Films & Books

There is a very interesting and exciting discussion going on at the moment at the LMCS Yahoo Group about film adaptations of novels. It is being fielded by Alan Pulverness and having him with us is a real priviledge. We are seeing this as a warm-up for the IATEFL LMCS Pre-Conference Event in Harrogate next April, which will have the same theme. Judging by the success of the discussion so far, I think we will have a great event. 

As in any discussion, there are some people who post much more than others, but at least very consistent and relevant content is being raised there. For me to try to address this unbalance is always a big challenge. Besides that,  knowing when and how to change from my moderator’s hat to the participants’ one is not an easy thing. I confess that sometimes I would like to go a further furlong and be more analytical and back my ideas too, but I have to remind myself that this is not why I am there for. My role is not to write essays on my views or actively engage in the debate – this space is for the members not for the moderator.

Anyaway, it’s been great fun but a lot of work!

Yes! Well-done Tocantins!!

Yes! e-English Course for Teachers has been a success to a certain extent. This was the first of all the online groups the British Council Brazil is training online in partnership with Local Education Authorities. I took over after February and we have offcially finished with this group yesterday.

It started as a huge group, but many got lost on the way. It demanded a lot of perseverance and willingness to study from this group of public school teachers, who have already a lot to do in their schools and classrooms, to go back to the position of students and do all their homework and posts. It was hard at times and participation wasn’t always optimal and steady as we expected, but I hope that the ones who got to the end will realise how much their English has improved in these months. It is actually amazing if we compare their first writings and posts with the last ones.

I’m really really proud of my students because I know how difficult it is for most of them to keep the motivation to do self-study in a quite long online course like this. Well-done everyone!!

On readability formulas

(This text was first posted to a discussion on readability formulas on the Extensive Reading Yahoo Group)

As far as I understand, readability formulas use calculations based on the number of sentences, words, syllables and characters and also on the frequency of words which aim to determine the reading level of a certain text and, therefore, to predict the difficulty readers will have to understand it.

First of all, it assumes that the reading process can be reduced, to a certain extent, to a mathematical equation. This discussion is as old as the hills. Anyone involved with social sciences and research knows how much ink has been spilled in discussing whether, or not, social phenomena can be objectively, precisely and systematically represented and explained by measurable data. Reading is a social, human phenomenon. I believe the discussion goes beyond what ‘works’ – it’s a matter of ontological and epistemological understanding.  Personally, I do not believe in an approach to reading that sees it as a fundamentally empirical, objective, generalisable and replicable process. People who believe it is so, would probably be able to manipulate these formulas to make them ‘work’, as Warren has done.

Secondly, readability formulas focus exclusively on the text as an artefact. Manipulating the variables in the production of this artefact you should be able to make it more or less readable. It may take neurosciences into consideration; however, it does not seem to me that it takes the social construction of texts on board.  What a reader makes of a text, the difficulties and the pleasure – to go back to Rob’s point – a reader extracts from a text depend on the each person’s previous reading experiences, socio, historical and cultural backgrounds. To assume that one formula can cater for the immense variety of readers’ responses is to believe that one size fits all.

Last but not least, it assumes that reading is simply a decoding process. Once you break the code, you understand the text. I believe reading is much more than decoding and even more than interpreting. For me, the act of reading is as an act of meaning creation. Reading is a matter of interaction between the individual, as a social being, and the text, as a socio-culturally laden creation.

How someone can put all these into a formula that will tell us how much or how well someone is able to read, is sheer mystery to me and far beyond my mere understanding.

Back on the road

From now on I’ll be writing from Milton Keynes, where I’ve just started my Masters of Research at the Open University.  This the first stage leading , hopefully, to a PhD degree. I have to admit that MK is not the prettiest place in England if you consider the city itself.  However, because of the city plan, it is actually a bit like living in the countyside and… well, the English countryside is beautiful and special in its own way…  even if the Midlands lack the serene, deep beauty of Devon.

The Open is a quite peculiar place because the only sudents here are the  research and doctoral students since the undergrads are all in online courses. The whole structure of this huge campus is here just for us and the administrative staff.

Issues for me at the moment revolve very much around educational research, its forms and applicability and also the philsophical underpinnings of different approaches to it. What I have to reflect now is where I stand in these big picture and what implications my positioning and views have for my practice in ELT.   Moreover,  how my ELT experience influences the way I see educational research.

Back on the road for a new journey into the unknown…

Well-done everyone!

The Study Skills course is over and I’m back to Plymouth. It was a great experience, especially because my students were all fantastic people, we had a great time together and I hope I have helped them in the process of adapting to academic life in the UK , at least a little bit.

Thanks a lot for the wonderful time Un, Witt, Michelle, Rachel, Tomoko, Rieko, Christian, Abi, Kira, Betty, Soo, Laura and Quim. Thanks a bunch too Zack, Insia, Charlene, Adeline, Yvetty, Li, Sun, Kim, Karen, Rox, Ellen and Nanae!

I hope you all enjoy your time in England and your courses at Leicester

Reading drafts

Now I know what my tutors has been through…when we are students we think that the most difficult thing in the world is to write an essay and we tend to think that the tutor’s job is just a piece of cake compared to it. It isn’t.

I got the first draft of my students’s essays and finding the energy to read many pieces in a short period of time is not always easy. I spent hours and hours over the weekend trying to find ways of helping them to express themselves better while conforming with academic writing standards. This is not an easy task because sometimes the academic style in their own cultures is quite different from ours. Moreover, sometimes there are  language problems but  we cannot really work on grammar and vocab in a short course like this.

Apart from that, it is a fascinating task because I am learning a lot with them about other fields of knowledge that are completely different from mine. Also seeing how people express their ideas in so many diverse ways is always extremely instructive

Summer in Leicester

Writing this from the library at the University of Leicester where I’m now teaching the listening/speaking module to a group of students starting their university programmes this term. The Study Skills course is designed to help international students to get acquainted with academic work in the UK,  thus in the following fours weeks I’ll be trying to help them to cope with academic presentations, active participation in seminars and essay writing.

I am quite excited about this because I believe my experience can be of some help and also because I think this is an important aspect in helping people to cope with the demands of academic studies in a foreign country. If I can help them to make this cultural and professional transition, I’ll consider myself happy.

I just met them yesterday and it seems it is going to be an interesting multi-cultural experience since I have people in the groups coming from China, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, Portugal, Spain and  France.

Short & Scary

This was the title of the BritLit event I attended in London last Thursday. I’m really thankful to the BC for having sponsored my participation because it was really worth going to London for that. Basically Fitch presented about the BritLit project but he also had Louise Cooper and Romesh Gunesekera reading for us. It was really cool!

I was really excited about meeting Romesh because his stories have been the top ones in the ELT e-Reading Groups and he has been very supportive and approachable. It was fantastic to be able to talk to him personally and see what a nice person he is. I also had the priviledge to talk quite a lot with Louise and I also had dinner with her and Fitch after the event. She is such a lovely person!

On the whole, it was a really nice experience – pity that London is so literary invaded by tourists now that it’s summer. Oh dear, I know this is great for the city and the country, but it really blows your mind to hear so many languages at the same time and to go along the streets so flooded with people of all sorts. Even though I love London with a passion, it was quite a relief to take the train back to Plymouth and to our more quiet way of life in the country.

Reflecting on the experience

Yesterday it was my last day in the summer course.

As for the teachers, it was good to have the experience of team work, especially with Alan. If he had more experience with ELT he would be superb teacher.And he also helped and supported me a lot. The bad times with my junior teacher didn’t stop with the last story I posted here . There were other instances but I simply do not think it is important to write about them in detail. The bottom line is that  ELT providers should be more respossible when hiring teachers for summer courses. I do understand that the demand for teachers is higher than the the supply but I do pity the poor people who have to face a group of students without being prepared for that, the poor students who waste their time and leave without any improvement on their English and the parents who spend quite a lot of money in these course s for nothing.

Now the good part: my main group. They were really good. These last few days they have been working a lot and speaking much more English than at the begining. I even realised that because of their strong accent many times they were speaking English and I took it for French   My bad!

We had an activity about creative writing when they wrote really funny stories with quite good language and also a pair work activity involving drems and their interpretation that was a blast! We all had a lot of fun with it. Or perhaps I had more fun then anybody else because I was really happy to see them really engaged on it.

Yesterday we had a final test and, instead of following the instructions and having a short & sweet multiple choice question test,  I asked them 6 questions and they had to write a lot. They did a brilliant job! Some still have a quite intermediate level of English but you cannot expect more from an 8-day course. The important thing is that considering their initial individual performances, they all made some progress and this is the best I could wish for. Job done!

I’ll miss some of them!

Horror stories

I suppose that if you are an NNS EFL teacher you have already heard a lot about these horror stories of schools employing NS’s for summer courses and delivering really poor quality lessons. We all talk about these horror stories but it is the first time I can see it unfolding before my very eyes. Today when I checked my junior teacher’s group in the first period – just to see that was going on – I saw she had put on a film and they were watching it. I called her aside and asked what film is was and she said it was the one she had found in the classroom (!!) Then I told her she could not simply do that, but as it was already happening I told her she had to do some language follow-up work with it. When I arrived in the classroom for my third period with her group I saw some quite complex comprehension questions on the board  – remember they are elementary – and then she told me they could not really do much with it.

Oh dear, I do pity her!! She was thrown into the classroom probably because she also needed some extra cash for the summer. No doubt who is to be blamed for this situation…