Teaching vocabulary - an #eltchat summary

This is a summary of the #eltchat held at 12noon BST on Wednesday 19th September, 2012. The full title of the chat was:

'How should we approach vocabulary teaching and learning?  Is there a place for rote learning?  What is the current thinking about it?'

I have to say that I didn't vote for this topic, mainly because it was up against my suggestion of 'first lesson ideas'.  As it turned out, my subject won the vote and was discussed at 3am my time here in Vietnam so I missed it!  Instead, I found myself involved in a very interesting chat session on teaching vocabulary and came away with lots of food for thought.  It was expertly moderated as usual, this week by @Shaunwilden and @theteacherjames. 

 

Rote Learning Vocabulary - the Pros and Cons

 

We began by discussing rote learning and it soon became clear that we had a difference of opinion as to the effectiveness of the method. 

@teflerinha told us that she had had success with rote learning when she was learning Polish and Portuguese, particularly when using small 'crib' cards.  These cards can be created by using quizlet or other similar websites.  She also said that level is relevant - beginners need more rote learning because there is less context available.  @ElkySmith added that rote learning is easier at low levels because of the concrete nature of the vocabulary.  @louisealix68 reminded us that some students prefer rote learning ('musical intelligence') and told us that it had really helped her with German.  @rliberni suggested that rote learning can be made more fun by creating chants, songs and raps.

Personally, I have never had much success with rote learning, either as a learner or a teacher.  This opinion was shared by @cioccas.  @michelleworgan also questioned its long-term effectiveness, especially with YLs.

Several contributors, however, gave the link to an article by Paul Nation on why rote learning works, although it was pointed out that Nation himself admits that, once learned by rote, students have to use the new vocabulary in context in order for it to 'enter deep store'.
 

Clearly, there is a place for rote learning with some students, but it is not ideal for all learning styles.

 

Other Ways of Teaching Vocabulary

 

Most #eltchat participants agreed that we need to keep students engaged in vocabulary learning by finding other teaching methods, rather than just asking them to learn word lists.  Some of what follows has a basis in rote learning, but is much more interesting and effective.

• Giving students context is vital to help them remember new vocabulary.
• @rliberni reminded us that translation has a part to play.
• @LizziePinard advised us to use quizzes and games where possible, bingo and pelmanism, for example.  She suggested that, 'if you increase the depth of processing, the lexis becomes more memorable'.  This can be achieved by getting students to use more than one kind of processing - identifying, manipulating, classifying, etc.
• Use pictures and diagrams: for example, put house vocabulary into an outline of a house.  Combining vocabulary with visuals is always a powerful way to present and, later, recall vocabulary.
• Get students to use vocabulary in a personal way to make it more memorable.
• Give regular vocabulary tests or weekly revision sessions.
• Get students to create word search puzzles for other classmates to solve.
• Use mnemonics to make rote learning more fun - all those of us who learned 'the colours of the rainbow' or 'the planets in the Solar System' this way will never forget them! 
• Favourite games for teaching and revising vocabulary include 'Taboo', 'Outburst', 'Say my Word', 'Blockbusters' and 'Call my Bluff'.
• Use all of the senses to help students remember new vocabulary - think about the sounds and smells associated with words.
• Get students to create weekly vocabulary posters which are then displayed on the wall as a permanent visual reminder.  Later in the course, these posters can be used in memory games, sentence building, story telling, etc.
• Encourage students to read as much as possible in order to increase their vocabulary.
• Writing is one of the best ways to revise vocabulary.
• Encourage the use of vocabulary notebooks and urge students to be creative with them - word trees, pictures, use of colour, etc.
• Get students to prepare wiki pages on a specific topic at home - these can then be referred to both in and out of class.
• Don't overload students with masses of new vocabulary at the same time - 'small amounts often' is the way forward for @ElkySmith, both when presenting new words and revising what has already been covered in class.
• Synonym posters in the classroom, which students add to during the course, are a great way to expand vocabulary.  This works just as well with mind maps which can be built on.
• Co-operative or half crosswords are great for teaching vocabulary.
• Remember not to limit vocabulary to words - lexical chunks are particularly useful.
• Make students think about how words behave and not just what they mean.
• Teach vocabulary through reading texts, where students underline the words they don't know and then use them in their own sentences.
• Use drama activities - for example, students make up a mime using narrative verbs learned and their classmates have to call them out.
• Teach students to understand meaning from context when reading and listening.
• Get students to watch films in English with English subtitles so they are getting the vocabulary through both visual and auditory channels.
• Use TPR, particularly with YLs, to help memorise directions, body parts, emotions, requests, imperatives, adjectives, etc.
• Teachers need to remember to reuse new words as much as possible in class - students pick up on this and try to do the same.
• Use songs, as long as you explain what the lyrics mean!
• Relate challenging vocabulary to songs or popular films or TV shows.  The example given by @Teachersilvert was using 'Friends' to illustrate 'freak out'.
• Only teach relevant vocabulary - words and phrases students will need.  Good dictionaries will tell you how frequently a word is used - this online example from the OUP is particularly good: http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/oxford3000/
• Have a 'word of the day' for students to use correctly in class (or even a 'chunk of the day').
• Revise as much as possible.  A good tip is to have a vocabulary bag and use it for constant recycling activities.  This was suggested by @jobethsteel.  I would endorse this - we use them in our department and if a teacher is a few minutes late for class, it's so easy for a colleague to go in and do a quick vocabulary revision exercise using the 'word bag of the week'!!

Conclusion

As with all EFL teaching, there is no 'one size fits all'.  Rote learning has its place, but it doesn't work for all learners (or teachers!).  The key is to use a variety of approaches, tasks and activities in order to provide multiple experiences of, and exposures to, new vocabulary.  Whether you use rote learning or not, students need opportunities to notice new words and lexical chunks as well as situations where they need to use them.

Links

• Kim's Game to help students memorise new vocabulary via @AlexandraKouk
• Using thematic grouping to teach vocabulary via @teflerinha
• Apps to help learn vocabulary via @jobethsteel
• 'Beyond Backs to the Board' - a prezi on teaching vocabulary by @ElkySmith
• @leoselivan's blog about teaching vocabulary as recommended by @elawassell, @cioccas and @teflerinha
• Vocabulary revision with post-it notes via @theteacherjames
• 1000 free vocabulary games via @AlexandraKouk
• A seminar by Paul Nation on vocabulary teaching via @ElkySmith
• Triptico - a free app for teaching vocabulary via @Teachersilvert
• Concordancers via @teflerinha
• Lexical priming via @AlexandraKouk
• Scaffolding via @AlexandraKouk
• Textivate - great for getting students to think about how sentences fit together and to focus their minds on form and meaning of words
• 'The English we Speak' BBC podcast - good for teaching new vocabulary/chunks because students love to be able to reproduce what they've heard (via @worldteacher)
• Short booklet on teaching vocabulary from CUP via @AlexandraKouk
• Games for learning vocabulary via @HOSNA_ELT

 

 

How do we generate language from a topic? - A practical example

A picture is worth 1000 words

This was the title of a webinar presented by Adrian Tennant as part of the MacMillan series.  What follows is a summary of the session.

Adrian began by telling us that two or three 50-word texts should generate five or six hours of teaching.  This was quite a surprising claim and had us hooked from the off!

We were then shown that we don't even need 50 words.  For example, we should treat a picture as a text.  Remember the saying: 'A picture is worth a thousand words'.

Another place to start would be with a newspaper headline.  For example.

Youth Badly Hit in Jobs Market

The ambiguity of headlines like this make them rich pickings for language analysis:

• Who or what does the word 'youth' refer to ?
• What is a jobs market?
• How was/were the youth hit?
• Who or what hit the youth?
• What was the youth hit with?        etc., etc.

This could easily be adapted for low level students:



Young People Can't Get Jobs



Here, you could focus on modals, negatives, the verb 'get', and so on.

A five or six word text can generate 15-20 minutes of teaching and/or discussion, so how much more can be generated from a 50-word text? 

 

With a 50-word text, you can

• pick up on collocations and do vocabulary matching exercises
• isolate the grammar - tenses, comparatives, etc.
• teach a particular part of speech - adjectives, articles, prepositions, etc.
• highlight referencing words - like this, this kind of, these, they, etc.

An example of a short text

Usually in course books, the higher the level, the longer the text.  Remember:

size

doesn't

matter!!

 

Short, complex texts can be much more useful than longer ones.

 

 

 

 

What else can you ask students to do with a short text?

• You can ask students to paraphrase or summarise the text. 
• Use it to increase vocabulary.  For example, you could get students to replace every adjective with a synonym, thus teaching them to avoid repetition in their own writing.
• You can use the text as the basis for a class discussion.
• You can ask students to generate questions from the text for their classmates to answer.
• You can get students to prepare two-minute presentations based on the text.

 

What is the difference between using short texts and using a coursebook?

• The texts are bite-sized.
• The language emerges from the topic, NOT the topic from the language.

 

There are thousands of topic-based lessons for all levels freely available on the internet, covering subjects such as: crime, family, weather, politics, travel, work, relationships, environment, culture, education, transport, etc.

 

Remember!

 

There is no such thing as an authentic text in an EFL classroom.  The minute you take a text into class, it loses it's authenticity!  There are only authentic tasks!

 

How do you create a topic-driven lesson?

1. Choose a topic.
2. Find (or write) short texts about the topic.  These can be like short newspaper articles.
3. Start looking for the language - DO NOT try to write a text to illustrate a grammar point or a particular type of vocabulary.  The text should never be contrived - the language should emerge from a naturally-written text.
4. Design your activities - don't forget to record audio versions of your texts to be able to add listening activities.
5. Always have the topic at the forefront of your mind.

Extension activities

• Higher level students can generate their own texts (this is good for error correction, too).
• Texts written by higher level students can be used in lower-level classes.
• Give students a similar text to the original as a gap-fill - articles, linkers, etc.

Conclusion

 

The most important thing is getting students to notice language through exploring and analysing a text.  We need to teach students how to learn and give them the curiosity and the tools to take control of their own learning.

 

Further reading

 

'Uncovering Grammar' by Scott Thornbury



#ELTchat - We'll Be Back!!

This is an article written by Marisa Constantinides (@Marisa_C) and published first on her blog.  It explains the loss of our #eltchat domain name and her plans for the future of the website.  I am proud to re-publish it here and am looking forward to #eltchat's 'new term' in September!!

#ELTchat: the loss of eltchat.com – Plan B

For the last - well, almost two years now, since September 15 2010, #ELTchat has kept us on our toes and forged hundreds of professional and personal relationships amongst its followers who turn up on Twitter every Wednesday to talk about topics they have suggested and voted on - a community of peers which was created by a small group of colleagues - which grew and grew some more and became something that counts as an important part of our continuous professional development.

Like many great ideas, it didn’t hit just one person but several.

And that is how #ELTchat was created.

The website to keep up the communication of its members, a base and repository of our ideas was one of the first things we all thought of creating – the wiki came later.
Andy Chaplin was keen to join the moderation team and help with podcasts and technical stuff; he was quick to buy eltchat.com and announced the good news to us after the fact.

A few months later, right after TESOL France 2011, he suddenly disappeared – some say for reasons of health.

We never found out for sure.
We never received a single word of response to our emails.

eltchat.com was and still is registered in his name.

And yesterday we lost it

On August 8 the domain expired and we have no way of taking over unless it goes up for sale again; it was very sad that Andy Chaplin did not find it appropriate to renew.

The news is really upsetting.

The work we have put in on this website cannot be told in a few simple words – but it has been a labour of love and we have got so much out of it that we have never regretted one single moment

We are pretty upset at the behaviour of this individual – disappointment is one big understatement.

But we trust that our community of #ELTchatters, our PLN for short, will again gather round the new domain which we have purchased – eltchat.org

It will take us a few days to put the website back on its feet

And all will be as it was before – all the posts in place all your thoughts and comments, all the polls and great summaries which got us on the shortlist of the ELTon Awards nominations

We will be back with a vengeance

We are not just a website – we did not get on the ELTon awards shortlist as just another website!!!

We are a great community of teachers and we have a Plan B!

See you all in September!!!

Marisa Constantinides – Shaun Wilden

Andrea Wade

P.S. We would greatly appreciate it if any of you belonging to this great community of teachers, teacher educators, bloggers, #ELTchat followers, reposted this on your blog

If you decide to do this, please add your name to the post under ours.

7th VUS-TESOL Conference, City Hall, Saigon - 14th July, 2012

This was the first time that I had attended a conference such as this in Vietnam and I wasn't sure what to expect.  However, with Alan Maley as the keynote speaker, my hopes were high!

We travelled into the city straight from work on Friday night and enjoyed dinner at our favourite Indian restaurant, Baba's Kitchen.

Early the next morning, Mark went off to do his own thing and I took a taxi to the conference venue.  It was an impressively large building and there was no mistaking that we were in the right place - there were huge banners everywhere and a steady stream of attendees pouring through the gates and up the wide marble steps.

We were greeted by friendly looking security guards who directed us to the appropriate desks for registration.  Having pre-registered online, the process was quick and efficient.  I then picked up a bag of literature, free pens and a very impressive glossy brochure.  I was enjoying spending time looking at books and talking to representatives of the publishing houses when my colleagues arrived and urged me into the main hall which was filling up fast.  So fast, in fact, that the only available seats were right at the front of the auditorium.  We took our places and arranged our papers and bags and sat with notebooks and pens at the ready.  We were, however, soon moved on, being told that the seats, despite not being marked as such, were, in fact, reserved for dignitaries!  We were shown to the cheap seats upstairs, not nearly as comfortable and without the convenient writing desk in front of them.  At least we were early enough not to be condemned to the ubiquitous small red plastic stools which were hastily being arranged on the peripharies of the room!

'Crackerjack' - childrens' TV show 

Proceedings got under way a little late, as is the norm in Vietnam, and then were delayed further by a seemingly unending stream of speeches and presentations.  The people being honoured were party members, local dignitaries, lesser politicians, the conference speakers, publishers, sponsors, representatives of VUS and so on and so on.  Each presenter and recipient was sporting a lavish corsage and was accompanied on to the stage by loud applause and rousing music.  Once on stage, they were given framed certificates, elaborately wrapped gifts and bouquets of flowers.  As they stood in line for numerous photos, I was reminded of the final game of the popular 1970s kids' TV show, Crackerjack, where children were loaded up with presents until you could no longer see them behind a pile of goodies, and what they didn't drop, they could keep!!  It made me smile!

Alan Maley

With the formalities finally over, the conference proper could begin, with Alan Maley's plenary on 'Standardisation: Interrogations and Implications'.  It was very interesting, but seated, as we were, in 'the Gods', some of his message was lost on us.

That said, the day was very successful.  I made a couple of poor choices of sessions to attend, but, fortunately, my colleagues made better selections, so they were able to fill me in on what I'd missed.  Between sessions, there was an opportunity to chat to some of the other 2,000 attendees, browse the wide selection of books on display, talk to presenters and publishers, or partake of the very generous variety of food and drink on offer.

As the day drew to a close, there was a raffle draw which followed a similar drawn-out pattern to the early morning presentations and then a mad scramble to acquire a certificate of attendance.

As we emerged into the bright sunshine and heat of a Saigon afternoon, I felt it had been a worthwhile way to spend a Saturday and I'm already looking forward to next year's conference!

How Webinars Have Transformed my CPD

Until a few months ago, my CPD consisted of my own reading, attending an odd seminar when the opportunity arose, and my weekly participation in #eltchat on Twitter.  Not being fortunate enough to work for institutions which put much emphasis on the professional development of their teachers, or indeed with colleagues who were interested in their own, these methods were all that were available to me.  I didn't mind too much.  I felt that I was keeping up to date with what was happening in my field and that I was serving my students well by taking the best of what I learned, particularly through #eltchat, back into the classroom.

Then I discovered webinars.  I can't remember what the topic of my first one was, but I do remember that it was good to be a part of a global meet-up of teachers, all with a common interest and with similar problems and issues in their daily working lives.  The opportunity to 'chat' with these colleagues before, during and after the webinar meant that it was a social experience rather than a solitary one.  And I learned so much!

Since then, I've attended webinars presented by some of the biggest names in the ELT field on a range of topics from 'How do we generate language from a topic?' and 'Digital literacies' to 'Creativity in ELT' and 'The difference between written and spoken grammar'.

These webinars have been hosted by organisations such as:

• Macmillan Publishing
• Cambridge English Teacher
• Oxford University Press
• Pearson ELT

I tend to make copious notes during these webinars which I then summarise and keep as a record of my CPD.  Some of these summaries make their way on to this blog, as a reference for myself as well as a help for other colleagues in the blogosphere.  Others have been used as the basis for workshops in my current place of work.  Professional development has not been given much focus here, but, slowly, this situation is changing, and I have high hopes of helping with the implementation of a more formal series of training sessions in the new academic year.

There have been times when I've been unable to attend a webinar which was of particular interest to me, and I've tried to watch the recording later.  For me, however, this hasn't worked.  I like the immediacy of a webinar and the fact that it is a shared experience rather than an act of solitary learning.  There is a bit of a lull at the moment in the number of webinars on offer, mainly due to summer holidays, but I'm already registered for one or two in September and am looking forward to another fruitful period of CPD.

Creativity in ELT

This is a summary of a recent webinar presented by Antonia Clare.  She shared so many good ideas that I need to record them here for future use in my classroom and in my training sessions for other teachers.

In a creative classroom, students are active participants and are fully engaged in the learning process.  The aim is to shift the responsibility from the teacher back to the learner.

Creative thinking is about:

• FLUENCY - generating lots of ideas.
• FLEXIBILITY - the ability to shift perspective and come up with a variety of ideas.
• ELABORATION - building on and expanding existing ideas.
• ORIGINALITY - coming up with new ideas.

'Creative' versus 'Critical' thinking

How can we encourage creativity?

We need to use a framework to trigger creative thinking.

Examples of this are:

• writing without using the letter 'e'.  (This is something that I've done with an upper intermediate class, using this British Council podcast and worksheet.)
• using writing prompts.  For example, http://writingexercises.co.uk/ has a first line generator for creative writing.
• using Flickr five card stories to encourage inventive narratives.
• giving students the first lines of proverbs and getting them to invent the endings.  Then they can think of stories in their own lives that prove or disprove the proverb.
• 'My Life in Film' - encourage learners to write their life story as a movie trailer using prompts (in the beginning....., then...., later......, a big decision......, now........, etc.).

Ways to use your emotions

There are six basic emotions:

• fear
• anger
• distress
• joy
• surprise
• disgust

We can:

• look at pictures and discuss these emotions.
• talk about situations when we've felt these emotions.
• write some 'emotions poetry'.

       For example,   Distress is like ____________.

                                It tastes like ___________.

                                It smells like ___________.

                                It sounds like ___________.

                                It looks like ____________.

                                It feels like ____________.

This is good for all levels, from pre-intermediate upwards.  The lines could be made to rhyme, but they don't have to.

Using the five senses

When it comes to the senses, try getting students to think about evocative smells, for example.  To get the ball rolling, tell them an anecdote from your own past.  For me, this would involve the aroma of warm tomatoes growing in my Grandad's greenhouse when I was a very small child!

You could also use a website like Talking Memories and encourage students to think about memories of their childhoods.  They could record an oral account or write a description of an event, adding details of how they felt and why it was special, remembering to include all the senses.

Thinking outside of the box

• Take students outside of the classroom.  The effect is often very liberating and gets the creative juices flowing.
• Use a website like Voxopop to get students talking.  You could, for example, ask them to talk about their 'perfect day'.
• Make a film.
• Use a video to stimulate discussion.  For example, you could use this video about Banksy to trigger the debate, 'Is grafitti art or vandalism?'

Using images

• Show images of people and ask, 'What kind of person do you think he/she is and why?'
• Choose images to create a 'Museum of Me' - include pictures of clothes, food, drink, books, places, etc.
• Use eltpics - get students to choose pictures which are indicative of them  and write a story or do a presentation around them.

Finally, we need to be.......

Creation of stories and poems

Response framework

Engagment of the emotions

Activation of the senses

Thinking time

Imagery as a prompt

Video

Elaboration

Thanks to Antonia Clare for a great webinar!

Helping Students Improve their Speaking Abilities for Proficiency Tests - an #eltchat summary

Smith & Jones Talking Heads

This is a summary of the #eltchat which took place at 12noon BST on Wednesday, 11th July, 2012.  It was an informative discussion with most of the ideas coming from the participants themselves, rather than through links to external websites and articles.  The chat was expertly moderated as always, this time by @Shaunwilden, @rliberni and @BrunoELT.

We began by establishing that we were including all types of speaking tests in our chat, not just CPE.  We also agreed that the main worry for students taking a proficiency test (apart from the speaking itself!) is the thought of the exam room and wondering what the examiner expects.

Should we be aiming for accuracy or fluency?

Whilst in an ideal world we want our learners to be both fluent and accurate, the consensus seemed to be that fluency is the key for proficiency tests.  'Drying up' is the worst case scenario for most students and, if it happens, it knocks their confidence and it's very difficult for them to get going again.  Accuracy is more difficult to achieve in the heat of the moment and the effective communication of ideas is usually the most important thing.  If we focus on accuracy or grammar over fluency, the danger is that students think about words and structures and don't actually speak!

What role does personalisation play in a speaking test?

@teacherphili told us that, in his experience, some institutions 'help' students by making the test easier with familiar pictures.  This is probably not a problem if the tests are internal, but could mean that students are ill-equipped for external tests.

Of course, we all like to talk about ourselves, so it's helpful to have personal anecdotes to tell.  Students are given the opportunity to do this in all internationally recognised proficiency tests.  When students talk about something that matters to them, they sound naturally enthusiastic.


Practical ideas to help learners improve their speaking for tests:

• Start with lots of general fluency practice to build confidence and overcome the fear factor, before moving on to more exam-type activities.
• Encourage students to read about varied topics so that they have ideas.  If they do not have ideas, there test is over!
• Use speaking board games to encourage fluency.
• Play 'Just a Minute', based on the long-running Radio 4 programme - great fun and really engaging for the students, especially if you can supply them with bells, buzzers or whistles!
• Play the old favourite 'Chinese whispers' - good for listening practice and also for highlighting pronunciation issues.
• Play 'Impromptu Speeches' - someone plays the MC who invites students to speak for a minute on a topic drawn at random from a hat.
• Use storytelling where each student gives one line and the next must follow on in his or her own way.
• Try 'shadowing' - a technique where you begin by repeating what your partner says and then move on to paraphrasing, like a translator, but in the same language.  I attended a workshop on this recently and am currently 'road-testing' it in class.  Early results are good and I plan to blog about it soon.
• Record students as they practise for their speaking tests and encourage them to critique each other.  When I started doing this here in Vietnam, my students were initially reluctant to peer correct, but, over the weeks, I think I've unleashed a monster and I now have to remind students to give some positive feedback, too!!
• Use Web 2.0 tools to facilitate the recording process.  Start with mobile phones, which students find less intimidating, and then progress to sites like Audioboo, Voxopop or Vocaroo which can be used for students to build up portfolios.  These can then be used to show students their improvement over time.
• Use correction sheets to give feedback after speaking practice and review/revise at the start of the next lesson.  (Leave room on the sheet for some positive comments.)
• Use pictures and photos to spark conversation, especially from eltpics.
• Practise the long turn with silly topics - this reduces the stress and students can concentrate on sequencing their talk (via @andyscott55). This activity is a great precursor to the 'real' tasks.
• Get students to perform a live news programme as if they were on air.  They have to speak about exam-type topics and have performance pressure (via @Sharonzspace).
• Practice speaking via Skype (student to student, rather than student to teacher!).
• Don't forget to give advice on appropriate body language - a good speaking test score is not all about utterances.
• You should also remind students about the role of listening in dialogic speaking, linking this to appropriate (physical) responses.
• Get students to listen to/watch real candidates doing real tests to show them what is good or bad.  I use IELTS 5.0 from Garnet Publishing as a core text for some of my students.  This is a great book with lots of listening to real answers from candidates, which invites critique and reflective practice.
• Make sure that students know the format of the test inside out - there should be no surprises on the day.

Practical ideas to help students overcome their nerves:

• Encourage students to think silently for a minute about the picture or question before starting to speak. @timjulian60 believes that this can help them to gain confidence, though @Shaunwilden worries that examiners might misunderstand the silence and think that the candidate doesn't know what to say!
• We need to remember that even native speakers stumble when faced with high-level proficiency tests (CAE, CPE, IELTS, TOEFL, etc.) so lots of practice is needed in gathering and organising your thoughts.
• Nerves are a huge problem for my students, so I like to use roleplays with someone being their 'worst nightmare' examiner!
• If you are teaching YLs, funny accents and voices can help.
• Remind students that examiners are not monsters - that, in fact, they want the candidates to do well, but that they must demonstrate their ability.

(A few) Links:

• Some speaking activities from British Council Esol Nexus which provide learners with models to analyse and copy - via @pysproblem81.
• How we can use minimal pairs to help L2 listeners decode what they hear via @teflerinha.
• A review of @mybrainshark including the importance of practising for speaking tests - via @teacherphili.
• Spoken performances illustrating the 6 levels of the CEF via @louisealix68.
• Personalisation example from T>S for speaking practice via @teacherphili.
• Constructive alignment via @louisealix68.