The theme of this edition

Having recently taken up post in Portugal, I am delighted to have been asked to introduce InEnglish Digital 8. The success and popularity of this e-zine, which has reached 40,000 teachers of English from across the Lusophone world and beyond, is due in part to the breadth of topics it covers and the quality of the articles submitted. In addition, this is an excellent platform for exploring your practical ideas and shared experiences, which adds value to the ELT community.

The theme of this edition ''How creative can you be?" opens with an article by Alan Maley, ELTons 2012 winner of the British Council’s Lifetime Achievement.

On winning the award Alan said, "I think teachers are such powerful figures and sometimes we forget just how much influence we can have and sometimes it's not because you are a great technician or a great methodologist it's because you're a human being and that's what the students remember afterwards."

In this, the eighth, edition of InEnglish Digital, I would like to thank all the contributors for sharing with us their creative and practical ideas for influencing the way we teach.

Please feel free to contact us at any time on inenglish@pt.britishcouncil.org. Use this address to send us your comments on any of the articles in this issue and other ideas you would like to share.

If you want to receive alerts when the next edition is published, or to receive our new InEnglish Digital newsletter, then you can sign up at: http://www.britishcouncil.pt/en/newsletter

To all our readers worldwide – we hope you enjoy this very practical edition – use it, share it, tell us what you think and remember to send us your ideas and comments. We’ll publish them – if you allow us – on our new website: http://www.britishcouncil.pt/en/teach/inenglish

Rob Pender

Deputy Director, British Council Portugal

Editor IED

Alan Maley

‘Creativity’ is one of those buzzwords, so over-used that it has almost lost its meaning – a bit like ‘Communicative’. I will not attempt a complete definition of it here, partly because researchers into creativity seem to agree that a comprehensive definition is impossible. It seems that we recognise creativity but cannot readily define it. If you want to follow this up, check my chapter in Tomlinson (Maley 2013b), where I have tried to deconstruct the notion of creativity.

All I will do here is indicate a few characteristics of creativity. Clearly it involves creating something we recognise as new, fresh, original, unusual, striking perhaps, and something we perceive as being relevant and useful. It is not simply novelty. We could go to class wearing a swimsuit, which would be new all right, but would probably not be viewed as creative. Neither is it simply ‘letting it all hang out’, doing any old thing and hoping for the best. Creativity is rule-governed, and the constraints it imposes are a powerful tool and support. (see below)

In language teaching, we also need to be clear about who is being creative. Is it the teacher, finding new ways of conducting the class? Or is it the students, learning to use the language in more creative ways? I feel both are important, and I’ll explain why at the end of this article.

Findings from creativity theory (Amabile 1996, Boden 1990, Csikszentmihaly1996, Kaufman and Sternberg 2010, Koestler 1989) suggest the importance of the following if we want to apply creative ideas in our classes:

• 
  Playing around – with words, with ideas, with techniques… The playful element is key to creative learning. (Cook 2000 )
  
• 
  Leaving room for ‘chaos’ to operate by offering rich, varied inputs and challenging, open-ended activities
  
• 
  Trying out new ways of adapting old practices. (Maley 2006, Maley 2013a) (see below)
  
• 
  Using heuristics and analogy to stimulate new thinking. (see below)
  
• 
  Building in constraints, which scaffold creative activity. ‘Structure ignites spontaneity’ (Nachmanovitch. 1990) (see below)
  
• 
  Using minimal inputs for maximum outputs. ‘…producing great results from scant means.’ (Beethoven)
  
• 
  Allowing for flexibility, so that the same activity can be used at different levels, or can be adapted to suit different needs.
  
• 
  Allowing time and silence for ideas to incubate This contrasts with the current drive for speed and immediate returns on investment.
  

• 
  Making unusual juxtapositions using the random-combination principle. (see below)
  
• 
  Drawing on other domains, outside language pedagogy for inspiration.
  
• 
  Being aware that novelty is not enough, and that the system we operate in
  

• 
  Convincing learners that everyone has the capacity for creativity. ‘…linguistic creativity is not simply a property of extraordinary people but an exceptional property of all people.’ (Carter 2004 )
  
• 
  Ensuring that we give due attention to the Preparation and Verification stages
  

• 
  Keeping in mind, however, that delight and pleasure are an integral part of the process.
  

There are, of course, many ways in which we can introduce creativity into our classes, and into our own ways of thinking about teaching. Here I will describe five ways. Because of limited space, I can only give one example of each but I have added references in case you want to find out more for yourself.

In this example of media transfer, you give out a short prose text which includes a lot of colourful words and expressions. You ask students to write this text out as if it were a poem, without changing any of the language, only the layout.. They then compare their ‘poems’. This may seem like no more than an elaborate form of copying but it actually demands a high degree of concentration and attention to meaning in order to decide on line breaks, layout, etc. And the results are often highly creative visually.

This example is adapted from Wilson (2008). Students write down three things they want to do, using ‘I want to…’ or ‘I’d like to..’ eg. I’d like to have lunch now.’ They then mingle with the other students, and say their first sentence to a partner. Their partner then has to block their request by saying something like ‘I’m afraid you can’t.’ The first student then asks,’ Why not?’ The partner then has to think up a reason on the spur of the moment. Here is a sample conversation:

1. 
   I’d like to have lunch now.
   
2. 
   I’m afraid that’s not possible.
   

1. 
   Why not?
   
2. 
   Because we don’t open till 12.30.
   

.

3. Using constraints.. For example, in creative writing, activities can be set up with rules which both stimulate and support creative language use, as in acrostics, stem poems, mini-sagas, etc. (Spiro, 2004)

In this example, students write a mini-saga. A mini-saga is a story which must be written using exactly 50 words. One way of doing this is to tell them a short story orally. They then write it out as a mini-saga. The word-limit constraint pushes them to find different ways of saying the same thing, thus stretching their language resources.

4. Refurbishing traditional activities. This involves re-examining a traditional practice, such a Homework (Painter 2003), Dictation (Davis and Rinvolucri 1988) or Drilling (Helgesen webref.) and finding new ways of doing it. This example comes from Dictation:

Find a shortish text for dictation. Tell students you will read it at normal speed. The first time, they are just to listen, not write. When you finish reading, then they write down whatever they can recall – words, phrases, anything. Allow them to compare notes with their neighbours. Then read it again at normal speed. This time they can write as you read. You repeat the readings until they have reconstituted the text completely accurately. Usually, three readings are enough! This is a great way of developing listening skills and of achieving repetition without boredom.

Write up the following words in two columns:

Love a knife

Hate an egg

Disappointment a brush

Anger a vacuum cleaner

Marriage a window

Age a rope

Hope a mirror

Jealousy a spoon

Life a banana

Fear a violin

The activity is in two stages. In stage 1, students write three metaphors by combining any item from the first column with any item from the second column. This should be done quickly, without too much thinking about it. For example, ‘Marriage is a vacuum cleaner’, ‘Age is an egg.’,’Jealousy is a mirror’. In stage 2, they have to choose one metaphor, and add one or two lines which comment on or explain it. This becomes a short poem. For example,

Hope is a window Marriage is a brush:

that opens on a new world. it sweeps away your old life.

So why bother with creativity?

• 
  Language is inherently creative. We need to prepare students for this,
  
• 
  Learning is also a creative process, not a merely mechanical one.
  
• 
  People are naturally creative. Why suppress this when we could use it?
  
• 
  The teaching –learning process is unpredictable. (Underhill and Maley 2012) We should regard this as an opportunity not a threat.
  
• 
  Creativity is a tool for discovery, for opening up new possibilities.
  
• 
  Creative teaching –learning stimulates students’ minds and enhances their self-esteem. This leads to increased motivation, without which genuine learning cannot happen.
  
• 
  Creativity is enjoyable for both teachers and students.
  

This does not necessarily mean making radical and rapid changes to the way you teach. Even quite small changes can have disproportionately big effects. Try a few more creative activities first and see how they work out. Try changing just one or two of your teaching habits, and observe the results. Gradually, you should find that you develop confidence to move on to bigger changes. Good luck!

Amabile, M.T. (1996) Creativity in Context. Boulder, CO: Westfield Press

Boden, M. (1990) The Creative Mind. London: Abacus

Carter,R. (2004) The Art of Common Talk. London: Routledge.

Casenave, C.P and Sosa.M (2007) Respite for Teachers: Reflection and Renewal in the Teaching Life. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Cook, G. (2000). Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity. New York: Harper Collins.

Davis, P and Rinvolucri, M (1988) Dictation . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fanselow,J. (1987) Breaking Rules. London/New York: Longman.

Helgesen, M http://helgesenhandouts.terapod.com (accessed 20 Dec. 2012)

Johnstone,K (1981) Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. London: Methuen.

Johnstone,K (1999) Impro for Storytellers. London: Faber and Faber

Kaufman, J.C. and Sternberg, R.C. (eds) (2010) The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Koestler, A. (1989) The Act of Creation. London: Arkana/Penguin.

Maley. A (1994) Short and Sweet I. London: Penguin

Maley, A. (1995) Short and Sweet II. London: Penguin

Maley, A. (2006) ‘Where do new ideas come from?’ in Mukundan, J (ed) Readings on ELT Materials II. Petaling Jaya: Pearson Malaysia

Maley, A. (2013 a) ‘Winnowing the past: towards a principled eclecticism. in Arnold, J and Murphey, TY. (eds) Meaningful Action: Earl Stevick’s influence on language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Maley, A (2013b) ‘Creative Approaches to Writing Materials’. Chapter 8. Tomlinson.B (ed) Developing Materials for Language Teaching. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. 167-187

Maley,A.and Duff,A. (2005 new edition) Drama Techniques. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nachmanovitch, S. (1990) Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. New York: Tarker/Putnam

Painter, L. (2003) Homework. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Spiro, J. (2004) Creative Poetry Writing Oxford University Press

Underhill, A and Maley, A. (2012) ‘Expect the unexpected’ English Teaching Professional 82. 2012.

Wilson, K. (2008) Drama and Improvisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Sample Lesson Plan with Technology

Luísa Lima

- http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=pt, ActiveInspire or any website that enables a quick making of podcasts

- School laptops with Wi-Fi connection where all the software and a document with suggested websites has already been made available by the teacher for the students Other material: Interactive White Board and Handouts

Introduction

Review of previous lesson: Using the IWB and a flipchart on Healthy vs. Unhealthy food, the teacher revises some vocabulary related to the topic food, some of which students will later find in the text.

Objectives of this lesson: In groups of four students (A) will read the poem "The tummy beast" by Roald Dahl, find the meaning and pronunciation of all the difficult words and record it (B) ) in an accurate way (D) using their laptops and websites suggested by the teacher (C).

Procedure

Presentation (teacher), including key vocabulary

The teacher will start by giving some information about the author while eliciting some from the students themselves as this is not the first time they are reading Roald Dahl's material. The teacher will explain that, as it is usual, this lesson, although still within the scope of the topic "Healthy lifestyles" will also be included in the Reading Project this class is participating in. The teacher gives the students a handout with the text of the poem. (it can be found here: The tummy beast

Students read the poem and underline all the difficult words. Then, they will check the meaning of each of those words by visiting some online dictionaries. At the same time they are expected to check the pronunciation of the words they don't know using the options available in these online dictionaries. After some practice they can record the poem using the software provided. In case they still have difficulty finding the correct rhythm or intonation, the teacher may let them listen to the poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tinzhrgFILE

Damian Williams

(‘Signs’ – Five Man Electrical Band, 1970)

Landry and Bourhis, 1997

(Shohamy and Gorter, 2008)

Ben-Rafael, Shohamy, Amara and Trumper-Hecht, 2006

Dagenais, Moore, Sabatier, Lamarre and Armand, 2009

• 
  Guess the place. Students are shown the names of shops (which could be in the local area), and in teams have to guess what type of shop or business it is. A free lesson plan (‘Signs of the Times’) with photos is available to download here.
  

• 
  Talking about graffiti. Show students photos of different examples of graffiti in the local area, students discuss which they like/don’t like and why. Some graffiti also carries a political message (e.g. Banksy), which could be used to stimulate discussion.
  

• 
  Street view. Use Google maps street view to explore the urban environment with your class. Learners can call out when they see English used.
  

• 
  The history of streets. Many building and street names are often named after historical figures. Learners could research these online and present their findings to the class.
  

• 
  New urban spaces. Take a photo of an ‘empty’ urban area in your neighbourhood e.g. a patch of grass, under a bridge, a blank wall on the side of a building, etc. Students work in groups to design how to ‘decorate’ it and present their ideas to the class.
  

• 
  Correct the errors. Often the use of English in the linguistic landscape contains errors (even in countries where English is the main language). Collect these and bring them to class for learners to correct.
  

• 
  Improve the adverts. Collect photos of advertising posters/hoardings. Give them to learners to modify however they want to, and try to ‘improve them’ by changing words, adding comments etc. e.g. an advert for a business directory which reads ‘Whatever you want, just yell!’ – underneath you could write ‘less adverts’.
  

• 
  Create an open space. A while ago I was in Prague, when I came across this on a wall in a park:
  

Ben-Rafael, Shohamy, Amara and Trumper-Hecht, 2006

How can you be creative?

How can you be creative? Writing creativity needs skills that can attract readers and glimpse imaginary worlds which have been created as a result of a creative writing process. Here there is something of craftsmanship. According to Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), “poems flow from the innermost to the outermost of a being”. Being creative is the ability to tell stories, bring out the voices of characters, create scenes, twists, climaxes and imbue feelings with the power to make readers experience them with feelings from their own lives, or even from another story. A powerful story can influence changes or make adjustments of the reader’s own earlier experiences and feelings. Some writings are about situations which readers can turn around and apply or compare to their own lives, for better or worse. Some stories bring landscapes and decisions, or a mixture of many things that become a guide to readers. Some books become a reader’s special friends because of the writer’s craftsmanship in being able to weave things together that makes the reader becomes immersed in the story.

Creative reading needs one to find a ways of accessing creative writing materials, whether poems, short stories, novels for reading, but reading alone might not always be the right way. Reading in groups can be a vitally positive experience because one has the opportunity of sharing views with others. I once shared “The Frogs and the Boys” from the Aesop’s Fables, and a member of the group commented “I think the moral of the story is that when one sees someone else’s actions endanger life one has to call out.” I, as group facilitator, about to share the moral of the story according to the author, took pleasure in learning new views and comments from readers and seeing them practice speaking as they responded to the text. It can be very exciting to read and share stories and poems in groups. I also share reading on the ELT Online Reading Group (eltreadinggroup.weebly.com), a space where one can find stories and poems for English Language teaching and learning. The stories are designed for teachers´ use but they include useful guide for both readers and teachers. There are also spaces for sharing comments about the stories being read which encourages members to engage in sharing their ideas. The cultural differences of members of the online group allow diversity in the kind of comments they post.

Being creative may also mean being able to join in these forums and become involved in encouraging debates carry on. In a public debate it might appear that some people have not been reading, while the problem may be that people are reading but they are not able to share their views about it, perhaps for cultural reasons. They are reading ‘alone’. An example is the ELT- ORG that has got many members logging in but a few members post their comments about their reading. They enjoy lurking but many hesitate to contribute by posting their comments. The stories and poems shared online also have discussion questions aimed at guiding readers. Posting is not a waste of time, the benefits return to you: it is a win-win game. Let your thoughts be challenged and then receiving feedback from other readers has a powerful teaching potential for all. We need to be creative about our reading by contributing with our comments for the growth of communities of readers, even though this is not always easy.

To be creative in speaking and listening one needs to find his own audience where possible to make one’s voice be heard and one needs to be exposed continually to creative conversations. Here we find a connection between language skills, the reading, writing, speaking and listening skills are somehow inter-connected. For instance, the face to face Reading Group also can be seen as an opportunity for members practice speaking and listing skills as discussions are encouraged and managed. Again, do not hesitate to speak at these forums, to share your thoughts and make your voice heard. I have learned a lot from being a member of the Book Club RG at the British Council resource center in Maputo, and my passion for writing stems from there when, after reading stories from “New Writing” series, there a question asked when we would be reading and sharing our own stories in the sessions. I challenged it by writing a short story in English entitled “The Grave N˚256802” and the team of facilitators drew discussion questions for the story to be used for one session. It was both a group and personal achievement. The Book Club was a space where a lot of speaking was happening. We knew we did not need to wait for our mastery of speaking English to become perfect before opening our mouths! It was more than being in the classroom, the stories and discussions would give us opportunities of “going to other places without leaving”.

In my country, Mozambique, English is daily becoming a key to academic and professional progress. It is not wrong to suggest that the people need to be creative to learn English quickly. Many of the people learning English in private and public schools do not need to rely solely on sitting in a classroom. It reminds me a passage from The Bottle Neck (Hans Christian Andersen's short story) – “for one cannot learn a language by being shut up in a loft, even if one stays there for twenty years”.

The development of social projects, in the form of reading groups, may be the appropriate answer to the learning needs of students of English in many places, including Mozambique. Believing that English cannot be learned just by remaining in the classroom, there is a demand for public talks that support English usage among learners, and reading groups can open an opportunity of starting conversations aimed at learning by sharing together the experiences of reading. Creative writing and reading can really trigger successful conversations. There should be radio, TV, face to face, and online forums where readers come together and practice their English language skills. It will not come all at once, it may evolve slowly. But RGs have their cost. Budgeting reading groups is a topic worth a future discussion.

In conclusion, there are many challenges behind RGs but there are also many benefits readers can get from joining reading groups if they adhere as opportunities for learning from interactive talks, sharing ideas and feelings, views about stories, poems, and novels. I care for any RG that brings me an opportunity to practice my English, whether meetings face to face, radio or online. The expression “my English” reminds me of Chinue Achebe’s view about the discussion about whether African writing should be written in ‘African languages’ or ‘European’ ones. He bravely claimed the ownership of English, claiming that by having acquired English through education it had become his language. He asked for the freedom to write in his language and he successfully wrote African stories in his language, English. It meant the English language belonged to him. I’m a Bantu, I know English. I have acquired it. I would like to continue writing in English.

Creativity strikes!

Celeste Simões and Helena Oliveira

More than ever, English teachers are making use of classroom technology in order to motivate their students and make their lessons more dynamic. Student engagement is a priority when we are planning our lessons, and the Internet has provided us with a wide range of helpful tools.

We have shared with our students the stories of three young Canadians, Ryan Hreljac, Craig Kielburger and Bilaal Rajan. The lesson starts off with the analysis of three photographs, in which we can see these three Canadians helping people in different areas of the world.

After the students have looked at the photos and described them, we looked at a world map (we have used the app Earth 3D which you can find in the App Store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/earth-3d/id476566660?mt=12).

Many times our students have some difficulty identifying where certain countries or cities are. This wonderful application helps them to locate most of these places, and it also gives them some information about them. It is a very useful app and it gives us, and our students, a lot of useful, cultural information we often lack: information about monuments, rivers, capital cities, etc.

We then moved on to listening to each of them telling their story, and what had influenced them into being who they are today. A dash of creativity and will power helped them, from a very tender age, to start building the foundation for their projects, which today are recognised worldwide.

Ryan Hreljac is the founder of the Ryan’s Well Foundation (http://www.ryanswell.ca), which has been helping build wells all over the world. From the age of 6, Ryan decided that he wanted to help people have access to clean, safe water, and so far he has helped build over 822 water projects and 1025 latrines bringing safe water and improved sanitation to over 805,813 people. In this lesson students were shown his website, some of his projects and also an excerpt of the documentary launched back in 2003 about his doings: Ryan’s Well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWk2_LZ1zFM )

The students loved it and wanted to watch the whole documentary.

Then the time came to talk about Craig Kielburger and also about his brother Marc. At the age of 12, Craig read a piece of news about another child who had been killed while fighting against child slavery. From that moment on, he decided that we would also be involved in this plight, and Free the Children (http://www.freethechildren.com ) came to life so that children all over the world could have a better future.

We moved around their website, looked at the projects they have – watched videos, saw photos, read testimonials from teenagers who have been trying to make a positive difference in their world. Once again, students felt that they can do so much and that the future lies in their hands.

The third Canadian boy, Bilaal, now eighteen years old, has also shared his story on the Internet (http://www.bilaalrajan.com). His desire to help people in need, especially children, started at the age of four when a massive earthquake struck Gujarat, in India. He found a way to raise money and send it to them, and that was the moment of change. From that moment on he continued making a difference in the lives of thousands of people. In Tedx Toronto ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pB5XeHqQXw) he tells us about himself, and his life, and once again our students felt drawn into his story.

These are three of many thousands of stories out. The Internet has provided us with useful, creative and different tools to explore the world around us, and show our students how creative and daring they can be when it comes to changing their world.

Effective Interaction in the language classroom

Carolyn Leslie

Communicative Language Teaching, the objective of which is to develop ‘communicative competence’ (Hymes 1972), has been embraced by teachers around the world as the most plausible basis for language teaching today. Teaching activities involve learners interacting in pairs and small groups in the target to share information and there is now a solid foundation of research to support claims that this interaction benefits foreign and second language (L2) learning. But how does peer to peer interaction promote language learning? Two major learning theories attempt to describe processes which lead to second language learning; cognitive learning theories, which view language learning as an activity taking place solely within the learner’s head, and socio-cultural theories which emphasise the importance of language use in a social context.

From a cognitive theoretical perspective interaction is important in the learning process. Long’s Interaction Hypothesis (1981, 1996) claims that language learning occurs when learners have the opportunity to ‘negotiate meaning’ when communication problems occur. He noticed that during native-speaker/ non-native-speaker interaction, the use of repetition, confirmation checks, comprehension checks, clarification requests and corrective feedback were common. He suggested that learners, through checking and clarifying problem utterances came to realise the difference between their (imperfect) knowledge of the second language and correct forms which gave them the opportunity to incorporate new language into their discourse. Interaction is also important in Swain’s Output Hypothesis (1995) which suggests that interaction increases fluency, helps learners use their interlanguage (learner language) confidently and routinely and gives learners the opportunity to experiment with new language and receive either positive or negative feedback. The theory that input and interaction lead to intake has been put forward by Schmidt (1994) as a result of his own experience of learning Portuguese. He suggested that noticing, ‘for example when one notices the odd spelling of a new vocabulary word,’ leads to learning and using the feature.

Sociocultural theorists take the view that development is more taking part in a social activity than acquiring knowledge. Here ‘the distinction between ‘use’ of the L2 and ‘knowledge’ of the L2 becomes blurred because ‘knowledge is use and use creates knowledge’ (Ellis 2003: 176). In the language classroom this means that learners learn new language while interacting with others, and this is eventually internalised so learners can use these new forms and functions autonomously. Unskilled learners in the classroom require the guidance of teachers or more skilled others through supportive dialogue which helps them through successive steps of a problem that he or she cannot perform alone, termed scaffolding. Socio-cultural theory therefore also suggests active participation and interaction are at the heart of learning.

Strategy Training and Group Interaction

Although oral interaction is a key element in language learning, students don’t always create the best conditions for learning when they interact. As teachers, we know that there are times when learners engage in minimal exchanges when interacting, or one student may dominate, excluding others from the interaction. Sometimes students pretend they understand to save face, and in monolingual classes students can revert to their first language (L1) when there is a breakdown in communication. But perhaps we can train learners to interact more effectively.

Naughton (2006) suggests that learners can be taught specific strategies to help them maximise the learning potential of classroom group and pair oral interaction. First she suggests that the rational for using specific strategies should be discussed with students and then these strategies can be practised using roleplay activities. For example, to train students to request and give help students were provided with cards with the key points of a story to tell the others in the group, but were also instructed to ask others for help with vocabulary.

As I believed my C1 teenage learners weren’t maximising their opportunities for learning during interaction I decided to introduce strategies I hoped would promote learning. With the learning theories above in mind I explained the research and the importance of requesting and giving help, requesting clarification, asking follow up questions and self and other correction using a PowerPoint presentation and asked students to focus on using these in class. In addition I asked students to also focus on inviting others to contribute to the interaction. We then discussed what each strategy entailed and I provided students with a check list where they marked how often they used each strategy in the class and answered a few questions on strategy use. I also copied the strategies onto cards and gave a set to each group.

The feedback from my students was very positive. All the students in the class thought that oral interaction with their classmates was important for learning, and they all stated they learned from others in the group during interaction. Almost all stated that, as they were paying more attention to strategy use, they used them more than usual and everyone though using the strategies helped them learn more effectively as it focused them on using English ( and not Portuguese, their L1), and meant they were more aware of their own errors. Surprisingly, more than half said they would be very appreciative of correction by a peer, although the others mentioned it would depend on who was correcting them and how it was done. Lastly, the overwhelming majority thought these strategies could be learnt, although one student commented that most were intuitive, and the students who needed to learn them would never use them as naturally. In contrast, another student commented that if they used them on a regular basis, they would become more intuitive. Personally it seemed to me that a lot of the students regarded the whole process as a game type activity which they enjoyed taking part in. So although it’s early days yet, I’ll be encouraging students to use these strategies throughout the rest of the academic year and suggest you might like trying the same in your classes too.

Ellis, R. 2003. Task Based Language Learning and Teaching (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Hymes, D. 1972. ‘On Communicative Competence’, in Sociolinguistics ed. by J.B. Pride & J.Holmes (Harmondsworth: Penguin), pp. 269-293

Long, M.H. 1996. ‘The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition’, in Handbook of second language acquisition, ed. by W. Ritchie and T. Bhatia (San Diego, CA: Academic Press), pp. 413-468

Naughton, D. 2006. ‘Cooperative Strategy Training and Oral Interaction: Enhancing Small Group Communication in the Language Classroom,’ The Modern Language Journal 90: 169-184

Schmidt, R. 1994. ‘Deconstructing consciousness in search of useful definitions for applied linguistics,’ AILA Review, 11: 11-26

Swain, M. 1995. ‘Three functions of output in second language learning’, in Principle and practice in applied linguistics: Studies in honour of H.G. Widdowson, ed. by G. Cook and B. Siedlhofer (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp.125-144

You Wanna Teach? Don't Bother...

Mikolaj Sobocinski

As is probably the case with most teachers, I have no choice but to train my students to handle particular groups of vocabulary, use particular grammatical structures and to speak on pre-selected subjects. Both my students and I find joy in those lessons when the topic or some current news spur the discussion. But there are times when talking about fashion, weather, customs, inventions, etc. does not make my students flex a single muscle in their tongue. What then? Well, there are plenty of methodologies and techniques to help, but what is there that your students may really need and at the same time makes the course progress?