Using TED Talks for English Teaching

Who invented English?

The 'Real' Test

or 

How can the 'real world' be incorporated into assessment ?

Portfolio work

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A 'real world' assessment is an assessment adjusted to your students' everyday/professional experience. It is supposed to indicate the odds to succeed in their current or desired environment.  Therefore, it should not be separate from the learning process, but rather an integral part of it. This is the reason why I am a big fan of using portfolio instead of standardized tests. However, I am aware that it significantly increases teachers' workload, so it suits best for small groups and individual lessons.  

So what is the assessment process like?

It is very much like a ping-pong game between the students and the teacher. To illustrate my point I would like to list the steps of such process and a case description.

1) Defining our goals.

Detecting the student's needs at this point, as well as what are the student's goals. My way to do it is to perform a "case study", questioning the student about his/her priorities, likes and dislikes, professional background and plans, etc.

Example: A 24-year-old student has just got a new job in the programming field. His position requires frequent communications with the English-speaking management as well as performing marketing presentations for the potential clients of the company. His English is intermediate, and his goal is to become a fluent speaker and an effective presenter. He needs a boost in grammar and lots of pronunciation training as well as presentation skills. 

2)  Choosing focus

Finding specific grammar, reading, speaking and writing topics that are most relevant to your student.

Example: 

• Grammar: parts of speech, the use of gerund and infinitive, some tenses, punctuation and paragraph structure. While learning tenses I emphasize their practical application, such as using the Present Simple in technical manuals and Present Continuous in resumes, etc.
• Reading: IT-related articles, technical manuals and marketing texts.
• Speaking: practicing phone conversation, marketing presentation
• Writing: creating a marketing presentation, a resume and a LinkedIn profile.

3) Making a task list
Choosing specific tasks that need to be accomplished in order to reach the goals. 

Example: in our case we chose certain grammar exercises, a set of IT-related texts (reading comprehension tasks), vocabulary tests, listening comprehension, resume and profile-writing.

4) Creating a professional portfolio
The above tasks should be done, edited, reviewed, and fine-tuned together with the teacher until they correspond to the existing standards. All the accomplished tasks should be enclosed to the student's portfolio to serve them as reference material in their professional life. Speaking tasks can be recorded, reviewed and discussed. 

Example: 

A  writing and speaking task:

• The student writes a marketing presentation of a product he wishes / needs to market. 
• Together with the teacher, the presentation is edited and all the grammatical issues discussed. 
• The student makes necessary corrections and adds more information. 
• The teacher and the student double-check all the information.
• The student and the teacher write and edit notes to the presentation.
• The student presents and the teacher records it and makes notes.
• The recording is reviewed using the teacher's notes, mistakes are corrected. 
• The student records several takes, until the necessary result is achieved.

5) Grading

Each task should be assigned a coefficient of importance, and constitute a certain percent of an overall grade.
For a sample portfolio grading page, click HERE.

If done properly, the portfolio will help the students immensely in their work, which is, in fact, the ultimate goal of teaching adults.

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Image courtesy of © Tanya Rozanes Olevsky. Licensed exclusively to LinguaCom.

Feedback and Error Correction – Is It Your Job?

What is the most effective way to correct errors? How to develop self-editing skills in your students? This article is about making your feedback an effective learning tool.

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Error correction performed by the teacher followed by a feedback is a usual part of most traditional and even non-traditional school approaches. However, if we think about it, our ultimate goal is to teach the students how to become independent learners and be able to check their own work. Lack of awareness about the necessity of doing this has become one of my teaching challenges.

Most students I encounter as a teacher believe that their work is done once they have accomplished the assignment’s requirements. They tend to submit their papers and worksheets immediately after finishing an exercise. My question of whether they have checked their work is usually encountered with complete astonishment. They genuinely believe that mistakes correction is completely the teacher’s job. This is the stereotype that I strive to change. In my view, the purpose of language teaching is to turn the process of error correction into an automatic process the student should be able to perform independently. Students must develop awareness of their responsibility for checking their own mistakes.

I have developed several techniques that encourage self-check, provide the necessary tools for self-editing and proofreading and develop critical thinking and independence. The positive “side effect” of this approach is that evaluation gradually becomes an internal rather than external process, shifting the focus from grades to self-check and diminishing the tension caused by grades.

Below I provide the main aspects of the approach and some examples.

1. Define what a “mistake” is. A mistake is a misuse of the rule/s that has ALREADY BEEN STUDIED AND EXERCISED. A mistake is NOT a wrong use of rule/s or vocabulary that have not yet been studied in class.

2. Make sure the assignment contains only the material that has been thoroughly studied and exercised in class.

3. Change the assignments' instructions to include self-check as their integral part.

Example: "Please compose 10 sentences describing your day. Check your composition using the provided checklist".

4. Provide a checklist of the typical mistakes. (Especially important for beginners).

Example:

Grammar
Capital letters
Periods
The use of time expressions (usually, sometimes, often, etc.)
Spelling

5. Provide any visual materials that can improve mistakes correction, such as charts, tables, pictures, lists

6. Encourage using colourful markers and special editing signs.

7. Refuse to grade papers that have not been self-checked.

8. Structure reference materials, such as grammar rules, vocabulary, etc. in a way that students can easily access the necessary “help” page. I suggest that each student has a folder separated into sections, such as “Grammar”, “Reading”, “Writing”, etc. We file each page into a corresponding section and create a table of contents of each section.

9. Do not highlight mistakes in the material the student has not yet studied as mistakes, but rather as suggestions.

Example: I can not to read. – Mistake. No “to” after “can”. His name was Kristofer. – “Christopher”. Students often are unaware of the right spelling of foreign names.

10. Always discuss corrections. Encourage reasoning rather than saying which answer is “right” or “wrong”.

Example:

Student: “She is read the book” is wrong. Me: Are you sure? Student: No. Me: Let’s try to check the sentence structure. Let’s use the scheme we have…

Student: “She is read the book” is wrong. Me: Are you sure? Student: Yes. Me: Please explain. Student: It’s because we must use –ing ending if the verb is in the Present Continuous.

11. In your final error check highlight mistakes, provide suggestions and create a list of repeating mistakes. Give the students more exercises to practice specific points that they have probably misunderstood. If grading is necessary, suggest some extra points for completing the correction assignment.

Using the above tips consistently improves the students’ overall performance, raises their self-confidence and develops their reasoning skills. I hope you find them useful and welcome all the questions and comments on the topic.

Enjoy your teaching! Tanya 

Mirror Method as a Behavior Management Tool for Autistic Students

Photo credit: AleksaMX via Visual hunt / CC BY 

I would like to share a story from my personal experience. One of my 9-year-old students, let's call him Dan, is autistic, suffering from sudden laughter outbursts and repetitive speech. He's often restless and fidgety. When we first met I couldn't believe I would ever manage to teach him reading. However, against all expectations, last week we finished reading our first story in English. He now knows the alphabet, has a reasonable vocabulary and, most importantly, enjoys learning English very much. How did we reach such an impressive result?

Trying to find the right approach I tried different methods of behavioral management, including multiple variations of token economy, which is probably the most popular method existing. Everything would work, but only for a short time. I needed something more effective that would have a long-term influence. That made me think of the idea of putting a "mirror" in front of him to encourage self-control and self-consciousness. 

The "mirror" technique is a very strong tool, which allows students to see themselves from the side. The technique involves teaching and writing a detailed report of each action that takes place in the class simultaneously. The actions are divided into two categories (columns): lesson-related activities and distractions (I marked them with a happy and sad smiley):

	J	L
9:30	Reads a text very smoothly and translates it.
9:35		Laughter.
940	Succeeds to read new words.

Each record should be made in a corresponding column and marked with a time stamp. By the end of the lesson the student gets the report and a short teacher's feedback, such as: "Today you spent most of your time on-task" or "Look how last time you were distracted 4  times and today only once", etc. The teacher and the student may also discuss the time wasted as opposed to the time spent learning. 

In my case the method worked as a miracle: within a period of 4 months Dan has shifted from spending 20 minutes off-task to 3 minutes. He enjoys the concentration and is proud of making visible progress. 

I hope the success raises his self-esteem and brings even more motivation to study.

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