Author: Pearson

Drawing in the Classroom: It’s Easier than You Think

Posted on | by Pearson

2013_Heyer_SandraSandra Heyer

When I first began teaching beginning-level English, I was surprised at how many times I found myself at the board, trying to draw a picture for my students. The key word here is trying. I am one of those unfortunate people who literally can’t draw a straight line.

But while I had the misfortune of being an inept artist, I had the good fortune of being a contemporary of the late Norma Shapiro, a gifted teacher who made it her mission to help teachers like me enhance their lessons with passable drawings. At a TESOL conference many years ago, Norma gave a presentation billed as a crash course in drawing for teachers who can’t draw. I came early for a front-row seat and took away drawing tips that have served me well over the course of my career. With the help of Norma’s tips, you might discover, as I did, that drawing for your students is easier than you think. Here are six quick tips:

1. To represent people, don’t draw stick figures — draw figures Norma called “blobs.” Most of the time, you’re just trying to get across the idea that your drawing is a human being and not, say, a fish or a can of soda. So it is usually not necessary to draw ears, arms, or legs. A basic blob has only a head and shoulders:

Drawing in the classroom images 1a

Continue reading →

“Webinars – a wonderful substitute for live seminars”
Pearson Professional Development Webinar Series

Posted on | by Pearson

speech_teacups_blue_bannerIn October 2015, U.S. Pearson ELT conducted an idea-packed Professional Development Webinar series, consisting of 13 one-hour sessions. The goal of the webinar series was to provide thousands of instructors and administrators around the world with multiple opportunities to learn from English-language teaching experts. Topics included:

  • “Exploring the Potential of the Flipped Classroom” by Robyn Brinks Lockwood
  • “Teaching with Technology and 21st Century Skills” by Sara Davila
  • “Using Our Brains: Brain-based Approaches to Teaching” by Sarah Lynn
  • “Critical Thinking in English for Academic Purposes” by Ken Beatty
  • “Four Skills Teaching” by Sara Davila
  • “Critical Reading Skills for College and University Students” by Tania Pattison
  •  “Academic Writing Assignments: Teaching Discourse Synthesis” by Carol Numrich
  • “Creating Authenticity in the English Classroom” by Ken Beatty
  • “Addressing Learner Needs Around Spoken Academic English” by Ken Beatty
  • “Extend and Engage: Digital Learning” by Christina Cavage

An overwhelming number of teachers who attended commented that they were able to get ideas from the webinars that they could start using right away. One teacher commented: “Thank you for these past two weeks of webinars. I appreciate having plenty of new ideas to use in my classroom.” The recorded webinars are available in the US website (registration is required to view the recordings).

A total of 4,359 people registered for the webinars, and 2,120 people attended the sessions. Another teacher commented: “Really enjoyed this webinar; very useful content and explanations of how to utilize this information in the classroom.”­ A third teacher responded about the content of the webinars: “As usual, my ‘teacher’s imagination’ has been stimulated by ideas presented in this webinar. I especially appreciate the insights, too.”

Webinar_Country_Cht

Teachers from 25 countries attended the webinar series.

Countries Represented (ranked by number of attendees)

Webinar_graph

United States represented almost half the attendees. Other countries represented: Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Oman, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Vietnam. Each of these countries represents less than 2% of the total attendees.

One participant summed it up perfectly: “Webinars are a wonderful substitute for live seminars, which cost time and money, and I commend you for organizing these amazing sessions! Already looking forward to the next ones!”

The U.S. ELT marketing team is already hard at work developing topics and scheduling for the next webinar series, possibly in spring 2016. Click here to receive updates on the next series of webinars.

H is for Hypotheses

Posted on | by Pearson

 

Ken BeattyDr. Ken Beatty

“I’m a researcher! Why has no one ever told me?”

Teachers are inherently researchers, driven by natural curiosity to understand their students’ problems and to consider ways of addressing them. Sometimes they apply old approaches and methods that may have been key to their own first or second language acquisition. Sometimes teachers become creative and innovate new approaches and methods. In doing so, they tend to follow the scientific method:

  • ask a question
  • research the question
  • construct a hypothesis (a guess)
  • test the hypothesis with an experiment
  • analyze the data and draw a conclusion
  • share results

For example, a teacher asks a question: Why are students doing poorly on tests? She is surprised because she thinks they know (or should know) the content on which they’re being tested. Doing some research (starting online), she finds a variety of variables that could be responsible:

  • The tests are held after lunch; maybe students are too sleepy after eating.
  • The tests are one hour long; maybe students need more time to demonstrate what they know.
  • The tests are written; maybe students don’t perform as well when writing because most of the teacher’s evidence of their abilities is based on their spoken output.
  • The tests are too narrow; students have to study one or more chapters of material, but are only assessed on a small portion.

The teacher expands her research to directly ask her students what they think. She decides this last problem, of the tests being too narrow, is the possible pedagogical culprit.

Based on this research and student feedback, the teacher formulates a hypothesis. It’s messy at first because she isn’t exactly sure how to word it to cover all contingencies, but it basically looks like this:

Students asked to demonstrate what they know do better on tests than students who are asked to recall a subset of what the teacher expects them to know.

Hmm. It’s a bit vague, but that’s okay at this point because designing an experiment will help to make it clearer. It can be refined as the teacher goes along. She decides to use the class’s current area of study, the ten most common irregular verbs. This is the content for which the teacher expects her students to demonstrate mastery:

Base form Past tense Past participle
say said said
make made made
go went gone
take took taken
come came come
see saw seen
know knew known
get got got/gotten
give gave given
find found found

Continue reading →

Literature in ELT: Navigating a Sea of Choices

Posted on | by Pearson

2014_Sybil_MarcusSybil Marcus

This content first appeared on the TESOL Blog. © TESOL International Association. Reprinted with permission.

When I first started using literature in my ESL/EFL classes, I thought all I had to do was teach the stories I enjoyed reading.   But I soon found that even my favorite stories wouldn’t always work in class.  Sometimes, they lacked sufficient depth for a 2-hour lesson, they failed to engage my students, or I couldn’t find a good way to organize the discussion.

So, how do you compile a successful syllabus for a literature-based course? If you focus on short stories (as I usually do), you can find thousands of them in anthologies, in textbooks, and online.  The sheer number of options can be a challenge, which I hope to help you with in this post.

1. Group stories into themes

Connecting stories thematically is an effective way to organize your course.  As an added benefit,  it allows for class discussions and writing assignments centered on comparison and contrast.  Some umbrella topics might be:

  • Relationships: Stories dealing with relationships between parents and children, spouses, siblings, and lovers hold universal appeal.
  • Social Issues: Some of the most animated discussions in my classes have been inspired by contemporary topics including war, discrimination, gender, euthanasia, and women’s rights.  Although many of these are hot-button issues, I encourage students and teachers not to shy away from them.  Because I particularly appreciate the role of social issues in increasing cultural awareness, I’ll be devoting an entire future blog to this.
  • Stages of Life: Shakespeare wrote about the Seven Ages of Man. I’ve found that students respond well when dealing with the various stages of life: childhood, the teenage years, young adulthood, maturity, and old age.  Your students will relate directly to some of these; others will require more imagination and empathy.

2. Look for layered stories.

While many stories are fun to read, they may not have sufficient texture for a complete lesson.  I always ask myself how much I can get out of a story.  You need complexity to go beyond a discussion of plot to an analysis of theme and style.  Too frequently we underestimate our students, who are generally hungry for sophisticated material. I like to challenge them with stories that engage them intellectually and emotionally, while stretching their language level. Continue reading →

Australia’s Largest Provider of Education and Training
Uses Versant English Placement Test

Posted on | by Pearson

Navitas is a leading global education provider that offers an extensive range of educational services to students and professionals, including university programs, creative-media education, professional education, English language training, and settlement services. University Programs is the largest division of Navitas; it prepares international and domestic students for tertiary study through pre-university and university pathway programs. The following case study will describe the challenges and solutions for administering English assessments for over 10,000 university students from 80 countries each year.

“Testing More Than 10,000 Students Annually is a Massive Undertaking”

Navitas had been assessing the English language skills of students seeking an education in an English-speaking country for many years using a customized test. Not only was the test laborious to administer and difficult to scale, but it also lacked the credibility of a third party marking, managing and moderating results. Navitas needed an objective test to satisfy both university partners and parents.

Navitas turned to Pearson to help create an online test that would meet the highest level of excellence for English language testing. When Pearson launched the Versant™ English Placement Test (VEPT) with Navitas in 2011, it was the first globally validated test that assessed the four modalities of English: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Continue reading →