AUTHENTICITY

Reflect on the following definitions of authenticity/authentic materials and choose one or two that seem most relevant to your own teaching context.

1. For the traditional ESP practitioner, there was no simplification of real discourse for pedagogical purposes; instead, authentic, unmodified oral and written texts were provided for students at every proficiency level. A new definition for authenticity has arisen which considers the authenticity of strategies and activities instead of the authenticity of discourse.

(Ann M. Johns)

2. Pure, authentic materials are not possible in ELT classroom, e.g. an article cut from a real newspaper used in whatever way in class is no longer authentic. But what we can have is quasi-authentic material, either real or written in authentic style that is treated in class in a manner close to how it is used in the real world.

(Pat McLaughlin)

3. Authentic texts can actually be created by the ESP teacher or student, as long as they follow the regular rhetorical pattern.

(Wood)

4. 'Authentic materials' are 'genuine' materials removed from their real-life context for use in a communicative classroom. (Mike Scholey)

TYPES OF SYLLABUSES

Dear colleagues, while reading the descriptions of different types of syllabuses think about the principles behind each type of syllabus.

1. Grammatical

A list of grammatical structures, such as the present tense, comparison of adjectives, relative clauses, usually divided into sections graded according to difficulty and/or importance.

2. Lexical

A list of lexical items (girl, boy, go away . . .) with associated collocations and idioms, usually divided into graded sections. One such syllabus, based on a corpus (a computerized collection of samples of authentic language) is described in Willis, 1990.

3. Grammatical-lexical

A very common kind of syllabus: both structures and lexis are specified: either together, in sections that correspond to the units of a course, or in two separate lists.

4. Situational

These syllabuses take the real-life contexts of language uses as their basis: sections would be headed by names of situations or locations such as 'Eating a meal' or 'In the street'.

5. Topic-based

This is rather like the situational syllabus, except that the headings are broadly topic-based, including things like 'Food' or 'The family'; these usually indicate! fairly clear set of vocabulary items, which may be specified.

6. Notional

'Notions' are concepts that language can express. General notions may include 'number', for example, or 'time', 'place', 'colour'; specific notions look more like vocabulary items: 'man', 'woman', 'afternoon'. For an introduction to the topic of notional syllabuses see Wilkins, 1976.

7. Functional-notional

Functions are things you can do with language, as distinct from notions you can express: examples are 'identifying', 'denying', 'promising'. Purely functional syllabuses are rare: usually both functions and notions are combined, as for example in Van Ek, 1990.

8. Mixed or 'multi-strand'

Increasingly, modern syllabuses are combining different aspects in order to be maximally comprehensive and helpful to teachers and learners; in these you may find specification of topics, tasks, functions and notions, as well as grammar and vocabulary.

9. Procedural

These syllabuses specify the learning tasks to be done rather than the language itself or even its meanings. Examples of tasks might be: map reading, doing scientific experiments, story-writing. The most well-known procedural syllabus is that associated with the Bangalore Project (Prabhu, 1987).

10. Process

This is the only syllabus which is not pre-set. The content of the course is negotiated with the learners at the beginning of the course and during it, and actually listed only retrospectively (Candlin, 1984; Clarke, 1991).

Points for reflection Analyse your own teaching situation and decide on type of syllabus you use with your students. Write a comment to describe it and see if there are any similarities with your colleagues.

Source: Ur, P. (2002) A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP, pp.178-9

TYPES OF LEARNERS

Think of the students you’ve taught and try to identify one or two students who seemed to learn with particular facility$ one or two who seemed to learn with particular difficulty.
In your own classroom observe your students and attempt to identify their preferred styles of learning and their characteristics.
Read the explanation of four types of learners identified by Honey and Mumford.
1. The ACTIVIST learns by doing the task. In the language classroom, these are the learners who enjoy the communicative tasks or the communication practice. They enjoy using the language and experimenting with communication.
2. The THEORIST learns by understanding the underlying theory. These are the learners who want to know why a particular language form is used in a specific situation or why a particular communication technique is appropriate in a particular setting.
3. The PRAGMATIST learns by practising in a controlled environment. These learners enjoy the security of controlled practice exercises. They often feel that this stage gives them the confidence to use language forms or communication accurately.
4. The REFLECTOR learns by watching others doing the task. These learners are likely to feel insecure about their ability to perform in the language. However, in a secure environment they become willing to participate in the range of communicative tasks and communication activities.
(Honey P. & Mumford A.(1982) Manual of Learning Styles. London: P. Horney)
Note: Given a task, such as improving presentation techniques, each learner will approach the task with their preferred learning style. Some learners will be more successful than others. If we can adapt our training style to their learning style, we can go some way to helping them achieve their learning objectives more effectively. This approach involves: - identifying and being aware of the learning styles of your learners; - providing classroom tasks adapted to their style.
Points for reflection
Do you think this classification of types of learners helps to explain different effect of your students’ learning?
 How can you help “problem learners” to learn more efficiently?
 How can you make the most of the learning styles of your learners?
 Do the learning styles of your students correspond to the observations made by Honey and Mumford?
PLEASE, DON'T FORGET TO POST YOUR COMMENTS!

THE ROCKS STORY

Dear colleagues, we'd like you to reflect on this story while reading it and to think how it is connected with the course you are doing now and with your teaching practice in general. Post your comments to the blog.

I would like to begin today with a story. It's a story about a distinguished professor - Professor Don Redden - who was giving a talk to a group of students at a tertiary institution just outside Dublin, in the Republic of Ireland. In his presentation, Professor Redden asked his audience a number of questions emanating from some visual aids he had brought with him. Showing first an opaque jar, he put as many rocks as he could into it and asked if it were full. The students answered a very positive 'yes.' Without saying anything the distinguished academic, now put as many pebbles as he could into the jar and then asked the same question. The response was again 'yes' but there were some reservations on the part of the audience. Professor Redden then filled the jar with sand. On asking the same question, this time there was no response. The professor next added as much water as he could to the jar from a jug. 'Is the jar now full,' he asked. The silence was deafening. Professor Redden next dissolved salt into the water, over the sand, the pebbles and the rocks. . 'Well, is the jar now full,' he asked. A brave student near the back of the hall broke the silence by answering, with great confidence, 'No,, Professor, no. The jar is not full.' Professor Redden looked around the hall and said, 'Ah, but the jar is full' and with that he invited the audience to do some reflecting-on-action and to consider both the purpose and the meaning of his demonstration. After a moment, he invited the students to offer their interpretations and he allowed each and everyone one of them to speak. When they had finished he thanked them and said that he was not surprised that each of them had their own different interpretations for, he said, each of them was a unique individual, with unique experiences of life. Finally, he asked them if they would like to know his interpretation of the demonstration. With great enthusiasm they said that they would. 'Well, I will give you my interpretation, then. But remember. My interpretation is no better nor worse than any of yours,' he said looking round the hall as he spoke. 'My interpretation is this: whatever you do in life, whatever the context, always remember to get your rocks in first.' And with that, Professor Redden left the podium. Well, that's the story. The story will have touched you all in different ways - some of you might be happy with it (after all, many of us like listening to stories) but some of you will almost certainly not be happy. There might be those among you who think that it is a boring story, one that had a disappointing ending - it might even have agitated some of you. Well, there's nothing I can do about that, I'm afraid - that's the way the story goes: the story stands as it stands.