ELT Journal - Advance Access

Teaching grammar as a liberating force

Cullen, R. — 2008-03-15

The idea of grammar as a ‘liberating force’ comes from a paper by Henry Widdowson (1990) in which grammar is depicted as a resource which liberates the language user from an over-dependency on lexis and context for the expression of meaning. In this paper, I consider the implications for second language teaching of the notion of grammar as a liberating force, and identify three key design features which, I propose, need to be present in any grammar production task in which this notion is given prominence. These are: learner choice over which grammatical structures to use; a process of ‘grammaticization’ where the learners apply grammar to lexis; and opportunities to make comparisons and notice gaps in their use of grammar. I then discuss, with practical examples, types of grammar task which exhibit these features. These tasks all derive from traditional ELT practice, but have been revitalized to support an approach to teaching grammar which emphasizes its liberating potential.

Can a graded reader corpus provide 'authentic' input?

Allan, R. — 2008-03-12

In addition to their intended purpose, graded reader texts can be made into a corpus appropriate for use with lower-level learners. Here I consider using such a corpus for data-driven learning (DDL), to make this approach more accessible to intermediate level students. However, how far does grading the corpus in this way compromise the authenticity of the language learners are exposed to? The simplified nature of such corpora may limit learners’ exposure to lexical chunks, which are fundamental to the acquisition of natural and fluent language. This paper compares lexical chunks in graded corpora and the British National Corpus, examining frequency, type, and composition, to evaluate the ‘authenticity’ of graded input. Despite some differences, it is argued that the scale and type of lexical chunks are sufficient to provide input that reflects authentic language, suggesting that graded readers may offer an acceptable balance of accessibility and authenticity.

Rule difficulty and the usefulness of instruction

Scheffler, P. — 2008-03-11

It is now generally agreed that some form of focus on the target code is necessary in adult L2 instruction. One question that remains to be answered is whether all aspects of L2 grammar are equally amenable to pedagogic intervention. A number of researchers have examined the effectiveness of instruction with regard to simple vs. difficult grammar rules. To address this question specifically from the learner's perspective, a questionnaire was administered to two groups of Polish adult learners of English. The first group was asked to assess the difficulty of a number of key areas of English grammar. The second was asked to assess the usefulness of instruction in the same areas. The results indicate that there is a considerable overlap between the judgements of both groups: that is, learners feel they benefit the most from instruction in difficult areas.

Ten mismatches between teachers' beliefs and written feedback practice

Lee, I. — 2008-03-07

Research on teachers' beliefs has demonstrated that beliefs have an important impact on teachers' practice. In teacher feedback research, however, not much is known about teachers' beliefs and the extent to which they influence practice. This article reports on the findings from a study that investigated teachers' beliefs and practice in written feedback from two sources: (1) feedback analysis based on 174 texts collected from 26 teachers and follow-up interviews with seven of them; (2) a survey comprising a questionnaire administered to 206 secondary teachers and follow-up interviews with 19 of them. While the first data source investigated teachers' actual written feedback, the second source focused on teachers' beliefs and reported practice, both followed up by interviews that probed teachers' beliefs and practice. The article presents the salient findings in terms of ten mismatches between teacher beliefs and practice in written feedback and concludes with implications arising from the study.

Enhancing cooperative learning in TESOL teacher education

DelliCarpini, M. — 2008-03-05

This paper discusses how a TESOL teacher educator took reflective action in an ESL methods class with the goal of increasing pre-service and in-service teachers' use of cooperative learning (CL) activities in their own ESL classrooms. CL has been at the forefront of educational research and is a frequent topic in methodology textbooks, teacher education programmes, and in-service coursework. The positive benefits of CL have been documented in a variety of studies. Despite these benefits and the prevalence of the topic in teacher educational contexts, CL is not as widespread as would be expected.

Teaching practices are influenced by teachers' prior experiences and beliefs. If pre-service teachers are not exposed to effective models of CL in their teacher education programmes it may be unrealistic to expect them to engage in CL in their own classrooms.

Co-certification: a new direction for external assessment?

Newbold, D. — 2008-03-05

The major European testing agencies have calibrated their exams to the levels of language proficiency described in the Common European Framework (CEFR). In Italy, where the Framework has been enthusiastically embraced, external exams are now frequently used within the state education system as they are believed to provide reliable, widely recognized, independent assessment. But although these exams vary greatly, it is not always easy to find one which is entirely appropriate for a specific learning context.

This article describes an experiment in ‘co-certification’, in which the University of Venice worked with Trinity College London to make an existing exam more appropriate for university students. This involved replacing ‘creative writing’ with ‘critical writing’ in the portfolio and the controlled written exam, and ensuring a ‘university dimension’ for the oral interview. The article reports on the modifications, and reflects on the project as an agent for change in teaching programmes. It concludes that there may be other contexts in which co-certification is both possible and desirable.

The 'English corner' as an out-of-class learning activity

Gao, X. — 2008-03-05

This paper analyses the comments of a group of learners on their participation in an English corner on the Chinese mainland. It highlights that the particular ‘English corner’ concerned in this study has become a social community where the participants could find supportive peers and self-assertion opportunities. The learners’ participation in the community enhanced their autonomous learning and fostered subtle changes in their self-identities. The learning of English in the community echoes what constitutes a humanistic view of learning. The study invites language teachers to consider how such out-of-class learning activities can be integrated into our pedagogic practices.

Beyond the practicum experience

Williams, J. — 2008-03-05

The practicum is an important part of most TESL programmes; however, many novice teachers seek practical experiences beyond the practicum as part of their preparation for entering the profession. Collaborative projects between language learners and pre-service language teachers can offer such valuable practical experiences for both groups. The service encounter collaborative project is an example of an activity that provides an important link between the academic and experiential aspects of a teacher preparation programme. It is also a simple and practical way for new teachers to investigate authentic language use. In this project, pre-service teachers develop materials based on language samples they gather in collaboration with language learner partners. For the language learners, the programme provides access to authentic input, an opportunity for interaction with native speakers, as well as valuable cultural and sociolinguistic information.

'Fire your proofreader!' Grammar correction in the writing classroom

Shin, S.-K. — 2008-01-08

This article critically reviews the usefulness of grammar correction in second language writing instruction through the eyes of five second-language writers. It first examines the validity of four teaching principles that appear to influence how writing instructors approach error correction in classrooms and concludes with discussions as to why grammar correction is necessary for second-language writers.

A buddy reading programme in Hong Kong schools

Mak, B., Coniam, D., CHAN Shin Kwan, M. — 2008-01-04

This article looks at Year 9 (age 13) ESL learners in a secondary school in Hong Kong producing—with minimal input and support from their teachers—their own story books, these being the final task outcome in a series of lessons focusing on creativity. Over a period of two months, as an integral part of their ESL lessons, groups of students designed, wrote, and illustrated their own story books. They then visited nearby primary schools where they read their story books to primary level ESL pupils and did follow-up tasks with them. The article describes the process from the perspective of one pioneering teacher and her class. The programme's success has since led to it being implemented across the board at Year 9 level in the school, with a subsequent expansion in the number of primary ‘buddies’ reached by the programme. The article examines the place of authentic reading and writing as they are situated within the domains of creativity and task-based learning in the school's ESL programme.

Teaching learners to appropriately mitigate requests

Uso-Juan, E., Martinez-Flor, A. — 2007-12-06

It is commonly recognized that, for lecturers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a university setting, the goal of their teaching is to develop learners' ability to communicate appropriately in this language. This means that teaching practices should pay attention not only to the key features of the linguistic system of English, but also to its pragmatic norms since lack of this knowledge may impede communication. Consequently, language learners need to be exposed to appropriate input in the classroom. In order to help lecturers in this task, it is the aim of this paper to present a learner-based instructional method designed to develop learners' pragmatic ability when using request mitigating devices in EFL. The rationale behind the selection of this pragmatic feature is discussed in the paper together with an explanation of the proposed teaching method.

Beyond single words: the most frequent collocations in spoken English

Shin, D., Nation, P. — 2007-12-06

This study presents a list of the highest frequency collocations of spoken English based on carefully applied criteria. In the literature, more than forty terms have been used for designating multi-word units, which are generally not well defined. To avoid this confusion, six criteria are strictly applied. The ten million word BNC spoken section was used as the data source, and the 1,000 most frequent spoken word types from that corpus were all investigated as pivot words. The most striking finding was that there is a large number of collocations meeting the six criteria and a large number of these would qualify for inclusion in the most frequent 2,000 words of English, if no distinction was made between single words and collocations. Many of these collocations could be usefully taught in an elementary speaking course.

Student use of the mother tongue in the task-based classroom

Carless, D. — 2007-12-06

This article draws on an interview study with teachers and teacher educators on the topic of the feasibility of task-based teaching for implementation in schools. It focuses on a single theme from the study: student use of the mother tongue. A number of dimensions are addressed: the extent of classroom interaction in English in the context under review; informants’ perspectives on mother tongue use; strategies for encouraging use of the target language; and relevant implications for teaching methodology. The conclusion calls for a balanced and flexible view of student use of the mother tongue. Some avenues for further exploration are also sketched, in particular the need to investigate the relationship between task-types and mother tongue use.

Facilitator talk in EAP reading classes

Wilson, K. — 2007-09-29

Current sociocultural perspectives on language learning call on teachers to reinvent themselves in ways which facilitate student learning rather than transmit knowledge. For teachers, this means adopting new roles, and acquiring a new repertoire of teacher talk. This paper aims to further the work on facilitator talk begun by Clifton (2006) and Walsh (2002). It looks particularly at the role of facilitator talk in teaching reading, and shows how teachers can enhance students' dialogue with texts by using unobtrusive task management, re-redirecting students' attention to the text, increasing prospectiveness (Hammond and Gibbons 2005), and giving sensitive feedback.

How rude! Teaching impoliteness in the second-language classroom

Mugford, G. — 2007-09-29

English language teaching tends to deal with the pleasanter side of second-language interaction such as making friends, relating experiences, and expressing likes/dislikes while ignoring such everyday communicative realities as rudeness, disrespect, and impoliteness. While neglected in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom, impoliteness is likely to be experienced by second-language (L2) users in the target-language context or when interacting with other L2 users. By drawing on the experiences of 84 L2 users in Mexico, I identify impolite situations encountered in second-language interaction and discuss how L2 users can be prepared for such everyday communicative realities. In this paper, I argue that L2 users need to be given choices when confronted with rudeness so that they decide how they want to react.

Inter-interviewer variation in oral interview tests

Nakatsuhara, F. — 2007-06-04

Over the last two decades, research has suggested that candidates' test performances and scores are collaboratively achieved through interviewing/scoring processes and there could be unfair situations caused by the inter-interviewer variation. To investigate a precise picture of the impact of inter-interviewer variation, this research examines the variability of interviewer behaviour, its influence on a candidate's performance and raters' consequent perceptions of the candidate's ability on analytical rating scales (for example, pronunciation, grammar, fluency). The data are collected from two interview sessions involving the same candidate with two different interviewers, and the video-taped interviews are rated by 22 raters on five marking categories. The results show that a significantly different score was awarded to ‘pronunciation’ and ‘fluency’ in the two interviews. The reasons for the differences are discussed based on conversation analysis findings. This paper concludes with suggestions as to how the potential unfairness caused by interviewer variability could be solved.

A narrative approach to exploring context in language teaching

Barkhuizen, G. — 2007-05-29

In recent years there have been persistent calls for teachers to explore their teaching contexts in order to become more aware of them and to understand them. Doing so would enable teachers to make more informed decisions about their practice and their students' learning. This article outlines a narrative approach for exploring context. A narrative inquiry case is presented to provide a framework for the discussion. Emerging from this narrative case are three levels of story applicable to the participant English teachers' lives. A brief description of these levels is provided, and is followed by an illustration of each using extracts from the written story of one of the participating teachers.

Reading reaction journals in EAP courses

Evans, S. — 2007-04-17

This paper looks at two specific problems faced by second-language university students attending courses in English for Academic Purposes: expository texts and reading-to-write tasks. A reading reaction journal (RRJ) can provide a forum for students as they activate a variety of reading strategies when reading expository text and in addition, can provide a focal point for students as they critically respond to text(s) before engaging in formal reading-to-write assignments based on the text(s). Responses from one group of students who used RRJs appear to confirm that the journals can indeed fulfil such a purpose.

Implementing extensive reading in an EAP programme

Macalister, J. — 2007-04-13

For more than twenty years the benefits of extensive reading have been proclaimed to the ELT community, but the inclusion of extensive reading in ELT programmes is far from universal. Extensive reading appears to be particularly absent in higher educational and English for Academic Purposes settings. This paper reports on the implementation of an extensive reading component in a pre-university study EAP programme. Learners responded positively to the loss of teacher-centred class time and a non-EAP focus for part of each lesson. While the implementation of extensive reading will vary from setting to setting, this action research project shows that extensive reading can have a place in an EAP programme.

Evaluating teaching practice

Leshem, S., Bar-Hama, R. — 2007-04-13

The evaluation of observed lessons has been the subject of much debate in the field of teacher training. Teacher trainers have tried to define quality in relation to teaching and to find ways to measure it in a reliable way. Can we evaluate the quality of teaching by observable behaviour and measurable components, in which case, can the lesson be assessed analytically by the use of discrete criteria? Or, does a lesson constitute an entity, which cannot be broken into discrete components so that it has to be assessed impressionistically? We believe that in order to construct a more comprehensive view of the issue, it is pertinent to collaborate with our trainees and provide some space for their voices. Evidence from a small-scale practitioner-based research project reveals that trainees need explicit criteria for effective teaching in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses and use them as guidelines for improvement.