning of the brain as a sort of warehouse to be filled with knowledge which is deposited there by the teacher. Obviously this is not the real picture. 


Brain function is much more sophisticated than that, and the neocortex or "gray matter" being the newest portion of the brain he claims to be one of the most crucial parts to learning and social behavior. A comparison of cross sectioned infant neocortex samples shows that this part of the brain grows and develops quickly during the first two years of life as infants develop and learn much of the foundations of their future knowledge as they discover the world around them. There is much research which supports that strong emotional events trigger deeper and more substantial neural development and release of neurotransmitters in developing brains. 

Cognitive science research shows release of serotonin, dopamine and other neurotransmitters which are released during strong emotional events also trigger increased development of new synaptic pathways in the brain. From this he draws to conclusions: learning is a physical process, and the brain is an organ of emotion. 

The brain's fear and pleasure systems act as indicators for behavior. Positive behavior is rewarded with pleasure in order to lead us to repeat that behavior while negative behavior leads us to fear and avoid hazardous or otherwise negative stimuli. Fight, flight or freeze (which not surprisingly sound quite a bit like some students' reactions to being called to speak or act before they're quite ready). 


These effects are said by some to be nullified by practice: "iI they practice enough, they'll be more comfortable and learn better" being a common belief. However (!!) of course practice is only as good as the motivation and interest behind it. Repetitive, monotonous and dull input becomes noise that, just like traffic noises in a city, our students learn to tune out. 


Multi sensory input and relevance are the keys to engagement. He goes on to list key principles behind emotional engagement:

The need to understand your environment, this being necessary for survival. As teachers we manage this through task challenge to maintain interest (not too easy and boring, not too difficult and frustrating). This is a growing issue in particular as it relates to critical thinking. 

There is also relevance. Memory being dependent on some connection to other parts of our life. The content of input must have some reason for our learners' brains to recognize importance to their life. EAP and ESP being prime examples of this choice of content to specific learners. General English courses are seen as more challenging to tailor due to the variety of interests in any given group. 

Movement is his next point, with a relevant quote from Zull:

He uses the example of anticipated narrative in the context of fiction to describe what he means by movement. We read long novels with interest because we are constantly active in our minds anticipating the next steps to come. This feeling of movement is abstract and mental but no less real. 

Next he discusses mythic, romantic, philosophical and ironic understanding as defines by Kieran Egan. The stages where students are able to understand basic good vs evil narratives as children moving into the stage where emotional motivations in narrative are clear. Later students are able to analyze more abstract philosophical ties within a story. Lastly as adults the use of irony and clear understanding of its use shows fully developed intellectual skill. These cognitive skills developed through reading and analysis of books with a news for engaging works. 

He gives an anecdotal example of getting a cheap romance novel in an act of desperation at an airport and LOVING it despite its lowbrow status in the world of literature. Despite having a weak story and overall poor writing, the movement of the story drew him in and kept him raptly engaged in the book. 

He moves into a quote on flow theory: 

Where the basic idea is about the state we enter when fully engaged in a task due to our own emotional engagement. 


He then begins to conclude by bringing up the various practical elements and themes we can add to our classes to stimulate anticipated movement and natural engagement in classrooms. 


He gives us the example of picture pairs where one is a standard "bland" picture from a course book speaking or writing task and the other is a more interesting alternative to develop a story from. For example, these two images to talk about public transport:

Clearly there is a winner for a source of authentic and interesting ideas. 

He then moves on to the discussion of language ownership. Citing the claims kids make such as "No! Don't help me, I want to do it myself!" This is a natural way of engaging in the material that many children have and many adults have lost at some stage in their education. The drive of owning your learning and experimentation with language develops the ownership of skill development and follows naturally into learner autonomy. 

This then moves into the idea that we as teachers need to move into a word of error-welcoming engagement and a move away from traditional pedagogy. 


His final summary brings back the points he has made during the talk:


And ends with a bit of wonderful advice from the polyglot learner he had quoted quoted earlier:


Saturday, March 15, 2014

TESOL Greece Interactive Plenary Panel

To finish off a busy day at TESOL Greece the plenary speakers of the conference were grouped together on stage for an interactive question and answer session.

From left to right: Eleni Lovaniou, Bob Obee, Lilika Couri (moderator), Michael Robbs, Herbert Puchta and David Bradshaw. 

The first question is finely honed to the theme of the Conference "Teaching in the 21st Century". What is the future of teaching and paper based materials in light of new technology?

Answers vary on this (and I am starting this post during the third speaker's answer) but everyone agrees that the best approach to these is the intelligent use to maximize teaching moments and take advantage of endless sources of content and context. New course books will need to find ways to stay current and bridge immediately available sources of data to the contexts focused on in the books themselves. They also agree that we must keep remember that technology is a tool like any other and not the answer (or, to play with a little Greek myself, not a panacea). 

The next question comes from a member of the audience. "Why actually learn when information is so easily available? Which 'lessons' are most important for learners to have?"

Herbert Puchta connects this question to personalization and the need for the information to connect to students life context.  Eleni Livaniou states that we need to learn to stimulate our brains, that visual and auditory stimuli are simply noise without the structure of learning processes that keep our brains working. Bob Obee states that language is not information and that language learning is an important skill for life. He admits that digital technology is getting better at replacing language learning (google translate) but wonders if that will ever replace real people who have mastered these skills. David Bradshaw extends this to the appropriateness of expression and the need of a human filter to critically react to and manage information. Lastly Michael Robbs adds the element of critical thinking, decision making and the life skills students develop in (well taught) classes. 

The following question from the audience asks if there is more motivation now than there was before the advent of technology (specifically interactive whiteboards). 

Bob Obee takes the first comment to tell a story about a school in Dubai that has changed entirely to tablets while simultaneously forbidding paper based materials. He claims that teachers in this school are struggling to adapt and effectively use the technology while student results and motivation have not gone up. The culture of the country also makes it so the easy availability of a means to recluse oneself behind a screen has further reduced student contribution to class. Eleni Livanou brings up recent research indicating that children become inattentive  and  struggle to multi-task when they are educated and raised primarily around smartphone/tablet use. She comments on the negative effects of this issue for cognitive development and social skill development. Herbert Puchta comments on how motivation is not related to technology: "a boring text on an iPad is still a boring text". Michael then continues by saying "great teachers are great teachers" and how technology helps some and hinders others, ultimately it is just another tool that can be used and misused. David finishes by agreeing that motivation is unrelated to technology. He makes an interesting metaphor to parents getting a fancy exciting toy, giving it at Christmas, and the child playing with the box and wrapping. He also addresses the important issue of the increased load on the teacher with the necessity of contingency plans for technology snafus and failures (no wifi, etc). 

The next question is "With technology in its current form, would it generate a form of extrinsic or intrinsic motivation?"

After the speakers struggle to clarify and understand the awkwardly worded question (essentially an unnecessary distinction drawn from the previous question), Michael Robbs begins by pointing out the increased force of intrinsic motivation, the need or want being a part of wanting to learn. He adds that sometimes students do get sucked in by the bells and whistles of technology but also at times the imposition of tech on learners or teachers can negatively affect motivation as well. Herbert Puchta states the that by definition the motivation could only be external in this question and thus extrinsic. David agrees that with millennials the use of tech will bring it into their comfort zone and help guide motivation. Bob Obee insists that it's ideas that make lessons interesting and motivating and not frills. Just because we think a tool is fun doesn't mean they will, we may have better luck with something better thought out but less fancy. Eleni agrees that it's what we do as teachers that stimulates motivation, technology is just one of the means of achieving this. 

Lilika takes us away from technology with "If you were to list the top 3-5 skills that today's language learner would need, what would they be?"

David beings with listening, an essential component to the development of the other skills, especially critical listening. As for research he mentions the analysis or sources and reliability. Michael Robbs adds to David's choice of listening with a Greek quote "we have two ears and one mouth". He also mentions critical thinking and problem solving. Lastly he mentions skimming and the ability to sift through lots of information quickly to make decisions of value. Eleni discusses social skills: interacting, listening, being able to read and communicate. She gives the example of kids who don't go to school but learn several languages through everyday interaction and socialization. She bridges this idea to research on skill development and interaction. Hebert asks who the learner is for age. For YL he insists it's basic thinking skills which would later evolve into other skills later in life. For upper teens he claims information management and looking for gaps in information and sources of information. Differentiation between fact, opinion and incorrect information. Bob talks about behavior and the reason behind misbehavior. He follows this up with the ability to structure information and take intelligent notes. Risk taking and reflection also useful to language skill development. 

The next question is about how assessment influences class work and materials writing. 

Michael states that assessments and tests influence class dynamics constantly, needing to teach the test and not what is best taught. He supports "creative insubordination" to include non-test-related material in classes despite syllabi. Herbert admits skepticism to assessment but also acknowledges the advantages of a level and consistent level across schools and countries. The benchmarks set by testing standards make language levels more meaningful and better set. David mentions inevitability of exams affecting coursework, particularly in environments where teachers are evaluated by student test scores. He echos Herbet's claim that test preparation does not need to be meaningless, and reminds us that many of the high stakes tests are in fact well thought out and reflect real language use which makes the distinction irrelevant. Bob claims the problem is teachers. Tests which can accurately assess language often don't need exam practice, yet many teachers see an exam prep class as a series of grueling test prep tasks that do not develop language and make things overcomplicated. Eleni finishes by mentioning assessment being related to expectations. Teacher anxiety is high when we are asked to prepare students for exams and this negatively affects self confidence and limits our abilities to teach well. 

The final question is "What is the latest burning issue in ELT?"

Herbert states that is hasn't changed in many many years. How can we engage students emotionally and develop thinking skills while also developing language skills. David talks about the issue of ownership of the language and the issue of native speakers and non-natives where inner and outer circle groupings change people's attitudes to language. He hopes we will be pragmatic and admit that English is moving away from a focus on native speakers and towards the irrelevance of native abilities in light of excellent teaching skills. Eleni brings up the necessity of teachers to change and adapt to benefit children learning. She brings up cultural influence on teaching and the emotional distance that can be created when teachers and students do not agree on the best format for learning. Michael echoes the English as a lingua Franca idea but chooses his hot topic as the morale of teachers at present. The idea that we are "just a teacher" which pushes morale down. He hopes we will find ways to raise this level of motivation and self image. Bob finishes  the panel discussion by stating the value of what we do, how we need to improve the value of what we do in class. He uses grammar teaching as the example of how we have not been able to answer this question well and find a solution to it. His ideal example is teachers who effectively differentiate in a class, being able to simultaneously deal with different levels and styles in one class. 

The final closing remarks from Lilika summarize the points made above. Finishing (very appropriately) with "Yay TESOL Greece!"  


TESOL Greece 35th Annual Conference Opening Plenary

TESOL Greece opens it's 35th conference with a thought-provoking plenary by Eleni Livaniou on Issues  of comorbidity of ADHD and ASD in Learning and Behavior Profiles. Dr. Livaniou is a PhD in developmental and cognitive psychology.

Beginning with a focus on the rise in ADHD and ASD (attention deficit and autism) in recent years she focuses briefly on the potential biological and environmental causes that are currently being researched. Age of parents, premature births, as well as better screening and reduced stigmas are all contributing factors. There are also increased distinctions between differing forms of disorders such as the distinction between full blown autism and high-functioning autism and Aspergers.  She completes her introduction by pointing out the differences in behavior between these developmental issues, particularly ADHD vs ASD. 


She then moves on to the comorbidity of these two disorders at once which create an especially difficult situation for learners and their instructors. Counseling, medication, speech therapy, occupational therapy, psychoeducational support and behavior modification therapy are all suggested as means of treating this condition, though she highlights some limitations of therapy in Greece with current healthcare coverage in the country. 


Beyond the academic aspects and effects of these conditions (particularly in the case of comorbidity) she goes on to describe the social and emotional consequences the children suffer in school as well as at home. 


She then focuses on the school specific issues faced as well as the characteristics kids face in school. Problems with math, easily distracted, problems with abstract thought, trouble sitting still, body language, impulsivity, fear of change, agoraphobia, lack of common sense and so on. 


The issues these kids face are highlighted for teachers to be aware of this to encourage teachers to focus on fundamental social skills (turn taking, waiting, speaking to different people in different ways, initiating interactions, sitting correctly) that cannot be assumed as givens for all children. 

In short, her talk encourages teachers to consider alternative possibilities to "he's a bad student" or "his parents haven't raised him well" and other judgments that are easy to make by frustrated teachers. To avoid confusing perseverance with compulsiveness. To realize that structure and attention to socialization in YL classes can help train children with strategies to interact more appropriately at school and beyond. 

Her conclusion focuses on the need for early intervention and diagnosis. The identification of problems early in by parents and teachers


The action plan gives guidelines for identifying these issues to notice problems early and allow for intervention to occur.


She also suggests academic skills and social skills to be focused on in class in addition to language skills (teaching kids to say "thank you", "please", "hello", "goodbye"). Focusing on these subsidiary aims in all lessons helps teachers and students both. 

Reflecting on lessons, materials, interactions (pairs, groups, individual work) and how these will affect affected children is said to be essential as a step in lesson planning to best teach these classes. 


She finishes by giving tips for structuring and intervening with individual children to guide their learning in measurable, concrete and specific ways that can be easily understood by the learners. 

Overall her talk very clearly and succinctly covers the spectrum of issues, symptoms and solutions for these learners, with details teachers can use to identify such students and find ways to help them.