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TeachingEnglish British Council Blog of the Month Shortlisted!

Yep, that’s right! My blog has just been shortlisted for a Teaching English British Council blog of the month award! The shortlisted post is Top 10 resources for teaching IELTS which I wrote because it’s what i would have wanted to be able to find when I started teaching IELTS. 🙂

If you would like to vote, click on the picture below and it will take you to the Teaching English British Council page. There, you can cast your vote for me by clicking on ‘like’ on the post that looks like this picture, or, for any of the other shortlisted posts this month, should you prefer…keep checking the TEBC page, as new ones will be added over the course of this week!

Shortlisted! Thank you TEBC!

Shortlisted! Thank you TEBC!

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Summary of the 26.02.2014 #ELTChinwag on Metacognitive Skills

For those not in the know, ELTChinwag discussions, organised by ELT Ireland, take place on Twitter twice a month on Mondays at 20.30pm GMT, under the hashtag #ELTChinwag.  The focus is decided in advance and publicised on the hashtag, where you can also make topic suggestions. The topic on the 26th February was Metacognitive Skills. I suggested the topic and had intended to participate, but by the time I got home soon after 9 (Italian time, so in time!) I had clean forgotten about it! On the plus side, I’m participating now by writing up the discussion. Here, then, is a summary of it (NB: I have expanded contracted Tweet-speak into full sentences, to make it easier to read!):

The obvious starting point, of course, was to thrash out a definition… 

What do we understand by ‘Metacognitive Skills’?

  • For me, metacognitive skills is the ability to think about how we think about, find out about and remember things (@LahiffP)

  • Knowing what you don’t know and how to go about knowing it? (@EAPStephen)

  • .. and how you might go about being more effective in getting to know it? (@LahiffP)

This raised another question.

Are our students of how they remember and understand, or get to know things?

Response to this question, as you would expect, was mixed…

  • Adults tend to be more so than young learners. Teenagers – well it depends on them. Although some adults are totally not either. (@KateLloyd05)

  • i think most students are aware of lack of memory but not techniques nor learning style. (@Noreen_Lam)

  • “I know it doesn’t work but not what I might do about it.” Can they develop techniques to help though? (@LahiffP)

  • Yes they need suggestions because they may not be aware of methods. Some just think they’re not trying hard enough! (@Noreen_Lam)

  • Mine are mainly teens and I often ask what they find better when learning and what they don’t. Some have insight. (@LahiffP)

  • Mine are adults 22-50,  only some of them actually want to learn what they could do to learn better, faster. (@MihaelaOlarlu)

  • Adults, mostly European, and they were reluctant to do weekly reflection but they’re getting more into it now. (@Jane_Seely)

Further questions and issues were raised and suggestions made…

  • But do they have the self-awareness that would allow them to regulate that? (@LahiffP)

  • “I know it doesn’t work but not what I might do about it.” Can they develop techniques to help though? (@LahiffP)

  • Sometimes they are quite pessimistic see English as mainly as content rather than a  set of skills. Very few of them are willing to reflect on their learning and observe what they’re missing out on. (@Noreen_Lam)

  • Some educational contexts mean they are not encouraged to reflect (@KateLloyd05)

  • I think everyone has capacity to reflect. Some do it naturally with learning. Others do it in other areas of their life. E.g. most people would reflect if they erred in social situation. Perhaps a case of helping students transfer existing skills. (@EAPStephen)

  • “Helpful to try to find other aspects more relevant to them in which they reflect and then extrapolate.” (@EAPStephen)

  • Yes, they need suggestions because they may not be aware of methods. Some just think they’re not trying hard enough!

This allusion to the necessity of scaffolding led on very conveniently to the next question…

What can we do to help our students develop their metacognitive skills?

  • I’ve noticed that with reflection you have to give them some freedom as to the form and type of feedback. (@LahiffP)

  • I designed a questionnaire to appeal to different student learning types, in week 5 now so need to tweak a bit (@Jane_Seely)

  • In teacher training raising awareness of trainees own learning process is a big part of it. (@LahiffP) (So important! If teachers themselves aren’t aware of their own learning process or haven’t developed the skill of reflecting on it, how can they help their learners to develop this?)

  • Often interesting to get them to reflect on others in class – e.g. find someone who exercise. Who is good at remembering vocab. Then find them and ask them how they do it. (@EAPStephen)  (I love this idea!! Can’t wait to try it out! Watch this space!)

  • A reflection questionnaire? (@LahiffP)

  • I like an activity where they give each other study advice, “If I were you I would …” and do a class study guide (@LahiffP) (Another on the list of new things to try asap!)

  • Expectation management too, given high level topics, students worry about understanding, less about how it’s done. (@MihaelaOlarlu)

  • Sometimes it is better not to call it a reflection I find, Learner diary is not a great term either. (@LahiffP) (I wonder what labels do work?)

  • Recorded presentations, self scoring for writing,  reflection on missed items listening skills.They find it beneficial and encouraging, they can cope with mistakes as long as there are reasons. (@MihaelaOlarlu)

  • Possibly a Pandoras box. Get them to reflect on the lessons. What activities they enjoyed, found helpful. (@EAPStephen)

  • I did project about learner diaries few years back and v. interesting results with kids and adults. (@Noreen_Lam) (I would love to know more about this!)

The last question, food for thought to finish on:

Is it worth pushing our students to take part in regulating their own learning? 

Of course, anyone who reads my blog will know what my views on this are! 😉

  • Absolutely! If you do it consistently over time it rubs off on them. (LahiffP)

  • it depends on the type and reason for learning. EAP is easier to push them, GE in home country, less so. Just for fun. (@KateLloyd05)

  • Definitely, done properly they know it’s worth it. (@MihaelaOrlarlu)

  • Pushing but for their benefit! Giving them tools to learn better and tailored ideas. Makes it easier and less boring. (@Noreen_Lam)

  • Maybe it’s fundamental!! (@ESLBrain)

To finish off with, here are the links that were thrown up during the discussion:

How wonderful to see a bunch of teachers being enthusiastic about metacognition and metacognitive skill development. I would love to sit down with them all in a pub and chat about it! In my experience, metacognitive skill development is beneficial and the students do appreciate it. Of course it’s not an overnight thing, persistence is key, as is motivation management.  

If you are interested in learning more about metacognition and metacognitive skill development, then I highly recommend Vandergrift, L. and Goh, C. Teaching and learning second language Listening: metacognition in action published by Routledge. It is an accessible introduction to the theory behind metacognition and contains lots of practical suggestions for putting it into practice. The focus is on listening skill development, as the name would suggest, but the principles can be applied in other areas. 

Finally, a small plug: In early April I will be doing an International House World Organisation live online workshop on the topic of metacognition. Only IH teachers can participate live but the recording will eventually become available to all, if I’m not mistaken. More information nearer the time… 🙂

Shhh...I'm thinking! Picture from commons.wikipedia.org licensed for commercial reuse with modification.

Shhh…I’m thinking about my thinking! Picture from commons.wikipedia.org licensed for commercial reuse with modification.

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Finding the game-like challenge!*

*With minimal preparation involved… Following a recent Friday workshop on teaching teenagers, in which, amongst other things, we discussed the difference between playing games for the sake of playing games and adding a game-like challenge into the activities we do in class, I have been thinking about different ways we can do this, without spending heaps of extra time on preparation. Here are some of the ideas I’ve come up with:

1. Board it and collaborate

Instead of (or as well as/before) having learners complete a table in their books, individually, why not put them in teams, put the table on the board and get them to race to complete the table accurately:

Linking words with teenagers

Linking words with teenagers

Here is an example from a teenager class of mine, looking at linking words in a writing lesson. The words were highlighted in a model text and the activity in the book was to divide them between a: words for contrasting two pieces of information, b: words to give reasons for something and c:words used to list arguments. Doing the activity this way got them out of their seats, changed the pace of the lesson and generated some useful energy. Of course, they also got to benefit from working together to solve the task. And all I had to do was draw a table on the board while they were reading the text.

2. Bingo it!

The age-old game of bingo can be used to liven up writing activities, as Sandy explains here or speaking activities, as I describe here. Bringing bingo into a speaking or a writing activity in this way gives students something extra to aim for, rather than just completion of a writing or speaking activity. It doesn’t hurt that the something extra is a) fun and b) encourages extra production and/or better use of the target language! Here is an example bingo board I used to model the activity for my Level 9 Upper Intermediate adult students:

Bingo with L9

Bingo with L9

All students need is a page in their notebooks on which to draw their table. No preparation is required beforehand, unless you want to make a model, in which case I think that one took me about 60 seconds to mock up! You could also play Reading Bingo, where students make a bingo grid of ideas or vocabulary that they expect to find in a given text, having looked at associated pictures or headings, and then read the text quickly to see if what they predicted is present, ticking off anything that is. First student to tick everything off in their grid wins! This is a good way to challenge students to read faster and resist reading every word.

3. Speed it up!

Adding a time constraint to an activity can up the level of challenge and bring in some competition. This is enhanced if the activity can be done in pairs or groups. Whether you set a time limit or do the old ‘whoever finishes first gets a point’ thing, heart rates will probably speed up. Beware though: a) make sure stronger and weaker students are mixed up. b) enforce an accuracy rule (i.e. being really fast but really inaccurate doesn’t win any points!)

60 seconds...starting now! Image taken from en.wikipedia.org, licensed for commercial re-use with modification

60 seconds…starting now! Image taken from en.wikipedia.org, licensed for commercial re-use with modification

4. Make it kinaesthetic!

If you can get students moving (for good reason rather than at random!), chances are you can make the language more memorable. For example, going back to the language my teenagers were looking at in 1, to test their recall of which words do what, you could ask them to put their hands up when you say a word used for giving reasons, stand up for any words used to list arguments and stamp their feet for any words used to make a contrast. Other variations on this include ‘river crossing’ or ‘traffic lights’ where students move to different parts of the room or move from side to side, according to where a given piece of language is allocated. This is a good way to change the pace of a lesson and generate some energy when teenagers – or adults! – are getting tired. Or, with younger kids, perhaps you’ll use it to get rid of some excess energy!

Kinaesthetic to the max! Image taken from de.wikipedia.org, licensed for commercial reuse with modification

Kinaesthetic to the max! Image taken from de.wikipedia.org, licensed for commercial reuse with modification

5. Bring out the banana boards (a.k.a mini-whiteboards!)

Mini-whiteboards are a fantastic way to spice up a lesson and add some game-like challenge. From something as simple as the teacher saying a verb and the students writing the past participle on their mini-whiteboard and then holding it up, and awarding points to the fastest and to those who got it correct but more slowly (so that everybody has a chance to win some points and nobody gets too far ahead or behind) to as complex as working on introductions in an IELTS class, mini-whiteboards come up trumps for their flexibility and students always love them!  Common uses include banana dictating sentences (i.e. dictating a sentence with a gap for students to complete) or sentence transformations. For lots of great ideas, here is a brilliant post from Chia Suan Chong, describing how she uses mini-whiteboards in her lessons. I particularly like the idea of having students summarise a portion of a text using pictures and then using the pictures to jog their memory when they tell a partner about their portion of text. A jigsaw reading with a difference! “But my school doesn’t have any mini-whiteboards!” I hear you say. Not to worry, all you need is a piece of card and a plastic folder like this (our YLC taught me this one!):

Home-made mini-whiteboard!

Home-made mini-whiteboard!

6. Drill it differently

Instead of just doing the same tired old choral drill, add some challenge to your drilling and make it more appealing to learners. Here is a post from Chris Ożóg over at ELT Reflections, which highlights the benefits of drilling together with lots of good ideas for how to spice it up. Another way to bring drilling to life, and make it more game-like, in the YL classroom, is to use a pronunciation wheel:

Pron wheel made by our YLC

Example pron wheel (made by our YLC)

Students take it in turns to spin the wheel and say whatever sounds, words or chunks it is that you are drilling in the way that the wheel stipulates. You can do this as a whole class, and then you can put learners in pairs or groups and they can continue the activity and drill themselves while you go round monitoring and working with individuals/groups to upgrade their production.

7. Make it a memory game

If learners have just done a crossword or a vocabulary activity in their course books, rather than check/feedback and move on, why not re-use the activity to challenge their memory? Get them to cover up the crossword clues and try to remember what the clue for each word in the grid was. Or get them to cover up the grid and test each other using the clues. Get them to close their course books and see how much language they can remember from the page (in pairs or groups, make it a competition) or call out prompts, so that you encourage active recall. Give students a time-limit in which to read a text, then have them close their books and see how much of it they can recount in pairs.

Testing your memory? (Image taken from Google image search licensed for commercial reuse with modification.)

Can you remember? (Image taken from Google image search licensed for commercial reuse with modification.)

8. Hand it over!

Sometimes the game-like challenge may also be a case of making a game more challenging, so that students are pushed more. A good way of doing this is finding ways to make games as student-centred as possible. For example, getting students to make up some quiz questions rather than only answering teacher-prepared questions. Here is a post describing how I upped the challenge in the review team game, Kaboom!

Kaboom!

Kaboom!

This picture is taken during a recent Kaboom! review with my teenaged upper intermediate students.

What do you like doing to bring a game-like challenge into your lessons? 

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Speaking Bingo

This idea came up in our two-weekly Friday seminar, nearly two weeks ago now (how time flies…). The seminar was about teaching teenagers, and at this point were were discussing the difference between games and adding game-like challenge, and sharing ideas for how to add game-like challenge. Our YL coordinator suggested Speaking Bingo.

Aim:

Encourage learners to incorporate target language into their speaking. Give learners additional motivation to speak.

Procedure:

  • Prior to a speaking activity, have students make up a bingo card for themselves. In each square they choose a piece of vocabulary studied in that lesson (or from a set studied previously that you wanted to review).
  • During the speaking activity, students tick off each bit of vocabulary as they use it.
  • First student to tick off all the bits of vocabulary gets to call Bingo!

Variation:

Instead of ticking off the words they use themselves, you could get them to start a timer and tick off any target language their partner uses. Their partner should be trying to use as much target language as possible, and the winner would be the one who managed to use all the language on their partner’s card (which they wouldn’t have previously seen) in the fastest time.

Bingo with L9

An example I made for my Level 9s (Upper Intermediate)

It worked really well with my adult Level 9’s, gave them that added push to use the target language and they enjoyed it!

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60 seconds: a simple vocabulary review game

So, at our school, it’s that ‘nearly time for the final test’ kind of time, but as any self-respecting teacher will tell you, review (especially of the spaced variety) is an important part of language learning. So hopefully this activity will be useful to you, at whatever point in your courses you may be! The amount of preparation required for this game ranges from minimal to none…

Goal: 

Encourage active recall of previously studied vocabulary; push learners to think about the co-text of vocabulary not just the basic meaning.

Level: 

Pre-intermediate upwards. For lower levels, give them more time to come up with examples, and perhaps provide a sample example on the card to get them going. It kind of grades itself by the vocabulary used. Each level will be capable of putting different words into example sentences, each level’s sentences will vary in complexity.

Materials: 

Small pieces of paper, each with a piece of target vocabulary on one side. (You can prepare these yourself [minimal] or get your learners to do it in groups, which case you only need to provide paper! [none] )

Procedure:

  • Put learners into groups of four. Within the four, each learner has a partner and two opponents.
  • Give each group a set of cards (or if your students made the cards, get each group to swap their pack of cards with another group)
  • Each student takes it in turn to pick a card and think of example sentences into which that word could fit. They tell their group as many sentences as they can in sixty seconds, substituting ‘banana’ or similar for the target word.
  • If their partner guesses the word first, they as a pair get a point. If one of the other pair guess the word first, they as a pair get the point.
  • The game continues until you want to stop it or until all cards are finished.
  • If you use a vocabulary box/bag, you could get them to put the words that weren’t guessed into it, for future review. You could also play this game using vocabulary from the box/bag.

Benefits:

Learners, whether providing examples or guessing the target word, have to think about various aspects of the word in question, not only the meaning. I.e. They need to think about the word grammar, about collocates, about register etc. I think this makes it more useful than simply describing/defining the word.

Variations:

If the focus is something like word pairs (which I have needed to review with my Level 9/Upper Intermediate learners), you could provide only half of the word pair on the pieces of paper, so that the learner who is providing the example sentences has to recall what the full word pair is, as well as how to use it.

Enjoy!

60 seconds...starting now! Image taken from en.wikipedia.org, licensed for commercial re-use with modification

60 seconds…starting now!              Image taken from en.wikipedia.org, licensed for commercial re-use with modification

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Things I have learnt about Quizlet from Leo Sellivan’s Webinar!

IATEFL run regular webinars for English Language Teachers to participate in, fortunately for us, and this afternoon I was lucky enough to be able to spend an hour listening to Leo Selivan share his knowledge of the power of Quizlet. For those who don’t know, Quizlet is a website that enables you to create sets of flashcards, using words and/or images. I am a big fan of Quizlet, having used it for my own language learning, and have tried to help learners use it too, by creating self-access materials for them to use. Coincidentally, as the webinar started, I received notifications saying a learner of mine was adding a set to one of my Quizlet classes!

Here is what I have taken away today:

To help you navigate this blogpost, the structure of webinar went thus:

  • Key principles for learning vocabulary
  • Quizlet functions
  • Writing definitions
  • Tweaks and tips

Key points I took away:

  • Memorable and manageable is what vocabulary recording should be!
  • Disadvantages of lexical notebooks:

– Students’ reluctance to go back and add in new items to existing topics. (If organised by topic or key words)

– Students view it as time consuming, possibly waste of time and prefer to record vocabulary in a linear fashion rather than elaborating on existent entries.

– Students’ notes and your notes not in synch.

– The notebooks do not provide active recall practice (ARP is necessary to commit new vocab to long term memory): Students can see the words in front of them, so they don’t need to try and retrieve them. Whereas ARP aids memorisation process.

  • Research shows that incidental learning of vocabulary is not enough.

– Learners need practice activities. (This is the principle I applied to my Italian learning by transferring language from sources e.g. books, audio books etc to Quizlet!)

– Decontextualised vocabulary practice is perfectly justifiable and learners, especially adults, can learn vocabulary out of context. (Like I did with Quizlet and my Italian!)

– We need a combination of both contextualised and decontextualised practice and use.

– The Communicative Approach sees language as a tool but vocabulary experts today say that it is justified to treat vocabulary as an object of study, not just a tool for communication.

NB: Leo cited Laufer B (2005) – I think the title was Focus on form in second language vocabulary learning but check his reference slide to be sure – as the source for this information. 

– To learn vocabulary we need frequent encounters with new items. 5-15.However vocabulary learning isn’t only increasing the size but also how well you can use the words that you know. E.g. depth as well as breadth. Depth is all about the how of the word rather than just the what.

– Meaning is important but form is too. Students may think they know a word because it looks like they a word they know. E.g. adopt – adapt. This leads to over-estimation of vocabulary knowledge.

– We should exploit L1. Especially in a monolingual setting.

– We should provide focused engagement with new language. Opportunities to manipulate, use it in different contexts etc.

Enter Quizlet!!! <drum roll!!!>

Functions: 

When you access the website, you are presented with the functions of: Flashcards, Learn, Speller, Scatter, Space Race and Test. 

However, Flashcards, Scatter, Speller, Learn, Space race, Test  is Leo’s suggestion of the order in which students should use the functions, as this represents easy to difficult, or receptive to productive with increasing challenge. (This I found particularly interesting, as I had never thought about it before, though in my own use of Quizlet have tended to go for the Learn function as it gave me the right level of challenge (also because I got used to using it on my iPad, in preference to the easier alternative of the matching mode), but once I was used to the language would use the test function and the space race function too, on my computer. I had never analysed my usage in this way before and now it makes more sense!)

  • You can create classes. Yup. But as a free user, can only have 8. If you want more, you can create folders.
  • It has as a mobile app, so you can practice on the go.

Writing Definitions:

  • Gapped definitions can be more useful for co-text, also more personalised as it is your example sentence.
  • Dictionary.com not useful for learners, as definition uses more complex language than the word being defined. Use good online dictionaries e.g. Cambridge, Macmillan, Longman dictionaries. Leo’s blog has a section called essential lexical tools, well worth checking out.

Don’t:

– define a word with its synonym: This gives the false impression that the words are interchangeable, whereas they collocate differently etc. E.g. What’s happened to you? Ok. What’s occurred to you? Not the same.

– rely on user generated content: you can add your own definitions, you can select from list of readymade definitions from other users, learners may not know the synonyms and they don’t work in the same way. Be careful, or becomes ‘usergenerated nonsense’

Bear in mind:

– 9 different aspects of knowing a word: spoken and written form, meaning, spelling, collocation, grammatical patterns, constraints e.g. appropriate in informal or formal context, connotation etc. Textbooks tend to only pay attention to form-meaning links, neglecting other aspects. In classroom interactions, teachers also tend to focus on teaching means rather than the other aspects of word knowledge: “The tip of the lexical iceberg” as Leo put it!

– The collocation of a word may result in different translations in another language: E.g. heart conditions vs terms and conditions.

– Co-text is important for learning a word. NB: Context is the story or situation happening around a word whereas co-text is the words immediately surrounding the word e.g. have an accident or by accident. “The linguistic environment”.

Alternatives to definitions

(You can find Leo’s example flashcards to see that he practices what he preaches and have a play!)

  • Example sentence with a blank plus definition in brackets at the bottom. And word on other side.
  • Give example collocations
  • Multiple Prompts
  • Collocation chains e.g. lots of adjectives which collocate with the same word, being the target word. (works really well on Scatter)
  • Phrase and translation: perfectly acceptable and you can also negotiate the translation in class.
  • Phrase in a conversation: Provide phrases within a conversation, e.g. the phrase is taken out of a dialogue. But in learn mode, all that conversation is what you have type in in learn mode, so it is difficult. Less text is easier for the learn mode.
  • Word and collocate in co-text sentences with first letter clues. You can increase or decrease challenge in this way, e.g. by adding the last letter too, or not.

Useful to know:

  • “…” multiple dots indicate whether it is the first part or the latter part of the collocation, which is useful information when trying to access the correct answer in your brain! e.g. fallen into… …disrepair

In learn mode, do you have type in all those multiple dots. If learners type the answer correctly without multiple dots does that means Quizlet would reject the answer? Fortunately not!

  • What happens if you have a few instances of the same word, e.g. prepositions, when using scatter mode? You can use any instance of a word with any correct match. As long as it fits the sentence correctly it will be considered correct by clever Quizlet. (Good to know!)
  • You can bold certain items! When you enter the definition, you put stars on both sides of the word or group of words that you would like to bold. So, you can highlight dependent prepositions, for example. Or bold the gapped sentence and leave the definition normal.

Another tip Leo offered was to encourage students to take screen captures of their scores and times from their out of class study and compare in class!

Finally, I discovered that he introduces learners to Quizlet in a similar way to me, but including his special order of use of the functions (see above) that I will be bearing in mind from now on!

This was a fantastic webinar, which this post only gives the merest overview of, and I fully recommend accessing the recording on the IATEFL website if you can, or if/when Leo publishes his slides or any blog posts about it, visit his blog. Leo blogs at Leoxicon, which is well worth a visit, with plenty of quality content.

Thank you, Leo!

 

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Useful IELTS Websites

Here is an annotated list of all the useful links I’ve found for helping students prepare for IELTS. I thought it would be a useful resource for anybody teaching IELTS (as this is what I would really have liked to find when I started!) and I will soon be adapting it and posting it as a resource specifically aimed at students on the Independent English blog (I promised my current class!). There were/are too many for all to be included in a ‘Top 10’ list but they are worth a look nevertheless; whether by you or your students! Let me know if you think there are any links that I should add or if any of the links are broken. I intend to keep adding links to this list, as I come across them.

IELTS! image taken from en.wikipedia.org via google search for images licensed for commercial reuse with modification

                                                            IELTS!                                                                           image taken from en.wikipedia.org via google search for images licensed for commercial reuse with modification

General

This website is very useful, containing sections on writing, reading, speaking, listening, grammar, vocabulary, with advice and opportunities for practice, as well as a section that brings together all the material available for download e.g. sample tests, sample answers for the writing etc. It also boasts a useful collection of student writing, for Writing Part 1 and Part 2, together with feedback on this.

The British Council Learn English IELTS page bills itself thus:

‘In our IELTS section you can find practice materials and advice to help you prepare for the listening, speaking, reading and writing modules of the IELTS test.

You can watch learners from different parts of the world give views and opinions about IELTS. There is a series of videos focusing on the speaking module of the test, as well as online practice activities and mock test papers for the other three modules.’

A good starting point for students, the official IELTS website contains all the information students/test takers need to know about how to register, how to find a test centre etc. It also contains a test sample for each of the 4 components and a complex set of FAQ’s.

Regularly updated with quiz questions relating to the various components of the IELTS exam, typical grammar and vocabulary, this Facebook page is linked with IELTS.org.

A collection of freely accessible practice materials for all four test components, put together by IELTS Exam-Net.

Lots of material for IELTS preparation here, focusing on each of the components as well as on relevant grammar and vocabulary for both General and Academic IELTS (the latter based on the Academic Word list) and providing lots of opportunities for learning how to approach the exam, practising and, in terms of the writing, seeing what other people have produced.

This website contains daily IELTS lessons from ‘Simon’, an ex-IELTS examiner. For example, the latest lesson is ‘IELTS Writing Task 1: using words from the chart’. There are categories for each of the components, and with the writing divided up into Academic Part 1, Academic Part 2 and General. There is also a section for general advice and for relevant grammar and vocabulary.

Reading

From IELTS Buddy, another clear overview of this component of the exam, detailing the different question types and requirements, with some useful tips.

From British Council Learn English IELTS page, this is a reading text and some questions, together with an answer key for checking afterwards.

This is a comprehensive page from DC IELTS which includes links to tutorials focusing on each of the reading question types, tutorials focusing on increasing your reading speed, tutorials focusing on the necessary reading sub-skills, a band calculator and some exam tips.

Listening

IELTS Buddy gives a clear overview of the listening component of the IELTS exam, as well as a selection of practice tests.

Students can do listening test practice on this part of the British Council Learn English IELTS page.

From the DC IELTS website, this page gives a clear overview of the listening component of the IELTS exam, together with links to 10 lessons that focus on various sub-skills that students need to be confident with in order to do well in this component. It also boasts a Band Calculator that students can use to translate their listening scores into IELTS bands.

Independent English is a site that was set up by DoS and teacher trainer Sandy Millin, with whom I have just entered into collaboration regarding this site. Its goal is to help learners learn independently by publishing posts that both offer a range of ideas and guide students through carrying them out. I haven’t posted any content yet (watch this space!) but Sandy has published this post on IELTS friendly podcasts, which brings together links to a range of podcasts on IELTS style topics e.g. science and global problems, and offers suggestions for using these effectively.

Speaking

Students can look at the assessment criteria for the speaking component of the exam here.

A series of videos put together by the British Council,  giving advice on how to approach the speaking component of the IELTS exam.

A comprehensive overview of the speaking component, this DC IELTS page contains a map of the speaking exam, tips for success, training videos, practice questions, focus on the exam format, on how to use preparation time, speaking component tutorials e.g. on pausing language, and ideas for practice, amongst others.

Writing

This post from the IH London Blog helps students prepare for the IELTS writing component, by focusing on how to structure a Part 1 and a Part 2 piece of writing.

Writing Part 1

‘IELTS Buddy’ provides sample Writing Part 1’s for all the possible task types and analyses the process of producing an answer to a Writing Part 1 task.

Again from ‘IELTS Buddy’, students can look at other students’ work together with feedback on it.

This is a link to the criteria used for marking Part 1 of the writing component of the IELTS exam.

A blog post from TEFL Reflections, of a podcast focusing on the Task Achievement category of the assessment criteria for Part 1. NB: This blog has other useful posts relating to the IELTS exam including focus on writing and on speaking.

This article on Exam English explains how to approach an IELTS part 1 with two sources of data within a single task, e.g. a graph and a table.

Writing Part 2

This blog post on the IH London blog focuses on how to improve your writing score by planning more effectively. NB: This blog contains other useful IELTS-related articles in its exams category.

In this section of IELTS Buddy, students can look at example part 2 essays written by other students, together with feedback.

And here is the criteria used for marking Part 2 of the writing component of the IELTS exam.

From Exam English, this is a detailed explanation of what examiners are looking for in the introduction and conclusion of a Writing Part 2 essay.

Another article from Exam English, this time explaining how Part 2 questions work and how to make sure you have answered them fully.

From DC IELTS, this page contains a wealth of material to help students with IELTS essay writing.  It looks at the different types of essay, structuring an essay, the process of writing an essay, some sample essays, vocabulary for essay writing, a focus on each portion of the essay (introduction etc.), and guidance on how to review your essay effectively once you’ve written it.

Vocabulary and Grammar

This is a link to all the lessons on the IELTS Simon site that focus on IELTS grammar and vocabulary-related topics, for example ‘IELTS Grammar: natural answers‘ and ‘IELTS Vocabulary: Band 7-9 words‘.

Quizlet

Quizlet is a useful website that allows you to review and memorise vocabulary, while having fun at the same time. Registration is free and can be done by setting up a new account or by using a Facebook or Google account. Students can access sets of flashcards that other test takers have made, or create their own. Quizlet can be used on both smartphone and tablet devices (Apple and Android) as well as your computer.

Here are some sets relating to IELTS that students can use:

Quizlet sets relating to IELTS speaking component.

Quizlet sets relating to IELTS writing component.

Quizlet sets relating to IELTS reading component.

Quizlet sets relating to IELTS listening component.

Here are some materials I wrote, which take you through the process of using Quizlet.

Memrise

Memrise is another site dedicated to learning while having fun. Registration is free and can be done by setting up a new account or using a Facebook account. Memrise can be used on both smartphone and tablet devices (Apple and Android) as well as your computer.

Here is a selection of the courses that have people have made to prepare for IELTS:

A selection of courses relating to IELTS. Memrise courses relating to IELTS

Other vocabulary resources

Exam English have made a timed quiz relating to words from the academic word list.

Also from Exam English, here students can find the academic wordlist and related tests.

From the DC IELTS website, this is a comprehensive set of activities linked with the Academic Word List, including activities that allow students to see the words used in the context of IELTS writing answers. Includes daily activities and review activities as well.

Wordandphrase.info is a tool for corpus analysis and the academic version enables one to search an academic corpus for words or phrases and generate concordances of examples showing how they are used, as well as definitions, synonyms, collocates and frequency information. Here are some materials I made, which guide you through the process of using www.wordandphrase.info. These materials focus on the general part of the site (www.wordandphrase.info) rather than the academic but the principal is the same. (Creating materials specifically focusing on the academic portion is on my list of things to do!)

Grammar-related links

Exam English have put together a twenty question grammar quiz for IELTS test takers.

This link, from the IELTS-exam.net website, offers offers “concise yet comprehensive coverage of the grammar necessary in order to be successful in the IELTS test.”

Exam strategies, techniques and tips

Put together by the British Council, students from all over the world give their opinions and tips for the IELTS test.

From IELTS Buddy, this is a collection of lessons relating to each of the four components of the exam, containing lots of tips for how to approach these most effectively.

This is a set of exam tips from the Exam English website.

The top five fears of IELTS test takers and how to overcome them.

Knowing the exam well is a key strategy, and this is a quiz from the DC IELTS page for students to find out where they are with this.

10 Tips to help students succeed in the speaking component, from DC IELTS.

Apps

If you are inclined towards the world of tablet and smartphone, as many are these days, here are a couple of apps that might be worth looking at:

This app was developed by Sam McCarter, writer of the Macmillan Ready for IELTS coursebook. It works on iPhone, iPad and Android devices. For free, you get access to a wide range of interactive activities to practice essential IELTS exam skills, and for £3.99 or five dollars, you get that plus ‘take the test with an interactive video examiner’, detailed hints and tips on all the different parts of the exam and an interactive ‘can do’ statement section with which you can score yourself. If the course book is anything to go by, then I would imagine that this app will be worth the small outlay. But even what’s available for free is already a jolly good start and surely worth downloading!

This is a free app developed by the British Council, which enables students to work on building up their IELTS-relevant vocabulary, through doing lots of quizzes and fun activities. There are different topics, typical to IELTS, such as ‘The Environment‘ and ‘Work and Business‘.

In the Classroom

Lesson plans and materials for helping students to prepare for each of the components, including some plans that require minimal materials/preparation.

More material ready to deploy in the classroom, together with advice on how to use it effectively.

For more resources that are useful for teachers (but also including books that are suitable for self-study), you might like to look at my recent ‘Top 10 Resources’ list !

Again, If you know any other useful sites, please comment on this post so I can add the links to this collection! 

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My Top 10 Resources for Teaching IELTS

Following my recently begun and ongoing foray into teaching IELTS, I thought I would revisit my Top 10’s in ELT series and offer up a list of the resources that I have found most helpful in my IELTS journey so far. The focus of this Top 10* post will be Academic IELTS, as I haven’t taught General IELTS thus far. Of course, the listening and speaking components are the same, so some aspects will be transferable.  Click on any picture to be taken to a description of the source (books) or the source itself (websites).

*The more astute amongst you will notice that this Top 10 list is only 9 – strong… it’s deliberate! No. 10 is up for discussion: please do comment on this post and tell me the resource you think should fill this space… (And for further IELTS-related links, see my Useful IELTS Websites post!)

Books

1. Vocabulary for IELTS Advanced

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Screenshot from Amazon UK website

Written by Pauline Cullen and published by Cambridge University Press, this is a book I initially came across while working on the pre-sessional at Sheffield University last summer. I have since used it with my IELTS students here in Palermo, and found it to be a great resource. It cleverly combines a focus on and practice of each of the four IELTS components with useful, relevant vocabulary input and practice. It is also packed with ‘Test Tips’ which are act as a useful reminder of what to emphasise to students.

2. Complete IELTS (Bands 5 – 6.5)

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Screenshot from Amazon UK website

Also published by Cambridge University Press (unfortunately I am not on commission…), Complete IELTS was written by Guy Brook-Hart and Vanessa Jakeman. There are similar books available for other bands, but this is the one I have been using. What do I like about this student book? It’s user-friendly, it integrates the grammar and vocabulary with focus on the different elements of the exam. It also has a really useful Writing Reference at the back of the book, which breaks down all the different task types that students might meet in Writing Part 1, with clear information, tips and models to help them face these different task types, and highlights the different question types that students might meet in Part 2, again with information, tips and sample answers to guide them.

3. Ready for IELTS

Screenshot from Amazon UK website

Screenshot from Amazon UK website

Ready for IELTS is published by Macmillan and written by Sam McCarter. This has been another valuable resource for me, for the following reasons: It contains four ‘Ready for…’ sections, one for each exam component, which offer a guided discovery approach to IELTS reading, writing, speaking and listening, and is also full of useful tips (‘What to expect in the exam‘, ‘How to go about it‘ ‘Don’t forget‘ boxes can be found throughout). It contains plenty of test practice opportunities but rather than being empty practice, the book makes a real effort to help students improve, rather than hoping sheer repetition will get them there. Finally, and perhaps a little shallow, I also like how colourful and visually appealing it is!

4. IELTS Resource Pack 

Screenshot from Amazon

Screenshot from Amazon UK website

This fantastic pack of activities and games, written by Jan Marks, is very useful for livening up IELTS prep classes while at the same time ensuring that important information is thoroughly hammered home. Like the earlier-mentioned Vocabulary for IELTS Advanced, I first met this book during the summer, as it was one of our resource books for the entrance exam preparation component of the pre-sessional, and found it very useful. Depending on the length of your sessions, these activities can be used independently or to supplement a given lesson that you are doing.

Websites:

5. TEFL Reflections

Screenshot of TEFL Reflections

Screenshot of TEFL Reflections

For useful, practical information that will help you to help yourself ( 🙂 ) your students get to grips with IELTS writing, part 1 AND part 2, the best thing you can do is look at these posts written by Marek Kiczkowiak and Robert Wiilliam:

IELTS Writing Part 1

IELTS Writing Part 2

They have also taken on the IELTS Speaking exam, for example:

IELTS Speaking

Marek and Robert are both IELTS examiners and have taken the time to share some of their IELTS expertise with the rest of us. I, for one, am grateful! 🙂

6. British Council Learn English IELTS

Screenshot of the British Council Learn IELTS page

Screenshot of the British Council Learn IELTS page

Like the rest of the British Council Learn English site, this is an invaluable source of material for students and teachers alike. Practice materials and advice that you can point your students towards or have a perusal of, yourself!

7. British Council Take IELTS Teacher Resources

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Screenshot of the British Council IELTS teaching resources page

More quality materials from the British Council, this time aimed at teachers of IELTS, very helpful for guidance in making IELTS come alive in the classroom.

8. One stop English IELTS page

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Screenshot taken from One Stop English IELTS page

This page is part of the collection of resources for teachers gathered under the name ‘One stop English’. Amongst all the resources for different types of English (e.g. Business English, English for Children etc.) there is a section dedicated to exam preparation within which can be found the IELTS page. The material is divided up into categories, one for each exam component, one for strategies, one for exam orientation and a nifty little selection of activities requiring ‘Minimal Resources’.

 9. IELTS.org and The Official IELTS Facebook Page

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Screen shot from IELTS.org

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Screenshot from the IELTS Official Facebook Page

A list of IELTS resources wouldn’t be complete without a tipping of the hat to IELTS.org, home of IELTS on the web, and the Facebook page associated with it. IELTS.org has sections dedicated to test-takers, organisations, researchers and teachers. The Official IELTS Facebook Page publishes regular quiz questions relating to the exam and language typically used in the exam, with the answers following 24hrs later. If your students use Facebook, it’s worth pointing them at the Facebook page, and certainly they can benefit from looking at the test-takers section of IELTS.org.

I hope you find this list useful. And now, I look forward to hearing your suggestions for no. 10! 

Edits:

IELTS! image taken from en.wikipedia.org via google search for images licensed for commercial reuse with modification

IELTS! image taken from en.wikipedia.org via google search for images licensed for commercial reuse with modification

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Leeds Metropolitan University has become Leeds Beckett University!

For reasons unbeknownst to us mere mortals, Leeds Metropolitan University changed its name to Leeds Beckett University, with effect from September 2014. I spent a happy year at Leeds Met doing my M.A. in ELT and Delta, between 2012 and 2013, and for me it will always be Leeds Met.

However, nostalgia aside, usefully enough, I have now finally updated all the links in my blog that used to lead to Leeds Metropolitan’s M.A ELT/Delta page so that they now point in the brand new direction of Leeds Beckett University’s M.A. ELT/Delta page. I can assure you, it was a very dull labour of love. Worth it though, as the good news is, the only thing that’s changed is the name: the M.A. ELT department is still kept going by the same lovely team of tutors who were at the helm while I was there.

I’m not, though, going to change all mentions of Leeds Met, in various blog posts and pages, to Leeds Beckett, as it was Leeds Met when I was there, but at least now, should you be so inclined, you can follow links to more information about the course I did without reaching a dead end!

Enjoy! 🙂

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Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015!

And so this is Christmas, and what have we done? Another year over, a new one just begun…
Already? I think 2014 may have been the fastest year yet?!

The WordPress Monkeys recently sent me a round-up of my blogging year, and as usual it prompted reflection on the year as a whole, as well as what lies ahead.

In 2014 I:

– delivered my first webinar (for the British Council)
– delivered my first online conference presentations (for IH and for BELTA)
– spoke at IATEFL for the first time and also got proposal no. 2 accepted for Manchester this year
– spoke at MATSDA for the second time
– wrote a book chapter (for an edited book hopefully being published by IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG this year)
– taught EAP for the first time at Sheffield Uni
– completed the IH Certificate for Teaching YL and Teens
– finished year 1 and started year 2 in Palermo
– got some self study materials published by Richmond ELT (3 worksheets, CEFR A1 level, reading)
– won an ELTON (yes I remembered it at this stage of the list-making activity!
– won a British Council blog award for the posts I wrote at IATEFL  in Harrogate.
– graduated with a distinction from my MA in ELT
– started the IH certificate for training to be a tutor/trainer
– had my column appear in the 2014 IH journals
– became vegan (not work-related but perhaps my most significant non-work related step) and developed a passion for cooking in the process!
– learnt a heck of a lot of Italian (and a lot about language learning in the process!)

… And thought around November-time that I was slacking and not really achieving enough in 2014. Hmm! Actually it was quite a year, so if academic year 2014-2015 started quietly enough (‘only’ doing the tutoring course and learning how to teach IELTS in addition to the usual work stuff and Italian study) maybe that’s ok, actually! 😉

Here is an excerpt from the WordPress Monkeys’ round up of my blogging year:

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Thank you to all who visited me here…

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…whichever corner of the globe you hail from!

It is always interesting (for me) to see which are the top-viewed posts of the year. For 2014, I suppose they are fairly representative of what I got up to: I did indeed produce a well-received series of ‘Top 10 resources for…’ posts which have hopefully been helpful to some people, I enjoyed getting my teeth into discussing issues relating to language learning, I have been very busy working on my learner autonomy projects and I did lots of stuff in the classroom too!

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Looking ahead

2015 should be certainly an interesting year, with a few things pencilled in already. E.g. IATEFL, another webinar, a journal article due in May, reapplying to Sheffield Uni for the summer. It’s also a year of uncertainty, in that for the second year running I need to decide whether to do another year at IHPA or not. I think I really got lucky in getting my job there from Oct 2013, it’s been a great place to work with a lot of opportunity for development and I was delighted to return in October. However, I don’t know that a third year is for me. I think I want to return to the UK and settle down. Why? Quite simply because I’m not old but I’m not getting any younger and I find it quite an upheaval living between two places – just as you get used to being in one, then it’s time for a stint in the other. It’s the best of both worlds and yet the whole of neither of them. Not conducive to relationships or family building, either, in my opinion. (Teaching is awesome but I want a life outside of it too!) However, because of how it all works, the application timings involved, I would have to relinquish one job with no guarantee of another, which is scary! Fortunately I have supportive family and friends, and an ok CV so even if plan A didn’t work out, I will find a plan B or C (G? K? We’ll see!) somehow or another… Necessity is the mother of and all that. Meanwhile, I have another couple of months to think about it before crunch time!

One thing I do know is that I will continue to seize opportunities as they arise and see where that takes me – it seems to be working ok so far! This year I also want to extend the seizing to opportunities for having fun, and opportunities within my personal/social life, rather than only in the sphere of work: life is short (as my mum’s untimely death in 2009 taught me) and there *is* more to it than ELT (even though ELT is a fantastic part of it!). So, the blog may have been a bit quiet lately but rest assured the time has not been wasted. I’d like to blog more this year, as I do enjoy it and find it a great developmental tool, but I also have to balance all my other commitments AND have a life, so everything in moderation, I suppose… (Otherwise put, it may or may not be a little quiet until after I’ve finished the IH tutor training course!)

Finally, happy new year to you all and thank you for being part of this blog: sharing my posts with you is a real privilege. 🙂

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Happy 2015!! Image taken from a Google search, licensed for commercial reuse with modification.