The validity of automated scoring software and its application in ELT contexts

This was the title of the closing plenary at this year's VUS-TESOL conference, given by Professor Timothy L. Farnsworth.  What follows is a summary of what he had to say.





What is automated scoring?

• Computer software that automatically assigns scores to writing or speaking samples.
• Essays can be assigned scores instantly by computer.
• Test takers can call a testing centre and take an oral test without speaking to a human.
• Scores can be reported instantly.
• Some level of feedback is given to test takers.
• There is a variety of software available.

How does a computer grade a test?

1.  Natural Language Processing (NLP)

• software identifies and counts linguistic features.
• software does not attempt to gauge content in any way.
• used for testing writing.

2.  Speech recognition

• software compares the speech sample to a large database of samples of the same test questions.
• faster responses are 'more fluent'.
• used for testing speaking.

E-rater (ETS)

• automated scoring of timed essays
• uses NLP
• currently used in a limited way to rate TOEFL and GRE
• used for formative assessment (e.g. TOEFL practice online)
• individual assessment
• students submit essays, receive scores and re-write them as many times as they want in order to improve their score

E-rater takes an essay and counts:

• the number of words
• the number of sentences
• the number of paragraphs
• sentence length
• the number of unique words used versus the total number of words (lexical diversity)
• the number of low-frequency words (lexical depth)
• the number of prompt-specific words (topic appropriateness)

The computer doesn't try to understand the essay, but it does look at grammar:

• dependent/independent clauses
• passive voice
• subject-verb agreement
• plurals
• sequencing words
• logical relations
• mechanics (punctuation, for example)

What is a good essay according to E-rater?

• It's long - longer is always better!
• It has a standard structure.
• It has many longer sentences with a lot of dependent clauses.
• It has many explicit organisational words.
• It has a lot of obscure vocabulary - for example, indubitably would score much higher than surely!
• It has a wide range of vocabulary.

This is not necessarily a good thing!  Good English writing is often simple, clear and concise.

What does E-rater not notice?

• Untruths
• Grammatical errors
• Lexical errors
• Flawed arguments
• Insanity!

Therefore, ETS doesn't use E-rater as the sole scorer for tests.  Rather, it is used as the second human in order to save money.  More than ten years of research hasn't solved the problems with E-rater - it's incredibly hard to get a computer to understand language!

Criterion

This is an E-rater application designed for in-class use.  Students' essays are instantly scored using E-rater software.  Students are given individual scores and extra resources to refer to about their errors.

Versant

This is the first fully automated oral language test used commercially.  It is a Pearson product.  The test is taken in a computer lab or over the phone (speaking to a computer).  The computer automatically rates the speech and produces scores.  It is used widely in business and increasingly in schools.  There are many versions with multiple uses and languages - for the aviation industry, for example.

The test is fifteen minutes long and includes:

• repeating sentences
• scrambled sentences
• oral multiple choice

All responses are totally scripted with only one possible right answer.  There is an optional 'free response' answer, but this is not scored.  Answers are scored on:

• fluency
• pronunciation
• sentence mastery
• vocabulary
• grammar

Speech is captured by microphone and compared to a large database of human-scored responses.  The database includes responses from native speakers from different countries, and English learners from different countries and of all proficiency levels.  Scores are given in the range of 'most similar' to the sample.

What is a good Versant response?

• It's fast (fluency score)
• It's clear
• It's accurate
• It has native-like pronunciation

This last criteria is the most contentious.  We talk about 'global English' now and, for most of us, comprehensibility is much more important than native-like speech.

What Versant doesn't measure:

• the range of vocabulary used
• extended speaking
• pragmatics - cultural awareness, for example
• the ability to interact with others

Advantages of these systems

Reliability

• computers don't get tired
• computers aren't biased for or against individuals
• scores are more consistent than with human raters

Practicality

• it's less expensive than using human raters
• scores and feedback are obtained instantly

Research shows that when test takers are 'acting in good faith', scores are roughly equivalent to those of human raters.  Even though the scores are very similar, however, they are arrived at in very different ways.

Problems

Automated tests can be 'gamed' or tricked.  Versant scores, for example, can be quickly raised by coaching.

Positive effects on teaching

• Students can get more and faster feedback.

Negative effects on teaching

• The form of the test can influence what happens in the classroom.
• Teachers tend to focus on what is tested at the expense of communicative teaching.
• There can be a decreased focus on the quality of the content.
• There can be an increased focus on grammatical accuracy and low-frequency vocabulary.
• There is more oral repetition in order to increase the students' speed of response.
• There is less time spent on developing critical thinking.
• There is a decreased focus on the pragmatic.

To conclude

Despite the obvious drawbacks, computer scored testing is in all our futures.

Power of the image: ways to use photographs in ELT

This was the title of a presentation at this year's VUS-TESOL conference, given by Paul Grainger from National Geographic Cengage.  What follows is a summary of what he had to say.





Using images as the basis for discussion

• Show an image quickly and then hide it.  Ask the students what they remember about it.
• Show the image for longer and pose questions - who are the people?, what are they doing?, what happened before the picture was taken?, what do you think happened next?, how does this picture make you feel?

 

The history of the image

• Cave drawings
• Printing press
• Typewriter
• Visual literacy

We have gone from text rich images to those where the picture is more and more important.

The power of the image

Today pictures are uploaded and shared on social media, giving them an immediacy and profound impact.  As the saying goes, 'a picture is worth a thousand words'.  As teachers, we need to exploit this, even at low levels when we can teach new vocabulary with images.  People think using images, so seeing comes before the use of words.  As Aristotle said, 'without image, thinking is impossible'.  We remember far more about texts if they are illustrated - the 'picture superiority effect'.

Images can be:

• surprising
• shocking
• funny
• sexy
• powerful
• disgusting
• frightening
• ambiguous

After 72 hours, we retain 65-70% of visual information, whereas we remember only 10% of something we've read or heard.  After a year, the retention rate remains at 65-70% for information we've seen, but drops to only 1% for written or aural information.

The best images to use in ELT are those which:

• provoke an emotional response
• arouse interest
• generate discussion

Ideas for using photographs

1. Captions - If you can make your students laugh, you can make them do anything!  Show them a photo of people or animals and ask them to imagine what they are saying.  This is a great warmer - it engages students and stimulates creativity.
2. Creative question and answer practice - Show pictures of people and get students to work in pairs to ask and answer questions about them.  The person answering the questions pretends he knows the people in the picture and invents a whole back story for them.  For lower level students, you could limit the questions to the grammar point being studied.  You can do this activity with any picture in the coursebook - before a listening, for example.
3. Personal photos - Tie these in with the topic of the unit.  Show your own photos before the start of the unit as an introduction.  Get students to ask questions about them.  Students can also use their photos.  This is very engaging for students as they get to know more about their teacher as well as being able to share personal stories with their classmates.
4. Introducing a new topic or new vocabulary - Use photographs to generate interest in a new topic or to provide a visual reminder for new vocabulary. 
5. Pre-listening/pre-reading - Get students to focus on an image before they do a reading or a listening.  This really helps with their prediction skills and can be particularly useful when helping students with exam strategies.

Advantages of using images

• It motivates students
• It makes the material more memorable leading to higher retention rates
• It is a natural approach
• You can present the usual in an unusual way
• It's fun!

Using PowerPoint for Teaching English

This was the title of a presentation at this year's VUS-TESOL conference, given by Khau Huu Phuoc.  What follows is a summary of what he had to say.






Teaching with information communications technology (ICT)

ICT involves using:

• mobile phones
• computers
• audio-visual systems
• the internet
• software, such as PowerPoint or Hot Potatoes

Teaching with PowerPoint

When using books, it's difficult for us as teachers to refer to a specific point nin a text.  With PowerPoint, we can:

• Make something appear - for example, in gapfills where we can show the answer so that students are clear about what is correct (we can make words appear in any order or we can number the gaps and then fill them by clicking on the number making the exercise very easy to follow), or when teaching new vocabulary, we can click on a part of a picture to make the word appear.
• Move something - for example, in matching sentence halves or in inserting relative clauses.  You can put in sound effects for right and wrong answers - audio feedback is very engaging for students.
• Make something disappear - we can hide answers, which is particularly good when doing vocabulary tests.  For example, we can make words disappear as a clock ticks down to zero.
• Use custom animations (although we must have a purpose for using animation!) - there are four types of animation available with PowerPoint - entrance, emphasis, exit, and motion path.

All of these tools can focus students' attention on what we want them to learn.  As teachers, we can highlight places in a text very easily.  It saves a lot of time writing on the board and is very engaging for students.

Flipping the classroom: using a blended learning approach to actively engage students inside and outside of class

This was the title of a presentation at this year's VUS-TESOL conference, given by Rebecca Fletcher.  What follows is a summary of what she had to say.

 

How have teaching and students changed in the 21^st century?

• Students take pictures of the whiteboard, rather than taking notes.
• Students’ attention spans are getting shorter.
• Teachers need more activities to engage students. 
• We now have interactive whiteboards.
• The classroom is much more student centred and collaborative.
• We use laptops and tablets rather than paper.

21st century student
 

What is blended learning?

 

Blended learning is teaching in the classroom mixed with learning outside the class.

Flipping the classroom – how does it work?

Flipping the classroom allows the school to become a place for talking, doing group projects and getting individual help from the teacher, and lets home become a place for doing pre-learning, such as watching instructional videos, and self-study.  Flipping what the student does means that they do the work ahead of time, come to class and debrief.  Students interact with the material before they come to class.  It empowers students to direct their own learning by coming to class ‘genned up’.

Why digital?

 

Digital is omnipresent in all aspects of life – we need to embrace it.  Flipping the classroom supports student centred learning and helps students make connections between the real world and the classroom.

What materials can be ‘flipped’?

• video
• audio files
• powerpoints
• documents
• images
• links to websites

It’s important to have a wide variety of materials.

Social networks

Use social networks to:

• support self-paced learning
• practise new language in an engaging environment
• maximise authentic input
• build a learning community

Using Facebook with your students

Students will be using English outside the classroom in an authentic way.

• Create a page for each of your classes.  Students can ‘like’ the page and comment on the links.
• Put images on Facebook and ask students, ‘what do you think will happen next?’ or ‘what happened just before this picture was taken?’
• Students post comments on an image and then come into class and discuss them.
• Students can write collaborative stories on Facebook.

For security, students should create a Facebook account to use only for students.

Where can you find materials to flip?

• You can create your own or, better still, get students to create them.
• Use publisher-created materials.
• Use ELT websites.

Recommended websites  

• BBC Learning English - especially 'The Flatmates', an ongoing soap opera with subtitles.  Students could watch it at home and then re-create scenes in class through role-play.
• EnglishCentral.com
• LyricsTraining.com 
• BreakingNewsEnglish.com
• Film-English.com

Learning Management Systems

LMSs or VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments) are software programmes which can be used to grade and monitor students.  One of the most well-known is Edmodo.  Teachers can assign work and track their students' progress.

Blogs

We have progressed from PPP (present, practise, produce) to PPPP (present, practise, produce, publish).  Blogs are student-centred with student-generated content.

To conclude

Flipping the classroom saves time both inside and outside of the class.

Digital inspirations for the young and not so young: motivating learners, motivating teachers

This was the title of the opening plenary at this year's VUS-TESOL conference, presented by Heather Barikmo and Marcus Artigliere.  What follows is a summary of what they had to say.





They addressed these two questions:

• What is motivation?
• How can current instructional technology shape motivation for both teachers and learners?

External versus intrinsic motivation

We have to consider both external motivation (the expectations laid down by the principal resources available) and intrinsic motivation (our own sense of curiosity and willingness to try new things).

Teachers give up on new technology more quickly if they are only subject to external motivation.  The desire to use new technology has to come from within the teacher.  The presence of the technology alone is not enough to motivate us.

Constructivist education

This is the idea that learners ultimately construct their own knowledge.  It is all about situated learning - that is, learning which is context related.

As teachers, we don't often use technology to construct learning - we tend to use it just as a tool.  It is often hard for us to change the way we teach to digital natives.

Practice

How and why should we use technology?  Some examples:

• Using i-Pads to discuss facts and opinions about animals.  For example, 'Can animals think?' - students create digital books using screenshots of PowerPoint presentations.  They personalise their learning and increase their efficacy.  It's engaging for the students because learning becomes much more self-directed.
• Developing digital stories - another way students and teachers can develop a constructivist approach to learning.
• Creating digital post-its of the phonetic pronunciation of new vocabulary.
• Writing notes on an IWB over a projected image.

Projects like this increase digital literacy and learners become more self-reliant.  They are invested in their own learning and results.  Students can also help teachers when using technology in class.  They can become the teachers.  This role reversal can be highly motivating for both students and teachers.

The constructivist approach with students

1. Vocabulary on the street - students use mobile phones to take photos of words they see or make notes on words they hear.  They then e-mail these to the teacher who makes a presentation of this 'found' vocabulary to show to the rest of the class.  In this way, students create the word lists rather than them coming from coursebooks.  This is very motivating for them.

2. Blogs as a class space - class blogs can be used by the teacher to share presentations with students and extend the classroom time.  They can also be used to practise web-based reading, with a focus on hypertext where students click on links to learn more about a topic and then come back to the original text.  Students can use the comments section of the blog to give feedback on classroom material.

3. Interactive maps - use mapping software to learn more about places discussed in class.

By using these ideas, students continue to look at course content long after a course has finished.

The constructivist approach with colleagues

Faculty blogs and wikis - wikis can be password protected to turn them into filing cabinets for the faculty.  They can also be developed to serve as a textbook.  Current staff can be given author rights to post on a faculty blog and these rights can subsequently be removed when a teacher leaves.

The idea of using technology in our classrooms is a global concept which can not be ignored!
 

8th VUS-TESOL Conference, City Hall, Saigon, 21st July 2013

 

Having attended the 7th conference last year, I was keen to go to this year's meeting, the theme of which was 'Incorporating Technology in ELT - Why and How?'  Whilst it didn't attract quite the same calibre of 'star' names as last year (Alan Maley was plenary speaker), the conference was very successful and packed full of interesting and useful presentations and workshops.  I will write up the most interesting sessions in a short series of blogposts to follow this one, but you can read a summary of the day's proceedings on the VUS website here.

Sink or swim: working together using cooperative learning

From ShelleyTerrell.com

This was the title of a presentation at the recent Cambridge Day in Ho Chi Minh City.  The speaker was David Bohike and what follows is a summary of what he had to say.

What is cooperative learning?

• Cooperative learning is a learner centred approach which emphasises the importance of student cooperation rather than competition.  
• It is a teaching strategy where each group member is responsible not only for learning what is taught, but also for helping other group members to learn it.  Students work together until everyone successfully understands and completes a task.  Group members gain from one another's efforts and they all share a common fate.

Approach

• Learning is dependent on socially structured exchanges and requires cooperative strategies.
• Students are responsible for their own learning.
• Tasks are designed so students must interact.
• It is team work not group work.

Why use cooperative learning?

• Through cooperative learning, students develop real-world leadership skills, such as decision-making, trust building and conflict management skills.

Examples of activities that use cooperative learning

Activities that use cooperative learning from Andrea Wade

Developing Fluency in the Classroom

This was the title of the first presentation at the recent Cambridge Day in Ho Chi Minh City.  I went to the same day last year with a small group of colleagues and we all found it to be very beneficial.  So, this year I arranged for the majority of my teaching team to attend.  I have to say that, overall, the day wasn't as pertinent as last year's, but there was still enough information shared to make it worthwhile attending.

So, back to the first session of the day.  The speaker was David Bohike, a very experienced teacher, teacher trainer and materials writer currently based in Singapore.  What follows is a summary of his talk.

What is fluency?

Fluency is generally accepted to be the ability to speak with a good, but not necessarily perfect, command of intonation, vocabulary and grammar - to be able to produce spoken language with ease.

Factors affecting fluency

Cognitive factors

• familiarity with the topic
• familiarity with the genre (presentation, debate, discussion, etc.)
• familiarity with the other speakers (to promote fluency, it is often a good idea to allow friends to sit together)

Affective factors

• feelings towards the topic
• feelings towards other participants
• self-consciousness

Performance factors

• planning time - we need to give students time to think before expecting them to speak.
• discourse control - where possible, give students control over what they say and how they say it.
• time pressure - be aware of this; some students perform well when given a time limit, others don't.

Developing fluency in class

1. Automaticity of chunks - teaching and drilling chunks of language (sentence starters, functional phrases, idiomatic expressions, etc.), so that students can produce them automatically.
2. Support the learner - by pre-teaching vocabulary, for example.
3. Knowledge support - give background information about the topic.
4. Strategy support - for example, teach students how to paraphrase if they don't know the word they need.
5. Provide planning time - fluency and accuracy improve when students are given time to think.
6. Repeat tasks - task repetition allows the learner to practice and improve - to have a second chance.

Avoid predictability

1. 3 - 2- 1 - this is a great activity to improve fluency.  Give students a topic and ask them to speak about it for three minutes.  Repeat the exercise with the same topic, but this time asking the students to speak for two minutes.  Repeat for a third time, but reduce the speaking time to one minute.  By the time students speak for the third time, most of the errors and much of the hesitation will have been eliminated.  It's a great confidence-booster for students.
2. Speak about new but similar topics.  For example, speak about classroom rules first and then about canteen rules.
3. Gradually increase the task complexity.
4. Introduce new audiences as students become more able.

ELT Tomorrow - a summary of Jun Liu's IATEFL 2013 plenary

This is a summary of Dr Jun Liu's plenary on the future of ELT.  You can watch an interview with the man himself here and his presentation in full here.

To talk about the future of ELT, we need to look at the future in general:

The future is already here.  While machines will replace humans in some tasks, they'll also amplify us, enabling us to do things we never dreamed of doing before.  We'll enter a new kind of partnership - one that will shed light on the unique comparative advantages of humans: thinking, creativity, spontaneity, adaptability and improvisation.  Technology has enabled us to multi-task.  We do multiple things at the same time.  So, machines don't just replace what we do; they change the nature of what we do.  By expanding our capacities, they set new expectations about what is possible and set new performance standards.  Our tools change us.

These are the future changes predicted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies:

For example, the population is increasing in developing countries and decreasing in developed countries.  Clearly, this will impact on English language teaching.
  Leadership Skills

In the past, teachers were responsible for their students only.  Now they need to consider what is going on in other levels and collaborate with their colleagues.

What is the future of education?

We are working in a global learning economy.

'The globalisation of open learning systems..... will change how educational institutions view their roles and will offer new forms of value in the global learning ecosystem.'

2020 Forecast: 6 major drivers of change

1. Altered bodies - experimenting at the intersection of environment and performance.
2. Amplified organisation - extended human capacity remakes the organisation.
3. Platforms for resilliance - creating flexibility and innovation amid system failures.
4. A new civic discourse - rearticulating identity and community in a global society.
5. The maker economy - personal fabrication technologies plus open-source principles democratise production and design.
6. Pattern recognition - an extremely visible world demands new sensemaking.

All of these changes will impact what we do as teachers.

The three domains of ELT

 

All of these fields will be globalised.

 

ELT as a profession

 

The community of skilled practitioners who are actively involved in TESL or TEFL:

• instructors
• researchers
• curriculum designers
• materials developers
• teacher trainers
• administrators
• tutors
• test developers
• policy specialists

Anyone who makes or influences pedagogical choices in the language classroom.

 

Attributes of a profession

 

From Elliott Judd's 40th anniversary TESOL presidential plenary:

1. Has a body of knowledge
2. Has a prescribed regime of licensing for members
3. Sets a code of ethics and standards
4. Has authority
5. Has autonomy
6. Has power
7. Has status and privilege
8. Is altruistic and serves the public
9. Is a full-time lifelong commitment
10. Forms professional associations

Not that long ago, most English language teachers had no training whatsoever.  Now, there's lots of training available.

 

What's affecting the future of ELT?

 

To try to predict the future of ELT, Jun Liu looked at more than 40 years' worth of articles published in the TESOL Quarterly journal and identified the top ten issues affecting our profession:

1. Language skills
2. Language knowledge (including grammar and pronunciation)
3. Methodology
4. Language learning and the learners
5. Language policy
6. Language use - sociolinguistics
7. Assessment
8. Teacher development and education
9. Curriculum and materials design
10. Second language acquisition



There are four recurrent themes which are all inter-related:

1. Language policy/standards
2. Language learners and learning
3. Curricula and teaching materials
4. Teacher learning and development

We are in a time of migration and globalisation.  We need to redefine the role of English and legitimise varieties of native English.  We need to consider intelligibility and cross-cultural appropriateness.

'The majority of human interactions do not involve an English native speaker.'

Graddal 2006

 

74% of communication in English is NNS to NNS.

 

Redefining English

 

We have so many types of English now as identified by the following acronyms:

• English as an international language (EIL)
• English as an world language (EWL)
• English as an global language (EGL)
• English as a lingua franca (ELF)
• English as an additional language (EAL)
• English as everyone's language (EEL)

The majority of English language teachers are NNSs.

English for young learners (EYL) is a growing area.  These students are digital natives and teachers need to adapt to this.  Learners often have no interest in activities that don't have the same excitement as a computer game.

We need to introduce varieties of English that teach global/inter-cultural competence.  We need to understand who our students will be communicating with.

The six abilities of a competent English teacher

1. Make constant and effective changes

We need to try new practices in order to question our beliefs and perhaps change our behaviour.

• Innovation will drive success
• The qualities and skills that define a successful language professional today may be entirely different by 2020
• Strive to cultivate adaptability and effectiveness
• Resist relying on practices and assumptions merely because they were acceptable in the past

English teachers are constantly challenged:





 

2. Learn and speak at least one other language

 

In the future, companies will employ more bilingual or multilingual employees so there's a threat to native speakers growing up in the USA or UK.  If they don't learn a second language, they might lose out to multilingual applicants from overseas.  So, there's a huge need for learners to know more than one language and it's useful for teachers, too.  Plus, learning another language puts you back in the role of learner and gives you more empathy for your students.

 

3. Teach less to maximise learning

 

'Learning is most effective when the learner is the initiator of the learning process.'

McLean 1980

 

Our role as a teacher will change to become a:

• scaffolder
• supporter
• facilitator
• conductor



We will help students to explore the learning process rather than teach them what to do.  Students find learner-centred teaching intrinsically motivating.  Teachers should gradually move towards more non-directive approaches.

 

4. Teach English in at least one subject area

 

We're not just language teachers anymore.  Teachers who are knowledgeable in at least one other subject will be more employable in an increasingly competitive job market.  We need to have an integrative perspective on the role of English in the classroom.  General English teachers at tertiary level might not have jobs in the future as high school students enter higher education with IELTS band 7+ already.

 

5. Familiarise oneself with new learning and teaching modes

 

We need to be technologically prepared to work with digital natives.  We need to reimagine ways of learning and teaching English:

• handheld learning
• e-learning
• classroom technology
• digital textbooks
• digital English - extensive exposure to English input
• net-based teaching
• digital teaching resources

6. Ensure learning outside the classroom

 

We need to break the association between learning and schooling and create learning opportunities for our students outside the classroom:

• online learning
• self-paced learning
• one-to-one learning
• handheld learning
• mobile learning
• collaborative learning
• time-shifted learning - any place, any time
• synchronous/asynchronous learning
• blended learning

 

#eltchatters discussed Jun Liu's 'Six abilities' on April 17th.  I summarised the chat here.

 

Final thoughts

 

Changes are inevitable - we need to prepare ourselves for them.  We need to turn our original pyramid upside down.  After all, teachers are leaders too!!

 





IATEFL Interviews - part three

 

As part of my plan to catch up with IATEFL 2013, I'm spending some time watching interviews with key players at the conference. I find that this gives me real insights into some aspects of our profession that I might not have known about or sought out before. I wrote about the day one interviews here and day two's here.

Alan Maley

The first interview on day three was with IATEFL lifetime achievement winner, Alan Maley, who I was lucky enough to meet at a conference in Saigon last year.  he was talking about the difference between preparation and preparedness.  Teacher training prepares teachers in terms of pedagogical knowledge, classroom management, etc., but, in reality, most of what happens in the classroom is unpredictable.  How do we train teachers for what Alan calls, 'the Dark Matter'?  We need to train them in 'preparedness' as well as 'preparation'.  Preparation is being ready for what you assume will happen.  Preparedness is being ready for anything!  It is congruent with dogme teaching - 'going with the flow'.  Alan advocates the need for spontaneous activities to be built in to teacher training courses.  He believes we should start teachers on the path to 'preparedness' during initial training, rather than waiting for it to come with experience and his talk at the conference would focus on techniques like theatre improvisation and clowning to facilitate this.

The next interview was with Abdoul Ka from Senegal an Partha Sarathi Misra from India.  They are IATEFL scholarship winners and they talked about what they will be taking back to their home countries and how they will communicate what they have learned to their colleagues.



Mike Harrison

Mike Harrison was next up, talking about experimental practice for PD - doing things you don't normally do in class.  This involves researching new methods, incorporating them into your lessons, documenting what happens, reflecting on it and adopting the results.  For the results to be meaningful, the process needs to be repeated at different times with different groups.

The next person to be interviewed was Hywel Coleman.  He has been researching the use of English in eight West African countries that use French as their official language.  English is typically the third language of these African children, but there is a need for them to achieve proficiency in it driven by trade, business and international peace-keeping forces.

Then Jamie Keddie was interviewed about 'videotelling' - using video clips for teacher-led storytelling in the classroom.  The idea is to deconstruct a video and take a narrative from it to tell a story.  Students don't see the video until they have heard the whole story, thus increasing its impact.  Jamie advocates the 'say something, ask something' approach in order to keep students' attention throughout the story.  There are sample lesson plans on his website, including the one he demonstrated in this interview, 'Breathing Holes'.  For videotelling to work, teachers need to plan really well - preparation, visualisation, exploration, resolution.

Jeremy Harmer

Sue Leather came next, talking about the graded readers which are produced by National Geographic in conjunction with Cengage.  She was closely followed by Jeremy Harmer who spoke about the connection between developing musical ability and developing linguistic ability.  His ideas were inspired by the book 'Guitar Zero', written by Gary Marcus.  When it comes to learning a musical instrument, the belief has always been that if you do enough practice, you'll get good.  Now we know that it's not enough simply to go through the motions - the brain has to be engaged.  It is better to practise for ten minutes, solve a problem and concentrate on it, than to practise for an hour doing scales with your brain elsewhere.  So, how does this translate to language learning and teaching?  Perhaps we need to really focus on a small piece of language and ask questions like, 'where are the pauses?', 'what's the intonation?', 'what does it mean?'  Jeremy doesn't have the answers yet, but feels that exploring the connection between musical ability development and language acquisition is a worthwhile thing to do.

Jeremy stayed on to interview Vicky Saumell who talked about using e-publishing to enable students to reach a wider audience than just their teacher.  Students pay more attention to accuracy if they think other people will read/watch/listen to their work.  This wider audience could simply be other classes in the school or it could involve having an online presence and inviting public comment.  Blogging, Skype interviews and online projects could all be used.

The next interview was with Tim Phillips, Zhou Liping and Keith O'Hare who spoke about the need for more and more teachers worldwide, particularly for junior and primary schools and in the specialism of business English.  The British Council is working on this in many countries.  Nowhere is the need greater than in China.  They were followed into the interview room by Zhang Jinxiu and Anna Searle who continued on the same topic, Anna explaining about the BC's global offering for teachers and Zhang Jinxiu talking about her experiences of ELT in China.

ELT Journal editor, Graham Hall was next.  He spoke about the journal and made a call for articles.  These articles should be 4000 words long and have up to fifteen references.

New IATEFL president, Carol Read, was closely followed by Carl-Johan Westring from EF Education First.  Founded in Sweden in 1965, EF now has 3,500 staff in 450 schools worldwide, making it one of the biggest private language school organisations in the world.  Carl spoke about EF's English Proficiency Index (EPI), a report on how the world speaks English compiled from the results of 1.7 million test takers in 54 countries.  You can read more about this at www.ef.com/epi.

The final interview of the day was with Michael Connolly, an English language advisor with the British Council in India.  His work focusses on teacher training, particularly the Bihar Language Initiative for Secondary Schools (BLISS) project.  Bihar is one of the least developed states in India with a history of bad governance.  In the last five years, however, there has been a new, progressive government that has asked the BC to help with its English programme.  Together they have set up a group of 160 teacher educators, four from each district of the state.  All of these trainers are Indian and have Hindi as their first language.  Teachers are from low-resourced schools and communities.  80% of homes have no electricity.  Many have no water.  Teachers have had no training in the past.  Many of them do not even really know what a teacher is.  They have, however, embraced the new ideas very quickly and Michael reports that it's a very motivating project to be involved in - tough, but challenging.  You can learn more about the project by watching this video: