Google is special among search engines in that it has become a starting point for enquiries and data searches of all forms. As most of this data is linguistic, it deserves special attention from language teachers, but until now, search has been largely ignored by most course writers.

In this article I give several practical examples of how you can use Gffoogle, combined with a lexical approach to teaching, to enrich your class material with authentic examples, as well as building learner autonomy.

Google and lexis
Lexis, as most of you will know, is simply another term for ‘vocabulary’. The Lexical Approach treats language as a series of prefabricated lexical chunks. Its methodology puts grammar in second place to vocabulary.

The approach I will outline here is based on inputting ‘lexical chunks’ (strings of vocabulary or phrases) into Google’s various search functions to find samples of real world text. These are split into different types.

How Google treats language

This is a little complicated. What you need to know is that…

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Homework
by BBC TeachingEnglish Editor

“Homework seems to be an accepted part of teachers’ and students’ routines, but there is little mention of it in ELT literature. The role of homework is hardly mentioned in the majority of general ELT texts or training courses, suggesting that there is little question as to its value even if the resulting workload is time-consuming. However, there is clearly room for discussion of homework policies and practices particularly now that technology has made so many more resources available to learners outside the classroom.

Reasons for homework

• Attitudes to homework
• Effective homework
• Types of homework
• Conclusion

Reasons for homework

• Homework is expected by students, teachers, parents and institutions.
• Homework reinforces and helps learners to retain information taught in the classroom as well as increasing their general understanding of the language.
• Homework develops study habits and independent learning. It also encourages learners to acquire resources such as dictionaries and grammar reference books. Research shows that homework also benefits factual knowledge, self-discipline, attitudes to learning and problem-solving skills.
• Homework offers opportunities for extensive activities in the receptive skills which there may not be time for in the classroom. It may also be an integral part of ongoing learning such as project work and the use of a graded reader.”

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istening is one of the most challenging skills for our students to develop and yet also one of the most important. By developing their ability to listen well we develop our students’ ability to become more independent learners, as by hearing accurately they are much more likely to be able to reproduce accurately, refine their understanding of grammar and develop their own vocabulary.

In this article I intend to outline a framework that can be used to design a listening lesson that will develop your students’ listening skills and look at some of the issues involved.

• The basic framework

• Pre-listening

• While listening

• Post-listening

• Applying the framework to a song

• Some conclusions”

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Here is Gavin Dudeney’s second exclusive article for TeachingEnglish.

I’m fortunate enough to be able to go to quite a few face-to-face conferences every year, generally as a speaker, though I also attend as many sessions as I can at each event – there’s always something to learn from any speaker, no matter how experienced they are. This year I’ve seen some great speakers, not just some of the more famous people in ELT, but a wide variety of teachers talking about what they do with great passion, and sharing their experiences and teaching ideas. In fact, these types of events are my favourite kind of professional development, combining – as they do – the talks, plenaries and workshops with fun social activities and occasionally some sightseeing.

But of course not everybody is lucky enough to be able to go to these events very often, and have to rely on local development opportunities such as workshops or in-school training. And, at least in my experience, this is actually relatively rare too. In all my travels this year I’ve met hundreds of teachers who receive no professional development each year. It’s as if they’ve simple been forgotten about… Now they’re in place and teaching, there’s no need to develop them any further or help them widen their repertoire, at least that is what seems to me happens in many schools. So what is a teacher to do in that kind of situation?

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Duncan says, “I have often found that learners of all levels feel that there is inadequate time spent on listening in most language courses. Adult learners often complain that (sometimes) after years of study, they can’t understand native speakers. This is partly because they do not receive adequate exposure to authentic texts in class. Another is that it’s hard to find authentic audio texts that can be easily adapted for classroom use.

To tackle these issues, I have developed an approach to listening based loosely on the way children learn languages. I’ve found this to be hugely advantageous in my own language learning, and have passed it on to my students with considerable success.

Children versus adults – children win
According to estimates (Pinker, S., The Language Instinct, 150-151), an average six year old commands about 13,000 words, equivalent to acquiring a new word every two hours.

Children have huge advantages over adult foreign learners in the classroom – they are constantly exposed to the target language and their brains are optimized for rapid language acquisition.

In this article, I argue for a ‘simulated immersion’ approach. The idea is that learners engage in a variety of different types of listening in their own time, similar to what they would encounter if they were living in an English speaking country. Essentially they are trying to mimic the language learning behaviour of young children.”

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Topical news stories are a great source of teaching material. This article presents different ways to exploit news reports in the classroom and focuses on raising the level of involvement and participation that the students have in the lesson.

• Selection criteria

• Before reading

• First reading

• Second reading

• Language focus

• Follow up

• Sources

 Selection criteria

It is important that you choose your news article wisely. You should consider the following criteria.

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This is, of course, as much a key topic in the UK as it was in 1985 when this book was originally published. The book aimed to cover ‘English teaching to British residents’ and addresses teaching children in the school sector; teaching adults in education and in the workplace; and teacher training, among others. One chapter asks ‘Can ESL teaching be racist?’

English as a Second Language in the United Kingdom

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Alan says, “In this, the first of two articles for TeachingEnglish, Alan Maley considers the benefits extensive reading can bring to English language learners and teachers.

What is Extensive Reading (ER)?

Extensive Reading is often referred to but it is worth checking on what it actually involves.  Richard Day has provided a list of key characteristics of ER (Day 2002). This is complemented by Philip Prowse (2002). Maley (2008) deals with ER comprehensively. The following is a digest of the two lists of factors or principles for successful ER:

1. Students read a lot and read often.
2. There is a wide variety of text types and topics to choose from.
3. The texts are not just interesting: they are engaging/ compelling.
4. Students choose what to read.
5. Reading purposes focus on: pleasure, information and general understanding.
6. Reading is its own reward.
7. There are no tests, no exercises, no questions and no dictionaries.
8. Materials are within the language competence of the students.
9. Reading is individual, and silent.
10. Speed is faster, not deliberate and slow.
11. The teacher explains the goals and procedures clearly, then monitors and guides the students.
12. The teacher is a role model…a reader, who participates along with the students.

The model is very much like that for L1 reading proposed by Atwell (2006).  It has been variously described as Free Voluntary Reading (FEVER), Uninterrupted Silent Reading (USR), Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), Drop Everything and Read (DEAR), or Positive Outcomes While Enjoying Reading (POWER).”

‘Extensive reading: why it is good for our students… and for us’ by Alan Maley

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Creative writing for language learners (and teachers)

by Alan Maley

Creative writing normally refers to the production of texts which have an aesthetic rather than a purely informative, instrumental or pragmatic purpose. Most often, such texts take the form of poems or stories, though they are not confined to these genres. (Letters, journal entries, blogs, essays, travelogues, etc. can also be more or less creative.) In fact, the line between creative writing (CW) and expository writing (ER) is not carved in stone. In general, however CW texts draw more heavily on intuition, close observation, imagination, and personal memories than ER texts.  

One of the chief distinguishing characteristics of CW texts is a playful engagement with language, stretching and testing its rules to the limit in a guilt-free atmosphere, where risk is encouraged. Such writing combines cognitive with affective modes of thinking. As the poet, R.S. Thomas once wrote, ‘Poetry is that which arrives at the intellect by way of the heart.’ The playful element in CW should not, however be confused with a lax and unregulated use of language. On the contrary, CW requires a willing submission on the part of the writer to the ‘rules’ of the sub-genre being undertaken. If you want to write a Limerick, then you have to follow the rules governing limericks. If not, what you produce will be something other than a limerick: obvious, perhaps, but important too. The interesting thing is that the very constraints which the rules impose seem to foster rather than restrict the creativity of the writer. This apparent paradox is explained partly by the deeper processing of thought and language which the rules require.

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Using the Holy Bible As an Authentic Language Learning Text
By Larry M. Lynch

Foreign Language Learning

There are a slew of commercial textbooks, guidebooks and all manner of language learning study aids when studying English as a foreign or second language. The same is true for most other main stream, major languages like French, German, Italian, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese among scores of others. This is all well and good. But with approximately 6912* languages spoken and used worldwide, it’s still a daunting task to come up with “authentic” language texts. This can be especially true in any of the “lesser” tongues of the world which may be spoken in tightly-knit, compact regions or among a specialized peoples or other ethnic aspect.

The Holy Bible

The Holy Bible, in its entirety or in part is available in more than 376 languages world wide in 236 countries and lands. Being so widely available, it can be easily accessed by the vast majority of English or foreign language learners throughout the globe.

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