ELT journal oct 09

INTO THE CLASSROOM NEW SERIES INTO THE CLASSROOM www.oup.com/elt Volume 63/4 October 2009 ELTB Articles Reviews Perspectives on spoken grammar Two ways of presenting vocabulary Preparing learners for the workplace How good is your test? Teaching discourse intonation Developing teacher training skills Online corpora and writing skills Promoting student autonomy Writing Stories: Developing Language Skills through Story Making Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching The Oxford Guide to Practical Lexicography Teaching Children English as an Additional Language Teaching English as an Additional Language Introducing English as an Additional Language Tasks in Action: Task-Based Language Education Practical Classroom English Readers respond Survey review Grammar as a communicative resource An outcomes-based approach Writing academic English Comment Comics Websites review ELT and the global recession Online forum report Class-centred teaching oxford
October 2009 also by Gordon Lewis Volume 63/4 NEW for February 2010 Bringing creative teaching into the young learner classroom An international journal for teachers of English to speakers of other languages ELTB NEW Make sense of new teaching tools, techniques, and educational policy Have confidence introducing them into your classroom Key concepts in ELT Innovation in ELT in association with C Every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material in this issue, but we shall be pleased to hear from any copyright holder whom we have been unable to contact If notified, the publisher will attempt to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity © Oxford University Press 2009 All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of the Publishers, or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1PS 9HE, or in the USA by the Copyright Clearing Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923, USA UK ISSN 0951-0893 (print); 1477-4526 (online) Typeset by TnQ Books and Journals Pvt Ltd., Chennai, India Printed by C.O.S Printers Pte Ltd, Singapore Advertising Inquiries about advertising should be sent to: Linda Hann Oxford Journals Advertising 60 Upper Broadmoor Road Crowthorne RG45 7DE UK Email:: lhann@talktalk.net Tel: +44 (0)1344 779945 Fax: +44 (0)1344 779945 Website Article titles, abstracts, and Key concepts appear free online through the ELT Journal website: http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org The Editorial Panel David Bell Ohio University, USA Sue Garton University of Aston Laura Grassick British Council, Egypt Carol Griffiths British Council Teacher Training Project, DPRK Peter Grundy IATEFL Graham Hall Northumbria University Éva Illés Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest Barley Mak The Chinese University of Hong Kong Jonathan Marks Leba, Poland Alice Oxholm Sheffield Hallam University Annamaria Pinter University of Warwick Barbara Skinner University of Ulster Jane Spiro Oxford Brookes University Melinda Tan University of Central Lancashire Key Concepts Editor Alan Waters University of Lancaster Text Messages Editors Jill and Charles Hadfield Abstracting and Indexing British Education Index covers ELT Journal Editorial Front Office Jane Magrane The Advisory Board Michael Carrier ELT Adviser Consultant to the Editors Cristina Whitecross Simon Greenall IATEFL Catherine Kneafsey Oxford University Press Norman Whitney ELT Consultant The Editor Keith Morrow The Reviews Editor Philip Prowse Consultant on Research Design Catherine Walter Department of Education, University of Oxford Aims ELT Journal is a quarterly publication for all those involved in the field of teaching English as a second or foreign language The journal links the everyday concerns of practitioners with insights gained from related academic disciplines such as applied linguistics, education, psychology, and sociology ELT Journal aims to provide a medium for informed discussion of the principles and practice which determine the ways in which the English language is taught and learnt around the world It also provides a forum for the exchange of information among members of the profession worldwide The Editor of ELT Journal is supported by an Editorial Advisory Panel whose members referee submissions Their decisions are based upon the relevance, clarity, and value of the articles submitted The views expressed in ELT Journal are the contributors’ own, and not necessarily those of the Editor, the Editorial Advisory Panel, or the Publisher Contributions Contributions are welcome from anyone involved in ELT Contributors should consult the current Guide for contributors before submitting articles, as this contains important information about the focus and format of articles Articles not submitted in accordance with the Guide will not be considered for publication The Guide can be obtained on request from the Editor, and is now available online See our website: http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org If you wish to write a review for ELT Journal, please contact the Reviews Editor Unsolicited reviews cannot be accepted for publication Correspondence e d i t o r i a l : The Editor, ELT Journal, Homerton House, Cawston Road, Reepham, Norwich nr10 4lt, UK Email: editor@eltj.org re vi e w s: The Reviews Editor, ELT Journal, po Box 83, Cambridge cb3 9pw, UK Fax +44 (0) 1223 572390 Email: reviews@eltj.org ELT Journal Volume 63/4 October 2009 ª The Author 2009 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Contents ELT Journal Volume 63 Number October 2009 Articles Christine Goh Evagelia Papathanasiou David Wood Funda Ku¨xu c¨ k and JoDee Walters Mike Beaken Christopher Stillwell Alex Gilmore ´ ´ Jesus Angel Gonza´lez Perspectives on spoken grammar 303 An investigation of two ways of presenting vocabulary 313 Preparing ESP learners for workplace placement 323 How good is your test? 332 Teaching discourse intonation with narrative 342 The collaborative development of teacher training skills 353 Using online corpora to develop students’ writing skills 363 Promoting student autonomy through the use of the European Language Portfolio 373 Readers respond Anthony Bruton Phillip D Jones Grammar is not only a liberating force, it is a communicative resource 383 Giving a voice to teachers and students in an outcomes-based approach 387 Comment Richard S Pinner ELT and the global recession 390 Online forum report Rose Senior Class-centred teaching 393 Key concepts in ELT Martin Wedell Innovation in ELT 397 Survey review Christopher Tribble Writing academic English—a survey review of current published resources 400 Reviews Alan Maley Nick McIver Robert Lew Writing Stories: Developing Language Skills through Story Making by A Wright and D A Hill 418 Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching by L Meddings and S Thornbury 419 The Oxford Guide to Practical Lexicography by B T S Atkins and M Rundell 421 Joanne Glasgow and Barbara Skinner Thomas A Williams Alex Case Teaching Children English as an Additional Language: Meeting the Challenge in the Classroom by L Haslam, Y Wilkin, and E Kellet, Teaching English as an Additional Language: A Programme for 7–11 Year Olds by C Scott, and Introducing English as an Additional Language to Young Children by K Crosse 425 Tasks in Action: Task-Based Language Education from a ClassroomBased Perspective by K Van den Branden, K Van Gorp, and M Verhelst (eds.) 429 Practical Classroom English by G Hughes and J Moate with T Raatikainen 433 Websites for the language teacher Diana Eastment Comics 436 Correspondence 439 IATEFL 442 Annual index: Volume 63 (2009) 443 Cumulative index 446 Please visit ELT Journal’s website at http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org Perspectives on spoken grammar Christine Goh English language teachers’ opinions on the pedagogic relevance of spoken grammar are beginning to be reported, yet the voices of teachers in East Asia are rarely heard In this article, the views of teachers from China and Singapore expressed in an online discussion are compared The discussion, which was part of a taught postgraduate course, focused on the usefulness of British spoken grammar norms and the potential value of spoken grammar knowledge for language learners There is a broad consensus of opinion about its importance for raising learners’ language awareness, but Chinese and Singaporean teachers generally had different attitudes to native speaker norms, while opinions on some pedagogical issues vary more at the individual level The similarities and differences are attributed to the teachers’ sociolinguistic concerns, understanding of learner needs, and beliefs about grammar that are influenced by the written language The implications of these teacher perspectives for teacher education are highlighted Introduction Many academic papers have been published on spoken grammar, and the special features of speech have recently been included in several English grammars (see, for example, Biber, Conrad, and Leech 2002) While there is general recognition that language teaching should take account of the difference between spoken and written language, the pedagogic relevance of spoken grammar is still a matter of much discussion McCarthy and Carter (2001: 57) argue its importance to language teaching as follows: Language pedagogy that claims to support the teaching and learning of speaking skills does itself a disservice if it ignores what we know about the spoken language Whatever else may be the result of imaginative methodologies for eliciting spoken language in the second language classroom, there can be little hope for a natural spoken output on the part of language learners if the input is stubbornly rooted in models that owe their origin and shape to the written language But is a model of spoken grammar derived from a corpus of British spoken English appropriate for all language learners? Given the status of English as a lingua franca for intercultural communication, and a call by some linguists to teach only its ‘core’ features, can we justify teaching a spoken grammar based mainly on spontaneous everyday speech in the British Isles? This issue of using real data from British native speaker (NS) language was debated by Carter (1998) and Cook (1998) and further examined empirically by Timmis (2002) in his survey of about 600 teachers and learners from various countries Timmis concluded that while teachers in general thought it was not always necessary for learners to conform to NS norms, learners themselves were in fact keen to so E LT Journal Volume 63/4 October 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp004 ª The Author 2009 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Advance Access publication March 10, 2009 303 In responding to specific questions on spoken grammar, two thirds of the teacher respondents thought it was important to expose learners to features of spontaneous NS speech, but nearly a quarter of them expressed reservations about the grammaticality of certain spoken grammar forms Timmis (2005) further showed that UK-based teachers were favourably disposed to the idea of teaching spoken grammar forms Clearly, a grammar of speech based on British English1 data would be relevant to the UK context The question remains, however, as to whether teachers outside the UK would find spoken grammar just as useful for their learners Views from China and Singapore For some preliminary answers to the question, I present here the views of 75 English language teachers from China and Singapore They were postgraduate students doing applied linguistic courses in the same university Of the total, 37 were Chinese college and high school teachers, while the remaining 38 were mainly primary and secondary teachers from Singapore In an online forum, the teachers discussed the questions below: n Is linguistic information from British English data revealed in the CANCODE project useful for teaching learners about spoken language? n Can knowledge of spoken grammar forms improve learners’ spoken language performance? The questions were meant to be open-ended prompts that gave teachers room to explore related issues and perspectives The discussion was not originally intended to be a procedure for collecting research data I had set it up as a learning task for a teaching methodology course on listening and speaking When reading the teachers’ responses, however, I found their comments refreshing, interesting, and insightful It was particularly exciting to see that the teachers were making their voices heard on a discussion topic that had so far been dominated by linguists I therefore decided to analyse their written comments in a systematic manner and report my observations Methods Before they engaged in the online discussions, I introduced the teachers to spoken grammar in class They also read The Grammar of Talk: Spoken English, Grammar and the Classroom by Carter (2003) individually It was selected because it was relevant for both E F L and ‘mainstream’ English language teachers Furthermore, it contained concise explanations and useful examples of key spoken grammar forms: heads, tails, modal expressions, discourse markers, deixis, ellipsis, tags, flexible positioning of adverbs and adverbials, purposefully vague language, and coordination of clauses The teachers were also asked to visit a website on the CANCODE project (http://www.cambridge.org/elt/corpus/cancode.htm) To ensure that they had enough time to read and respond to one another’s comments, teachers were organized into small discussion groups consisting of six to seven members They were also instructed to post their individual responses to the two questions before responding to the views of other group members At the end of the course, I obtained the teachers’ permission to analyse and use their comments The analysis was done in two stages First, each person’s initial individual responses to the two questions were examined and allocated to one of three 304 Christine Goh categories, with the Chinese and Singaporean participants distinguished throughout Second, these and the teachers’ subsequent responses to other group members’ views were examined for specific issues regarding the teaching and learning of spoken grammar The analyses focused on features of saliency, frequency, and distribution, and the results were checked twice, once after a three week interval and then five weeks later Perspectives identified in the responses were subsequently selected China and Singapore Before I present the results of the comparisons, it is useful to highlight some similarities and differences about China and Singapore A common situation in both countries is the ever increasing demand for English instruction at all levels and forms of learning China, an emerging world superpower, needs English to consolidate its current economic influence and efforts at modernization (Hu 2002), while the resource-scarce city-state of Singapore needs citizens with a good command of the language to reposition itself as a centre for knowledge, learning, and service industries, and to participate in overseas trade (Alsagoff 2007) Whereas Chinese E F L students receive little authentic input from their immediate educational and social environments, students in Singapore have English as a medium of instruction and also study it as a curriculum subject from preschool years About half of Singaporean students come from English-speaking homes Many, however, speak a colloquial variety known popularly as ‘Singlish’, the syntax, phonology, and lexical items of which are heavily influenced by vernacular languages in the community British spoken grammar norms The first question in the discussion invites teacher opinion on the usefulness of British spoken grammar norms (see Figure 1) Chinese teachers are on the whole happy to embrace the exonormative features that British spoken grammar provides and welcome more linguistic information from other NS varieties They consider the ability to speak naturally and accurately like a NS from countries such as Britain to be a distinct advantage Among Singaporean teachers, however, opinion is divided, revealing the complexities in language choice in societies where the local English variety competes with Anglo models for allegiance and acceptance figure British spoken grammar norms Perspectives on spoken grammar 305 ‘British spoken grammar norms are useful’ For 87 per cent of the Chinese teachers, spoken grammar is not only useful but also essential They believe that their students need a NS model in order to speak more naturally They see CANCODE as an important source of instructional input because it has been collected from real, naturally occurring spoken English in NS language environments The information is considered especially helpful to E F L learners who have few opportunities to develop features of authentic English speech It reveals an authentic picture of language use to students, a world full of incomplete sentences, phrases, vague language, discourse markers, etc (C1) In contrast, more than 60 per cent of their Singaporean colleagues find spoken grammar based on British English to be less directly useful The main reason is that Singaporean speakers already have their own natural spoken grammar forms for casual speech through Singlish Nevertheless, a few teachers see the British model as a useful point of reference for the learning of standard English It is fine to use British English as the basis for teaching spoken grammar as we need a set of standard rules to follow (S1) ‘Useful, but ’ More than half of the Singaporean teachers say that spoken grammar forms should be introduced to students only for comparison purposes: It would be useful to use the corpora for spoken Singapore English alongside the findings of the CANCODE corpus (S2) Perhaps students are speaking Singlish partly because they observed ‘everybody around me’s speaking like this, what’s wrong of me in doing so?’ The corpus examples would expose them to the reality that ‘it’s a real big world out there!’ (S3) Some Chinese teachers feel that NS models should not be limited to just British English: We could add more variety, for example, by using American, Australian, Canadian English, etc to the teaching of spoken grammar (C2) ‘Not useful’ Around five per cent of the Chinese teachers argue that learners should focus on acquiring written grammar, which can then be modified for speaking Given the limited classroom exposure, priority should be given to the instruction of written grammar instead of spoken grammar [ ] If a student has a good knowledge of written language, his/her spoken language can be improved more easily provided s/he is exposed in the real-world conversation (C3) A Singaporean teacher’s comment reflects sociolinguistic sensibilities, particularly the issues of ownership and identity, implying that her students may resist exonormative models: It is rather artificial and an uphill task to force down the throats of our pupils to speak English using the linguistic information based on British English [ ] English does not belong to the people in Britain (S4) 306 Christine Goh Spoken grammar and language performance The second discussion question asks teachers whether they think their students’ spoken English performance will improve from knowledge about spoken grammar forms In general, all 75 teachers agree that it can promote learners’ language awareness, particularly about differences between spoken and written language and between English varieties While many also believe it can improve spoken output, others have their reservations Spoken grammar improves performance In Figure 2, of the Chinese EFL teachers, 83 per cent believe that spoken grammar knowledge can increase their students’ confidence and help them speak more naturally Increasing learner confidence The teachers feel that many Chinese EFL learners have the misconception that they should construct ‘perfect’ sentences modelled after the written language These learners become anxious and their performance is affected as a result: They may think too much of the structure of the language, which in fact can prevent the communicating process For example, the knowledge of ‘ellipsis’ or flexible positioning in spoken grammar might, to some extent, encourage the students to overcome the psychological obstacle and speak out without thinking too much (C4) It is very necessary [ ] to reduce their anxiety in speaking in English For example, they may feel relaxed to know there are lot of phrasal utterances and ellipsis in British daily conversations (C5) For some Singaporean teachers, confidence for their students comes from an understanding of different speech registers through spoken grammar: Having knowledge of spoken grammar not only enables pupils to differentiate between written and spoken language but also the different types of speech used in different contexts With this knowledge, pupils can select and use the appropriate forms in constructing their speech and speak with confidence (S4) Producing natural spoken output Some Chinese teachers remark that the speech of many E F L learners (including themselves) often sounds stilted because it has been modelled on figure Can spoken grammar improve spoken language performance? Perspectives on spoken grammar 307 illustrate One flaw is in fact pointed out in the text accompanying the example: ‘The nouns shown in square brackets in the bunch entry should be read [emphasis added, RL] as ‘‘of flowers, watercress ’’’; the list of collocates cum sense discriminator in the example entry reads [flowers, watercress, herbs] without the ‘of’, and this omission indeed compromises clarity What the text fails to say, though, is that this preposition is even more urgently needed in the second example entry which begins thus: grow vi [plant, hair] pousser Here [plant, hair] are meant to indicate the possible subjects of ‘grow’, but how is the English-speaking user to know this other than from the distinction between vi and vt (a highly problematic one, as the authors duly note elsewhere: ‘it is questionable whether the average user even notices these labels, still less understands their meaning’, p 400)? What else would signal to the user that this part of the entry is not the right one in rendering into French expressions such as ‘I’d better start growing my hair’ or ‘if you want to grow plants in the back yard, ’? Obviously, the inclusion of ‘of’ or ‘about’ would have largely taken care of this problem, and this should be pointed out, or else this problematic example should not be used at all A more satisfactory treatment of sense discrimination is provided in Chapter 12, but even there the presentation would gain a lot from—without going too far afield—the valuable insight from Sue Atkins herself found in the best account known to me of sense discriminator types common in bilingual dictionaries (1996; reprinted as Atkins 2002) The above critical points not of course mean that the bilingual section is unhelpful or in any way substandard; quite the reverse: it is a coherent exposition with convincing examples, and it offers much useful information that is hard or impossible to find elsewhere (such as the list of pros and cons of using translation corpora in the editing of bilingual dictionaries, p 478) It is just that, comparatively, the bilingual section is less detailed than the monolingual one and than some more demanding readers might hope It is still solid, but I see more room for improvement in this part of the Guide than elsewhere As in any book (especially in one of this size, and its first edition), the careful reader will spot isolated problems For example, one could ask for greater rigour in presenting some linguistic notions, such as the (unconvincing) three-way split of compounds (p 171); the transcriptions given in Box 7.1 fly in the face of the fundamental rules governing the relative distribution of English vowels and stress; or, the only 424 Reviews website referenced at the end of Chapter is a fossil that has not been touched since 1997 (p 44) (For a systematic listing of other infelicities, see the addendum to the excellent review article by de Schryver 2008.) Such minor problems and omissions are easily fixed in the second edition and focusing on them would distract the readers of this review from what is really important The authors deserve the highest praise for producing a unique account of best practice in modern dictionary-making, based on their extensive and highly successful experience Their explication of the relevant theoretical notions is highly engaging, admirably clear (with only the rare exception), and at times even entertaining References Adamska-Sałaciak, A 2006 Meaning and the Bilingual Dictionary: The Case of English and Polish Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Atkins, B T S 1996 ‘Bilingual dictionaries— past, present and future’ in M Gellerstam, J Jarborg ¨m, C and S -G Malmgren, K Noren and L Rogstro R Papmehl (eds.) E U RA LEX ‘96 Proceedings ¨teborg: Department of Swedish, Go ¨teborg Go University Atkins, B T S 2002 ‘Bilingual dictionaries: past, present and future’ in M -H Corre´ard (ed.) Lexicography and Natural Language Processing A Festschrift in Honour of B T S Atkins Grenoble: E U RA LEX de Schryver, G.-M 2008 ‘An analysis of The Oxford Guide to Practical Lexicography (Atkins and Rundell 2008)’ Lexikos 18: 423–45 Fontenelle, T (ed.) 2008 Practical Lexicography A Reader Oxford: Oxford University Press Jacobsen, J R., J Manley, and V H Pedersen 1991 ‘Examples in the bilingual dictionary’ in F J Hausmann, O Reichmann and H E Wiegand, L Zgusta (eds.) Wo¨rterbu¨cher/Dictionaries/ Dictionnaires An International Encyclopedia of Lexicography, Volume Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Landau, S I 2001 Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography (Second edition) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Svense´n, B 1993 Practical Lexicography Principles and Methods of Dictionary-Making (Translated from the Swedish by J Sykes and K Schofield.) Oxford: Oxford University Press Zgusta, L., V Cerny´, Z Hermanova´-Novotna´, and D Heroldova´ 1971 Manual of Lexicography Janua linguarum Series maior, 39 Den Haag: Mouton The reviewer Robert Lew is employed at the Department of Lexicology and Lexicography of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan´ (Poland) His current interests focus on dictionary use, and he has recently published a book comparing the effectiveness of monolingual, bilingual, and bilingualized entries He is working on a number of research projects including topics such as access-facilitating devices, definition formats, dictionaries for production, space in dictionaries, and training in dictionary skills He has also worked as a practical lexicographer on a number of dictionary projects for various publishers, including Harper-Collins, Pearson-Longman, and Cambridge University Press He is Reviews Editor for International Journal of Lexicography (Oxford University Press) and advisor to Macmillan Dictionaries Email: rlew@amu.edu.pl doi:10.1093/elt/ccp070 Reviews 425 Teaching Children English as an Additional Language: Meeting the Challenge in the Classroom L Haslam, Y Wilkin, and E Kellet Routledge 2008, 116 pp., £21.99 isbn 843121867 Teaching English as an Additional Language: A Programme for 7–11 Year Olds C Scott Routledge 2009, 208 pp., £24.99 isbn 978 415 45231 Introducing English as an Additional Language to Young Children K Crosse Paul Chapman Publishing 2007, 186 pp., £19.99 isbn 978 4129 3611 English as an Additional Language (E AL ) has been undergoing massive change in the United Kingdom since the introduction of policies like the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s (Q C A 2000) A Language in Common: Assessing English as an Additional Language document and the Common European Framework of Reference for Language, both of which have brought about positive change in terms of how the language development needs of children for whom English is an additional language are met Reviews E AL is not just a UK phenomenon: in any country, there are school classes which include children of different nationalities who may speak a little English, no English at all, or be fully bi- or trilingual These children present a range of different nationalities, ages, first languages, and backgrounds, for example children of asylum seekers, migrant workers, international students, or professionals They also have a range of needs, skills, and abilities The fact that more and more pupils in primary and postprimary schools now speak E AL is a considerable challenge for the mainstream teacher Taking Northern Ireland as an example, the number of pupils for whom English is not the L1 has risen from 5,523 in 2007–2008 to 7,000 in 2008–2009 (Northern Ireland Statistics Research Agency) For teachers, the responsibility of meeting the needs of these children is ever present from the initial confused face at entry to the possible lack of engagement throughout the school day Three recent books provide advice and reassurance as well as practical activities Teaching Children English as an Additional Language: Meeting the Challenge in the Classroom by Haslam, Wilkin, and Kellet and Teaching English as an Additional Language: A Programme for 7–11 Year Olds by Scott are aimed at teachers and teaching assistants, the former being for primary and secondary level whilst the latter is aimed at upperprimary levels only (ages 7–11) Introducing English as an Additional Language to Young Children by Crosse is more specifically for practitioners working with preschool children for whom English is an additional language, for example teachers, nursery assistants, and language support tutors Previous work in this field has originated from national bodies such as the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (N ALD IC ) and government departments like the Department for Education and Science (DfES, in Ireland) both of which provide working papers on aspects of E AL like assessment (NA LD IC working paper 15) and planning (DfES 2007) The ‘Together Towards Inclusion: ‘‘Toolkit for Diversity in the Primary Classroom’’’ distributed jointly by Department for Education and Science and Department of Education, Northern Ireland, is a recent example of two bodies working together to provide a practical resource for teachers and pupils Countries where EA L has been established longer, like Australia and the United States, are also good sources of support Gibbons’ (1991) Learning to Learn in a Second Language and Cummins’ (2000) Language Power and Pedagogy, Bilingual Children in the Crossfire provide a solid underpinning to both the theory and practice of E AL learning and teaching 425 The following section will examine whether the three books chosen for review are a useful addition to the existing body of research, books, and publications already available The challenge which these books face is how to encompass a field which is as complex as EAL at the same time as making it easy for busy teachers and practitioners to use Scott explains (p 1) that although many books give good advice, they not provide the quick and easy-to-use answers she wanted: I have been there and I managed to make it work However, I did not have the time to consistently provide these EA L learners with the most effective teaching and learning experiences I read copious amounts of information on how to accommodate these learners Most gave good advice but they didn’t provide easy solutions to support the new arrivals The breadth of focus of E AL is wide, a ‘provision of a multifaceted, inclusive, cross curricular approach which affects and informs every aspect of school life’ (Haslam, Wilkin, and Kellet (p vii)) and the aims in the introductions of each of these books reflect this The three books have a general approach in common: they all provide practical strategies which are firmly rooted in good EA L practice and theoretical principles which underpin how to work within classrooms where there are E AL children Another common theme is that rather than suggesting that teachers have to adopt new or additional strategies, the idea is to build and reflect on what they already know in order to create an inclusive approach in classroom activities, therefore promoting a sense of belonging for the children The books are designed for classroom practitioners but could also be used by trainee teachers, teacher trainers, or those who wish to move into teaching EAL from E S OL or L1 literacy teaching English as an Additional Language: Meeting the Challenge in the Classroom by Haslam, Wilkin, and Kellet focuses on what happens in the classroom rather than the whole school The book takes an academic and a practical tone; it introduces and explains the relevance of concepts like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and makes a necessary distinction between the Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP ) Bilingual pupils can often appear falsely fluent in English having grasped social language very quickly but have many difficulties with academic language The ‘Seems OK’ trap (p 83) provides ideas for helping children to bridge this gap and rightly 426 Reviews deserves a chapter on its own as this is a constant hazard for teachers We laughed at Chapter 8’s ‘Tales from a misspent middle age’ (p 84), a well-designed text, which gives adult fluent readers of English an opportunity to experience a few of the comprehension problems affecting later stage bilingual learners Has anyone any clue what the terms doing ‘little hull’, ‘petzl stop’, or ‘cows’ tails’ have in common? The exercises on self-reflection in Chapter help teachers to empathize and therefore could be used effectively in teacher training contexts One example is that the reader is asked to consider the word ‘muffin’ and suggests that depending on ‘how old you are and where you come from your answers will be different—for some it is a moist cake with chocolate in it, for others it is a round doughy object for toasting’ (p 84) Chapter focuses on monitoring progress It takes the Q C A descriptors for the first four stages of progress and summarizes long- and short-term aims for each stage at the same time as giving practical teaching suggestions for each stage These are presented in bullet-point form not in lesson plan format and so would need work to turn into actual lessons The following topics are covered in the other seven chapters: inclusion, pupils’ progress, exploring assessment, preparing for and teaching an EAL beginner, ways of moving on, and how to develop CALP There is an accompanying CD which seems to make up for the fact that there are only lesson ideas rather than actual lessons in the book The CD is a really useful resource with printable practical activities (for example panic file), booklets, and handouts and it is this which may help teachers save time (especially if placed in a shared folder on a school network), rather than the actual book itself Despite the rather odd decision to use punctuation vocabulary (Comma, Mr and Mrs Gerund, Future Perfect School, Adverb, and Preposition) as names for pupils, schools, and teachers, I feel the book is a welcome addition to a school staff room or to a trainer’s resource library as it can be dipped into and out of according to the needs of the reader Teaching Children English as an Additional Language: A Programme for 7–11 Year Olds by Scott provides just what it says on the cover, an actual programme for busy teachers to use with pupils in the first few weeks of their arrival The programme, which has been piloted and subsequently endorsed by schools in Tower Hamlets, London, provides answers to questions which worry many teachers when a pupil for whom English is an additional language first arrives in the school What should I with him/her? What I teach him/her first? How I know his/her level of language ability? How can I help him/her learn the most important words? How can I help his/ her get to know the school and its systems? How I know if he/she has understood the lesson? How can I support him/her as best I can as quickly as I can? The efficacy of Teaching Children English as an Additional Language is immediately evident in the pared down planning suggested throughout the book A graded baseline provides an initial assessment which informs the teacher’s planning and target setting and is directly connected to the comprehensive photocopiable resources sheets at the back of the book Some think children for whom English is an additional language cannot be accurately assessed until they have been in a school a while but baseline assessment seems useful here so that teachers can see if the programme is appropriate for the child, and if so, how to place the child quickly and accurately on the correct unit Each unit is set out very clearly with focused vocabulary and grammar learning intentions, suggested resources, and a review exercise included There is also a focus on teaching new language through speaking and listening in each unit, followed by suggestions for extension and plenary activities The programme presents a series of detailed hour 15-minute withdrawal lessons to be used daily with individuals or small groups over a period of about ten weeks Each week is called a unit and is split into days, for example 1a is Monday Most of the themes of the units (‘Getting to know you’, ‘What’s this in English?’, ‘I like literacy’, ‘My favourite animal’, ‘Have you got any brothers and sisters?’, ‘I like football’, ‘Have you got any sugar?’, ‘Home’, ‘Asking and answering’, and ‘Shops and places’) map on to curriculum topics which means the programme could be used with whole-class groups rather than just the withdrawal contexts for which they are designed Special features of the programme include emergency language lessons designed to support the learner in the first three days in their new school, the concept of a pocket-sized ‘remember book’ (like a vocabulary/notebook which provides a record of learning in class), and the assessment for learning form which is used at the end of each lesson to let the teacher know what they should focus on next I can imagine a busy teacher with only ten minutes to spare, would, with little preparation, be able to use one of the lessons to teach a successful class As well as the baseline assessment and assessment for learning forms, the back of the book includes tips on inclusion, resource sheets for individual lessons, Reviews visual labels for the classroom, a list of useful resources, and a summary of the Q C A guidelines for teaching and learning EA L Introducing English as an Additional Language to Young Children: A Practical Handbook by Crosse aims to offer activities and guidance for early years practitioners working with preschool children for whom English is an additional language, however, as Cross suggests ‘the approach described and the practical activities included will work well with all children who need support to improve their confidence and language skills’ (p 1) The book is divided into two parts: the first (Chapters to 5) is theoretical and provides knowledge about child development in order that practitioners can plan effectively ‘Foundations of language learning’ uses short descriptions of learners’ experiences to highlight aspects of E AL like the silent period and using a ‘buddy’ system; ‘Capturing the interest of children’ raises practitioners’ awareness of what they are doing and why it is useful (for example a child is encouraged to put on his red woolly hat when playing outside, red is assimilated into his vocabulary and may appear when carrying out a painting activity); ‘Getting started’ examines the different roles people can have in supporting children for whom English is an additional language; ‘Planning for success’ outlines ways of assessing progress like longitudinal observations and language sampling and provides a useful observation checklist which can be used by parents and staff, and finally, ‘A curriculum for the early years’, emphasizes, firstly, the importance of well-planned play to improve children’s language development and, secondly, the reflection for staff as one of the key ways to improve practice The inclusion of a child learning E AL appears to be more natural when they are starting preschool and certainly gives the child a more secure foundation in language when they move up classes There is some useful advice on the role of an interpreter and bilingual staff and the difficulties which may arise when the child becomes too dependent on that person to the detriment of their own language development This needs careful explanation and management by the teacher or nursery staff as the initial value of understanding provided by the interpreters can be undermined by the overdependence of the child on that one person This first part of the book does have a tendency to overuse bullet-pointed lists which can be a little hard on the reader The second part of the book (Chapters 6–11) provides practical activities to promote language learning 427 through the six areas of learning which form the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum (personal, social, and emotional development; communication, language, and literacy; problem solving, reasoning, and numeracy; knowledge and understanding of the world; physical development; creative development) Each area has eight activities and for each activity guidance is given on objectives, materials, preparation, stages of activity, and extension work A ‘topic web’ included at the start of the book cross refers these activities to other areas of child development For example, ‘people who help us’ in Chapter focuses on vocabulary development but could also be used to teach colour The list of resources at the end includes children’s story books, professional texts on child development issues, and especially useful, websites relating to early years and EA L This book does provide a structure for working with young children for whom English is an additional language and it will be useful for those practitioners who have not been working with children for long For those who have a certain amount of experience behind them, the book will raise awareness of what they already and help them understand some of the reasons for their classroom practice All three books can be recommended without hesitation Teaching Children English as an Additional Language and English as an Additional Language are to a certain extent complementary It would have been good to see more ICT activities introduced, particularly in the development of writing skills There has been a lot of research carried out to demonstrate the value of word processing for E AL learners, incorporating as it does a small number of keywords, appropriate visuals, and the facility for pupils to self-edit All three books are inevitably rooted in the UK experience and are full of references to bodies and frameworks like the Q C A , DfES, Ofsted, and the National Curriculum but this should not put off readers from other countries who may be interested in using the books, as the underlying focus on the learner throughout each book does allow the achievement of a certain degree of universality It will be interesting to see how subsequent books on EA L may address some of the areas which are lacking in the titles above How should teachers manage learners for whom English is an additional language who are not literate in their own language? What about teaching E AL in mainstream school especially at secondary level or resource books for trainers of those moving into EAL teaching? Also it will be interesting to see the effect of migration from specific 428 Reviews countries on the characteristics of EAL in the UK, might there be resources on teaching EA L to Chinese/Polish/Portuguese pupils? References Cummins, J 2000 Language Power and Pedagogy, Bilingual Children in the Crossfire Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Gibbons, P 1991 Learning to Learn in a Second Language Newtown, New South Wales: Primary English Teaching Association URLs Council of Europe 2001 The ‘Common European Framework of Reference for Language’ Available at http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Portfolio (accessed on 21 July 2009) Department of Education Northern Ireland Available at http://www.deni.gov.uk/ (accessed on 21 July 2009) Department for Education and Science and Department of Education Northern Ireland 2007 ‘Together Towards Inclusion: ‘‘Toolkit for Diversity in the Primary Classroom’’’ Available at http:// www.education-support.org.uk/teachers/ids/toolkitfor-diversity-primary (accessed on 21 July 2009) National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum Available at http:// www.naldic.org.uk/ (accessed on 21 July 2009) Northern Ireland Statistics Research Agency Available at http://www.nisra.gov.uk/ (accessed on 21 July 2009) Qualifications and Curriculum Authority 2000 A Language in Common: Assessing English as an Additional Language Available at http://www.qca org.uk/qca_5739.aspx (accessed on 21 July 2009) The reviewers Joanne Glasgow is a coordinator with the Inclusion and Diversity Service in Northern Ireland She started her English language teaching career in Cyprus in 1995, moving back to Northern Ireland where she has been a peripatetic teacher and trainer She is also on the staff of the English Language Support Unit at Queen’s University Belfast Email: joanneglasgow@hotmail.com Barbara Skinner is Course Director of the P G D T ES OL programme at the University of Ulster She also teaches a module in English as an Additional Language as part of the University’s Masters in Education programme She is currently studying for a Doctorate in Education at the University of Bristol Email: b.skinner@ulster.ac.uk doi:10.1093/elt/ccp069 Reviews 429 Tasks in Action: Task-Based Language Education from a Classroom-Based Perspective K Van den Branden, K Van Gorp, and M Verhelst (eds.) Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007, 309 pp., £39.99 isbn 84718 243 Yes, that’s right It’s a review of yet another book about task-based language teaching (T BLT ) What I feel makes this collection of studies different, however, is that it contributes to an indispensable body of empirical studies in TB LT, and more specifically, it fills the serious void of classroom-based TBLT investigations I think the book also represents an effort to respond to criticism that TB LT is, first and foremost, an ESL /E FL project (half of the chapters cover a language other than English) which is being pushed from English-dominant educational environments (for example North America and the United Kingdom) (eight out of ten of the studies were conducted outside those places) So the book is about actual classroom practice And this will come as no surprise to anyone who might be familiar with the conference that generated it TBLT 2005 (From Theory to Practice: First International Conference on Task-based Language Teaching, Leuven, 21–23 September 2005) was the first in a series a biennial gatherings of applied and educational linguists designed, among other things, to explore the potential for TBLT in the classroom That conference was hosted by the Centre for Language and Education (C L E ), a research institute for applied and educational linguistics at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and it is they who are primarily responsible for this book (as well as a special issue of the I TL International Journal of Applied Linguistics 2006, Volume 152, which also grew out of papers given at TBLT 2005) The editors all work at the C L E and four of the ten chapters were written by staff there I can see where this fact might leave the book open to the criticism that the editors could have sought a greater diversity of contexts for their book That having been said, I think these studies advance the field and I feel that some amazing potential is revealed for language learning, particularly in the chapters about 10-year-olds’ insightful reflections on their own task performance Reviews in Hungary (Chapter 5), low-budget, teacherproduced Spanish-language computer-assisted language learning (CALL ) modules at the University of Hawai’i (Chapter 9), and kindergarten children improving their Dutch while engaging in the work of play in Flanders (Chapter 10) The chapters cover several languages (Dutch, English (both E FL and ESL ), and Spanish), a number of proficiency levels and age groups, various degrees of proximity to an L1 standard (L1, at-risk L1, and L2), and numerous locations (Belgium, China, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States) While they mostly cover speaking tasks—with the exception of the one on C A L L and another on writing—this is roughly in line with the emphasis the T BLT literature places on speaking The Introduction opens the book with a fitting anecdote about a group of adult learners in Flanders taking a basic course in Dutch as an L2 to ready them for vocational training In it, they are performing a standard one-way information gap task about locating spots in a car park So far, so good, except when the learners were interviewed, they generally saw little relevance in the task to their plans for Dutch and one even said he felt humiliated because he had not come to Belgium to park cars! The point is well taken TBLT starts from the notion that learners learn by engaging in tasks But these learners felt that this task brought about no meaningful use of language, nor did the objective seem worthwhile Yet the sort of task used in their class is standard fare in most task-based research So, why the conflict? The editors point out that a needs analysis (Long 2005a), a first step in developing a task-based curriculum, tends to produce a list of tasks that is different from the pedagogic tasks used in most studies—different in both type and in terms of the social context in which they are supposedly performed The implication is that the theory and practice of T BLT could gain much from research that explores how instructed second language acquisition (S L A ) really happens in the classroom in all its facets This is certainly the principle that guides the studies found in Bygate, Skehan, and Swain (2001) and elsewhere and also represents a constructive response to critics such as Sheen (1994) and Swan (2005), who see TB LT as standing on the shaky ground of research findings that fail to look at the realities of the classroom The editors point out that TB LT 2005 highlighted the dearth of classroom-based research in the field Their overall goal with this book, therefore, is ‘to expand our knowledge of what learners and teachers actually do, 429 say and think when they are confronted with tasks in ‘‘natural’’ conditions, and to explore to what extent the practice of task-based language education can inspire its theory and ongoing research in new ways’ (p 3) I would say this goal has definitely been met in the ten studies that constitute the chapters of the book Chapter 1, ‘Learner perception of learning tasks’ by B Kumaravadivelu, asks how learners perceive and handle the formal and functional properties of tasks A preliminary study conducted in an E S L grammar class for adults in San Jose, CA; it presents the interplay between teacher objectives, task input, peer interaction, and learner perception of transactional tasks It analyses not only learner talk during task performance but also learner metatalk about task performance as a way of revealing the learner’s internal operations that guide both task performance and task processing While calling for larger scale studies on this phenomenon, the study demonstrates three things: that the formal, functional, and interactional dimensions of a task would seem to operate in tandem as learners a task; that the boundaries between the three overlap in a learner’s mind; and that it is primarily the learner that sets the degree of attention that is devoted to these three dimensions This calls to mind a humbling point (for both teacher and task designer) that I draw from the important distinction Breen (1987) makes between ‘task-as-workplan’ and ‘taskin-process’ and this is that each learner has the power to take control of a task and forge it into something individually appropriate Similar in its focus on the fluidity of the task, Chapter 2, ‘‘‘We’ll see what happens’’: tasks on paper and tasks in a multilingual classroom’, by Martien Berben, Kris Van den Branden, and Koen Van Gorp, describes three teachers and their learners, who, when confronted with the same task (to create an imaginary news bulletin), responded to the task design and built up a unique educational activity around it Set in Dutch classes for Years and in two schools located in a poor, multicultural section of Antwerp, the chapter takes a look at the four different ‘existential guises’ of a task—intended, expected, performed, and assessed—and stresses that ‘a task should not be perceived as fixed entity’; it seems to work like ‘highly flexible and kneadable material’ (p 56) The authors conclude that clearly language learning is taking place in the interaction produced in task performance, yes, but that the interplay of the various task guises leads to great variation in each learner’s learning 430 Reviews Tied to the theme of educational innovation from the centre, Chapter 3, ‘TB LT innovation in primary school English Language Teaching in mainland China’, by Ellen Yuefeng Zhang, examines TBLT implementation in E FL classes for primary Years and in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong Province It evaluates a top-down national English curriculum shift to T BLT meant ‘to replace the teacher-dominated, knowledge-transmitting and grammar-based methods which had been identified as prevailing in mainland English language teaching’ (p 68) Based on the writer’s PhD research, including document analysis, classroom observation, and interviews, the study found that the message of TB LT innovation grew gradually weaker as it descended through the various levels of stakeholders The findings bear out previous observations that topdown educational change is complex and contextbound and that it is shaped by interaction between those it impacts at all levels and by complicated contextual factors The author sees T BLT innovation as being very much at a nascent stage in China She then closes with an insightful ‘Implications’ section with points about the possible stumbling blocks to T BLT implementation and the importance of stakeholder collaboration She also responds to arguments by Ellis (2003) and others that T BLT may be in conflict with certain EF L cultural contexts, for example Confucian ideals in the Chinese classroom Her study suggests that an influx of ideas has already blended with tradition in China and that T BLT ’ s otherness is therefore overstated for her context This chapter may be particularly informative for anyone not involved in a centralized educational system such as this (and the one I work in) Jetting back to the Low Countries, the reader finds a happier ending for educational innovation in Chapter 4, ‘An assessment tool for the evaluation of teacher practice in powerful task-based language learning environments’ by Mieke Devlieger and Greet Goossens Here the setting is Dutch-medium primary schools in Brussels with large numbers of non-native Dutch-speaking children And perhaps a note is in order about the term ‘powerful learning environments’ in the title Having received wide currency in the education literature, it first appeared in De Corte (1990) and refers to an emphasis on the learner over instruction, on cooperative learning (CL), and on problem solving The chapter traces the development and use of an evaluation instrument whose purpose is to assess the extent to which teachers implemented T BLT innovation in their particular ‘powerful learning environments’ It found that within three years of the innovation, teachers showed a stronger orientation to more functional language goals and presented learners with higher quality target language input and that learners were more involved and motivated, but that teachers often eschewed group work and CL, exhibiting instead a need to maintain control over their classroom To the extent that the innovation succeeded, this was thought to have been due to coaching, in-service training, and the introduction of syllabuses The authors conclude that the instrument was effective though they offer the caveat that while it was helpful for dealing with a certain interpretation of TB LT in a certain context, it may not be appropriate everywhere Chapter 5, ‘What children say: benefits of task repetition’ by Annamaria Pinter, endeavours to make up for the shortage of studies in the task-based literature that deal with children, in particular studies with young learners’ own reflections The benefits of task repetition are well documented in numerous studies In addition to providing a good overview of these, Samuda and Bygate (2008) point out that the rationale behind such research is that people repeat their own discourses all the time, this seems to be tied with language development in children as well as adults, and so it seems natural to ask exactly how this phenomenon may be used to the greatest effect in the classroom (p 114) The context for this chapter is a Year class in Hungary The actual effects of the task repetition are covered in an earlier article Here the focus is the learners’ feedback Pinter reports that the participants enjoyed using English for real-life purposes with spontaneous and unpredictable talk and felt they had actually made themselves understood All this pointed to lowered anxiety and increased confidence and motivation, i.e benefits beyond the well-known linguistic ones Importantly, this information about how learners felt during task performance highlights the critical understanding that even children at ten have about the materials they use in the classroom and their own learning processes Chapter 6, ‘Willingness to communicate: a mediating factor in the interaction between learners and tasks’ by Christopher Weaver, takes a look at the interaction between learners and tasks This is thought to be important in TBLT because it impacts not only how learners perform tasks but also the potential for L2 development The purpose of the study is to clarify the extent to which learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC ) mediates interaction between learners and tasks The investigation was conducted in E S L oral communication classes with 290 university students in Japan using 12 different speaking tasks It was found that speech acts and task Reviews outcome options went a long way toward determining learners’ level of willingness to carry out the different tasks The author points out that such information is of great use in selecting and sequencing tasks He concludes that, while the WTC construct can tell us a great deal about how learners interact with various tasks, the degree to which this is so requires further research into the relationship between W T C , language use during task performance, and the resulting opportunities for L2 development Switching from speaking to writing, Chapter 7, ‘Taskbased writing in primary education: the development and evaluation of writing skills through writing tasks, and learner and teacher support’ by Marleen Colpin and Koen Van Gorp, describes a task-based model for writing that enables syllabus designers and teachers to conceptualize and impact young language learners’ writing processes The authors were in the team that developed the model at the C L E , founded on both task-based principles and product- and process-oriented approaches to writing The study was conducted in Dutch-medium primary school classrooms in Flanders that also included L2 and atrisk L1 learners The authors point out that writing is under-represented in the TB LT literature I agree and note that, correspondingly, TBLT is seldom found in the literature on teaching writing (or academic writing), whereas both areas could benefit mutually from closer cooperation The study concludes that while the model is effective overall it is relatively complex and places demands on teachers’ observational and interpretive skills It also assumes a great deal of time and energy of teachers as they keep track of pupils’ writing development Chapter 8, ‘The challenges of adopting and adapting task-based cooperative teaching and learning in an E FL context’ by Gertrude Tinker Sachs, investigates the integration of CL within a task-based approach to teaching in ESL /EFL for primary Years 4–6 in Hong Kong CL is defined by Sharan (1994: 336) as a ‘group-centred and student-centred approach to classroom teaching and learning’ CL principles incorporate Piagetian views on the importance of peer interaction and Vygotsky’s theories of learning from others who are more capable within the zone of proximal development The outcome of a three-year effort, the study found a noticeable increase in both teachers’ and learners’ use of English in the classroom An analysis of teachers’ tasks revealed a tendency to limit task design to closed/semi-closed task types which impacted the quality and fluency of learners’ language use Despite a sufficient number of classes for English and teachers’ being able to 431 include CL anywhere in their language lessons, the desire to so was strongly curtailed by strict adherence to syllabus demands and pen-and-paper testing measures Chapter 9, ‘Implementing task-based language teaching on the web’ by Marta Gonza´lez-Lloret, describes the development of task-based CALL materials for upper-intermediate to advanced learners working toward a Spanish degree at the University of Hawai’i It follows Long’s (2005b) main steps in designing a TBLT syllabus with an emphasis on the S L A principles to be considered It also discusses the needs analysis on which the materials were based It then presents the modules and points out the methodological principles used, following Doughty and Long’s (2003) recommendations for the creation of C A L L materials for distance learning According to the author, students generally enjoyed the programme though she also makes clear that it would need proper evaluating She makes the encouraging point that the modules (available at http://marta.lll.hawaii.edu/tbt/) were created by a language instructor in her own time with no additional funding and suggests that, therefore, anyone prepared to implement theory can it For me, this breaking down of the line between language learning and ‘content’ has shades of the comprehensive innovation at the Georgetown University German Department discussed both at a TBLT 2005 symposium and in Byrnes, Crane, Maxim, and Sprang (2006) Finally, Chapter 10, ‘Opportunities for task-based language teaching in kindergarten’ by Lieve Verheyden and Machteld Verhelst, is perhaps the study full of the most promise for TB LT It examines tasks for 2.5- to 6-year-olds in a Dutch-medium kindergarten in Flanders, including children whose native language is something other than Dutch It asks and answers some pointed questions Can activities in kindergarten classrooms even be called ‘tasks’? Can T BLT be organized at such an early age? And the reader also finds out whether and how young children’s oral proficiency and (emergent) literacy acquisition can be sparked through T BLT The authors point out how the teacher validates the learners’ ideas and suggestions, encouraging them to become risk-takers as they negotiate the rest of their education Indeed, even a glimpse at the sample transcripts reveals this—powerfully and beautifully The chapter observes that this hybrid kindergarten TBLT encompasses tasks that involve action, and not necessarily language, as well as the language learning sort 432 Reviews All in all, I very much enjoyed Tasks in Action I think the research it covers is carefully principled and clearly reported I like, in particular, where several of the chapters provide practical implications of the study for research and instruction Finally, I appreciate—and applaud—what the book attempts to for TBLT I think it succeeds in its attempt And I hope we can expect more high-quality classroom-based studies such as these References Breen, M 1987 ‘Learner contributions to task design’ in C Candlin and D Murphy (eds.) Language Learning Tasks Lancaster Practical Papers in English Language Education, Volume London: Lancaster University Bygate, M., P Skehan, and M Swain (eds.) 2001 Researching Pedagogic Tasks: Second Language Learning, Teaching and Testing Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Byrnes, H., C Crane, H Maxim, and K Sprang 2006 ‘Taking text to task: issues and choices in curriculum construction’ I TL International Journal of Applied Linguistics 152: 85–110 De Corte, E 1990 ‘Towards powerful learning environments for the acquisition of problem solving skills’ European Journal of Psychology of Education 5/1: 5–19 Doughty, C and M Long 2003 ‘Optimal psycholinguistic environments for distance foreign language learning’ Language Learning and Technology 7/3: 50–80 Ellis, R 2003 Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press Long, M (ed.) 2005a Second Language Needs Analysis Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Long, M (ed.) 2005b ‘TB LT: building the road as we travel’ Plenary Address, First International Conference on Task-Based Language Teaching, University of Leuven, Belgium Samuda, V and M Bygate 2008 Tasks in Second Language Learning Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan Sharan, S 1994 ‘Cooperative learning and the teacher’ in S Sharan (ed.) Handbook of Cooperative Learning Methods Westport, CT.: Greenwood Educators’ Reference Collection Sheen, R 1994 ‘A critical analysis of the advocacy of the task-based syllabus’ TE SOL Quarterly 28/1: 127–51 Swan, M 2005 ‘Legislation by hypothesis: the case of task-based instruction’ Applied Linguistics 26/3: 376–401 The reviewer Thomas A Williams is currently working toward a PhD in English Applied Linguistics at the University of Pe´cs, Hungary, where he is conducting research on task-based language teaching He is also involved in teacher education at the University of Szeged, Hungary He has an MA TE FL from the University of Reading and 20 years’ experience teaching EFL and ESP , including Business English and E AP He has published articles on a range of ELT topics as well as a test prep book Email: thomas@lingo.u-szeged.hu doi:10.1093/elt/ccp075 Reviews 433 cover with pronunciation practice and recordings of extracts of real lessons and an accompanying website http://www.oup.com/elt/teacher/pce (also available to those who have not bought the book as long as you register for free) with vocabulary lists and extra practice worksheets The book starts with a ten-page Introduction explaining who the book is for, how it is organized, and some (very unprescriptive) advice on how it could be used It ends with a seven-page ‘Answer key’, five pages of ‘Live lesson transcripts’, and two pages of books and websites that are recommended as ‘Useful reading and resources’ Practical Classroom English G Hughes and J Moate with T Raatikainen Oxford University Press 2007, 172 pp., £15.68 isbn 978 19 442279 (Book and CD pack) Practical Classroom English (P C E ) is a course for non-native teachers of English at secondary and tertiary level who wish to improve the amount and quality of English they use in their classes It is similar in aims to English for Primary Teachers (Slattery and Willis 2001) and Willis’ (1981) classic Teaching English through English According to the Introduction, it is based on Hughes’ (1981) earlier A Handbook of Classroom English, but as I myself had not reached secondary school at that point I cannot comment on any similarities and changes! The book is also based on ‘more than thirty years’ experience of running classroom English courses’, ‘the observation reports of some 1,500 practice lessons’, and ‘thirty hours of classroom recordings from eight different countries’ (all p vi) Although ‘P C E is primarily meant as a coursebook for use in pre-service and in-service teacher training’, the authors also intend it to be suitable for use as a ‘handbook or work of reference’ and for teachers working ‘alone or in a study group’ (all p vi) It is also meant to be suitable for teachers with a wide range of levels of language and confidence with using it in class As that potentially covers every non-native speaking teacher of English, such a book is potentially of interest to a huge range of such teachers and the people who train them The book consists of 182 pages, most of which are taken up by six units: ‘Everyday classroom routines’, ‘Involving the learners’, ‘Managing the classroom’, ‘Working with the textbook’, ‘Using technology’, and ‘Developing skills’ There is also a CD in the back Reviews The six units of the book are each divided into three sections To give an example, Unit (Using technology) is divided into ‘Displaying information’, ‘Working in the language laboratory’, and ‘Using a computer’ These are further divided into between three and six half- to one-and-a-half-page subsections, such as ‘Using the board’, ‘Managing the board’, ‘Preparations and problems’, ‘Presenting with projected visuals’, and ‘Discussing visuals’ (Unit 5A) An introductionary page to each of the three sections gives around five phrases for teachers for each of those subsections (‘Please look at the board’, ‘Come and write the answer on the board’, etc.), along with ‘Points to think about’ (eight to ten discussion questions such as ‘How many different listening activities can you think of? Do you have any favourites?’), ‘Language to think about’ (‘Take it in turns to gain the attention of a loud group of students engrossed in a discussion not related to the topic of the lesson’, etc.), and ‘Classroom English to collect’ (suggestions for nouns, verbs, etc., for teachers to look up and learn for themselves, such as ‘Equipment that students use during a lesson’) In each of the six units, the three sections are followed by five pages of ‘Classroom essentials’ that deal with the same kind of language but organized in a more language based (rather than situation or topic based) way, adding up to three sections on ‘Giving instructions’ and three sections on ‘Asking questions’ These are followed by two or three pages of ‘Exercises’ and ‘Activities’ such as rephrasing, thinking of language to use in particular classroom scenarios, role-playing, board games, drawing up lesson plans, bingo, and links to preposition and vocabulary practice on the website The last section in each unit is ‘Audio practice’ such as using the CD to listen and repeat whilst concentrating on intonation, work on individual sounds, and listening comprehension questions focusing on the language used in the ‘Live lessons’ on the CD The core of the book is the list of classroom phrases presented in the sections that make up each unit; in fact, the authors describe the book as ‘basically 433 a comprehensive list of classroom phrases’ (p vi) Each section gives approximately 140 phrases, adding up to approximately 4,000 for the whole book when you include the footnotes These phrases range from basic (and sometimes rather rude sounding) phrases like ‘Hang it up’ and ‘Go in’ to idiomatic phrases like ‘How’s it going?’ and ‘How’s life?’ (all p 3) Questions of politeness and idiomaticity aside, the phrases that I marked as possibly unnatural or unlikely to occur in my classroom as I went through the book (for example ‘Good evening to you’ and ‘Perhaps you’re wondering who I am?’ [p 3]) made up no more than per cent of the total This is a good percentage compared to other sources of classroom English I have come across such as older books and pages on websites for teachers The phrases are supplemented by symbols and notes indicating idiomatic phrases, student replies, typical mistakes, cross-references to other parts of the book, teaching tips connected to the language, grammar and other language-related pointers, places that are connected to the accompanying CD, and points where the writers suggest readers record themselves The format and content of the book very much reflect what participants on a Classroom English course I have run have asked for in post-course feedback over the years The teachers on the course often asked for lots of useful language (perhaps assuming that they could their own selection and practice of it as they bring it into their classrooms over the months and years), for a very strong focus on language rather than the methodology associated with it, for correction of pronunciation and other errors, and for controlled practice of the language rather than more theoretical discussions about it They were also keen to get all the materials at the beginning of the course so that they could as much preparation as possible at home I therefore believe that they would be very happy indeed to be given a book like this at the beginning of the course and to things like listen to the classroom extracts, practise their pronunciation with classroom phrases, take part in role-plays, and some controlled practice games such as bingo There are other parts of the book, however, such as the notes on the phrases and the lists of phrases themselves, that seem much more suitable for selfstudy than for use during courses This is particularly so if we want our classroom language courses to be a model for the kinds of classes that the teachers on it should teach, as we hardly want them using a list of 30 phrases with no shared grammatical structures and three-quarters of a page of notes with their own classes! No notes for trainers seem to be available, but it is possible to find ways of using most of the book Nonetheless, I cannot imagine more than 20 434 Reviews per cent of the course time being with the book open, especially in an intensive course The trainer would be very unlikely to need to look elsewhere for language to teach, however, or for homework tasks The discussion questions, recordings, photocopiable board games, and parts of the ‘Exercises’ and ‘Activities’ sections would also be invaluable resources in designing classroom language sessions or materials, even for trainers who choose not to ask students to buy the book Although the authors recommend 50 to 60 hours for a course covering the material in the book and say that it is possible to cover it in 30 hours, at no point they suggest that participants should be learning all approximately 4,000 phrases in the book in that time For teachers on the course or using the book for selfstudy who are not guided carefully or are overambitious, however, there is certainly a danger that the temptation to move on to the next unfamiliar phrase could interfere with practising more basic phrases until they and their students get used to using them well As most teachers who choose to work specifically on their classroom English so through a lack of confidence, there is also the danger that 4,000 ungraded phrases could make any lack of confidence worse and the task of reaching a level to their satisfaction seem daunting It also, of course, increases the cost, size, and weight of the book For self-study, the weaknesses of the book are the fact that the language is deliberately left ungraded (with the exception of idiomatic language being marked and explained and Unit being more difficult than the others), that basic or important language is not made to stand out in any way, and that there is no organization of the phrases by shared grammatical structure There is also the inevitable problem of using a book with many discussion questions and other speaking activities when you are studying on your own Nevertheless, the book is streets ahead of the few websites with lists of classroom language that I have been reduced to sending my course participants for extra language and practice, both in terms of providing ‘real and realistic’ language and in actually providing practice of that language Whilst I will not necessarily recommend asking the participants on the next classroom language course we run to buy this book, it has been a great help in polishing up and rethinking my materials and workshop plans It is also the best self-study book for non-native present or future secondary school teachers who want to concentrate on the language they use (rather than developing that language as part of a more general methodology course) that I have seen I therefore would have no hesitation in recommending it to every trainer giving courses on classroom language (even ones giving sessions on simplifying their language for NS teachers of English) and as a self study book If it ever becomes available in separate classroom and self-study editions, in thinner graded versions, or with an accompanying trainer’s guide with more photocopiable materials, I would recommend it even more highly References Hughes, G 1981 A Handbook of Classroom English Oxford: Oxford University Press Slattery, M and J Willis 2001 English for Primary Teachers Oxford: Oxford University Press Reviews Willis, J 1981 Teaching English through English Harlow, UK: Longman The reviewer Alex Case has been a teacher and occasional teacher trainer for 14 years in Turkey, Thailand, Spain, Greece, Italy, Japan, the UK, and now Korea He is Reviews Editor of TE FL net (http://www.tefl.net) and writes T EFL tastic blog (http://www.tefl.net/alexcase) Email: alexcase@hotmail.com doi:10.1093/elt/ccp068 435 [...]... grouped by sense relations such as synonyms) and cognitively based clustering (for example, thematic clustering) E LT Journal Volume 63/4 October 2 009; doi:10. 1093 /elt/ ccp014 ª The Author 2 009 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Advance Access publication March 5, 2 009 313 There are three main arguments for the presentation of vocabulary in semantically related sets: 1 The first... defined as multiword strings or frames which appear to be mentally stored and retrieved as single words and which E LT Journal Volume 63/4 October 2 009; doi:10. 1093 /elt/ ccp005 ª The Author 2 009 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Advance Access publication February 23, 2 009 323 have a wide range of meanings and serve important functions in spoken discourse In order to understand the... tests, reliability is a precondition for validity, because unreliable test scores cannot provide suitable 332 E LT Journal Volume 63/4 October 2 009; doi:10. 1093 /elt/ ccp001 ª The Author 2 009 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Advance Access publication February 23, 2 009 grounds for valid interpretation and use (Bachman 1990) Two essential concepts are involved in reliability: ‘scorers’... communication, and culture’ E LT Journal 52/1: 43–64 Carter, R 2003 ‘The grammar of talk: spoken English, grammar and the classroom’ in New Perspectives on Spoken English in the Classroom London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority Carter, R and M McCarthy 1997 Exploring Spoken English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cook, G 1998 ‘The uses of reality: a reply to Ronald Carter’ ELT Journal 52/1: 57–63... theory to vocabulary teaching’ ELT Journal 35/2: 115–22 Finkbeiner, M and J Nicol 2003 ‘Semantic category effects in second language word learning’ Applied Psycholinguistics 24/3: 369–83 Hedge, T 2000 Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom Oxford: Oxford University Press Hunt, R R and D B Mitchell 1982 ‘Independent effects of semantic and nonsemantic distinctiveness’ Journal of Experimental Psychology:... storage of multiword sequences’ Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24/2: 215–21 Coulmas, F 1979 ‘On the sociolinguistic relevance of routine formulae’ Journal of Pragmatics 3/3–4: 239–66 Hickey, T 1993 ‘Identifying formulas in first language acquisition’ Journal of Child Language 20/1: 27–41 Kahnemann, D and A Treisman 1984 ‘Changing views of attention and automaticity’ in R Parasuraman and D R Davies... of teaching English as a lingua franca’ E LT Journal 60/3: 213–21 McCarthy, M R and R Carter 2001 ‘Ten criteria for a spoken grammar’ in E Hinkel and S Fotos (eds.) New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Timmis, I 2002 ‘Native-speaker norms and international English: a classroom view’ E LT Journal 56/3: 240–9 Timmis, I 2005 ‘Towards... No of words 60 Mean 21.1746 Std deviation 9.48435 Std error mean 1.19492 1.35837 t -2.501 df 124 Sig (2tailed) 0.014 124 0.002 Everyone-un-SHT 2 63 60 25.6984 10.78176 [2] Everyone-re-LT vs 1 63 60 16. 8095 7.97346 1.00456 -3.114 Everyone-un-LT [3] All-Children-re-SHT vs 2 1 63 31 60 60 21.7460 18.8065 9.73515 9.96467 1.22651 1.78971 -0.620 60 0.538 2 31 60 20.4194 -1.106 60 0.273 -3.469 62 0.001 -4.032... Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Timmis, I 2002 ‘Native-speaker norms and international English: a classroom view’ E LT Journal 56/3: 240–9 Timmis, I 2005 ‘Towards a framework for teaching spoken grammar’ E LT Journal 59/2: 117–25 Zhang, L J 2004 ‘Awareness-raising in the T E F L phonology classroom: student voices and sociocultural and psychological considerations’ I T L Review of Applied Linguistics 145/1:... 1982 ‘Independent effects of semantic and nonsemantic distinctiveness’ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 8/1: 81–7 Jullian, P 2000 ‘Creating word-meaning awareness’ E LT Journal 54/1: 37–46 Nation, I S P 2001 Learning Vocabulary in Another Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Schneider, V I., A F Healy, and L E Bourne 1998 ‘Contextual interference effects in