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Teaching English to Preparatory Year Programme (PYP) students

PYP student

To be successful at university, students in Preparatory Year Programmes need to improve their language skills in a fairly short amount of time. At a minimum, PYP programmes will prepare students to be able to read the course books, listen to lectures, and take exams in English in their chosen field. They may also need to write essays, discuss issues in seminar discussions, or defend their thesis. However, teachers in these programmes often face challenges related less to language learning and more to motivation.

Goals and aspirations

Although it’s tempting to start with the coursebook on day one of a course – after all, there is so much to get through! – it might be a better strategy to spend some time getting to know students as individuals, and especially getting students to think about their own educational and personal goals for learning English. Once students have an idea of ‘where they are going’ or ‘what they want English for’, teachers can then help them to see how what they learn in class connects to their goals. They can explain the approach they will take and how it will help them on their journey. On another level, when a teacher spends time getting to know their students and sharing information about themselves, the students are more likely to like him/her which may lead them to work harder so that they can please the teacher. A good rapport is an important factor in motivation.

What’s in it for me?

The next step in motivating learners is to help them see how the lessons lead to those goals. Students want to know, ‘What’s in it for me?’ and teachers can help by creating lesson aims with a clear context and purpose, and communicating those aims to the students. In this way, students will begin to see the benefit of planned activities and will be more cooperative and motivated. Instead of ploughing through pages, teachers can link activities back to the lesson aims. Of course, in an ideal classroom, students would have some say in what is taught, and would be able to choose topics of interest, but in the absence of that option, letting them know what’s in it for them at least involves them to some extent by explaining what they are going to gain.

Progression

Another piece of the motivation puzzle is related to progression: students are more motivated when they can see their progression as it relates to goals, and when they know what they need to do to improve. This highlights the need for a clear link between lesson aims and ongoing assessment, in-class revision, and quick checks to make sure students are still on target. It also means setting individual student targets whenever possible – once a student reaches a target, another is set. In that way, students have a clear sense of where they are going and what they have achieved.

Stacey’s webinar will feature content from Headway Plus Special Edition 2nd edition, developed by Oxford especially for PYP classes. The trusted Headway approach combines a perfectly balanced grammar and skills syllabus, supporting teachers in Saudi Arabia to deliver results driven preparatory English tuition.

Stacey Holliday Hughes is a part-time lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and also works freelance as a teacher developer, materials writer, learning resources editor and educational consultant in ELT. She has taught English in the US, Poland, Italy and the UK in many different contexts. Stacey’s main interest in ELT is in maximising student engagement through student-focused learning using traditional and digital tools.  As a teacher developer, she enjoys working with teachers seeking to explore alternative approaches and strategies often in response to emerging classroom issues. Stacey has written a number of blogs, online student exercises and teacher support materials.


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Creating a reading environment | Using readers in the classroom with adults

We all know why our students should read. Ask any teacher and they will probably tell you that reading builds vocabulary, improves grammar, improves writing skills, and develops critical thinking skills. Readers will tell you that they read because it gives them knowledge, helps them sleep, enhances the imagination, provides entertainment, or takes them ‘away from it all’ when they are feeling stressed.

But reading in a foreign language can feel like work. Tethered to the dictionary, learners often don’t get the same satisfaction from reading in a foreign language that they do in their first language. I recently experienced this myself. Wanting to ‘brush up on my French’, I bought a novel that looked promising. However, after 2 pages I gave up. Why? There were too many unknown words and expressions. It was a chore, not a pleasure.

So, how can we encourage our adult students to read?

1. Ensure they choose the right reading level. Graded readers are ideal for students learning English because they can choose the right level for comfortable reading. A quick way to assess reading level is to read a page from a book. There should be no more than 2-3 unknown words on the page, and students should be able to read steadily and with understanding. Students can also find out their level with this interactive level test. Once they have their level, they can choose a book that interests them out of the many available.

2. Create space for reading and discussion in class. Adult students have busy lives outside of class, so if you are serious about getting them reading, carve out reading time into every lesson. First, put students into groups to discuss what they are reading. Each student gives a short summary of what the book is about and how they like it so far. Next, give students 5-10 minutes of quiet, uninterrupted reading time. Without interfering or adding any pressure, quietly observe the reading behaviour of the students – if they are glued to the dictionary, suggest a lower level reader for this part of your lessons. You may find that students enjoy the quiet reading bit of the lesson the most!

3. Make reading a social experience. Building social relationships is a motivational driver, and many people enjoy talking about what they’ve read, so integrate this into the classroom with reading circles. Put students into groups and ask them to choose one graded reader that they will all read. Assign different roles to each student: discussion leader, summarizer, connector, word master, passage person, and culture collector. You can find out more about these roles in my webinar, or go to the teaching resources site at the Oxford Bookworms Club.

4. Find ways to link books to the outside world. In Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes takes on a very strange case with links to the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. As a project, students can learn more about these and other islands – connecting fiction with fact. For non-fiction lovers, there are plenty of graded non-fiction books that are informational and educational. One example is the Factfile about Stephen Hawking. You may know that between 1979 and 2009, Hawkins was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, can you name three other well-known scientists who held this role (answers in the webinar!)?

5. Create low-stakes competition. A little competition can add a game-like element to lessons, bring students satisfaction from seeing their progress charted, and create a sense that students are part of a reading community. Set each student a 6-book challenge. To complete the challenge, they read a book and write a review – complete with a star-rating system. A review can be structured for any level:

Create a class chart or leader board to record how many books each student has read. Give students certificates once they have reached 6 books. Of course, students can read each other’s reviews to help them decide which book to read next!

If you are using e-books from the Oxford Learner’s Bookshelf, ask students to share their reading diary which not only tracks which book they have read, but also how many words they have read and time spent reading – this can give them quite a buzz when they see how a little reading over time can add up – imagine reaching 5,000 words read!

There are many more ways to foster reading. Join me in my webinar where I’ll present these and other ideas for using readers in the classroom with adults. Come a few minutes early and share what you are reading with others in the chat box!

Stacey Hughes is a part-time lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and also works freelance as a teacher developer, materials writer and educational consultant in ELT. She has taught English in the US, Poland, Italy and the UK in many different contexts. She also taught French and Spanish. As a teacher developer, she enjoys engaging with teachers from all over the world. She has recently run an introduction to teacher training course for the Oxford Department of Education Summer School.


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4 Christmas ELT Activities For Your Classroom

4 Christmas ELT Activities For Your ClassroomThe festive season is officially upon us!

To help you celebrate, we thought we’d share some Christmas ELT activities to get you and your class in the spirit of Christmas.

Our teacher trainer Stacey Hughes from the Professional Development team here in Oxford has prepared some multi-level Christmas ELT activities for you to use in your classroom. Enjoy a round-robin writing activity, practice some seasonal vocabulary revision, and plenty more. The perfect antidote for any Scrooge!

ROUND-ROBIN LETTER (Writing)

Level: pre-intermediate to advanced
Any age group

ADVENT CALENDAR (Vocabulary)

Level: any
Young Learners

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS or 12 DAYS OF WINTER (Vocabulary revision)

Level: any
Young learners, teens, adults

CRAZY GAPPED TEXT (Grammar, collocation, text cohesion)

Level: pre-intermediate and above
Teens, adults

Looking for more festive ELT resources?

Try our festive activities for all levels, or click here for even more classroom resources!

 

Stacey Hughes is a teacher trainer for Oxford University Press. She has written a number of articles for the OUP blog and Teaching Adult Newsletter. Stacey gives talks and workshops around the world – both face-to-face and via webinar. 


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How do you use OUP digital resources in your EFL or ESL classes?

Hands holding an iPadProfessional Development Services teacher trainer, Stacey Hughes, invites you to share your ideas.

In our recent travels, we’ve seen some amazing and creative uses of digital technologies in the classroom.  As e-course books and educational apps become more common and as teachers begin to see the potential of online practice, they are finding innovative ways to use these tools to help motivate students and help them learn.  We have started asking teachers, “How do you improve language skills with e-books, apps, iTools, iTutor and online practice?” Here are some of the responses we’ve had so far.

iTools:

I love working with iTools because it allows me to make new practice activities that used to take me ages to make before the digital age. One of my favourite features is the thick white pen I can use to erase the words of a text.  For example, I erase the words of a picture story, children look at the pictures only and in pairs/small groups they have to come up with a dialogue that matches the messages of the images. This can entirely the same as the original or they could add to it depending on their language level. Once they have their dialogues, they practise them in pairs and finally act it out in front of the class. As children are the ones who choose the language to be used, it motivates them immensely and it helps develop their speaking skills.

– Erika Osváth, Hungary

iTutor:

I like to get my students to prepare tasks for each other when they watch the video clips on their Headway iTutor. I ask students to choose one clip from the unit, watch the clip at home and prepare some simple questions/true or false statements/etc. about it. They then find a partner who has prepared a different clip to them and exchange tasks. They watch the clip at home and do the tasks. Some students like to give their partner feedback on the tasks e.g. language accuracy. This activity not only helps students to develop their listening skills but also allows them to create tasks that are the right level for their peers.

– Jules Schoenmann, UK.

A phrase a day app:

At the end of the lesson, we (teacher and students) decide on the words/phrases to learn, aka ‘words of the lesson’.  For homework, students have to find a phrase based on one of the words of the lesson in their ‘phrase a day‘ app .  We don’t know which phrase each student has chosen. The only thing students have to do is write it down in their notebook. Their task in the next lesson is to use the phrase naturally in the course of the lesson at any time.  So, you need to make sure you offer some opportunities for speaking.

You can do it the ‘competitive way’: the student who uses their phrase first wins. You may do it the ‘responsible way’: Each student is responsible for making sure they use it during the lesson. You nod approvingly when they do so – don’t worry, students will look at you the moment they’ve used it or even let you know loudly!

You can do it the ‘hilarious way’ as an activity in itself: pick students in pairs across the table/room, or students next to each other. The situation is this for each pair: They are travelling on a train to a distant destination (tell them where). They are complete strangers and bored to tears. There is nobody else in the compartment.   So they decide to start chatting. The thing is that they have to use their phrase naturally in the course of the chat. So they have to steer the conversation.   Students are given no time to prepare and each pair improvises their chat in front of the class in turns.  It can be slow, fast, awkward at times but always surreal and hilarious, but never embarrassing for students. Just let them improvise and allow ‘silences’.  You’ll all have a jolly good laugh!

– Anna Parisi, Greece.

Let’s create a teacher’s resource!

How do you use OUP digital resources? We are interested in your ideas! Please comment below how you use OUP ebooks, apps, iTools, iTutor, iWriter, and Online Practice. Let’s use each other as a resource and see how many new ideas we can share on this blog.


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Assessment in the multi-level classroom

Frustrated student at work in classroomIt can be tricky to test classes of students who come from very different learning backgrounds. Stacey Hughes, teacher trainer in the Professional Development team at Oxford University Press, offers some advice.

Testing and assessment are important in any classroom. In addition to the obvious goal of finding out if students have learned what is required for the end of term or year, assessment also gives teachers information about what students might need more work on. It can also motivate students to study, giving them a sense of achievement as they learn (Ur:1996).

A multilevel class poses additional challenges to the teacher. It could be argued that all classes to a certain extent are multi-level. However, for the purpose of this article, multi-level will be defined as those classrooms with students who come from very different learning backgrounds, or those in which students have very different levels of proficiency. Assessment in these situations needs to be fair for all students and needs to provide enough challenge or support so as not to bore or overstretch students. Here are some ideas for assessment:

1. Set individualised targets

You could consider setting individualised targets (or get your students to set their own). In order to assess students on their achievement of their target, you may need different assessment criteria and this difference needs to be made clear at the outset. As long as the assessment is not part of a final grade (and instead part of ongoing assessment for the purposes outlined above), students will be unlikely to opt for an easier option than they are capable of. Here are some examples:

a) Choose the 5 key words you think are absolutely necessary for all students to learn, several more that would be good for them to learn and a final few that would be great if they could learn. Assign the words to each student (or get them to choose their own level of challenge). Assess students on the words you have assigned or that they have chosen.
b) Set different word limits for paragraphs and essays. At the lowest level, ask students to write a 50-word paragraph. The next level might be a 100-word paragraph while the highest level might be two 100-word paragraphs. A similar design can be made for speaking tasks.
c) Set different criteria for writing or speaking. If a student’s work is hard to read because of spelling, set the target of improving spelling and assess only on that. Another student might not have problems spelling, but may have poor subject/verb agreement, so instead, make this the focus of the assessment.

2. Break your targets into manageable chunks

Create a master list of targets for yourself, and assign 2-3 targets at a time for students.
This has the effect of making learning manageable. Some students may already be quite good at word stress, for example, while others, possibly from L1 interference, might need to work a lot on their pronunciation.

Your master list should be comprehensive and cover all language areas. For pronunciation, it might include:

a) Correct word stress on vocabulary words
b) Clear distinction between /s/, /z/ and /Id/ in past tense
c) Rising intonation on yes/no questions

For speaking, it might look like this:

a. Can ask and respond to questions about likes and dislikes
b. Can speak about likes and dislikes for 1 minute
c. Can give reasons or examples for likes and dislikes

3. Differentiate between assessment questions and let students choose their level of challenge

Again, this will work best if the assessment is not marked or graded.

a) For a reading or listening assessment, provide many different questions, and ask students to answer more for higher levels of challenge. For example, the Level 1 challenge could be to answer questions 1-3, Level 2 could be questions 1-5 and Level 3 could be questions 1-7. If you set this kind of task, make sure each question increases in difficulty.
b) Allow for levelling in answers. Level 1 challenge answers could be 1-2 words or yes/no questions, while level 3 challenge answers could be whole sentences or open-ended questions.
c) Provide optional hints for those who need it. Students could choose to do the assessment with or without hints, for example. This works well in conjunction with digital or online assessments.

4. Provide a place for students to go next

At the end of the term or school year, it is customary to test whether or not students have reached the learning goals for the course. For those students who aren’t yet ready to progress, make sure they have a class to go into that isn’t just a repeat of the level they have just done. Some courses provide a middle level between levels that caters for those weaker students, for example, English File 3rd edition Intermediate Plus. In this way, weaker students don’t feel penalised, but feel a sense of achievement in having completed a level.

Assessing students in a multi-level class differently according to their level can benefit all students by providing the right amount of challenge. This can be encouraging and create a positive atmosphere of achievement in the classroom. I hope you enjoy trying out some of these ideas.

References & Further Reading

English club. (n.d.). Teaching multilevel classes. Found at: https://www.englishclub.com/teaching-tips/teaching-multi-level-classes.htm.
Accessed 30/04/14.

Ur, P. (1996). A course in language teaching: practice and theory. Cambridge: CUP.

This article first appeared in the May 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter – a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.