This recognition comes twenty seven years after Murphy wrote English Grammar in Use, a textbook that has since been used by over 100 million learners of English, according to an article in The Guardian.

At the same time as this news reached us, we received stock of English Grammar In Use 4th Edition and it looks super! According to the publisher, the 4th edition retains all the key features of clarity and accessibility that made the book popular with millions of learners and teachers around the world.

For a limited period, BEBC is offering the 4^th Edition of English Grammar in Use Book + Answers (ISBN 9780521189064) at £13.90 (usually £18.90) – a saving of £5! Click here to get your copy at the reduced price.

Photograph from The Guardian - Raymond Murphy, left, receives his honorary MA degree from Cambridge University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz. Photograph: Nigel Lukhurst/Cambridge University

The publication is rapidly increasing in popularity and language teachers in over 55 countries already use the newspaper and accompanying worksheet activities.  Newsademic Founder Stephen Bradley told us: “Many English language teachers have said they consider it a hugely valuable resource with word selection and explanations pitched very much at a level that their students are able to understand.”

As well as current affairs the newspaper includes articles on science, archaeology, nature, history, geography, religion, literature, economics, and environmental issues recently featured in the mainstream news. Newsademic does not carry advertising, and nor does it feature articles about television, sport, computer games, pop music, or celebrity culture. A popular feature is a world map included in each issue which highlights the countries featured in the news stories in each issue of the newspaper.

One huge advantage is that articles featured in the newspaper reflect no political or religious bias. Stories are reported factually and every attempt is made to feature both sides of any situation in which opinions differ.

Another reason for its popularity in the ELT industry is that school subscribers are able to arrange subscriptions whereby both PDF and HTML versions of the newspaper are available to students via the school intranet. School subscribers are also permitted to make as many photocopies of the newspaper as they wish for use within their own school premises.

Each issue of the newspaper is accompanied by a set of (optional) Classroom Activities. These are produced in two separate levels, both of which contain exercises based on stories featured in the newspaper.

Whether you are an individual or represent an institution, Newsademic is currently offering a two month free trial with no payment details required, unless you choose to subscribe to the publication when the two months are over. To sign up for the trial, simply go to www.newsademic.com/promo/bebc and fill in your details. Once you’ve signed up and had a look at your first issue, let us know what you think!

For this reason, we at BEBC decided to get definitions from publishers to accompany the types of digital resources on offer so that we might share them with you. You may wish to save this page to your favourites or print it off as a reminder to help you when making your next purchases…

A

ActiveBook (Pearson) – a digital student book with full audio, suitable for any computer. Used just as a book in class, and outside the classroom it gives access to Student Book pages and audio so that students can practise activities taught in class.

ActiveTeach (Pearson) – for use with a computer and projector or with an Interactive Whiteboard. Includes Student’s Book pages, full class audio and DVD, printable worksheets and interactive exercises, assessment activities and tests and Interactive Whiteboard tools.

App (Cambridge University Press and others) – software for consumer mobile devices like mobile phones, tablet computers and media players.

B

Blended course (Cambridge University Press) – a teacher-led course containing a self-study portion accessed by the learner over the internet.

Blended Learning (Macmillan and others) - a method of learning which uses a combination of different resources, especially a mixture of classroom sessions and online learning materials.

C

Class Presentation Tools (Macmillan) – tools for classroom presentation.  This Interactive Whiteboard Software offers a digital version of the Student’s Book on screen with integrated audio, video, games and customisable Teacher’s pages e.g. New Inside Out / Global.

Classware (Cambridge University Press) – computer software that lets you present digital versions of Cambridge textbooks on an Interactive Whiteboard or projector, to engage the whole class.

D

Digital book (Richmond) - complete digital version of all components usually delivered on CD-ROM and compatible with any Interactive Whiteboard.

E

E-storycards (Richmond) - electronic version of storycards for display on interactive whiteboards.

eBooks (Cambridge University Press and others) – reading materials in digital form, requiring a computer, mobile device or e-reader to display the text.

ELT Advantage (National Geographic Learning/ Cengage Learning) – online professional development courses, workshops, and virtual seminars that help teachers increase their expertise in English language instruction. Free demos at http://elt.heinle.com/eltadvantage.

ExamView (National Geographic Learning/ Cengage Learning) – comes with Assessment CD-ROMs and is available with most Heinle programs.  The testgenerating software allows teachers to create and customise tests, manage classes and assignments, retrieve results from online tests, and generate detailed and flexible reports.

F

Footprint Reading Library (National Geographic Learning/ Cengage Learning) – a collection of online ebooks (readers) typically accompanied by audio, record and playback functionality for pronunciation practice, video clip and interactive quiz. Free demos at http://elt.heinle.com/ng.

G

Global eWorkbook (Macmillan) – an evolution of self-study materials, providing a wide range of resources including: listening and video materials, with video content from the BBC Worldwide archive, which can be viewed on a computer or downloaded to portable devices for mobile learning, grammar, language practice, reference materials, useful language sections and model conversations.

H

I

iTools (Oxford University Press) – digital resources for a range of Oxford University Press courses, giving teachers material for use on the Interactive Whiteboard and bringing learning alive in class (iPacks – first generation of Interactive Whiteboard software available for the New English File course).

iTutor (Oxford University Press) – a new interactive self-study DVD-ROM, included with some OUP courses (in the Student’s Book). Gives learners interactive material from the book, grammar revision and practice, skills practice and vocabulary lists with example sentences and pronunciation.

iWriter (Oxford University Press)  – available on the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary CD-ROM. Guides students through the stages of planning, writing and reviewing a range of different written tasks. Task types include essays, presentations, reports, letters, reviews, CVs and more.

J

K

L

LMS (Learning Management System) (Oxford University Press) – a platform that allows teachers to assign exercises to their students, track their progress and see their marks. LMS is now available with all courses that have online workbooks, online skills practice as well as online practice tests and online placement test.

Learning Platform (Richmond) - Portal + Virtual Learning Environment + Test Studio.

Learning Resources Bank (Oxford University Press) – Student’s Website.

M

Macmillan English Campus (Macmillan) – an English language learning platform that offers a complete solution for blended learning.  Combining a database of over 4,300 interactive resources with a range of learning management tool, Macmillan English Campus gives teachers full control of the resources and monitors students’ progress.

Macmillan Practice Online (Macmillan) – an easy, cost-effective way to offer your students the advantages of online learning.  With a range of over 80 online courses to choose from, each designed to support classroom teaching and including 100-200 resources, you can choose the one that suits your needs.

Macmillan Webinars (Macmillan) – the Macmillan Webinars are a series of live talks, broadcast over the internet to teachers worldwide.  Free to access and viewable from any computer with an internet connection, teachers have the opportunity to watch the talks and put questions directly to Macmillan authors www.macmillanenglish.com/webinars. No microphone is necessary as questions can be typed to webinar hosts.

mimio® software(Cambridge University Press and others) – MIMIO is a portable device which can be attached to a whiteboard, wall etc, via a projector, which provides similar functionality to a smart board. You can see more about them at the website- http://www.mimio.dymo.com/.

MyELT (National Geographic Learning/ Cengage Learning) – an internet based learning management system designed for English language teachers and students. Instructors use MyELT to assign Heinle online learning content, track student progress reports, and more. Students use MyELT to complete the online activities, monitor their own learning progress, and review as necessary.

MyEnglishLabs (Pearson) – provides interactive activities and online tools which give students tips, automatic feedback and instant grades. A grade book and diagnostic tools reveal to teachers how students are progressing. Teachers are able to assign activities to groups of students with different needs.

N

O

Online exam practice tests (Oxford University Press) – online practice tests for: KET, PET, FCE, CAE, IELTS, TOEIC®, TOEFL iBT™ and national exams. Teachers can assign online practice tests with help including instant feedback on answers, exam tips and an integrated dictionary, or without help as a mock exam. Saves time with automatic marking. Easily identifies areas of weakness to focus on in class.

Online Placement Test (Oxford University Press) – a Placement Test that helps teachers find their students’ level of English online. Saves time with automatic marking and then places students in the right class based on their scores (CEFR level, score out of 120, time taken and more…)

• Online
• Automatically marked
• Instant results
• Variety of scores (CEFR level and more)

Online Practice for Students (My…) (National Geographic Learning/Cengage Learning) – access to online practice is usually included the student’s book of a series e.g. Outcomes or Practical Grammar. It allows students to study online at their own pace or do the work their teacher set for them. All activities are automatically graded so that both students and teachers can monitor progress. N.B. Online practice with the Outcomes course is called ‘MyOutcomes,’ and online practice for Practical Grammar course is called ‘MyPG’ and so on…

Online Skills Practice (Oxford University Press) – Interactive Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking practice for a range of OUP courses. Students get access through MultiROMs available in their Student’s Books.

Online Workbooks (Cambridge University Press) – learning activities presented interactively on a website, rather than in a printed book, intended for homework.

P

Portal (Richmond) - interactive and regularly updated site corresponding to a particular course and offering both informal and formal learning. There are product demos, author interviews and downloadable sample units for teachers and fun learning activities for students such as blogs and games.

Presentation Tools (National Geographic Learning/ Cengage Learning)– a CD-ROM containing tools which combine resources from the core materials of Heinle Cengage courses e.g. Happy Trails, English Explorer, Time Zones, Outcomes. For use in the classroom with an Interactive Whiteboard or data projector with computer.

Primary Place (Pearson) – a website for primary teachers to find downloadable materials for their classrooms. Members of the website get access to invitations to workshops and presentations, free articles on current trends, few photocopiable activity sheets and free packs filled with posters, story cards, games and more.

Q

R

Readers Apps (Richmond) - interactive app to download for the iPhone, iPod or iPad complete with audio, animation and extra activities. Also see Apps.

Richmond vodcast series (Richmond) - a series of short films available on YouTube for adults corresponding to the Elementary to Upper-Intermediate levels of The Big Picture and New Framework. Ideal for sparking classroom communication or for use in conjunction with the online activities and competitions.

S

Student CD-ROM (Richmond) - extra resources for students on CD-ROM.

Student DVD (Richmond) - video accompaniment to student book complete with activities. Contains authentic interviews, stories or documentaries.

Student MultiROM (Richmond and others) - CD-ROM with audio tracks. For use in a CD player or computer.

Student’s Website (Oxford University Press)  – also called Learning Resources Bank. A website for students using OUP resources. Designed to provide students with extra practice both in and outside the class.

T

Teacher CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (Richmond) - extra resources for teachers on CD-ROM.

Teacher/Student Resource Site (Richmond) - dedicated course website containing extra resources for both students and teachers. These are usually free and are intended to supplement the core material contained within each course book.

Teacher’s Website (Oxford University Press)  – a website for the registrants of Oxford Teachers’ Club that enables teachers to download extra practice activities and ideas that supplement OUP courses and that are designed to be used with students in class.

Test studio (Richmond) - an online tool allowing teachers to create their own interactive tests online or editable paper versions. Teachers can create tests to revise by unit, a block of units or a complete book.

U

V

Virtual Learning Environment (Richmond) - an online resource, pre-populated with trackable activities for teachers to assign to their students. They are provided as integral parts of the course. Accessible with student and teacher log in account details, these highly adaptable resources allow teachers to set timings and pass marks for exercises. Scores are recorded in a grade book, allowing teachers to track their students’ progress. The forum and library allow teachers to communicate with their class and students to communicate with each other.

W

Web application (Cambridge University Press) – A website that acts like a piece of software, allowing you to perform some task, rather than being a static resource.

X

Y

Z

You can also view and download this glossary as a pdf via Scribd.com. Is there any other way you would like to see these grouped besides A-Z?

Flight 13

Flight 13 is a sample from the classic ELT series of picture compositions based on the work of the artist Fougasse. These were multi-purpose and used for practice while teaching any language. The virtue of the Fougasse series was that it could be used at any level (depending on the ingenuity and imagination of the teacher), and that the stories were clear, simple and timeless.

The picture stories were available as large wallcharts and also in a book, with very complex sentences where students added words, but this wasn’t a free choice as the initial letter of the word, and the number of characters, was given. This doesn’t tie-in with current methodology, and also removes the flexibility that attracted teachers to the picture stories in the first place.

Three Vee and BEBC have discussed making these picture stories available again. To this end, we have prepared new Teacher’s Notes and new Student Worksheets for one story, Flight 13. We are offering it to ELT (and other language) teachers as a trial. It’s preferable to present the stories one frame at a time rather than as a whole. Please try it class. These are wonderful time-fillers, and wonderful ‘lessons up the sleeve’ for unforeseen circumstances.

The materials available as A4 PDFs are:

The master picture (with all four frames of the story at A4 size) PDF. Check your printer. On our HP printer we had to scale it at 150% to fill an A4 sheet.

Picture 1 (A4) for use as a flashcard

Picture 2 (A4) for use as a flashcard

Picture 3 (A4) for use as a flashcard

Picture 4 (A4) for use as a flashcard

Teachers’ Notes (5 pages A4)

Student worksheets (4 pages A4)

We would like teachers to try these in class and to give us feedback by commenting on this page.

These are some questions we would like to answer:

1)    Would you like Teachers Notes for Hiigher Levels?

2)    Would you like large (A2) wallcharts?

3)    Would you like the pictures available for Whiteboard?

4)    Would you buy the pictures on their own?

5)    Would you buy a set of Photocopiable Masters with Worksheets?

6)    Would you buy small books for classroom use, containing twenty-four of the picture stories with worksheets?

7)    Do you like the activities given? Would you omit any? Would you add any?

A NOTE ON COPYRIGHT: We have endeavoured to find the original copyright holders on these pictures, but our enquiries at previous publishers, and on illustrator and author websites have drawn a complete blank. If the copyright holder would like to contact us, we can discuss further moves.

Activities and notes: Three Vee / BEBC © 2012

What is Business English? A naïve question to be sure, but a good one to step back and ask from time to time.

Below, in blue, is a nine-point answer to that question that I wrote along with my colleague Nick Hamilton back in 2000. It was going to be the Introduction to Five Minute Activities for Business English (CUP) but never made it into the book.

1. You start with a Needs Analysis.
2. The Needs Analysis leads on to a negotiated syllabus. There is no ‘main’ coursebook, although a selection of coursebook and other material may be used. The classroom tasks and texts are personalized, based around the interests and needs of those particular students.
3. The syllabus is designed around communication skills (telephoning, meetings, presentations etc.) and business topics (management, marketing, finance etc.), not the English verb tense system.
4. Language work is more lexical, including collocation and functional language, and less grammatical than General English. Pronunciation is another important area, especially the ability to break up speech into appropriate phrases (phonological chunking) and to use stress to highlight key information.
5. Teaching methodology includes much use of tasks, role-plays, discussions, presentations, case studies and simulated real-life business situations. Approaches and materials are mixed and matched, but there is unlikely to be a high proportion of conventional Present-Practice lessons where one grammar point provides the main thread of a lesson.
6. Much language work is done diagnostically following speaking activities. Feedback slots are used for checking, correcting and developing language (Output->Reformulate rather than Input->Practice).
7. There is use of a range of authentic and business material (magazine articles, off-air video, company documents).
8. Delivery of the course is different: the students are ‘clients’ with high expectations, the teachers are professional ‘trainers’ (or perhaps even Language Consultants). Teachers and students sit together round a table like in a meeting rather than in the classic GE ‘U’ shape with the teacher at the front. Conversation across the table may develop its own dynamic far removed from the teacher’s lesson plan.
9. While teachers are expected to be competent as Language Consultants, classroom managers etc. they are usually not expected to be business experts. This is a language course after all, not an MBA. However teachers are expected to have an interest in business, ask intelligent questions, and slowly develop their knowledge of the business world.

And we continued:

The above principles represent a ‘strong’ version of BE, and we realize that there are some common situations where it is less appropriate:

• Students studying BE in large groups in higher education – often called ‘pre-experience’ students because they have not yet started working.
• Students studying for a BE qualification (often pre-experience as well).

Such students will almost certainly be following a coursebook, with tasks, texts and language focus already included. Students will be less interested in or unable to personalize activities. They might want to be taught about business itself as well as business English.

Looking back eleven years later it still looks like a good definition. But the final paragraph – about pre-experience BE – needs a little more development. Back in those days I didn’t realize the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of BE students are indeed pre-experience. Publishers have certainly realized this: all major multi-level coursebooks that I know (except InCompany) are aimed squarely at pre-experience students. When was the last time you read a coursebook instruction that invited the student to talk about their own company/job? Were an author to include it in a first draft, the editor would quickly ask them to change it – seeing the largest market disappear before their eyes.

Differences between Pre-Experience and In-Work BE students

So what can I add now about the pre-experience context?

My own teaching these days is in-work students coming to the UK for short, intensive courses. In the past I did the classic freelance ‘in-company’ thing (from 1991 to 1996 – in Lisbon, Portugal). In Lisbon I did also do a little pre-experience teaching in the evenings, so it’s not unknown to me. Nowadays, I have contact with the pre-experience BE world not through teaching but through teacher training (TT) – the majority of my trainees teach in higher education establishments of various kinds. On the TT courses we spend a lot of time discussing how BE ideas can be applied to the pre-experience classroom. The table below is a short summary of the ideas that trainees most often contribute in discussion.

Implications

I think this raises some interesting questions. We think of ourselves as one big BE community, but are we really separate tribes? Think of these:

• the teacher who stands up in front of thirty mixed-level, same-nationality 18 year olds in a provincial university in Poland, Mexico or China
• the teacher working in a busy, cosmopolitan capital city who jumps into taxis as s/he goes from office to office teaching in-company to small groups or 1:1
• the teacher who stands up in front of a small group of similar-level, mixed-nationality business people on an intensive course in a language school in the UK, the US, Australia or Ireland
• the teacher who works in a private language school in the evenings – anywhere in the world – where the students are a group of young adults (some working, some not) who are studying to pass a BEC exam

How much do these teachers have in common? What unites them? What separates them? How much does it depend on the individual lesson? How important is the teaching context as given in the bullet points compared to the personality of the individual teacher and their own particular approach?

Perhaps the four teachers in the bullet points are different tribes. Perhaps not: it might be that most BE teachers in the world are in a grey area somewhere between the pre-experience and in-work poles. So many pre-experience teachers are inclined towards one pole, but at the same time are trying valiantly to incorporate more in-work techniques. And many in-work teachers are inclined towards the other pole, but sometimes rely a little too heavily on published material (especially at the start of their teaching careers) without offering the students the chance for personalization.

And of course every lesson is different.

It’s also possible that there is a ‘silent majority’ tribe. At conferences and teacher training courses we only come into contact with the best, most motivated, and most open-minded teachers. They did decide to come after all, while their colleagues stayed at home. Perhaps those who stayed at home are just working through a coursebook, page by page and week by week, in difficult teaching situations, poorly paid and demotivated. Do they make a separate tribe in their own right?

Paul Emmerson is a well-known figure in the Business English world. He is a writer, teacher and teacher-trainer based in Worthing on the south coast of England. His most recent book, Management Lessons, is a photocopiable resource book for teachers of Business English, available from BEBC. To find out more visit http://www.paulemmerson.com/.

A while back I got the following email, signed by a friend (let’s call him Gary):

Hope you get this on time,sorry I didn’t inform you about my trip in Spain for a program, I’m presently in Madrid-Spain and am having some difficulties here because i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money and other valuable things were kept. presently i have limited access to internet,I will like you to assist me with a loan of  1,500 Pounds to sort-out my hotel bills and to get myself back home.

I have spoken to the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively,I will appreciate whatever you can afford to assist me with,I’ll Refund the money back to you as soon as i return,let me know if you can be of any help.I don’t have a phone where i can be reached.

Please let me know immediately.

My initial reaction (“Wow, poor Gary!”) was quickly replaced by the suspicion that – despite having been signed by Gary and sent from his email address – this wasn’t Gary’s ‘voice’.  Although there were a number of expressions (such as ‘I don’t have a phone where I can be reached’) that, on an initial reading at least, lent a certain crediblity to the email, a closer analysis suggested that it may have been written by a non-native speaker: wordings such as ‘I will like you to assist me’ lack both idiomaticity and the appropriate degree of informality, while some collocations are just plain wrong (‘I hope you get this on time’; ‘my trip in Spain…’). Moreover, there are a number of orthographical features that are not typical of an educated native speaker (‘1,500 Pounds’, ‘sort-out’). All in all, I smelt a rat.

What I was doing was a form of ‘forensic linguistics’, i.e. using linguistic evidence in the identification (if not the solution) of a crime. To solve the crime using the methods of forensic linguistics, I would have needed to match ‘Gary’s email’ against a sample of texts written by likely suspects, looking for shared features of phrasing, word choice, and spelling.  In an excellent introduction to forensic linguistics, Olsson (2004, p. 116) notes that:

“The aim would be to establish a norm of lexical similarity or identity between each text in each pair of texts: what percentage of words do the two excerpts have in common?  Previous experience suggests that two texts of approximately 250 words in length with 30 percent (or more) of lexical words identical to each other are unlikely to have been produced independently of each other”.

As it happens, a Google search for just one sentence from this fake email (“I will appreciate whatever you can afford”) produced around 33 million results.  It seems that this email – with local adaptations – has been doing the rounds for a few years now, and a surprising number of people have been fooled by it – see, for example, this site.

(It’s odd that no one has seen fit to tidy up the grammar and phraseology along the way).

My interest in forensic linguistics was first piqued by a paper by Malcolm Coulthard (1992) in which he recounted his role as an expert witness in the trial of the ‘Birmingham Six’. Coulthard was able to use linguistic arguments to show that a statement allegedly made to the police by one of the accused was in fact a fabrication: the police had simply cut-and-pasted chunks of a previous interview into a statement format.  Coulthard was subsequently to use the techniques of forensic linguistics to earn a posthumous pardon for Derek Bentley, wrongfully hanged for murder in the 1950s¹.

Since then forensic linguistics has matured into a discipline in its own right (you can now do an MSc in it) and it is regularly enlisted in cases of doubtful or disputed authorship such as wills, confessions, emergency calls, hate mail, suicide notes, blackmail demands, and literary plagiarism.

Given the public fascination for both crime and for language, it surprised me, at the time, that crime fiction seemed not to have produced a single detective whose specialism was forensic linguistics – a kind of Hercule Poirot of textual alteration. Accordingly, I set about trying to redress this lack, and drafted a few chapters of a novel whose protagonist was a laddish academic specialising in pragmatics at an unnamed London university who is recruited to solve a case of kidnap and extortion at a large private language school in Covent Garden. I duly sent it off to a number of publishers, adding an explanation as to the nature and importance of forensic linguistics. Result: I accumulated so many rejection slips that I seriously considered writing up a paper on their generic features. And still, ten years on, crime fiction cannot lay claim to a single forensic linguist – as far as I know.

If I am wrong, please let me know immediately. (But I don’t have a phone where i can be reached).

^¹”Linguist Malcolm Coulthard showed that certain patterns, such as the frequency of the word “then” and the grammatical use of “then” after the grammatical subject (“I then” rather than “then I”), was not consistent with Bentley’s use of language (his idiolect), as evidenced in court testimony” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bentley_case)

References:

Coulthard, M. 1992. ‘Forensic discourse analysis’. In Coulthard, M. (ed.) Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.

Olsson, J. 2004. Forensic Linguistics: An introduction to language, crime and the law. London: Continuum.

Illustrations by Quentin Blake, from Broughton, G. (1968) Success With English. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

You can read more from Scott Thornbury by subscribing to his blog here. If you’re interested in Forensic Linguistics, you may be interested in reading Dimensions of Forensic Linguistics by John Benjamins, available from BEBC.

Given the breakdown (or break-up) of the single dictionary definition as an authority, is it still possible to answer the question “What is the meaning of  (a word or phrase)”?  The role of the dictionary has been superseded by the new authority, usage, and by the time you have added in factors such as colloquial and idiomatic use, register, pragmatics, formal and informal, spoken or written, context, and a whole host of other influences, I feel the  task of answering the question is nigh on impossible. I write not from the view of a grumpy old grammarian but more as someone with feeling for those trying to learn our vibrant developing language where the linguistic goalposts are constantly moving.

John H Walsh

Managing Director

The Bournemouth English Book Centre Ltd (BEBC)

Simon Brewster

We asked Simon Brewster, Deputy Director General at The Anglo Mexican Foundation, his views on the way that technology is changing the way we teach languages…

As far as technology is concerned, there are obvious advantages for learners in terms of access to information, greater communicability and the reality of learning outside the classroom.

Where I think we need to be careful is in not assuming that technology somehow replaces the need for good teaching. It is in the end another tool at our disposal but you can still have a bad class even with technology.

I am also not convinced that the use of online courses and whiteboards is any more effective in terms of learning than using more traditional tools. No-one has been able to provide any evidence that they are. If it is true that you can learn a language using different approaches and methodologies, I think it is also true that you can learn a language with a fairly minimal amount of material and equipment.

I would say that good teaching affects learning much more than the technology available. I went to an interesting talk which contrasted e-centric teachers with t-(as in teaching) centric teachers which made the same point.

It is also not the case that everyone has access to technology. Mexico has 80 million cell phones but relatively few people have access to the most sophisticated technology outside the more privileged groups.

In the case of formal education, our pupils cannot take cell phones into class for obvious reasons. A lot of technology they use is for socializing not study or reading: facebook, twitter, text messaging etc.

Where I do see technology having a significant impact is in areas such as intranets which connect students, teachers and parents, access to Internet for research purposes and support from websites for everything from making a poster to producing video and the fact that technology makes everything much faster.

For our students in the language teaching centres, as opposed to schools, we are focusing on getting teachers to encourage students to use existing components such as CD-Roms and course related websites at the same time as we develop a support website for students to consult as a value added element to their courses. We will do this at low cost including elements that are available at low or no cost.

I have to mention that aside from cost issues – a whiteboard comes in at around US$1900 – there are big security issues with technology for schools as well as related questions of cyber bullying. We have experienced problems in both of these areas and are now very active in raising awareness in pupils about the risks of social networking online.

By Simon Brewster

The Anglo Mexican Foundation

www.tamf.org.mx

Do you share Simon’s experiences? Please let us know your thoughts…

A very controversial question and one which evokes strong and convincing arguments on both sides. There is no doubt that the use of social networking sites, forums and Skype for learning English is very helpful indeed. You might also argue that the ease with which learners can access free resources is also a positive development…or is it?

Information Overload

With so much information available at the touch of a button (or screen!), are learners really absorbing and digesting everything they read? The answer is probably not. If you had access to an online dictionary or a dictionary app, would you really remember what a new word meant a few days after you’d found it, used it and your immediate need for it was over? Again, it’s unlikely. Why store information in your brain when you can store it in your smart phone’s 10GB memory?

This is what many people are calling information overload, and it’s not just a threat to language learners.  A classic example of this is illustrated in the blog post, Pancake People and Online Dictionaries.  Because we know we can rely on the internet to deliver the answers, we become both greedy and lazy in our quest to devour a mass of information we don’t need whilst not trying as hard to remember something we can so easily revisit later.

The Light at the end of the Tunnel

However it doesn’t need to be this way. Knowledge of this issue could help educators to encourage learners to use the internet in a way that can help them to remember information in the long term. If a student needs to look up a word, surely the rules should be the same whether they are in class or not. Therefore it might be wise if students were encouraged to keep a log of these words, create different sentences in which the words could be used, and make an effort to use the words again.

What do you think? Is online learning something that educators should use to help students, or should students be discouraged from using it?

The series uses exercises and focused speaking tasks that can be done face-to-face or online using social media. The courses are designed to help students practise their English in a way that works for them, whether it’s in person over a coffee, or online via Facebook or Skype. In the video below, English Out There students from a Swansea school practise their English in the local area as part of the course.

English Out There was shortlisted this year for the Teachers’ competition for Social Media use in Formal Language Learning Contexts and has received some brilliant reviews from teachers and students alike.

So does this series fill the gap? We’d love to hear your thoughts whether you have had experience with the course or not.

Jason runs free webinars for teachers on Mondays and Wednesdays on Wiziq.com (virtual classroom) and says that anyone is welcome and can ask questions. Find out more here: http://www.wiziq.com/EnglishOutThere. To learn more about English Out There in general, visit the website: http://englishoutthere.com/.