Tag: Delta

My Delta LSA: Are we the baddies?

When I passed my first Delta Module Two assignment, I knew that I just needed to do well in the externally-assessed LSA in order to obtain the diploma. My LSA1 dealt with cleft sentences and the lesson was quite unremarkable, so I decided to do something a little bit different in LSA2. As I mentioned in my blog post with general advice for passing Module Two, it makes sense to try out new things during the course. This article describes how I approached my assignment, which was awarded a Merit grade, and explains my choices.

My Delta LSA: Are we the baddies?

I wasn’t very happy with my first assessed lesson. I passed it, but I felt that I had played it safe and delivered an acceptable grammar lesson without any memorable moments. Once I knew that I didn’t need to pass the next assignment, I said to myself that I should be a little more ambitious. Since I believe that it’s perfectly possible to have fun while learning English (see my review of Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington’s lesson), I chose a topic guaranteeing that even if I failed the LSA, I would do so with a smile on my face.

A) BACKGROUND ESSAY
The title of my essay was Helping higher level learners understand TV comedy sketches. It wasn’t the best Delta Module Two essay ever, and I only got a Pass due to a few issues in suggestions for teaching. Anyway, this is what I wrote about:

At first, I justified selecting the topic by saying that learners often explicitly express the wish to understand popular culture. I highlighted the role of humour and mentioned that being familiar with famous comedy acts may be helpful in terms of positive attitude towards learning a foreign language and the L2 community. Then I narrowed down the scope of the essay to television sketches because radio shows are more suited to advanced learners due to the lack of visual cues. Of course, the comprehension approach is not enough when you try to help the learners enjoy this type content, so I suggested focusing on the following elements:

1) Textual patterns
Since sketches are usually short, there isn’t enough time explain things, and that’s why they rely on content and formal schemata. Basically, they refer to the real world and people’s expected behaviour in speech events. Many sketches stray into the ridiculous by deviating from the usual script. I referred to John Cleese and Graham Chapman’s job interview sketch to demonstrate how that may work.

2) Lexical cohesion
The authors of sketches use various lexical devices to ensure that the text holds together. I used Explaining things to a woman by Viva La Dirt League to show how repetition of related lexical items can be used for comedy effect. This is a great example of a sketch based on escalation, in which the premise becomes more and more absurd as the story unfolds.

3) References
In order to enjoy comedy sketches, it’s important to be able to spot relevant references. This goes beyond anaphoric and cataphoric references because there are usually many mentions of concepts from the real world. SNL’s Papyrus contains tons of references like that.

4) Top-down processing
We don’t usually use just one type of processing, but accessing background knowledge is crucial when it comes to sketches. A simple phrase can help us activate relevant schemata and predict what may happen next. Paying attention to what we can see plays a very important role as well. I used a still image from the beginning of the Faking the Moon Landing sketch by Mitchell and Webb to illustrate how many useful clues we can see before the characters even start to speak.

5) Features of pronunciation
Sketches aren’t typically made with English learners in mind, so there’s no simplification and the actors employ a full range of phonological features: connected speech, strong accents, using intonation and sentence stress to emphasise an idea, etc. These features usually represent one of the main reasons students struggle to understand what the characters are saying.

The process of writing the essay was enjoyable because I had to watch a number of comedy sketches on YouTube for my analysis. I also did a lot of reading on a variety of processes we employ when listening. I used these references in my essay:

• Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Field, J. (1999). Key concepts in ELT. ELT Journal 53/4, 338-339.
• Field, J. (2008). Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hunt, L. (2013). Cult British TV Comedy: From Reeves and Mortimer to Psychoville. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English Pronunciation. Harlow: Longman.
• McCarthy, M. (1991). Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Neale, S., & Krutnik, F. (1990). Popular Film and Television Comedy. London: Routledge.
• Richards, J. C. (2008). Teaching Listening and Speaking: From Theory to Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. (2002). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
• Stebbins, R. A. (1990). The Laugh-Makers: Stand-up Comedy as Art, Business and Life-Style. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
• Thornbury, S. (2005). Beyond the Sentence: Introducing Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Macmillan Education.
• Thornbury, S. (2006). An A–Z of ELT. Oxford: Macmillan Education.
• Underhill, A. (2005). Sound Foundations: Learning and Teaching Pronunciation. Oxford: Macmillan Education
• Ur, P. (1984). Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wilson, J. J. (2008). How to Teach Listening. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

B) LESSON PLAN
My lesson plan was titled Using top-down processing to understand TV comedy sketches, and it was tailor-made for my group of volunteer upper-intermediate learners based in Mexico and Peru. I focused on practising activating content and formal schemata, inferring, interpreting the meaning of visual cues, and using co-text to anticipate what may happen next in the sketch. My subsidiary aims were related to key topic-related lexis and the ability to notice them in the text. I managed to meet all the criteria, so let’s take a look at some of the sections of the plan.

In Group profile, I referred to my needs analysis, which revealed that most learners in my group enjoy watching films and TV series in English. They also expressed the wish to be able to understand them more. I knew that this was the right group for this kind of lesson since most of the students were mature learners with a really good level of world knowledge. I also pointed out in Individual learner profiles that some members of the group struggled with decoding rapid speech. In Timetable fit, I mentioned the fact that I had tested the waters in one of the unassessed lessons by using this scene from Father Ted when talking about regrets. We had a lot of fun trying to transcribe the utterance I wouldn’t have done a Chinaman impression if I’d known there was going to be a Chinaman there to see me doing a Chinaman impression.

We also had a very interesting conversation about World War II and Inglourious Basterds, so I decided to choose Mitchell and Webb’s sketch Are we the baddies? for my lesson. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend watching this video:

In the Analysis section of the lesson plan, I focused on top-down processing, discourse features, and lexis. My Assumptions were based on the learners’ background knowledge and their positive attitude towards authentic texts. In Anticipated problems & solutions, I predicted some issues with trying to decode the characters’ rapid speech and emphasised the importance of visual cues.

Here is an abridged version of the lesson procedures, in which T stands for the teacher and Ss for students:

1) Lead-in
Whole-class conversation about YouTube and the type of content the Ss enjoy watching.

2) Text exposure
a) T shows three questions on the screen: Who are the people? Where are they? When does the scene take place?
b) Ss watch the first 30 seconds of the sketch without sound. They then discuss their answers to the questions in pairs or small groups.
c) Ss present their ideas in a whole-class discussion.
d) T shows this screenshot from YouTube on the screen:

My Delta LSA: Are we the baddies?

e) Ss work in pairs or small groups and discuss what the video may be about based on the screenshot.
f) Ss make their predictions in a whole-class discussion. T plays the first 20 seconds of the video with sound on and asks Ss to compare their predictions with the content of the sketch.

3) Brainstorming
a) Ss respond to a Mentimeter survey with word associations related to Germany’s role in World War II.
b) T shows the resulting word cloud on the screen and draws attention to relevant lexical items in order to activate real-world knowledge.
c) T uses photos of symbols used by the participants of WWII to elicit words such as stars, stripes, lions, hammer and sickle.

4) Anticipating and predicting
a) T displays an incomplete sentence They’ve got ______ on them and plays a short passage (0:20–0:35) of the video. Ss use the chat box and write the word they think David Mitchell’s character is going to say.
b) Ss explain what clues they based their answer on before T reveals the word skulls and asks Ss what it makes them think of.
c) Ss comment on the relationship between the two characters and how it contributes to its comedy value. T reminds the Ss that the sketch is called Are we the baddies? and asks Ss to predict which of the two characters is going to say it. T then plays a passage from the video (0:20–0:50) to check if the prediction was correct.
d) T asks the Ss about the variety of English the characters are speaking and enquires if someone has heard the word horrid before. Can it be used to describe a person?
e) Ss work in pairs or small groups and discuss what may happen in the rest of the sketch based on the clues they have been exposed to.
f) T then shows the second act of the sketch (0:52–2:47) without any interruptions to see how the sketch ends in comparison to the predictions.

5) Consolidation of knowledge
a) Ss work on a shared Jamboard page and write down how the previous activities helped them understand sketch. There are five items:
• Looking at the title, tags, and related videos on YouTube
• Talking about Germany’s role in WWII
• Discussing the symbols used by Germany and the Allies
• Focusing on the characters’ relationship and their personalities
• Predicting what the characters will say
b) T checks the answers in a whole-class discussion and asks Ss to elaborate on how the processes were beneficial.

6) Practice
a) T tells the Ss that they are going to watch another video and shows the following screenshot from YouTube on the screen:

My Delta LSA: Faking the Moon Landing

b) T plays the Faking the Moon Landing sketch without any interruptions.
c) Ss work in pairs or small groups and discuss what helped them understand the sketch.
d) Ss share their ideas in a whole-class discussion and highlight the processes that helped them expand on what they heard or to compensate for not being able to understand 100% of the characters’ speech.

7) Wrap-up
T asks the Ss to fill out an anonymous questionnaire in order to collect data for the Professional Development Assignment.

The Commentary section of the plan was about justifying my choices. I emphasised my intention to go beyond testing what the learners already know. I hoped that the lesson would make the learners more aware of useful processes that can help them understand authentic texts. When it comes to choosing the second sketch used in the lesson, I decided to go for one made by the same comedy duo because I didn’t want to make things more difficult by asking the learners to listen someone speaking a different variety of English. In addition, I picked a sketch based on a historical event so as not to completely change the focus.

C) REFLECTION AND EVALUATION
In general, I was pleased with the lesson. The students seemed to have a good time, which is always nice to see, and I believe that they got something useful out of it. It wasn’t a typical listening lesson, so I knew that it was a risky move, but fortunately everything turned out to be perfectly fine. When I observed the students using the Jamboard to explicitly state why they found the activities helpful for understanding the sketch, I knew that I’d get a good grade. Of course, no lesson is perfect, and there were a few minor issues in timing and giving instructions, but nothing that would ruin the learners’ experience. The LSA also inspired me to teach relevant features of connected speech in my next LSA so that I could give the students a few tips for understanding fast colloquial speech.

What did I get out of this LSA?
As you can see, the 60-minute lesson was preceded by a lot of work. In fact, the three documents I’ve summarised in this blog post comprise 8,826 words (including appendices). Obviously, it’s not feasible to have such level of preparation in your daily teaching practice. The main reason I found this assignment very useful is that it showed me how many things I need to consider when planning a lesson. Even when I write down just a few notes before teaching my lessons here in Colombia, I try to ask myself how the students are going to benefit from the activities. This LSA also reminded me why I love teaching English. When you manage to build rapport with students who are on the same wavelength as you, the lessons become very enjoyable for everyone involved. Having positive experiences such as this one motivates me to stay in TEFL and to keep looking for new ways to deliver engaging lessons.

Luis Clavijo: Professional development is a must

Today’s interviewee has had a very interesting teaching career. We talked about his work in South America and Russia, the role of technology, advanced teaching qualifications, the importance of teacher training, and other ELT topics.

Luis Clavijo is a Peruvian-born English teacher based in Bogotá. He started his teaching career in 1995 in La Paz, Bolivia. After working in a variety of teaching positions, Luis did his CELTA at the British Council in Bogotá in 2003, which allowed him to land a job at BKC-International House in Moscow. He then returned to Bolivia, joined forces with what used to be The British Council La Paz, a new language school then called The Language Works. A few years after that, he ended up opening his own language school and became involved in teacher training. Luis went back to Russia in 2013 and completed his Delta four years later. He has been working as a freelance online teacher since moving to Colombia in November 2020.

Luis Clavijo: Teachers should have access to professional development

You arrived to Colombia in the middle of the current pandemic. How would you describe your experience so far?

It hasn’t been easy because I’ve spent most of my time here in my apartment. I try to keep myself physically active, so I go to the gym. When it comes to teaching, I work exclusively online through Zoom thanks to having incredibly loyal students from my time in Russia. They have been studying with me for a long time, which is amazing. I work mainly in the morning because of the time difference between Colombia and Russia. I’m also open to teaching Colombian students here if an opportunity appears, and I’m thinking of setting up a project for teachers.

Was it easy for you to move back to Latin America after spending almost seven years in Russia?

I wanted to come back because I missed being in Latin America. The process itself was complicated due to the restrictions; it was difficult to find a combination of flights that would get me here. When a window to travel through London opened, I got myself on the plane and left Russia. Of course, living in Latin America presents its own challenges. Even though I am eligible for a Mercosur visa, it took the authorities more than two months to process my application.

You started working as a teacher in La Paz in 1990s. How has teaching English changed since then?

I didn’t have much contact with technology until I moved to Santa Cruz in 2012. We used overhead projectors connected to PCs because we couldn’t afford interactive whiteboards. By the way, I’ve never laid a finger on an IWB in my life. When I returned to Moscow, I had only a whiteboard and a CD player, so I decided to use my mobile phone and wireless speakers for playing audio files. Then I bought a tablet that came with a projector, and I feel that projecting stuff has made a huge difference because the visual content always attracts the students’ attention.

How did you cope with the switch to online teaching?

I actually started teaching online a few months before the pandemic due to unfortunate circumstances. I injured my ankle in December 2019, so the school asked me if I wanted to try doing some Skype lessons from home, and I agreed. Then I discovered Zoom, and that’s how IH Moscow started delivering online classes. I began experimenting with Google Docs and WhatsApp groups, which is something that I still use because I find it extremely helpful when teaching online. I decided to get the IH COLT certificate, which I obtained in February 2020, and we all know what happened the following month. Of course, my friends kept jokingly asking me if I knew something that the rest of the world did not.

What can you tell me about your CELTA experience? I see that got a Pass A grade, so what advice would you give to those considering this qualification?

I did my CELTA at the British Council here in Bogotá in 2003. Even though I had managed to save some money, I didn’t want to travel to an expensive place. Doing the course in Colombia was an amazing experience; I was really impressed by the school and the resources. When it comes to getting a good grade, I recommend doing a lot of reading before starting the course, and you should take the pre-course tasks seriously. There are also helpful preparation courses that clearly exemplify what the CELTA is all about. Of course, we did not use much technology when I did the course, but I think current CELTA trainees will benefit from being familiar with tools that can be used in the classroom (Vocaroo, Quizlet, etc.).

You then spent one academic year in Russia. Why did you decide to move there?

Bolivia was going through an economic crisis, which meant that a lot of students dropped out, so I decided to move to another country. I had job offers from Turkey and the Czech Republic, but I was intrigued by the idea of going to Russia. Winston Churchill described the country as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, so I thought it would be nice to go to Moscow. That year was a really interesting experience for me. I also did an exchange programme in the middle of the academic year and went to Istanbul for five weeks. We stayed at an amazing hotel a few blocks away from the Grand Bazaar, which was great. When my contract in Russia ended, I had a job lined up in Portugal, but unfortunately I couldn’t get a work visa because of my Peruvian passport.

What motivated you to set up your own school in Bolivia?

When I was looking for a job after returning from Russia, I was initially told, by my own friend no less, that my name sounds too Latino. Funnily enough, The Language Works called me back a couple of weeks later to cover for an absent teacher. Everything went well and I was hired thanks to positive feedback from the students. That job gave me an opportunity to get some experience as a senior teacher, and I became a DoS when the school was sold to new owners. I was trying to raise the standards in terms of hiring teachers because I believe that La Paz deserves better teachers than some random backpackers with an online TEFL certificate. Unfortunately, the owners disagreed with that, so I decided to step down from the role. I thought it was the right time to do my own thing, so I set up a school called Language Plus. By the time I decided to leave South America again, the school had grown a lot and I had three teachers working for me.

You then went back to Moscow and completed several teaching qualifications there. Could you briefly talk about the courses you took?

I was a little out of practice teaching groups, as I had spent years primarily teaching one-to-one, so I did the IH Certificate in Advanced Methodology, which was great as a pre-Delta course. I actually enjoyed it more than the Delta Module One preparation course. CAM spells out things explicitly and provides a lot of structure, which is what I needed at that time. Then I did the first two Delta modules in 2015, which was very demanding time-wise, particularly the two-month Module Two course. Fortunately, I was lucky to have an amazing tutor, Joanna Graham, who is always willing to support the trainees and go the extra mile. Academically speaking, it was a challenging experience. I did a ‘for and against’ essay for my LSA4 and intended to highlight relevant features. When I was teaching the lesson, it dawned on me that I was running out of time, so I had to repair instructions and go with my plan B. Fortunately, it proved to be a good decision and I passed.

What was your Module Three specialism?

I chose teaching one-to-one because that’s what I’ve been doing my whole career. I have a lot of experience in this area, so the creative process wasn’t that difficult, but I struggled a little with sitting down and structuring the assignment. It was necessary to make references to other parts of the essay and put everything together in a coherent way. Of course, I wrote too much and needed to trim it down at the end. I thought the final version was pretty good, so I was a little disappointed with a Merit grade.

You also worked as a translator. Would you say there are any transferable skills between translating and teaching?

Not really. The only thing that can help you as a teacher is the knowledge of typical mistakes that learners make due to translating directly from their mother tongue. Back in Moscow I made a list of some common errors Russian speakers make, and that was very helpful in my teaching practice.

I think my growing up in the USA influenced my attitude towards languages. My parents spoke Spanish at home and my dad would always tell me to speak the language properly, and then I applied the same logic to English because I wanted to fit in. I started to develop an interest in writing when I was studying in Chile, and I even won some awards in Bolivia. I always try to be as accurate as possible, which has helped me both in teaching and translating.

Your name also appears in Rory Fergus Duncan-Goodwille’s book The English Teachers, which was published last year. How did that come about? 

I met Rory in his role of ADoS at BKC-International House in Moscow. He is an amazing, knowledgeable professional, so I was more than happy to contribute to his book as an interviewee. I really enjoyed it, and it would be great to collaborate with him on another project again.

Would you recommend the Cambridge Train the Trainer course to those interested in becoming teacher trainers?

Yes, I would. I actually did the very first online Cambridge Train the Trainer course. It was similar to the IH Teacher Trainer Certificate I had done before, so it doesn’t really matter if you do the Cambridge or International House version. Both courses are very helpful in terms of communication with teachers and understanding their needs. If I were to open a school again, I would make sure that teachers have access to professional development and academic support. Sadly, this is not always the case anywhere else I’ve been to, and many language schools and institutions still don’t do enough when it comes to teacher training.