The

Gonfidence Book
Bu i lding

trust

in the

la nguage

classroom

rpn
Pilgrims
Paul Davis
and Mario Rinvolucri LongmonUl
Longman Group UK Limited,
Longman House, Burnt Mill, Harlow,
Essex CM20 2JE, England
and Associated Companies throughctutthe world.

@ Longman Group UK Limited 1990

This book is produced in association
with Pilgrims LanguageCourses Limited
of Canterbury, England.
All rights reserued;no port of this publicotion
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieual system,
or tronsmitted in any form or by any meons, electronic,
mechanicol, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
uithout the prior written permission of the Publishers.

First published 1990

T h i r d i m p r e s s i o nl 9 9 l

Set in Linotron l0/l2pt Cheltenham

Produced by Longman Singapore Publishers Pte Ltd
Printed in Singapore

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Davis, Paul 1952-
The confidence book: Building trust in the language
classroom - (Pilgrims Longman teachers resource
books)
l. Non-Englishspeakingstudents.
Curriculum subjects:Englishlanguage.Teaching
l. Title ll. Rinvolucri. Mario lll. Series
428.2407
fsBN0582037662
Acknowledgements
We are gratefulto the followingfor permissionto
reproducecopyrightmaterial;
CambridgeUniversityPress& Universityof Cambridge
Local ExaminationSyndicatefor extractsfrom the
examinationpaperFirsf Certificatein English,Paper I
ReadingComprehension 14.6.88,morning;International
UniversitiesPress,Inc for an extract from ChildrenTett
Sforresby E G Pitcher& E Prelinger(1969);the author,
LeonLeszekSzkutnikfor extractsfromThinkingin
English(PanstwoweWydawhictwoNauhowe,I 986).
We are gratefulto StuartOglethorpefor permissionto
reproducethe photographof PaulDavison pageiv.

lllustrations
Coverillustratedby MichaelSheehy

Copyrtght
Thiswork is copyright,but copiesof pagesindicatedby
a copyrightline may be madewithoutfeeor prior
permission, providedthat thesecopiesare usedonly for
classsets,and solelywithin the institutionfor which
the work is purchased.For copyingin any other
circumstances, prior writtenpermissionmustbe
obtainedfrom the Publishersand a fee may be payable.
A letterfromtheSeriesEditors

Dear Teacher,
This series of teachers'resourcebooks has developedfrom
Pilgrims' involvement in running courses for learnersof English
and for teachersand teacher trainers.
Our aim is to pass on ideas,techniquesand practical activities
which we know work in the classroom.Our authors,both Pilgrims
teachersand like-minded colleaguesin other organisations,pre-
sent accounts of innovative procedureswhich will broaden the
range of options availableto teachersworking within communi-
cative and humanistic approaches.
We would be very interestedto receiveyour impressionsof the
series.If you notice any omissionsthat we ought to rectify in
future editions, or if you think of any interestingvariations,please
let us know. We will be glad to acknowledgeall contributions that
we are able to use.
SethLindstromberg Mario Rinuolucri
SeriesEditor SeriesConsultant
Pilgrims LanguageCourses
Canterbury
Kent
CTI 3HG
England
 MarioRinvolucri
Mario Rinvolucri switched from journalism
to EFL teaching at the age of twenty-five
and since that time he has taught in
Greece, Chile and the UK. For the last
fourteen years Mario has worked for Pil-
grims as a teacher, writer and teacher
trainer. As a writer he seeks the warmth
of collaboration.Among recent results of
this habit are Vocabulary,with John Mor-
gan (1986 OUP), Dictation, with Paul
Davis (1988 CUP) and The Q Booft, with
John Morgan (1988 Longman). His cur-
rent projects include a book to help
teachers accept the inevitability and
rightness of students translating from
their mother tongue into the language
they are learning and vice versa. Mario's
most recent thrill has been finding new
authors for the Pilgrims Longman
ResourceBooksseries.
PaulDavis
Paul Davis comes from Birmingham and
graduated from the CambridgeCollegeof
Arts and Technology. After one-to-one
teaching of business English, supply
teaching and ESL,he moved to the Cam-
bridge Eurocentre,where he has been for
the last ten years. He is an experienced
teacher trainer and has taught ESPin the
Basque country and in Venezuela. Paul
has an RSA Certificate in Counselling in
the Development of Learning and has a
soft spot for Silent way teaching metho-
dology. He is at present taking a year out,
to live in Spain,to learn Spanish,and to
write. Paul's previous publications
include Dictation, with Mario Rinvolucri
(1988 CUP) and various magazine arti-
cles. He is currently writing a History of
the Englishlanguage,with FelicityO'Dell.

Dedication
To colleaguesand studentswho have let us see feelingsrangingfrom
firm self-trustto corrosivelack of confidence.You have openedour eyes.
Thanks.

Paul and Mario

Contents
Indexof activities

Introduction

Chapter1 L a n g u ageconfidence 6
Chapter2 E xa msand tests 27
Chapter3 L i ste n i ngto people 40
Chapter4 E n e rg yfr om other s 47
Chapter5 Gi vi n gstudentscontr ol 53
Chapter6 In te rventionsthat havewor ked 73

Bibliography 84
Furtherreading 85
lndexof activities
ACTIVIry LEVEL L A N G U A G EF O C U S

I LANGUAGE 1 . 1 T h ef i r s tv o c a b u l a r y B e g i n n e+r Pronunciation

CONFIDENCE lesson
1.2 Soundsas gifts Beginner + Pronunciation
1.3 Gettingsoundsright Beginner + Pronunciation
1.4 Thehardest word Beginner + Pronunciation
1.5 Self-correction Beginner * Pronunciation
1.6 Mouthing Beginner * lower Pronunciation
Intermedrate
1 . 7 I n d e p e n d ednat t e s B e g i n n e-r e l e m e n t a r y Pronunciation
1.8 Forgetting wordsand Beginner * Vocabulary
remembering them
1.9 100verbs Beginner Vocabulary
1.10 Thepowerof the Beginner Vocabulary,
for
mothertongue monolingual
classes
1.11 Confidence with Post-beginner
+ Vocabulary
Bhrases
1.12 Trustyourmemory Post-beginner
+ * gerund
Adjective
1.13 Students present Elementary
* Grammar
grammar
1 . 1 4T h eo n e sI g e t r i g h t B e g i n n e- r l o w e r Grammar
tntermedtate
1.15 Correctingnative Post-beginner * lower Grammar
speakers intermediate
1.16 Storyenrichment Post-beginner * Reading
1.17 Realtextsfor Beginner - elementary Reading
begrnners
1.18 Theoakandthe ivy Post-beginner
+ Writing
1.19 Frombehinda mask Lowerintermediate
+ Writing
1.20 Roleplayinghard Elementary
+ Conversation
situations

ACTIVIry LEVEL

2 EXAMS AND 2.1 Goodexams Lowerintermediate +

TESTS 2.2 Examanxiety Lowerintermediate - advanced
2.3 A badexam Lowerintermediate *; teacher
trarners
2.4 Dealing with multiplechoice Intermediate *
2.5 Students set an exam Post-beginner *
2.6 Invisible pictures Post-beginner +
2.7 Speedwriting Lowerintermediate +
2.8 Sharing the marks B e g i n n e*r
2.9 Theconfident placement
test B e g i n n e*r
2 . 1 0 B e i n gi n s p e c t e d Teachers andteachertrainers

3 LISTENING TO 3.1 One-minutemonologue Post-beginner

*
PEOPLE 3.2 Reportedspeechconversation Post-beginner
+
3.3 Puttingpeopledown Lowerintermediate
+
3.4 lamapersonwho... Post-beginner+
3.5 Questionsworthanswering Post-beginner
+
the questions
3.6 Controllrng Lowerintermediate
*
 ACTIVITY LEVEL

3.7 Headchatter L o w e r i n t e r m e d i a t e+
3 . 8 D e s c r i b i n gt h e o t h e r I n t e r m e d i a t e+
3 . 9 T h e p o w e ro f l i s t e n i n g T e a c h e rt r a i n e r s

F R OM 4.1 Ouickenergyraisers
4 EN E R G Y B e g i n n e*r
OTHERS 4.2 Waves B e g i n n e+r
4.3 Loudconversation B e g i n n e+r
4,4 Ratsandrabbits B e g i n n e*r
4.5 Fruitsalad Elementary +
4.6 sub-groups
Individuals, andgroups EIementary +
4.7 Multipletasks Elementary +
4.8 Stopping the story-teller Lowerintermediate *

5 G I VI N G 5 . 1 S t u d e n t sr i' g h t s q u e s t i o n n a i r e lntermediate +
S T U D EN T S 5.2 Negotiatingdiscipline B e g i n n e+r
C O N T R OL 5.3 Studentplanning committees B e g i n n e+r
5.4 Thebrilliance of one'sown process Lowerintermediate +
5.5 Sharedlearning rhythms B e g i n n e*r
5.6 Exaggeratingcultural stereotypes B e g i n n e+r
5.7 Changeof viewpoint lntermediate *
5.8 Creating a goodatmosphere Elementary *
5.9 Whatareyoufeelingnow? Post-beginner +
5.10 Congratulations Post-beginner *
5 . 1 1 G u e s s i nhgi d d e ns t r e n g t h s Elementary *
5 . 1 2 S a yi t n o w Elementary +
5.13 Whatdo theywantfrom me7 Lowerintermediate +
5 . 1 4 P e e ro p i n i o n s Elementary +
5.15 Endof coursefeedback B e g i n n e+r
5.16 Confidence to go home Lowerintermediate +

6 I N T E R V E N T ION6.1
S A staffroomdiscussion in class Teachers
THATHAVE 6.2 A studentintervention
thatworked Teachers
W O R KE D 6.3 Theycando it Teachers
6.4 Lightcontradictions Teachers
T^^^t ^,^
6 . 5 T h es i l e nw t oman I UdUI IUIJ

6,6 Copingwith a colleague Teachers

6.7 Actingout Teachers
6.8 An absentvoice T^^^t
I cout
^.^
tEtJ

6.9 A caseof consonant clusters T^^^t

I cdLt
^.-
tctJ

6 . 1 0 A h e l p l e shse l p e r T^^^t ^.^

I couttctJ
T^^^L^-^
6.11 Lossof status I UdLIIUIJ
T^^^L^ -^
6.12 Defensive teaching I UdLI IUIJ

6.13 Postscript I UdLI IUIJ

vii
Introduction
An introduction aims to bridge the gap between the authors of a book
and the readers,and is normally written by the authors. Wehaue askeda
sympathetic reader and user of these materials, Barbara Garside, to
introduce them to you. Sheseesthe materials from the authors' point of
uiew as uell as from that of a reader - she is ideally placed to build a
bridge between us and you.
'Experienceis what givesmeaningto language.'(Gattegno1972)

My first encounter with this book was about six months ago, when Paul
gave me some of the languageconfidence activities to read. These were
designedto develop students' feelingsof self-assuranceand ability to
take responsibility for their own learning. I had a look, found them
fascinating,and tried them out with one of my classes.The students,
after a healthy dose of initial scepticism, enjoyed them enormously,
benefiting greatly both from the language practice they provided and
from their increased awareness of themselves as learners and as
membersof the group.
Some time later I read Paul's description of an experienceof team
teaching. Two teachers had presented the future forms to a group of
students by having a staffroom style discussion in front of them, then
inviting their questions. I was struck by the simplicity of this as a way of
presentinglanguage,as well as by the shift in teacherand learner roles
it seemedto imply. The teacherswere taking a risk by putting them-
selves on the line in front of the students, but doing this together
enabledthem to share their senseof vulnerability,ultimately increasing
their inner strengthand resources.
At this point I had no idea that the languageconfidence activities and
the account of team teaching were in any way related. It wasn't until
much later that I discovered that they were to be two parts of the same
whole, and understood something of how they fitted together. They
were both to feature in a book about confidencebuilding for learners
cnd teachers,as well as for teacher trainers and teacher development
groups.According to CalebGattegno,educationalistand creator of the
Silent Way, to whom in many ways this book is a homage,one of the
biggest blocks to learning is lack of self-esteem.The ConfidenceBooh
seeksto build up self-esteemin both learnersand teachers,by helping
them to realisehow much they alreadyknow, and to enioy and draw on
their own strength,feelingsand experience.
I was fascinatedby the idea that teachersmight needto build up their
confidencejust as much as learnersdo, and that the two processeswere
inextricablylinked. I thought it would be interestingto discussit with a
group of students, so I devised a questionnaire on 'confidence' for
C O N F I D E N CBEO O K

another teacher's Proficiency class. The students turned out to be very

consciousof their own need for more confidence,especiallyin certain
areas,such as listening,exams,vocabularyand fluency,but were quite
amazedat the concept of confidence-buildingfor teachers.They said
that they derived strength from the teacher's apparent self-assurance
and knowledgeof the language.However, they seemed intrigued by my
suggestion that they might derive a different, more lasting kind of
strength from the teacher's admission of weakness, from seeing the
teacher as a partner in the learning process rather than as someone to
look up to or to try to emulate. I think this identification between
learners and teachers, this sharing of real feelings - including negative
ones such as anxiety, guilt and a sense of failure - is one of the keys to
this book.
In the words of Gattegno, we need to 'consolidate the human
dimensionsof being,which includevariety and individualityas essential
factors for acceptanceof others as contributors to one's own life', and in
this case,learning.

SIGN.POSTING
A guidethrough
thebook
The ConfidenceBook is easy to use. Most of the activities require very
little pre-lesson analysis or preparation - just an open mind (or a
number of them) - and a desireto let things happen.
You could say that the book has its own natural order, progressing
from students teaching each other their names, right through to
teachers dealing with being observed. Within the part designed for
learners(Chapters 1,3,4,and 5 and most of Chapter 2) there is also a
sensible progression from the learning of discrete items such as words
and iounds, to the more complex activities, or whole approaches,
suggestedby Giuing studentscontrol (Chapter 5). The book could either
be integrated into a standard syllabus or used separately in optional or
extra lessons.It is perhapsworth pointing out that many of the activities
are not'one-offs', but can be used again and again,and built upon, as
part of an ongoing process of learner and teacher development.

Ghapter
I Language
confidence
These are language confidence activities, which include work on
sounds, vocabulary, grarnmar, reading, writing and conversation. This
chapteris aimed at learners,via the teacher,whoserole is to set up and
facilitate the activity rather than impart information. In Self-conection
(Activity 1.5),Pauland Mario quote Gattegno:
'Every student knows more than they think they know. Every student
knows much more than the teacher thinks they know.'
This exercise,like many of the others in this section, emphasisesthe
 INTRODUCTION

value of getting the text from the students,to lead them to a greater
awarenessof just how much they can achieve,even when they think
they know very little.
ln StudentspresentGrammar (Activity Ll3), the class is divided into
groups,who each preparea grammaticalpresentationwith the help of a
grammarbook. In subsequentlessonsthe groupsteach each other their
grammar area. There is no intervention from the teacher unless there is
a need to clear up any doubts. This activity encouragesstudents to think
for themselvesand to interact, and moves them away from dependence
on the teacher.

andtests
2 Exams
Chapter
This chapter contains a number of activities devised to help with the
anxiety often caused by exams, and two suggested solutions to the
problems of pressure and artificiality which can be created by class-
room observations.
For learners, many of the activities are aimed at getting inside the
examiner's mind, leading to a greater understandingof the thinking
behind exam questions. Sharing this understanding,and a sense of
humour about it, can reduce learners'feelingsof isolation and increase
their ability to cope.
For teachers being observed, a shift in the roles of observer and
observee is suggested,whereby both teach the same class and then
discussthe results,or the teachersimply reports on a lessonrather than
being watched.This makesthe observationmore of a genuineexchange
of ideasand less of an inspection.

to people
3 Listening
Ghapter
As the title suggests,this section is about listeningto people. It moves
teachers and learners right away from routine, non-interactiveuse of
the tape-recordertowards an ability to listen for more than just surface
message.Doing these activities and discussingthem afterwards gives
people a greater awarenessof the richness and complexity of the
listening process and redressesthe over-emphasisso often placed on
the speakingskill.

fromothers
4 Energy
Chapter
These physical activitiescan help put the group into the right frame of
mind to undertakethe activitiesin the other chaptersof the book. They
can build on the power and strength of the group without recourseto
language.

control
5 Givingstudents
Ghapter
This section is about handingover to studentsmuch of the responsibil-

3
C O N F I D E N CBEO O K

ity for what goeson in class,both in fairly formal ways,as in /Vegotiating

discipline(Activity 5.2) and Studentplanning committees(Activity 5.3),
and in less formal ways, as in Changeof uiewpornf(Activity 5.7) and
Whotdo they wont from me? (Activity 5.13).
ln Students'rights questionnarre(Activity 5.1), group membersdecide
how they feel about a seriesof individual rights and invent some rights
of their own. In The brillionce of one's oun process (Activity 5.4),
studentsare askedto read a number of texts stuck on the wall outside,
choose two or three and transcribethem inside the classroom,making
as many journeysas they like. They then analyseand discussthe mental
and physicalprocessesthey went through. Like many of the activitiesin
this chapter, these help the students to become more aware of their
learning processesand rhythms, and encouragethem to share their
feelingstowards each other and the target language.

Chapter
6 lnterventions
thathaveworked
SinceI startedwriting this introduction,I have talked to severalteachers
about the book. Conversationsusually run on the following lines:
'What's the book
about?' 'Confidence.''ls it for teachers or students?'
'Both.' 'Oh good.'This indicates me
to that teachersdo perceivea need
to build their own confidence,as well as to help their studentsto do so.
This chapter represents a major departure from the rest of the book,
not only because it is aimed at teachers rather than learners, but also
because it describes experiences rather than activities. There is a
feeling of freshness and genuinenessin these descriptions, which
include ideas which have nof worked as well as those which have. Users
of the book get a real sense that they are sharing these teachers'
experiences,and it can be very comforting to know that other people's
ideas,like our own, are not alwayssuccessful.From this we may derive
reassuranceand confidenceourselves.

MYOWNEXPERIENCES
OFTHEBOOK
In the rationale for Getting soundsright (Activity 1.3), the authors sayl
'There
should be times when students are congratulated on what they
get right'. This for me is a key point of the whole book, which I keep
coming back to in my work as a teacherand teachertrainer. How much
more effective it is to praise students and trainees for what they have
done well than to criticise them for mistakes.I am constantly aware of
this when giving feedbackto teacher traineesor to studentsat the end
of a fluency activity, where it seemsparticularly important not to dwell
on the negativebut to accentuatethe positive.
I have used a number of activities from The ConfidenceBooh, both
with students and as a teacher trainer. I have found these sessions
inspiring,rewardingand aboveall, a learningexperiencefor me and the

4
 INTRODUCTION

other participants.On an RSAPreparatoryCertificatecourse,I tried out

Headchatter(Activity 3.7) as an introduction to the listeningskill. In this
activity, participantstalk for ninety secondsto their partners,who make
a mark on a piece of paper every time they feel distracted. After
discussingthese distractionsand possiblereasonsfor them, they swap
over. This turned out to be an extremelyactive and exciting lead-in to
the listeningprocess,which helpedto establisha basisof trust between
the trainees,while showingthat it's all right not to be totally attentiveall
the time.
As tutor on an RSA Diploma course, I have used the Speed writing
exercise (Activity 2.7) for exarn practice, and an adaptation of. One-
minute monologue(Activity 3.1) for revisionpurposes.ln Speedwriting,
teachers are given five minutes to write down everything they can think
of about a topic; anything from auxiliary verbs to syllabuses.They then
put their,ideastogether and into some kind of order, and within about
fifteen to twenty minutes they each have the basis for a very compre-
hensive Diploma essay. At the same time, the process helps them to
prepare for the rapid thinking and writing required in the exam. In my
version of One minute monologue,participantstalk to their partnersfor
five minutes without interruption. They tell them everything they know
about, for instance, stative and dynamic verbs or tense and aspect, and
then swap. Some of the teachers on the course report that they have
since started using this technique as a way of presentingor revising
grarnmar with students. Thus an.activity devised for learners has been
adapted for use with teachers, and this adaptation further developedto
createanother,different,use with learners.
To me, this exemplifies the wonderfully rich, multi-layered and
versatile nature of the book. It offers a wealth of very varied activities,
many of which can be easily adapted to suit a wide range of aims and
different types of group.

Barbara Garside
Cambridge
September1989

5
 CHAPTER 1

Languageconfidence
Many languagelearnerseither have or are induced into having a poor
self-image.This can become a vicious circle: 'l am bad at learning this
language,thereforeI perform inadequately,thereforeI am right to think
I am hopelessat language.'Theaim of this chapter is to offer you ways
of allowinglearnersto appreciatetheir own achievementsin areassuch
as pronunciation,vocabularylearningand coping with grammar.
Let's take an example: in The power of the mother tongue (p. 15)
complete beginnerslisten to a story in their mother tongue with some
target languagewords mixed into the text. They are then askedto write
down any words they remember or partly remember.The stress is on
inviting them to notice what they have got right, not what has gone
wrong. Peoplewill get somethinglike 90 per cent right and only focus on
the l0 per cent that is wrong. This balanceneedsredressing,as guilt is
an inefficientbaselinefrom which to try and learn something.
ln 100 uerbs (p. 14) students at a post beginner level are asked to
estimatehow many verbs they know. The lessonthen shows them that
they actually know two to four times more verbs than they thought they
did. The aim throughout this section is to give people a positive,
realistic assessmentof their own abilities. If you, as the teacher,
manageto get your studentsto realisehow good they already are, this
frequently leads to steep improvements in their performance. The
messageis not Moskowitz's'accentuatethe positive' (see Coring and
Sharing in the Foreign Language Classroom,Moskowitz, 1978); it is
much more simply'allow yourself to notice the positiveand to enjoy it'.

1.1 THEFIRST LESSON

VOCABULARY
tAN GUAGE In class
FOCUS
This confidence-buildingidea is relevant in classes where people's
Pronunciation
names come from different cultures and/or languages,e.g. an adult
tEVEt educationclass learningEnglishin Swedenthat has a lot of refugeesin
*
Beginner it, or a mixed nationalityEFLclassin the USA.
I Ask one student to face the group and pronounce their name loudly
T I ME
and clearly three times. Others round the group repeat and the
l0-15minutes
student acts as teacheruntil most people can say the name properly.
M A T E RI A t S Then the studentwrites it on the board.
None Continue round the group until each student has had a chance to
teach the rest of the classto say their name.In each casethe student
PREPARATION
writes the name on the board.
None
In the next class get people to revise the names.Insist that you and
they pronounceeach name to the satisfactionof its owner.
 LANGUAGE
CONFIDENCE

RATIONATE
To say and spell another person'sname correctly is not only a mark of
respectto them but also an act of se/f-respect.To start a coursewith this
exercise also introduces peer-teachingin an area where each of us is
naturally a teacher:how our name should be said and written.

SOUNDS ASGIFTS 1.2

In class tAN GUAGE
FOCUS
I Standyour class in a large circle. Miming very carefully,'hand'your
Pronunciation
neighbburin the circle an imaginaryobject. They take it, aware of its
size and weight. They can either hand the same object to their LEVET
neighbouror changethe object and hand that on. (At the end of this Beginner*
round you can ask each person to name the obiect they receivedand
T I ME
the object they gave- a hilarious vocabularyexercise.)
10-20minutes
2 The object-handlingserves as a lead-in to word-handling.Choosea
sound the group has problems with, cup your hands and 'hand' the MATERIATS
sound to your neighbour, saying it loudly and clearly at the same None
time. Cuppingtheir hands,your neighbourtakes the sound, turns to
PREPARATION
the next person in the circle, hands it to them and says the sound
None
clearly.The handlingand the sayingare simultaneous.In this way the
sound goes round the circle.
3 If a student gets the sound wrong, step out of your place in the circle
and go over to the person who has just receivedthe sound. Take it
back from them and give it to the person before the one who got it
wrong, saying it yourself loudly and clearly. They then give it to the
mispronouncer who again hands it on, trying to say it correctly. If
they are successful,return to your placein the circle. If they still say it
wrong, repeatthe procedureabove.

RATIONATE
Students offer each other sounds, words and phrases in the target
languageas gifts. At first students smile or giggle but it does not take
long for the positive symbolismto becomeclear.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt the circle exercise from Joan Agosta (See Bibliography for
detailsof publishedwork).
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

1.3 GETTING SOUNDS

RIGHT
LAN GUAGE In class
FOCUS
Model an easy English sound to the group. See who can repeat it
Pronunciation
almost perfectly.Model it again in a word. Again have some students
tEVEt repeatthe word.
+
Beginner Tell the studentsthere are many Englishsoundsthey produce almost
perfectly.Ask them to work in pairs, to chooseten such sounds and
T I ME
write them down in the context of a word or phrase. They should
20-30minutes
choosesoundsthey think they get right, not soundsthey find hard to
MATERIATS produce.
None 3 Go round the class eliciting two words from each pair. Put the words
up on the board, underlining the target sound. Tick all the sounds
PREPARATI ON
which the pair presentingthem got reasonablyright.
None
RATIONALE
We spend too much time in class picking up dropped stitches. There
should be times when studentsare congratulatedon what they get right.

1,4 THEHARDEST
WORD
TANGUAGE In class
FOCUS
Ask the students,working on their own, to scan through the text and
Pronunciation
pick out the word or phrasethey find hardestto pronounce.
LEVET Ask each studentto dictate their word to you, which you write on the
Beginner+ board, with your back to the class. If the student pronounces
reasonablywell, simply write the word up without comment.
TIME
If the student gets the word or phrase importanfly wrong and those
l0-20 minutes
round the speakerdo not usefullycorrect them, turn round, make eye
MATERIALS contact and sav: (student's name), mahe it more
A text at the right English! The student tries again. If it is still wrong, repeat your
level for the students exhortation,givingthe studentthe feelingthey can get it right without
PREPARATION technicalhelp.
4 If the student is still unable to get the pronunciationright, give them
None
the opposite command: Make it more ltalianlGerman/Portuguese!
(dependingon the student's mother tongue). Sometimes,paradoxi-
cally, this command helps the student to get the sound right. If this
does not happen and the student has literally obeyed your instruc-
tion, simply sayNow do the opposite!

RATIONATE
Your initial position is with your back to the group. You are refusingto
mother them - you are throwing them onto their own resources.When
they get things right you do not praiseor comment.

8
 LANGUAGC
E ONFIDENCE

'make it more English',you are telling them

By askingthe studentsto
they have the resources to get it right. If you have to repeat this
instruction,the group may see you as bullying/persecutingone of them
and will offer plenty of support, includinguseful peer-correction.
By askingthe studentsto 'makeit more foreign'you are paradoxically
changing frame, and this sometimes unlocks the right answer. The
process outlined above is one version of what Caleb Gattegnocalled
'forcing awareness'.

SELF.CORRECTION 1.5
ln class LAN GUAG E
FOCUS
I Ask the students to go through the text and each choose a favourite Pronunciation
sentence.Have one of the studentsread their sentencealoud. Listen
carefully to the whole sentence and if it has not been said near LEVET
perfectly, ask the student to repeat it. Continue to ask for repetition Beginner*
until it is near perfect.Do not model the correct forms yourself.If the TIME
sfudent in question, and the rest of the group, are unable to hear a 10-15minutes
particular problem then write the sentenceon the board and indicate
whereaboutsthe difficulty lies. Do not model the correct form. MATERIATS
2 Repeatthis processwith half-a-dozenmembersof the class. A short text - it can
3 For this correction technique to work well, a number of things are be from the
coursebook
necessary:
r You should be neutral and unaggressive. PREPARATION
r You should treat all the students equally (don't accept a shoddy None
performancefrom a studentyou perceiveto be poor).
r You need to persevere- if you give up on a studentbeforethey get
it right they can get extremelydiscouraged.
r There needs to be some trust in the group - the students need to
realise that by not spoonfeeding,you are helping, not just being
perverse.

RATIONATE
The only real and lasting form of correction is self-correction.If you
model the correct form, students can imitate the modelling and feel
cosy doing this. This does not mean that they can now monitor the
differencebetweentheir mistakeand the correct form, nor that they will
get it right next time. The above procedurecan, initially, feel frustrating
to some students.ln the longer term it makesself-evidentsense.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
'Everystudentknows more than they think they know.'
'Everystudentknows much more than the teacherthinks they know.'
These axioms and the self-correctiontechnique come from Teaching
foreign languagesin schools(Gattegno1972).

9
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

1.6 MOUTHING
TANGUAGE In class
FOCUS
I Remind the students of dialogues they have worked on. Ask someone
Pronunciation
to come out and mime such a dialogue with you. No language should
tEVEt be used.
Beginner- lower 2 Replay the scene. This time you speak and the student mouths their
intermediate part.
T I ME Haveeverybodywork on the dialoguein pairs. Both sidesmouth. The
15-30minutes room should be full of languageand virtually silent.
Ask the studentsif there are any bits of languagethey couldn't find,
MATE RIA tS and givehelp.
None
RATIONATE
PBEPARATION
Previousexposureto
For some people, the iump from listening to a languageto actually
everydaysituational articulating things in it is a breathtaking one. This exercise builds
dialogues,probably confidence by allowing people to speak but without making tell-tale
from the coursebook sounds.

VARIATIONS
Haveone pair mime a sceneof their own creation.No words should be
spoken.All the others then role play the same scene but with words
spoken out loud. They practise their role plays and then each pair
performsthe role play for the classgroup.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt the variation from Andr6 Fonck, who works for I'Office de
I'Emploiin Belgium.

1.7 INDEPENDENT
DATES
LAN GUAGE In class
F OC U S
Copythe chart on the next pageonto the blackboard.It representsall
Pronunciation
you need to elicit the datesin Englishfrom your students.
LEVEL Suppose you want to get the students to produce 'the tenth of
Beginner - December'.Simply tap the square at the bottom of the left hand
elementary column and then the circle at the bottom of the right hand column. A
T I ME sensibledate to start with is today's.Use the pointer to tap out stress
l5-30 minutes and rhythm. Don't speak - allow the students to find the words.
Without speech,guide them to produce the right words and sounds.
MATEBIATS There will be a lot of peer-teaching,with studentshypothesisingand
A pointeror a stick helping each other. You may occasionally have to give a spoken
PBEPARATION model. Do this clearly and once only. Students soon get used to
None listeningfor the few thingsyou do say when you say little or nothing.

10
 LANGUAGC
E ONFIDENCE

DATES MONTHS

o o oo /-\

ooo L-/

ooo
/\_./
. \ r\_-/
\ r ] \-./ (l

trtrD
ooo
ooo r^\
ooo
ooo o
Dntr
LJ

Fig. 1

3 You make the exercisemore human if you work on significantdates

like feasts,birthdays,etc.
4 After some practice with you in control, get studentsto come out and
'date dictations'.
use the chart and pointer to give each other

RATIONALE
With your voice no longer spoonfeedingthem, low level studentssoon
start listening more actively and taking responsibility. When you
drastically reduce the amount of vocal modelling you offer them, you
also reduce their dependenceon you. From a feeling of responsibility
and independencecomes a senseof well-beingand confidence.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This exercisederives from the SilentWay approachof CalebGattegno.
You will find more exercises of this sort in Dictation (Davis and
Rinvolucri1988).

11
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

1.8 FORGETTING
WORDS
ANDREMEMBERING
THEM
TANGUAGE In class
FOCUS
I First, set up the system. Ask the students to work individually and
Vocabulary
write down three words each in each of thesecategories:
tEVEt Words I firmly know
Beginner* Words I have forgotten
Lessrecent words I know
T I ME
Recentwords I know
15-30minutesto
(To find these, ask them to go back over the earlier units of their
explain
10-15minutesin coursebookor over recent readingmaterials.)
later classes 2 Ask the studentsto comparethe words in their four categories.
3 They now copy their four sets of three words onto cards, one word
MATERIAIS per card. These cards are then arrangedin four sections in the card
A set of cards and a index boxesas shown in Fig 2. Invite them to experimentwith the way
card index box for
they put the words on the cards.There are a number of ways shown
each student
in Fig.3 on the oppositepage.
PBEPABATION A regular homework task would be to get the students to put new
None words learnt in a previouslessonor lessonson cards and file them in
their boxes.
REVISION
Ask the studentsto work through a given section to check if the words
should currently be in that section. If a student finds a word in Words
firmly known that they don't know, then it goes into Wordsforgonen.lf
they know a word on looking through Words forgotten then maybe it
should go in Words firmly known. Words need to migrate from Recent

RECENT WORDS
I KNOW

LESS R€CENT
WORDS I KNOW

WORDS T
HAVE FORGOTTEN
woRDS r
FIRMLY KNOW

Fig. 2

12
 LANGUAGC
E ONFIDENCE

words to less recentwords.Sometimesa studentcan confidentlymove a

word from Recentwords to Wordsfirmlv known. This work can be done
individuallyor in small groups.
a) Picture b) Doublecontextualisation

TheI
mah I
thof I
SPoon = A-3 fhe I
v
The coutbog lpsP fhe 6uN

of GUNon
Mothertonguetranslation
the backof the card

c) Affectiveresponse d) Designing
the word

I donf /ike
To sprf
TU€SDAT.
f confuse if uifh
n t ,,
Thursday.
T

Thetext on this cardwouldbe in T h e s t u d e n th a s g r a p h i c a l l dy e s i g n e dt h e

mothertongue.Translation of word to resemblethe action
Tuesdayon the backof the card

Fig. 3

RATIONALE
Remembering, forgetting and re-remembering are normal learning
eventsand this kind of storagesystemacceptsthis. It takesthe guilt out
'taught' them
of forgetting. Students have the right to forget what you
since, if they forget, you never really taught them it. You sent out but
they did not significantlytake in. The sub-texthere is 'forgettingis fine -
we all do it'. The Words forgotten category is a complex one and
studentscome to differentunderstandingsof what should go in there.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Dierk Andresentaught us this procedure.You will find plenty more word
retentiontechniquesinVocabulary(Morganand Rinvolucri1986).

13
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

1.9 t00vERBs
tAN GUAGE In class
FOCUS
LESSONI
Vocabulary
At the end of a lessonask each personin the group:How many uerbsdo
tEVEt you hnow in English?Don't comment on the answers,and ask them to
Beginner think about the questionfor homework.
T I ME LESSON2
Lessonl: 5 minutes I At the start of the next lessonask them the same question again.(ln
Lesson2: 30-50 some of our classesthey have revisedtheir estimatesdownwards.)
minutes 2 Mime a simple verb. Have the students say it and designateone of
Lesson3: 3G40
them as class secretary,who will write down all the verbs found by
minutes
Lesson4: 50 minutes the classon a singlesheetof paper.Ask each student in turn to mime
a verb which the group then tries to say. If no one knows the verb in
MATERIATS English,refrain from teachingit. The worse'themimes the more verbs
None they generate.Keep the activity going until you reach a good round
PREPARATION
figure like 50, 100or 150.Take in the secretary'sverb list.
None LESSON3
I Give everybody a copy of the verb list and ask the students to work
individuallyto categorisethe verbs in any way they wish. They must
establish at least two categories, and fewer categories than the
number of words on the list. The studentsare to give their categories
headings.
2 Ask them to explain their categorisationsto each other in pairs or
small groups.
LESSON4
(This may come a lot later in the course.)
I When the students start work on past tense forms, ask them to refer
to the group verb list. Divide them into four teams. Each team,
working with reference books, pulls out verbs belonging to their
designatedcategory:
Team A: verbs that form the past with /d/ e.g. listened
Team B: verbs that form the past with /V e.g. worhed
Team C: verbs that form the past with /ld/ e.g. landed
Team D: irregularverbs e.g.went
2 When the teams have finishedask them to regroup in fours with one
person from each team in each foursome.They compare categories.

RATIONALE
Some students wildly underestimatewhat they know in the language
they are learning.The idea in this exerciseis to have it dawn on them
how much they alreadyknow, both individuallyand collectively.In one
class where they finally came up with 135 verbs, they initially thought
they knew betweenten and twenty. Of course we beg lots of questions
by referring to 'knowing words'; the exerciseabove is simplistic but a
real morale booster all the same.

14
 L A N G U A GC
EONFIDENCE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The categorisationexercisesuggestedfor the third lessonabovecomes
from the work of Caleb Gattegno.For further ideas in this area of
vocabulary teaching see Vocabulary (Morgan and Rinvolucri 1986,
SectionsD and G).

TONGUE
OFTHEMOTHER
THEPOWER 1.10
Beforeclass t A N GU A GE
F OC U S
Choosea story you know well to tell bilingually. In this example we are Vocabulary;for use
assumingEnglishas the learners'mothertongueand Greekas the target with monolingual
language. classes
Once upon a time there was an'ikoyenia,' a father, a mother and a
'pethi'. They all liued togetherin a little'spiti' that stood tEVEt
three-year-old
Beginner
on the main streetof the uillage.
In your case the story will be mostly in the students' mother tongue TIME
with a few words of English introduced in such a way that they are 20-30minutes
understandablefrom context, or glossedwith a translation.
MATERIATS
tN GIASS None
I Tell the bilingualstory right through. PREPARATISN
2 If you are teaching teenagersor adults, ask the studentsto write down Thinkof a suitable
'part of a word'
any words or parts of words that they remember. A storyto tell
might be a single sound, a syllable, an intonation pattern without a bilingually
clear memory of the sounds involved, etc. Stressto the group that you
are very interestedin the bits of words they rememberas well as in
the whole words or phrases.
Using the students' mother tongue, ask them to read out what they
have written. Encouragethem to share partly remembered words as
well as full ones.(lf you are teachingyoung children,move straightto
the oral recall of the words - omit the writing stage.)

RATIONALE
Beginners frequently underestimate the complexity of what they are
doing when they first approacha new language.As a result, they fail to
give themselves credit for real achievementslike remembering and
reproducingan intonationpatternjust becausethey can't rememberthe
individualsounds.They end up blamingthemselvesfor not retainingthe
soundsrather than feelinggood about what they have achieved'
The same goes for words they remember eighty percent right. Most
learners will focus on the twenty percent that is wrong and give
themselveslittle credit for the eighty percent. This exercise aims to
create a better, more balanced,more realistic self-awarenessin begin-
ners. You learn more if you value your achievementsthan if you focus
on failings.

15
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

1.11 CONFIDENCE WITHPHRASES

TANGUAGE Beforeclass
F OC U S
Choosewords and phrasesfrom readingmaterialyour classis currently
Vocabulary
dealing with. Be ready to tell your own anecdotes and experiences
TEVET around the phraseswith a view to stimulatingsimilar reactionsfrom the
Post-beginner
+ students.
T I ME tNctAss
20-30minutes
I Ask the students to underline in the reading material the words/
MATEBIATS phrasesyou want to work on.
Readingmaterials 2 Tell them an anecdoteof vour own about the first one. Elicit similar
stories from them.
P RE P A R A TOI N
3 Continuein the sameway with the other words/phrases.For example,
Choosethe phrases
Mario had a text with these two phrasesin it: polluted air, fumes from
cars.
First he told his group a story about a chip-pan fire in his house:the
kitchen was full of heauily polluted air. others then spoke of 'polluted
air' in their experience.
Then he told the group how he likes fumesfrom carswhen cycling in
London in winter. The fumes provide a form of outdoor central heating.
Othersin the group told their 'fumesfrom cars'experiences.

RATIONATE
It is common to hear a colleaguecomplain that they taught the students
all the words they needed for a role play and then they simply did not
use any of them in the event. They fell back on simpler ways of
expressingthemselves,used old words or got by without using verbal
languageat all.
It would seemthat a studentneedsto get over the shock of meetinga
new word or phrase.The person needsto domesticateit, tame it, make
it their own before venturing to use it. The exerciseproposed here is a
personalisingof new words and an initial group owning of them.
somehow it seemsthat somethinghas to happenbetweenfirst meeting
new vocabularyand using it.

16
 LANGUAGC
E ONFIDENCE

TRUST YOUR
MEMORY 1.12
ln class t A NGU A GE
FOCUS
I Divide the studentsinto circles of ten to fifteenpeople.
Grammar; adjective
2 Ask each personto bring to mind somethingthey are good at doing or + gerund
happy doing.
The first student in each group gives their name and mentions an t E V E t
activity they are good at:I'm Heidi, I'm good at gardening. The second Post-beginner *
student in that group repeatsthe Heidi information and also mentions T I M E
something they are confident about: Heidi's happy gardening. I'm 10-15minutes
Tonio and I'm good at shooting . . .The third student runs through
what the first two have said and adds what they are good at. The M A T E B I A L S
activity continues until the last student in the circle repeats all the None
information about everybody else before saying what they them-
PREPARATION
selvesare good at. Do not allow writing! None
3 Ask the groups how many ideas the last person in each circle had to
remember.

ilOTE
One of our students panicked at the thought of saying she was confident
about anything. Her sister was a famous model in her country and good
at everything. One of her friends in the group finally helped her decide
that she was good at two things: keeping secrets,and dressingyoung to
get half-pricetickets!

STUDENTS PRESENT
GRAMMAR 1.13
ln class TATTIGUAGE
Give out copies of the chosen grammar book and group the students
F0cus
Grammar
in teams of five. Ask each team to concentrate on one grammar area
and to produce a coherentpresentationof it. Tell them they will later tEVEt
have to present this area to the whole class. Leave the room so they Elementary
*
don't have you hoveringand'helping'.
T I ME
In subsequent lessons the teams teach the areas of grammar they
One45 minuteperiod
have been assigned.Do not interveneduring the student-ledlessons.
Several15-30minute
Only trouble shoot at the end. slotsin subsequent
3 Follow up with the whole group doing an exerciseor two from the lessons
grammarbook.
MATEBIATS
RATIONATE Copiesof a learner's
grammar
This is a powerfully useful exerciseas it encouragesstudent independ-
ence and allows the students to interact in a frame you have set, but P BE P A R A T O
I N
without you. You find out a lot about their real understandingof Pick one area of
grammarand the studentsbecomemore realisticin their expectations: grammar per five
students

17
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

A Bosic English Grammar (Eastwood and Mackin OUP 1982) is

suitable at elementarylevel but the exerciseis clearly cross-leveland
other books would be suitableat other levels,for example:intermediate:
ProcticalEnglishUsage(MichaelSwanOUP 1980);advanced:Tolhingof
Grammar(RogerBowersLongman1987).

1.14 THEONES I GETRIGHT

LANGUAGE In class
F0cus I Ask the studentsto work in pairs. They are to write:
Grammar
a five four-word sentencesin English
TEVEL b four six-word sentencesin English
Beginner - lower c three nine-wordsentencesin English
intermediate Tell them to go for what they know and are sure of.
Ask the pairs to comparetheir sentenceswith each other. There may
T I ME
30-40minutes be disagreementsas to whether a sentenceis correct. Get them to
write any doubtful sentencesup on the board. Do nof give your
MATERIATS verdict at this stage,though they may demandit.
None Get the whole classto have a look at the dubious sentencespicked by
PREPARATI ON
the students themselves.In the end they may come to voting on the
None
correctnessor not of a sentence.Only when this has happenedgive
your verdict. Do not deal with wrong sentencesnone of the students
have spotted as being wrong. Work on these problems in a later
lesson.

RATIONALE
This exercise allows low level students to compare the criteria they
have in their headswith the way the target languageis. It allows them to
examinetheir basic grammaticalnotions and seewhich of theseare still
inter-languageand which properly belong to the target language.For
you it is a gift of a diagnosticexercise.

NOTE
Stand back and enjoy watching the students discuss,write, think and
argue.Keepout of the process.If you join in you will guillotinethe whole
thing. They will often try and draw you in to swing authority behind their
particular contention.Stayout.

18
 LANGUAGC
E ONFIDENCE

NATIVESPEAKERS
CORRECTING 1.15
ln class tAN GUAGE
FOCUS
Ask the studentswhat kind of mistakessmall children make in their
Grammar
mother tongue(s). Things like regularising past tenses, reversing
sound sequences(e.g. in French,masaginfor magasrn)and inventing LEVET
new words are likely to come up. -
Post-beginner
Explain that small English-speakingchildren do exactly the same. lowerintermediate
Give out the 'Two-year-olds'storysheet'and ask them to correct the TIME
childrens'grammar. 15-20minutes
RATIONATE MATERIATS
Advanced students of English sometimes mention the 'tyranny of the One copy of the 'Two
native speaker'.They are continually called upon to notice and imitate year-olds'story
the linguis(icantics of this frequentlyidealisedbeing. sheet'for each
student
Young native speakersuse an inter-languagenot dissimilar to foreign
learnersof the language.Chineseand Turkish learnersfeel quite in tune PREPARATION
with article omission! When you are an adolescentor adult learner of None
Englishthere is an elementof playful revengein correcting a two-year-
old's grammar,especiallywhen it resemblesyour own!

Two-year-olds' story sheet

Cass G. (2 years, B monthsl
Bo yf e l l o u t o f ca r.H e w e n t i n ca r a g ain.He fell in water .
Daniel W. (2 years, l0 monthsl.
L itt l eb o y p l a ye d .H e cri e d .H e 's a l l ri ght.He went home.He went to
be d .W h e n h e w a ke su p yo u 'reg o n n asaygoodnightto him.
Daniel W. (2 years, | 1 monthsl.
He b r o k ei t . H e's OK . H e d i d n 'tb ro kei t. lt' s all r ioht.The littlebovfixed
it .
Donna R. (2 years,B months).
G ir l s w i m m e d. Go t a l l w e t. S h e cri ed. Her feets got in water . Her
mo m m y g o t t h e re .S h e p i cke dh e r u p. She stoppedcr ying.She fell in
. h efe l l i n th e w a te ragain.Her momm y pickedher up
t he w a t e ra g a i n S
'D o n 't
a g a i n Sh
. es a id , cry'.
Bernard H. (3 years,6 monthsl.
O n c et h e r ew a s a l i o n .H e e a t p e o p l eA. fish com e.Thefish swim m ed.
Th e l i o na t e t h e fi sh .T h e l i o na te a n o therfish.Thenhe went to sleep.
He w o k e u p .

@ L o n g m a nG ro u pU K L td 1 9 9 0

(Thesenarrativesare taken f rom Chrldrentell storles Pitcherand Prelinoer1969).

19
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

1.16 STORY ENRICHMENT

tAN GUAGE Beforeclass
FOCUS
Ask one of the students to tell you a story about themselves,making
Reading
clear that it will be used as reading material by the whole class.
tEVEt Interviewthe student outside class time. Write up the story, respecting
Post-beginner * the student'sway of telling it but in such a way that it is a real reading
task for the others. Alternatively get one student to write out a story
TIME
about themselfand rewrite it to the right level of reading difficulty for
Preparation:2040
the group.
minutes
ln class:45 minutes
IN CLASS
MATERIAtS Use the student'sstory text with whateverrangeof readingcomprehen-
None sion techniquesyou find useful.
With some classeswe have made sure the storyteller understoodher
P RE P A R A T I N
O
story in the rewritten form, asked her to give it out to the class and
Interviewone of your
students
herselfrun the lesson.With somegroupsit is best to slip out of the room
and leavethem to it.

RATIONALE
For some students it is a great boost to see a story of their own in
correct English and shared with the class. The build-up of student
stories over a period of weeks documentsthe time spent together,and
revising the stories shows how well remembered these stories are
comparedto textbook readingpassages.(One way we revisedthem was
to pick a sentencefrom one and a phrasefrom anotherand ask students
to identify the stories.)
Here is an exampleof two storiestold by post-beginnerstudents.The
'My BonnieLies Over the Ocean'!
first one we sangto the tune of
Oh bring back my moneYto me!
I te l e xe dth e . . . Schoolto find out
l f th e fe e sw o u l d be dollar sor pounds
T h e yto l d me th e fees wer e in dollar s
In d o l l a rs,i n d o l l ar snot pounds.
C h o ru s: Oh b ri ngback,br ingback,
B ri n gb ackmy m oneyto m e, to m e . . .
B u t th e fe e sth e y wer e r eallyin pounds
S o I w e n t to th e bankand I lost
Two per cent of commissionthey took
T w o p e r ce n to f comm issiontheytook.
Chorus
I te l e xe dmy b rotherfor m oneY
F o rmo n e yI h a d not enough
I te l e xe dmV b ro therfor m oneY
of Pounds.
A n d h e s e n tm e a m o u n t a i n
Chorus

20
 LANGUAGC
E ONFIDENCE

My father's stroke
My f a t h e rw a s a fa rme r- h e o w n e d200 hectar esof land.
In 1980he was fifty-two.
He usuallysmokedforty cigarettesa day.
We l i v e di n a to w n i n E u ro p e a Tn u rkey.
I t w a s W e d n e sd a v,D e ce mb e r1 S th .
We w e r e h a v i n gd i n n e rw i th th e T V o n.
I t mu s t h a v ebe e na b o u t6 .0 0p .m.
Suddenlymy father lookedstrange.One eye shut and one eye stayed
open.
H e s l u m o e di n h i sc h a i r .
He h a da s t r o ke .
I rushedfor a doctor.
It took me fifteen minutesby taxi,there and back.
The doctorsaidhe was dead.
He w a s d e a d- i t w a s We d n e sd a yn i ghtin Decembereight
, year sago.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This is a time-honouredprimary school technique.We got the idea of
applying it in the EFL classroom from Lou Spaventa(See Bibliography
for detailsof publishedwork).

REALTEXTSFORBEGINNERS 1.17
ln class tAN GUAGE
Focus
I Checkon readingproblemsthe studentshavewith the textson the
Reading
next page.
2 Split the studentsinto threesand ask each group to choosetwo of the TEVEL
readings to illustrate with frozen scenes (group sculptures). Give -
Beginner
them ten minutes to prepare and to rehearse. elementary
3 Four or five groups then presenttheir scenesto the whole class. TIM E
l5-30 minutes
RATIONATE
Most of the texts offeredto low-levelstudentsare 'realistic'but'unreal'. MATERIAtS
A dialogueabout buying a railway ticket is realistic in the sensethat this Onecopyof the
is something the student may one day want to do via English.In the Szkutnikreadings'
:eal,becauie the student is not at that moment going for eachstudent
on a journey.A lot of beginners'workis incessantrehearsalfor some pREpARATI0N
hazy future reality. The text choice in this unit is literary and will affect Askthestudentsto
'gut'way. There is every reason preparethe readings
some studentsin a direct, here and now,
to use powerful, person-relevanttext with beginners. It makes the for homework,
languagecome home to them - it makes them feel they lookingup new
- can own the
words'etc'
words and ways of sayingthings.

21
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

The Szkutnikreadings
S e p a ra ti o n
I a m h e re .Y o ua r ether e.Her eandther e.You and l. A longway apar t.
A ri ch p e rso n
I a m a ri chp e rson.I haveplans.I havehopes.I havedr eam s.lt' s a pi ty
th a t I h a ven o money,no tim e and no ener gy.
Y o u h a v en o t i m e
S o w e w o n 't me ettoday.You can' t.You haveno tim e. Somethingv er y
i mp o rta n t.I kn o w,som ethingmor e im por tantthan me.
Go o d b ye
Go o d b yeB . e h a ppy.For getme. Don' t wr ite. Don' t think.Don' t c om e
b a ck.B e h a p p y.Goodnight.
I d o n 't w a n t to change
I a m si mp l e .Y o u ar e differ ent.You want m e to change.But I don't
w a n t to ch a n g e .I want to be as I am. I don' t want to be a scien ti s t.I
d o n 't w a n t to b e a m anager I. don' t want a car eer .. . I only wa nt to
h a veti me fo r th i nking.
l 've l o st my g l a sses
My w a tch h a s stopped.My com passis br oken.I' ve lost m y gla s s es .
l 'm i n a d e se rt.A lone.I thinkit' s calledthe Sahar a.
Y o u kn o w w h a t I m ean
S h e h a s su che yes.I can' tdescr ibethem. She blushesin sucha w ay ,
yo u kn o ww h a t I m ean.And shesm ilesin sucha way.And shewal k si n
su cha w a y. I fe e l . . . I can' tfindthe wor ds.

@ L o n g ma nGro upUK Ltd1990

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The texts are all taken fromThinhing in English(Szkutnik1986).

22
 LANGUAGC
E ONFIDENCE

THEOAKANDTHEIVY 1.18
ln class TANGUAGE
FOCUS
I Ask each studentto tear the four sheetsof paper into eight half pages.
Writing
2 Tell the group you and they are going to work silently for a few
minutes writing letters to each other about whateverthey like. Each T E V E L
letter is to be addressedto someone in the group, and should be Post-beginner *
signed. When a student finishes a letter they deliver it. A person
T I ME
receiving a letter is free to answer it or not. Join in the writing
20-4i0minutes
exerciseyourself.
3 The exerciseis hard to bring to a close.Peopleget involved. MATERIATS
Four A4 sheetsof
RATIONALE paper for each
In order not to interfere with the trusting, easy, natural modelling student
process it,is vital that the teacher should have the confidencenot to PREPARATI ON
venture correctionsof the student'sletter. If you do correct such letters None
you are encouragingaccuracy at the cost of adventurous,innovative use
of language.You are also tampering with the natural flow of the
correspondencebetween you and the student. For this exercise it is
better to be a nurturing parent than a censoriousone.
In your correspondenceyou are the oak and the student is the ivy.
The linguistically weaker writer naturally twines round the stronger
one's text, borrowing, testing and trying things out. This is a totally
natural and uncontrivedcommunicationsituation.
I wrote to a student, Antonio, about how he was feeling after four
weeks in the UK (l was not the regular class teacher) and also how he
was feeling about being away from his businessin Spain.This was his
reply:

lJ ear, !?( an io ,
J'ttr trotAt Aeq.e im Euq{o*14 a^/ l
{md t+2 ,^f qubf aL{ aometi,mttI
4e0<uu4u mtL couut4Q 4tut 71ot mt+
h,atinwt .lrrlooou J li.n* that jo
tnurt q,orl+$a& to /pain an/ I
{^/ hnofie4 f uue ffiU.bu,navt.

T*r. AnfouLa
Fig. 4

23
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

I wrote back to him and used these three abstract nouns in my letter:
quietness,relief, bustle. In his answer, writing both naturally and
unconsciously,Antonio used the words I had offeredhim:

Dean 7( attic -

Gubfnu ca/n4e a/rtq tA€ afmo,at&rn

d,n/ arct oz% lAe patua( Xu mut
u
c(ue |'rn uuru .nefiz/ 4.e,r"-;,ft
Enaft,^d ltulo li'*, tL-t aflte,n|'m
*hq fu zlTaain X bno,.,, tAa't I
"r,r*ti 1uu* luvti
/wo( o/ W a,Hl
lJoun't tnattut

U*n Afianw
rtg. c

He uses quietnesscorrectly, while the other two refuse to fit neatly into
the grammar frame he puts round them. It doesn't matter. He uses the
words confidently to say what he wants to say and his inter-language
has been given a nudge forward. Adequate grammatical digestion of the
words will come later.

VARIATIONS
Rather than write letters in class you can write individual letters to
students, with them and you doing it as homework. This has a powerful
modelling effect and it can be very humanly satisfying. We have found
that each letter takes about fifteen minutes to deal with. so it is
important to calculate how much time you personally want to give to
the exercise,but it is usually quicker and more enjoyablethan marking
homework.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We learnt the in-class letter writing from two colleaguesat ESIEEin
Paris, Mike Gradwell and Krys Markowski. They picked it up from
therapy practice. The variation is an idea from Writing, Maths and
Gamesin the Open Classroom(Kohl 1977).The idea is also outlined
in Writing (Hedge1988).

24
 LANGUAGE
CONFIDENCE

FROMBEHINDA MASK 1.19

PREPARATION L A NGU A GE
As homework, ask each student to write between forty and fifty things F0CUS
about themselves between the ages of five and fifteen. Tell them this Writing
materialwill be private. LEVET
Lower
tNcLAss intermediate *
I Suggestto the group that novelists often draw on experiences from
T I ME
their own lives to create characters.Ask each student to create a new
Preparation:60
character based on the elementsthey drew from their own life and to
minutes
imagine the situation the character is in. The students are to write In class:60-90
about their characters in any way they wish. minutes
2 The writings are shared round the group.
MATERIATS
RATIO]IIAIE None
Some students are blocked if asked to write directly about themselves,
despitethis being the bedrock of their experience.In this techniquethey
are asked to write about a character external to themselvesbut who is
created from within their own personal experience.The character they
create acts as a mask. Masks bring some people a great deal of
confidence- iust think of carnival time!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this idea from Travis Venters at the JALT convention in Kobe,
Autumn 1988.

HARDSITUATIONS
ROLEPTAYING 1.20
ln class TANGUAGE
I Ask each student to give examples of things they find hard to do in FOCUS
English.Here are some of the things our studentscame up with: Conversation
I answeringthe phone LEVET
r makinginternationalphone calls Elementary
*
r giving their opinions in front of other people
r explainingagainwhen the first explanationwas unclear T I ME
r maintaininga long conversationwith a native speaker 3Gs5minutes
2 Explainto your studentsthat one way of coping with linguistically MATER;AIS
hard situationsis to rehearsethem in role play. fuk for a volunteerto None
role play one of their own fearedsituations.
There are two ways of running the role play: P REP A R A T ! O
T'I
a Havethe protagoniststudent choosesomeonein the group to play None
the other person in the conversation.At the beginning of this
processthe two of them will have to reverseroles severaltimes so
that the helper student finds out how to play the role assigned.

25
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

b Have the student sit opposite an empty chair. when they are on
their own chair they are themselves.when on the other chair, they
are the other person.The studentshifts back and forth.
In both these role play formats, encouragestudents in the group to
make their languagesuggestions,but to make them 'in role' by going
behind one of the speakersand speakingas that speaker.In this way the
protagoniststudent feels the help and support of others in the group.
Here is an exampleof how this situation can work.
one of our students wanted to go and visit her boyfriend for the
weekend. She knew her parents would be phoning and wanted her
landlady to say she was not available without saying where she had
gone.Shefelt embarrassedat askingher landladyto lie to her parents.

VARIATIONS
Roleplays can be used to rehearsea difficult situation.They can also be
used to help a student gain new understandingof a hard situation they
have been through.
we watched such a role play in an ESL context in west London. A
Bengaliboy had been accusedof losinga valuablebag of plumbing tools
by his instructor at technicalcollege.The instructor was very angry and
the boy felt he had been wrongly accused.In the ESLclassthe boy role
played the instructor and was partly able to see things from his point of
view. The role play and the support of his classmateshelpedthe student
to come to terms with this negativeexperience.

NOTE
This exercise is particularly relevant to students on courses in an
English-speakingcountry.

26
CHAPTER2

Examsand tests
What stops you feeling confident? Being judged, being isolated and
feeling you have no control over what's happening to you. This is
exactly what happensto students taking an exarn.As teacherswe do our
best to equip our students with the languageto pass exams and we all
have tips ready and spend time with students tryrng to alleviate the
worries that students have when faced with exams.And we've all been
through them ourselves.In this section we offer techniquesto help you
to continue to help your students.
ln Good exams (p.27) studentsare askedthrough a simple question-
naire and writing exerciseto tell each other their exam experiencesand
break down the isolation they may sometimes feel.Studentsset an exom
(p. 32) asks the students to have a go at writing their own exam
questions.By doing so they can get a clearer view of the processthey
have to go through and so feel more in control. Finally, offering the
students a chance at self-assessmentin The confidentplacement test
(p. 36) givesthe studentsan alternativeto being judgedby others.

GOOD EXAMS 2.1

In class IEVEt
Give out the questionnaireand ask each student to complete the Lower
intermediate *
sentencestems either as themselvesor as someonethey know well
who likes exams- a brother, sister,a friend. T I ME
Get the students to form threes and compare their completed l5-25 minutes
sentences.
MATERIATS
3 Each student then chooses someone else's sentencethat thev llKe
One copy of the Good
and puts it up on the board. exams questionnaire
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT for each student
Annie oakes used sentencestemslike theseat Eurocentrein preparing pREPARATI0N
studentsfor the Cambridgeexams. None

27
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

Good examsquestionnaire
E xa msa re

Mv best examwas

My fu n n i e ste xa mwas

I ca n re me mb e an
r examwhen

My mo st su rp ri sing
examwas

It w o u l d b e g o o d if exam swer e

I w o u l dd o b e tte rin examsif

E xa msi n E n g l i shshouldbe

@ L o n g m a nG r o u pU K L t d 1 9 9 0

2.2 EXAMANXIETY
IEVEt PREPARATION
-
Lowerintermediate
advanced
Find a nervous person who, despitetheir anxiety, is willing to speak to
your classon a topic of their choice.
T I ME
40minutes In class
MATERIATS The speakertalks to the class for ten to fifteen minutes.The speaker
None is thankedand goes.
Ask the group what they noticed about them. Elicit from the class
what gave away the anxiety, the stress, the nervousness.Look at the
gesture,stance,eye movements,voice.
Ask the classto work in small groupsand bring back to mind test and
exam situations in which they have felt nervous. Also ask them to
explainhow they did or did not cope with the situation.

NOTE
One of the scary things about examsis the feelingthat you have to face
the problem alone. This exerciseallows studentsto share with others
and realise that others also go through parallel emotions. Sometimes
studentsoffer each other excellenttips: in one class a twenty-year-old
French girl describedthe final oral in her travel agency exams.There
were two examiners,both of them professionalsfrom the trade. She
imaginedboth of them sitting nakedon the lavatory.This vision melted
her tensionaway and she got properly into her stride!

28
 EXAMSAND TESTS

A BADEXAM 2.3
ln class rEvEr
I Give out'The rainy day' and ask the studentsto learn it by heart for l;or}r"J"o,u,"
*,
the next class.Tell them to get it word perfect- there will be a test on teachertrainees
it.
2 In the next class have all the students sit either facing the walls or TIME
facing the back of the room. Bring out four victims to sit at the front of 30-40minutes
the class,facing the front. One by one they recite the poem to the MATERIAIS
blackboard.
3 You mark them out of 100.Take off thirty marks for not finishing the ff;J:riJ-:l,rn"
recitation within a thirty-five second time limit. (lt is hard to fit a rainyday'foreach
decent reading into thirty-five seconds.)Take off marks accordingto student
the followingmarkingscheme: 'RE'ARAT.'N
Words omitted or wrong: 5 marks None
Words mispronouncedor wrongly stressed: 4 marks
Hesitations: 3 marks
Omissionsofsattheendofwords: l0 marks
Passmark: 50
4 Ask the classto resumenormal seating.Announcethe victims' scores
and write up your markingscheme.A discussionshould ensueon the
absurdityof this test and its markingscheme.

The rainy day

T h e d a y i s c o l d ,a n d d a rk,a n d d re a ry;
, n d t h e w i n d i s n e ve rw e a ry ;
I t r a i n sa
T h e v i n es t i l lc l i n g sto th e mo u l d e ri ng
wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
An d t h e d a y i s d a rka n d d re a ry.
M y l i f e i s c o ld ,a n d d a rk,a n d d re a ry;
It rainsa , n dt he w i n d i s n e ve rw e a ry ;
My t h o u g h t ssti l lcl i n gto th e mo u l d er ing past,
B u t t h e h o p eso f yo u thfa l lth i cki n the blast,
A n d t h e d avsa re d a rka n d d re a ry.
B e s t i l l ,s a d h e a rt!a n d ce a sere p i n i ng;
B e h i n dt h e c l o u d si s t h e s u n s t i l ls h i n i n g ;
T h y f a t e i s t h e co mmo nfa te o f a l l ,
I n t oe a c hl i f eso me ra i nmu st fa l l ,
S o m ed a y smu st b e d a rka n d d re ar y.

@ L o n g m a nGro u pU K L td1 9 9 0

(f rom The Poettcal Works of Henry H. Longfellow 1982 Suttaby and Co.)

29
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

RATIONALE
In preparingstudentsfor examsand tests it is essentialthat they realise
how odd and arbitrary these are. Studentsoften do realise, in quiet,
unexpressedways, but it does good to bring these feelingsout into the
open. Among the hundreds of thousands of German Abitur students
penalisedfor omissionof third persons there must have beensome who
wonderedwhy this particular slip should be considereda mortal sin by
their teachers. When professionalsact in seemingly arbitrary and
irrational ways it is important that their clients/victimsshould reach a
mature understandingof this.

2.4 DEALING CHOICE

WITHMULTIPLE
LEVEL ln class
Intermediate *
I Give out the sheet of ten sentencesfrom the June 88 First Certificate
TIME in EnglishReadingComprehensionpaper. Ask the students,in pairs,
20-30minutes to choosethe items the examinersexpectthem to choosebut to also
pick out all the other possibleones and to provide contexts in which
MATERIATS
they would be possible.Givethe group theseexamples:
A copy of the June88
FCEexamsof the a l 'd ra th e ryo u yourdog outside.
decontextualised A leave B left C leaving D to leave
multiplechoice
sentencesof the sort C and D are grammaticallyimpossible.B is the one the examiner
you get in the wants becausein the grammar of EFL.I'd rather. . . is followed by a
CambridgeFirst stem * ed f.orm(past). A is not what the examinerwants but is quite
Certificatein English possible;the registeris direct and fairly familiar.
OIN
PREPARAT b How of you to bringpresentsfor everyone!
None A g ra te fu l B hopeful C successful D thoughtful
The examiner is expecting the answer to be D for two reasons:i)
thoughtful slots into the phrase with the neatnessof a clich6; ii) a
studentwho thinks thoughtfulmeanspensivewill not chooseit.
ButHorl hopefulof you to bring presentsfor eueryonecould well be
said by a sarcasticspeakerwho feelsthe presentsare being offeredto
curry favour.And C might be said by a sarcasticspeakerto a person
who normally forgetsto offer peoplepresents.
2 When the students have picked the items the examiner wants and the
other possible-in-contextitems, bring the group together and com-
pare notes.

RATIONALE
This way of dealingwith decontextualisedmultiple choice sentencesin
class allows the students to evaluate the examination paper. It puts
them in a position of power over the paper. It trains studentsto realise

30
 EXAMSAND TESTS

that, though the examiner only wants one choice, the languageis a
much more open systemthan the exaln.
You will find that the firm reasonsfor ruling out a particular multiple
choice item are either grammatical or collocational. If the choice is
mainly semanticthere are often contextsin which two, three or even all
the items will fit.
This critical way of viewing past papers in class enablesstudentsto
have a much better go at pleasingthe examinerin the exam itself.

FCEJune 1988
1 I ' l lc o m e o ve rto l u n chw h e n | - typingthis r epor t.
A h a v efi n i sh e d B w i l l h a vefinished C hadfinished
D h a v i n gfi n i sh e d

2 l ' d r a t h eryo u - yo u rd og outside.

A leave B left C leaving D to leave

3 Did you remember- the letters.

A post B havingposted C to post D to haveposted

4 | can pronouncethat word but I can't- it.

A mean B sp e l l C d e scr ibe D say

5 Susanlooked to see who had come into the office.

A for B after C up D out of

6 How of you to bringpresentsfor everyonel

A grateful B hopeful C successful D thoughtful

7 lt was very kindof you to bringme flowers,but you

havedone it.
A don'tneed B n e e d n 't C hadn' tto D oughtn' t

8 | returnedhome to - some papersI hadforgotten.

A take B b ri n g C g a th er D fetch

9 lt was hot yesterdaybut today's hotter.

A more B l e ss C e ve n D also

1 0 T h e y ' r e- a rri vi n ga t six o' clock,but we don' t know

w h e t h e rth e y'reco mi n gb y co a c hor tr ain.
A a b s o l u te l y B su re l y C pr esently D cer tainly

o f C a mb ri d gLeo caE
@ U n i v e r s ity l xam inations 1988
Syndicate

31
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

2.5 STUDENTS
SETAN EXAM
TEVET
Post-beginner * (the
In class
example given is LESSON1
upper intermediate) I Explain to the students that you are giving them a reading passage
TIME with comprehensionitems but without the multiple choice compo-
Firstclass:20-30 nents.Ask them to work in threes and to invent their own sets of four
minutes multiple choice components;one is the correct answerand the other
Secondclass:15-20 three are distractors. Do one with the class to make sure everybody
minutes has the task clear.
MATERIATS
2 The studentsproduce five sets of multiple choice items.
A readingpassage LESSON2
with test itemsbut I The studentsdo each others'tests.Compareresults.
without multiple 2 Let the students compare their items to those originally set by the
choicecomponents-
the one offeredhere
Cambridgeexaminers.
is taken from
CambridgeFCE,June RATIONATE
1988 By creating a part of an exarn paper the students put themselvesin the
examiners' shoes. They are simultaneouslygetting one over on the
P RE P A R A TOI N
examinersand empathisingwith them. Studentsenjoy the exercise in
Studentsneed
experienceof past the same way that play-goerslike going behind the scenesand seeing
paperswith reading things a bit from the actors' point of view.
comprehension
multiplechoice VARIATIONS
questions If you normally write an end-of-month test for your students, why not
hand it over to them? Divide the class into, say, five teams and ask each
team to createone fifth of the test.You take in their work and correct it.
The students then all sit the four fifths of the test that they did not
create.Eachteam marks their fifth of the exam.
Writing their own test is a major way of getting people to revise the
work they have recently done. In the frame proposed you have to check
the tests created by the sub-groups,but you save yourself the drudgery
of writing a test and of then correctingthe students'papers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt the variation above from Jean-PaulCreton (SeeBibliography
for detailsof publishedwork.)

32
 EXAMSAND TESTS

FCEreading passage
N o t e so n Yo u r N e w D ri vi n gL i ce n ce
1 W e ( l i k eo th e rco u n tri e si n th e E u r opean Comm unity) ar e now issuingnew- lookdri v i ng
. u rl i ce n cei s i n th e n e w- stylebut ther ehasbeenno changeto the dr iv i ng
l i c e n c e sYo
licencegroupsor durationof licences.Old-stylegreenlicenceswill stayvalidup to the date
shown on them. Theywill not be replacedbeforethat date unlessa new licenceneedsto
b e i s s u e d(e .9 .fo l l o w i n ga ch a n g eof addr ess) .
2 Pl e a s ec h e ckth e l i ce n ceca re fu l l y.lf you thinkever ything is cor r ect,signit in inkan d put i t
i n t h e w a l le tp ro vi d e dso th a t th e nameandaddr esscan be seen.lf you thinkanythi ngi s
w r o n g ,p l ea sese n dth e l i ce n ceb ackto the Depar tm ent, statingwhat you thinkis w r ong.
Y o u rl i c e nceru n sfro m th e d a te you asked for it to beginor the dateyourvalidapp l i c ati on
reachedthe Department,if later.
3 Wheneveryou telephoneor write to the Departmentaboutyour licencealwaysgiveyour
D r i v e rN u mb e r,w h i ch i s o n th e frontof the licence.The Dr iverNumberhelpsus to fi nd
your record.lt containsthe first five lettersof your surname,your date of birth in coded
f o r m a n dth e i n i ti al e tte rso f yo u rfor enam esplusotherchar acterwhich
s ar e uniqueto
y o u .M a k ea n o teo f yo u rl i ce n cedetailsbelowin caseyou losethe licence. Thenkeepthts
l e a f l e ti n a sa fe p l a ce .

Fees
T h e f e e y o u h a vea l re a d yp a i dw i l l coverthe cost of allfutur er enewals.But you will needto
pay a fee for:
r a d u p l i c a tel i ce n ce ;
r r e m o v i n ge n d o rse me n ts;
r a d d i n gp ermi ssi o to n ri d ea mo to r cycle( asa lear ner ) .

Whatis the leafletfor? Youmustpayextraif you

A A
B B
c c
D D
Driverswho haveold-style The leafletis for peoplewho
licences have
A A
B B
c C
D D
3 T h e l i c e ncesh o u l db e
A
B
c
D

s y n d i c a t e1 9 8 8
@ U n i v e r s i t yo f C a m b r i d g eL o c a lE x a m i n a t i o nS

33
 T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

Ouestionsset by FCEexaminers
1 W h a t i s t h e l ea fl e fo
t r?
A t o t e l ly o u ho w to a p p l yfo r a n e w licence.
B t o g i v em o rei n fo rma ti oanb o u tth e new licences.
c t o b e u s e da s a d ri vi n gri ce n cei f the or iginaris r ost.
D t o e x p l a i nth e n e w tra ffi cl a w si n the EuLr opean comm unity.
2 D r i v e r sw h o h a veo l d -styl el i ce n ce s
A m u s t e x c h a n g eth e m i mme d i a te lfor y new- stvlelr cences.
B m u s t a p p l yfo r a n e w -styl el i ce n cebefor ethe dateshown.
C w i l l r e c e i vea n e w -styl el i ce n cei f they move house.
D s h o u l dw r i te to th e D e p a rtme nfo t r a new Dr iverNumber .
3 T h e l i c e n c es h o u l db e
A r e t u r n e dt o th e D e p a rtme nat fte ri t hasbeensigned.
B r e t u r n e dt o th e D e p a rtme nitf a n y i nfor mation iJ incor r ect.
C renewedeveryyear.
D k e p tw i t h t he si g n a tu revi si b l e .
4 You must pay extraif you
A r e n e wy o u r l i ce n ce .
B b u y a n e w ca r.
C t a k eu p m o to rcycl i n g .
D havea roadaccident.
5 T h e l e a f l e ti s f or p e o p l ew h o h a ve
A s p e c i al i c en ce s.
B o l d - s t y l el i c e n ce s.
C new-stylelicences.
D l o s tt h e i rl i c e n c e .

@ Un i v e r s i toyf c a mb ri d g eL o ca E
l xa mi nations
syndicate
19gg

2.6 INVISIBLEPICTURES
TEVET In class
Post-beginner
+
I Ask studentsto bring to mind a picture that they know very well _ it
T I ME could be a snapshot,a poster, a book illustration - the main thing is
l0-15 minutes their familiaritywith it.
Group them in threes, A, B and c. A has a timed two minutes to
MATERIATS
describetheir picture to B and c. B and c are askedto listen and only
None
intervene if they really don't understandthe speaker.The listeners
PREPARATION then get another timed two minutes betweenthem to describe to A
None the way they imagineA's picture.
Usingthe sameprocedure,B and c describetheir pictures.

34
 EXAMSAND TESTS

RATIONATE
This is specifically useful in preparing for the oral section of the
CambridgeFCEexam.In this exam,candidatesare askedto talk about a
picture the examinergives them. In the exerciseabove you have them
describea powerfully familiar picture - the need to talk is provided by
the fact that the listenersdo not have the picture in front of them. The
absence of the physical image facilitatesvisualisationon the part of
both speakerand listeners.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this exercisefrom John Morgan (SeeBibliographyfor details
of publishedwork).

SPEED WRITING 2.7

ln class tEVEt
Lower
I Lead the group in an energy raising, one-minute physical exercise intermediate *
(seeChapter4 p.47).
2 Tell them to sit down and to write for four minuteson a topic you give T I ME
them. This is a competition to see who can write the most words in 30-40minutes
four minutes. The words must be in meaningful sentences.Time M A T E R I A T S
them. Then ask them to add up their words and shout out the None
numbers.
3 Lead the group in a second short physical exercisethat relievesthe P R E P A R A T I O N
tension of fast writing. Ask them to write again,this time for a timed None
three and a half minutes.Tell them to write about anythingthey like.
They add up the words and shout out the number.
4 Give them a final three-minute speed writing stint. This time pre-
scribea topic.
5 Ask everybodyto revise their three bits of writing and read them to
their neighbours.
6 The first time you do this exercise, allow time for feedback.The
exerciseappealsto some studentsa lot while others will dislike it.

RATIONALE
For some students a bout of speed writing at the start of a written
composition exam is an excellent way of Ietting ideas come up from
below spontaneously.The techniquestops studentsthinking about what
might go wrong and loosens constraints.The concentration involved
freesstudentsfrom the nervesof those around them in the exam room.
This is the casefor some students,not all.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this techniquefrom KatiePlumb.

35
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

2.8 SHARING THEMARKS

LEVEL In class
Beginner
*
Explainto the studentsthat you want them to revise for the next class
MATERIALS test in groups of three. Organisethem, if possible,so that there is a
None good, an averageand a poor student in each threesome.Explainto the
studentsthat althoughthey will do the test individually,each person in
PREPARATION
a given threesomewill receive the averageof their own mark and the
None
marks of the other two, e.g.if A gets60%0,
B 400/oand C 270/oeach of them
will receive 42.330/0.

RATIONATE
This testing system makes helping the weaker students part of the
strongerstudents'self-interest.It reducesthe lonelinessand isolationof
the test situation. It puts the stronger students in an elder sibling
position and shovesthem into a teachingrole. They can often be better
at this than the teacher.
We have met teacherswho cannot acceptthe way this form of testing
subordinatesthe individualto the group.The very idea of it makesthem
see red. Wide acceptanceof this system would go a long way towards
makingsecondaryschoolsless lonely and competitiveplaces.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We heard about this technique from Vincent Broderick who works in
Osaka.The system has been tried in one or two places in Japan.The
idea was also mentionedin PracticalEnglishTeaching(Spring 1988).

2.9 THECONFIDENT
PLACEMENT
TEST
IEVEL PREPARATION
Beginner*
Six large signs to stick on the walls to divide the students into class
T I ME groups, as follows: Very advanced; Advanced; Upper intermediate;
90minutes Intermediate;Lower intermediate;Beginners.
MATERIATS
None
In class
I Assemblethe students(not more than 100)in the largestopen space
you have availablein the school. After welcomings and announce-
ments, tell the students that they have ninety minutes before being
split up into classgroups.For the first thirty-five minutesthey will do
warm-up exercises.
2 Each person from the teaching team then leads a short warm-up
exercise.Theseshould involve movementand plenty of short bouts
of talking with many different people.A classic example of such an
exerciseis Inner circle - Outer circle. Half the group forms a circle

36
 EXAMSAND TESTS

facing outwards (everyoneon their feet); the other half of the group
forms an outer circle facing inwards.
Eachpersonshould have a partner in the other circle. For one minute
the partners introduce themselvesto each other. The inner circle is
then asked to move round two people to the right, while the outer
circle Staysstill. Each person now has a new partner in the other
circle. A minute is allowed for mime introductions; no speaking
permitted.At the end of the minute people are given another minute
to check out the information they have derived from the mimes by
talking to their partner. Four or five rounds of the game are played
with differentcommunicationtasksgiven for each round'
3 After thinty-five to forly minutes of warm-ups, ask the class teachers
'Very
to put up their signs in order round the walls of the room with
'Beginners'at the other. Each
advanced'at one end of the scale and
classteacherstandsbelow the appropriatesign.
4 Explainto the group that they are now goingto choosetheir level and
their class. Explain how important it is that they take time over this
and get it as near right as they can. Also tell them that this morning's
decisionsare not irrevocableand that class changeswill be allowed.
Their task is to go to the level that they think suits them and then to
talk to everybody else who has come to this group and also to the
class teacher.Tell them to take a good half hour over this. Explain
that if they reckon they have chosen the wrong group they should go
either up or down and again start talking to each person in this new
group. The responsibility is theirs. The class teacher's role in this
processwill be to try and get a linguisticallyreasonablyhomogenous
group,but she will also have the ageand sex mix in mind. You and the
other teachersshould be ready to cope calmly with a certain amount
of disorientationand chaos at this point. To many studentsthe whole
idea of placing themselvesis novel and to some quite worrying.
5 Once the class teacherseesthat a reasonablyhomogenousgroup of
the right size seemsto be forming, they may want to do a short oral
exercisewith them to further check their impressionof the students'
oral abilities(see Chapter3, Listeningto people).
6 The studentsgo off to classwith their classteachers.
ADVANTAGES
r The studentstake responsibilityfor their course from the word go.
r The warm-upsand the placementprocessare highly social;this is in
stark contrastto the freezing,deadeningeffectsof written tests.
r The time taken to place studentsis short.
r There is no deadeningmarkingto be done by the teachers.
r This method of placement is about as inaccurate as more formal
testing.Sincesome people come on coursesnot havingused English
for several years while others are in it up to their ears there is no
hope of any first-day placement procedure being accurate. So
accuracyof classplacementshould not be too great a worry, and the

37
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

inevitabilityof classchangesover the first two days of the course has

to be accepted.
r Studentsare free to choosetheir groups using a whole rangeof inner
criteria of which languageability will only be one.
DISADVANTAGES
r In a range of six to eight levelsthe upper and lower groups seem to
form easilybut there is a lot of studentand teacheruncertaintyin the
middleof the abilityrange.
I Some teachers and students are worried at the openness and
informalityof the procedure.
r You can't work this system with more than one hundred plus
students- it gets too unwieldy. If you have two hundred people to
cope with, they have to be processedin two batches.
Barbara,a German teacher of English,came on a languagerefresher
courseat Pilgrims.The thirty teachersinvolveddid a couple of warm-up
exercisesand were then asked to divide themselvesinto two groups:
'Very advanced'and 'Advanced'.The languagetutors left the room for
twenty minutes while this was going on. Barbara placed herself in the
lower group, through both tutors privately agreed that her language
level 'should' have put her in the upper group. They did nothing to
influenceher decision,though they worried about it.
At the end of the two week courseBarbarawrote this about her aims
and her process:
A i m: T o re gainm y self- confidence and my speakingskills.
P ro ce ss: A t th e beginningI felt ver y uncer tainas to the levelo f m y
l a n g u ageskills.I did not want to be too much exp os ed
b e ca useI had not been able to come up to m y ow n
e xp e ctationsfor the pastfiveyear s.Consider ing m y ageand
my d utiesI felt I shouldbe better .But afterthe fir st thr ee
d a ys I felt m or e confidentand did no longer ques ti on
everythinglsaid...'
It was a good thing that we offered no 'obiective'test to force Barbara
into the wrong group for her imageof herself.Shestayed in the 'lower'
group and acceptedthe disadvantages and advantagesof her decision.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This form of testing,which is frequentlyused on Pilgrims Summer
Courses,was first introducedto us bv Lou Spaventa(SeeBibliography
for detailsof publishedwork).

38
 EXAMSAND TESTS

INSPECTED
2.10BEING
While the rest of this chapter aims to help your students when their
work is being scrutinised,this pageis about how you can engineermore
useful ways of having superiors inspect and evaluateyour classes,be
they governmentinspectors,directors of studiesor senior colleagues.

THEINSPECTOR SUBSTITUTE.TEACHES
Ask the inspectorto teachyour class,while you take a free period. Brief
the inspectorcarefullybeforehand.
After the lessonspendhalf an hour with the inspectorso that they can
find out all the things they now want to know about the class and
individualstudents.
During this interview the inspector is comparing their genuine
experience of teaching with your own. How better can they get an
untrammelledpicture of you teachingthis particular group?They have
not sat in the back of the classroom,pretendingto be unthreateningand
in fact upsetting all the normal patterns of the group.

THEINSPECTOR TISTENS TOAN UNSEEN LESSON

Ask the inspector to meet you after one of your classes.Spendhalf an
hour uninterruptedly reporting exactly how the lesson went, how you
feel about the students,how this lessonfits into the sequenceof lessons
you have given,etc. The inspector'stask is to listen as empatheticallyas
they can, trying to see things powerfully from your point of view. Since
they did not see the lessonthey are relativelyunburdenedby their own
preferencesand prejudices.With luck you will feel yourself talking to a
senior friend rather than to an avengingangel.

NOTE
For further thoughts on an inspectormirroring the teacher'saccount of
'A
a lesson see Rinvolucri'sarticle Role SwitchingExercisein Teacher
Training' in Modern EnglishTeacher(Spring 1988).

39
 -

CHAPTER3

Listeningto people
You're in a crowded room, with lots of conversationsgoing on at once.
Over a deafeninghubbub of voices you're managingto listen to the
interesting words of the person you're chatting to. Suddenly your
attention switchesto the far side of the room. Someonehas whispered
your name.Maybethey're gossipingabout you or paying you a compli-
ment.You want to hear.And you can.
It's clear that listening is about more than understandingthe words
that are used. In this chapter we try to deal with the other aspectsof
successfullistening - paying your best attention, empathy with the
speaker,observation,feelingyou are being respected,having space for
peopleto listento you. Whenwe say to ourselves'nobody ever listensto
me' we don't mean that they don't understandthe words we use. The
exercisesin this section are about listening not to languagebut to
content,not to tapesbut to people.

3.1 MONOLOGUE
ONE-MINUTE
TEVEL ln class
*
Post-beginner
I Pair the students and explain that each of them will have sixty
T I ME secondsto speakto the other. The topic is open. Explainthat after the
15-20minutes paired monologuesthey will report one thing the other said to the
whole group. During each monologue the listener is to respond
MATERIATS
without speaking.
None
2 Ask them to decide who will speak first. Time the first minute. When
PREPARATION it's over ask the secondspeakerto start, againfor sixty seconds.
None 3 Each student reports one thing said by their partner to the whole
group.

RATIONATE
Offeringa time limit to a person speakinga foreign languagewill often
reduce their anxiety.It can't be that bad if I only haue to speak for a
minute.
The exerciseas outlined above is good a) as an ice-breakerand b) as
a way for you to gaugethe group's mood. For both these purposesit is
good to leavethe topic open.

VARIATIONS
I You can also use the exerciseto focus studentsin on a topic or on a
significantarea of it. Supposethe theme proposedby the coursebook
you are using is 'pollution',you could usefullyorganiseone-minute

40
 LISTENING
TO PEOPLE

monologueson 'wayspeople in my family pollute the environment'.

2 We have also used the exerciseas a preparationfor oral exams.
3 After you've done this exercisetwo or three times for one minute and
the students have got used to the format, gradually increasethe time
limit to two minutes,then three, then four. This is an excellentway of
providing fluency work for beginner/elementary classesor classesof
a higher level who find extendedspeecha problem.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We first came across this type of exercise through a co-counselling
course run bv FenellaButler.

REPORTED CONVERSATION
SPEECH 3.2
ln class LEVET
Post-beginner
+
Pair the students and invite them to have a conversation on a topic of
their mutual choice. A starts talking. Before B can interveneand make TIME
the point they may want to make, they have to paraphrase/repeatwhat A l0-15minutes
has just said. B should start off with a reporting verb and continue
MATERIATS
without backshift: You said you feel a bit anxious about these exams
None
because.. . B then carries on the conversationuntil A wants to interve-
ne. This interventionis precededby a repetitionof what B has just said, PREPARATION
and so on. None

RATIONATE
Exercisesin reflective listening like the one above allow students to
notice the other person from the other's point of view, a full and
stimulatingexperience.

VARIATIONS
You can introduce this kind of reformulationprocedure into a traditio-
nal debate.The first speakermovesthe motion: This housebelieuesthot
Thatcherismmakes the poor poorer. When the person opposing the
motion stands up to speak, their first task is to summarise the first
speaker'sideas to their satisfaction.They then proceed with their own
speech.The third speaker,secondingthe motion, has to summarisethe
oppositionargumentsto the opposer'ssatisfaction,etc.
It has beenseriouslysuggestedthat this procedurewould removefifty
per cent of the areas of disagreementat superpowernegotiations.The
suggestionis that fifty per cent of their disagreementsare mis-readingof
the other side'swords.

41
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

3.3 PUTTING DOWN

PEOPLE
TEVEL ln class
Lower
intermediate *
I Put these'modelconversations'upon the board:

T I ME
A: Nobody careswhether I am dead or alive.
B: I do, I wish you were dead.
15-30minutes
MATERIATS
A: I don't know enoughwords.
B : Oh, you meanvocabulary.
None
2 Pair the students and ask them to produce a couple of 'put-down'
PBEPARATION
None
dialogueslike the ones above in which B is hostile to and totally out
of tune with A. Ask them to practisesayingthem convincingly.
3 Get the pairs to play the dialoguesto the whole group.

RATIONALE
This exercise focuses on empathetic listening by having students
explore its opposite.You may want to use it in conjunction with more
conventionalactivitiesfrom this section.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this exerciseand the one that follows at a workshop on 'Six
CategoryIntervention Analysis' run by James Kilty and Sharon Kilty,
from the Universitvof Surrev.

3.4 WHO. ..
I AMA PERSON
LEVET ln class
*
Post-beginner
I The studentswork in pairs and one of them speaksfor four minutes
T I ME while the other listens without interruption. Each of the speaker's
20-30minutes sentencesopens with: / am o person who .. . You time the four
minutes.
M A T ERI A t S
2 The listening students then have four minutes to reproduce (not
None
necessarilyin the same order) all the sentencesproduced by the
PREPARATION speaker.The reproduction should be in the first person so that they
None are acting as a mirror to the speaker.You can expect the listener to
remembernearly all the sentences.
3 Repeatthe exercisewith the roles reversed.

RATIONATE
This is a very simple exercisethat boosts students'confidencein their
own powers of recall. Peopleare amazedat how much they are able to
remember.
The insistentrefrainI am a personwho .. . stronglyaffirmsperson-
hood.

42
 L I S T E N I NTGO P E O P L E

If the speakeris poorer at the target languagethan the listener,some

effectivelanguagecorrection takes place when the listener feeds back
the sentences,effectivebecauseit is usuallyunintentionaland therefore
unthreatening.

ANSWERING
WORTH
OUESTIONS 3.5
ln class LEVET
Post-beginner
*
I Ask the studentsto work in threeswith A facingB and C. For a timed
minuteA asksB and C as many questionsas they can on a topic given TIME
by the teacher.B and C's task is to listen and rememberas many of 10-15minutes
-
the questionsas possible.They do not take notes.The topic could be ''ATERLA*S
you as a student,you as a worker, you as a family member.
. l\one
",.
2 B and C then have three timed minutesto answerany of A's questions
they want to. A's task is to listen to the answersattentivelyand PREPARATION
without interruption. None
3 Repeatthe exercisewith B and then C taking on the questionerrole.

RATIONATE
This exercise combines attentive listening with medium term remem-
bering. If, as A, you have askeda stream of questionsand B and C have
rememberdand decidedto answerseveralof them, you feel confirmed.
By answering,they are validatingyour thinking. It enhancesself-esteem
to feel that anotherpersonhas listenedto you carefullyand botheredto
rememberwhat you said.

THEOUESTIONS
CONTROLLING 3.6
ln class tEvEt
I Workingon their own, studentsjot down twelverolesthey haveor l-"",L1"1"0,","
*
had in life, e.g. sister, Iacrossecaptain,comforter,colleague,aunt.
This list is private to each person. TIM E
2 From the twelve roles, ask them to choose six they are willing to 20-30minutes
share information about. They write two questionsaddressedto MATERTALS
themselvesabout each of the six roles.The questionsshould be ones N'ne
they can give interestinganswersto.
PREPARAT
3 A s k t h e m to w o rki n p a i rs,sw a p pingquestionnair es,sothatAputsB' s I0N
questionsto B and vice versa. None

43
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

RATIONATE
This is one of a number of exercisesaround the interrogativeforms in
which the person answeringthe question controls the content of the
question. It is a self-disclosureexercise in which the subiects have
plenty of time to decide how much to show of themselves.Having
control tends to breed confidence.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We first encounteredthis type of activity in Caring ond Sharing in the
ForeignLanguageClassroom(Moskowitz1978).

3.7 HEADCHATTEB
tEVEt ln class
Lower
I Pair the students and ask A to speak for ninety seconds on a topic
intermediate t_
chosenby B. It must be a topic A feelshappy with.
TIME 2 While A talks, B has a pencil at the ready. They make a mark on the
l0-15minutes paper every time they think of anything that leads them away from
what A is saying. This could be a train of thought started by A's
MATERIATS
speech,it could be a backgroundnoise and an associationwith it, it
None
could be a totally unconnectedown thought.
PREPARATI ON 3 When A finishesthe minute and a half, B tells A all the distractions
None and sidewaysthoughts they have had.
4 Repeatthe exercisethe other way round.

RATIONATE
To share with another the degree to which you find it hard to follow
their train of thought establishesa basisof trust.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt the exerciseabove from Mike Lavery (See Bibliographyfor
detailsof publishedwork).

3.8 THEOTHER
DESCRIBING
tEVEt ln class
lntermediate +
Pair the students.Tell them they are going to spend seven minutes
T I ME observingthings about each other, imaginingthings about each other
l0-15minutes and checking out if their observation and imagining is felt to be
accurateby the other person.
M A T E RI A I S
A starts off and after a few secondsIookingcarefullyat B, might say:/
None
obserueyou looking upwards and tapping your foot. I imagine this
PBEPARATION meensyou ore feelinga bit bored and embarrassed.After each of A's
None statements,B either affirms by nodding or disagreesby shakingtheir

44
 LISTENING
TO PEOPLE

head.B does not need to use words for this.

3 They then work the other way round, with B observingA. They do as
many rounds of observing and imagining as they can in the seven
minutes.
4 Allow time for peopleto discussthe exercisein their pairs or in larger
sub-groups.

RATIOttIAtE
This kind of work enhancesgroup cohesionand allows peopleto break
through an embarrassmentthreshold. The first time you do this exercise
there is likely to be a certain amount of self-consciousness and silliness.
For some it may be the first conscious introduction to the world of the
non-spoken.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
'Six Category Intervention
We learnt this exercise at a workshop on
Analysis' run by James Kilty and Sharon Kilty from the University of
Surrey.

OFLISTENING
THEPOWER 3.9
t E V Et
ln class Teachertraining
While all the other activities in this chapter are aimed mainly at helping T I ME
studentsto become better listeners,this one is for sensitisingteachers 50-60minutes
to arguablythe most important part of our trade: empatheticlistening.
The aim of this training sessionscenariois to introduce the concept of MATERIALS
listening to the person and not simply to the messageat its surface level. None
I Ask people to work in groups of three. Tell them to spend thirty to PREPARATION
sixty secondsbringing to mind everydaylife situationsin which they None
take pleasure in listening, in which listening is not a strain or an
effort. Give them an exampleof your own. Explainthat each person
will speakfor ninety secondson pleasurablelisteningsituations- the
task of the listeners is to pay as much attention as they can, to stay
with the speakerand not to get sidetracked.The listenersmay want to
prompt the speakerbut it is vital they help them to follow their train
of thought, not the listeners' own. Each person will have a ninety-
secondturn at speaking.
2 Ask each group of three to choose the first speaker.Each person in
the group speaks for ninety seconds,which you should time accu-
rately. Start and finish everyoneat the same time. Then ask every-
body to spend three to five minuteswriting a diary entry on how well
or badly they listened, on what stopped them listening,on the bits
that were easyto listen to, etc. Tell them the diary will be private.

45
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

3 The trainees now make new groups of three. They spend thirty to
sixty secondssilently bringing to mind how they organisetheir own
listeningin class.Again model,tellingthem some of what you do to
organiseyour listening in class. Now ask them to speak and listen
again, following the same system as above. Then ask everybody to
spend three to five minuteswriting another private diary entry about
how they felt as speaker in both the above sessions.Did they talk
equally to both listeners,how much did they feel attendedto, what
physicalindicationsmade this plain to them?
4 Now form new groupsof three.Ask them to think of instancesin their
everyday life in which intense empathetic listening has a strong
positive effect on those round the listener. Offer the group an
example from your own life. The trainees again speak and listen in
three sessionsof ninety seconds.They write a diary entry on what
they feel about this odd form of timed counsellinglisteningthey have
beenengagedin.
5 Each person now picks a partner of their choice and goes off for a
feedbackwalk and finally, the session ends with a general plenary
discussion.

RATIONATE
By listeningfully to students,teacherscan give them added confidence
- the messageis clear: I am reolly paying attention becousewhat you
are saying is ineuitably significant ot one leuel or another.

VARIATIONS
We have used the same frame with languagestudents.We askedthem to
speakabout the followingthemesin four'rounds': childhood,teenage,
middle age, old age. The diary suggestionwas that they should briefly
note down the ideas in the two other people'sspeakingthat had most
interestedthem after the first session- the last diary entry was about
the feelingsthe exerciseleft them with. The frame is a useful one with
uneasylate teenageclasses.Everybodyspeaks- some people listen for
some of the time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Both the content and the processof the teachertraining exerciseis with
attention listening. You are doing and reflecting on precisely the same
thing. We found this concept hard to grasp when we first met it. Here's
another example: PENTA SYLI--A,BIC has five syllables and means five
syllabled.The form of the word and its meaningcontent are identical.
We learnt the idea of applying two-levellednessfrom Models and
Metaphorsin EnglishLanguageTeoching(Woodward 1990).

46
CHAPTER4

Energyfrom others
Discipline problems with secondary school children often stem from
their desperateneed to move, stretch and rechargetheir batteriesafter
Iong periods of sitting. As languageteacherswe need to bear people's
physical needs clearly in mind. In this section you will find plenty of
usefulexercisesfor teenagers.
Teachingadults between8.00 prra and 10.00PMcan be an uphill grind,
with you and the studentsdrooping further and further into exhaustion.
Ten minutesspent doing one of the exercisesin this sectioncan change
the mood in the group and give them back their desire and ability to
learn. There is no point in ignoring student fatigue and ploughing on
through your lessonregardless.
We have used theseenergyraisersas warm-upsat the beginningof a
lesson,as wake-up activities half way through and occasionallyat the
very end of a class to make sure people leave the group in an alert,
happy frame of mind. Havefun!

RAISERS
ENERGY
OUICK 4.1
tEVEt
In class Beginner
*
r Haveeveryonein the classbreathein and out three times in unison. T I ME
r Have everyonebreathe in through their left nostril and out through 2-3 minutes
their right one and then vice versa. (Even if this doesn't work it'll
make the studentslaugh,which will raise energy.) MATERIAtS
r Clear away all the classroom furniture or go out and find a large None
space. Explain to the students that you are going to play tag, but PREPARATION
instead of having to touch the other person anywhere they have to None
touch the other person's foot with their hand. This is rather robust,
so allow anybody who doesn't want to participateto opt out' Make
sure everyonelooks after their own safety and play for a short time
only.
r Ask the students to push their chairs into a very tight horseshoe
shape and stand on their chair. Explain that the extreme left-hand
chair is the beginningof Januaryand the extremeright-handchair is
the end of December.The students are to rearrangethemselvesin
the order in which their birthdays come in the year but without
gettingdown off the chairs.

RATIONALE
A couple of minutes spent on non-languageactivitieslike the first three
abovewill pay dividendsfor the studentsin subsequentlanguagework.

47
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt foot tag from Meg Bond and the chair exercisefrom Judy
Baker.

4.2 WAVES
TEVEL In class
*
Beginner
I Put the furniture againstthe walls or go out of the classroomand find
T I ME an open space.Ask the students to line up in two rows facing one
5-10minutes another, as far apart as the space allows.
2 Explain that one line are the waters of the river coming down. The
MATERIATS
other line are the sea coming up the estuary. Get the two lines to
None
advance uery gently towards each other, with arms linked, until they
PREPARATION meet in the centre of the space.The two lines gently touch and then
None flow back. Tell them the wind is rising and the waters now flow
together a bit faster - they meet and move back.
3 Repeatthis five to seven times with the movement forward and back
graduallyincreasingin pace until by the end a storm is blowing and
the waters crash together.

RATIONALE
This exercise allows a sleepy group to shake off its lethargy and
experienceits own power. The power is alwaysthere - sometimesit just
needstapping.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this technique from Marcia Kurp, a psychodramatist.

4.3 LOUDCONVERSATION
tEVEt In class
*
Beginner
I Put the furniture againstthe walls or go out of the classroom and find
T I ME an open space.Ask the studentsto line up in two rows facing each
5-10minutes other about a metre and a half apart. Each person should have a
partner in the row facing.
MATERIATS
2 Now ask the studentsto pick a new partner diagonallyoppositethem,
None
two or three places along the opposite row. All the students have a
PREPARATION conversationwith their diagonalpartners,simultaneously.
None

48
 ENERGY
F R O MO T H E R S

RATIONALE
The noise level automaticallyrises and peoplepick up energyfrom
thosearoundthem.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learntthis exercisefrom Andr6Fonck,a teacherwith the Belgian
Officede I'Emploi.

ANDRABBITS
RATS 4.4
t E V EL
ln class Beginner *
I Move all the furniture to the back of the room to leave as much space
T I ME
as possible. Ask the students to make two rows, side by side, about a
5-15minutes
metre apart along the centre of the room. You stand at the head of the
rows. MATERIALS
2 Since this is quite a rough activity, start by asking each student to None
take responsibility for their personal safety. Now explain that the left
PREPARATION
hand row are 'rats' and the right hand row are 'rabbits'. You are going
None
to say Rrrrr . . . rats or Rrrrr . . . rabbits. If you say Rcfs the rats have
to run and touch the wall nearestto them before they are touched by
a rabbit and if you say Rabbits, the rabbits have to rush to their
nearest wall before they are touched by a rat. If a student is touched
they then have to join the other row.
3 When, after a minute or two, the students have got the idea of playing
the game as 'rats' and 'rabbits', change the names of the teams using
the variations listed below.

VARIATIONS
Minimal pairs This activity can also be given a languagefocus. The
teamsare named'pins'and'pens'.You shout out either one of the words
and the appropriate team has to try to reach the safety of their wall
before they are touched. Every time they get on top of the sounds,
rename the teams again - bath/bathe,walklworh, thinhlsrnft,etc.
Wordstress The left-hand team is called 'first syllable stress', the
right-hand one 'second syllable stress'.Examplewords: fourteen/forty,
police/palace,etc.
Right and wrong One team representscorrect sentences,and the
other wrong ones. ExamplesentencesI will going to London,I'ue been
to London yesterday,etc. This works well with sentencestaken from the
students'homework.

49
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

Meaningful and meaningless ExamplesentencesThe roof is open,

The watch is dead,Englishis Germonond French,Teachers(tre going to
be students,Euerythinghas no meaning.

NOTE
This exercisecan be done outside if you haven't got enough room in
your class.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Paul learnt this exercisewhen he was a member of the WoodcraftFolk
(a cooperativevoluntary youth organisation)in the early sixties,but it's
probablymuch older.

4.5 FRUITSALAD
LEVEL ln class
*
Elementary
I All the studentsare seatedin a circle with you standingin the middle.
T I ME Ask each student to choose the name of a fruit. (lt doesn't matter if
20-30minutes some students choose the same one.) They should all say the fruit
they have chosenloud and clear so that everyonehears.
M A T ERI A L S
2 Now sayI'd lihe a fruit salod with .. . addingthe namesof a few of the
None
fruits chosen. All the students whose fruits you have said change
PREPARATION seats and you slip into a seat. This will leave one of the students
'lt' calls out another 'fruit salad'and tries
You need a room strandedin the middle -'it'.
with tables out of the to slip into a seat. Play the game in this simple form for a couple of
way and chairs in a minutes.
big circle round the 3 Ask the studentsto pair off. Their task will be to play the gameagain
room
while observingtheir partner's strategy for getting a chair. Play for
another three to four minutes.Ask the partners to comment to each
other on what they noticed about the other's strategy.
4 In the last round of the galne,ask each personto adopt their partner's
strategywhile continuing to observe their partner, who this time is
trying to behavelike them.
5 The partnerscome togetherto comment on what it felt like being the
other and observingthe other trying to be them.

RATIONATE
This exercise combines energy-rousingmovement and competition
with mental concentration on the partner. If you ask people to do
severalthings at once they will often discoverenergyand capacitythey
did not know they had.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this exercisefrom JoanAgosta(SeeBibliographyfor detailsof
publishedwork).

50
 ENERGY
F R O MO T H E R S

INDIVIDUALS, ANDGROUPS
SUB.GROUPS 4.6
ln class IEVEt
Elementary
+
I Get the studentssitting in a circle. Ask everyonewho is, say, wearing
earringsto get up and form a sub-groupin the middle. Encourage TIME
them to stay in the middle for half a minute or so, maybe to put their 15-30minutes
arms around each others' shouldersand to exchangea few com-
II,,ATERIALS
ments.
None
2 When the sub-group has split up, suggestmore sub-groupsthat the
studentscould form: everybodywho has a cat, who hates writing, PREPARATION
who is good at English,who doesn't like standingin the centre, who None
hasn't stood in the centre yet, etc.
3 After you've suggesteda few categories,hand the exerciseover to the
students,getting them to suggesttheir own categories.Each time a
group forins, encouragethem to have a brief conversationand also
encourage the students who are left sitting down to exchange
comments.

RATIONATE
If students have worked together in the same group for some time,
tedium can develop.In this exercisethey discoverthat they also belong
to subsetswithin the group. A changeplus plenty of movementand you
have raisedenergylevels.

VARIATIONS
Giveeveryonea minute or so and ask them to think of one thing which is
true of them but of no one else in the room. Have everyonesav what
they thought of.

MUTTIPLE TASKS 4.7

ln class tEVEI
Elementary*
I Ask the students to work in pairs. They are going to have a five-
minute conversation about anything they like. But one of them is TIME
going to take on a secondarytask, which is to spend the first minute 5 minutes
or so of the conversationmaintainingeye contact with their partner.
MATERIAIS
When they are satisfiedthat they are doing this they should then
-orNI
l\one
continue to maintain eye contact cnd observewhat their partner is
doing with their hands. If and when they feel they are doing both PREPARATToN
thesetasksas well as maintainingthe conversation,they should then None
observetheir own hands as well.
2 When you have explainedthe exerciseto the students,ask them to
decidewho is going to take on the extra tasks.Then ask them to start
the conversation,explainingthat you will time them.

51
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

3 The primary aim of this exerciseis to establishrapport betweenthe

students.You could then, however,go into the processof the exercise
by askingthem, say, how it felt different from a normal conversation
or how well they did the observationtasks. This exercise is also a
good cue for a discussionon eye contact and body language.

RATIONALE
In this exercise, the students are asked to do up to four things
simultaneously:converse,maintain eye contact, watch the other per-
son'shands,watch their own. If peopleare tired, askingthem to do a lot
more than they would normally do will often draw them out of their low
energystate and leavethem revitalised.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This exerciseis taken from The Structureof Magic (Bandler and Grinder
1975).

4.8 STOPPING THESTORY.TETLER

LEVEL ln class
Lower
Explain to the group that you are going to try and tell a story - they
intermediate *
are to stop you by asking as many questions as they can about the
TIME I story. You must answereach questionand try and keep the narrative
10-20 minutes moving at the sametime!
MATERIATS
For homework,ask three or four studentsto come ready to tell stories
None
of their own.
3 In the next lesson,havetwo or three peopletell their storiesto half or
ON
P RE P A R A T I a third of the class.The listeners'task is the same as it was during
Bereadyto tell an your telling.
anecdote/story
RATIONATE
This technique provokes higher energy levels - voices rise. If the
questioningreally getsgoing as a fast game,a lot of aggressionis let out
playfully, and the story-teller's adrenalin flows. Some colleaguesare
temptedto use the techniqueas a group revengemechanismby picking
story-tellersfrom amongthe most dominant studentsin the group. This
can be dangerous.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this idea from Andr6 Fonckwho works for L'Officede I'Emploi
in Belgium.

52
-

CHAPTER5

Giuingstudentscontrol
This is perhapsthe most complex and challengingsection of the book,
as the basic proposal is the democratisationof the classroom,a social
system very close to the authoritarian family or to a monarchical
system.Studentplanning commitees(p. 56) suggeststhe handingover of
courseplanningto the studentgroup,while Negotiatingdiscipline(p. 55)
proposes that the group decide for itself what its behavioural norms
should be.
The complexity lies in the students'individual, competingneedsand
the difficulty of sensitive inter-student negotiation.Just how different
learnersare from one another becomesclear if you do the exerciseson
Sharingleorningrhythms(p. 59), andThebrilliance of one'soun process
(p.58).
In many ways, turning over the planning of the course content to
studentsis still a fairly superficialtransfer of power as so many hidden
things go on in a group in which peoplesit and move and work together.
Exercises like Peer opinions (p. 68) and What do they want from me?
(p. 66) are an attempt to get studentsto becomemore awareof some of
theseunder-the-surfaceprocesses.
A very useful book to read in parallel with trytng some of these
exercisesis Freedom to learn for the Eighties(Rogers 1983).

STUDENTS'RIGHTS
OUESTIONNAIRE 5.1
ln class LEVET
Intermediate f
Pre-teachany vocabularythe studentsmay not know, photocopyand
give out the questionnaireon the next page. T I ME
Ask each person to read the items and tick the appropriate boxes. 30-45minutes
Every fifth item is blank. Ask the studentsto fill in an assertionor a
MATERIATS
right.
Onecopy eachof the
Group the studentsin threes or fours to comparetheir feelingsabout Students'rights
thesestatements. questionnaire

PREPARATION
None

53
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

Students'rights questionnaire
A : STRONGLYAGREBE: A G R E EC : N E U T R A '
D: DISAGREEE: STRONGLYDISAGREE
1 | havethe rightto haveforgottenthings.

2 | havethe rightto rnsistthat I get what I payfor.

3 | h a v et h e r i g h t o d e m a n dt r a n s l a t i o ni nst om y m o t h e rt o n g u e .

4 | h a v et h e r i g h t o m a k em i s t a k e s .

I havethe rightto ask Englishspeakers

to respectmy culture.

I h a v et h e r i g h t o s p e n ds o m et i m e e a c hd a ya s I w i s h .

8 | havethe rightto choosemy teachers.

9 | h a v et h e r i g h tI o m y w a v o f p r o n o u n c i nEgn g l i s h

10
'11
| havethe rightto cometo classlate,or not to come.

1 2 | h a v et h e r i g h t o b e h e a r dw h e n l w a n t t o s a ys o m e t h i n q .

13 I havethe rightto choosewhich levelclassI am in.

14 | havethe rightto tell otherswhat I am feeling.

15

16 I havethe rightto my own space,on which no one may impinge.

17 | havethe rightto useany kindof dictionary

| want.

18 | havethe rightto an explanation

of anyactionthat affectsme.

19 | havea rightbothto do and not to do homework.

21 | havethe rightto set my own priorities.

22 | havethe rightto say/y'oto requestswithouthavingto explain.

2 3 | h a v et h e r i g h tn o t t o k n o wt h i n g st h e t e a c h e hr a st a u g h tm e .

24 | havethe rightto be treateddifferently

f rom otherstudents.

25

@ L o n g m a nG r o u pU K L t d 1 9 9 0

54
 G I V I N GS T U D E N TC
SO N T R O L

DISCIPLINE
NEGOTIATING 5.2
ln class LEVET
Beginner
+
I Over the first ten to twenty hours of a course,a number of discipline
problemsoften come up. Somewe have noticed are: T I ME
r Iack of punctuality l5-30minutes
r problemsover who sits near whom MATERIA tS
r yawning,stretching,fidgetingto show boredom,restlessess,etc. None
r absenteeism
I rude use of the mother tongue(in multinationalclasses) PREPARATION
I use of dictionariesthe teacherconsidersinefficient,etc. None
List the discipline problems you have noted in your class, with the
help of the students.Tell them you are going to leavethem for a few
minutesto allow them time to decidehow theseshould be sorted out.
Tell them to call you back when they have reachedtheir decisions.
2 Offer the group a free-of-you negotiating session whenever there
seemsto be a need for this.
3 Followinga group decision,you and the group have to abide by it. As
teacher, you enforce such decisions until such time as there is a
further group decisionto changethe rule.

RATIONATE
Givingstudentscontrol of what, how, when and why they do something
is an obvious way of increasingtheir confidence.Peoplewho complain
of 'sick building syndrome' speak of having no air, no light, of it being
too hot, etc but more importantly they mention lack of control - being
free to open a window is more important to a student than hyper-
modern air-conditioningand may prevent a build-up of frustration.For
example,beforehandingover responsibilityfor disciplineto the group, I
used to spend a lot of time and energy coaxing, training and finally
forcing students to use English-Englishdictionaries. The first time I
handedthis decisionover to them, the group decidedto use translation
dictionariesfor the first month of the three-monthcourseand then all to
use English dictionaries.At the beginning of the second month they
changedthe previous decision:people could use either sort of diction-
ary as they wished.At that time I felt their seconddecisionwas a wrong
one, but I had to accept it. If you don't want to obey group decisions
then don't offer the studentsthe power to negotiaterules.

55
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

5.3 STUDENT PLANNING

COMMITTEES
TEVEL In class
+
Beginner
I Offer the classthe best, most appropriateand varied programmeyou
T I ME can for the first hours of the course. The group need to know what
15-45minutes you are capableof. At a symbolicallysuitablemoment (the end of the
first week on an intensiveUK course,at the end of the first month in a
M A T ERI A L S
system like the Germanadult educationsystemwhere studentshave
None
a lessononce or twice a week) announcethat, at their next meeting,
PREPABATION the group will become an executivecommittee or Student Planning
None Committee(SPC):They will review the work done so far and decide
how they want the programmechangedover the next weeVmonth.
2 On the day of the SPC,tell the group you will leave them to their
deliberations for between fifteen and thirty minutes. They should
come and get you when they are ready. You will want clear instruc-
tions for the following week/monthwhen they call you back into the
classroom.They are to considerboth content and methodology.
3 Whenyou are recalled,take notes on the group's decisions.
For example,there were twelve people in my upper-intermediateUK
group. For four of them this was their sixth SPC,for eight it was their
secondtime. Two of the learnerswere in their fortieswhile the rest were
of universitystudentage and background.
The decisionsthe group took were for the five classesthe following
week:
r Pleasecontinuewith the interviewswith native-speakersin which we
take notes on special expressions and words they use - two
mornings.
r Pleasedrop the grammar book we have used for the last two weeks
We need grammarbut use other exercisesor anotherbook.
r The story-writinglast week was good - one morning on that again.
r You are free to offer us what you decideon the fifth morning.
This group gave me a clear plan for the following week - it took them
fifteenminutes.They had decidedon their own content and, in part, on
the methodology to be used. The process was clear, public and
contractual.

PROBLEMS OFINTRODUCING SPC'S

When the teacher first proposes the system, most students do not
believe their decisions will be loyally implemented. SPC's can be
dominated by one or two vociferous students.Many teachers experi-
ence fear when introducedto the idea of SPC's:
r fear of being got at
r fear of being forced to do things they don't want to
I fear of the changeof rapport with the studentsthat SPC'sentail
However, if real in spirit and letter, SPC'soffer a revolution in
classroomrelationships.The studentsbecomejoint organisersof the
work done. They achieve a staffroom relationshipwith the teacher.

56
 G I V I N GS T U D E N TC
SO N T R O L

This proposalconflicts with the great bulk of most students'previous

educationalexperience.

Sue Leather (Director of Studies at CambridgeAcademy of English)

writes about her problemsintroducingSPC's.
A l t h o u g hI h ad b e e nte a ch i n gfo r a n um berof year s,I had neverr eally
'u n co l our ed' feedback
s u c c e s s f u l lm y a n a g e dto g e t fr om my students.
I n o w r e a l i seth a t th i s w a s b e ca u seI had never thought into the
dyn a m i c sp r op e rl y.I h a d ma n y sta b sat it: the usualthings- sugges-
t io n b o x e s ,g r a mma rp o i n tso n th e w all,evenaskingstudentsdir ectly
what they enjoyed,and why. lt is easy to kid yourselfthat you are
ask i n gf o r f e ed b a cka n d fo r su g g e stions, when all the time you ar e
reallyprotectingyourselffrom these very things. Not only that, but
studentsqlsohavetheir own camouflage. . .
Using the crt'ticade c6tedra* was a definite move in the right
di r e c t i o n T. h ere a re tw o a sp e ctsto it for me: 1) technical,and 2)
att i t u d i n a a l ; sp e ctsw h i cha re ve ry much inter linked.
The most importanttechnicalpointsare that:
a T h e s t u d en tsca n o rg a n i seth e i r own discussion once givenguide-
' We w a n t cri ti q u eo f this week and mar chingor der sfor
l i n e s ,e . g . a
next week'.
b Two teachersworkingtogetheris betterthanone alone- it prevents
s t u d e n t sf r o m g a me -p l a yi nagn de ncour ages an adult- adultinter ac-
tion.
c Y o u a v o i dg e tti n g i n vo l ve di n th e discussionstage,even thr ough
eye-contact.
T h e a t t i t u d i naalre a ,th o u g ha b so l u tely is m or edifficultto
fundam ental,
d e s c r i b ea, n d ce rta i n l y mo re d i ffi cu l to
t achieve:
a Yo u a r e t o ta l l yo p e nto cri ti ci sm- this im pliestr ust,sinceyou m ust
f e e lt h a tt h e yw i l l n o t b e u n ki n do r tactless,at leastnot pur posefully.
b Yo u d o n o t re a ctto cri ti ci smo r su ggestions eitherby open hostility/
r e j e c t i o nor b y sh o w i n g a p p ro v al( this is mor e difficultthan it
s o u n d s ! )Yo . u d o th a n kth e m fo r theircomm ents,andshow thatyou
a p p r e c i a te th e i rh e l p .
c Yo u a c t u p o nth e i rsu g g e sti o n s.
A l t h o u g hI d o n o t fo o lmyse l fth a t my studentsalwaysfeeltheycansay
ex a c t l yw h a t th e y w o u l d l i ke to , I do feel that they have gained
c o n f i d e n c ei n th e va l i d i tyo f th e i ro w n judgem ents.
Theyhavecer tainly
b e c o m e p r o gre ssi ve lby o l d e r i n th eir r equests!| have gainedthe
c o n f i d e n c eo f kn o w i n gth a t I a m n o less a teacherfor hear ingthe
c r i t i c i s m so f my stu d e n tso r fo r kn o wingthat I will not r eactbadlyto
t h e i rs u g g e sti o n s.
* The first time we know of SPC'sbeing used was in C6rdoba,Argentina
in 1917.The term used there was cr{ticade cdtedra.

57
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

SPC'slN SEC0NDARY
EDUCATI0N
We know of concrete examplesin the Canariesand in Denmarkwhere
planningthe work aheadhas been successfullynegotiatedwith secon-
dary school learners.

5.4 OFONE'SOWNPROCESS
THEBRILLIANCE
tEVEt ln class
Lower
I Put up the copies of the texts in the corridor outsideyour classroom.
intermediate *
Ask the studentsto go outsideand choosetwo or three passagesthey
T I ME like. They are then to transcribe them in the classroom.They can
45minutes make as many journeys as they like between the corridor and the
classroom.They may not take writing materials into the corridor.
M A T ERI A t S
While this is going on, observehow people read, walk and write.
Sixor sevencopieso{
a pagewith six short 2 At the end of the transcription exercise,when people have checked
variedtexts on it, to their texts with the texts on the walls,tell them some of the thingsyou
cater for different have observedabout the way they read, walked and wrote. Explain
tastes that this is what is outwardly observable,but that you would like to
find out what each person'sinner processwas.
PREPARATION
3 In the processdiscussion,peopletend to usevery vaguelanguagelike
None
I read the text and memorisedr7.Ask the speakerto make words like
memorisemore precise.Did you seeit with your mind's eye or hear it
with you mind's ear? Did y.ou mumble the text as you walked?Did
your way of doing the toskchangeas the exercisewent on? Wasyour
way of walking affected by the rhythm of the sentenceyou were
mentally carrying?etc. The best way of running the discussionis to
get one student to describetheir process in some detail and then to
get someone with a very different process to speak. Many people
seemto expect that everybodywill have done the task the sameway
as them, so realisingthe differencescan become quite exciting.The
whole point of this activity is to become aware of how thrillingly
different people are from one another and that there are umpteen
'right'ways.

VARIATIONS
I The idea of a processdiscussioncan be applied to any activity. Ask
each studentto write a five-sentencestory includingthesekey words:
tree, child, goat. ln small groups they read the stories to each other.
Then ask them to be specific about the process of the writing. This
could involve expressingsome of the ideas that did not go into the
story, how they built the five sentencesup, the side thoughtsthey had
as they wrote, doubts about language,etc. Sometimesyou achievea
greater respect for other people when you realise how originally
differentthey are from you.

58
 GIVINGSTUDENTS
CONTROL

2 During his last Bristol seminar, Caleb Gattegno asked the trainee
group to take the word signatureand seehow many other words they
could make with the letters in the word, e.g. nog, gnat, sign,neture,
etc. He gaveus about sevenminutesfor the task and then askedus to
make explicit the mental processeswe had been through. As you
would expect, there was a fascinatingvariety. This workshop was in
Autumn 1987and Dr Gattegnodied in July 1988.

SHARING LEARNING
BHYTHMS 5.5
ln class LEVET
Beginner*
This exerciseis useful some way into a course, two thirds of the way
through a course or at the end of a course. TIME
I Ask each student to draw a graph. The horizontal axis representsthe 40minutes
time from the start of the course until now. The vertical axis
MATEBIALS
representsthe intensity and quantity of the student'slearning.
None
2 Ask students to get together in groups'of six to eight and compare
their learninggraphs.It may be worth highlightingcertain graphs on PREPARATION
the board for the whole group to look at. In our experiencestudents None
are often amazedat other people's rhythms and frequently take heart
from hearing about them.
In a UK languageschool an Italianstudentcame up with the graph in Fig.
6 at the end of a month's study. The graph in Fig. 7 was produced by a
twelve-week-staystudent from Turkey.
Bagak,from Turkey, explainedthat she had almost given up about two
thirds of the way through her course until, one day, she iust decidedto
pull her socks up and start making an effort to learn again.This greatly
cheered up the ltalian who felt that her own learning curve over the
previousten days had been steadilydownwards.
In this case,the sharingof rhythms offereda saddenedstudenta new
and better way of looking at her feelings.Sometimesa student'sgraph
Fin E
"J"

=
6ot

>*
P : :

oo
c

Length of course

15November 16 December 26 Seotember 16 December

59
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

suggestsa pattern that appliesto many people in the group, as with the
nine month graph in Fig. 8 (the dashed lines on the graph represent
short holidays).
This student said:For the first three monthsI studied hord. I tooh the
exam in June.During the term I was not oware of any specialprogress.
WhenI came back at the end of June,I knew I had improued.I felt the
same after my Septemberholiday.
/
Fin R

,E

1,=

\=
>lY
a:
c)-
c

Lengthof course
March June September December

5.6 EXAGGERATING STEREOTYPES

CULTURAL
TEVEL ln class
Beginner*; relevant country for a couple
Once studentshave been in an English-speaking
to studentsstudying 'stupid questions'about
in an English- of weeks,ask each of them to iot down ten
speakingcountry their culture that they get asked again and again by foreign people.
Ask the studentsto form small groups to sharethe questions.
T I ME Open up a discussion on how people cope with and parry the
l5-30 minutes stereotypesthat the questionsimply. One of our Turkish studentsgot
MATERIALS fed up with Spanishstudents in the school asking him: Do you houe
None cars in Turkey or do you still ride on camels? His response was to
humorously inflate the Turkish stereotype:1Vo,we don't really lihe
PREPARATION driuing cars.My family liues in downtownIstanbul and my father has
None a stable with 100camelsin it. Eachsummerwe ride the camelsocross
the desert to Mecca. If my father con't get enough time off from his
business,then we toke a mogic carpet!
You are likely to find that quite a number of students have evolved
equally ingenious ways of rebutting stupid projections on them and
their culture.

RATIONATE
Living in a foreignculture and speakingthe foreignlanguagefor most of
the day is a considerablestrain for some people. The languageclass-

60
 GIVINGSTUDENTS
CONTROL

room is the natural place to let off steam about the oddness,hostility
and racism of the host society. Openly dealing with this tangentially
dealswith the similar hostilitiesbetweenthe nationaland racial groups
within the school,e.g.Arabsand Israelis,Chineseand Japanese, etc.

5,7
CHANGE OFVIEWPOINT
TEVEL
ln class *
lntermediate
I Have everyonesit alone. Ask each member of the group to choose TIME
one aspect of their present learningsituation they are unhappywith 30-45minutes
or that they know can be improved. Ask them to bring this aspect to
mind and think of a few examPles. MATERIALS
2 Write the following sentenceson the board and ask each person to None
complete the sentences.Make sure that everyoneunderstandsthat PREPARATION
what they write will be confidentialunlessthey wish to revealit. None
It's difficuIt for me to
I'm goingto try to
I can't
One day I'll
I'd like to
I can't stand
when each person in the group has finished, give them a few
moments to consider what they have written. Then give them the
followingalternativebeginnings:
It's a challengefor me to
I'm goingto
I'm sure that
SoonI'll
I know that I can
I won't stand
4 Ask the group to rewrite their original sentenceswith the above
beginnings.When they have finished, make it clear that they can
amendany sentenceswhich do not work for them or for the grammar
of English.
5 Finally ask how people feel. Peoplewill generallysay they feel much
better and most people will want to talk about their thoughts in a
positiveway.
This exercisecan be used equally validly with a teacher development
group. I did this exerciseon a day I was feelingvery negative(not to say
racist) about a group of students.My sentenceswere as follows:

61
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

It's difficult for me to understandSwiss.

I'm going to try to educatethem.
I can't seemto like them.
One day I'll get to the bottom of this.
I'd like to be interestedin them.
I can't stand them talking about money.
They became:
It's a challengefor me to understandSwiss.
I'm going to educatethem.
I'm sure I'll (get) to like them.
SoonI'll get to the bottom of this.
I know that I can be interestedin them.
I won't stand them talking about money.
I felt better!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this techniquefrom John Syerand ChristopherConnolly.They
acknowledgethe EsalenInstituteof Californiaas their source.

5.8 CREATING ATMOSPHERE

A GOOD
LEVET BEFORE CLASS
*
Elementary
Bringto minda successstoryof yours.It can be somethingvery minor
T I ME likesolvinga smalltechnicalproblemor it couldbe a majorlife success.
30minutes Bereadyto tell it to the group.
MATERIALS
None
ln class
Tell the group your successstory. Givethem some thinking time and ask
P R E P A R AOTNI
them to come up with successstories of their own. Find out how many
Bepreparedto tell a
peoplehave such storiesready to tell. Ask thesepeopleto work in small
storyto the group
groups with people who have not yet thought of any. Don't pressurise
the people who can't recall successstories fast. Once the small groups
get going, many studentswho could not at first remember stories find
them coming.

RATIONATE
Evenfor studentswho don't like studyinglanguages,it is warming to be
askedto speakof their successesin other fields.Focussingon pleasur-
able things may make even the languageclassseemmore palatable.

NOTES
For a few students,being askedto think about successesbrings failures
to mind. This is a risk vou have to take.

62
 GIVINGSTUDENTSCONTROL

NOW?
WHATAREYOUFEELING 5.9
ln class LEVEL
Post-beginner
*
I Ask each person to think of one adiectiveto describe exactly how'
they are feeling right now. They may need to use dictionaries.They T I ME
should not tell their adjectiveto peopleround them. Once everybody 5-15minutes
has got an adjective,everybodystandsup. M A T E RI A L S
2 Saya few adjectives, e.g.sleepy,afrgr!, sad,excited,etc. The students None
sit down as soon as you hit their adiective.When half the students
have sat down, stop calling out adjectivesyourself and ask the seated PREPARATION
studentsto take over the adjectivecalling. None

RATIONATE
It is a sign of confidencewhen studentsare willing to say how they feel
at a given,inoment.Sometimesjust the sayingwill lightena bad mood in
a group.

VARIATIONS
You can use the sameexerciseframewith differentcontent.
Telling the time: Studentssit down when you shout out the time they
got up (twenty-fiueto six/twentyto sixla quarter fo stx, etc.)
Gerunds: Studentssit down when you have called out somethingthey
once wanted to do but never got round to doing (cross-countryskiingl
skin-diuingllearning the uiolin, etc.).
Names: Studentschoosean adiectivewhich starts with the same first
letter as their first name. This is a good way of check that everyone
knows each other's namesa few days after a course has started.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this exercise at a psychodramaworkshop led by Barbara
Tregear.

CONGRATULATIONS 5.10
ln class tEVEI
+
Post-beginner
I If the level of the group requires it, pre-teach I congratulateyou
on . . . -ing or other noun phrase. T I ME
2 If possible,get the group sitting or standingin a circle. Congratulatea l0 minutes
couple of people on somethingabout them. Get them to acknowledge M A T ERI A L S
the congratulation by thanking you with eye contact. People then None
congratulateeach other round the circle and acknowledge.To some
the exercisewill seemstrangeat first and you may have to cope with PREPARATION
somegiggling. None
The same techniquecan be used with a colleaguegroup in the context

63
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

of a staffmeetingor a teacherdevelopmentgroup meeting.What follows

is Katie Head'sdescriptionof this exercisebeing used among teachers
at the CambridgeEurocentrein the context of a developmentgroup:
Mo ra l eh a s b e e nver y low this ter m . l' ve beensuffer inga bit m ysel f-
fe e l i n gI w a sn 'tco pingwith the job as well as I usuallydo. Forall ki nds
o f re a so n s,p e o p lear e not feelinggood abouttheir wor k. Ther e' san
'a tmo sp h e re '
a b o utthe place.
We h a ve d e ci dedto talk about m or alethis week in our Teac her
D e ve l o p me nse t ss ion.Janiecame,she' s one of our supplyteach er s ,
a n dsh e h a p p e n e d to be ar ound.Ther ewer e eightof us in the gr ou p.l t
w a s Ja n i ew h o star tedus off. Shesaid,' W hy don' t we beginby goi ng
ro u n dth e ci rcl ea n deachsayingone thingwe' ve donethisweek wh i c h
h a sma d eu s fe e lgood?'
It w a s su rp ri s inglydifficult,at the end of a day' s wor k in an
a tmo sp h e re o f l o w m or ale,to castthe m indin sucha positivedir ec ti on,
b u t e a ch o f u s i n tur n managedto focus on somethingthat had
b ri g h te n e dth e w eek, even if it was only washingthe kitchenflo or !
AlreadyI felt better.
'N o w ,'
Ja n i eco ntinuedto take contr ol.Jokinglyshe war nedus w e
' W hat
mi g h t n o t fi n d th e next activityver y easy. I thinkwe shoul ddo
now is go roundand say somethingnice about every other personin
th e g ro u p .P a ya complimentto eachof your colleagues. And - thi s i s
ve ry i mp o rta n -t acceptyour com plimentswithout em bar r assment;
d o n 't g e t u n co mfor table just becausepeoplear e sayingnice things
a b o u ty o u . '
P e o p l ew e re h esitant.I was intr igued,cur ious,a littleuneasy .W e
took time to think about what we wanted to say. After a pause,
H e a th e vo r l u n te e red to kickoff. I don' t r em emberwhat she saidab out
me , b u t I kn o w it was som ethingnice, gener ous,and abov e al l
g e n u i n e l yme a n t; and it made m e feel good about my r ole in the
sch o o l .
We e a chto o k o ur tur n; nobodywas compelledto speak,but mos t
w a n te dto . I fe l t g ood aboutwhat the otherteacher ssaidaboutm e. I
fe l t e ve n b e tte ra boutbeingableto tell eachof them how and wh y I
a p p re ci a teth d e m. In just a few m inutesthe m ood of the gr oup had
ch a n g e dco mp l e tely.W e had ar r ivedtir ed, tense, pr essur ed;n ow
p e o p l ew e re l i ste ning,shar ing,suppor tingand affir m ingeach other 's
stre n g th sa n d q u alities, as colleagues and teacher swor kingtoge ther
fo r th e sch o o l .
Wh e n th e b e l l rang at 4.15, we r etir edto the staff r oom. Usu al l y
p e o p l eca n 't w a i t to get away at the end of the day, but today they
sta ye da ro u n dT . h e m oodwas r elaxed,suppor tive, optimistic. W e had
cre a te da mo me ntumwhich dr ew other s into its or bit. ldeas w er e
fl yi n ga ro u n d ,p e oplewer e talkingpositivelyabouttheir wor k, ab out
th e sch o o l a , b o u tthem selves.
We co u l d h a ve spent the Developm entsession' ;oicinga lis t of
g ri e va n ce sth a t a re contr ibutingto the low mor ale in the sch ool .

64
 GIVINGSTUDENTS
CONTROL

I n s t e a dw e fo u n d a w a y a s i n d i vi duals to br eakout of the pr evailing

mood of despondency and focuson the bettersideof everybody'sjob.
, r ca n w e all lear nto give each other the
ls i t j u s t w i sh fu lth i n ki n g o
o c c a s i o n aplat o n th e b a ck?l t re a l l ydoesdo wonder sto r aisemor ale.

NOTE
The experiencesof the CambridgeEurocentre Teacher Development
group are documentedin Deuelopmentfor Teachersnot Trainers(Rees
Miller forthcoming).

GUESSING STRENGTHS
HIDDEN 5.11
ln class TEVET
Elementary
*
I Ask each studentto write one sentencelike this:/ am good at . . . -ing.
Tell them to choosea hidden strengththat most others in the group T I ME
do not know about. 20-30minutes
2 Divide the class into two teams and collect all the sentences.Read MATERIALS
them out twice. Each group then picks a sentencethey think was None
written by a person in the other team. If Team A are right in their
matching of sentenceto person, then that person joins their team. PREPARATION
Team A then has another guess.If Team A guesseswrong then their None
round is over and Team B starts guessing.The aim of the game is to
capture all the opposing team. No one is allowed to reveal their
sentenceuntil it is correctly guessed.

RATIONATE
In some cultures it is quite hard to say good things about yourself - it
feels arrogant and embarrassing.In the exercise the self-assertionis
disguisedby the competitiveteam-gameframe.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt this exercise from MaggieRotherhamwho herself learnt it
from a student.

65
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

5.12 SAYIT NOW

tEVEt ln class
*
Elementary
I At the end of a week, a month or any reasonablepart of a course,
T I ME suggestto the studentsthere are plenty of things we want to say but
15-30minutes do not manageto say when we want to. This is the time to sharesome
of the things they did not say earlier in the course.Set the ball rolling
MATE RIA [S
by telling them three or four things you have held back.
None
2 Ask peopleto write down two or three sentenceseach.They read out
PREPARATION their sentencesand explainabout when they had wanted to say them.
None For example,in an upper-intermediateclass in the UK, Mario told the
group:
r This class is like being on holiday for me, especially after my
beginners'class.
r Sonia'sabsencesfrom classannoy me - illogically I also feel annoyed
when she comesto class.
r I don't like this room stuck up in an attic.

VARIATIONS
For studentsstudying in the UK it can be quite a relief to share in class
some of the things they have wanted to say in their host families,but
which they did not manageto say.
In a teacherdevelopmentgroup we have found people needingto give
open vent to feelingsthey had held back in a previous staff meetingor
union meeting.Say it now can be a real safety valve.

5.13 WHATDOTHEY ME?

WANTFROM
LEVEL ln class
Lower
* I Organisethe class into sub-groupsof ten to fifteen students. Each
intermediate
student takes a sheet of paper and lists the names of the people in
T I ME their sub-group down the left-hand side. To the right of the names
30-60minutes they rule three columns with the headingsbelow (see Fig.9).
M A T ERI At S
Twosheetsof paper W hat I want fr om them
fbr eachstudent
PREPARATION
Name More Less No change
None

c,^

66
 G I V I N GS T U D E N T C
SONTROL

2 Ask the students each to write a word or a phrase expressingwhat

they would llke more of, Iessof or areasin which they want no change
from a givenclassmate(see Fig. l0).
--

Levenf clear ideas smoking hr's

enfhusiasm

Fig. t0

Eachstudentwrites such commentsagainstthe namesof every other

person in their sub-group.
In preparation for the communicative phase of the exercise each
student preparesa secondsheet.The headingthis time is'What they
want from me' (see Fig. I l).

Wh a t th e y w ant fr om m e

No change

Levenf
uanfs
Qiovanna
'
wanfs

Fig /7

4 The students now move around within their sub-group,pairing off

with each person in turn. They find out what each personwants from
them and note it down on their secondsheet(see above).Encourage
them to take as much time as they need on these exchanges.Also
allow time for people to go back and talk to the same people again
once their'What they want from me'sheetshavebeencompleted.

RATIONATE
Confidenceincludes noticing and coming to terms with other people's
positive and negativefeelingsabout you. This exerciseis a mechanism
for allowing this to happen.How honest and open the exchangecan be
dependson the mood and developmentof the group. There are some
groupswe would not use this exercisewith.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The exercise,originally called Role Negotiation,was inventedby Roger
Harrison- we came acrossitinThe RedBook of Groups(Houston 1984).

67
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

5.14 PEER
OPINIONS
LEVET
*
Elementary
In class
I Split the class into groups of twelve to fifteen people.Photocopyand
T I ME
give out the Peeropinions grid on the oppositepage and ask people
60-90minutes
to put their own name at the top and the namesof all the people in
M A T E RI A t S their sub-groupdown the left-handside. They then fill in the 'praise'
Onecopy eachof the column and the 'needsto' column for each of the people in the sub-
Peeropinionsgrid group.
PREPABATION 2 Once most people have filled in the grids, each sub-group chooses
None one of its members and everybody else reads out what they have
written about them. Encouragethe studentsto explain and elaborate
on what they have written. Ask the student in the 'hot-seat' to
acknowledgeeach commentrather than cringingand going under the
table.Allow them to react to their group's commentsas a whole.
3 Don't forget to let the whole class read out their comments on you.
Acknowledgeeach one,includingthe positiveones.

RATIONATE
A mark of confidenceis that you can acceptpraiseboth internallyand in
a social context. The same goes for criticism. People from different
cultures have very different norms in this area and a good follow-up to
this exerciseis to leavetime for discussionof praise-givingand blaming
rules in the students'culture/sand in the target culture.

68
 G I V I N GS T U D E N T C
SONTROL

Peeropinionsgrid

Name
Name S h eo r h e i s g oodat Englishbecause. S h eo r h e n e e d st o .

10

11

12

13

14

15

T h et e a c h eri s g o o da t te a ch i n gb e cause

Sh eo r h e n e e d sto

@ L o n g m a nG r o u p U K L t d 1 9 9 0

69
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

5.15END.OF.COURSE
FEEDBACK
Feedbackby questionnaireis easilyquantifiablebut it is cold, dead and
static comparedto the more interactiveways outlined below.

ANONYMOUS FEEDBACK
The teachergiveseach studenta slip of paper.They ask each person to
write down three positive things about the course and three negative
ones.Studentsare askedto write clearly and not to write their names.
The papersare collected,shuffledand given out again.No one should
havetheir own paper.The papersare read out; anyonemay commenton
what is read, except for the reader, who sSrmbolicallyrepresentsthe
personwho wrote the thoughts.
An administrativeadvantageof this system is that the slips can be
collectedand evaluatedbeyondthe classroom.

STUDENTS DECIDE THEFEEDBACK CATEGORIES

The teacherand the classgroup brainstormthe categoriesunder which
feedbackshould be collected. Each category heading is written on a
large sheet of paper. The papers are placed on tables round the room.
Studentswalk round the room and write their comments under the
headingsdecided by the group. The sheets are read out to the whole
group.

SECRET
INDIVIDUAT
FEEDBACK
Studentsmay feel a need to say particular things to particular people
without these things being made public. They may want private com-
munication with the teacher. The teacher gives out several sheets of
paper to each student and suggeststhey write their feedbackthoughts
to appropriate people in the group. They may also write 'letters for
publication'that are postedon the walls of the room. As soon as a letter
is written it is either posted or delivered to its addressee.People
receivingfeedbackletters are of coursefree to reply.

TETTERS TOYOURSETF
The teacher brings letter paper and envelopesto the feedbacksession.
Each student writes a letter to themself about their feelings and the
course. They address the letter to their home and give the sealed
envelopeto the teacherfor dispatch.
This feedbacktechniqueworks on the correct notion that peopleonly
really know what they have learnt on a languagecourse sometimeafter
it is over. To receivea letter from oneself,written on the last day of the
course,will sometimeshelp with this post-courseinternal evaluation.

LEARNER.PROCESS EVATUATION
The teacher asks the students to come to this last session ready to
describetheir learningprocessover the period of study. A good starter
is to ask them to draw a graph which plots two things: intensity of

70
 G I V I N GS T U D E N TC
SO N T R O L

Iearning,and well-being/trappiness. The teacher'stask in this process

descriptionsessionis attentivelistening.Commentsare not useful.The
focus is on the learneras protagonist,not on the teaching,that for some
may be incidental.

ORALFEEDBACK CIRCLE
The studentssit in a tight circle so that everybodycan see everybody
else.The teacherasksfor feedbackon the courseand explainsthat they
will not give theirs until everybody has spoken. The teacher'stask is
simply to listen openly and to take it in. They passneither verbal, facial
nor gesturalcommentson what the studentstell them.

Paulwrote this about his experienceof the Oral feedbackcircle:

I f i r s t d i d t h i s e xe rci sea s th e l a st hour of a twelve- hourconfidence-
b u i l d i n go p ti o n *.A t th e b e g i n n i n gof the lessonI askedfor a bit of
fe e d b a c kf r om th e stu d e n ts(l re a l lywanted it becauseI wasn' t sur e
h o w t h e c o urseh a dg o n ea n dw h a t changesI neededto makeif I was
g o i n gt o d o i t a g a i n ).A fe w o f th e mor econfidentonessaidwhat they
th o u g h ta n d th e rew a s th e n a l o n g,pr egnantpause.lt was a difficult
a n d u n c o m fo rta b lsi e l e n ceo f th e ki ndthat peopler ushto fill.A student
a s k e dm e w h a t I th o u g h t.B e i n ga teacherI likethe soundof m y voice,
b u t f o r s o m e re a so no n th i s o cca si on( pr obably becauseI r eallywanted
feedbackand was interestedin what everybodyhad to say) | said I'd
s a y w h a t I h a d to sa y o n l y a fte r ever yonehad spoken.i meant it
s e r i o u s l ya n d th e stu d e n tsto o k i t s er iously - ther ewas a bit of panic
f r o m t h e o u i e te rstu d e n tsa n d a retur nto the uncom for tableness of
h a v i n ga s i l e n ce .A fe w mo re students spoke and a few who had
a l r e a d ys p o ke ne l a b o ra te o d r a d d e dto what they had alr eadysaid( at
l e a s tp a r t l ybe ca u seth e y,p e rso n a lly, neededto fillthe silencebut also,
I t h i n k ,t o p r o te ctth e stu d e n ts w h o hadn' tspoken) .
F i n a l l yw, e w e re d o w n to th re estudentswho hadn' tspoken.By now
t h e d i s c o mfo rth a d e va p o ra te ad n d the studentswho spoketo fill the
s i l e n c eh a d sto p p e dsp e a ki n gT. w o wer e gently pr essur ised by the
c o m p l e t e n e sso f th e si l e n cei n to s peaking.Ther e was then a long
p a u s eb e f o reth e l a st stu d e n tsa i d,' l know the studentsin this class
b e t t e rt h a nI kn o wth e stu d e n tsi n m y own class' ".The r emaining bit of
t e n s i o ne v ap o ra te d a n d I th e n w e nt on to say some positivethings
a b o u tt h e c l a s s T . h e l a s ts t u d e n tc o m m e n tw a s g e n u i n ea n d ,I t h i n k ,
n o t m e a n tt o b e o si ti veb u t I th i n ki t was one of the bestcompliments
p
l ' v e e v e rh a dfro m a stu d e n t.
* Thesestudentswere on an intensivecourse in Cambridge,UK. They
had optional classesin the afternoons and this group had chosen a
twelve-hourmini-courseon confidencebuilding.Hencecommentslike:
I know the studentsin this classbetterthan I know the studentsin my own
c/ass.

71
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We learnt the 'Studentsdecide the feedbackcategories'techniquefrom
TessaWoodward.The 'Secretindividual feedback'techniquewas from
Mike Gradwelland Krvs Markowski.

5.16 CONFIDENCETOGOHOME
tEVEt Preparation
Lower
intermediate *; BEFORE CTASS
relevant at the end of Think of timesyou havebeenawayfrom your home place.Whenyou get
courses away from
back, there are probably peopleyou suddenlysee again who make you
home
know you are really back.Thesepeopleare often apparently'secondary'
T I ME people, like caretakers,local shop folk and others strongly associated
minutes
20--410 with place.A'marker' personfor one of our Germanstudentswas a man
she saw through the window each morning pulling his cart to his
MATERIATS
allotment.
None

ln class
I Tell the class about three or four people who make you realiseyou
are back home after a journey.
2 Ask them to work in groups of six to eight and to tell each other of
such people in their lives. (Some will talk about sights, sounds and
smellsrather than people.)Remindthem they will be home in a short
while.

RATIONALE
For some people bridges and transitionsare hard. This exercisedraws
on the power of the group to smooth the transition.For peoplewho have
come to depend a lot on the group it allows them to prepare for its
finishing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We learnt the idea of local people making places real from Sophie
Rinvolucri.

72
-

CHAPTER6

Interuentionsthat haue
worked
Through the rest of the book we have offered you schemesof action,
lesson plans and recipes. This chapter is historical and deals with
specific problems in studenVgroup,studenVteacheror teacher/teacher
relationships.The problems are so specific that it may not always be
possibleto generaliseout from them and thus offer schemesof action
for other days and other places.
Many of the interventions that follow are based on the personal
experienceof the authors.And, as such,they are also a good exampleof
the personaldevelopmentthat is possiblewithin a teacherdevelopment
group. A support group of the type we belongedto enabledus to put
these problems on the table and reduce our isolation as teachers.
Historically, each of the problems outlined in this section had a
particular outcome.
The teacher developmentgroup we attended more than repaid the
time we spenteachweek.We were able to talk over the type of problems
we encountered in our day-to-day teaching in a supportive environ-
ment, get advice and often go away feeling energisedand confident.
Teachersneed their confidencesupportingas much as students.

IN CLASS
DISCUSSION
6.1A STAFFROOM
SITUATION
Paul Davis and Katie Plumb (Both teachingat Eurocentre,Cambridge)
got into a staffroom discussionon how to present the future forms in
English.Katie felt her definition of the forms was differentfrom Paul's.

CONTINUATION
They decided to continue their discussion of future forms in Katie's
lower intermediateclass.Here are their accountsof the event:

PAUL'SVERSION
K a t i eh a st h e fu tu rea s a th e me th i s week. On Tuesdaymor ning,fir st
l e s s o n ,Ka t iea n d I g o i n to h e r cl assand sit near each other at the
te a c h e r ' sd e sk.N o n eo f th e cl a sskn owme ( exceptone)but they know
'Paul
. a t i eg i v e sm i n i m ailn s t r u c t i o n s . a n d I a r eg o i n gt o
a n d l i k eK a t i e K
d i s c u s st h e f u t u r e ,c a ny o u l i s t e n ? ' W es p e n df i f t e e nm i n u t e st a l k i n g

73
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

a b o u t th e fu tu re , Katie' sa bit ar tificialat fir st but only for the fi r s t

c o u p l eo f m i n u t e sW. e m e a n d eor n , s a y i n gw h a t w e t h i n k ,s o m e t i m e s
d i sa g re e i n gq u i te a lot - like a nor m al staff r oom coffee b r eak
d i scu ssi o nWe . 're unselfconscious after the fir st two minutes- w e
p re ttymu ch i g n o r ethe students- they do not ask questions( alth ough
th e re 'sn o re a so nwhy they shouldn' t)After . fifteenminuteswe tur n
to w a rd sth e stu d entswho imm ediately jum p in.Studentssaythings- |
d i sa g re ew i th th e m som etimes,listento other s,gener allytr eatth em
a s I d i d K a ti e .S h e doesn' tinter vene. After a few mor e minutesK ati e
'Shall 'Yes.'
i n d i c a t esso m e t h i n g
to me, lwhisper, l g o ? ' - s h es a y s , I
g e t u p a n d sa y,'B ye'- ver ywar m student' Thankyou - Byeee' .
K a ti esa i dsh e had an excellent,buzzing,studentdiscussionwhi c h
w e n t b e yo n dw h at she and I had discussed. She then followedup by
p re se n ti n gmy fu tur ewor ksheet( shedisagr eedwith it) and they di d
thisin relation t o o u r a n d t h e i rd i s c u s s i oann d K a t i e ' ss l i o h td i s a q r e e -
me n t w i th ma te rialor esented.

KATIE'SVERSION
I t o l dm y c l a s st h a tP a u l w a sc o m i n gi n b u t I d i d n ' t e l lt h e mw h y .W h e n
h e ca me i n I to l d them they coulddo whateverthey liked;ignoreus ,
l i ste n ,i n te rru p t,e tc. W e then star tedto discussthe differ entfutur e
fo rms a n d th e studentsfollowedour conver sation. In the end, I thi nk
o n e o f th e m a ske dus a questionso we star tedto includethem.When
P a u ll e ft th e y w a nted to know which tense it was that we had s ai d
w a sn 't i mp o rta n tfor them at their level ( thatwas what they fo und
mo st me mo ra b l e) .
I th e n a ske dth em to clar ifywhat we' d said becauseI was total l y
c o n f u s e dl.w a s a m a z e dt h a t t h e y ' dp i c k e du p o n a l m o s te v e r y t h i n g . l
th e n g a ve th e m a matchingexer cisewher e they had to match the
fu tu rete n sefo rm with the appr opr iate definition.
I fe l t q u i te n e rv ouswhen Paulcame into the classbecaUseI di dn't
kn o wh o w th e stu dentswouldr eact.As it was a successI thinkl' llt r y i t
a g a i n( a sl o n ga s i t ' sa g e n u i n ed i s c u s s i o n ) .

Paulalso wrote theselater impressions:

a l t's a g o o dw a y of team teachingif you only havefifteenm inutesto
so a re .
b We tre a te dth e s tudentslikeadults.In effectthey wer e over hear i ng
a teacher-to-teacherstaffroom conversation.They responded
a cco rd i n g l y.
c Gl o b a lp re se n tation - all com plexitiesup to and includingthe fac t
th a t tw o p ro fessional teacher sdidn' t agr ee ar e dealt with. T he
s t u d e n t sd i d n ' tb a ta n e v e l i d .
d l 'd l i keto d o th is againbecausewe got such a good r eactionfr om
th e stu d e n tsa nd becauseI likewor kinqwith Katie.

74
 INTERVENTIONS
THATHAVEWORKED

VARIATIONS
The format of two teachershavingan open discussionin front of a class
that one or both of them teach can be used for many purposes:
r Public debriefing: the class teacher talks through the past week's
work with their colleague.The studentsare graduallydrawn in and a
feedback discussion develops. The colleague slips out and the
discussioncontinues.
r Experiencesfrom other classesthat are relevantto this one: the two
teachers bring up previous teaching experienceschosen for their
potentialrelevanceto the work in this class.
r Lesson planning: the two teachers brainstorm ideas for possible
future lessonswith the group, givingtheir reasons.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thesevariationswere suggestedby John Morgan(SeeBibliographyfor
detailsof publishedwork).

THATWORKED
INTERVENTION
6.2 A STUDENT
SITUATION
Paul Davis was fourteen. He arrived late for assembly.The normal
pattern was for late-comersto join the non-Christiansin a side-room
and wait until prayers were over. Paul breezeddown the main aisle of
the school hall, greetinghis mates.They giggledbehind their hands- he
had not noticed the whole school was at prayer.At the end of assembly
the head announcedhe wantedto see Davisin his office.

A S0ruTloN
The head pretendedhe was angry. Paul'sfirst action was to ask him not
to shout. He stopped and calmed down. Paul's second action was to
explainhe had not noticed the school was at prayer and to apologisefor
his mistake.The affair endedthere.
What happenedwas that the fourteen-year-oldre-framedthe head.He
rightly felt that the man was not really angry and he called his bluff. He
'frightenedchild' role and apologisedin an adult
then steppedout of the
way. He effectivelytransformedthe nature of the encounter.
SeeChange(Watzlawick1974)for a beautifulhistoricalexampleof re-
framing.
An officer in the FrenchRevolutionwas ordered to fire on the rabble
'l
in a square.He climbed on a wall and shouted: have orders to fire on
the rabblein this square- can all decentcitizensleavethe squareas fast
as they can so we have a clear view of the rabble!'The placewas empty
in three minutes.
Re-framing,or imposinga new mappingon a situation,is one of the
most self-confidenthuman strategieswe know of.

75
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

6.3 THEYCANDOIT
SITUATION
SueLeathert writes:
My i d e a w a s fo r the Cambr idgeFir st Cer tificateclassto give tw o-
mi n u teta l ksi n p repar ation for the or alpar t of the exam. I was aw ar e
th a t so me o f th e Japanesewom en wer e r eallytr ying to avoidthi s
o rd e a l b y th e u se of var ied and ingenioustactics. As the day
a p p ro a ch ew d h e n I would inevitably ask them to pr epar ea talkfor the
n e xt d a y,th e i r q u i et r eluctancetur nedto despairTwo . of them e v en
a mb u sh e dme i n the lunchqueueto tr y to per suademe that this w as
re a l l yn o t a g o o di dea.

A SOTUTION
I d i d n o t re l e n t.I knew that I was puttingthem in what, for them, i s a
sq u i rm-i n d u ci nsigtuationby m akingthem , howeverbr iefly,the centr e
o f a tte n ti o n .I kn ew that I was em bar r assing them and fur ther m or e
b e i n g co mp l e te l yhear tlessby not listeningto their pleas.Actu al l y ,
th a t'sn o t tru e . I d i d listen.I just hungon and hoped,tr ustedthat they
w o u l dco me u p w i th the goods.lt m eantalsobeingconfidentthat they
w o u l d n 't d i sl i keme for tor tur ingthem in this way. In r efusingth ei r
requestsI triedto conveysome of my confidenceto them. I found eye-
co n ta cta n d smi l e sto be mor e r eassur ing thanwor ds.
T h e th re e Ja p a nesewom en gave tr uly spellbinding talks*, all on
su b j e ctsw h i ch w er e obviouslyver y r ealto them. Forthe fir st tim e i n
the stories,the listenerslistenedbecausethey reallybecameinvolved
in the stories,ratherthan becauseI had told them to. The rewardsof
a ctu a l l yg i vi n gth e talkswas evidentto the speaker son the facesof
th e l i ste n e rs.l t w asn' t necessar yfor me to pr aisethem , but I di d
anyway.
It i s ve rye a syto dr awfacileconclusions f r om allthis,but m uchmor e
t sa yw h at is r eallygoingon. The onlything I can say is that I
d i ffi cu lto
hopethey havegainedthe confidenceof knowingthat what they have
to say can be interestingto others. For my own part, I re-learntthe
lessonthat pushinga projectthrough,and not beingput off by threats
o f u n p o p u l a ri ty,i s an im por tantpar t of being a teacher .lt gave m e
co n fi d e n ce to o .
* One of the girls demonstratedthe use of an abacusand expiainedthe
system. The second told us about arranged marriages in Japan. The
third told us about her feelingstowards bikes and how her bike had
been stolen the day she left Cambridgefor continentalEurope.

NOTES
tSue Leather,Director of Studiesat CambridgeAcademyof English.(See
Bibliographyfor detailsof publishedwork.)

76
 INTERVENTIONS
THATHAVEWORKED

6.4 LIGHTCONTRADICTIONS
SITUATION
'Rosie'was in her late
The class were mostly post-beginnerteenagers.
fifties - back in her own country she looked after an ageing mother.
Linguisticallyshe was one of the weakerstudentsin the group.
She sought to gain the teacher'sattention at all times. At breaks she
would continually ask questionsand requestadvice.At the start of each
activity she would ritually say, without regard to the task in hand: /r's
difficult. Paul found this disconcerting and these labellings had a
negativeinfluenceon the rest of the class.Rosie's negativeselFimage
meant that she seldom did an activitv well and to a certain extent
disruptedher neighbours.

A SOLUTION
Paulwrites:
After a few days I decidedto contradicther.As I gaveout photocopies
o f a l e s s o n ,su re e n o u g h ,a s so o n as she gr aspedher copy,she said
' Oh,
w i t h o u t t h i n ki n go r e ve n l o o ki n ga t the sheet: this is difficult' I.
'N o ,
s t a r e da t h e r a n d th e n sa i d : i t's im possiblefor you' . She star ed
b a c ka l i t t l es ta rtl e dmy , to n eo f vo i cehadsuggestedI wasn' tser ious( if
' But ts r eplied.I
I h a d b e e n I w o u l d n 't h a ve sa i d i t). it difficult' she
,
' Y e s, for you' ,stillin a light
answered: th a t'sw h a t I sa i d .l t's im possible
t o n e .T h e c l a ss w a s g e n e ra l l y
i n te rested in what would happen next.I
s u r m i s e dt h at so me w e re a l i ttl ea g hastthat a teachershouldm istr eat
a n e l d e r l ys tu d e n tso . S o me stu d e ntswho had been on the point of
g e t t i n ga n n o ye db y h e r fu ssi n e ssw er e now r allyingin solidar ity with
' N o , i t i s d i ffi cu l tb u t i t's n o t i m possible. I can do it' , she r eplied.
her.
She and the students then settled down to the activity. Rosie
performedvery well and the class generallydid the activity much
b e t t e rt h a n I h a da n ti ci p a te d .
Over the next couple of weeks Rosie frequently repeated her
'l t's
d i s t r e s ss i g na l : d i ffi cu l t'.I g e n tl yand lightlybut f ir mlycontr adicted
'lt's
her: i m p o ssi b l fo e r yo u b e ca u s eyou' r etoo old' .She not so gently
b u t s t i l lf i r m l yc o n t r a d i c t em d e . ' N o , i t ' s n o t i m p o s s i b l el c, a n ! ' H e r
a t t i t u d ec h a n g e dsh , e n o w g o t o n b etterwith the otherstudents( who
h a d b e g u nt o b e a l i ttl ep a tro n i si n g) per, for medwell in classand after
so m e i n i t i adl i ffi cu l ti eas l sog o t th e hangof self- study. The studentsin
t h e c l a s s s up p o rte dh e r w h e n sh e had genuine difficulty and she
su p p o r t e dt he m w h e n th e y h a d b oy/gir lfr iend tr ouble.She stopped
. n t h e l a s td a y s h e s a i d , ' l t w a s d i f f i c u l bt u t I
s a y i n g , ' l t ' sd i f f i c u l t 'O
c o u l dd o i t ' .

77
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

6.5THESILENT
WOMAN
SITUATION
As Kevin perceived it his class was a boring, traditionalist one. They
would not let him, as the teacher, do anything interesting in the
morning. They insisted on grammar first thing. The mood of the class
that day was apatheticand sleepy.As he went in, Kevinwas particularly
awareof being peevedwith A, a Japanesewoman who never spoke.

A SOTUTION
Kevin started the lessonwith a grammar exercise.He askedA the first
question.She complied with reasonablyawful intonation and pronun-
ciation.He askedher the secondquestion.Sheasked, Whyme? this time
with near perfectintonation.She complied.The classperkedup a bit.
Kevin calmly askedher a third question- the classwere really listening
- A protestedloudly, It's not fair, etc. Once again her intonationand
pronunciation were excellent. Kevin asked her a further string of
questions. Now the class was awake and the Japanesewoman had
broken her silence.A negativepattern had been fractured.

NOTES
Kevin decided to use a relatively aggressiveinsistence or forcing
technique while he was himself in the grip of negative, aggressive
feelings.That day it worked out OK for him. If you decide to use forcing
techniquesit is sensiblefor you to be in a calm, neutral mood, not an
angry one.

WITHA COLLEAGUE
6.6COPING
SITUATION
SometimesI find it hard to cope with a colleague's reaction to a
particular student in a class we share. E is from a broken home. Two
years ago she nearly killed herself by compulsive fasting. She has a
strong personality and can disturb many of her classmatesboth by
drifting off and by disruptive tactics. She needsto be the centre of the
party. My colleague,W, disliked her from the very first lesson. W's
dislike for her annovs me and makesme listen to W less attentivelvon
other matters.

A SotuTtoN
One morning E arrived five minutes late. I decided to try and see her
through Ws eyes. I made a mental effort to feel myself in W's style of
clothes,to stand as she stands,to assumeher movements.I decidedto
see E through W's negativespectacles.
The sensationof viewingE this way was very powerful.I revelledin an
unfetteredfeelingof straight dislike.What probably happenedwas that
the role-reversalinto my fantasyof what W perceivesand feelsallowed

78
 INTERVENTIONS
THATHAVEWORKED

me to guiltlessly live aggressivefeelings towards E that I normally

squashand push away in order to be able to work with her. The joy of
this experienceis that I feel a lot better now with W. The animosityhas
peeledaway.
I am an angry person and find role-reversalinto the other person's
shoes a good way of dealing with my threatening,negativefeelings.I
often do this when someone riles me in class. Once I have partly
perceived the situation from their side the anger attenuates.To put
myself in their shoes,I try to assumethe samebreathingrate* as them
and to mentally feel my body in the same posture as theirs (it is often
not possibleto physicallytake up the same position as I would be seen
to be aping them).
* Herbert Puchta warns that assuming the same breathing rate as
another rqay get you too close to them for you own good. He pacesthe
other'sbreathingwith a finger.(SeeBibliographyfor detailsof published
work).

OUT
6.7ACTING
SITUATION
N's father was head of a family firm. Shewas twenty and worked for him.
When you met her, her bearing and her clothes seemedtoo young for
her age.
Thesewere her father'sinstructionsto the principal of the school in
the UK he brought her to:
r N wants to learn English
r Sheis twenty but acts like a child
r Shewill stay in the UK for four months
r If she missesa classor does not work, I am to be phonedat once
r She needswatching
N's way of coping with this situationwas to withdraw and refuseto let
on she knew any English(she was upper intermediate.)Over the first
month her blank negativismdisturbedthe class.

A SOTUTION
At the end of one particularlybad lessonthe teachertook N and one of
her classmates,G, aside.He suggestedthat it was about time she began
thinking of kneeing her father where it hurts. He suggestedthat she
pretendto try it out on G. Whenshe realisedwhat he was suggestingshe
started laughing and laughing and saying she couldn't possibly. The
teacher then role play demonstratedon G, who was happy to try and
move the N situation.In the end, as a kind of joke, she did try.
This bit of after-classdisplacedacting out did not make N a happy
student for the following three months. It did, though, somehow
alleviatethe situationfor her, for the others and for the teacher.It was a
way of statingand admittingpart of the root problem.

79
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

6.8 AN ABSENT
VOICE
SITUATION
This was a businessEnglishoption and A was askedto give a report on a
chapterfrom a book on pricing. Shehad read the chapter and mastered
the ideas,some of which were new to her and to the group. When she
startedspeakingit was not really fo the group, more cf them. Her voice
was high-pitchedand artificial and there was no eye-contact.It was the
kind of self-presentationinducedby those dreadfulltalian oral examina-
tions of students in front of a somnolent class. Within a couple of
minutes she had lost the group's attention, as her voice said, Don't
Iisten,as strongly as her ideaswere saying,Pleaselisten.

A SOLUTION
The teacher stopped A and explainedthat she was really not coming
across.He askedher to choosea person in the group she could talk to
easily.She did, with a glancerather than words. The teacheraskedher
to addressG, to imaginehe was ten and so explainthings simply, and to
forget the rest of the group. G helpedby suckinghis thumb!
The changewas dramatic.Her voice came back into its normal warm,
friendlyself.The group were now able to follow the complexideasabout
pricing. Shewas clearlyvery relievedand had learnt a techniqueshe can
use next time she is facedwith addressinga group.

6.9 A CASEOFCONSONANT
CLUSTERS
SITUATION
U was a cheerful,outgoing person from Thailand.She was in her early
twenties and had a good degreein politics - her reading knowledgeof
Englishwas excellent.The problem was that, though she had started
Englishin nursery school, no one in the UK could understandher. Her
landlady's family complained she was unintelligible and classmates'
eyes would glaze over when she began to speak. For her it was like
experiencingdumbness,and after ten days of this she was depressed
and shaken.

A S0tuTt0N
We beganto work togetherin the lunch break to achievethree technical
aims:
r for U to pronouncethe secondhalf of words
r for her to produce consonantclusters
r for her to improve her stressand intonation
We tried many ways of doing this:
a The 'eldersister'system;I got anotherThai girl, with goodpronuncia-
tion, to help her with hard sounds. I identified a problem area,

80
 INTERVENTIONS
THATHAVEWORKED

checkedthat D was an adequatemodel and then left them alone for

three or four minutesto work on the difficulty.
b I gave U dictations in which she only took down the last three letters
of eachword: --ese, -------ons, ---ked, -ike, -his!
c We did a rangeof drama exercises.
After ten days of this work U reported that her landlady could
understandher better now. Her facewas happier- someconfidencehad
been restored.
Though her problem was technical the solution was only partly so. A
major factor was that D and I gaveup twenty minutesof the lunch-break
to help her. The proof of the importanceof the affectiveside of things
was that when I stopped the lunchtime sessionshalf-waythrough term,
U became less strongly present in the class group and began missing
classesnow and then. The problem was technical but the solution was
more than technical.

6.10A HELPLESS
HELPER
SITUATION
K was late for the test at the beginningof term. He seemedto find the
questionsvery hard to read. He kept calling me over to read questions
to him. Once he heard them he had no difficulty answering.
K speaksfluent, idiomatic English.He has learnt most of it from native
and not from EFl-ridden classrooms.He is by far the best speakerin his
CambridgeFirst Certificate exam class. He can confidently read and
spell words of up to three and four letters, but words like bridge and firsf
are beyond him.
The problem was that I felt a driving urge to help him. To do this I had
to:
I establisha strong rapport with him
r persuadehim to read extensively
r focushim on spelling
To get rapport I asked him to teach me Arabic writing in return for
English spelling lessons,and to get him to read I gave him an erotic
novel. We had three sessionstogether and then he stopped coming,
without a word. I felt angry.

A SOTUTION
'help', as clearly this drive is a lot
I have to cope with my need to
stronger than K's to learn to read and write English. I need to
equanimouslyaccept the failure of this interventionand be gratefulto K
for makingme awareof an unusefulneed in myself.His silent disappear-
ance after the third meetinghad a strange,arrogantdignity.

81
T H EC O N F I D E N CBEO O K

6.11LoSS0FSTATUS
SITUATION
When a doctor cures a patient,the latter is gratefulbut usuallynone the
wiser technically.When a lawyer wins a casefor his client, the former is
confirmedin his statusas a successfulexpert.
When languageteachers take a beginner to proficiency level, they
make the learner so like themselfthat they lose their status as arcane
experts, the holders of hidden knowledgeand skill. This is the way a
colleagueof ours, Jim Brims, put it, speakingof an Arab student of his:
Wh e n I f i rstme t h i m he couldhar dlyput two wor dstogetherin Eng l i s h.
I h a ve n 'tse e n h i m over the last few m onths and then yester dayI
b u mp e di n to h i m; he was usingr eallycolloquial phr asesand un der -
sta n d i n ge ve ryth i ng -
I saidto him | was no longertower ingabovehi m
l i r e I d i dw h e n h e w a s a b e q i n n e r .

A SOLUTION
CharlesCurran,the inventor of CommunityLanguageLearning,under-
stands the feeling of loss experiencedby the teacher quoted above.
Curran .sees teachers of beginners as giants among pygmies, which
means they should adopt a very low-profile, non-dominantstance.As
students gradually learn more and more, the onus is on them to
reassurethe fallen giants, their teachers,by offering them the respect
due to an expert and by valuing their detailedknowledgeof the subject.

NOTES
Neither of the authors have direct experienceof the problem outlined
here. However, this book is about the insecurity and confidence of a
wide rangeof people,not just feelingswe ourselvescan directly access.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Jim Brims does not think he slrou/d feel the way he feels- he just does
(SeeBibliographyfor detailsof publishedwork).

TEACHING
6J2 DEFENSIVE
SITUATION
If you are a traineeteacherbeing inspectedby your tutor, you may well
teach defensively.You will do all the things to pleasethem that you can.
You are teachingfor the tutor, not for the studentsand not for yourself.
If you are a state school teacherand the inspectoris due, you may well
have tapped the grapevineto find out what style of lessonthey seem to
go for. Again,the lessonaddresseewill be an extraneousthird party.
TeacherB started work in a school on a temporary contract. It was a
small private languageschool and the principal was very eagerto please
his customers.A student from B's classwent to the principal and asked
to move up a class. B said he did not think that the student was

82
 INTERVENTIONS
THATHAVEWORKED

substantiallybetter than the rest of the class but the principal moved
the student anyway.The first student'sfriend also went and got a move
from the principal and so did a third student.Things were beginningto
look bad. B changedhis lessonsslightly, making them a little hard for
the class and packed with more material than the studentscould cope
with. No more students left the class and B was re-employedfor a
further term. He has a secure job now, but his lessons,although well
planned,are just a little bit above the level of the class and he covers
much more materialthan you would expect.

A SOTUTION
Sometimesgo into classwithout the armour of a plannedlesson.Know
the area you want to work in, explain this to the students,but let the
work you do arise out of the situation in the group. Take a risk and let
the lesson be for you, for them and not for the ghost of your initial
trainer. The best lessonsare for the students and the teacher.not for
third party super-egos.

6.13P0STSCRTPT
When dealingwith a'problem' studenttheseguidelinesmay be of help:
r Take time to listen to and talk to the student.
r Give the person the chance to really say how they feel and clear the
ground for their own thinking. Just listen - do not intervene,justify,
divert.
r Help the student to brainstorm all possible solutions, however
apparentlywild.
r Suggestthat the student choosesa course of action and puts it into
practice.There should be somethingcontractualabout this choice.
A good source for further reading in this area is Worhingwith Uncer-
tainty (Dixon and Gordon 1987).

83
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Agosta,J 1988ChangingEnergiesPilgrimsPublications
Bafd,W-D, Cobb,D and Schwarz,A 1986Actiue Grammar Longman
Bandler,R and Grinder,J 1975TheStructureof Magic I and 2 Science
and behaviour
Bowers,RG,Bamber,B, StrakerCook,R and Thomas,AL 1987Talhing
obout Grammar Longman
Brims,J 1988Speaking4 Cassell
Creton,J-P 1983Day by Doy PilgrimsPublications
DavisP and Rinvolucri,M 1988Dictation CUP
Dixon,H and Gordon,P 1987Worktngwith UncertaintyFPAEducation
UniVCambridgeHealthAuthority
Eastwood,J and Mackin,R 1982A BasicEnglishGrammor OUP
Gattegno, C 1972 Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools- the Silent
Way EducationalSolutions
Hedge,T 1988Writing OUP
Heron,J 1975Six CategoryInteruentionAnolysrsSurreyUniversity
Houston,G 1984TheRed Book of Groups(obtainablefrom the author, 8
RochesterTerrace,London NWl gJN)
Kohl, H 1977Wr[ting,Maths and Gamesin the Open ClassroomMethuen
Lavery,M 1984Actiue ViewingP/usModern EnglishPublications/
Macmillan
Lavery, M (forthcoming) Video OUP
Leather,S 1989Desert,Mountain,Sea OUP
Longfellow,H 1982The RainyDay. In The PoeticalWorksof Henry H
Longfellow Suttaby and Co.
Morgan,J and Rinvolucri,M 1984OnceUpon a Time CUP
Morgan,J and Rinvolucri,M 1988The Q Book Longman
Morgan,J and Rinvolucri,M 1986Vocabuhry AUP
Moskowitz,G 1978Caring ond Sharing in the ForeignLanguage
ClassroomNewbury House
Pitcher,EG and Prelinger,E 1969Children Tell StoriesInternational
UniversitiesPress
Puchta,H and Schratz,M (forthcoming)ActiueLearning Longman
ReesMiller, J (ed.) (forthcoming)Deuelopmentfor Teachersnot
Trainers OUP
Rinvolucri,M 1988A Role SwitchingExercisein TeacherTraining
Modern English Teacher
Rogers,C 1983Freedomto Learn for the EightiesCharlesE Merrill
Spaventa,L (ed.) 1980Towardsthe CreatiueTeachingof English
Heinemann
SwanM 1980Practical English UsageOUP
Syer,J and Connolly,C 1984Sportingbody, SportingMind CUP
Szkutrrik,LL 1986Thinhingin EnglishPanstwoweWydawhictwoNauhowe
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84
 F U R T H ER E A D I N G

reading
Further
Cassidy,J and Rimbeaux,BC 1983Jugglingfor the CompleteKlutz
Fontana
Cleveland,BF 1984Master TeachingTechniquesConnectingLink Press
Dickson,A 1983A Womanin Your Own Right QuartetBooks
Fanselow,J 1987Breaking RulesLongman
Harrison,BT 1986Sarah'sLetters:A Caseof ShynessBedfordWay Papers
Quinn, K 1983Stand Your Cround Orbis Publishing
Stanworth,M 1983Genderand SchoolrngHutchinson

85