Catherine Walter "Learning Grammar and Pronunciation: what do we know, and what can we do about it?"

Catherine's talk started with the overview of popular grammar teaching approaches and their merits and drawbacks.  She pointed out that many of them neglect explicit grammar teaching (e.g. immersion). However, there are many definite advantages of this method: it is straightforward,  it helps to notice language features and gives negative feedback  (things that don't happen in the language ). There is also enough evidence to conclude that explicit grammar teaching does work (Norris&Ortega 2000; Gass&Selinker 2000).  The research found that it leads both to conscious and unconscious acquisition and has a lasting effect.
Some people think that the  best way to introduce grammar is when the need for it comes from a student. We can also create a situation for it artificially. On the other hand, in the  class setting it can be difficult to satisfy all the different needs different students have. It can also be challenging for the teacher to come up with the perfect explanation for a grammar point on the spot.
Catherine also shared her understanding of 3E system necessary for successful  explicit grammar teaching.

1. Explanation (or rules)  could be of different types. One - such as street signs and notices- are exposed by an authority. The other such as facts of nature are a result of observation of natural linguistic processes. The latter is the most desired one for teaching grammar. There are 6 criteria a teacher have to bear in mind while presenting a rule (both deductively and inductively). It should 
□be true
□demarcate (should clearly show the limits of the use of a given form).
□be clear
□ be simple
□be conceptually economical  (do not contain new and difficult concepts)
□ be relevant

2. EXAMPLES should be
☆prototypical
☆naturally sounding
☆ not contain irrelevant difficulties
☆there should be enough of them

3. EXERCISES give students opportunity to develop fluency

In the question of pronunciation, Katherine considers receptive skills to be more important than productive skills (for most learners). She also sees a strong link between grammar and pronunciation. Schwa is the most common sound in English language, it is often found in grammar words. So a teacher can incorporate pronunciation teaching (in form of decoding activities) into regular grammar lesson

Rimma Chaldymbaeva "10 reasons to use smartphones and tablets at efl classes"

Rimma has been using a tablet and a smartphone for three years now and she has 10 good reasons why you should do it too.

1. Personalization.
Idea: ask a student for a letter from an alphabet. Then search for the contact in your phone starting with this letter. Name him/her and ask students to ask you questions about this person. Then students can work in pairs 

2. Motivation
Idea: add some listening to a traditional running dictation. Record a story/text on your smartphone and make students transfer it to their notebook.
Tools: Kahoot.it for engaging quizzes

3. Organizing learning process. Ss can note down homework, a teacher can use digital notebooks like evernote to send students reminders and share the materials from the class

4. Economy. No paper involved!

5. Differentiation.
Idea: Ss choose podcasts or video they would like to watch and control the speed and number of times they will watch/listen to it. 

6. Facilitates special needs education.
Tools: Proloquo2go enables speech impaired learners communicate with a teacher in the class.

7. Evidence.
Idea: Ss can record an interview and evidence for their project/homework

8. Assessment and self assessment. In a big class with no time to spare try using the following
Tools: Socrative.com
Polleverywhere.com
Idea: ask Ss to record their voice in the lesson and check it after the lesson.

9. Reflection and self-reflection. Ss are able to record and document their progress
Tools: use whatsapp to give students feedback

10. Learning outside the classroom-> developing autonomy

Herbert Puchta "Teaching Very Young Learners - What's Hot and What Not"

The first plenary of #emf5 was devoted to something I have a very basic competence in - teaching young learners. I have to admit, I did start my teaching career with the interview for the pre-school English courses. Luckily, they didn't take me. Luckily because I later found out that it is almost a completely different area of esl, and I was more comfortable teaching teenagers and adults. However, I found Herbert Puchta's quite interesting and realised I was a true beliver in many myths that surround teaching YL and which the speaker tried to debunk.
The speaker started with the arguments against teaching YL. He claimed that there was no solid evidence for a Critical Period hypothesis. Moreover, small children do learn much slower than, say, adolescents. On the other hand, there is no scientific backing-up for the theory that learning second language will influence child's 1st language acquisition. Puchta himself admitted that he is in no way against teaching English to YL pointing out some distinct advantages of starting out early such as increased motivation, enhanced cognitive development and improved attitude to English in the future.

That said, he continued with what he thought should be necessarily at the core of teaching YL.

1. Quantity. Lessons should be regular and happen more often than, say, once a week.
2. Embedded interaction. Learning has to happen in the context and create classroom culture of participation. An old input-output system will just not work on its won with YL
3. Embodied interaction as in use of one's body. Quite often children can't express themselves in words even in their first language, so watching the body language of your students can be a valuable resource  in the classroom.
4.  Cognition. Hebert didn't put it in a separate category, but I felt a lot of words were said about it. The idea was traced back to Lev Vygotsky's theory of "shared cognition" that places a great importance of parent-child interaction. Thinking and speech in this situation go together and develop simultaneously. Another side of it is gently pushing learners beyond what they know and can do because learners will always have a need to express more than they can.
5. Stories.  Puchta reminded us that stories help children make sense of  and experience the world around them. Child's thinking is ultimately story thinking and their understanding of the world is  mythic understanding. So stories are a quick way into that reality. The speaker warned us against "fake-stories" often published in textbooks and reminded us 4 properties of a real story

• it has to have beginning-middle-end structure
• it has to involve some magic (like talking animals)
• something unexpected should happen
• there should be strong emotional contrasts

Herbert concluded with the hope that there are three competences teachers have to pass on their learners

communicative, linguistic and personal.

Premier Skills Lesson Plan Competition

Premier Skills English - a project promoting English learning through football - organised a lesson plan competition. To enter you have to register on the site, watch and choose one video (interview with players) and design a lesson plan around it. The deadline for applying is 10th April - so you still have time. The winner is the entry with the most shares.
I have also entered the competition and submitted a lesson plan. Please consider checking out my submission and sharing it if you find it worthy :) Thank you!

#emf5

E-merging forum 5 is almost here and I'm excited to attend it in a new role - I'm going to be a registered blogger! This means I'm going to write 1 or 2 posts a day through all three days of the conference! I've never done anything like that and I'm not sure I can think/write/proofread that fast but I hope it will be fun :)

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What is E-merging forum? It's an annual conference for ELT professionals organised by British Council. It's held in Moscow and this year it will take place from 12th to 14th of March. Each day consists of several plenaries and about 15 meetings of 5 special interests groups. On the third day participants can join a discussion group of their interest and take part in the final presentation. If you can't come, a few of the sessions will be streamed online.
In my own experience, the forum is a great place for teachers to meet, talk, discuss, listen, get inspired and even relax. So if you still haven't made up your mind about it, I strongly recommend you to come or check out the live sessions.  Here you can read my impressions from the last forum.

See you there!

Twitter and Graded Readers

This semester we're reading "The Body" by Stephen King with my Intermediate classs and I can already tell my students are enjoying it much more than "The Tales of Mystery and Imagination" we read last semester. Last week we read 6 chapters filled with many events and to consolidate the narrative I suggested the following activity. It can work well with other stories and readers, especially if they're set in pre-internet era.

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1. Ask your students "How would the story be different if it had happened nowadays?" The topic of social media will come up pretty soon.

2. Draw their attention to Twitter, ask if anybody's using it or know about it. "What's so special about this social network?" - the length of the posts is limited to 140 characters.

3. Ask "What is a hashtag?". Elicit possible hashtags for this novella.

4. Now explain that the Ss are going  to work in pairs or groups and create twitter accounts and messages for the characters of the book. They don't actually have to create an account electronically, just fill in the template. Variants include

• everybody in the class takes one character and composes tweets from his point of view
• everybody has a different character and composes tweets from his point of view
• Ss create twitter news feed that includes messages from different characters of the story.

Remind them to stay within 140 characters and encourage the use of hashtags.

5. Give them around 10-15 minutes (in my class they needed to create just 5 tweets), monitor and help if needed.

6. Display the tweets around the class and ask everyone to read them. Choose the best/ the most creative/ the funniest tweet. I think my Ss had fun writing the tweets and here are some examples:

Gordie "Just fired a #gun. Still can't believe it #wow"

Milo "Stupid children. Gonna get fired #lovechopper"

Teddy "Just been pushed away. So sad #liketrains"

Gordie "#lol looking for body #amazing #trip"

Gordie "The secret will die with us #bestfriends"

Gordie "I'm an olympic champion in leaping over the fence #athleticGordie"

As an extension you can actually set up a twitter account for one or several characters and ask you students to update it as you move along the book. If you have different accounts for different characters they can interact, comment and share their posts making the experience more authentic and bringing the story to life.

My #dailyELTroutine

I recently came across this post in Joanna's blog about her daily teaching routine. It's inspired me to write about my typical day.

Country: Russia
*Most of the time my schedule is so relaxed that sometimes I even feel a little guilty about it :)

9.00-10.30 Wake up. Yes, it's that late! In winter, especially from November to January, it's almost impossible to wake up earlier than that. Although I used to do it last year when I had two 8 am classes a week. Lately, the sun has been appearing more often, so it's really pleasant to wake up to this view.

10.00-12.00 Have coffee, browse the Internet, start preparing. I have a rule of preparing a lesson a day in advance, so I'm never in a rush. So if it's Tuesday today, I'm preparing for Wednesday classes. I also have two skype lessons a week that start at 11.00am

12.00-13.00 Prepare lunch, get ready, go! I go to my school twice a week and it takes about an hour to get there. I like getting there 30-40 minutes  in advance, so I can print, copy, cut everything I need and lay them out in a convenient way. This way, I don't have to think about having the right paper during the class. If I don't go to school, I go to my students who luckily live nearby or have lessons in my place (in this case a proper cleaning is involved beforehand)

15.00-20.30 Classes! Usually, I have 3-4 back-to-back classes which can be exhausting. Sometimes I can sneak in a cup of a tea or a banana or a chat with a colleague :) But more often I feel drained by the end of the day, so I take it slowly on the way back and try to unwind before coming home.

22.00-24.00 Home time, an episode of "Seinfeld" and sleep!