How Languages are Learned by Patsy M. Lightbrown and Nina Spada

Very accessible theory

How Languages are Learned seems very much to be aimed at teachers just starting out on their careers but also has much that an experienced professional may appreciate. At around 225 pages it is a relatively slim volume but packs in a lot of information. Beginning with a discussion on popular ideas about language learning, the book then moves through first language acquisition, second language acquisition and how this is approached in classroom settings, until finally coming back full circle, to re-examine ideas about teaching in light of current theory.

The best thing about this book is its accessibility. It is an odd fact that many academics in this field seem to revel in the impenetrability of their language. Lightbrown and Spada are refreshing in the clarity they bear to the subject. The book doesn’t so much shy away from jargon as use it judiciously, always taking pains to explain new or difficult terms. One obvious way that it does this is to use capital letters to highlight words; these are then easily found upon returning to the text. The book also contains an excellent and clear glossary.

How Languages are Learned is the distillation of much research and material (including the authors’ own). A good historical overview of SLA and language teaching theory is provided which really does help one to understand where currently accepted ideas have arisen. While it appears popular in this discipline to try to discredit past approaches to teaching, (such as the grammar translation or audio lingual methods) Lightbrown and Spada don’t fall into this category. They don’t hesitate to point out the limitations of previous approaches, but do also show how in some ways, those approaches did get it right. The reader is encouraged to think critically about many methods and to use what is effective in his or her own language teaching.

This would be an excellent book to read before embarking on more difficult material such as English Language Teaching in its Social Context as it provides a good introduction to ideas and theory without overburdening the reader. I also found it to be a useful recap on other books I have read, while also being thought-provoking. The end of each chapter also provides a lot of ideas for further reading which look very interesting.

Although accessible, sometimes the book did feel a little brief; Chapter 5 “Observing learning and teaching in the second language classroom” certainly felt this way. Overall however, this is a great book and one that should be good preparation for any reader embarking on further, more in-depth reading.

Innovation in English Language Teaching edited by David R. Hall and Ann Hewings

An interesting look at curriculum innovation

This book is the third in a series published by Routledge in its Teaching English Language Worldwide series. It is very similar in structure to English Language Teaching in its Social Context, which I reviewed last month, in that it consists of a number of essays by different authors that have been collected into one volume. I found the title to be a little misleading, as while it certainly does cover innovation in general, the focus here is mostly on advances in curriculum design. This is most obvious from the contents page where the essays are grouped into four sections: Directions in curriculum change; Political and institutional constraints in curriculum development; Planning and implementing curriculum change; Evaluating curriculum change. Despite this there is much here to interest teachers in terms of day to day teaching.

Overall I found this to be both briefer and more accessible than the other book. Innovation comes across as much more practical than the other volume. There is a lot of theory here, and it is by no means a light read (especially the final chapter). However, the shorter length of the essays and their comparative reliance on and use of research made within classrooms makes it easier to comprehend and apply to teaching situations.

As the essays don’t reference each other as much as the other book it appears that fewer of them have been specially written for it, but despite (or maybe because of) this there is an interesting range of articles. I got a lot out of this book.

Highlights are the chapter on academic writing by Ann Hewings and Martin Hewings, and also the chapter on implementing curriculum change in Hong Kong by David R. Carless. This latter chapter was great for me in terms of my work here in Taiwan teacher training.

Given the title I think that this book needs to be revised very soon and not just reprinted, but it is a good book to read in tandem with English Language Teaching in its Social Context. I am now tempted to try the first in the series (Analysing English Language in a Global Context). If you are an experienced teacher I recommend the series.

Using newspapers to teach skimming, scanning and reading for detail

It was while recently reading Inside Teaching by Tim Bowen and Jonathan Marks, that I picked up this great idea for using newspapers to teach reading skills which I have expanded below. My students have found this to be a very engaging series of tasks. Much of this is work that students can do with very little direct teacher input, thus giving opportunities to see students at work and reflect upon their learning styles and individual abilities.

Level: Pre-intermediate to advanced (B1 and above)

Aims: To give practice in different reading strategies such as skimming, scanning and reading for detail; to make knowledge of these strategies explicit to students; to practice making questions; to encourage collaborative work and the division of responsibilities; to explore newspapers.

Objectives: To complete a teacher-constructed quiz; to devise a quiz; to complete a student-constructed quiz.

Preparation: Multiple copies of the same newspaper (the amount will depend on your class size but I would suggest that one copy for 3-4 students is a good ratio); a pre-prepared quiz of 8-10 questions.

Procedure:

1. Create your own quiz of 8-10 questions based on a newspaper of your choice. The complexity of the questions and the type of newspaper will depend on your class. Will your students prefer to work with broadsheets or tabloids? Be aware though that while much of the subject matter in tabloid newspapers is simpler than that of their broadsheet counterparts, the language used can be just as (if not more) challenging for students.
2. Devise questions that have clear answers that can only be found by reading the newspaper. Such a question might be “Where did President Obama give a speech yesterday?”
3. Work out a range of questions that can only be answered by looking at many different sections of the newspaper. All areas are fair game here: Politics; entertainment; the weather; culture; classified ads; horoscopes.
4. Make your quiz progressively more difficult. The answer to question 1 could be in one of the headlines on the first few pages, while question 10 could be embedded in a small ad.
5. Demonstrate the activity to the whole class by writing a simple example question on the board. Show the process of skimming and scanning as you search for the answer. Stop short of finding the answer.
6. Divide your class into groups of 3-4 students. Ask the students to find the answer to the question on the board. Encourage them to make their work more efficient by dividing the paper up between them.
7. When one group has found the answer stop the class and ask them to explain how they found it.
8. Now distribute your quiz. Skimming and scanning are skills that are often performed in exam conditions and therefore must be done quickly and under pressure. Simulate this by making the quiz into a race. Give the groups a time limit (15-20 minutes is usually a good idea depending on the quiz) but also give any group the option of halting the quiz when they think they have finished (they could do this by shouting out a team name or ringing a bell for example).
9. When the time is up, or one group stops the activity, go through the answers as a class. Include all the groups as you elicit where and how they found the answers.

Now its time for the teams to shift their focus from skimming and scanning skills to reading for detail and forming questions.

1. Tell the groups that they are now going to make their own quiz based on the same newspaper.
2. Set a time limit for making the quiz and tell the class how many questions it should make. It’s a good idea to have each member of the group responsible for a certain amount of questions. In a group of four each person could write two questions, thus creating an eight question quiz.
3. Get the students to write a first draft and encourage them to edit each other’s work so that the questions are formed properly and make sense. You may need to do some work here, helping students out with grammar and spelling.
4. Eventually have each group write out multiple copies of their quiz. This ensures that everybody has something to do. Also it means when the other groups do the quiz they will have more than one copy to look at.

Now simply have the students complete another group’s quiz .

I found this got my students to read the newspaper enthusiastically. Because they were reading with a view to create questions, they didn’t worry about understanding everything. The positive offshoot of this is that they were able to relax and really engage with the content of the newspaper. It was very interesting to see people sitting down and concentrating for long periods of time on one single piece of a broadsheet. I’ve found this lesson to work with all ages too, from children to adults. Afterwards the students feel empowered that they have managed to create something quite sophisticated with the minimum of teacher help.

While the activity itself is rather artificial, it does practice many different skills and it does also use authentic material. It really is a good opportunity for exploring real world English. Students also often find interesting stories that they wish to share with the class for their own sake, or that can be exploited by the teacher at a later date.

The lesson promotes a lot of discussion, as students not only discuss what the answers to questions are, but also what could constitute good quiz questions.

I intend to repeat a similar process to this with different types of texts. It will be interesting to see how students make a quiz based on a piece of audio or video. Also, I have considered that it may be a good way to prepare students for reading exams, enabling them to get inside the mind of a test deviser and allowing them to make their own test preparation materials.