language issues 24.2

REsEaRch REVIEW

TheparadoxesoflanguagelearningandintegrationintheEuropeancontext

pEER REVIEWEd aRtIclEs

MaintaininglanguagestandardisationthroughESOLpractices

aRtIclEs

Authenticspokentextsandtasks

Correction,feedbackandlearninginonlinechat

Socialmedia,mobiletechnologyandcontinuingprofessionaldevelopment

WhathappensinlowerlevelESOLclasses?

VoIcEs fRom thE classRoom

Writingabouttheimmigrationexperience

WritingtheESOLstudentguidebook

REVIEW

Improvingadultliteracyinstruction:optionsforpracticeandresearch

LanguageIssuesThejournalofNATECLA

Volume24 Number2 2014

language Issues Volume 24 N

umber 2 2014

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Language Issues is published by NATECLANational Association for Teaching English and other Community Languages to Adultswww.natecla.org.ukhttp://www.natecla.org.uk/content/483/Language-Issues-The-journal-of-NATECLA

Jane ArstallNATECLA National CentreSouth and City College BirminghamHall Green CampusCole Bank RoadBirmingham b28 [email protected]

ISSN 0263-5833

Copyright remains with the author. No fees paid.Guidelines for authors can be found at http://www.natecla.org.uk/uploads/media/208/3041.pdf

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Advertising Cover full page £250 Inside full page £200 Inside half page £150Contact Jane Arstall at [email protected]

EditorDr Balasubramanyam Chandramohan

Editorial BoardRakesh BhanotSally BirdJo-Ann DelaneyNaeema HannAlison Schwetlick

Advisory BoardElsa Auerbach University of Massachusetts BostonMike BaynhamUniversity of LeedsRon CarterUniversity of NottinghamGuy CookOpen UniversityDavid CrystalUniversity of Wales, BangorPamela Frame Institute of Education University of LondonJennifer JenkinsUniversity of SouthamptonBraj KachruUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignRobert LeachESOL consultantBarry O’SullivanRoehampton UniversityMario RinvolucriPilgrims Language CoursesCelia RobertsKing’s College, LondonSheila RosenbergIndependent ESOL writer/researcherPhilida SchellekensESOL ConsultantJames SimpsonUniversity of LeedsTove Skutnabb-KangasÅbo Akademi University, Vasa, FinlandHelen SunderlandESOL ConsultantArturo TosiRoyal Holloway, University of LondonMahendra K VermaUniversity of YorkCatherine WallaceInstitute of Education University of LondonBencie WollUniversity College London

Language Issues •••Volume 24 Number 2 2014

ContentsEditorial

Editorial Board

Research review 4 The paradoxes of language learning and integration in the

European contextCristina Ros i Solé

Peer reviewed articles19 Maintaining language standardisation through ESOL practices

Claire Collins

Articles33 Authentic spoken texts and tasks

Ellie Willcocks48 Correction, feedback and learning in online chat

Susan McDowell63 Social media, mobile technology and continuing professional

development Cathy Clarkson

69 What happens in lower level ESOL classes?Dot Powell

Voices from the classroom73 Writing about the immigration experience

Michelle Bagwell78 Writing the ESOL student guidebook

Megan Rowell

Review84 Improving adult literacy instruction: options for practice and research,

edited by A. M. Lesgold and M. Welch-RossReviewed by Mary Osmaston

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In this edition of Language Issues we are very pleased to publish the research review The paradoxes of language learning and integration in the European context by Cristina Ros i Solé. This research project was a collaboration between NATECLA, the British Council and the Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication at King’s College London.

The research piece by Dr. Ros i Solé produces a literature review on the relationship between language learning and integration of migrants in the European context, with specific examples of the U.K., Germany and the Netherlands. She reviews studies and reports on government policies on integration, the execution of those policies and how scholarly literature has reflected on it. She argues that governments have made assessment of language learning and knowledge of society a key instrument to control entry and manage integration into an idealised culturally homogenous society.

Claire Collins continues the discussion about power and control when she asks what language standardisation means to people in the field of ESOL in Maintaining language standardisation through ESOL practices. She suggests that power relations underlie commonsense conventions about ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ language activities and finds little evidence of critical awareness of this among teachers and learners.

Ellie Willcocks in Authentic spoken texts and tasks explores the extent to which it is possible and beneficial to incorporate authenticity into exam preparation activities. She finds benefits, challenges and makes recommendations for teachers.

Susan McDowell in Correction, feedback and learning in online chat looks at learning English in inter-country Facebook ‘chat’, focusing on vocabulary development and corrective feedback in synchronous computer-mediated communication. She discovers that it is possible for differentiated collaborative learning and ‘noticing’ to take place, for learners to explicitly ‘chat’ about the research process itself and at the same time display their linguistic ingenuity.

Cathy Clarkson in Social media, mobile technology and continuing professional development describes how teachers are able to use social media to articulate and share their developing understanding of professional development.

In Voices from the Classoom two practitioners continue the theme of student creative writing from Language Issues Volume 24.1, with descriptions of student-centred writing projects, the first from Maryland, USA, written by Michelle Bagwell and the second from Bath, UK, written by Megan Rowell.

Some of the best discussions about language development take place on the ESOL Research JISCMAIL. In 2013 Dot Powell posed a question to ESOL Research JISCMAIL list members about lower level learners of ESOL, prompting a wide ranging discussion about beliefs, methodology and challenges which she summarises for us in this edition of Language Issues.

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3Language Issues • Volume 24 • Number 2

2014 will see two changes for Language Issues: new editors and new format.

NATECLA thanks Dr. Balasubramanyam Chandramohan for his editorship of the journal over the past three years and wishes him well in all his future endeavours. We welcome two new editors, Jo-Ann Delaney and Sally Bird for the three year period from 2014 to 2017.

In 2014 the journal will move to an electronic format which we believe will offer many advantages to both contributors and subscribers. For readers it offers the opportunity to access and store both the whole journal and its separate articles, making it easy to use the content for research, teaching and the referral of items to colleagues. Organisations, as part of their subscription entitlement, will be invited to upload the journal to virtual learning environments for use on courses and by researchers. We aim to extend the reach and improve access, ensuring a strong, viable future for the journal.

The journal will, however, not change its values and its unique position in the world of language publishing. Language Issues will continue to link research and practice, acting as the bridge between academic and the practical domains and will continue to welcome and support new writers, along with the experienced.

Editorial Board [email protected]

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Language Issues • Volume 24 • Number 2

IntroductionIn a recent communication from the European Commission it was stated that ‘It is broadly agreed that the acquisition of language skills is critical for integration’ (European Commission 2011:4).

Here, language skills refers to the acquisition of the host language. But is the learning of the national language key for integration in a host society? When and how should this language learning take place? What role should government policies take in the matter? These are some of the questions that surround the issue of language learning and its role in the integration of migrants. Although the integration of migrants in host countries has been an issue of debate for a long time, it is only more recently that national languages have become a key issue in these processes.

Indeed, increasingly, the learning of the national language has become a cornerstone of integration policy in the EU, and the knowledge of the ‘host’ language is seen as a barometer of migrants’ integration in a particular society. Policies in a variety of European countries are making language tests and so called ‘knowledge of society’ a compulsory requirement to enter, settle or apply for citizenship, so that full rights and access to jobs, education and social life is closely linked to language proficiency. A number of sociolinguistic studies (Hogan-Brun, Mar-Molinero and Stevenson 2009, Avermaet 2009, Extra and Spotti 2009), however, point out that European integration policies may not fully reflect the complexity and needs of today’s multilingual migrants and their increasing cosmopolitan and transnational realities.

This article presents a review of the literature on the relationship between language learning and integration of migrants in the European context and highlights the paradoxes of promoting national models of integration in an increasingly transnational and diverse Europe. It takes a critical approach to discourses on the relationship between language learning and integration by looking at the role of language learning in ‘official’ processes of integration. In order to do this, it reviews studies and reports on governmental policies on integration across Europe, the execution of these policies, and how scholarly literature has reflected on it. At the same time, it looks at the why and how of the relationship between language learning and integration in political discourses by relating it to how societal events are interpreted by politicians and their impact on policies.

The paradoxes of language learning and integration in the European context Cristina Ros i Solé

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The documents reviewed include academic publications such as book monographs and specialist journals, official and institutional reports, governmental legislation and studies, and collaborations between community organisations and academics. Moreover, this review tries to balance information from quantitative sources (such as statistics from online tools that analyse migrant integration indexes in Europe) and qualitative sources (such as analyses of political speeches). Although the issues addressed in this study concern and are contextualised in Europe, the study will concentrate on the specific examples of three EU countries to illustrate the points: the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.

Europe's ambivalent approaches towards diversityHistorically, European countries have built a strong link between language and nation. European states (as opposed to other countries with a long history of migration such as the USA or Australia) were built on the one-language one-nation axiom, so that language has always been the clearest feature that distinguishes one nation from the next (Extra and Spotti, 2009). And yet Europe’s identity is ‘to a great extent determined by cultural and linguistic diversity’ (Haarman 1995 in Extra and Spotti 2009).

This diversity has been intensified by new waves of migration. Since 1991, and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, immigration patterns have changed: there is more of it and it is more diverse (e.g. new migration from Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia) and it has become more difficult to grasp what a migrant is. Moreover, scholars argue that this is a different type of migration altogether, i.e. it has more layers, it is more mobile, and it is more complex; this is what Vertovec (2007) has called ‘superdiversity’. In spite of this, the last decade or so has seen a retreat into monolingual national policies that have sought to control the tide of multilingualism and multiculturalism in Europe (Hogan-Brun, Mar-Molinero and Stevenson 2009). Many governments’ foreign policies in Europe have reacted towards new immigration by tightening their borders (Van Avermaet 2009) and using new instruments to control it.

But there are some contradictions in governments’ policies. In spite of this tightening of the rules, political discourses and terminology are eager to emphasize how migrants and their cultures are welcome in today’s societies. Two years ago, the UK Prime Minister, started his speech with this message:

“Our country has benefited immeasurably from immigration. Go into any hospital and you’ll find people from Uganda, India and Pakistan who are caring for our sick and vulnerable. Go into schools and universities and you’ll find teachers from all over the world, inspiring our young people.

Go to almost any high street in the country and you’ll find entrepreneurs from overseas who are not just adding to the local economy but playing a part in local life. Charities, financial services, fashion, food, music – all these sectors are what they are because of immigration. So yes, immigrants make a huge contribution to Britain. We recognise that – and we welcome it. (…).”

David Cameron’s speech (BBC 2011)

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h But in the same speech, the counter-argument is put forward: that migrants are at fault for ‘lacking’ linguistic skills and bringing about conflict (e.g. ‘not really wanting to integrate’).

“But I’m also clear about something else: for too long, immigration has been too high.(…) That’s why, when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in a neighbourhood…perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there…on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate…that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods. This has been the experience for many people in our country – and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it ”.

David Cameron’s speech (BBC 2011)

This is how in political discourse, the old term ‘assimilation’, which denoted a renunciation of one’s values and culture, has given way to the more politically correct: ‘integration’, even though the meaning of ‘integration’ has remained virtually the same as assimilation. In this way, the position of many ‘integration’ policies is that migrants are an asset to society as long as they conform to the native community’s language, customs and way of life. The quote below from a government’s document also illustrates this point by emphasising not only the need for a ‘common language’ but also ‘understanding of life’ in the UK, implying a one-way model of integration:

“Effective integration of those who wish to adopt the UK as their home – including embracing a common language and an understanding of life in the UK – is important to continued good race relations and community cohesion and is a central part of the Government’s managed migration policy which benefits our society and economy”

Home Office, Knowledge of Life in the UK Settlement, cited in Blackledge (2009:92)

Within this context, this article will discuss two ways in which ‘language’ is pivotal in such ‘integration’ policies. One is the way language is being used in political discourses of integration, and the other is the way in which assessment of migrants’ linguistic skills has become a requisite for obtaining citizenship. The next section will deal with the first issue.

Political discourses on language and integrationLanguage learning is constantly referred to in political discourses on integration. A closer look at the role of language learning and the political discourses used in governmental policy and political speeches on the topic of integration gives us a complex picture of what governmental policies may aim at.

Integration or assimilation?When reviewing the links between language learning and integration we first need to clarify what is meant by ‘integration’ in current political discourse. As Stevenson and Schanze point out, ‘the concept of integration is frequently invoked but rarely defined’ (2009:90). Integration is more commonly defined in the context of the problems it brings with it and the ‘lack of integration’

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of migrants rather than the positive aspects of integration. It is based on an asymmetrical view where only the migrants are seen as a problem (Horner and Weber 2011). Integration, however, could be defined as some way in between two other complex terms: ‘assimilation’ and ‘multiculturalism’, which would be located at each end of a conceptual spectrum (Extra and Spotti 2009a). Below, Extra and Spotti (2009) provide definitions for these two terms:

‘The concept of assimilation is based on the premise that cultural differences between immigrant minority groups and established majority groups should and will disappear over time in a society which is proclaimed to be culturally homogenous from the majority point of view’

(Extra and Spotti 2009a:64).

‘The concept of multiculturalism is based on the premise that such differences are an asset to a pluralist society, which actually promotes cultural diversity in terms of new resources and opportunities’

(Extra and Spotti 2009a:64).

Over the last few years and in line with Europe’s position on the role of the host language for social cohesion, the meaning of ‘integration’ has moved away from the concept of multiculturalism and shifted towards that of ‘assimilation’. Issues of ‘internal peace’ (German Interior Minister, in Stevenson and Schanze 2009:91) and social unrest are often invoked in discussions on integration. Also, migrants’ cultural distance from the indigenous population and the lack of integration in the job market are problems that accompany discourses of integration. It is mainly agreed that the meaning of the word ‘integration’ is not only changing but even masking assimilationist policies.

Integration does therefore not only index migrants’ deficits but also what new requirements they are expected to fulfil in order to fully participate in the new society, i.e. it is presented as a requirement for citizenship. For example, Michalowski (2009), reviewing citizenship tests in five countries (USA, Austria, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands) points out the increasing formalisation of processes of citizenship and the lack of correspondence of these requirements with more liberal national citizenship regimes. So, when analysing government regimes, the focus should not be on the governments’ definition of or approach to civic integration (that may be quite liberal), but rather on the degree of government intervention through specific requirements (Michalowski 2009:23).

Some leitmotivs in European political discoursesIn an increasingly superdiverse (Vertovec 2007) and mobile world (Urry 2007), when discussing their visions for their country and issues of nationhood and cultural identity, political discourses carry very specific values and roles for migrants, their languages and cultures. Below are the main recurring topics in European political discourses that frame migrants as a problem and highlight the type of integration politicians imagine for them:

1. The maintenance of national boundaries and a specific version of the culture contained within it (Hogan-Brun, Mar-Molinero, Stevenson 2009). Such a view is also governed by a fear of the consequences of not doing so (i.e. the ensuing chaos and social unrest) (Van Avermaet 2009a).

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h 2. The favouring of national homogeneity over multiculturalism. Integration is achieved through the learning of the ‘host’ language rather than the promotion of multilingualism1.

3. The avoidance of cosmopolitan and trans-national realities. Whereas European societies are multilingual and increased opportunities presuppose multilingualism, learning the ‘national’ language is made the only linguistic requirement for citizenship.

4. The link to issues of ‘security’. Governments’ policies are driven by the belief that if new citizens conform to the ‘official’ language, its identity and its uniform set of values will instil in people a sense of security and confidence even though it may be hampering migrants’ rights in a new society (Van Avermaet 2009, Shohamy 2009).

5. The instrumental argument. Official reports and political discourses imply that the learning of the ‘national’ language will lead to better job opportunities and women’s participation in the labour market (CoE 2011,Villareal 2009).

The dogma of homogeneism in political discoursesAs a result of governments’ promotion of national homogeneity, integration policies seem to be suffering a restrictive turn which retreats from multiculturalism (Goodman 2012) so that, when talking about the acquisition of ‘language skills’ in the context of integration, political discourses refer exclusively to the knowledge of the ‘national’ language (Hogan-Brun, Mar-Molinero & Stevenson 2009).

Although populations are becoming more linguistically and culturally diverse and cosmopolitan, indigenous populations are still considered to be monolingual. This has resulted in many countries implementing a policy to require the acquisition of the ‘national’ language and culture to obtain citizenship and as a way to include the new arrivals in the democratic processes and public life. The promotion of the learning of a national language for the integration of migrants has the ulterior political motive to drive the promotion of ‘national identities’, and the ‘dogma of homogeneism’ (Blommaert and Verschueren 1988 in Hogan-Brun, Mar-Molinero & Stevenson 2009:4). That is, policies on immigration are not used as merely political management, but as an ideological form of resistance to the erosion of national sovereignty in today’s transnational and cosmopolitan communities (Hogan-Brun, Mar-Molinero & Stevenson 2009:5).

In spite of the fact that many political discourses link lack of integration to poor language skills in the host language, learning it does not increase security or prevent social unrest (Van Avermaet 2009, Lo Bianco 2009). According to social workers in areas where there has been social unrest (such as the ‘Banlieus’ in Paris) the young people involved had a very good grasp of French (good independent level of proficiency). Instead it was clear that the cause of these riots was a social one (Van Avermaet 2009).

1 Although government policies broadly agree on the promotion of multilingualism (Van Avermaet 2009) – for a review of governments’ policies on the promotion of intercultural dialogue and social inclusion through multilingual provision, see Extra and Yagmur 2012.

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Despite official discourses promoting language learning for instrumental reasons (i.e. access to jobs, education, etc.), critics argue that language proficiency may be the result rather than the cause of ‘integration’ (Van Avermaet 2009). Indeed, learning the language does not necessarily increase opportunities for work, education or social mobility. Rather, it is access to better jobs, better education and social mobility that increases mastery of the language (Van Avermaet 2009).

From discourse to practice: ‘The Language Requirement’It is necessary to differentiate between the goals of a particular ‘integration’ policy and its means, be it the provision of translation and interpreting services, the provision of community languages in the school curriculum, or language test policies. In this article, I am concentrating on the premise of European Governments that learning the host language is key to integration processes and the question of how this language requirement (LR) policy is deployed. Indeed, there is still the issue of what language learning provision is put in place by different governments in order to fulfil demand.

Europe’s answer on integration: the ‘Language Requirement’ Nobody would dispute that learning the host language helps migrants integrate into a host society; the question is rather, how this is carried out and what purposes it serves. As mentioned above, however, as well as seeing it a positive path to have increased access to the host society, some politicians have used the LR in a negative manner. They have used it as a way to address the populations’ fears of migrants isolating themselves, radicalising their values and posing a threat to society. A speech by Christean Wagner, chair of the Christian Democrats in Hessen, Germany is illustrative of this point:

“Nobody is being forced to become a German citizen. However, German citizenship should only be awarded to someone who clearly shows that it matters to them. This desire includes at least the acquisition of the German language. Germany must not abandon this minimal requirement if it does not want to disintegrate further into ghettos”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28.1.2006 in Stevenson & Shanze (2009:101)

And again, the current UK Prime Minister recently said:

“Mass immigration has led to discomfort and disjointedness in neighbourhoods because some migrants have been unwilling to integrate or learn English”

(From Bryers, Winstanley and Cook 2013:18)

Indeed, language proficiency has been seen as an instrument of social control to increase security in the face of the recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the USA even though, as we saw earlier, the link between the language requirement and issues of national security is one that many authors have questioned (e.g. Van Avermaet 2009; Stevenson and Schanze 2009).

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h Therefore, the different ways in which governments interpret the link between integration and language learning, whether it emphasizes positive or negative aspects will have an impact on the legislation and the programmes established for integrating migrants in a given country, and in particular, the role that knowing the host language plays. Whereas governments constantly discuss the need for migrants to acquire the host language and put policies in place to force migrants to do so, their practices vary greatly from country to country. Even though its methodology has been criticized by some quarters (e.g. Extra, Spotti and Van Avermaet 2009:12) the online survey carried out by the British Council in collaboration with the Migration Policy Group, the MIPEX Index, provides a good starting point for comparing how the LR is executed across Europe. A surprising and paradoxical result from this survey is that that the countries are considered more favourable to integration have the more ‘relaxed’ LR conditions.

In the map in Figure 1, different countries are given scores (0–100) according to whether their policies to the ‘Language Requirement’ are favourable or unfavourable to integration.

Figure 1: Language requirement in European language policies

Favourable policies to integration (score of 80–100) means:– low language requirement (no assessment or A1)– individual abilities taken into account– assessment by language specialists or independent of government – no or nominal cost for language requirement– assessment based on publicly available list of questions.See figure 2 for definitions.

The MIPEX tool provides a comprehensive source of information that assesses, compares and (aims to) improve integration policies in 31 countries (including EU and non-EU) across a broad range of differing environments as well as looking at the Language Requirement (LR). Its definition of integration spans seven policy areas, in which the LR of the host language just plays a small part.

The scores for integration provided by the MIPEX tool show that Sweden is the country with better scores for integration of migrants, in general, but also

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in respect to the LR (favourable 80–100), as it requires no assessment or a low level of proficiency, it does not put a financial burden on the migrant, and there is transparency in its practices.

As we see in the chart that follows, the lower the level of proficiency required, and the more transparency and accessibility to the LR (which can be a test, an interview or another form of assessment), the higher the country scores. The UK, in this chart from 2010, scored as ‘slightly favourable’ to integration (this will probably change after the new 2013 legislation comes into place as discussed later in the article).

Figure 2: ‘Language requirement’ methodology

100 50 0

Language requirement – test, interview, completion of course, or other forms of assessments.

No assessment or CEFR A1 or less set as standard

CEFR A2 set as standard

CEFR B1 or higher set as standard or no standards, based on administrative discretion.

Language requirement exemptions (blank if no assessment)a. Takes into account individual abilities

ex. educational qualificationsb. Exemptions for vulnerable groups ex.

age, illiteracy, mental/physical disability

Both of these One of these Neither of these

Conductor of language requirement (if no measure, leave blank)a. Language-learning specialistsb. Independent of government (ex. not

part of a government department)

a and b, ex. language institutes

a but not b, ex. language unit in government

Neither a nor b, ex. police, foreigners’ service, general consultant

Cost of language requirement (Blank if no assessment)

No or nominal costs

Normal costs ex. If provided by state, same as regular administrative fees. If provided by private sector, same as market price

Higher costs

Support to pass language requirement (if no measure, leave blank)a. Assessment based on publicly available

list of questions or study guideb. Assessment based on publicly

available course

a and b a or b Neither a nor b

The CEFR is the Common European Frame of Reference. There are six levels of proficiency in the CEFR: A1 (Breakthrough) A2, B1, B2 and C1, C2. C2 (Mastery) is the most advanced level. A2 (also called ‘Waystage’) shows ‘An ability to deal with simple, straightforward information and begin to express oneself in familiar contexts’.

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h As we have seen, one of the key instruments for putting into place the LR has been that of the language test. But, how is this test put into practice? Even a language test can be a controversial instrument when it comes to assessing migrants’ rights to have access to political and civic life. Critics (Extra, Spotti and Van Avermaet 2009:17) point out the inadequacy of the benchmark instruments used, i.e. the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), for realising their policies, arguing that they are not suitable for the type of language learners that take the citizenship tests, i.e. the CEFR benchmark statements were designed for foreign language learning rather than second language learning. Another criticism made is that the CEFR, which was designed to promote multilingualism, is used in this context to promote monolingualism and focuses on what immigrants lack rather than on what they already possess. There is the assumption that immigrants do not have the linguistic skills, but this is not necessarily true. Most immigrants are plurilingual and not only master a variety of languages but also the standard host language (Van Avermaet 2009:20). The multilingual person, who is used to using a variety of languages during the day, according to the context, is a less integrated person than the monolingual with only one language at his/her disposal. Therefore, contrary to what one might think, language testing is not being used to boost language learning, rather, it is being used as a gate-keeping mechanism, and some even argue is ‘biased, discriminating and unattainable requirements (Shohamy 2009:45).

According to Hogan-Brun, Mar-Molinero and Stevenson (2009), due to stricter conditions for people who want to apply for resident rights, proficiency in the ‘national language’ of the country has been formalised and more mechanisms (or one may say ‘barriers’) for testing have been introduced. They argue that to make language tests as a requirement for entry to the UK or for permanent residence is coercive and socially exclusive. This is testified by the latest government legislation where the LR has been made compulsory for both obtaining citizenship and for settling in the country. Below is an extract from this legislation:

“From 28 October 2013, unless they are exempt, all applicants for settlement or naturalisation as a British citizen will need to meet the knowledge of language and life requirement by: passing the life in the UK test; and having a speaking and listening qualification in English at B1 CEFR or higher, or its equivalent”

(Home Office 2013a)

This is a change from previous legislation where the requirement was to pass either the ‘life in the UK test’ or the ‘language test’. This legislation was introduced in 2005 for those migrants wanting to apply for citizenship and was later extended in 2007 to those migrants wanted to apply for settlement in the UK, known as ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’ (ILR) (Home Office 2013b).

Indeed, as Van Avermaet (2009) argues, according to government discourses it is only the knowledge of the standard language that guarantees opportunities for work, education and social mobility, even though today’s European societies are multilingual and increased opportunities should presuppose multilingualism. It seems short-sighted that current policies do not recognise migrants’ knowledge of other immigrant languages that are spoken in their host communities.

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It may be important, therefore, to question how these testing practices are implemented in order to assess their impact.

Two illustrative examples of ‘integration and language’ policy Examples of policies in two different countries, Germany and the Netherlands, which have very different approaches to policies for integration and the role of language learning in it, may throw some light as to why language learning has become such a key feature of European immigration policy. The two different countries selected seem to have a different emphasis on ‘integration’, which is linked to these countries’ histories, and their particular approaches to immigration and integration. Whereas both score similarly in the MIPEX index (i.e. half-way favourable to integration), they both have very different policies and roles for the host language in processes of integration. Germany is strong on new opportunities for migrants (which includes language provision) from the start. The Netherlands scores poorly on this respect but gives migrants better ‘access’ to civic life once they have been granted admission. The next sections will discuss this contrast in detail.

The NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country with a long tradition of immigration and policies towards integration, and, according to the online survey ‘MIPEX Index’, it is half way favourable (41–59) (see Fig. 1) to integration in relation to LR, and scores, and scores slightly better than many countries in the EU.

“Since 2007, newcomers have seen few changes to Dutch policies, still slightly favourable for integration and more favourable than in most corners of Europe”

(MIPEX index, ‘Netherlands’. http://www.mipex.eu/netherlands)

However, the Netherlands is one of the only countries where passing a computerised test on the national language (Dutch) and knowledge of the national society is obligatory before arrival. In addition, there is no other example of computerised language testing as a condition for admission to the country elsewhere in the world (Extra and Spotti 2009). It is also one of the most expensive tests in Europe (350–830 Euros) (Van Avermaet 2009). Finally, newcomers need to go through three different stages in order to qualify as full citizens: admission to the Netherlands (Toelating) – CEFR level A1 minus; Integration in the Netherlands (Inburgering) – CEFR level A2 for oral plus written; and Citizenship (Naturalisatie).

Qualitative studies point out double standards in the integration policies of some countries at the global, European and national levels. These highlight on the one hand the promotion of multicultural approaches to integration at the European and global level, whereas on the national level, diversity is seen as an obstacle. The discriminatory nature of immigration and integration policies in the Netherlands is a good example of this. According to Extra and Spotti (2009), the discourses on newcomers in the Netherlands are constructed around the concept of ‘othering’. The terms allochtonen and

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h autochtonen distinguishes between those who were born (or whose parents were born) abroad and those who were born in the Netherlands, respectively. This distinction occurs even when the so called allochtonen hold Dutch nationality. Such a view is based on the belief that nationality derives from parental origins (jus sanguinis) rather than from country of birth (jus soli).

Another concept used in the Netherlands is that of inburgering which refers to ‘becoming an integrated citizen’ (Extra and Spotti 2009:65). Again, it emphasizes the separation between the indigenous population and migrants, as it marks out even those citizens who have been residing in the country for some time but are considered poorly educated. A further criticism of the integration policy in the Netherlands is its lack of recognition of transnational identities by being reluctant to accept dual nationality (except in some circumstances).

So, in spite of the fact that the overall policy for integrating migrants in the Netherlands is slightly favourable (according to the LR), a closer look at access to the language and the surrounding discourses on representations of migrants and their cultural identities presents a different picture, where language skills have become a barrier rather than an aid to access to Dutch society, and ultimately, to integration.

GermanyGermany, like most European countries, gives language learning a key role in processes of integration. Despite some reactionary voices in the government as we saw earlier (i.e. the chair of the Christian Democrats in Hessen, Germany), there is a movement in Germany towards more inclusive and multicultural policies that begins to recognise and come to terms with its condition of being a country of immigration (Stevenson and Schanze 2009).

The last few years, however, have seen a change of immigration policy towards more liberal understanding of who is considered to be a German citizen. In 2000 there was a breakthrough in Germany’s immigration law which reformed the law which introduced a modified version of the jus soli (principle based on place of birth) condition in addition to the more restrictive jus sanguinis (principle based on descent, i.e. parental origins). On top of this, a significant change in the law, a new Immigration Act (Gesetz zur Steuerung und Begrenzung der Zuwanderung und zur Regelung des Aufenthals und der Integration von Unionsburgern und Auslandern), came into effect in 2005. This new Act was a concurrent policy that was designed to address both the integration of the migrants already living in the country, and serve as a barrier to new immigration. At the centre of this policy is language proficiency and the testing of it.

The issues that the law sought to address were: the prevention of young members of a family joining their relatives in Germany without linguistic knowledge, the development of the knowledge of German of existing ‘foreigners’, and the support for access to language learning (Stevenson and Schanze 2009). It also addressed contemporary fears for national security sparked by terrorist attacks.

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However, more recently, according to a report by the Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration, Germany has started to build the integration of migrants not only on their linguistic deficits but also on their knowledge of ‘other’ languages and their intercultural competence (Stevenson a Schanze 2009). As Stevenson and Schanze put it:

“Germany is changing to the extent that the complexity of concepts such as integration and of achieving an inclusive sense of citizenship is being recognized and addressed. Evidence of this can be seen in the significantly more differentiated and sophisticated approach to language learning which is the cornerstone of the new integration strategy”

(p. 102)

Finally, in contrast to the Netherlands, Germany carries the bulk of the cost of its language course and charges a nominal fee of 1 Euro per hour if the candidate completes the course within two years. The level to be attained (B1 within the CEFR benchmarks) is higher than the tests carried out in the Netherlands, but the courses and teaching provided are also more comprehensive (from 400 to 900 hours).

Conclusions and future directions for researchWe have seen that the last few years have placed the learning of the host language at the top of the agenda of integration policies, i.e. a Language Requirement has become a staple of European migration policy. As I have discussed, the literature on the subject has pointed out that the emphasis on the accreditation of language knowledge in order to become entitled to participate in the new society is underpinned by certain discourses towards migrants and one-sided representations of European cultures that often deny multiculturalism.

On the one hand, there is a perception that migrants and their minority languages pose a threat to national security and social cohesion; on the other, migrant languages are perceived as a danger to the preservation of an idealised culturally homogeneous society. Governments and their policies have made the assessment of language learning and knowledge of society the key instrument not only to control entry into the prospective countries, but also to manage migrants’ processes of integration into these imagined cultures. A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Skills Outlook, highlights the need to look at a wider definition of language skills, the different needs of migrants, and the better provision for immigrants in order to promote integration. For example, it was found that immigrants with a foreign-language background that have lower levels of literacy are particularly at risk of not integrating into the labour market, so that better incentives or programmes may be needed to improve these levels (OECD 2013:30).

Within this climate we have seen that political discourses have interpreted the LR in different ways according to their historical trajectories and nation-building processes, resulting in different practices. The examples from Germany and the Netherlands have provided specific cases for reflection.

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h But given the importance placed on assessment of language skills and knowledge of the culture to integrate into a European society, I would like to suggest further lines of research to ascertain the specific nature of this relationship and its success. Despite the different ways in which the LR is being implemented in different countries, and in particular, given the increased role that the LR is going to play in the UK in the near future, it may be appropriate to investigate the appropriateness of the main instrument used for such a requirement, the language test, for predicting or even allowing the first step to a putative integration.

In order to do this, firstly, given the literature’s critique of the unsuitability of the CEFR for assessing migrants’ linguistic experiences, it may be necessary to investigate in detail what the benchmark statements for this framework of reference are and how they map out against existing TESOL language programmes aimed at migrants. Secondly, it may be useful to investigate whether passing this test indeed helps migrants integrate ‘instrumentally’ by helping them find a job or improving their access to civic life. And thirdly, it would be appropriate to carry out a close analysis of the language contained in the language tests in order to investigate what model of integration is promoted according to the conceptualisations of integration referred to in this article: assimilationist or multiculturalist.

AcknowledgementsThis research has been possible thanks to the financial support from the British Council and the collaboration of King’s College London and NATECLA. I would like to thank colleagues at these three institutions for their guidance and support at different stages of the project: Melissa Cudmore and Dot Powell (British Council), Jenny Roden (NATECLA), and Mel Cooke and Prof. Ben Rampton (King’s College London).

ReferencesBBC News (2011). In full: David Cameron’s immigration speech. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13083781 <last accessed 21/10/2013>

Blackledge, A. (2005) Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World. Amsterdam: Benjamins

Blackledge, A. (2009) Being English, speaking English: Extension to English language testing legislation and the future of multicultural Britain. In Language Testing, Migration and Citizenship. London: Continuum

Blommaert, J. and Verschueren, J. (1998) Debating Diversity: Analysing the Discourse of Tolerance. London: Routledge

Bryers, Winstanley and Cook (2013) ‘Whose integration?’ Working paper in Urban Language and Literacies. Nexus project

Cooke, M. (2009) Barrier or Entitlement? The Language and Citizenship Agenda in the United Kingdom. Language Assessment Quarterly. 6 (1) 71–77

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Home office (2013a) UK Border Agency. Changes to 'knowledge of language and life' requirements and application details <http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsfragments/85-koll (last accessed 22 October 2013)

Home office (2013b) Changes to the knowledge of language and life in the UK requirement for settlement and naturalisation. http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/britishcitizenship/kol-uk (last accessed 22 October 2013)

European Commission (EC) (2011) Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament. The Council. The European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. European Agenda for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52011DC0455:EN:NOT.

Extra, G. and Yagmur, K. (Eds.).(2012) Language Rich Europe. Trends in Policies and Practices for Multilingualism in Europe. Cambridge: CUP

Extra, G., Spotti, M. and Van Avermaet, P. (2009) Language Testing, Migration and Citizenship. London: Continuum.

Goodman, S.W. (2012) Fortifying Citizenship: Policy Strategies for Civic Integration in Western Europe. World Politics. 64 (4) <http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?decade=2010&jid=WPO&volumeId=64&issueId=04&iid=8718348>

Hogan-Brun, G.; Mar-Molinero, C. Stevenson, P. (Eds.) (2009) Discourses on language and integration: critical perspective on language testing regimes in Europe. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Horner, K. and Weber, JJ (2011) Not playing the game: Shifting patterns in the discourse of integration. Journal of Language and Politics 10:2. iii, (pp. 139–159)

Han, C., Starkey, H. and Green, A. (2010) 'Politics of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages): implications for citizenship and social justice', International Journal of Lifelong Education 29:1, 63–76

Lo Bianco, J. (2009) Social cohesion and language learning. In D. Newby and H. Penz. Languages for social cohesion: Language education in a multilingual and multicultural Europe. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. pp 35–47 http://tinyurl.com/bgm5zob.

Michalowski, I. (2009) Citizenship tests in five countries: An Expression of Political Liberalism? Discussion Paper. Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB). Social Science Research Center Berlin. ISSN no. 1866–0614

Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) A Reference guide that studies indexes of integration across a large number of countries in the EU and abroad – http://www.mipex.eu/

Newby, D. and Penz, H. (Eds.) (2007) Languages for social cohesion: Language education in a multilingual and multicultural Europe. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. http://tinyurl.com/bgm5zob

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h O’Rourke, B. (2009) Developing multilingual awareness amongst primary school children in Ireland: a case study. In D. Newby and H. Penz. Languages for social cohesion: Language education in a multilingual Europe. Graz: ECM

OECD (2013). http://skills.oecd.org/OECD_Skills_Outlook_2013.pdf

Shohamy, E. (2009). Language tests for migrants. Why language? Why tests? Why citizenship? In G. Hogan-Brun, C. Mar-Molinero, P. Stevenson (Eds.) Discourses on language and integration: critical perspective on language testing regimes in Europe. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Shohamy, E. and Kanza, T. (2009) Language and Citizenship in Israel. Language Assessment Quarterly, 6 (1) pp. 83–88

Urry, J. (2007) Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity Press

Van Avermaet, P. (2009) Fortress Europe? Language policy regimes for immigration and citizenship. In Hogan-Brun, G.; Mar-Molinero, C. Stevenson, P. (Eds.). Discourses on language and integration: critical perspective on language testing regimes in Europe. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (pp. 15–44)

Villareal, F. (2009) Enseñanza de la lengua a inmigrantes: estudio de las políticas de integración lingüística en tres países europeos y retos para el caso español. = Language teaching to immigrants: Study on linguistic integration policies in three European countries and challenges for Spain. Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo e Inmigración. Centro de Publicaciones http://www.oberaxe.es/files/datos/4b26279cc2830/lengua.pdf

Cristina Ros i Solé is currently a visiting lecturer at Kings College London. She has over 20 years’ experience in language education. She is the co-editor (with Jane Fenoulhet) of Mobility and localization in Language Learning (Peter Lang, 2011) and Romanticising Language Learning (Journal of Language and Intercultural Communication, 2013).

Email: [email protected]

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AbstractThis article focuses on language standardisation in the context of English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL). My article is based on the prem-ise that language standardisation is an on-going process towards an unattainable ideal and a site of social struggle. I will outline a study I undertook to better understand what language standardisation means to people in the field of ESOL in the UK and what difference this makes to their practice. Through my review of existing research and my own investigations, I found that power relations underlie ‘common sense’ conventions about ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ language activities. I also identi-fied the key role that ESOL practitioners and learners play in maintaining standardised English discourses, which rely on problematic ideas such as formality, appropriateness and style. I used Critical Language Awareness (CLA) as a frame through which to investigate language standardisation discourses in ESOL practice. My research suggests that ESOL practition-ers and learners have an acute awareness of language standardisation conventions but not, generally, a critical awareness of these. In particular, I found little evidence that the power relations that underlie language activities are discussed in practical ESOL contexts.

IntroductionThe one who is doing the decreeing defines himself and the class to which he belongs as those who know and were born to know…The words of his own class come to be the “true” words, which he imposes or attempts to impose on the others: the oppressed, whose words have been stolen from them.

(Freire 1970, p.115).

I’m gonna start by asking you – the readers of this here journal – a question … what are your thoughts on how I’m writing – right here, right now?? I’m kinda breaking convention as I type (in so much I see it). I’m hoping you’ll know the point I’m making (I figure the ‘standardisation’ bit in my title will give you a clue!) but I’m not gonna do this for long – ‘cause it feels kinda wrong and I’m gettin’ uncomfy now :-/

Maintaining language standardisation through ESOL practicesClaire Collins

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iew My research in 2011 with English as a second or other language (ESOL)

practitioners and learners in the UK highlighted the broad views we all hold on the multiple, complex ways that people ‘language’. Becker (1988 and 1991) uses the term ‘languaging’ to describe the on-going, multi-layered activities that people take part in when they speak or write. I recognise that some people will not recognise that the word ‘language’ can be used as a verb. Indeed, ‘to language’ may not be viewed by some people as ‘correct’ or ‘standard English’ (and my sentence is accompanied on screen with a green wriggly line to reinforce this ‘incorrectness’). However, I have chosen to challenge this convention because it reminds me that there is no such thing as ‘a language’ or ‘a language variety’ that can be separated from languaging activities.

As Becker explains, use of the term ‘languaging’ is;

“a movement away from language as something accomplished, as something apart from time and history, to language as something that is being done and reshaped constantly.”

(Becker 1988, p.25)

Our beliefs about languaging are frequently accompanied by value judgements, such as; ‘she’s a good writer’ or ‘I just hate the way she speaks!’. These conventions are naturalised to become ‘common sense’, as we can see in the example of an ESOL learner investigating the ‘right’ way to greet an English-speaking colleague. It is very unlikely that he or she would be taught the phrase; ‘How’ya doin’ honey?’ for use in a workplace context. Perhaps because we believe that greeting colleagues so ‘informally’ could make them feel uncomfortable or disrespected, we may come to think of this as a ‘wrong way’ to speak. Such common beliefs or conventions about ‘right and wrong’ ways of speaking and writing are what underpin our ideas of ‘standardised English’. These ideas differ, although blur, with notions of accent, regional dialect or language variety because it is very difficult, although certainly not unheard of, to talk about ‘right and wrong’ accents or ‘right and wrong’ regional varieties. However, as we can see above, the notion of the ‘right way’ to greet someone is fairly easy to comprehend.

Language standardisationThe ‘ideal’ of a standardised language, which is ‘an idea in the mind rather than a reality’ (Milroy & Milroy 1985, p.19), is one that is normalised in many societies today (Fairclough 1992). However, it is important to note that perceptions about ways of languaging, including value judgements, are never static but always in a state of flux, both historically and at any moment in time. To illustrate historical flux, consider the expression; ‘I shall go to the doctor’s today’. To me, this sounds antiquated and unnatural but it would not have done a few decades ago in some elements of English society. As another example, I was watching a comedian recently from America on television, recounting how a woman in London had discovered his profession and asked him what he knew about Tommy Cooper (a popular English comedian). ‘He dead’, was the comedian’s reply. The woman then corrected the American comedian’s grammar and asked if he meant, ‘he died’. ‘Yes’, said the comedian; ‘first he died, now he dead!’. These examples illustrate how standardised English is not a fixed ideal in time and, also, that standardisation judgements are subjective,

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depending on many factors such as language variety spoken and social class. Despite this subjectivity, however, the second example illustrates how some people feel justified in criticising other people’s styles of languaging, not because they don’t understand but because someone has used, what they consider, a non-standard form. In the context of ESOL practice, this subjectivity becomes problematic when we ask; who decides what is or is not the ‘right’ English to teach?

Language standardisation over time is not only a process of introducing new ‘appropriate’ or ‘correct’ ways of languaging but it is also a process of subordinating others. Lippi-Green (1997) refers therefore to ‘stigmatised’ and ‘non-stigmatised’ ways of languaging and she argues that it is the ‘social allegiances made clear by …(a) language’ which cause it to become ‘subordinated’ over time (p.63). To illustrate this point, I will turn to the use of words like ‘ta!’ for ‘thank you’ and ‘Gizza bite a’ ya buttie’, for ‘Can I have a bite of your sandwich?’ in Merseyside where I currently reside. Such ‘scouse’ (Liverpool-based) ways of languaging are often stigmatised in other parts of the UK. It is very likely that this happened after the dismantling of many of Liverpool’s industries and its dockland trade in the 1970s and 1980s when the city was represented by the British media as a focal-point of militant socialist action. We can see here an example of a working class dialect becoming stigmatised, and this is a common process, demonstrating that standardised English is the ‘sociolinguistic face of the social order.’ (Clark et al, p.11). Lippi-Green further explains that tracing the evolution of a standardised English myth is about unravelling the history of ‘who has the right to talk and be listened to’ (Lippi-Green, p.25) and, conversely, who does not.

ESOL practice and language standardisationA key role played by ESOL teachers in the UK is to help learners understand and be able to draw on standardised English conventions. I understand the importance of this because the ability to use standardised English (even though this is an impossible ideal) is a form of cultural capital (Bourdieu in Fairclough, 2001). However, accepting this as a natural state of affairs, as I will explain below, is to ignore inequalities in society and power relations that maintain them. As an illustration of my point, I have recently been living and working in The Netherlands. Dutch words starting with the letter ‘g’, as in the town name ‘Gouda’ are usually pronounced with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) sound ‘x’, so ‘Gouda’ sounds similar to ‘Howda’. I think it would be very reasonable for a Dutch language teacher to explain this pronunciation ‘rule’ to me. I would also want to explore, however, how this rule plays out in social practice and the extent to which people who don’t pronounce this ‘properly’ are stigmatized. I was once told, for example, about a politician who couldn’t say such ‘g’s properly and this was the subject of public comment in the media. Another time, I was on a train passing through the town of Gouda. The train conductor, pulling into Gouda station, announced over the tannoy system our arrival into the town but she pronounced Gouda with a ‘g’, as in the English pronunciation of ‘goat’. There was quite a reaction in the carriage and she was clearly the subject of some ridicule. I then felt a little insecure in my understanding; was it the case that the conductor came from a part of The Netherlands that is stigmatised for their use of ‘g’ instead of ‘x’? Is this

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a ‘lower social standing’ and was she being ridiculed on this basis? Should I go back to my anglicised pronunciation or follow the crowd? Such questions matter to me and I wanted to know the extent to which they matter to other ESOL practitioners and learners.

My focus here is on attitudes and common sense ideas about meaningful utterances not, for example; ‘fish, van’ on ?table several politics’ or; ‘drink there is everything water fresh’, although the latter could be understood to mean; ‘Get a sup of that there water, all fresh it is’ or, ‘Have a drink, it’s fresh water’. It is only the last example, however, that most people would consider to be ‘good’ English. This is because language standardisation, as I noted above, is concerned with perceptions of what it is to speak ‘well’ and what it is to speak ‘badly’. Such value judgements, often viewed as a sign of being ‘educated’, are fundamental to our understanding of power relations expressed through language standardisation because, as Van Lier explains; ‘speaking well is associated with certain groups of people and speaking badly is not.’ (Van Lier 1995, p.81). Following from this, I wanted to better understand the extent to which ESOL teachers work with learners to become more critically aware of standardised English as a manifestation of hegemonic power. Fairclough, following Gramsci, refers to language standardisation as ‘hegemonic power’ because it is a way in which a dominant group ‘wins the consent or at least acquiescence of other groups to the practices and ideologies which constitute its domination.’ (Fairclough 1992, p.49)

ESOL learners, in my experience, are acutely aware of the impact that different ways of languaging can have on others. For example, if I was writing to my local Member of Parliament (MP) to share my concerns about education spending cuts, in any language and any country, I would probably want to write in such a way that my MP took me seriously. It is a fact of life that the way I write a text will have an affect on the person who reads it and may alter the response I get. Through research with ESOL practitioners and learners I wanted to identify the extent to which they discuss, for example, the power that my MP exercises when making judgements about me based on the way I language. More specifically, I wanted to find out if they practiced Critical Language Awareness (CLA) (Clark et al 1987, Fairclough 1992) with respect to the way that power relations influence how we language in English, if these relations are fair and how people can challenge the way that ‘less formal’, often regional and minority, ways of languaging are devalued in society.

Grammar rulesAs I will explain below, a key argument that was used by a number of my research participants when making value judgements about languaging, was grammatical ‘correctness’. A. L. Becker argues that it is not really meaningful to talk about such things as grammar ‘rules’ which exist outside of languaging and on which we draw, even when we write sentences. In a lecture called ‘Language in particular’ (1988), Becker conducted an experiment with his audience and asked each of them to write a single sentence, describing him walking up some steps. Becker then asked members of the audience, one by one, to read their sentences out loud. Each one was different in many

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ways to the next and Becker explained that it would not be possible to ask of them: which was ‘right’ or which was ‘most correct’, since these are not valid questions. This is because the sentences did not draw simply on abstract rules of grammar which could be used to assign ‘correctness’ but, instead, on ‘dimensions’ or ‘particularities’ such as interpersonal relationships, choosing to leave things unsaid, evoking prior knowledge, etc. As Becker explains, each of writers in his audience;

reached back in memory to prior texts and made this one, the one (they) wrote, a variant of those prior texts…. Each of those sentences has a past, a history. I do not believe that they were generated by rules but rather they were drawn from lingual memory and reshaped to present circumstances.

(Becker 1988, p.24)

‘Integrationist’ linguists, like Becker, argue that there are patterns, such as grammar, that can be observed in people’s languaging but they should not be seen as ‘rules’ that have to be obeyed. Indeed, the beauty of these patterns is that they are there to be observed and that they change over time and place.

Appropriateness and formalityIn addition to an emphasis on grammar rules, I agree with Fairclough and saw through my own research that language education ‘depend(s) heavily on a view of sociolinguistic variation that centres around the concept of appropriateness’ (Fairclough 1992, p.33). Despite the fact that concepts such as appropriateness, formality and style are highly problematic and subjective, many ESOL practitioners feel that they will disadvantage learners if they do not teach what is and what is not appropriate in various given situations (Van Lier 1995, p.83). There is little doubt that people are judged, and sometimes very negatively so, by the ways that they speak. Nevertheless, as Levinson notes (in Fairclough, 1992), speakers do not always ‘comport themselves in the manner recommended by the prevailing mores’ (IBID, p.47). Despite many people thinking it is ‘appropriate’ to wear a suit for an interview, or write using ‘correct grammar’ in a formal assignment, sometimes they choose not to do so. Equipping learners with critical awareness of conventions so they can make choices about the ways that they language, including the choice to subvert convention, is the main aim of critical language awareness (CLA). For this reason, I used CLA as a frame though which to analyse the information I gathered for my research.

Critical Language AwarenessIn order to define what CLA means, it is helpful to contrast it to language awareness (LA), which became popular in the 1970s and 80s in England (Ivanicč 1989). Clark et al (1987, p.3) summarise what is different between LA and CLA in Figure 1;

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As illustrated above, the CLA framework helps us to see that language use is not neutral but always part of a wider social struggle. Furthermore, and very significantly, language awareness approaches ‘do not challenge that illusion of naturalness but reproduce it.’ (Clark et al 1987, p.11).

According to a CLA perspective, what is key when seeking to explain any discoursal encounter is that there are power relations affecting the discourse participants and the ways that they language together. CLA presupposes that ‘a critical awareness of the world, and of the possibilities for changing it, ought to be the main objectives of all education.’ (Fairclough 1992, p.7). Not addressing issues of language and power through language standardisation or simply presenting standardised English as a variety of English alongside other varieties by adopting a Language Awareness approach, is ‘dressing up inequality as diversity’ (IBID, p.15). I agree with Ivanicč that through ‘a critical view of language, accuracy and appropriacy are not things to be learned, but things to be questioned and understood.’ (Ivanicč 1989, p.8).

The research processI undertook my research in five main phases across a period of approximately six months. I began my investigation by reading articles and reviewing existing research on the topics I wanted to understand better such as; language standardisation, what ‘languaging’ might mean, common attitudes towards languaging and issues of language and power. I found some sources of information about language standardisation in the context of ESOL practice (i.e. Ivanicč 1987) but only very little and I felt that I needed to deepen my understanding of this by conducting research with ESOL learners and practitioners about their attitudes and common sense ideas.

I reached out to ESOL practitioners through my own professional networks and the ‘ESOL-Research Jisclist’, an online ESOL research and practice discussion forum. I circulated an e-questionnaire in order to ascertain whether respondents would make standardising judgements about such language as:

a ‘he’s off out now’ b ‘What brand are those keks?’ (‘keks’ meaning ‘trousers’)c ‘I never said nothing’d ‘You was there wasn’t you?’e ‘We came up town’

Figure 1. Differences between language awareness and critical language awareness, Clark et al (1987)

objectives motivations schooling language learningLA social

integrationlegitimisation of social and socio-ling order

fitting children in social order

natural order knowledge isolated from practice

CLA social emancipation

critique and change of social and socio-ling order

fitting children to work in and change social order

naturalized order

knowledge integrated with practice

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I chose the phrases because, from a standardised English point of view, they represent a range of common ‘mistakes’ (i.e. a = ‘incorrect’ use of preposition as verb ‘off out’ and d = ‘incorrect’ subject-verb agreement). I also chose some words/ phrases that are used regionally but not everywhere in the UK (i.e. b = a local vocabulary item in Merseyside; ‘keks’). I also asked respondents what they thought ‘standard English’ means and how often they discuss this concept with learners. I asked why different varieties of English, or different ways of languaging, have different statuses in society. In addition, I asked respondents to say if they thought they spoke ‘standard English’ themselves and to share their feelings about their own ways of speaking. I don’t, as I have explained above, believe that it is possible to speak ‘standard English’. However, I was keen to know how many people thought that they did and I thought that this question might encourage people to challenge the idea of being able to speak in a standard way. Finally, I gave people some space to make their own comments on the topics I had introduced. I had 84 questionnaire respondents, an extremely good response rate, considering the fact that I had reached out to approximately 675 people in total.

In the e-mail that accompanied my questionnaire, I asked for volunteers to take part in the next phase of my research; some action research into ESOL and language standardisation, taking a critical language awareness approach. To remove as many language and literacy barriers as possible and, thereby, to try and best understand ESOL learners’ critical awareness of language standardisation, I designed a session using a visual ‘Reflect for ESOL’2 approach. For example, I planned an activity where learners draw circles to represent the power that different varieties of English have and, in doing so, pose problems about how power and language are connected. Through these activities, I wanted to draw on learners’ own ‘L1’ experience of language standardisation and, therefore, their historicity (Freire 1970, p.64). If I had simply presented standardisation as a fact of life, I would have been reproducing a ‘banking knowledge’ approach to education (Freire 1970, p.61) and I did not want to present ‘yet another teacher-imposed activity and procedure of working and of ignoring the linguistic experience of the learners.’ (Clark et al 1987, p.27). An example of a ‘Reflect’ poster created by ESOL learners taking part in my research can be seen in Appendix 1. Here, ‘Wigan English’ is represented as less powerful than ‘BBC English’. In another example, learners depicted ‘Hungarian English’ as a tiny speck on the page, against more powerful Englishes that included ‘Sport language’ and ‘TV news’.

FindingsI decided to review my findings through lenses presented by Ros Ivanicč in her article; ‘Critical Language Awareness in Action’ (1989). Ivanicč identifies three key aspects of a critical language awareness approach in her ‘Checklist of critical objectives for language learning’ (1989, see Appendix 2);

a Critical awareness of the relationship between language and power.b Critical awareness of language variety.c Turning awareness into action.

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iew By considering Ivanicč ’s 14-part checklist (see Appendix 2), I was able to

explore the extent to which my research participants adopted a critical approach to language learning, in so far as they reported this to me.

A. Critical awareness of the relationship between language and powerOnly seven people (8% of my online questionnaire respondents) referred critically to relationships between language and power. This was mostly when respondents were describing what ‘standard English’ meant to them, for example citing words like ‘dominant’, ‘prestige’ and ‘powerful’ in their definitions. 15 respondents referred to language and power without taking an obviously critical stance. For example, one respondent argued that; ‘People need access to the language used by the more powerful elements of society – for education, for work.’. Almost the same number of people felt that that they had ‘a duty’ to help learners use standardised English to improve their life chances.

B. Critical awareness of language varietyThere was a general consensus amongst my research participants that it is important to discuss language varieties with ESOL learners although not necessarily in a critical way. However, people’s responses to my question about the ‘correctness’ of different example phrases were very mixed. I think this reflects the constant struggle and flux surrounding language standardisation that I noted above (Clark et al 1987 and Fairclough 1992). There were some patterns to people’s responses worthy of noting. For example, people were most likely to judge phrases ‘c’ (‘I never said nothing’) and ‘d’ (‘You was there, wasn’t you?’) as incorrect, whereas, phrase ‘a’ (‘He’s off out now’) was more acceptable. There were high levels of disagreement about phrases ‘b’ (‘What brand are those keks?’) and ‘e’ (‘We came up town’) with people having very mixed views, particularly regarding phrase ‘e’. This may be due to people’s geographical location; ‘keks’ and ‘up town’ are used more in the North of England than elsewhere in the UK. One respondent, who had selected some phrases as ‘correct’ and others as ‘neither correct nor incorrect’, explained how this had been a fairly arbitrary decision:

‘My distinction between correct and neither is not consistent. The three correct ones ‘feel’ more acceptable; the two where I selected neither seem to be more obviously different from standard English, or my version of it.’

Three other respondents agreed that judgments they had made about the ‘correctness’ or ‘incorrectness’ of a phrase or word were extremely ‘subjective’, stating, for example:

‘The second three did ‘sound’ (to me) incorrect but I do not believe they are. I think they are a non-standard form of English that, therefore, triggers a reaction of ‘incorrectness’ in me.’

More than a third of the questionnaire respondents chose not to label any of the phrases as ‘incorrect’, arguing, for example, that “Rather than ‘correct’ the above I would discuss the standard English alternative.’” Ten of respondents said that all the phrases were neither correct nor incorrect, mostly arguing that the ‘correct/ incorrect’ dichotomy is not valid. However, 57% of my respondents,

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discussed formality, context and appropriateness as reasons why learners need to be able to use standardised English. This supports Fairclough’s arguments, outlined above, that appropriateness as a justification for language standardisation has become naturalised.

42% of the respondents to my survey cited grammar rules as justification for labelling some of the phrases as ‘incorrect’. One person, for example, argued that some of the phrases contained; ‘grammar mistakes that wouldn’t be acceptable in an exam and would show the speaker to be uneducated.’ The idea that someone who uses non-standardised English language forms would sound ‘uneducated’ was surprisingly common, with eight respondents (just under 10% of the total) stating this. Van Lier also points to the fact that, as well as ‘race, ethnicity and social class… the general argument in favour of good speech is that it is the mark of being well-educated.’ (Van Lier 1995, p.81, author’s own emphasis).

C. Turning awareness into actionMore than a third of people (30 out of 84 questionnaire respondents) felt that it was important to discuss with learners the differences between varieties of English, often using ‘regional differences’ or ‘street language’ to explain this variation. I had been interested to see whether the ‘Reflect for ESOL’ activities that we delivered during the action research phase (see above) would lead to group discussions about how the status of different, less powerful ways of languaging and how this could be challenged. As I have noted above, the groups did all identify the different statuses of different ways of languaging in the UK. However, none of the action research participants and very few of the questionnaire respondents talked about challenging the low prestige status of some languaging practices and the people who take part in them.

In my questionnaire, I asked how often people discuss the topic of language standardisation with their learners. Most respondents said ‘occasionally’ (55%) or ‘fairly often’ (35%). To explore the extent to which people discussed why different varieties of English have different statuses and how this could be different, I asked them to say how often they discussed these topics with ESOL learners. This time, the majority (75%) said only ‘occasionally’ or ‘not at all’.

Overall, my findings suggest that many ESOL practitioners who talk about language standardisation do so in a non-critical way. There were, of course exceptions to this and I think that, if I had been able to talk in person to the people who responded, I might have found that they do take a critical perspective on many things (albeit, perhaps, unconsciously). One person, who did appear to take a critical stance, explained how she/he presents non-standard English varieties as part of everyday learning activities:

In class I like to highlight differences between standard and non-standard local forms. Students hear these forms outside the classroom all the time, innit! The one that springs to mind is in this part of the East Mids we often make no distinction between the plural/singular verb to be. So we might ask ‘is there any cakes left?’ ‘there was loads left this morning’.

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felt that it is important to directly teach ‘non-standard’ ways of languaging and who actively sought to include ‘authentic texts’ in his/ her teaching practices.

In contrast to many ESOL text books based on standardised English, authentic texts are recorded in situations when people are not ‘monitoring their language and are not thinking about how other people might be judging their language use.’ (ESOL UK website3). If the differences between authentic and standardised forms are highlighted, as in the ESOL UK texts, locally-produced authentic texts could be seen to socially empower learners. This is because learners, in theory, will have the information they need to make choices about which language variety to use on different occasions. Through an integrationist linguistic frame, by using authentic texts, learners are able to draw on a wider range of ‘prior texts’ when languaging, including authentic and ‘standardised’ patterns. However, ESOL learners’ agencies are as prescribed by their contexts as teachers’ are, for example in relation to social forces and testing requirements. This being the case, simply recognising the difference between authentic and standardised texts may not automatically lead to emancipatory action.

For authentic texts to have emancipatory effects, learners need opportunities to discuss how they feel about subverting language and social norms. Discussions with people about linguistic ‘norms or conventions’ will help them decide ‘which conventions to accept and which to flout and, in assessing what the risks of flouting might be as well as the possible benefits.’ (Clark et al 1987, p.30)

ConclusionBy undertaking my research, I wanted to explore what standardised English means to people who practise and learn ESOL. I was struck firstly by the lack of consensus from my peers about what ‘standard English’ means and which words and phrases could be deemed ‘incorrect’ in an ESOL learning context, despite the fact that, I think, they were all meaningful and clear. I found that people’s perceptions of language correctness, however diverse they were, did usually depend on ideas of appropriateness and formality. I also discovered that people often use grammar ‘rules’ as a benchmark for judging if languaging practices are appropriate or formal enough and that ESOL practitioners and learners have an ‘awareness’ of these rules and conventions but not generally a critical awareness. I also found that there is little discussion in ESOL contexts about issues of language and power: In particular, there was very little evidence that ESOL practitioners and learners discuss language standardisation as a manifestation of hegemonic power. This does not surprise me; I am aware how ‘natural’ and ‘common sense’ ideas of standardised languages are in most modern societies and how all of us maintain these discourses to a greater or lesser degree. However, I would like to see if more could be done to develop critical, emancipatory approaches to ESOL practice in the UK. This is because I believe that emancipation should be what education is all about.

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ReferencesBecker, A. L. (1988) Language in particular: A lecture. In Tannen, D. (ed) Linguistics in Context: Connecting, observation and understanding (pp. 17–35), Norwood, NJ: Ablex

Becker, A. L. (1991) Language and languaging, Language & Communication. Vol. 2. No. 1/ 2, pp. 33–35

Clark, R., Fairclough, N., Ivanicč , R. and Martin-Jones, M. (1987) Critical Language Awareness, Centre for Language in Social Life, Research Paper 1, University of Lancaster

Fairclough, N. (1988) Language and Ideology, Centre for Language in Social Life, Research Paper 11, University of Lancaster

Fairclough, N. (2001) Language and Power, Longman

Fairclough, N. (ed.), (1992) Critical Language Awareness, Longman

Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Penguin Books

Ivanicč , R. (1989) Critical Language Awareness in Action, Centre for Language in Social Life, Research Paper 6, University of Lancaster

Lippi-Green, R. (1997) English with an Accent, Routledge

Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (1993) Real English: The grammar of English dialects in the British Isles, Longman

Van Lier, L. (1994) Forks and hope: Pursuing understanding in different ways, Applied Linguistics, 15/3 (autumn 1994)

Van Lier, L. (1995) Introducing Language Awareness, Penguin English

Woulds, S. and Simpson, J. (2010) ‘Dead on the page’ no more! The case for authentic, locally appropriate ESOL materials, Language Issues, Vol. 21, No. 1

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Learners’ views on language status and ‘good English’

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Appendix 2 Checklist of Critical Objectives for Language Learning(This checklist was devised by Ros Ivanicč, and appeared in her University of Lancaster Research Paper; ‘Critical Language Awareness in Action’ in 1989)

A. Critical awareness of the relationship between language and power

Recognise how people with power choose the language which is used to describe people, things, and events

Understand how many types of language, especially written language, have been shaped by more prestigious social groups, and seem to exclude others. That is what makes them hard to understand, hard to use confidently, or hard to write.

Understand how the relative status of the people involved affects the way we use language. (For example, a doctor speaks differently from a patient.)

Recognise that when power relations change, language changes too – both historically and between individuals.

Understand how language use can either reproduce or challenge existing power relations.

B. Critical awareness of language variety

Recognise the nature of prejudice about minority languages, other languages of the world, and varieties of English.

Understand why some languages or language varieties are valued more highly than others.

Understand how devaluing languages or language varieties devalues their users.

Value your spoken language.

Recognise that speakers of languages and varieties other than standardised English are experts

C. Turning awareness into action

Recognise how language can either be offensive or show respect – and choose your language accordingly.

Recognise what possibilities for change exist in current circumstances, and what the constraints are.

Learn how to decide whether to challenge existing language practice in particular circumstances.

Learn how to oppose conventional language practice if you want to.

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1 ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds. See http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ESOL-RESEARCH.html

2 Reflect for ESOL is an ActionAid project in the UK3 http://esoluk.co.uk/calling/index.html

Claire Collins is a freelancer, working in the field of adult literacies and second/other language development in the UK and The Netherlands. Prior to working freelance, Claire was an ESOL practitioner, in adult and community learning and in further education colleges. Claire maintains close working relationships with ESOL (and literacy and numeracy) practitioners through her research and development work and she is currently the Secretary of ‘RaPAL’ (Research and Practice in Adult Literacy).

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IntroductionThis paper investigates the use of authentic spoken texts and tasks in preparing a class of 16–18 year old ESOL students for the Entry 1 Trinity Speaking and Listening Exam. I am new to teaching ESOL and this small-scale research project was an assessment task for the pre-service PGCE ESOL Specialists: Post-Compulsory Education and Training course which I completed at Sheffield Hallam University in 2012. I hope that it will open a window, for the uninitiated, on some of the issues surrounding authenticity and exam ‘washback’ (see literature review, below, for an explanation of this term) and that it might inspire critical consideration of authenticity in lesson planning and evaluation.

I was interested in exploring the use of authentic spoken texts and tasks with my class because it seemed to me that most of the research in this area had been carried out with higher level learners and that these learners have tended to be adults rather than teens. I was therefore keen to explore the extent to which it is possible and helpful to incorporate authenticity into exam preparation for ‘Pre-Entry’ students in particular. I also wanted to look more closely at what authenticity means and at whether exam ‘washback’ impacts on the use of authentic texts and tasks. Finally, I was also interested in exploring the issue of motivation, with particular reference to my students’ age-group.

ContextMy placement was in an FE college and, for four months, I was teaching a ‘Pre-Entry’ class of fourteen full-time 16–18 year olds: eleven boys and three girls. ‘Pre-Entry’, in this context, meant students who, it was felt, were unready to take the Entry 1 Speaking and Listening exams in March. It did not mean students who struggled with basic literacy. It was hoped that some of the students would have improved enough to be entered for the June exams. The college had recently taken the decision to switch from the Cambridge exam board to Trinity in order to align with a partner college within their federal structure. I took the class for just one 2½ hour lesson per week. The students had all been in the UK for less than a year and some of them were very recent arrivals indeed. In terms of nationality and language background they were a very mixed group. They came from nine different countries across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East and spoke eight different first languages (L1s). They had all had a primary and secondary school education, albeit somewhat disrupted for many, and they were all familiar with the Roman alphabet and had some reading ability.

Authentic spoken texts and tasksEllie Willcocks

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s Literature reviewThe literature I selected and read for my review was chosen with a view to addressing two questions: (1) what is ‘authentic’ speaking and listening? and (2) how might exam washback facilitate or limit authenticity?

(1) What is ‘authentic’ speaking and listening?My reading led me to the view that authenticity can be divided into three categories: authenticity of text, authenticity of task and authentic self-expression. I shall describe each of these in turn before proceeding to explore the idea of exam washback.

Authenticity of textThe value of authentic written texts in communicative language teaching has long been advocated. It has not been until quite recently, however, as the technology for recording, storing and analysing spoken text has improved, that there has been greater interest in and exploitation of authentic speech. What this has led to has been a realisation that the grammar of spoken English is quite different to that of written English in several respects. Research using the Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English (CANCODE) corpus has afforded fascinating insights into the way English is actually spoken today, and has revealed the prevalence of features considered non-standard in written grammar such as:

• ellipsis(omittingwordstoavoidredundancy),e.g.“[do you] Fancy a drink?”• tails(repetitionof thesubjectattheendof asentenceforemphasis),e.g.

“They all want throwing out, the government.”• theuseof ‘like’asanattentionfocusingdiscoursemarker,e.g.“Ijustwent

for a nap and when I woke up it was like 3 o’clock.”• co-construction,e.g.A:“That’snotnice.”,B:“It’sfunnythough.”**ExamplestakenfromTimmis(2012)

These findings are important because they suggest that there are many features of spoken grammar which are not being taught in the classroom. They also call into question the usefulness, in spoken English, of some of the grammar which is being taught. These insights can help teachers explain and raise awareness of features which are largely specific to spoken (as opposed to written) English, something which is rarely addressed in coursebooks or classrooms. “This contrasts notably with written genres where larger patterns, such as the introduction-main body-conclusion structure of discursive essays, are often pointed out.” (Gilmore 2007).

Research into authentic spoken texts can also afford insights into the functions as well as the structure of verbal interactions that commonly take place. For example, one of the exam tasks in the Trinity Level 2 Speaking and Listening exam is ‘making a complaint’ (e.g. about a faulty purchase). However, corpus research shows that the vast majority of complaining that takes place in the real world is in the form of indirect complaints (e.g. to elicit sympathy) rather than direct complaints with a view to seeking redress (ref. to Boxer & Pickering, 1995 in Gilmore, 2007). This example digresses slightly from my ‘Pre-Entry’ focus but there may well be other examples which impact upon ‘Pre-Entry’ level learners.

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Will my use of an ‘authentic’ spoken text prove to be a qualitatively different experience for the students and will it reveal any insights into real spoken English?

Authenticity of taskOne limitation of recordings of authentic speech, however is that they are plucked out of context. The importance of context to spoken communication is an idea that was explored by Widdowson (1979), who drew a distinction between authenticity (or ‘genuineness’) of a text and authenticity of the relationship between the text and its audience. He pointed out that the act of extracting an authentic text from its context served to disauthenticate it and therefore authentic texts should have no special status in language teaching.

In addition to the lack of context, many authentic texts are inaccessible to learners due to either the complexity of the language used or the presumed cultural knowledge. This calls into question whether authenticity of text is something to be aspired to at all. Taylor (1994) points out that “Skill-getting and pre-communicative activities and tasks, while not perhaps ‘authentic’ in themselves, are nevertheless aimed at equipping learners with skills and knowledge which will enable them to put the language to authentic use.”. This is a useful reminder not only of the need for scaffolding, particularly with lower-level learners, but also of the need for authenticity in output and interaction, not just in input.

The idea of focusing on authentic tasks rather than texts can be challenging in a classroom environment, particularly when the requirements of the exam are factored in. Does it make a difference to students whether their tasks are ‘authentic’ or whether they are constructed simulations? And what implications does Widdowson’s view have for my choice of text? Is it possible to extract a spoken text for classroom use without severing it from its context?

Authentic self-expressionIn the last decade, the focus for many researchers has been on the relationship between language, power and identity. They have highlighted the need to offer opportunities for immigrants to the UK to “…develop the voice (or voices) needed for authentic self-expression … and … manage the extended institutional interactions required to negotiate welfare, medical and work-related communications.” (Roberts & Cooke 2009). This idea of ‘authentic self-expression’ is based on Goffman (1981), who characterised authentic speech (or ‘fresh talk’) to be that which occurs when (a) the speaker, (b) the person who scripts the utterance and (c) the person whose ideas and beliefs are embodied in the utterance are one and the same person. This has resonance when considered in conjunction with constructivist learning theory where new knowledge is generated from the interaction between existing understandings and new experiences. This has been developed further by Wallace (2008) whose idea of classrooms as ‘critical communities’ sees learners questioning and contributing to the construction of knowledge in the classroom.

Research undertaken by Baynham et al in 2007 revealed that when learners were given opportunities to “speak from within” about issues which were of importance to them, “they produced longer utterances and expressed

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s more complex ideas than in the types of classrooms which relied mainly on invented dialogues or teacher prescribed topics.” (Roberts & Cooke 2009). Thus the learners generated “…narratives in interaction to construct, or perhaps further develop and extend, a sense of who they are.” (Simpson, 2011). Sometimes authentic self-expression can be encouraged via teacher-led activities but often it occurs spontaneously. Baynham (2006) describes these occasions as “… opportunities for learning which must be grabbed in passing.”

This idea of encouraging student agency and using students’ concerns as a springboard for learning is an interesting one for me. The combination of my students’ age and their low level of English means that they are amongst the most vulnerable of ESOL learners. This means that, potentially, they have the most to gain from this approach but does their low level of English prevent them from accessing it?

(2) How might exam washback facilitate or limit authenticity?The title of this research project assumes a relationship between testing and teaching which, in general education, is known as ‘backwash’ but in English language education is also known as ‘washback’. Washback can have negative, positive or neutral effects and it can be broadly defined as the influence that testing has on teaching and learning. It encapsulates the idea that “…teachers and learners do things they would not necessarily otherwise do because of the test.” (Alderson & Wall 1993:117).

In the past, language testing bodies tended to test learners’ knowledge of language via multiple choice questionnaires. It was argued that the effects of test washback meant that teachers did not involve learners in authentically communicative classroom activities until performance-based tests were introduced in the 1980s which required students to demonstrate their use of language. Thus, tests demonstrating positive washback, in the context of communicative language teaching, are seen as those which require “…authentic and direct samples of the communicative behaviours of listening, speaking, reading and writing of the language being learnt.” (Messick 1996:241).

Some researchers have argued strongly the importance of test developers designing tests which take “washback validity” (Morrow 1986) into account. However, Alderson, a pioneer in the field of washback research, feels that negative washback cannot be eliminated from tests because washback is not solely an attribute of the test itself: it is also dependent on teacher (and to some extent, learner) behaviour. In his foreword to Cheng and Watanabe with Curtis (2004:xi), Alderson asserts, “…there are limits to what a test developer can achieve, and much more attention needs to be paid to the reasons why teachers teach the way they do.”

So it seems that, while washback can influence teachers’ curriculum decision-making, there is also scope for teachers to think creatively about the different ways in which they can prepare their students for exams. Just how much leeway there is is one of the questions I shall be considering.

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MethodsI divided my method of investigation into four stages. The first involved consideration of the requirements of the Trinity Speaking and Listening exam and my selection of suitable texts and tasks. The next three stages (one for each ‘type’ of authenticity I had identified) each involved delivering an activity within a lesson and observing what happened. I gathered my data partly by taking notes of student utterances and behaviour during the activities and also by recording some parts on a digital voice recorder.

I felt it was very important that my research should not in any way detract from the students’ learning aims because the difficulty involved in translating into eight different languages in the timescale I was working to combined with the students’ low level of English meant that I was unable to explain my research project to them. I did ask for (and gain) their permission to record them on a digital voice recorder as part of my research but they were unable to give informed consent to taking part in the project. It was essential, therefore, that my research instruments constitute a useful part of their normal curriculum. Happily, this coincided nicely with my aim to investigate preparation for the Entry 1 exams.

Designing activities with a view to achieving both authenticity and exam preparationThe Trinity Entry 1 Speaking and Listening exam lasts about seven minutes and consists of two tasks. The first is to have a conversation with the examiner, exchanging greetings, then exchanging some personal information (e.g. names, where they live, where they come from) and finally, having a brief exchange about likes and dislikes (e.g. food or hobbies). The second task focuses on the language of locations and directions. It starts with a test of prepositions of place using realia from the room (e.g. describing where a pencil is in relation to other objects on the desk). Then the candidate is given some directions and asked to follow them on a simple street plan, asking for clarification where necessary. Finally, the candidate is asked to give some authentic directions to the examiner (e.g. the way to the toilets).

I decided not to address the ‘greetings’ and ‘exchanging personal information’ parts of the exam because most of my students are already perfectly capable of undertaking this and do not really need any further preparation for it. So, I decided to focus on ‘likes and dislikes’ and ‘locations and directions’. We had already done some classroom work on both these topics but so far I had not attempted to incorporate any authenticity into them.

The language of ‘likes and dislikes’ seemed quite teen-friendly to me and I did not anticipate having much difficulty designing an authentic task for this. The idea that the language of locations and directions should be a priority for these learners is one which it is beyond the scope of this project to question. It would be interesting to look at some corpus data and see how prevalent this lexis is in the day-to-day speech of British 16–18 year olds. However, for this project I shall simply consider the extent to which it is possible to prepare for these topics using authentic spoken texts and tasks and I shall discuss this in my findings, below.

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s Authenticity of textFor this part of the project, I selected a ‘YouTube’ clip in which a woman asks several passers-by for directions in a town centre. The clip is one of a series produced by an organisation called ‘Real English’. Although the woman’s questions are inauthentic, in that she is clearly not really lost, the replies are given spontaneously and genuinely and for this reason I judged it to be a sufficiently authentic text for my investigation. I typed up the dialogue and created a listening comprehension exercise where the students had to watch the video and identify the key information in the responses given. The listening comprehension was administered under test conditions so that I could evaluate the extent to which each student coped with the task. The fact that it was video rather than just audio gave added authenticity, I felt, because the students were able to follow the visual clues, such as gesticulations, as well as the verbal information, just as they would in real life. The task required the students to listen for a key phrase and circle it on the transcript. For example, if the respondent had said “You go straight up the High Street and turn left at the top.” The students were given a sentence which read “You go straight up the High Street and turn left/turn right at the top.” and asked to circle the correct answer. I made sure that they were completely clear about what the task was and what they had to do by constructing a brief pilot version of the test, with me providing a very simplified audio text, and I checked that they were circling the correct answers before I moved on to the real thing.

Authenticity of taskThis phase of the project involved the students asking for directions around the college. I spent 20 minutes with them in the classroom first, preparing them for the task and drilling the question “Excuse me, could you tell me the way to the…?” We then left the ESOL department and set off into the corridors, stairwells and reception areas of the college, looking for people to ask for directions. The students took it in turns to walk up to people they did not know and ask the way to the sports hall, the refectory, the library and the toilets and we recorded each exchange on a digital voice recorder. I felt this was a reasonably authentic task for the students to be undertaking because many of the students in the class were quite new to the college, and none had been there more than six months, so they might well find themselves having to ask for directions as they gradually became more involved in the life of the wider college, outside the ESOL department. We completed the final stage of this phase in the next lesson, when we listened back to the recordings and focused on understanding the replies that people had given.

Authentic self-expressionThis final phase of the project represented a break from the work on ‘directions’ and it was intended to prepare the students for the element of the exam which focuses on talking about likes and dislikes. We spent about half an hour practising “Do you like …?”, “Yes, I do. What about you?”, “I like it too.” etc, first as choral repetition, then in pairs with cue cards. I then let them loose on the computers, with two or three students sharing a computer, and asked them to take turns finding a website that they like, then one that they do not like, and talking to each other about them. My hope was that

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giving the students the freedom of the whole internet would serve to “bring the outside in” (Baynham 2007) and open up a space in which they could express themselves authentically. I placed digital voice recorders near to the computers and the idea was that I would simply allow the students to get on with the task with minimal interference from me.

Consideration of methodsMy method of investigation was simply to set up the activities and then observe them unfold, taking notes and recording the ‘asking for directions’ activity and the computer activity on a digital voice recorder. I paid particular attention to how authentic the experience was for the students, how well it prepared them for the exam, how accessible the students found it and the extent to which they seemed motivated by each activity. As such, then, it constituted a semi-structured observation in that I was looking at a very particular range of issues but I did not have a hypothesis to prove or disprove. Instead, my aim was to generate an explanation through my consideration of the data. It is fair to say that I was limited in choosing my method of investigation by the practical consideration of the language barrier and, had I been able to explore options for translation/interpreting, I would have welcomed the opportunity to elicit feedback from the students about the activities and about their educational experience in general. This would have been in addition to observation, however, not in lieu of it. I favoured observation as my method because, as Cohen et al point out “it offers an investigator the opportunity to gather ‘live’ data from naturally occurring situations…” It “…thus has the potential to yield more valid or authentic data than would otherwise be the case with mediated or inferential methods.” (2011:456). On the other hand, observation does carry with it a significant responsibility to ensure validity and reliability (or trustworthiness) through a commitment to accuracy, thoroughness and honesty. The researcher’s close relationship with the group being studied can affect their judgement, so it is important to be mindful of this throughout all stages of the research process. I did not want my desire for a positive outcome to result in my seeing motivation (for example) where there was none.

Presentation of key findingsSelection of research instrumentsI found that selecting the authentic spoken text and designing the authentic activities was just as important a part of the research process as actually using them. It forced me to think about what authenticity means and to what extent it is actually possible to link some of the exam tasks to authenticity. For example, I tried really hard to think of an authentic text or task which would practise prepositions of place but struggled to come up with anything convincing. An extension of the ‘directions’ work could activate some of the prepositions of place (‘next to’, ‘between’ and ‘opposite’, for example) but probably not ‘on’, ‘in’, ‘under’, ‘above’ or ‘behind’. It seemed to me that if this is lexis which is valuable to these students then I should be able to come up with something. Perhaps my failure to do so indicates that this is language which they would not use very much. My prior teaching of prepositions of

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s place had been via the context of an untidy room, where I was looking for items and the students had to tell me where the items were. However, 13 of my 14 students live with their parents and speak their L1 at home, so this would not transfer naturally to an authentic situation for them.

The marrying of authenticity with ‘directions’ and ‘likes and dislikes’ was more straight-forward, however.

Authenticity of spoken textI felt that the ‘YouTube’ video clip was very successful as an authentic text. The problem with most listening comprehension texts is that, even when they are based on naturally occurring speech (rather than scripted dialogue), they are snatched out of context, adding an unrealistic layer of difficulty to decoding them. This text, however, was accompanied by the full visual context of the exchanges and the students were able to use visual and non-verbal clues to aid their understanding. Using an authentic text also meant that I was able to point out to the students that people tend to say “Scuse me” rather than ‘’Excuse me”. The interesting thing, in administering the test, was that when I first played the video there were gasps of horror among the students and cries of “too fast”. However, I reassured them that I would play it through twice, so they would get a second chance to listen for the answer and their results showed that, despite their initial panic, they coped with the exercise extremely well. The average score was 8.4 out of 10, with none of the eleven students scoring any less than 7 out of 10.

I felt this was a valuable activity to undertake for exam preparation. It did not exactly replicate the exam experience, because in the exam the students have to listen, understand and respond appropriately all in one go. The exam task, therefore, is actually more authentic than the preparation activity I had devised. However, in preparing students for authentic speaking and listening there is a strong case for isolating the two skills and focusing on developing each skill separately. In terms of assessment, too, it is important as a teacher to know whether the student is struggling to understand the question or struggling to produce the correct answer.

Was this task motivating for the students? It was hard to tell, actually, how motivating it was. Because it was a passive activity which, by its very nature, had to be undertaken in silence, there was little feedback to observe during the test. There was also little reaction from the students the next week when I gave them their scores and reviewed the text with them, highlighting the correct answers. Hopefully, though, their high scores will have demonstrated to them that they are more capable than they thought of picking out key information from untidy and rapidly spoken authentic English.

Authenticity of task Asking strangers for directions around the college scored highly in terms of authenticity, in so far as the situation was realistic and response of the interlocutors was somewhat unpredictable. There were inauthentic elements to it though. Firstly, each interaction was captured on a digital voice recorder, although this did not seem to bother either the students or the people they spoke to. Secondly, I helped the students by initially asking the people we

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encountered if they would mind if my student asked them a question and I stayed with them during the exchange. Finally, the authenticity of the task was limited by the fact that the students did not really need to know the directions, so they did not have to understand the reply. In this sense, the activity constituted a natural partner activity to the one described above. In the ‘text’ activity, the students only had to listen. In this activity they only had to speak. What was quite telling, though, was that every single student thanked their respondent, even though we had not drilled this nor even talked about it in class. This revealed to me that the students approached the situation as 100% authentic, in terms of their output and how it was received. It also revealed to me that I have very pleasingly polite students!

The main value of the task in terms of exam preparation was that it challenged the students to interact with a stranger, just as they would have to do in the exam. This in itself made the activity worthwhile, I would contend, although in the exam task the roles are reversed, and it is the student who is asked for directions and has to give them. Most of the students were clearly quite nervous and needed a lot of encouragement and support to undertake the task. Despite their nerves, though, it was obvious that they were excited and really enjoyed escaping the classroom to do something a bit different. There was plenty of opportunity for them to abscond altogether if they had wanted to, as we walked around the college. Nobody did, though. The group stayed together and they all had fun watching each other have their turn. I had a strong impression that the students found the activity very motivating and that they experienced a sense of achievement through it. One of the students, who sometimes gives the impression of being quite unmotivated in class, asked a passer-by the way to the refectory. The man gave him the directions and then asked “Why? Are you hungry?” and the student laughed and said “Yes, hungry!” and clutched his stomach. It was great to see him enjoying a shared joke, even at this beginner level of English.

The second stage of this activity came in the next lesson, when we listened back to the digital voice recording. This recording constituted another authentic spoken text and, this time, it did not matter that it was audio only, because the visual element could be reconstructed in our memory. The students had a great laugh, listening back to themselves and we focused on listening to and understanding what the respondents had said.

Authentic self-expressionThe experience of using the computers to access internet sites was authentic in so far as all the students are technophiles and enjoy using the internet in their spare time. It would, therefore, be authentic for them to talk about this in the context of likes and dislikes. However, the fact that they were required to share a computer with one or two other students for this activity was inauthentic and proved to be quite problematic for some students. Also, although using the internet and talking about internet sites were both quite authentic activities for this group of students, trying to put the two things together in this way did not really work for all students. What I had not anticipated was that some of the students would simply access their favourite shoot-em-up games and start playing them rather than talking to their fellow students about them. I had deliberately made the activity quite free and

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s unstructured in order to encourage authenticity of expression but, teenagers being teenagers, some of them interpreted this to mean that they could do whatever they liked and forget about learning English.

So, for many of the students, this was an unsuccessful activity because they were either engrossed in a computer activity and not talking to anyone or they were sitting waiting their turn and not talking to anyone. However, for one group of four students, each of whom had different L1s, it was really very successful. This group started off by looking at the family photos on one student’s Facebook account. My digital voice recorder captured them asking him questions about his family:

“Who that?”“Me!”“You?”[haha]“You?”“No you, my dad. My brother. My sister.”

Then another student took his turn. He decided to go to Google Translate because (he explained to me later) he wanted to say to a girl who was new to the class that she should not be so shy. He looked up “shy” in his language and Google Translate furnished him with ‘bashful’, which he then tried to look up in her language. Unfortunately he was unable to take it any further because her language was not on Google Translate but his discussion with her about what language she spoke and his efforts to encourage her to speak were valuable in themselves.

In terms of exam preparation, the activity did not really activate any of the language they would need for talking about likes and dislikes. What it did do, though, was encourage some of the students to use their English for an authentic communicative purpose, i.e. developing the social relationships within their group. This was particularly valuable for the new student, who had just arrived in the UK having come from a very difficult and distressing situation in her home country. An understanding of learning as something that takes place within communities of practice (Lave & Wenger 1991) values attention given to social relationships within the group. I would argue, therefore, that this activity did contribute indirectly to exam preparation, albeit only for four of the eleven students present.

Evaluation of methodsUndertaking this project has convinced me that semi-structured observation is a valuable method of investigation. No research method is perfect. Even if I had been able to conduct interviews, “Interviewers and interviewees alike bring their own, often unconscious, experiential and biographical baggage with them into the interview situation.” (Cohen et al 2011:204). Interviewer effects, in this case, might have led to the students giving me answers that they thought I wanted to hear. A focus group, on the other hand, might have encouraged the students to give answers that they think their peers want to hear. Also, relying on interviewing or focus groups alone might have closed down opportunities for making discoveries that I had not predicted. The advantage of using semi-structured observation has been that, rather

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than narrowing my investigation to predetermined variables, I have looked at everything under a range of broad themes and then decided what is important. However, observation is prone to researcher bias and I have had to consciously guard against selective data recording and biased interpretation of data (e.g. giving a rosier picture of how well my activities worked than was actually the case). Also, one weakness of my project has been my inability to ask my students what they think. My impression of the students is that they tend to be motivated by fun and engaging activities rather than being extrinsically motivated by a focus on the skills they need to pass exams. It would be really interesting to explore this with them and find out if my impression is correct. Asking the students’ opinions would also have helped me to triangulate my findings and perhaps justify my interpretations of my observations. Using observation and interviewing together would have made for a more robust research project. As Denzin (1989) quoted in Cohen et al (2011:210) suggests, triangulation can help to overcome problems of validity and reliability in observational research.

When it came to actually using the research instruments the spoken text constituted useful exam preparation in that it enabled the students to see that they could cope with authentic speech. It was difficult to gauge how motivating this activity was, though, because it inhibited both verbal and non-verbal communication once it was properly underway. Also, it did not strictly test comprehension, only the ability to pick out the correct words. Perhaps requiring the students to draw a route onto a map rather than circling the correct answer would have been better.

The ‘asking for directions’ task was probably the most successful research instrument because as well as being very authentic and good preparation for the exam, it was also easy to see how motivated the students were by it. The only thing that could have improved it, I think, would have been to reverse the roles so as to better mirror the exam task. Perhaps the next phase of our exam preparation should involve the students standing near reception with a placard saying “Please ask us for directions to the toilets/the refectory/the library/the sports hall.”

The computer task was less successful in some respects because seven out of the eleven students present gained little benefit from it. If I had taken a more prescriptive and controlling approach to the task, though, I would almost certainly have prevented the lovely conversations which did take place from ever emerging. For the students who did engage with the task, it was clearly very motivating indeed and the task demonstrated that it is possible to create opportunities for authentic self-expression even in ‘Pre-Entry’ students.

Conclusions and recommendationsMy first question was how possible is it to use authentic spoken texts and tasks in preparing students for the exam. My answer to this, after having failed to think of a convincingly authentic activity to teach prepositions of place, would have to be that it depends on which element of the exam you are preparing for. Certainly, marrying authenticity with ‘directions’ and ‘likes and dislikes’ was not problematic.

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s My second question was how beneficial is authenticity to the students. My authentic ‘asking for directions’ task showed itself to be very beneficial, I felt, in terms of student motivation, the level of challenge, the sense of achievement and the extent to which it prepared the students for the exams. It was great fun too, which meant that it was beneficial in terms of group-bonding. I would definitely recommend this activity to other teachers. I would also explore an extension activity involving giving directions, however.

My authentic text was also beneficial in that it enabled the students to demonstrate (to themselves and to me) that they could cope with authentic speech. However, I was not entirely happy, on reflection, with the way in which I had exploited it. I think the students would have found it more engaging and motivating if they had been required to actually follow the directions (e.g. on a map) rather than simply picking out the words. This would also have better mirrored the exam task.

And, finally, my authentic ‘likes and dislikes’ task was beneficial, as I said above, for some of the students. As a student teacher it has been drilled into me that everything that takes place in my lessons must be linked to pre-determined learning outcomes. However, Wallace (2006) gives an eloquent account of how over-planning can lead to teachers closing down opportunities for authentic self-expression. I think, on balance, it is right to protect some space within class time for learners’ own voices to develop, even if not all learners are benefiting from this at the same time and even if the link to exam preparation is indirect.

BibliographyAlderson, J. C. and Wall, D. (1993) ‘Does washback exist?’ Applied Linguistics, 14 (2): 115–129.

Baynham, M. (2006) ‘Agency and contingency in the language learning of refugees and asylum seekers.’ Linguistics and Education, 17(1): 24–39

Baynham, M. et al (2007) Effective teaching and learning: ESOL[online].Lastaccessed 11 March 2012 at: http://www.nrdc.org.uk/publications_list.asp?Keywords=effective+teaching+and+learning%3A+esol&CategoryID=&CategoryIDTheme=&ContactID=&PubYear=&SearchSubmit=1&SearchSubmitButton=Search

Cheng, L. & Watanabe, Y. with Curtis, A. (eds) (2004) Washback in language testing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Denzin, N. K. (1989) The research act: a theoretical introduction to sociological methods (3rd edition). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Gilmore, A. (2007) ‘Authentic materials and authenticity in foreign language learning’. Language Teaching, 40: 97–118

Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning. Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press

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Messick, S. (1996) ‘Validity and washback in language testing’. Language Testing, 13 (3): 241–256

Morrow, K. (1986) The evaluation of tests of communicative performance in Portal (ed.)

Portal, M. (ed.) (1986) Innovations in language testing. London: NFER/Nelson

Real English 19 Giving directions[online].Lastaccessedon2May2012at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvA604-8HVA

Roberts, C., & Cooke, M. (2009). Authenticity in the adult ESOL classroom and beyond. TESOL Quarterly, 43(4): 620–642.

Simpson, J. (2006) Differing expectations in the assessment of the speaking skills of ESOL learners. In Linguistics and Education, 17(1): 40–55.

Simpson, J. (2010) ‘Telling tales: discursive space and narratives in ESOL classrooms’. Linguistics and Education, 22 (1): 10–22

Taylor, D. (1994) ‘Inauthentic authenticity or authentic inauthenticity?’ in TESL-EJ, 1(2): 1–11

Timmis, I. (2012) Spoken language research and ELT: where are we now? A talk given for NATESOL on 14 March 2012

Trinity College London (2012) ESOL (online). Last accessed on 18 February 2012 at: http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/site/?id=370

Wallace, C. (2008) ‘Negotiating communication rights in multilingual classrooms: towards the creation of critical communities of learners.’ Pedagogies: An International Journal, 3 (3): 150–167

Widdowson, H. G. (1998) Context, Community and Authentic Language. Paper presented at TESOL Annual Convention, Seattle, 17–21 March 1998

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s Appendix: Listening comprehension worksheet

Following directions

1 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to Southgate Street, please?

B: Just go up there and turn left/turn right.

A: OK, thanks very much. Up… sorry… where?

B: Straight up to the traffic lights, then turn left/turn right at the traffic lights.

A: OK. Thanks, thanks.

2 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to Parchment Street?

B: Mm. Go down to Smith’s and turn left/turn right. That’s Parchment Street.

A: Thanks.

3 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to Westover Street/Road, please?

B: Ah, sorry, I can’t speak English.

4 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to The Cut, please?

B: Yes, it’s just along here and your first on the left/on the right.

A: Lovely, thanks.

5 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to Southgate Street, please?

B: Southgate? Up to the lights and it’s the road on the left/on the right.

A: Lovely. Thanks a lot.

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Ellie Willcocks completed her PGCE ESOL Specialists: Post-Compulsory Education and Training at Sheffield Hallam University in June 2012 and is currently working as a freelance ESOL teacher in Sheffield.


6 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to the cathedral, please?

B: Cathedral? Right/Straight down here.

A: Right/Straight down here?

B: Yes.

A: Thanks.

7 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to the train station, please?

B: Train station? Straight/Left up the road.

A: Straight/Left up the road.

8 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to St. Clement’s Street, please?

B: I’m sorry, I don’t know/I don’t live here.

A: OK. Thanks.

9 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to Southgate Street please?

B: I’m afraid I don’t know/I don’t go that way to Southgate Street. I’m a comparative stranger here myself.

A: OK. Thanks very much. OK, bye.

10 A: Excuse me, could you tell me the way to Parchment Street, please?

B: I don’t know! /That way!

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s Correction, feedback and learning in online ‘chat’Susan McDowell

IntroductionThis research project investigates the affordances for learning English in an inter-country Facebook ‘chat’ group, the approach of the teacher (me), and the opinions of the other participants. The particular focus here is on vocabulary development and corrective feedback in synchronous computer-mediated-communication (CMC). It was a longitudinal project over a 6 month period from June to December 2012.

The groupE-learning technology provides opportunities for improved access through the removal of temporal, geographical and situational barriers.

(Kanuka and Rourke 2008:13–14, cited in Pachler and Daly 2011)

The research project was incorporated within an existing group, meeting for one hour weekly via the Facebook message facility. Participants included five members of a former (face-to-face) conversation class I had taught in Algeria, and myself, based in the UK.

The group is mixed level, ranging from elementary/pre-intermediate to advanced levels. They are from a variety of backgrounds, although most are attending or have already completed higher education. None of the group have specialised in languages at school or university, and English, for them, is pursued for personal development and interest.

The participants had joined the initial group with the specific intention of practising speaking, so the online ‘chat’ was an opportunity to continue along a similar conversational basis. After 3 months, when the online meetings became the focus for this research project, I began to incorporate questions about whether the ‘chat’ was helping the participants’ English and how they would like it to progress.

The approach – ‘noticing’ and sociocultural theoryIn the data presented here, I attempt to demonstrate how the notion of ‘noticing’ might be harnessed to learning in interactive online written communication from a sociocultural perspective.

The ‘noticing hypothesis’ was developed by Schmidt who had diarised his own progress in learning Portuguese, describing how he became aware that

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he was better able to notice items of language (words, phrases, structures) in communicative settings beyond the classroom if he had learned about them in class beforehand (Schmidt and Frota 1984). Schmidt (1990) concluded that ‘noticing’ might be usefully deployed in language learning situations.

Awareness, attention and consciousness are key factors in sociocultural theory (SCT), developed from the research of Vygotsky, who describes how learning is socially mediated via cultural ‘tools’ (such as language), and that it is this which precedes actual development, with the intermental functions coming before the intramental.

Any higher mental function was external (and) social before it was internal. … Any function in the child’s cultural development appears twice or on two planes … It appears first between people as an intramental category, and then within the child as an intramental category. This is equally true of voluntary attention, logical memory, the formation of concepts, and the development of will.

(Vygotsky 1960:197–8, cited in Minick 1996)

Vygotsky proposes that learning should take place within the ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD), that is, the potential for learning in relation to the child’s actual developmental level:

an essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of proximal development; that is, learning awakens a variety of internal development processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers. Once these processes are internalised, they become part of the child’s independent development achievement.

(Vygotsky 1978:90)

Inherent in the notion of the ZPD is the aim to shift learning from ‘other-regulated’, whereby the ‘other’ role might be performed by teachers, peers, or others in the act of assisting, to ‘self-regulated’, in which the child is able to act autonomously. Learning is not perceived as ‘stable’ but emergent in the social situation – it cannot be understood apart from its relationship to the social (and the historical context). Vygotsky was also clear that these theories could be applied to adult learning development.

In language teaching and learning, the application of this approach means that ‘assisted learning’ should not inhibit social interaction. Language development, also, should not be seen as linear and nor should teaching be understood to act in a causal manner, leading directly to ‘acquisition’.

Online conversationThe same technologies that enhance learning also enable us to gain insights into the nature of learning. This is because the devices that students use can also serve as microscopes, revealing in close-up the details of their learning.

(Cox and Ainsworth 2012:17)

Online group chat often follows different threads at the same time, converging and diverging between the participants so that, at times, there is a juggling act of synchronous conversations. However, this also affords possibilities

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s for differentiation (in line with the ZPD), with opportunities for individual attention in correction and feedback, as well as providing multiple foci for learning, and to maintain participant interest.

The group is accustomed to working together, which helps facilitate authentic communicative discussion and focus on fluency. Online chat allows participants to prepare their ‘turn’ in their own time, thereby also facilitating focus on accuracy – albeit with a very informal register, with abbreviations common to the online context. For example, Asma states:

we dont make so mistakes here cus we write correctly.(Appendix 2).

The participants were experienced in the use of chat conventions: use of emoticons, text-like abbreviations, and informal playful use of language. Facebook chat is very popular amongst young people in Algeria, and the participants in this group frequently participate in chat, usually in one or more of the languages used in that area of the country (Derdja, Arabic, French, and sometimes English), with people they meet online. It seems that the participants in this group are unafraid of making ‘mistakes’ in their use of English given the communicative focus. They are also familiar with using this chat as a learning strategy for language development, for example Asma says that she learned English via “chat … and rarely reading” (Appendix 3), suggesting that peer collaboration in interactive online ‘chat’ can be a motivating tool, offering affordances for language development.

CMC may facilitate peer collaborative learning since participants are ‘pushed’ (Swain 1985:248–9) to produce ‘chat’ and, ‘Learners may notice that they cannot say what they want to say in the target language’ (Swain 1995:125–126). This is then adapted to SCT:

Sociocultural theory … puts language production in a “star role”, so to speak (Swain 2005). Speaking – and writing – are conceived of as cognitive tools – tools that mediate internalization; that externalize internal psychological activity, resocializing and re-cognizing it for the individual; that construct and deconstruct knowledge; and that regulate and are regulated by human agency.

(Swain and Lapkin 2005:179)

Lantolf adds a qualification this, commenting that ‘dialogic language can only serve internalization if the individuals attend to it as such’ (2006:96). The teacher, as ‘expert other’ (regulator), may assist in supporting this.

The participant discussions in our weekly meetings are collaborative, with questions being posed from members to other members and to me. I am able to respond to different threads of conversation and try to maintain some continuity. I ask questions to draw out responses and longer ‘turns’.

The teaching perspectiveThe ‘teaching perspective’ here was based on that of the face-to-face conversation group, in which the scheme of work was negotiated and emergent – that is, ideas for areas for discussion and aspects of language learning came from the participants, and the weekly plan was understood

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to be flexible, subject to change or addition. That the students were by now familiar with this approach is apparent in the ‘chat’ in Appendix 1, in which they assume collective responsibility for deciding on the topic to talk about. However, the practice of choosing topics for discussion was actually neglected in favour of more free-flowing discussion. With regard to learning English, they ask me to teach idiomatic language and correct their language within the conversational format:

Hakim… time to time teach us some Expressions (Appendix 2)

Khalidai would really be thankful if u correct my mistakes (Appendix 2)

These requests are a repeat of those made during the initial face-to-face group and so I had already been attempting to continue to incorporate ‘expressions’ and correction into the ‘chat’, but it was evident that the fact that I was carrying this out in written form was not indication enough.

Words, phrases and expressionsWriting my own contributions, I was aware that there was opportunity to incorporate language items which would present some challenge. However, during my research questioning, it was apparent (see Appendix 2) that some members of the group were not picking up on this, so I decided to highlight what I thought to be the salient items. I tried to utilise what I thought would be new vocabulary, collocation, and idiomatic lexis, and I started to incorporate some use of capitalisation to highlight and enable ‘noticing’.

SusanOK I’ll make one up – unles you come up with something ….there you are – 2 expressions TO MAKE SOMETHING UP TO COME UP WITH SOMETHINGooops – spelling mistake – UNLESS

In the last line here, I am also able to highlight corrections to my own typing errors.

At a later date I introduce an ‘expression’ which I feel Hakim will notice because the person I refer to is known to him, so I do not introduce the term with capitalisation. He is motivated to find out what it means, and he is confident to ask me to explain an expression I have used.

Susanshe’s what we call a ‘people person’ !that is, she likes people’s company … she’s good with people ……

Hakim plz coul u spel it out for me (people person )

Susanshe is good with people, likes working with people, likes communicating

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s Hakim ohhh

Susanit’s a positive thing!

In the example below, where I explain how my son broke his foot, I deliberately capitalise the word ‘sneaking’ because, although it may have some level of familiarity to some participants, it still may not have been fully ‘noticed’ for it to be appropriated their own speech.

Hakimohhh am sorry about himhow did he hard his self ?

SusanWell, he was SNEAKING downstairs to see if he could watch a video at midnight, when he was supposed to be in bed … and he fell on the step ….

Khalidaoh i’m really sorry for him, i’m sure the entire family is taking care of him now

Susanthat’s how he HURT himself !

I also use capitalisation here to highlight the reformulation from Hakim’s ‘hard his self ’ to ‘HURT himself ’, focusing on the error in the use of the word ‘hurt’, as most crucial to communicative meaning.

Error correctionResearch into corrective feedback (CF) is inconclusive about what is the most effective approach (if any). Ellis states:

There is currently no agreement about whether CF is desirable and even less agreement about how it should be undertaken. (2012:135)

However, he points out that, as with the research participants here, students express a desire for correction, and research amongst teachers has found that they have a preference for using recasts because, as Ellis explains:

Recasts cause minimum interruption to the flow of an interaction and are also non-face-threatening to students.’ (2012:143)

Within the sociocultural framework, research has investigated how corrective feedback might be aligned to the ZPD, and how teachers might ‘scaffold’ support according to varying levels of implicit or explicit correction for the learners involved:

…linguistic forms alone do not provide us with the full picture of a learner’s developmental level. It is essential to know the degree to which other regulation, or mediation, impacts on the learner’s production of the particular forms. (Aljaafreh and Lantolf 1994:480)

In negotiating the online ‘chat’, I am conscious that different learners and different contexts require consideration of levels of correction. Online chat offers affordances for ‘online’ (on the spot) error correction and reformulation

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without undue disruption to communication – with different conversation threads running simultaneously at times, there is opportunity to provide differentiated responses to participant contributions.

It is to be borne in mind that use of capitalisation is, in digital communication, sometimes interpreted as ‘shouting’, which is clearly to be avoided. But also, in some instances, capitalisation would be unnecessary for purposes of noticing correction. Here, where I offer Hichem a spelling alternative, he does not need more emphasis to recognise the error:

HichemI baught the book

Susanbought

Hichemyeah! Bought Thank you

The following extract also demonstrates how a simple grammar reformulation can be presented as a clarifying question, which then receives a confirmatory response, which also demonstrates that the correction has been noted:

SusanHow’s Judy?

Hakim greatshe will go to spainshe told me that

Susanshe’s going to Spain?

Hakim Yh

However, my attempts at error correction had not always been noticed (see Appendix 2), so I introduce highlighting here too. The section of a conversation below shows how an ‘online’ focus on form is incorporated.

SusanI was in Algeria for a week until last Wednesday, then I had to come back here so I missed Eid really. My kids really wanted me to stay but …

Hakimwhy u didnt took them with u

SusanMy kids are at school in …. – I left them behing behind… they moved to Algeria in the summer. I’m moving there in DecemberWhat did you do for Eid?

Hakimi met ur daughter in my shope with ur sister in lawdhe came to bay acarff

Susan[‘whydidn’tyouTAKE’–useinfinitiveof verbafterdidn’t]

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s they came to buy a scarf ? that must have been my daughter…

In square brackets – to signal that I do not wish to interrupt the flow of the ‘chat’- I offer a reformulation of ‘why didn’t took them’, as ‘why didn’t you TAKE’, and a (rare) brief explanation of the grammatical form: ‘use infinitive of verb after didn’t’. I also suggest a reformulation of ‘dhe came to bay acarff ’, in question form, to suggest that I am not sure if this is the intended meaning, ‘they came to buy a scarf ?’

Developing learning strategiesThe introduction of ‘noticing’ as a tool alongside research into learner responses provides participants with strategies which they can appropriate in future learning situations, to focus attention on new language and error correction. In the online ‘chat’, when the introduction of capitalisation was not consistently sufficient for noticing purposes, the research questioning itself seemed offered an opportunity for participants to notice this as a strategy:

SusanHave you NOTICED that when I think that I’m using a word that might be new for you I type it in CAPITALS sometimes?!

Hakim i write it and try keep itSusanOh that’s interesting!

Hakimi Always put pen next me and be ready to write wt u saySusanhave you noticed when I use capitals?

Hakim noSusan!!! (Appendix 4)

Engaging with the participants about these issues affords opportunities for the group to share their own strategies. Appendix 4 is an exchange between myself and Hakim in which he also shares information about his own individual strategies for learning English, such as his regular use of a vocabulary notebook and memorisation:

Hakimfirst time was sound Difficult but now i like ityh some time when u use Sentence i dont use it i try keep it in my mind ….

Hakim do u bleave me if i tald u i care it with me in my poket when i have fre time i take look at it

SusanI believe you!Do you take notes in your other classes too?

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Hakim each day i mimorise one or two words

Where communication or correction is focused on one participant, others may also benefit. Hakim’s description of the strategies he applies may be a useful model for other participants.

Reflecting on the role of the ‘teacher’Online chat offers affordances for reflecting on teaching, since it is already ‘transcribed’. It is another opportunity for noticing, for example, where I might have been over-zealous in my corrections, such as in the conversation below, where I change the word ‘undernutrition’ to ‘malnutrition’ on the assumption that the latter is correct:

SusanHakim – you in??So, is obesity on the rise in Algeria?!?!

Hichem…..Hmm ocesity? Don’t think soUndernutrition maybe

Khalidahhhhhhyou’re right

SusanSo malnutrition is on the rise there?? Oh dear

Khalidanot reallybut there r lots of poor people

HichemAll my friends are like spaghetti

According to a dictionary definition: ‘deficient bodily nutrition due to inadequate food intake or faulty assimilation’ (merriam-webster.com), ‘undernutrition’ is the more appropriate term since it implies the opposite to ‘obesity’ – although, here it is unfamiliar to me.

Creative language useAnother important aspect of the online ‘chat’, is that it affords the opportunity to notice and record creative instances of learner communicative writing. In the previous extract, for example, Hichem uses the original phrase, “All my friends are like spaghetti”. In the conversation below, Basem also demonstrates a creative facility with language when he offers an explanation for Hichem’s frustrating attempts to get a new passport, referring to Algeria as a ‘paper state’:

HichemNoo … I didn’t have the opportunity to go to the beach yetI was renewin my lost passport todayAnd they’ve driven me crazy …

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s SusanOH YES, Algerian bureaucracy!!!

Hichem … Yeah :s they made me go back home 3 times:s

Basemu need realy to run long miles to get a new passport in algeria … paper state.

Although there is little evidence that the recasts or the new language introduced are appropriated successfully, there are instances where participants create their own imaginative metaphors and lexical combinations.

Conclusion… according to Fauconnier and Turner, meanings arise as “higher-order products of imaginative work”… . In Vygotsky’s theory, this work is a direct consequence of the organic and dialectical unity forged between communities and individuals. SCT L2 research has begun to explore the implications of Vygotsky’s insight, but much remains to be accomplished. One of the most intriguing topics for future research is whether the appropriate pedagogical interventions can be designed to promote the development of conceptual and associated linguistic knowledge to enable learners to use the L2 as a mediational artefact. (Lantolf 2006:103)

The research here shows that small group online ‘chat’ provides the opportunity for differentiated collaborative learning through, for example, introduction of new vocabulary and corrective feedback. Variable levels of highlighting for attention can be applied to attune with the participants’ individual ZPD. Learning strategies, such as ‘noticing’, may be developed so that lexical items and corrections can be consciously recognised more easily in the future.

The research angle to the ‘meetings’ developed according to the participants’ expressed requirements for learning, and, as such, helped provide the information required to attempt to create affordances within the ZPD and to ‘stretch’ learning.

The social-interaction of ‘chat’ meetings, combined with the shared endeavour to practise English, enabled the participants to contribute their written thoughts and read each other’s contributions within conversation that was often light-hearted and entertaining. The participants demonstrated their engagement with ‘chat’ and the research process, sharing thoughts about language development and displaying their own linguistic ingenuity.

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Appendices

Appendix 1Basem try to contact asma … I will send her FB mssg

Hichem YeahAs for topics we can discuss them durin the week on the groupWe can propose topics

Basem I think we should try to find a subject to speak about…

Basem those who not work can prepare topics to the group by posting things on Conversation ….”

Appendix 2Susansome questions for you:-How does the ‘chat’ differ from the face-to-face class? Do you think the ‘chat’ helps improve your English? What do you think you have learned from the ‘chat’?…. I mean the Facebook ‘chat’!!

Khalidathe difference between the face-to-face class and the chat is that i miss ur wonderful pronounciation that i like and that helps me prouncing correctly

Susanso do you think chatting on FB helps your English at all??!

Khalidabut at the same time the chat helps me improving my english

Asma we dont make so mistakes here cus we write correctly but why we dont use skype ?

Hakim chating in fb helps u for writing

Khalidayes, it help us so much

Susanhow does it help you, do you think? do you agree with Asma and Hakim that it helps with writing/accuracy?

Khalidaof course i agree coz if we don’t chat, i would forget many words and i wouldn’t learn new words especially that u correct to us when we mistake in writing

Susan… or anything else? vocab? fluency? …..

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s Hakim when u chat with native speaker u will learn some Expressions

Asma yeah we learn some new words

Susanlearn expressions …. thanks Hakim … I try to use them so you can ‘notice’ them!

KhalidathanQ susan

Hakim thats souns better for us

SusanKhalida, do you think I correct your writing??

Hakim sounds better

Khalidayes, i think so

SusanAsma, I would like to develop the Facebook chat for another 5 or 6 weeks, then after that I’ll try and see if we can switch to Skype

Hakim susan time to time teach us some of them

SusanHey, Khalida, can you give an example?

Khalida i would really be thankful if u correct my mistakes

SusanOh, so you’re requesting that I start doing that?

Asma skype will be better for us

SusanSorry Hakim, can you explain your last comment?

Khalida i think that already did with one of us, i don’t remember who

Susansorry?Oh, you mean a correction?

Khalida yes

Susansometimes I think we ask for clarification when we’re not sure what someone is saying

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Hakim i told u time to time teach us some Expressions

Khalida yes and i forget to write (u)

Susanforgot?

Khalida yes, sorry

Susanno need to say sorry!

Khalida thanx

Susanok, so I perhaps need to think about skype …. and try to highlight expressions when I use them

Appendix 3SusanHow did you learn English?Hello Khalida!

Asma chat . .and rarely reading

SusanKhalida hi, i’m sorry for being late i was at my Gmom’s house

Asma but i know that my english is’t perfect …..chat online?

Appendix 4SusanDo you think that writing chat on FB helps your English?

Hakim yh it is

Susanis it improving your reading and writing, do you think?

Hakim Especially when u talk to native speaker

SusanWhat do you mean?

Hakim i mean when u talk to native speaker u learn expressing idioms …. a lot of things

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s SusanBut here on Facebook, in our group, we just read and write …. so do you mean that you learn idiomatic expressions in this group??

Hakim from u i mean

Susanoh, ok, thanks.

Hakimwhich english so u think is easy for us american or ur english ?

SusanI can’t say which is easier for you! What do you think?I guess you must be more familiar now with US English?

Hakim yhthats wt am ganna tell ya

Susanthat reads a bit American!Do you think that writing in our FB chats helps you with your grammar and speaking as well?

Hakimfirst time was sound Difficult but now i like ityh some time when u use Sentence i dont use it i try keep it in my mind

SusanHave you NOTICED that when I think that I’m using a word that might be new for you I type it in CAPITALS sometimes?!

Hakim i write it and try keep it

SusanOh that’s interesting!

Hakimi Always put pen next me and be ready to write wt u say

Susanhave you noticed when I use capitals?

Hakim no

Susan!!!

Hakimbut when i see new word for me i write it

Susanso it sounds like writing is useful for youdo you look at it again another time?

Hakim yh

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SusanHave you noticed when I question what you mean ? … or offer a corrected version of what you have written?

Hakim do u bleave me if i tald u i care it with me in my poket when i have fre time i take look at it

SusanI believe you!Do you take notes in your other classes too?

Hakim each day i mimorise one or two words

SusanHave you noticed when I question what you mean ? … or offer a corrected version of what you have written?

Hakim yh

BibliographyAljaafreh, A. & J. P. Lantolf. (1994) Negative feedback as regulation and second language learning in the Zone of Proximal Development. The Modern Language Journal, 78(4), 465-483

Cox and Ainsworth (2012) In Noss, R. et al. (2012) System upgrade: realising the vision for Uk education. Project report. London Knowledge Lab, London.

Daniels, H. (ed.) (1996) An Introduction to Vygotsky. Routledge

Ellis, R. (2012) Language teaching research and language pedagogy. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell

Freire, P. (1970, 1993) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin

Lantolf, J.P. (2006) Sociocultural theory and L2 – State of the Art. Studies in Second Language Acquisition (SSLA), 28, 67–109

Minick, N. (1996) The development of Vygotsky’s thought – an introduction to thinking and speech. In: Daniels, H. (ed.) (1996) An Introduction to Vygotsky. Routledge

Noss, R., Cox, R., Laurillard, D., Luckin, R., Plowman, L., Scanlon, E. and Sharples, M. (2012) System upgrade: realising the vision for UK education. Project report. London Knowledge Lab, London.

Pachler, N. and Daly, C. (2011) Key Issues in e-Learning: Research and Practice. Continuum

Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in Second Language Learning. Applied Linguistics, 11, 129–158

Schmidt, R., & Frota, S.N. (1986) Developing basic conversational ability in a second language: A case study of an adult learner of Portuguese. In: R. R. Day (Ed.), Talking to learn: Conversation in second language acquisition (pp. 237–326). Rowley, MA: Newbury House

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Swain, M. (1985) Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. In Gass, S. and Madden, C. (Eds.) Input in second language acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House

Swain, M. (1995) Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook and B. Seidhofer (eds.) Principles and practice in applied linguistics. Oxford, Oxford University Press

Swain, M. and Lapkin, S. (2005) The evolving sociopolitical context of immersion education in Canada: some implications for program development. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. 15:2. Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society – The development of higher psychological processes (Eds. Cole, M., John-Steiner, V., Scribner, S., Souberman, E.) Harvard University Press

Susan McDowell is an ESOL teacher who has worked in further education and adult community education in the UK for 11 years. She is now teaching in Algeria.


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Social media, mobile technology and continuing professional development

Cathy Clarkson

AbstractSix ESOL teacher trainees/teachers and two teachers/teacher trainers had an iPad or an iPhone for six months, engaged with social media tech-nologies and reflected on the impact of this on their classroom practice. Data has been taken from the ongoing group blog1 and from a group forum at the end of the six month project. Engaging with social media using mobile technologies has allowed tutors to become more aware of what counts as continuing professional development (CPD) activity and they have developed their own personal learning activities to support themselves in developing professional excellence.

IntroductionTwitter is an amazing tool for teachers, with many professionals engaging with this social network for CPD activity. One ESOL teacher trainer at Kirklees College noticed an instant impact on her classroom practice when she started to use Twitter. While actively encouraging the ESOL teacher trainers on the DTE(E)LLS course to engage in Twitter she had the idea to undertake some practitioner research on the impact of social media and mobile technology on trainees’ CPD activity.

Using a grant from the National Research and Development Centre (NRDC) a set of iPads and iPhones were bought. A project outline was circulated to current and past trainees:

• UsetwitterandothersocialmediaasaCPDtool.• Contributetoablogpostatleastonceamonth.• Respondtoablogpostatleastonceamonth.• Takepartinagroupinterview.

Along with the two ESOL2 trainers who delivered the CELTA3 and DTE(E)LLS4 six DTE(E)LLS trainees, one person from year one, three from year two and two trainees who had completed the year before volunteered to take part in the project and self selected a device.

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s CPD activity in the previous six months – January 2011

For the initial post the group were asked to rank order their CPD activity from the previous six months in terms of benefits to their classroom practice. What is interesting about these posts is the difficulty everyone had in writing about their CPD activity and the main theme to come out of these initial posts was the question ‘What CPD?’ or ‘What’s CPD’? Most posts started with one of these questions before then writing what they thought counted as CPD and whether it had been useful or not.

“When I read the welcome my initial thought was, ‘oh no I haven’t done any CPD’. After giving it some more thought I realised that I had sat through quite a few training sessions but frankly couldn’t think of very many positive things to say about any of them.”5

A second theme relates to formal training, almost everyone commented on this but not always in a positive way. The most positive activity to emerge related to discussions with fellow ESOL tutors, whether this was face to face in work or via Twitter for those who were already engaged with it.

“Like Debbie, Twitter has had a massive impact on my CPD over the last 6 months. I like it because of the ‘take it or leave it’ nature of it.” 6

CPD activity in the previous six months – June 2011

January reflections

Observations

Formal training

TwitterColleagues

INSET

MA research DTE(E)LLS

Qualifications

Observee

Observee

CPD? What CPD? What’s CPD?

Own blog

June reflections

Written reflections

Professional dialogue

Apps

Develop class blogs

For the classroom

Notes and reminders

Planning

Reading

TwitterBooks

BlogsJournals Face to face Gadgetry group

Conference

Use of gadgets

ESOL challenges blog

Own blog – text, video and photo

For professional efficiency

Investigate use of technology in the classroom Peer observations

Trial and error

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At the end of the project the same question was asked in which some similar and some very different themes emerged.

Three clear CPD activities emerged: reading, professional dialogue and written reflections and there was a lot of crossover between these activities. Reading was done either with print (journals, books) or on a screen (blogs, twitter, web articles) but the screen reading merged with the professional dialogue and written reflections. For example, a blog post was found by following a link from Twitter, then once having read the post a comment could either be written on the blog itself, the link re-shared via twitter, a reply sent to the person who originally shared the link or a conversation had in the office about the article.

“I have really enjoyed using the iPad as a tool to reflect. As many others I use both the iPhone and iPad a lot while travelling. I have used them to read to some degree – both bitesize info (e.g. from Twitter) but also longer articles and blogs etc.” 7

As well as this example of professional dialogue, taking part in this project itself was seen as valuable CPD activity. As a group we communicated via Twitter, chatted in the office, had face to face ‘meetings’ as well as a virtual meeting using the #kcchat hashtag.

“Networking and sharing ideas: Talking to (and reading posts by) other teachers whether at my own college, at Kirklees or on Twitter, blogs or whatever is something I find really valuable.” 8

Writing reflections have taken place in a variety of places, some people started their own blog while others have used specific apps such as Notes or Evernote. There were also discussions within the group about whether engaging in Twitter itself and replying to Tweets was classed as evidence of reflection activity.

“One of the biggest barriers for me when reflecting is time…..However having an iPhone means that I can type out my thought wherever I am quickly, usually on the train home or even during the lesson. This instant access makes reflecting much easier and less time consuming.” 9

The use of the mobile technologies was seen as valuable for each of these themes. For those who used public transport the iPhone allowed them to engage in CPD activity in what was otherwise ‘dead’ time.

“Technology, particularly the iphone has made accessing the ‘stuff ’ I want much easier. It’s meant that I can look for information immediately and the biggest advantage for me as someone who usually spends about 2 hours a day on public transport has been that I’ve been able to participate in CPD during time that would otherwise be useless to me.”

Having access to the iPhone also made writing reflections easier, as this could also be done on the train straight after a class, and sometimes even done within the class itself. The next page shows an example of a photo diary of a class, showing pictures of the whiteboard as the class went on.

In addition to the three themes of reading, writing and professional dialogue as CPD activity for the tutors, the use of technology in the classroom was another theme. Part way through the project the group met to share and

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discuss apps they were using, and these were generally apps for ESOL students that could be used in the classroom. However, the two tutors who used the iPads for classroom activity concluded that having a single device for a whole class, with no wifi access, was limited.

Themes from the group forumFive of the six trainees attended a final meeting where the themes from the blog were discussed along with any other issues that had arisen from the taking part in the project.

CPDWhile everyone agreed that they felt more aware of what counts as CPD activity it was still felt that this is something that is difficult to quantify. There were discussions around how to ‘record’ CPD activity and the Institute for Learning (IfL) expectations, current at the time, of what counts as ‘evidence’ of the difference the CPD activity has made. Some suggestions included a higher pass rate from students, but it was then agreed that this could be related to any number of factors, including the variety of CPD activities engaged in. When we started to look at individual lessons that have been ‘different’ because of a CPD activity undertaken, it became clear that it is actually very difficult to separate out different CPD activities and reflect on these individually (as was encouraged/required by the IfL Reflect portal).

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TwitterDuring the forum everyone was given 10 seconds to write down the one CPD activity that they felt had made the biggest impact on their practice during the project and four of the six said Twitter. Further discussions centred around:

• howtouseTwitterasevidenceof differencetopractice• howTwittershowsyouhowmuchyoudon’tknow• gettingnewideas,sharingideasandexperiencesfromTwitter.

Another tutor cited discussions with colleagues and the sixth talked about specific DTELLS sessions.

Mobile technologiesEveryone spoke about how the mobile technologies had made access to social media and CPD activities easier, that the amount of time on using a PC was reduced, although useful links were sometimes emailed to read on a bigger screen.

In term of classroom practice, when there was no other technology available the mobile technologies were used:

• toplaymusic• showvideostosmallgroups• fordictionarywork• forcheckingunderstanding(e.g.lookingonGoogleimages)• asavoicerecorder:thiswassometimesplannedandsometimesonthe

spot activity• for some apps, although on reflection it was felt that these were not

that effective.

Reading It was felt that there was nothing radically new to doing reading as a CPD activity but the group reported that they would rarely sit down and open a laptop to do research. However, the mobile technology made access to the material immediate, it was something that could be done for 5 minutes or when you were bored and provides variety of reading via Twitter, so you can always find something of interest to read and share.

ConclusionsA distinct difference between the January and June blog posts was the length. In January people struggled to start, were questioning what CPD was and what benefit this had on their practice. However, six months later at the end of the project posts were significantly longer, with each participant better able to articulate what CPD activity they had undertaken and how valuable this had been to their practice. Formal training, that was reported as being not so useful in January was not commented on in July, suggesting that the most effective CPD activity is that which is self-directed by the teacher-as-learner.

Comparing the list of possible CPD activities with the Institute for Learning suggested list shows that the group didn’t do anything radically new or different, i.e. they were reading, writing, discussing and trying new things.

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However, the mobile technology and social media give it a new twist, making it more immediate and relevant, adding value to face to face discussions and providing teachers with tools to direct their own learning.

Everyone engaged in varied CPD activity, and all this activity merged and supported each other so that it seems unnatural to unpick it and talk about individual activities and the impact each of these has on classroom practice. This suggests that despite the IfL’s best intentions to ‘promote and support professional excellence through continuing professional development (CPD).’10 the fact that they promoted the separation of CPD activity, through the use of the Reflect portal to gain QTLS (qualified teacher) status, made understanding and recognizing CPD activity difficult.

The use of Twitter has been a key CPD tool, along with having access to mobile technologies. Twitter has provided a springboard for further reading, writing and discussion activities, whether these have been face to face or online. Social media has introduced an element of interactivity into a solitary activity, creating further opportunities for collaborative teacher learning.

AcknowledgementsI want to thank all the trainees who took part in this project and for inspiring me to try new things in my classroom, and to thank Sam Shepherd for challenging me and always reminding me why I love what I do.

Cathy Clarkson is an ESOL teacher and teacher trainer in a large FE college in West Yorkshire. She has a keen interest in using technology for learning and can be found Tweeting on issues to do with #ESOL, #HEinFE and #fridayreads @cathywint


Endnotes 1. http://gadgetry.posterous.com/ 2. ESOL: English for Speakers of Other Languages 3. CELTA: Certificate in English Language Teacher to Adults 4. DTE(E)LLS: Diploma to Teach English (ESOL) in the Lifelong Learning

Sector 5. http://gadgetry.posterous.com/its-not-all-bad-15th-dec 6. http://gadgetry.posterous.com/cpd-mel-on-14th-jan 7. http://gadgetry.posterous.com/final-post-and-i-still-havent-learnt-

how-to-b 8. http://gadgetry.posterous.com/final-thoughts 9. http://gadgetry.posterous.com/debbies-final-post 10. http://www.ifl.ac.uk/about-ifl/what-we-do

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IntroductionIn April 2013 I posted a query on the ESOL-Research1 discussion forum and message board, prompted in part by the experience of reviewing and ultimately rejecting some first drafts of materials for lower level ESOL learners that had been written for the ESOL Nexus project:

“I’m hoping the subject line will invite some responses! I am trying to locate any action research/research into effective practice that has been carried out into activities and approaches that are used in the classroom specifically with low level ESOL (or indeed EFL learners). I would also be interested to know of any CPD materials that address this issue. My own (anecdotal) experience would suggest that these first encounters with English are very important, and that teachers need to be quite skilled to really manage them well, but I am having difficulty finding much on the subject – apart from the excellent work that has been done by Learning Unlimited on teaching basic literacy to ESOL learners. I am interested in wider aspects of language, including vocabulary, listening, speaking and so on.”

The post prompted a deluge of responses, which highlighted a whole range of themes, concerns, examples of good practice, and requests for support from those who teach lower level ESOL learners. As will become obvious, I had very few responses to the actual question! This article summarizes some of the key themes that emerged from what people said 2. A full summary of the discussion was posted on the ESOL Research discussion list in May 2013.3

What do we call the level?I have used the term “lower level ESOL learners” deliberately in the title of this article, as one of the key elements of the online debate related to what exactly we call this level. The most common term used in England is “pre-entry”, however, many contributors were anxious to avoid this term, as the pre-entry curriculum framework (PECF) is intended to support the basic skills needs of people with difficulties in learning who were not yet ready to access the ESOL Core Curriculum. Several contributors to the forum pointed out that associating lower level ESOL learners with native speakers who have specific learning difficulties is inappropriate (while acknowledging the fact that many of the people-centred approaches proposed by the PECF can be helpful when teaching lower level ESOL). In Scotland the term used is “ESOL literacies”. This highlights the fact that the main need many of these learners

What happens in lower level ESOL classes?Dot Powell

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s have is to develop their literacy skills to the point where they are able to confidently access the first point in the relevant curriculum framework (one contributor suggested the term “pre-literate”.) This approach was supported by those who felt that if a learner is already literate (able to read and write Roman script), they can access the lowest level of the ESOL curriculum and “work towards” the E1/Access 2 ESOL curriculum level.

Alternatively, there was quite a lot of support for the term “beginners”. One respondent proposed:

“Beginners 1 (non-literate in own language or literate with a different script) and Beginners 2 (literate in first language and using same or similar alphabet)”

Finally, one respondent rounded off this aspect of the discussion nicely, by pointing out the need to be careful about labelling learners:

“I don’t think we can categorise learners into pigeon holes – all our classes are so mixed in terms of educational background, literacy skills in first language etc. – that’s the challenge of ESOL!”

Challenges for lower level learners and their teachersContributors to the discussion were keen to highlight the challenges that can be faced by lower level ESOL learners, although all were anxious to avoid stereotyping, or the sort of pigeon-holing mentioned in the quote above.

Several writers referred to life circumstances affecting their learners, which can impede progress in the classroom. Factors mentioned included:

• Health difficulties – heart conditions, diabetes, dental work etc. – andundiagnosed eyesight and hearing problems.

• Lackof contactwithEnglishspeakers,exceptdoctorsandJobCentrePlusadvisers.

• Age–manyareolderlearners.

In addition to this, as might be expected, contributors pointed out the range of educational factors that can be encountered in a group at this level:

• Memory–gettingpeopletoretainanylearningfromoneweektothenextcan be incredibly hard.

• Educationalhistory–many learnershavevery littleor an interruptededucation. For many learners it is not “second chance” education, but “first chance”.

• Learningdifficulties–somelearnersdoappeartohavedyslexia,whichisdifficult to diagnose at this level.

• Literacy–quiteafewareilliterateinanylanguageandmayhavelittleconnection with the written word.

• Studyskills–if learnersarenotliterateinanylanguage,theycan’tmakenotes of the lesson to revise later, and they can’t use handouts or textbooks for homework and revision, at least in the initial stages.

This list of challenges, however, was balanced by comments from those who were keen to emphasise their learners’ enthusiasm in the classroom, and their

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clear ideas about classroom priorities. In particular, there was an interesting discussion around whether speaking and listening should be taught first. Although some contributors supported this idea, the message from others was that this is not what learners at this level really want:

“The learners themselves want to learn to read and write and are frustrated by my attempts to develop speaking and listening skills.”

Underlying beliefs and methodologyWhile much of the online discussion centred around contributors’ first-hand experience of working with lower level ESOL learners, thoughts also turned to appropriate underlying beliefs and methodology for working in this context. One particularly challenging comment came from a contributor who cited Elsa Auerbach’s work on literacy, pointing out that:

“Expecting adults to acquire literacy in a new language without acquiring itintheirL1first[is]tantamounttoabuse.Weneedtolookatwayswecan develop bilingual methodologies for teaching literacy, drawing on the resources of our students, their communities and ourselves and start to tackle this ongoing issue rigorously as they have done in some Spanish speaking communities in the USA and in some programmes in Australia and so on”

Also on the topic of acquiring literacy skills, some practitioners asserted that, in their experience, those who are already literate in one language are able to attain reading and writing skills in a second language more easily than those who are not yet literate in any language. Other contributors, however, cited research which challenges this assumption. Indeed, the very concept of “skills” and sub-skills” has been challenged; making the transfer of skills even more problematic.

In terms of classroom practice, several people cited the “Language Experience”4 and “Reflect’5 approaches as being particularly helpful with early literacy/beginner learners in that they are very much an integrated, social practice approach to language.

Classroom methods and approachesThe discussion generated an exhaustive list of classroom ideas, ranging from very simple to more complex descriptions of activities and procedures. A small selection of these is listed below:

• Settingearlytargetsrelatingtostudyskills:bringapen,turnoff phones,don’t shout in class, and arrive on time.

• Learningtospellpersonalkeywordsbeforeanythingelse,usingjumbledwords or letters on pieces of card.

• Matchingvowelsoundsandblendstothesounds.• Learnerskeeptheirownkeywordsandletterstouseeverysessionoreven

at home and use these words for writing practice to start with.• Firstoralexchanges:‘PleasecanIhave…’• Makingnameplatesforstudents:“Take a piece of A4 paper, fold it in three

lengthwise and write the students name on it in large capitals – then get the

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students to come up and collect their name plates, and help them discreetly if they can’t read their own names.”

• AnESOLVolunteerprogrammewhereLevel1andLevel2ESOLlearnersdo a short volunteer training course and then have a volunteer placement in a Pre Entry class.

One overarching comment provided an encouragement for teachers new to working with lower level learners:

“I think one needs to be eclectic. Experiment, try out stuff, and if it is meaningful and it grabs learners and works, students usually progress”.

Teachers and teachingThere was general agreement that teachers working at this level need to develop specific skills, particularly in the area of teaching basic literacy, and in differentiation. Several respondents felt that the skills of the teacher are critical at this level; far more so than the resources used. As one writer put it:

“[it’s]theskillandconfidencetorespondtotheneedsof thelearnersinfront of you that really makes the difference”

There was broad agreement that more specific training would be welcomed, along with the opportunity for teachers to get together to discuss and share teaching ideas. There were calls for further research and development projects, for ongoing discussion and for new resources.

Endnotes1. https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=ESOL-Research2. All contributions are quoted anonymously. Thanks to all who took part3. https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1305&L=ESOL-

Research&F=&S=&P=503714. http://esol.britishcouncil.org/resources-trainers/resources-trainers-2-

language-experience5. http://www.reflect-action.org/reflectesol

Dot Powell is the British Council ESOL Nexus Project Director.


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Although I have taught English for over fifteen years throughout the United States, I am fairly new to teaching ESL to adults. After graduating with an MA in TESOL in May 2012, I moved from Texas to the Washington DC metropolitan area. I worked as a volunteer for refugees, taught literacy at night and weekends for recent immigrants, and eventually began teaching at a local community college, Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland.

I taught a wide range of classes: listening and speaking, grammar, and advanced writing. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching all of them, but I found that the writing class was really difficult, both for the students and me. The class was held for three hours, two nights a week, with a book that almost exclusively taught through canned topics that I didn’t feel were relevant to my students’ lives. The students were asked to write pieces such as “Directions from the airport to your hometown for a tourist new to your country” or “A movie review for one of your favorite movies”. I had students that had never been to a movie; how could they write a movie review? Furthermore, many of the students had taken the class before and had learned some of the grammar, but were still weak on specific writing points. They needed to write proficiently enough to pass a college placement test in order to be able to take ESL classes for academic credit.

After reading an article in the January 2013 IATEFL ESOL SIG Newsletter, ‘The challenges of learning English in a new country’ by Marta Pino, I was inspired to try a more student-centred approach. Marta’s ESOL teacher had provided an opportunity for her to describe her story about immigrating to the United Kingdom. The piece about Marta’s move from Cuba to Spain and finally to England was beautifully written. She wrote: “Sometimes the challenge of achieving our dreams can be an amazing, exciting and successful adventure, but at the same time it can also be an awful, horrendous and despicable encounter. My belief is that experiencing both of these situations can be valuable and they are crucial to get enough confidence in order to face every step on this long and difficult way …”.

After some reflection, I decided that I, too, would try a similar project with my students. I believe that each student has a unique story to tell and this would give them a forum to voice their struggles and successes in leaving the countries that they knew, describe their reasons for leaving and say how they felt in a foreign land.

I used the journal article as a model, made copies and put it on an overhead projector. I had the students read it and then I read it to them. I asked whether the writer’s experiences resonated with them and how theirs were different. I

Writing about the immigration experienceMichelle Bagwell

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m wanted to scaffold the project, so divided the writing tasks into several phases so that the students would not be overwhelmed. First I asked them to write the introduction – who they are and what their home country was like. Next I asked them to write about what it was like to move to the United States and begin school. Finally I asked them to write what their plans were after their studies.

This project had amazing results: I felt I got to know students on a much more personal level. But more than this, it allowed them to put down on paper exactly what they wanted to say. Their stories were told and validated as amazing journeys that they had undertaken towards getting into the class that they were sitting in.

I also felt that this was a fabulous opportunity to confer with each student about their writing. I worked with them individually and asked about what they had written, both out of my own curiosity and to learn more about them. I also explained some grammatical and vocabulary choices that might allow them to express their stories more clearly. I got to know them and their stories better. They were given an opportunity to explain some of the perils that they had overcome and they learned how to write.

As you can see from the following extracts, students chose to concentrate on different parts of the task. They needed to say what was important to them and I felt it was fine for them to do so. It was important to me and more authentic not to force them into the confines of writing about something that they may not feel comfortable expressing.

Antonio’s storyAntonio had taken this class three times before he came to me. He was bitter because he had been unable to pass the placement test that would allow him to take ESL classes for transferable college credit and financial aid. He was also determined and resilient. He worked hard and his speaking and listening skills were excellent, but he still had work to do on his writing. During the project, we conferred on transition sentences and staying on topic. I would ask him questions and try to show him how to stay with one story.

My name is Antonio B. Quintanilla. I was born in El Salvador and I have three brothers and one sister. I decided to leave my country because in the United States of America there are more opportunities for everyone. […]IntheUnitedStatesitismucheasiertoworkandstudyatthesame time.

When I came to the United States I first arrived in in North Carolina with my brother and I lived in his house for three years. I used to work at Tyson Chicken on the packaging line. Everything seemed to be perfect. However I started to be in a rut only working and working. This wasn’t what I wanted because although I did come to the United States to work, I also envisioned going to college and be a nurse one day.

One day my older brother, who lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland called me to ask how my studies are going and if I was close to graduating with my nursing degree. I explained to him that it is because I was working so much and public transportation could never get me to class on time that


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mit just wasn’t possible. He offered for me to move to his house and told me that there were more opportunities to work and pursue school and that the public transportation was incredibly efficient with the buses running every 30 minutes. I then decided to take the chance and move, but it took me several years to raise enough money to go out there and get set up with all of the various costs of transportation and move in expenses.

Last year was my first year at Montgomery College I took a test called the Accuplacer which measures reading, writing, speaking and listening. Everyone that wants to take ESL for college credit has to pass it. I have taken it three times and failed all three of them so far. However that has not stopped me to continue with my dreams. I’m here at least. I have more opportunities than I did in North Carolina and one day I’m going to pass that test and get into credit classes until I graduate as a nurse. Then I will find a job which will help to pay me pay to go to a university and eventually become a physician assistant. My dream is alive and I going to make it a reality.

I am pleased to report that he passed the test and went on to take more advanced ESL classes.

John’s storyJohn was a very proud young man from Congo. He grew up very poor and was forced to leave school at a young age. His livelihood was playing soccer. He came to me with writing that had many fragments and run-on sentences. During our conferences I was able to have him read his story to me and discover when a complete thought had been read and needed a period (full stop). I have great hopes that John will be able to go back to the Republic of Congo and make improvements in the government. He is a remarkable man.

My name is John Musanzi. I am from the Republic of Congo. I am from a family of 4 brothers and 5 sisters, who are living in the capital of that country. It is one of the richest country in the world, where you can find diamonds, uranium, cotton and other riches that I did not quote. Today Congo is the poorest country for political reasons. In 1997, when Laurent Kabila took out the President Mobutu, the country should have re-established that poor situation, because he was the one who had a good option for that country. So in 2001, the international community is in complicity with Rwanda, killed our President Laurent-Desire Kabila. Then they imposed as president a man from Rwanda. Now the situation became worse.

In 2011 I left my country because of the political situation was very bad. Theykilledpeoplethattheybelievehavebadideas[…]In2010Iwonthelottery to immigrate to the United States quickly and legally. I took my opportunity to for me to move out.

I am working towards a degree in Political Science. I speak French and my English is not very well. I want to graduate and move back to Congo where I can help with the politics of my country.

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m Doris’ storyDoris was an older woman from Chile. She was different from the others because she had worked for the Chilean Embassy and lived in England for several years. During our conferencing she explained to me that she was the oldest child in her family and that it had always been a dream of hers to live abroad. She had never felt free to do so until both of her parents passed away.

I speak Spanish and noticed that Doris wrote English with many of the grammatical rules that are correct in Spanish. She would switch verb tenses between sentences and sometimes within a sentence. While reviewing her writing, I asked her to point out times that she noticed this and in many instances she was able to do so. By looking for one specific error, she became much more aware of them.

My name is Doris. I am from Chile. I came to the United States in 1998. I have a big family: Brothers, sister, nephews and nieces. I am very glad to have the opportunity to come to the United States because in this country I can do many things.

My first challenge was to drive because here you need to drive for jobs. AnotherthingIaccomplishedwasthatIreturnedtoschool[…]Iamhappy that I met good people in this country. The culture is a bit different and I am trying to adapt to everything such as the food and customs while never forgetting my own country as well.

I have good and bad times here. For example, I have enjoyed learning about new places and meeting different people at the park, a party, or wedding. There have also been difficult experiences. One was when I worked as a nanny living in the family’s house. The mother was jealous because she said “The little girl loves you, not me”. I said “Sorry, but I stay with her all day and you are gone all day”. Then she said I want you tomoveoutof myhouse.[…]ThiswasterriblebecauseIlivedthereforthree years and I did love the little girl that I was taking care of while I was there. But I did leave her house immediately. These were my most difficult experiences since I have lived in the United States.

I want to return to my country because all of my family live in Chile. I don’t see them often and they don’t have enough money to come visit me in the United States. For that I want to return to my country. I don’t know when, but someday.

Follow up As a follow up to this assignment I had each student interview another US immigrant who was not a student in our class about their experience of coming to the United States. This follow-up gave the students the opportunity to compose questions that would elicit specific information from the interviewee and to ask follow-up or clarification questions. Once again, while my students were drafting the essay I conferred with them individually. They read their writing aloud and then asked my own clarification questions when parts were unclear. This lesson format was extremely effective because they were able to self-correct when reading aloud and received individualized attention for their specific grammatical and writing errors.


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mI know that my students learned more this way than if I had blindly followed the textbook. I also believe however, that they taught me much as well. Everybody has a story that they want to share. To have just been there to listen and give them a platform to talk and write meant a lot to them and to me.

ReferencePino, M. (2013) ‘The challenges of learning English in a new country’ ESOL SIG Newsletter

IATEFL www.iatefl.org

Michelle Bagwell has over 15 years’ experience teaching English to students in primary and secondary schools throughout the United States. She is currently teaching ESL in an Intensive English Program at the Virginia Tech University Language and Culture Institute in Falls Church, Virginia.


ESOL Nexus and lower level ESOLDuring Year 3 of the ESOL Nexus project (July 2013 – July 2014) the British Council Project team focused on lower language levels, particularly in the area of resource development and training.• Low level interactive resources with support packs

for teachers• Interactive training modules• Workshops on teaching low language

level learner

The interactive training module on teaching basic literacy to ESOL learners is on: esol.britishcouncil.org/cpd-modules/cpd-module-teaching-basic-literacy-esol-learners

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m Writing the ESOL Student GuidebookMegan Rowell

AbstractThis paper describes an ESOL writing project carried out with a small group of Entry Level 3 (E3) students working on their writing skills to pre-pare for further education. The project included a research stage using an online webquest to gather information, and a writing stage in which students wrote, edited and produced an online booklet aimed at new ESOL students starting at the college.

The project was created in response to problems that the students were having with research and planning. These students had little or no prior experience of planning their writing or undertaking research to gather ideas. Similarly they found it difficult to draft and edit their work, especially above the word level. Organising ideas, dealing with tone and register, and thinking about the audience were new and difficult concepts for them. The project also responded to the students’ need for an authentic reader. Their motivation for writing was low, they saw it as a way to pass exams, and had no sense of their ‘power’ as writers. The paper describes how the project was researched and devised and how the students responded to it, as well as giving future recommendations for undertaking writing work with ESOL learners.

“Ooh, our writing? In the college? …Challenge accepted!”E3 ESOL Student after being told the details of the project

In late 2012, as part of my placement for the PGCE in ESOL at Newport University (now the University of South Wales), I was asked to work with a small group of young ESOL students at the City of Bath College who needed to improve their writing skills in order to prepare for further education.

The class had been created to support the students (an 18 year-old from Libya, a 17 year-old from Poland and a 23 year-old from The Gambia, all male) with the writing skills they would need to progress onto further or higher education in the UK. All three had excellent speaking and listening skills and were flourishing in their general ESOL class, but they had never had to write, either in their own language or in English, in the way they would be expected to at college or university. At first, the group were introduced to the kind of writing skills you might find in an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) class, but it was soon realised that their lack of experience in writing meant that they needed to start in a very different place – in the intricate processes involved in writing; in planning, drafting and editing; and, most importantly of all, with the joy and power of writing itself.


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mAfter working with the group for a few months, the range of challenges they faced began to be identified. One of the most problematic was that they had little or no prior experience of planning their writing or undertaking research in order to gather ideas. Similarly they found it difficult to draft and edit their work, especially above the word level. Organising ideas, dealing with tone and register, and thinking about the audience were new and difficult concepts for them. However, the biggest difficulty these students faced when it came to writing was their need for an authentic reader. Too often, they would come into class and give their writing homework to their teacher with little or no interest in feedback. Their motivation for writing was low, they saw it as a way to pass exams, and had no sense of their ‘power’ as writers.

It was therefore decided to create a writing project which would encourage them to conduct effective research, support them in planning their writing in advance, encourage them to adopt good editing and reviewing practices, and which would, hopefully, increase their motivation and confidence.

The project consisted of two parts; the first being a research stage using an online web quest (see http://meganrowell1.wix.com/esol-project) to gather information; and the second a writing stage in which students wrote, edited and produced an online booklet (see http://midd.me/ZjYm) aimed at new ESOL students starting at the college.

Starting outIn the first stages of the project, it was felt that it was important to understand more about the cognitive processes of writing, in order to support the learners fully as they went through the various stages involved with composing a text. In ‘Process writing’ (1991), White & Arndt describe the act of writing as ‘a form of problem-solving which involves such processes as generating ideas, discovering a ‘voice’ with which to write, goal-setting, monitoring and evaluating what is going to be written as well as what has been written, and searching for language with which to express exact meaning.’ (White and Arndt 1991:3) Note that White and Arndt are not writing specifically about second-language learners here, therefore, if this is the process that writers in their first languages go through, then the challenges to writers working in an additional language must be even greater.

Supporting students’ needsThe project was designed to support both the students’ specific needs and the Adult ESOL Core Curriculum, by using a web quest to develop scanning and detailed reading skills when researching and looking for information; promoting the use of brainstorms and planning scaffolds before writing; encouraging peer reviews and peer-editing during the drafting process; making notes during brainstorming sessions and internet research; planning topics for individual paragraphs; and peer-discussion of tone, register and appropriate content in collaborative editing sessions.

However, the project endeavoured to go further than simply promoting good practice in writing skills; it attempted to empower the students as writers by showing them that their words could inform, influence and help others. It was

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m felt, through previous work with the group, that the learners did not place any value on their writing and that they had no sense of why they produced the writing they did, other than to become ‘better’ writers, the measure of which was entirely arbitrary. This need was met by giving the students a tangible audience to write for, so that they were able to see both the value of their words in the real world, and to give them a measurable goal at which to aim. Furthermore, through the publication of their writing, it tried to boost their confidence as writers, because, as noted by Mallows and Chester, ‘…seeing their words in print can have an extremely positive effect on learners.’ (2008:25).

The project strived to follow the NRDC’s (National Research and Development Centre) recommendations for good practice, which are set out in their report on Effective teaching and learning: writing (Grief, Meyer & Burgess 2007:8):

• learnersspendtimeonthecompositionof textsof differentkinds• meaningfulcontextsareprovidedforwritingactivities• timeisgivenfordiscussionaboutwritingandthewritingtask• individual feedback and support is provided as learners engage in

composition

These areas were addressed by giving the students a project that provided a meaningful context, that gave them a different type of text to engage with (the students usually worked on academic and exam writing), providing time both before, during and after the writing process to talk about their work as a group, and by supporting the students with both teacher and peer feedback at every stage of composition.

In particular, the project attempted to address the NRDC’s findings that ‘... few teachers ask learners to engage in authentic writing tasks that have a purpose and audience beyond the classroom’ (Grief et al. 2007:9) by providing the students with an authentic audience that they could both empathise and identify with, whilst giving them a real reason to write.

The research stage: a web questThe web quest was designed in order to address the students’ issues with research. All three students were trying to access further education and often had to write academic essays on topics that were unfamiliar to them. A common complaint that accompanied tasks brought by them from other classes, was that they had no ideas and did not know what to write about. Furthermore, when they did attempt to research, usually by using the internet, they would print off reams of paper, attempt to read every word and soon give up feeling overwhelmed and under-inspired.

The web quest incorporated eight tasks which the students completed within a time limit. It was designed this way, partly because the group enjoyed competitive activities, but also to try and promote the skill of quickly scanning websites for specific information. In previous sessions in which ICT was used, it was found that one of the students in particular would get very lost in websites, taking much longer than the others to find information. To counter this, a web quest ‘provides learners with a structured way of using the internet


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mwithin lessons, enabling them to focus on assimilating information instead of spending time looking for sites.’ (Nance, Mellar and Kambouri 2007:31)

Each task asked the students to visit an authentic website and find some information. Some tasks asked students to add ideas or thoughts of their own. Authentic websites were used so that the students could transfer the skills they learnt into real-world research, and to ‘provide an… opportunity to work through the issues of ‘total comprehension’ that plenty of learners have to deal with at some point of their studies. They can be guided towards being comfortable with understanding the content of a site and identifying what they need to know or find out without getting bogged down in having to understand every word on the screen.’ (Dudeney & Hockly 2007:29)

The writing stage: an online bookletThe next stage of the project was planning and writing the booklet. This stage took place over several sessions and the activities were largely informed by White and Arndt’s ‘Process writing’ (1991) and Tricia Hedge’s ‘Writing’ (2005). Brainstorming sessions were held to decide on the content and a name for the booklet. The work was then divided up by the students. All decisions were made collaboratively by the group, with the teacher acting as a facilitator, asking appropriate questions when it was felt that the content might be irrelevant or cause offence. The students were also asked to consider their audience and their specific needs as readers (in this case, ESOL students with varying levels of English, some non-Roman alphabet users), something the students had not done before. This was important because, as White & Arndt note: ‘Misjudging what knowledge and attitudes the reader shares with the writer can result in a piece of writing which fails to communicate. At worst, it can alienate the reader.’ (1991:30) It also helped to focus the students on the idea of there being a real and diverse audience, not simply a teacher or examiner, at the receiving end of their work.

Once the planning stage was complete, the students began writing. For the first pages, they divided the work up equally and used their online research and brainstorms to guide themselves. During the writing process they asked for help from both their teacher and their peers. When they felt that they had finished, print outs were made and the students evaluated and edited each other’s work, before returning to the computers to make final edits. This was seen as important in order to shift focus and encourage good editing skills. Again, during this process, all decisions were handed over to the group who were allowed to make joint decisions about content, register, grammar, punctuation and spelling. It was felt that this was a valuable way to approach the work because, as reported in the NRDC’s Development project report on collaborative writing, ‘…encouraging learners to write collaboratively can have positive outcomes, not only in terms of learners’ confidence to write, but also in their level of engagement with the whole process of writing from decisions on topic or style to the checking of grammar or vocabulary.’ (Grief 2007:13)

For the last two pages, the students worked collaboratively to write the content, with one student typing while they offered suggestions, edits and rewordings as a group. Despite the positive findings in the NRDC’s report

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m (2007), it was clear from observation that this type of writing was the most difficult for the group. They found the process frustrating, slow and tiring, and they produced much simpler writing than previously. It seemed that when working alone, perhaps with more time to think, the students could communicate more complex ideas than when they were under the pressure of writing in front of others. Furthermore, they seemed to have quite limited patience with one another, disliked displaying weakness to the group, and valued finishing the task quickly more than finishing it well. While it could be argued that this is where differentiation according to learning styles should have been considered, it could also be argued that these are perhaps cultural and even gender or age specific ‘styles of learning’ which, in order to progress in their chosen fields, and certainly within British further and higher education, these students may need to overcome.

The students then used an online editor (www.simplebooklet.com) to design and produce the booklet, adding photographs they had taken for homework. This part of the process was the most exciting for the group as they could see their work coming to life. The booklet was then made available online using a link (http://midd.me/ZjYm) that teachers throughout the ESOL department were asked to share with new students on their first day. With lower level classes it was suggested that they could use the booklet as part of a first-day activity. Using the website’s very simple interface, the students involved were also able to email, tweet or post it on their Facebook pages.

RecommendationsThrough researching, devising and delivering this writing project, the following ideas can be recommended when embarking on any kind of writing with ESOL learners:

• Findoutwhatyourstudentsneedtowriteandwhy.• Trytodiscoverwhatchallengesyourstudentsfacebothwithwritingitself

and the types of texts they need to compose.• Workwithyourstudents’strengthsand weaknesses to both encourage and

challenge them.• Findanauthenticaudienceforyourstudents,andhelpthemtounderstand

the needs of their readers.• Supportyour students ingetting ready towrite through research,web

quests, writing scaffolds and brainstorms/boardblasts.• Talkaboutwriting,bothbefore,duringandafterwards.Encouragepeerand

group editing to support students then going on to edit their own work.

Although at times the students in this group found some of the processes frustrating, they found the idea of their work being published extremely motivating and, when they had completed the booklet, found a great sense of pride in their work. The findings of this project echoed those of the NRDC (Grief et al. 2007:8), in that the most meaningful and successful writing came from students exploring different types of texts, from writing with a purpose and an audience in mind, and when talk and discussion formed a large part of class time. One important finding was that the students thrived on the feedback that came from both their peers and themselves, meaning that their final drafts contained much more of their work than the traditional method


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mof teacher-correction. The most important element however, was that the students knew who they were writing for. The idea that their work would be seen by their peers motivated them to not only work harder but to also consider the needs of their readers and, finally, to gain confidence as writers seeing their words in print.

My thanks go to the three students involved for working so hard with me on this project.

ReferencesDudeney, G. & Hockly, N. (2007) How to…Teach English with Technology Harlow: Pearson Longman

Grief, S. (2007) Effective Teaching and Learning: Development Project Report: Collaborative Writing London: NRDC

Grief, S., Meyer B. & Burgess A. (2007) Effective Teaching and Learning: Writing London: NRDC

Hedge, T. (2005) (2nd Edition) Writing Oxford: Oxford University Press

Mallows, D. & Chester, A. (2008) ‘Seeing Yourself In Print’ Reflect: The Magazine of the NRDC, Issue 10: 25

Nance, B., Mellar, H. & Kambouri, M. (2007) Using ICT: Developing Adult Teaching and Learning: Practitioner Guides London: NRDC

White, R. & Arndt, V. (1991) Process Writing Essex: Longman

Megan Rowell is an ESOL and EFL teacher currently living in Bristol, UK. She has been teaching since 2009 and has taught in Bristol, Spain and Bath. She has recently completed the PGCE Post Compulsory Education in ESOL at the University of South Wales and is currently taking a break to raise her young daughter.


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iew Book review

Improving adult literacy instruction: options for practice and research

Lesgold, A. M. and Welch-Ross, M. (eds.) (2012) Washington DC: The National Academies Press

Mary Osmaston

As an ESOL teacher with little spare time to read, the title of this book might lead you to think it was not worth your attention. Certainly Improving adult literacy instruction does focus on literacy teaching and learning with native English speakers, but there is also a good deal of relevance to ESOL, especially if you work with learners whose reading and writing skills are fairly basic.

The book is the report of a committee which was commissioned by the United States Department of Education to review the available research into learning and literacy, in order to draw up recommendations for strengthening adult literacy education in the USA. It is focused entirely on the American context, where it is estimated that more than 90 million adults lack adequate literacy skills, but has clear relevance to teaching adults with low levels of literacy in the UK.

The survey was impressively comprehensive in its scope, investigating research in cognitive science and neuroscience as well as education and second language acquisition to try to identify the main factors that affect literacy development. The findings were then analysed to make recommendations for improving adult literacy teaching and to identify areas needing further research. The impression I gained from reading the book was that the committee had focused mainly on more experimental and quantitative studies: apparently they did look at qualitative studies but found that many of these studies seemed mainly descriptive or were unreliable for a variety of reasons. They were also surprised to find how little research there actually was into the effects of literacy education, given its long history of public funding, and in particular very little on the relative effectiveness of different teaching strategies. As there was so little useful research on literacy with adults, the committee also looked at research carried out with children and young people, or on learning in general, and extrapolated the conclusions from this where they felt this was justified. This approach was used particularly in the section on the factors that lead to effective learning, where the chapter concludes with a useful, if rather predictable, list of effective teaching and learning strategies.

The chapter on the ‘foundations’ of reading and writing will be of interest to ESOL teachers as it discusses strategies found to be effective in teaching


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iewreading and writing, and the principles behind them. Both the biological

aspects of reading and writing and the social and cultural significance of literacy are discussed, always related to the implications for teaching. There is a useful focus on helpful techniques for ‘struggling’ learners and on the effects of increasing age on learning to read.

Motivation and persistence with learning are not always an issue with ESOL students, but are often more significant in learners with low levels of literacy. Although there are some useful pointers to important issues, the committee found that there was very little research that could support specific recommendations about how to improve motivation, beyond the well-known strategies of building on the learners’ interests and relating reading and writing activities to their situation and needs. Similarly, they found that although there is a good deal of research about reading difficulties (for example dyslexia) in adolescents and adults with higher level reading abilities, there is much less to guide us in working with students whose literacy skills are at a low level and who also have learning or reading difficulties. However, there is some useful discussion of the assistive technology that may be used with learners with disabilities or reading or writing difficulties.

As learners of English form the largest sub-group amongst literacy learners in the United States, there are references to learners of English throughout the book, but there is also a chapter devoted specifically to this group. This provides a good survey of some of the important issues in both language and literacy learning, focusing on the importance of vocabulary development for reading comprehension and on the links between first and second language skills, and discussing the research evidence for a variety of teaching and learning strategies. Once again, there is very limited research that focuses on English learners with low levels of literacy, especially in their first language, and the writers have used some of the research on young children learning both oral and literacy skills in a second language to identify some potential teaching approaches. This chapter also includes some discussion of ESOL students’ need to improve their academic language and literacy proficiency in order to achieve their potential in life, and describes some of the research in this area.

No book on teaching and learning today would be complete without a section on the use of technology. A wide range of types of technology is surveyed, with information about research studies that relate to their effectiveness, but there are no clear conclusions as to which technologies are likely to be most useful for literacy teaching, on the basis that there are so many variables to consider. However, there are some useful ideas on the use of technologies such as gaming to promote literacy practice, recognising that the amount of practice that learners have is one of the most significant factors in their literacy development.

There is plenty in the book that is worth reading for an ESOL teacher, especially if you work with students with low literacy skills. One of the aims of the project was to identify areas needing further research, and plenty of these are identified. The reference list runs to over a hundred pages and would be a valuable resource for anyone conducting their own research in this area. The lack of directly relevant research in some areas may seem discouraging,

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iew but the book does provide very many useful analyses of the existing research

and its application to teaching and learning. It would be particularly useful if you are looking for a more in-depth understanding of the reading and writing process and the development of literacy. In addition, the book contains many evidence-based recommendations for practice, which are accessible quickly via the summary sections and in more detail in the main body of the text. And finally, although the book itself is expensive, you can download a free pdf from The National Academies Press at http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13242

Mary Osmaston is a senior lecturer and teacher educator at the University of Central Lancashire and co-chair of the NATECLA Teacher Training Working Party.



Acknowledging the autonomy, creativity and criticality our students bring with them A free one-day conference on Tuesday 1 July 2014 Department of English & Language Studies, Canterbury Christ Church University

Invites papers on: • students' autonomy, critical thinking and creativity• recognising students' existing linguistic ability and

cultural competence• how professional practice can sometimes get in the way

of seeing the potential students bring with them• other related themes. Papers will be 20 minutes plus ten minutes for discussion. Deadline for abstracts Wednesday April 2nd 2014

Please email your abstract of 150 words, plus name, affiliation, title to: [email protected]

Abstract forms, registration forms and other information at www.canterbury.ac.uk/arts-humanities/english-language-studies/Conferences/CuttingEdges.aspx

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Language Issues is published by NatEclaNational Association for Teaching English and other Community Languages to Adultswww.natecla.org.ukhttp://www.natecla.org.uk/content/483/Language-Issues-The-journal-of-NATECLA

Jane ArstallNATECLA National CentreSouth and City College BirminghamHall Green CampusCole Bank RoadBirmingham b28 [email protected]

ISSN 0263-5833

Copyright remains with the author. No fees paid.Guidelines for authors can be found at http://www.natecla.org.uk/uploads/media/208/3041.pdf

Design and production: Waysgoose, SouthamptonPrinted by MWL, Pontypool

advertising Cover full page £250 Inside full page £200 Inside half page £150Contact Jane Arstall at [email protected]

EditorDr Balasubramanyam Chandramohan

Editorial BoardRakesh BhanotSally BirdJo-Ann DelaneyNaeema HannAlison Schwetlick

advisory BoardElsa Auerbach University of Massachusetts BostonMike BaynhamUniversity of LeedsRon CarterUniversity of NottinghamGuy CookOpen UniversityDavid CrystalUniversity of Wales, BangorPamela Frame Institute of Education University of LondonJennifer JenkinsUniversity of SouthamptonBraj KachruUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignRobert LeachESOL consultantBarry O’SullivanRoehampton UniversityMario RinvolucriPilgrims Language CoursesCelia RobertsKing’s College, LondonSheila RosenbergIndependent ESOL writer/researcherPhilida SchellekensESOL ConsultantJames SimpsonUniversity of LeedsTove Skutnabb-KangasÅbo Akademi University, Vasa, FinlandHelen SunderlandESOL ConsultantArturo TosiRoyal Holloway, University of LondonMahendra K VermaUniversity of YorkCatherine WallaceInstitute of Education University of LondonBencie WollUniversity College London

REsEaRch REVIEW

TheparadoxesoflanguagelearningandintegrationintheEuropeancontext

pEER REVIEWEd aRtIclEs

MaintaininglanguagestandardisationthroughESOLpractices

aRtIclEs

Authenticspokentextsandtasks

Correction,feedbackandlearninginonlinechat

Socialmedia,mobiletechnologyandcontinuingprofessionaldevelopment

WhathappensinlowerlevelESOLclasses?

VoIcEs fRom thE classRoom

Writingabouttheimmigrationexperience

WritingtheESOLstudentguidebook

REVIEW

Improvingadultliteracyinstruction:optionsforpracticeandresearch

LanguageIssuesThejournalofNATECLA

Volume24 Number2 2014

language Issues Volume 24 N

umber 2 2014

language issues 24.2

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