the lives of teachers

I met with Phil Benson at the JALT national conference in Tokyo, Japan at the end of November 2011. He had just given an excellent plenary entitled Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning: How to Do it “Here”, ‘Here’ being wherever you are….acknowledging the commonly heard complaint levelled at promoters of Learner Autonomy – “Yes that sounds lovely, but it wouldn’t work here”

If you want to know more, I am currently working of a review of Phil’s second edition of Teaching and Researching: Autonomy, and it tells you pretty much everything you need to know.

With only three weeks to go, the excitement is rising for the Realizing Autonomy conference to be held at Nanzan University in Nagoya on October 29th. The website for the conference (and the accompanying book) is constantly evolving, so keep your eyes on it. Part of the reason I am writing here today is to ask for your help, so if you can do any of the following, please chip in! You can contact me directly at darrenrelliott@gmail.com, or drop comments in the appropriate comment boxes online. Cheers!

Photography

We are looking for someone with a knack and a camera to capture the event, and if you can commit we are willing to waive your conference fee.

Video Experts

If anyone is prepared to record and edit some of the sessions to upload to our website, we would do the same.

Must-see Nagoya

I love this place, and I want the out-of-towners coming in to go away with a great impression of Japan’s third city. There will be a plenty making a weekend of it, so what do you recommend? If you have any good ideas for things to eat and drink, places to visit in town, or short trips around the area, please click on the links and deposit your knowledge on the official conference website.

Party!

The social is already fully subscribed, and we are thinking about the entertainment. Our venue is equipped with an array of multi-media facilities (karaoke, anyone?) and we are considering various ideas. If you want to volunteer for a Pecha Kucha, we would love to hear from you! Other suggestions are also very welcome.

Publicity

We are already expecting a great turnout, but just in case anyone hasn’t heard about the conference, you can print out the posters and flyers and spread the word.

The Day Itself

The schedule is now available on the website, and we hope to get a pdf version of the conference booklet posted in advance of the conference. Unfortunately, Richard Pemberton is unable to fly at the moment, but he will join us via the magic of technology and team up with Mike Nix to give us something very special. Tim Murphey will be start off the day in his usual energizing style, and we will welcome a host of other guests, speakers and presenters.

Thanks for your indulgence, everyone! Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Just searching through my inbox, it was way back in November 2008 that I received the call for papers sent to all members of the Learner Development SIG of JALT (The Japan Association for Language Teachers). They had just gotten the go ahead to put together another book in their series of edited collections, and were looking for chapters from the membership and beyond. Back in my student days, long before I was a JALT member, I had ordered their previous publications from the UK and enjoyed both immensely, so I thought it would be great to get involved.

(Aside – There are still a few copies left of ‘Autonomy you Ask’ and ‘More Autonomy you Ask’, and if you ask nicely you may be able to get hold of a copy. I think they are both excellent. I reviewed MAYA for ‘Independence’, the IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG)

So I put together some ideas and sent off my proposal, started working on the paper and developing it as a chapter. Something I had especially liked about the previous books was that each chapter had attached critical reflections written by reviewers, and other authors – it was an unusual idea, but I liked how it brought together the book as a whole, and showed the spirit of autonomy as collaborative. This project was to be no different, and in July of 2009 we gathered at a writers’ retreat in Tokyo, sharing our papers, talking through the section headings, book title , cover art and so on.

Alison Stewart and Kay Irie, our two editors, have been excellent all along and guiding the process firmly but democratically.

It was very exciting when we heard that Palgrave Macmillan were interested in publishing the book, and also that Richard Smith & Naoko Aoki would be able to write an introduction and Scott Thornbury would contribute a concluding chapter. The book is due early December, and most of the royalties will go to The Shanti Volunteer Association.

At the November 2010 JALT national conference I first heard the idea of a book launch conference mooted. Naively, I asked why such conferences were so often held in Tokyo or Osaka… which is how I fell into organising the Realizing Autonomy Conference at Nanzan University in Nagoya for October 29th 2011.

The call for papers is still operative, so you have a couple of weeks to get your ideas to us. If you can’t present, then we would still love to have you. You can see plenary speakers Tim Murphey from Kanda University of International Studis, and  Richard Pemberton from the University of Nottingham. You can see poster presentations from the book chapter authors, and get a first look at the book itself. We are also planning a party for the evening which should be a lot of fun, so if you can’t make it to the conference, then join us all for drinks and nibbles. Visit the conference website to submit an abstract, to print off flyers and publicity posters, to register, and to find out more. We will have some exclusive content on the site in the coming months, too, so keep your eyes peeled to see how it evolves.

“..standardisation is a reasonable way of maintaining minimal standards, not the best way of ensuring the highest possible ones. Establishing minimally acceptable standards and imposing them on everybody, even on those who can exceed them, can create a powerful but stultifying myth about what constitutes ‘good’ teaching. Creativity in teaching is then stifled in favour of conformity to the set model”

(p. 35)

Allwright , D. & Hanks, J. (2010). The Developing Language Learner. Basingtoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan

Learner autonomy may have an established tradition in language learning, dating back to the 1960’s and beyond, but what, actually, is it? Is it a social, political or philosophical standpoint, or merely a methodological choice? Can it be implemented in the same way regardless of context? Should it be collaborative, or individual?

I want you to think metaphorically for a moment, by closing your eyes and picturing ‘an image of autonomy’. Not necessarily a classroom image, but something which represents autonomy to you. Please hold that thought.

About eighteen months ago I got involved in a book project about learner autonomy. It’s been such fun, and I have really enjoyed the experience so far. As the project developed, the editors were able to place the book with a very well-respected publisher, and to secure contributions from some important academics in the field. All going well, the collection should be out early next year. At the moment, we are at the point of choosing a cover…. which is where you come in. Remember that mental image? What was it? Perhaps it was one of the ideas below. Quite possibly, it was something else altogether. What would YOU put on the cover? Either way, your comments and ideas are most welcome! Thanks everyone!

About a week ago I wrote about an experiment in silence with a class, and promised to come back with a report on the students’ reactions. It really was quite enlightening. This is what we all learnt.

1. A particular result may not mean what you think it means
Looking back through the many comments on my previous post (which was one of the most commented upon I have posted) it is interesting to see that we, as teachers, slightly misread the whole situation. As professionals, committed to our students, caring about them deeply, we all assumed that the end result (constant discussion in L1) springs from the joy of freedom, the taking up of responsibility and other positive emotions. Actually, according to the students, they were terrified.

“We actually thought that you were angry at us and abandoned us because we use too much Japanese in class.”

“I took it for granted that you were angry and you didn’t want to give our class.”

I don’t know where this leaves Krashen. Despite the cause being the negative emotion of fear, the result was very positive.

“To do task without your help was difficult for me. However, I were able to hear much English. And I could speak more in English than usual!”

“…if we have no teachers, we must think how we should study. However,this situation is very important to us too I think. Actually we try to look for the answer more harder than usual. I spoke in English more ,moreover I heared more opinions of them than usual. Though we had much difficulties, it was very interesting to me.”

Of course, anyone who has met me in real life will find this fear highly amusing. Teaching teenagers we do sometimes need to wield a big stick. However, I don’t want this to be the dominant motivating force in my classroom, which leads us onto our next point.

2. Although mystery can be effective, we must ultimately provide transparency

When the students realised what I was trying to do, they were very happy. This was a vital step in the experiment – revealing the mystery.

“But I read your comment , you tried to see our class from all kinds of directions.”

“After reading this article, I noticed you care about us more than I expected. So I’m happy that you are our teacher!”

“We were so puzzled! Me, K., M.,and M. were discussing about ﾞwhat’s happening!?ﾞ through out the whole class.
K. and I were even talking about it the rest of the day!”

So had I left the class cold, with no feedback or no discussion of what had happened, the positives of confusion may have caused longer-term damage to the rapport we have been building. I kept the next class very light, and the students kept up their good habits from the previous class.

3. Perceived teacher beliefs do not always reflect actual classroom practice

If you had asked me before this class if I believed in learner autonomy and a hands-off teaching approach, I would have given you an emphatic yes. But what I was actually doing in the class belied this. It was only by removing myself completely from the lesson that I could see how students had been relying on me to prompt them, feed them and cajole them into using the language. In the last week, I have given many of my classes similar opportunities and they have all surprised me by speaking fluently in English for as longer than I expected.  Had I been unwittingly restricting learner autonomy by doing too much, by jumping in too soon, by shutting down an activity simply because I was ready to go on to the next one?

This is why I think reflective practice has never been done properly in mainstream ELT literature. The questions we are prompted to ask ourselves are always the same, and we end up giving the answers we think we should. What was good and bad about that lesson? Why did that activity succeed or fail? We will never really know unless we break the mirror and try to rearrange the pieces.

An invitation to experiment, then. This weekends homework – choose a class and do something you never usually do. Then report back and tell us how it went and what it revealed.

the lives of teachers

Download Here

This is the audio version of my video interview with Hayo earlier this year.

I’m by no means a gamer*, but I was fascinated to hear Hayo address the question ‘Do computer games really contribute to language learning?’ as keynote speaker at the 4th International Wireless Ready Symposium in Nagoya, Japan. The answer? They can, but…..

I meant to ask a little more about the institutional obstacles to success in incorporating technology into language learning. One thing Hayo alluded to in his talk was the difficulty in controlling who and what learners come into contact with in the online world. Here in Japan the age of majority is twenty, so technically many of my students are still children! My personal preference would be to give them a little training in online ’smarts’ and let them free, but I realise life is not so simple and that we have a duty of care. How should we approach this problem, then? Do you think fears about security / ‘bad’ language / inappropriate content are justified? Or that firewalls and filters just end up shackling us?

It was great to finally meet Dr. Reinders and he gives a great interview here, despite being on a nine-hour time difference from his home in London. I first came across his work when I started looking into self-access learning and learner autonomy, and we discussed these topics too. For all things ‘Reinders’ I recommend his website “Innovation in Teaching”. As well as many, many fine articles you can find a clip of Hayo on Pakistani breakfast television…..

*apart from ‘Urban Dead’, but that’s more about my love for zombies than my love for computer games

An Interview With Hayo Reinders from darren elliott on Vimeo.

I’m by no means a gamer*, but I was fascinated to hear Hayo address the question ‘Do computer games really contribute to language learning?’ as keynote speaker at the 4th International Wireless Ready Symposium in Nagoya, Japan. The answer? They can, but…..

I meant to ask a little more about the institutional obstacles to success in incorporating technology into language learning. One thing Hayo alluded to in his talk was the difficulty in controlling who and what learners come into contact with in the online world. Here in Japan the age of majority is twenty, so technically many of my students are still children! My personal preference would be to give them a little training in online ‘smarts’ and let them free, but I realise life is not so simple and that we have a duty of care. How should we approach this problem, then? Do you think fears about security / ‘bad’ language / inappropriate content are justified? Or that firewalls and filters just end up shackling us?

It was great to finally meet Dr. Reinders and he gives a great interview here, despite being on a nine-hour time difference from his home in London. I first came across his work when I started looking into self-access learning and learner autonomy, and we discussed these topics too. For all things ‘Reinders’ I recommend his website “Innovation in Teaching”. As well as many, many fine articles you can find a clip of Hayo on Pakistani breakfast television…..

*apart from ‘Urban Dead’, but that’s more about my love for zombies than my love for computer games

＊extra points if you can place the title

I am a sucker for an analogy. Only this week I got contorted in a lengthy comparison of the plight of Southampton Football Club, starting the season on minus ten points but now powering up the third division, to a student who had missed the first few lessons and homeworks but had buckled down and caught up. I sense it went somewhere north of the head of my American colleague but no matter… I’m with George Lakoff when he claims that pretty much all human thought is expressed through metaphor.

It’s time for the mid semester reflections, to look back on what we have learnt, to reassess goals from the beginning of the semester and to galvanise for the final push, and I’ve been organising my materials ready for class. One of my favourite questions, and most enlightening, is the simple metaphor tester I open with. “A teacher is…. “, a “A learner is….” and “Language learning is…”. Unlike Dede Wilson (whose excellent article just dropped through my letter box wrapped up with a bunch of other good stuff in English Teaching Professional) I give the students no options, nor guidance. Nevertheless, regardless of level, the students have no problem grasping the concept and running with it … metaphor is a universal, after all.

Oxford et al. came up with a detailed taxonomy for these metaphors, but I’ll place them into just three categories. These are all common examples from previous classes.

1. Nuturing. Teacher as gardener, parent etc. Student as flower, child….

2. Controlling. Teacher as dog trainer, god etc. Student as dog, disciple…

3. Utility. Teacher as map, encyclopedia etc. Student as traveller, researcher…

There are a few things we can do with this. The first is to see which students match with our own metaphors as teachers, and which don’t. How are the students who see things differently performing? Are there discipline issues? Can we adjust our teaching to meet the needs of those students, or offer them support which fits with their beliefs about the learning process? I speculate that there is a strong correlation between metaphor choice and learner autonomy, for example.

But deeper than that, I wonder if the beliefs or the metaphor are the driving force. Can we, simply by reframing a metaphor, adjust the learners whole approach? If nothing else, it is the most immediate and direct method of raising the learners’ awareness of their own inner feelings about what they are doing.

Further Reading

Lakoff, G. ＆ Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Oxford, R., Tomlinson, S., Barcelos, A., Harrington, C., Lavine, R.Z., & Saleh, A. (1998). Clashing metaphors about classroom teachers: Toward a systematic typology for the language teaching field. System 26(1), 3–50.

Wilson, D. (2009). Learning language is like… English Teaching Professional 65 (November), 18-19.

(and if you still want to know what a gift from a flower to a garden is, meditate on this)

A vocabulary test in which the students merely have to vomit the words onto the page, and once purged walk away fresh with no memory of the incident, is no good to anyone. How can we ensure our students LEARN words, rather than just REMEMBER them.

• Learner Autonomy – Are students more likely to learn words if they are relevant, personal and useful?
• Learner Training – Is it better to teach students how to study vocabulary, rather than teach them vocabulary?
• Language – What does it actually mean to learn a word? When can you truly say “Yes, I KNOW this word”?

I’ll point you in the direction of two excellent resources, and bear in mind that quite a few academics offer pdf downloads of scholarly articles on their websites these days. Both names will be familiar if you know a little about vocabulary. The first is Norbert Schmitt ‘s staff page at the University of Nottingham, the second is Paul Nation‘s page at the University of Wellington. Both are chock full of reading, but if you wander about halfway down each I’d recommend two particular articles (citations after the jump). Nation suggests self-selection of vocabulary, and Schmitt recommends a system of whole-word study.

I decided to try an experiment with a couple of reading classes I teach. As the students are focussing mainly on their extensive reading, and thus encountering completely different vocabulary, it seemed a good fit. Each student would compile a list of new words encountered in their reading (or anywhere else), and check for synonyms, definitions, antonyms, translations, word family and collocations. I also pointed out that they should check how useful a word is before studying it – most modern dictionaries (certainly the electronic ones my students use) will tell you if a word is amongst the top 1000, 2000 or 3000 words in spoken or written English. I encouraged them to choose words they liked for whatever reason.

Every couple of weeks, I’d take in the list of words and write a code beside each. For example, (C) means collocation, (ES) stands for example sentence and so on. In the second semester, I am dropping in words from their previous lists to recycle. This pdf is the handout I gave to the learners to explain the task

How to learn vocabulary

..and this pdf is the template for the tests

Vocabulary Test Template

Both are specific to Japanese learners, so if you want a word document you can play with, email me ; D

So far, it has been fairly successful. There are a couple of question marks.

• There is some evidence that antonyms and synonyms cause interference, if BOTH words are new. For example, it may well be wrong to teach left and right together – fix one concept first, then introduce the next.
• Some students will choose words which are too ‘easy’ or ‘difficult’ for their needs or current language level.

Working on these, but it’s an interesting experiment nonetheless.

Moir, J. and Nation, I.S.P. (2002) Learners’ use of strategies for effective vocabulary learning Prospect 17, 1: 15-35.

Schmitt, N. and Schmitt, D. (1995). Vocabulary notebooks: Theoretical underpinnings and practical suggestions. English Language Teaching Journal, 49, 2: 133-143.