JoshEsl Blog about EFL in Korea

Teacher Talk - Preferences and Practices.

6/15/2016

Hi Team,

As you are probably already aware, the way a teacher interacts with their students is of vital importance to creating an environment conducive to learning. In today’s post – the second in the series on teacher talk - we are going to look at a few of the more important things we need to consider in relation to our current teaching practices and offer up a few thinking points to mull over on the subject.

So without further ado, let me present: Teacher Talk - Preferences and Practices.

Preferences & Practices – In this post I am not only going to give you a brief overview of what seems to be the norm in many EFL classrooms, but also provide you with some thinking points on the subject.

As usual, my post will be based on facts (real facts – Google them to see for yourself) and personal research and observation. And in this post instead of offering you a manuscript on the subject (which could get rather boring), I’m just going to rely on my good friend – the bullet point.

In traditional teacher-fronted classrooms the teacher often speaks more than the students.Thinking points: Maybe the teacher should aim for ‘quality talk’ and not ‘quantity talk’. How can you decrease your talk time and increase the available talk time for students? (For more on this topic please see the third post in this series: Teacher Talk Time (TTT) –Making Cutbacks.)

In general, most instances of teacher-student classroom communication (approximately 50-70% of all teacher-student interactions – depending on which research you believe) take the form of an IRF sequence (initiation-response-feedback). The IRF sequence usually involves the teacher asking a question, the student responding, and then the teacher offering feedback.Thinking points: How can you use the IRF sequence more effectively in your classes? When should you use the IRF sequence? Is there a better way of encouraging more student interaction and talk time?

How can you make the IRF more interactive and enjoyable? Check out this idea and see what you think.

Recasts (rephrasing an incorrect or incomplete learner utterance while still maintaining its central meaning) are usually the most common form of corrective feedback provided by teachers in EFL classes. Thinking points: What other methods of feedback can you provide? How can you help a student notice and correct their own errors?

Teachers often rely on a limited range of feedback/correction techniques. Thinking points: Have you considered different ways to give feedback and/or make corrections (e.g. direct feedback, indirect feedback, meta-linguistic feedback, peer-to-peer feedback etc.)? Why do you use the types of feedback and correction techniques you have chosen?

In many instances teachers jump in too early to either complete a student’s utterance or offer a prompt. Thinking points: Are you giving your students enough time to process the input? Are you allowing enough time for a student to formulate their response?

Teachers usually ask more display/closed type questions than they do open/referential type questions. Thinking points: What is the intention behind the question you asked (e.g. to test knowledge or to elicit more student talk)? How well do your questions suit your overall learning goals?

I hope the above thinking points can be of benefit to you and your students. I also hope you join me in the next post all about the importance of reducing teacher talk time.

Thanks for reading,

Josh
Keep English Real!

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Teacher Talk - What can we do to make it more effective?

6/12/2016

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Hi All,

This post is all about the important issue of communication in the classroom - the first in a three-part series on the topic.

Teacher Talk – The Series:
1. What can we do to make our teacher talk more effective?
2. Teacher Talk - Preferences and Practices.
3. Teacher Talk Time (TTT) – Making Cutbacks.

The reason for writing this post is very simple. I think we all need to consider our communication techniques to ensure we are really helping our students reach their language learning goals.

Today's topic: What can we do to make our teacher talk more effective?

Teachers have many things to consider in relation to teacher talk in the classroom.

E.g. How much? How often? What style? What level? Which question? What purpose?

The list goes on and on.

In this post we are going to briefly examine a few of the ways in which we can improve the quality of our classes through the effective use of teacher talk.

(Check out this guy’s mad teaching skills)

What did you think of this guys's teacher talk and questioning strategies? Effective? Engaging? Stimulating? - Non, non et non!

When a teacher talks in class they need to have a purpose, be engaging, and achieve something.

As far as purpose goes, a teacher in the second language classroom often needs to provide knowledge, offer feedback, praise, manage, elicit responses, ask questions, or provide input for students.

Provide knowledge: A teacher can provide explicit explanations, facts, or rules (e.g. explaining a grammar rule, providing your student with the most appropriate word, etc.). Tip: When providing knowledge it is OK (and advisable) to elicit responses and suggestions from your students. Teacher talk can be collaborative.

Offer feedback: Feedback does not mean just evaluating every word or utterance as ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’ or ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. It also does not mean explicitly correcting every mistake the student makes. No. Feedback should be used to help your students develop their language skills. It could involve modeling, correction, restructuring, evaluation, clarification, prompting, etc.Tip: When offering feedback it might be a good idea to think about your intentions for doing so before choosing which strategy you will use.

Praise: Teachers love to give praise – and so we should. Tips: When praising students remember the importance of keeping your praise genuine, praise effort as well as results, and get specific (e.g. great word choice, perfect use of the past tense) so the students know what they are being praised for (just don’t overdo it).

Manage: One of the most import roles a teacher plays is that of manager. As teachers we need to manage our classrooms (e.g. arrange teams, introduce new activities, settle disputes etc.) in order to provide a great learning environment. Taking time to reflect on your classroom management strategies, especially as they relate to your teacher talk, is of vital importance for the successful running of a great language class. Are you too direct? Are you too vague? Are you speaking too fast? Are you speaking too slowly? Can your students understand you? Tip: Take the time to put your communication style under the microscope in order to improve your classroom management skills.

Elicit language: As second language teachers we need to really get our students talking (I always tell my students I don’t need to talk as I’m already really good at it.). This is where asking the right type question really helps (see below). However, we also need to consider how teacher talk often gets in the way of promoting student talk. For example, do you complete your students’ sentences for them or offer a small prompt? Do you ask for clarification or just provide explicit corrections? Do you allow (and encourage) your students to go off on tangents (in the target language) or strictly control what they say. Do you wait a sufficient amount of time before offering your students help or do you jump straight in? Do you do all the teaching or let your students help each other? Tip: Talk less and have your students talk more (for more on this please check out the third post in this series: Teacher Talk Time – Making Cutbacks.)

Ask questions: Teachers ask a lot of questions. Sadly, research often shows our questions are not as effective as we might have hoped. Therefore, it is really important to think about the types of questions we are using in the EFL/ESL classroom.

In general there are two categories of questions (although this is debatable):

1. Open/referential questions – require the learner to provide information, give an opinion, explain or clarify (the teacher may or may not be able to anticipate the response).

2. Closed/display questions – are often used to test knowledge or comprehension (and the teacher usually already knows the response).

In regards to teacher talk and questions the main thing to point out is that research often shows that the ‘closed/display’ type of questions occur more frequently in the majority of classroom settings – this also stands true for EFL/ESL (Google it and see for yourself).

Tip: Think about using more open/referential type questions in your class to promote more student talk time.

Note: It is also worth pointing out that when asking questions it is really important to consider the intentions behind them. Why are you asking the questions you are asking? Is there a better alternative? Can your goal be achieved by asking this question?

Provide input: Teacher talk is also used to provide target language input. This being true, maybe it is worth considering how often you are using new phrases or vocabulary terms in class. Are you ensuring your teacher talk is comprehensible? Do you communicate in such a way that your students have the opportunity to ‘pick things up’ incidentally? Tip: Give examples (and lots of them), be engaging (so your students want to listen when you speak), and provide clues to what your students should be paying attention to when you speak. (If you want to know more on input for second language development then please listen to my lecture.)

Phew, we got there.

Now, although this list is not exhaustive, I hope it has provided you with some food or thought in relation to teacher talk in your classroom.

I hope you join me in my next blog post: Teacher talk - preferences and practices.

Thanks for reading,

Josh
Keep English Real

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Keepin' It Real with Dr. Emdin

6/6/2016

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Welcome to another blog post.

For those of you who have already checked out my lectures on teaching English as a second language might already know – I think we need to get REAL with the way we teach. We need to engage with our students and inspire (and be inspired by) them. We also need to view our students not just as students, but also as people. People with dreams and passions. People with fears and doubts. People not dissimilar to people like you and me.
In today’s blog post I would like to introduce you to an Associate Professor from Columbia University - Dr. Christopher Emdin.

As you can see, this dapper looking dude is all about student engagement. Not just ‘engagement’ that we talk about in our teachers’ meetings. Not just ‘engagement’ that we read about in the literature about teaching. No! He is talking about tangible and honest engagement.

In his talk Dr. Emdin discusses the idea of ‘reality pedagogy’ and explains this exciting approach using the ‘5 Cs’ (no – this is not the same as my ‘3 Cs’ of English teaching):

Cypher – conversations with young people about their experiences in the classroom

Co-teaching – a learner needs an opportunity to teach (and the teacher to learn)

Cosmopolitanism – every student must feel like they are part of the class and responsible for each other

Context – make sure your class is relevant to your students’ varied contexts

Content – choose relevant content and don’t be afraid to admit when you don’t know something (use this as an opportunity to co-learn)

And there we have it – I hope the video inspired you as it did me.

Empower your students. Engage your students. Involve your students. Care for your students.

Have a great day,
Josh

Keep English Real!

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Cultural Clash

6/5/2016

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Hi all,
I hope everyone is having a great day. In today’s post I am going to bring up a topic that has recently (OK, almost a year ago) been the cause of much debate and frustration in South Korea – especially among some in the expat community.

The topic relates to an article (available here) which appeared in one of South Korea’s English language newspapers – The Korea Times.

In the article the author (Choi Shi-yong) tries to explain the differences between foreigners and Koreans in an attempt “to promote cultural awareness.”

Sadly, all the article really served to do was anger and frustrate many of those who read it (as can be seen in the comments box situated at the bottom of the article on The Korea Times’ website).

In this post I am going to give you my take on the article – in point form.

First, I do not think the author deliberately set out to hurt people. I truly think he just didn’t have the linguistic ability to write a well structured or well considered article on this topic.
Second, as an English teacher I can easily see where the author’s word choices (e.g. too and so) have been used inappropriately (this article makes it very clear what happens to the tone of the writing by using these words), thus inadvertently positioning one party in a negative light, while positioning the other party in a positive light.
Third, the author (again, I think/hope, inadvertently) only mentions positive things about his own culture, sadly forgetting to mention any positives about the various cultures of the “foreigners” living in South Korea.
Fourth, the author has arguably tried to be too expressive with his writing, and as such, creates a tone that places his culture above everyone else’s. I would suggest that his choice of words (and phrasing) may not be suitable for this type of article. However, I feel this is as a result of him being a non-native English speaker, and not due to any ill intent.
Fifth, the author seems to misunderstand his friend’s anecdote. I think he took his friend’s words literally instead of taking them as a joke or as a way of embellishing a story.

Why did I just mention all of this? To give some tips on teaching – of course!

First off, I think this article serves as a reminder of the dangers of making sweeping statements, especially regarding groups of people or entire cultures. (Do all foreigners drink beer too slowly? One night out in Itaewon will prove this generalization is not true.)

Second, I think this article is a great tool for teaching writing and culture. Personally, I have used it with several of my students and classes as a way of showing how the words too and so actually work. I have also used it to discuss different genres and styles of writing (e.g. is this article an opinion piece or a persuasive argument?), to begin discussions on various elements of culture, and to teach about irony, humor, and storytelling (Do British people really walk around punching elderly people? Or was his friend’s story misunderstood and taken literally?).

And third, as a teacher I really try to teach my students how to think critically. I strive to ensure that they develop the skills required to critique and evaluate someone’s ideas and arguments. I believe this article can be used to help our students develop this valuable skill.

So, why not use it to address and question cultural identity, stereotypes, cultural norms, and the notions of understanding and tolerance? Why not dissect it to separate fact from fiction?
Instead of being upset with this writer for producing a seemingly biased article, I think the EFL teachers in South Korea can benefit from this article and use it to our students’ advantage.

One way this can be done is by using this article to help us prevent our learners from making the same mistakes as the author in question made. And to me, that can only be a good thing.

On this topic, if you are interested in teaching culture in your classroom, check out my lecture on Culture & Language to learn more about this topic (That goes for you too Mr. Choi).

Anyway, to conclude I’d like to say that we probably can’t accuse the writer Choi Shi-yong of being malicious, however we can probably accuse him of producing a poorly devised and poorly crafted article. (Although, to be honest, if I wrote as well as him in a second language I would be really happy – I would probably just choose less provocative topics to write about.)

Have a great day,

Josh
Keep English Real!

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Teacher Talk - Preferences and Practices.

Teacher Talk - What can we do to make it more effective?

Keepin' It Real with Dr. Emdin

Cultural Clash

Josh's ESL Blog

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Teacher Talk - Preferences and Practices.

Teacher Talk - What can we do to make it more effective?

Keepin' It Real with Dr. Emdin﻿

Cultural Clash

Josh's ESL Blog

Archives

Categories

Keepin' It Real with Dr. Emdin