Like many teachers and trainers of my generation, I was deeply affected by the work of Stephen Krashen. His acquisition/learning distinction made a lasting impact on ELT, although ...

According to Krashen acquisition is a subconscious process like the one children experience when they absorb their first language. Meaningful interaction, or natural communication, occurs, when speakers communicate. The learned system comes from formal instruction about the language, for example, awareness of grammar rules. For Krashen learning is less important than acquisition.

The Monitor hypothesis relates acquisition to learning. According to Krashen, an utterance originates from the acquisition system and the learning system plays the role of monitor or editor. In other words, the monitor can function when three conditions are met: the learner has sufficient time, can consider form and correctness, and knows the rule.

The Natural Order hypothesis is based on research suggesting that the acquisition of grammatical structures follows a predictable natural order. For each language, some grammatical structures are acquired early while others late. This order seemed to be independent of age, L1 background, and conditions of exposure. This natural order can explain why learners of English, for example, find it hard to use third-person singular –s in the present simple tense. It is imply that this structure comes later in the process.

Krashen’s Input hypothesis explains how learners acquire a second language. It is concerned with acquisition, not learning. Learners progress when they receive second language input that is one step beyond their current stage of competence. If a learner is at a stage 'i', then acquisition takes place through exposure to Comprehensible Input at level 'i + 1'. As not all of the learners will have the same level of linguistic competence at the same time, Krashen suggests that natural communicative input will ensure that learners should receive 'i + 1' input appropriate to their current level of linguistic competence.

The Affective Filter hypothesis states that a number of affective variables have a facilitative, but non-causal role in second language acquisition. These include motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Learners with high motivation, self-confidence, a good self-image, and a low level of anxiety are better equipped to acquire a second language. Low motivation, low self-esteem, and anxiety can raise the affective filter forming a mental block to prevent comprehensible input from being used for acquisition.

Krashen’s theories helped teachers to take a more flexible and communicative approach to syllabus design and to recognise some of the psychological barriers to effective learning.

The most frequently asked question from those wishing to embark on an ELT career is: which course should I take? Such is the question raised recently by somebody wanting to know if he should take a TEFL or a TESOL course .

The simple answer is...

So what is the difference? It really is just a question of a rose by any other name. Cambridge University, which, I suspect, has the major market share in teacher training courses, defines the acronyms thus:
'TEFL' or 'TESOL' are terms often used to describe qualifications for English Language teachers. CELTA, the best known and most widely taken initial TESOL/TEFL qualification of its kind in the world, was previously known as CTEFLA and the 'RSA certificate'.

So why the two acronyms? TEFL was the earlier term, standing for ‘teaching English as a foreign language.’ It was used by the RSA when it launched its early teacher training qualifications. Some people felt that this description somehow made English sound a bit arbitrary as a language choice: just one among many possible foreign languages. TESOL, standing for ‘teaching English to speakers of other languages’ seemed to give English a higher status. But, as you can see, there is no important semantic distinction. This is not the situation with TESL, which refers to teaching English as a second language. here the difference is important in that it implies learners will be living in an English-speaking country and will need to understand about that country’s systems, institutions and culture as well as language.

to answer the original question: you will probably find a good range of reputable courses calling themselves either TEFL or TESOL, although the trend is to refer to all as TESOL courses now. Before choosing your course, check that the certifying body has standing within the profession. Then make sure the training will be of the quality you need. A four-week intensive course is the minimum you should expect for an initial qualification. Ask for testimonials form past students, ask about pass rates, job-finding success. Compare prices to ensure you will have good value and then choose the course that best suits your circumstances.

The Internet has had a profound effect on the way English language teaching organisations operate. I thought it would be interesting to do a survey of how the Internet is being used. One of the most valuable aspects of the Internet is its accessibility. No matter how ...

Perhaps this is the most commonly exploited feature. Just about all schools use the Internet as a marketing tool to offer an online brochure setting out what is on offer.
Of course, the quality of the online presence varies enormously, but generally speaking schools have seen the value of a quality website that gives prospective students a true flavour of what they can expect.

Most substantial organisations go beyond that by offering some sort of interactivity. This ranges from online registration at the most basic level through to online testing and fully-fledged online courses at the other. Inevitably it is the major players who have developed the most sophisticated forms of online learning facilities. And some organisations are making really imaginative use of the Internet now. For example, University of Essex International Academy has launched a virtual campus in Second Life, an online world where you can assume a new persona and identity here . However, it struck me that developments like this require prospective students to be extremely web-savvy and to have a pretty good understanding of English before they can follow the instructions!

One interesting aspect of the use of the Internet to deliver teaching services rather than to use it as a marketing tool is the nature of the fee structure. In an increasingly competitive market, schools face a new challenge with the this virtual learning environment. Free resources of high quality are offered by all sorts of reputable institutions. The BBC, for example, provides high-quality free resources, as do publishers and exam boards. How easy is it, therefore, to attract a fee-paying student body to virtual learning? I suspect the answer lies in a school’s ability to add personal contact into the mix. If students can work online either with real-time contact with a teacher or with a tutor who gives feedback on their work, then I suspect that this formula will attract a fee-paying clientele.

One thing is clear, the Internet over the past few years has become indispensable as a means of communicating for every ELT organisation.

This month’s book is a classic study of pragmatics that should be in every school’s reference library. Geoffrey Leech’s Principles of Pragmatics was first published by Longman in 1983. Pragmatics had ...

I first became interested in pragmatics when I realized that students were often not making their meaning clear because they did not understand rules of language behaviour that had nothing to do with the meaning of words. An example was a student who upset his host family by saying every morning, “where is my breakfast, please?” To him, this was a perfectly polite request. But his host family felt it implied that his breakfast was late. Some less direct request, such as, “would you call me when breakfast is ready please” was needed. And on the other side of fence, students whose languages automatically have a response to “thank you”, such as “bitte”, “avec plasir”, found the British to be rude because they more often than not said nothing. Interestingly, I believe it was the American who taught us the response, “you’re welcome”.

Thus pragmatics studies how meaning depends not only on linguistic knowledge but also on the context of the utterance, knowledge about the status and relationship of those involved, and the speaker’s intention. Pragmatic competence is the ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning, but when the speaker does not understand the pragmatic principles of his interlocutors, misunderstanding can easily occur.

Although the groundwork in pragmatics had been done by others, Leech helps clarify the importance of pragmatics as an aspect of language that needs to be taught just as much as grammar and vocabulary. For L2 learners it is a great hurdle as its rules are culturally specific. Pragmatic choices can also be very idiosyncratic, depending on a specific relationship. Take the husband who frames the question: “has my shirt been ironed yet?” The intention behind the passive is not to suggest that divine powers do the ironing but to shake off any personal responsibility for the action while not directly ordering his wife to do it.

Leech’s work with its myriad examples of how different forms of the same underlying meaning have different intentions and effects is extremely helpful. Teacher can usefully take his examples and use them to help sensitize students to this aspect of language.The imperative form is a good example. Leech looks, for example, at the different effects of: peel these potatoes/hand me the newspaper/sit down/look at that/enjoy your holiday/have another sandwich. The imperative is used in each case, but with a different intention and effect in each case.

Happy reading!

I wonder who you consider to be the most influential people in English language teaching. Perhaps we should start with the...

Since de Saussure, of course, linguistics has become a vast subject of research and much of it is highly abstruse and thus not very helpful for teachers in the classroom. On the more practical side, Harold Palmer (1877 – 1949) had a great influence on how we teach as well what we teach. He advocated the Direct method, which is generally preferred to this day, when he was teaching in Belgium. He also influenced how grammar should be analysed and taught in his Grammar of Spoken English.

For the teacher this need to be aware of language analysis and the development of methods, makes this a vast field indeed and for that reason it is not easy to cover the ground thoroughly. Many figures stand out since de Saussure, but perhaps Noam Chomskey is the best known. He is often seen as the main opponent of the behaviourism that B.F. Skinner believed must underlie how we learn a language. I think Chomsky stands out because he is also a theoretical linguistician thus combining linguistic analysis with the psychology of learning.. Behavourism would probably have died out in language teaching any way, but Chomsky’s refutation of Skinner’s ideas played a big part in its demise. His belief that human beings have an innate language faculty is one of the seminal ideas for our profession and is till debated by leading language psychologists such as Steven Pinker. I was lucky enough to hear Chomsky lecture in Cambridge on one occasion and found him a compelling speaker.

On a personal note, I think the people who stand out are the ones we feel have helped us shape our own ideas about the language and how we should teach it. For me David Wilkins was just such an influence. His description of a notional syllabus, struck me as eminently logical and his ability to balance the relative importance of grammar and vocabulary, paved the way, surely for the lexical syllabus: "Without grammar little can be conveyed; without lexis nothing can be conveyed."

I would love to hear from you which figures consider important.

The native English speaker seems to have all the advantages when it comes to finding teaching posts. A native speaker with few or even no qualifications to teach English often has greater credibility with employers then a highly qualified non-native speaker. To understand ...

However, we need to ask a few questions about the native English speaker. If employers believe that all native speakers use a uniform and highly educated pronunciation that are very much mistaken. The range of accents is enormous and I am not simply referring to American, British, South African etc. Within the various English-speaking countries accents vary tremendously. So is a Manchester or a Kentucky or a Canberra accent really superior to a non-native accent?

Perhaps employers and students believe that native speakers have an innate understanding of how their own language works. Consider this comment in a recent article: “A report in the UK criticises the lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills among school leavers. The report was based on a survey of 140 companies with a total of more than 900,000 full-time employees. The report shows that one in three businesses has to send staff for remedial lessons in basic literacy and numeracy skills.” The truth is that unless a native speaker has studied English grammar, he or she is unlikely even to know the basic grammatical terms, let alone understand how the language works.

Is it believed that native speakers make no errors? Perhaps native-speaker errors are different from those of L2 learners but I hear and read errors in grammar, pronunciation and meaning all the time. A common native-speaker grammatical error is to use the verb form for third-person singular with plural pronouns. Thus I frequently hear “we/you/they was”. Or people often use a past participle instead of a simple past form: “she done it”. You may say that such errors are made by uneducated people who would not try to teach. But less obvious errors are made even by the educated. I read in a newspaper the other day that somebody was wearing a “broach”. I heard a BBC broadcaster say that somebody was “partially naked”. Presumably he meant “partially clothed” since you can no more be “partially naked” than “partially pregnant.”

In truth, the native English speaker is by no means infallible and a non-native speaker with the right qualifications is likely to be a much more reliable teacher than an untrained native English speaker. But still the prejudice remains. So what should schools do? I suggest one way forward is to have a mixed teaching staff. Well-qualified teachers should be given their opportunity, no matter what their mother tongue. But schools could employ unqualified native speakers as teaching assistants, giving students practice in conversation.

Have you taken a look at some of the conferences and workshops running this month?
I have noted a few in this post, but I am sure that with a little Internet research you will be able find something...

June 11 – 13 Melta 2009 international conference, Aligning teaching and learning: effective methodologies in English language education
Johor, Malaysia.
Email: meltaconference@gmail.com
Website gives more details.

June 12 – 15 Creativity Workshop in New York City
New York City, USA.
Email: admin@creativityworkshop.com
Website gives more details.

June 15 – 17 Languages & Business 2009
Contact number: +49 (0)30 310 18 18-0
Dusseldorf, Germany
Email: sprachen-beruf@icwe.net

June 23 – 25 Eighth international language & development conference
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: mirza.beg@bd.britishcouncil.org
Website gives more details.

June 25 – 25 University of Canterbury Department of English and Language Studies annual conference: Discourse, context and language education
Canterbury, UK.
Email: cuttingedges@canterbury.ac.uk

Hello again,

I have never met anyone who thinks meetings are useful. Everyone seems to think that they waste precious time that could be used better on other activities. Okay, perhaps I exaggerate. But generally ...

Firstly, we have to recognise that if people are going to give up their time, they want to deal with what matters to them. Secondly, many meetings become a routine procedure and take place whether they are needed or not. This means it is easy for people to resent having to waste their time.

But if we think of meetings as opportunities to share ideas, confide problems and brainstorm solutions, the dynamic changes. Have you considered calling a meeting for teachers to discuss activities that have really worked well for them in class? Sharing ideas, having ideas validated, seeing how ideas can be adapted – these are ways of empowering teachers in the classroom. So that’s a type of meeting that teachers find valuable.

Then there are meetings that look seriously at teachers’ concerns. Have they got discipline problems, issues with rapport, specific teaching areas they find difficult?
Using meetings to help teachers with tier difficulties is a truly helpful procedure.

And what about the school? Have you had meetings to identify what the school does well and others to pinpoint the areas for improvement? If not, why not? Teachers have their ears to the ground, they can spot the strengths and weaknesses far more accurately than marketers and managers.

Actually one of the best systems for initiating meetings is to let the staff call them as and when they are needed.

Is it just my perception or does ELT have a greater share of whingers than other professions? People are always telling me how they find ELT poorly paid, over-burdened, and with poor career prospects. Well, if that’s how you feel, do ...

So how do you plan for a good career in ELT? The starting point is to know your own strengths and weaknesses, personal preferences and potential. In such a diverse field as ELT it is important to position yourself correctly. So list what you want to get out of the profession and what potential you have for making your mark. If you want to travel, decide where and for how long. If you prefer to teach immigrants in your country, look at the structures for doing so. If you are of a more academic disposition, look at how you can progress in university departments, perhaps doing research in linguistics or in some of the more specialist areas, such as testing. If you have a creative streak, think about how you might develop materials. If your strengths are managing teams of people then academic or general management might be your chosen path. Teacher training is another rewarding area.

Make sure you equip yourself with appropriate professional qualifications. If you have serious career ambitions, you want to be able to compete at the highest level. You don’t have to qualify all at one time. You can build up your portfolio of certificates incrementally, studying part-time if you need to. But don’t complain about poor career prospects if you haven’t bothered to put in the effort of becoming properly professionally qualified.

Make a timescale for your envisaged progress. You first need solid classroom experience. You need to gain a post of responsibility. You need to keep up to date with developments and changes. Make the most of any networking opportunities you have. Get noticed by attending and presenting at conferences. Successful careers rarely happen by accident.

And that brings me to another point. A successful career in ELT may look very different from other fields. Your progress is unlikely to be linear. It is likely to involve many changes of direction, many different locations. Earnings may be better in some years than others. But if you really want to have a career in ELT, I assure you it is possible, rewarding and full of interest.

Discussions of ageism in ELT crop up fairly regularly and cause me to think about the topic in a way that goes beyond the simple complaint that employers often discriminate against older teachers.

The first question I ask is whether ageism is more...

The second question I want to raise is the whether the youthful nature of most learners is a factor. Do employers feel that younger teachers would have greater empathy with their students? I have noted that in one centre I teach in, where the learners are often senior business people in middle age, most of the tutors are in their forties and fifties.

The next point concerns cultural differences and national employment patterns and laws. In western countries we have almost a cult of youth. Age is equated with an inescapable diminution of looks, physical prowess and mental agility. Yet in other cultures older people are respected for their accumulation of knowledge, experience and wisdom. Within these different attitudes there may be sex biases too. Older women may be viewed more negatively than older men in some societies. When it comes to employment patterns and laws, there is a vast variation across the globe. Age discrimination is against the law in the UK, for example, but some countries have statutory retirement ages, sometimes as young as 55.

My final point concerns the image of older people promulgated by ELT textbooks.
Several commentators have noted that the world of the ELT coursebook is populated by young, dynamic people. The image of older people is often projected through negatives, with a focus on what older people can no longer do. While the textbook may be seen as peripheral to the argument of age discrimination in employment, it serves to reinforce the sense that older people are somehow not a part of the ELT world.

Do any of these reflections lead me to make any helpful suggestion to older teachers looking for work? I think firstly that it is probably necessary to take a pragmatic approach. Ageism may be wrong but it is a fact of life. The older teacher may need to do extra research to find out where employers are likely to be less youth-obsessed. If experience rather than earnings are the object, then volunteer work could be a good option. Business English is another field in which the teacher’s previous experience might be seen as valuable.

To explore the topic further, see the 2002 IATEFL article by Bill Templer .

Language learning is not a quick and easy process. In a world in which instant gratification is expected, the time and effort needed to learn a language can seriously demotivate learners. This is a trend that I think will deepen ...

But I don’t want to digress too much on the shortcomings of modern approaches to learning. What can teachers do to keep learners on track in the laborious process of language learning? This month’s recommended book has excellent ideas and insights and many of the author’s tips from other writings are worthy of consideration.

As teachers we need to acknowledge our importance in the process. We have a great deal of influence. We can set an example by our own attitudes to the classroom. Properly prepared lessons are themselves an example of how effort is needed for anything worthwhile to be achieved. And our attitudes are crucial. I have met so many teachers who are cynical and world-weary. Yes, I know that we are underpaid, overworked and often faced with difficult classes. But why do we want to teach? If we can’t be enthusiastic about our subject and students, we should not be teachers. I remember vividly a teacher who was beset by health and personal problems. Yet she rose above them in her teaching. She was dedicated to giving her best in every lesson and her students made outstanding progress. In contrast, another teacher was often late, sloppily dressed, ill-prepared and short-tempered. His classes grew sparser and sparser. Teaching makes heavy personal demands on us and we need to understand that before we embark on a teaching career.

Dornyei also emphasizes the climate in the classroom. We need to help students enjoy the process of learning. Humour, games, competitions: these are the elements that help to create a pleasurable learning environment. Of course learning has its heavier side too but getting a balance between the hard work and the fun is important.

Two other factors worth mentioning are interest and personalization. One of the reasons I find course books restricting is that they predetermine the subject matter for the classes. I prefer to find out what interests the students and build lessons around that. Many years ago when Bulgaria was still a Communist country I taught a group of Bulgarian teachers. I was astounded to find out that they had an unquenchable thirst for information about the British Royal family. I found I could teach all sorts of structural and lexical lessons using information about this unique group.

And personalising the lessons means helping students understand how each lesson is a piece in their own learning jigsaw: show them how it will contribute to their goals. If necessary draw mind maps and learning trees to show how it all fits together.

Nowadays, more than ever, I think we have to help students understand how to learn in order to maintain their momentum.

This month I have chosen Zoltan Doernyei,(2001) Teaching and Researching Motivation
ISBN 0-582-38238-6, Persons Education Ltd., xii+295pp. Like the author, we may feel that the whole topic of language learning motivation is “characterised by a confusing plethora of competing theories, with little consensus and much disagreement among researchers”. Thus this book ...

The first section is an extremely useful guide to the theoretical background and to
past research and includes an examination of the most influential
schools of motivational psychology. Starting from basics, the author finds common ground among definitions, explaining that motivation concerns choice, persistence and effort. He goes on to provide quotations from the main theorists on motivation in general and learner motivation.

This is followed by helpful suggestions about motivational strategies and techniques in the classroom. This section is perhaps the most useful to teachers and particularly interesting is the examination of two factors that the author considers to have been neglected. The first is learner demotivation. This concerns external stimuli and classroom activity that can sabotage motivation in learners, even when it is intrinsically strong. The second is the motivation of teachers and the effect their own enthusiasm and integrity can have on students’ desire to learn.

The final section of the book contains useful resources, including web-sites, lists of key reference works and over 150 questionnaire items that the author has successfully used in the past. This area covers topics that also form the subjects of separats works, some of which can be downloaded from the Internet. For example, Ten commandments for motivating language learners: results of an empirical study, which appears on a list of works cited and is available in pdf format.

For me this book is the essential wok on motivation, covering as it does the theoretical background with clarity, giving helpful advice for the classroom and inspiring teachers to conduct their own research.

Any school belonging to an accreditation scheme will have to accept regular inspections to check its standards. For all the staff involved ...

Of course there is some truth in each of these comments. But the fact remains that a school has to be able to demonstrate that it is adhering to basic standards and inspection appears to be the best way of monitoring schools. It would be interesting to send in “mystery” students on the model of mystery shoppers, but it is difficult to see how that could be put into practice. Spot checks might be a better system than a full-scale inspection, but that might involve even more stress. So, given that inspections are a fact of life, how can schools prepare?

It should be viewed as an opportunity for a school to review its systems and practices. All departments should understand the specifications demanded by the scheme and check their systems and performance against those standards. I think it is a good idea to have one department inspect another. If any deviations from the scheme are found, they should be examined and either adjusted of justified. I think one very important point to bear in mind is that schools have a first responsibility to their students, so all systems should be devised with the interests of the students being a priority.

Inspectors will need to see that the premises and facilities are in good order so the pre-inspection period is a good time to carry out any repairs, update equipment and spruce up the décor. Administrative systems need to be efficient and transparent. Promotional material should be informative and accurate. Special attention will be paid to the way schools deal with juniors, so all welfare systems need to be checked to ensure that young people are properly protected.

However, teachers are the ones who usually feel they bear the brunt of inspections. I think the best approach is to play safe. Plan to teach lessons that you feel confident with and use tried and tested materials. This may not give you the opportunity to show off your most creative side but it will help reduce risk and stress. It would also help teachers to get used to the idea of an extra pair of eyes in the classroom if peer observation is set up on a regular basis.

One final point to make is that students are the best sources of feedback for your standards. Take all their post-course comments very seriously and try to deal with any weaknesses they have spotted. If students are giving the school glowing reports, then so should accrediting insectors.

A recurring issue in language teaching and learning is how to measure students’ progress. Here, I am making a distinction between assessing or evaluating knowledge and providing an indication of what has been achieved after a course of study. It might sound like...

A similar problem occurs if levels are assigned on arrival. How long will it take a student to reach the next level? As each learner is different, the answer to that question is ‘how long is a piece of string?’ And what of advanced students who are already near the top of the scale? Levels and benchmarks are useful for offering a broad view of a learner’s position on a scale but they are not sensitive enough to measure progress.

The school’s dilemma is that learners and their sponsors need to feel that the investment of time and money in training is worthwhile, so progress must be demonstrated. I don’t think this measurement can be done in a simply objective manner. It requires the collaboration of the learner with teachers. Take the student who gets a disappointing exit test result, for example. It would be dispiriting for that learner to go away feeling that no progress had been made. But a test cannot measure many of the affective and cognitive aspects of learning. The student may feel much more confident in tackling certain tasks, even if errors are still made. The student may understand why s/he makes certain errors even if the errors are still there. Perhaps the students have devised new learning strategies that will allow them to continue with self-study after the course. Maybe they simply less hesitant. I remember a student who had a good grasp of English but never completed a sentence without asking for reassurance that what he was saying was correct. Helping him break that habit was a breakthrough. But these aspects of learning are not easy to test.

With levels, it might not be possible to take a step up. But the learners may have really consolidated what they already knew so that they have a firmer foundation. Also it is not uncommon to reach a learning plateau, where you just seem to tread water for a while, although on a subconscious level a lot may be happening.

I suggest that learners need to discuss their objectives with their teachers at the beginning of the course to arrive at a set of targets that are both realisable and tangible. Teachers can make suggestions at that point for areas such as confidence or learning techniques that the students might not have thought about. I often use the Johari window to explain how the student may have some hidden objectives. Questionnaires can also be used to asses the level of confidence a student feels in each of the skills.
It is then helpful if the learner keeps a diary and notes on a daily basis which targets have been achieved. The teacher too should give post-lesson feedback. At the end of the course, the progress can be measured through a series of statements that a learner completes, e.g.

I have learnt --% of the new vocabulary I needed.
I understand why I have been making all/most/some of my errors.
I am much more/ more/slightly more confident in the carrying out the following tasks in English…..

I think the statements could be supplemented by a list of new learning targets for future study.

This kind of approach clearly treats each student as an individual learner with very personal needs. But it also involves students in the self-reflection, which in itself helps them become more effective learners.

I doubt if hopeful teachers ...

If you need to take out your own health insurance, you need to arrange this before you leave for your new post. Do some research to come up with the best deal but look for the following areas of cover: hospital care, accident compensation, loss of earnings, repatriation, dental care. Of course teachers in Mexico might well find that they can’t easily be repatriated if they are considered infectious, but to have proper insurance in circumstances like these means that at least you and your family know you can be properly cared for.

I stress the importance of shopping around as such insurance is not cheap. The charges also depend on the age of the inured person and the country to which they are going. Of course we all hope not to fall ill under such circumstances but this latest example of flu spreading so rapidly shows how easy it is to be caught unawares and completely randomly in a health crisis.