Genres across the disciplines: student writing in higher education

A groundbreaking title in the field of higher education writing, uncovering norms and conventions across the whole spectrum of tertiary education written work. Why do university students write? What are they expected to write? To what extent do academics understand the process of setting a writing assignment, and – significantly – how proficient are they in creating appropriate prompts to elicit the kind of writing they expect? On first reading, none of these questions seem that demanding, nor might you expect them to have interesting answers. Nevertheless, it is precisely with such issues that Genres across the Disciplines concerns itself

CLIL activities by Liz Dale and Rosie Tanner

Ever since David Marsh and Anne Maljers ushered in the era of CLIL in 1994, this new methodology has remained a source of hot debate in ELT. While many teachers are suspicious of or indeed resistant to the very notion of Content and Language Integrated learning, others view it as the future of language teaching. For those unfamiliar with the concept, CLIL is an approach which aims to marry the learning of content to the acquisition of an additional language, thus teaching both the subject and the language simultaneously. While several notable books have been written on this methodology, our profession has been crying out for a definitive guide to CLIL: it is with this mission in mind that Liz Dale and Rosie Tanner have created this book

Why don't your group activities work well?

When we put students into groups, we sometimes find that the tasks work well, while at other times they fail to live up to their full potential. Does the problem lie within the design of the task, does it depend on the physical environment of the classroom, is it a result of the individuals in the particular group or is it something about the formation of the group itself? This presentation examined the elements included in a good group task, the theoretical background behind the stages in the formation of groups and what lessons we can learn from the literature in terms of why groups may not function effectively in classroom tasks. The literature will then be compared to responses gathered from action research conducted on what learners feel about participating in cooperative group tasks and why they think such tasks are effective or not

Cambridge academic English: an integrated skills course for EAP - B2 upper intermediate

For those who have had the experience of preparing students for academic study using a general English course book, the notion of a series that progressively aims to develop the kinds of skills necessary for tertiary study in an English-medium institution should be immediately compelling. With a market existing for a series, Cambridge’s three-level (B1+ to C1) integrated skills course for higher education students at university or on foundation courses has an audience ready and waiting for books that deliver the goods

Email English (2nd Edition) by Paul Emmerson

A thoroughly worthwhile update to a classic book about emailing which retains everything that was right about the first edition while effectively revitalizing its content a decade on from the first edition

Designing a scenario-based syllabus for young learners

As we tentatively proceed into this brave new teaching world of the 21st century, much debate is centering on the effective teaching of English to young learners. Key to this discussion has been the role of the young learner syllabus. While this article makes reference to the teaching of English to young learners in an ESL context based on documentation developed within the European Union, the issues raised are by no means particularly specific to this region nor merely to the teaching of the English language. On the contrary, this article aims to show how to use the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (the CEFRL) to effectively design a scenario-based syllabus and complementary materials suitable for young learners, regardless of location. The need for appropriate target setting is stressed, and the case is put forward for a scenario-based syllabus. The underlying rationale is that a second language syllabus must reflect the world of the young learner and facilitate the acquisition of language in the classroom

In search of the A word: can ambition survive in TEFL?

Why is it so difficult to find mention of the word ambition in our profession, and what exactly do those language schools really want when they hire dynamic, ambitious teachers? There are several clear reasons why ambition is seemingly intangible in our profession

Practice makes...?

One vivid memory from my time as a student was a quirk of a lecturer of mine, who would let us know that our performance in presentations was inadequate by writing ‘5P’ on a piece of paper and handing it to us. The term 5P referred to ‘plenty of practice prevents poor performance.’ Receiving a 5P meant that your performance wasn’t up to scratch and that you should have practiced more. I’m happy to report that I was never the recipient of such a note. The five Ps can of course be applied to any number of contexts throughout our lives, but what do they mean in language learning, and in the assessment of speaking in particular? In what situations do we want our students to practice speaking, and what are the implications on the testing of a learner’s spoken skills? In my presentation I explored the notion of learners practicing the assessment format for speaking, what practice they are exposed to and their perceptions of how this did or did not benefit them in their exam performance. The findings were drawn from the responses given by students attending the Sabancı University School of languages preparatory English program

Games in the language classroom: the 'when' & the 'how'

I love playing games in my classes; as far as I’m concerned, games can play a range of roles in the language curriculum. Nevertheless, you’ll find that, traditionally, games have been used in the language class merely as warm-up activities at the beginning, fill-in activities when there’s that extra ten minutes towards the end of class, or often as not as a bit of fun lobbed randomly into the curriculum to spice things up and motivate or energize a tired class. While I don’t have a problem with any of these approaches, I increasingly feel that games can and should constitute a more substantial part of any language curricula. Indeed, games are a tremendously flexible way of achieving all kinds of objectives: games can be used either for practicing particular language items or skills, or in practicing communicative language production. Likewise, games can also be used as a means of revising and recycling recently taught language

Are you an effective teacher of reading?

Reading occurs in our lives on a constant basis. Nevertheless, defining reading is not easy. Different people use the term reading for different purposes, which can cause much confusion. For the context of the language classroom this article will concern itself with the notion of reading as the extraction of meaning from a written text . In other words, the text is viewed as a vehicle of communication from the writer to the reader; Aebersold and Field (1997) acknowledge this by stating that it is the interaction between the text and reader that constitutes actual reading. However, simply stating that this is what constitutes reading is to risk forgetting that, in the reading class, the most important thing is that both the teacher and the student should understand the reading process