Ten Ingredients

It wasn’t until I was 26 that I first considered teaching English as a foreign (or second) language. My best friend entered TEFL straight after university and taught in Spain. I went to visit him a few times in Barcelona and although I was envious of his living abroad, I never entertained the thought of teaching – the idea of standing in front of people and talking petrified me.

Twenty years later, I have stood in front of thousands of people and have been petrified only a few times – my first CELTA observation in Izmir, Turkey; my first workshop as a teacher-trainer in Tokyo; and my first presentation at an international conference in Dubai.

How is it I managed to enter (and enjoy) a profession that the thought of once petrified me? Here are ten things that happened in life that lead me to TEFL:

Stamp collecting
This was my first introduction to the world. All those beautiful stamps from so many countries. From the age of eight or nine, I was fascinated by the country names. How could Magyar be Hungary and Suomi be Finland? I even managed to figure out the difference between Japanese and Chinese stamps. This hobby did my general knowledge of countries and their capitals, currencies, royal families, fruit, animals and birds a power of good. I reckon it was also the first seed in making me want to travel forever.

Lists
I made lists when I was a kid. Hundreds of them. Lists on all countries and capitals, lists on diseases, authors, football teams. They were all very detailed and meticulously created. I didn’t dare ask my friends but I think I was the only kid in my class, school, continent… to do this. Looking back, I’m sure this helped me enjoy planning lessons. I’m still making lists and trying to be meticulous.

That Spanish woman
Out of the blue one Wednesday evening when I was eight or nine, a young Spanish woman – an overseas student – spent the night at our house. I remember boring her for at least an hour asking her what the Spanish word was for almost every English word I could think of. She left quite an impression on me – people went to other countries to learn languages. I wish I’d followed her example and studied a language at university and then gone abroad. But I studied accountancy.

Studying accountancy
Doing a BSc. in Accountancy at university turned out to be one of the best moves possible for a career in anything but accountancy. I was quite clueless about double-entry bookkeeping and profit and loss accounts. I never once managed to balance a balance sheet – not even the very first one in the basics of accounting book. I knew this didn’t bode well for the financial fortunes of any company I might later be Financial Director of. The only course I liked was the history of double-entry bookkeeping used by the coal and steel industry in the UK in the 19^th century. It was history and I like history – OK?!? I got my degree and after eight months of working as a trainee accountant and my balance sheets (and managers) becoming more and more unbalanced, I resigned. I decided two and a half years of backpacking was better than balancing unbalanceable financial reports.

Explaining words
I travelled with many other travellers from all over world in the course of my travels. Naturally, I ended up explaining English words to them. Many told me I’d be a good teacher. I think if they all told me I’d be a crap teacher and should never entertain the thought of entering a classroom, I wouldn’t have become a teacher.

Running out of money in Bangkok
Usual story – funds running low but wanting to travel more. For ten weeks I covered the classes of a guy I met in a Bangkok guest house. He showed me everything I needed to know about teaching in an hour. Real cowboy teaching. I totally loved it. No balance sheets or spreadsheets. Lots of lovely people called English students.

Helping people
I’ve always liked helping people. I did a lot of voluntary work as a child and spent three months as a volunteer “big brother” at an orphanage in Thailand. The children there didn’t know any English but I spent a long time playing with them. It was fun trying to teach them English and learn Thai at the same time. I think all teachers want to help others.

Grammar books
While teaching in Thailand I read English grammar books. I learnt a whole new language that I’d never known before. Things like “present perfect progressive,” “passive voice,” “subjunctive” and “non-identifying relative clause”. I loved this new language. I loved the patterns and how English suddenly seemed to make sense. It was all so logical. I later read Michael Swan’s “Practical English Usage” from cover to cover three times and loved every page.

Making things
Ever since I can remember, I have loved making things with glue, sellotape, paper… I now love making things on the computer. The combination of being creative and making lists proved to be most useful in the hours of cutting and pasting I did for my classes. Really wish I’d kept all those posters, flash cards, role play cards….

Playing games
I’m 46 but still love children’s party games. Whether it’s with kids, with students or with real people, I just have to win the game and have as much as I can doing so. I’m sure my students think I’m strange, but such behavior is useful for a teacher.

So there you are. Ten essential ingredients in leading me to TEFL.

Would be interested to hear some of your recipes

2010 was a good cyber-year for me for the following reasons:

• I created and uploaded two new sites (Free ESL Materials.com and Business English Materials.com)
• I was invited to present at the inaugural ISTEK Conference in Istanbul and met fantastic people such as Jeremy Harmer, Ken Wilson, Shelly Terrell, Burcu Akyol (and many, many more)
• I managed to survive blogging beyond a year (my blog turned one on December 1^st, 2010)
• I had a lot of fun and learnt loads on Twitter, making many friends in the process
• My Breaking News English site was nominated for the Best Audio award and I was nominated for a Lifetime Achievement award in the yearly EduBlog Awards
• I learnt a lot about quite a few great Web 2.0 tools (all passed on from Twitter friends)
• I had fun being moderator on Twitter’s #EdChat several times
• In September, I started a Facebook site for all my websites
• In December, I started my personal Facebook page – finally

2011 will be equally good, if not better, for the following reasons:

• I’m finally going to finish my Listen A Minute.com site and add to my Famous People Lessons and ESL Holiday Lessons sites
• I’ll try and do more with my Free ESL Materials site, although other projects come before that
• I’ll create and upload two new sites, which I hope will be my best yet – more details on those in the months to come
• I’ll make lots more friends on Twitter and Facebook
• I’ll try and blog once a week – It’s difficult to fit that in, what with my sites and other things
• There’ll be a guest blog post or two coming up – one’s already in the works
• There’ll be a few lovely online surprises – there always are
• Hopefully I’ll do a few more lessons on this blog, like the one on Jody McIntyre below
• I’ll be back here this time next year with a bigger list than the one above

The first 10

These are the first of 20 questions I often ask myself as a teacher. There are hundreds more but I thought 20 was a good number for now. I was going to put them in a post a few months ago but got hijacked by 20 different questions here.

Anyway, I have added random thoughts as part-answers to my questions. I could probably write a book if answering them in whole.

It would be interesting to know if you ask yourself the same questions and what your answers are. Comment if you can.

1. Will I ever be happy with myself as a teacher?
Probably not, although that’s a good thing. When I taught my first classes back in 1989, I had no teaching experience or any qualifications. I thought I knew everything and left the school every day with a smile on my face. After my CELTA in 1993, I realized I knew almost nothing about teaching. I left classes wondering whether my students would learn. Ten years of teaching and an MA in TEFL later, I had amassed a good bit of experience and the theoretical underpinnings I really needed a decade earlier, which meant if I wasn’t happy with myself as a teacher, I could now be reasonably confident I knew why. Teaching is a profession in which you can really beat yourself up. I think you need to be happy with the fact that you tried your best planning and teaching a class suited to your students’ needs. Even the best plans taught by the best teachers can go awry with the dozens of classroom factors that can at times conspire against us.

2. Will they like the lesson?
This is a lesson I ask myself before and during every lesson. It so often feels like you are only as good as your last lesson and if your last lesson wasn’t great, then you start to wonder what students might start to wonder. A few factors will always work in your favor when trying to ensure students will like the lesson. Being well-prepared, happy, flexible are a few of these. Others include making lessons fun and personalizing texts to your students’ culture and personalities – which I find always increased motivation. Showing every student you are working for their success, even if that success is completing a small grammar activity, gets the students on your side and makes for a better lesson.

3. Will they understand the lesson?
It’s a delicate balance to make sure the lesson content is pitched at a level that is not too easy (so they learn little) or too hard (so they switch off). The level at which materials are graded, the degree of linguistic complexity their varied interlanguages can cope with, and your instruction giving are all essential in getting students motivated and engaged with their learning. It takes a while with a large class to know who needs slower explanations or which stronger students can be paired to help weaker ones. I try to explain instructions one step at a time and checking that all students are with me – even at the “OK, take out your pencils” stage.

4. What if it’s way too easy / difficult?
This question is directly related to the one above. You need to have back-up activities if you have pitched the lesson at the wrong level. I usually find the easiest way of doing this is to use the text or activity I have prepared in a more or less challenging way. If a reading text is obviously too easy, base extension activities around it (get students to make a vocabulary quiz on it, ask them to prepare a match phrase, try working on pronunciation in a reading aloud activity). I do the same if a text (listening or reading) is too difficult. I tell the students it is a text from a level or two above theirs and ask them if they would like to work on parts of it – different groups can be set to work on dictionary work, quizzes, working out the meaning of one sentence each and then sharing it with the class…

5. What if I run out of time?
My biggest fear for over a decade. I was always terrified of that moment with 20 minutes left when the students have finished everything and they all stare at you with that “what next?” look. My Master’s provided me with plenty of ideas, strategies and tools to take into class for this question to disappear. It now seems to be impossible to run out of time. Any lesson content can be extended into another skill if the students have finished. Dozens of 20-minute-to-go activities can be employed – reflective writing on the lesson, pairs/groups prepare questions on the lesson for others, Internet work, letting the students decide what to do (in English)…

6. Would I like to be a student in my class?
I think the answer to this would be ‘yes’. When learning Japanese in a classroom situation, I frequently thought how I’d love to break out into pairs to speak, do a vocabulary activity on the text I was reading, or check my answers with my partner’s and peer correct. I guess if you wouldn’t like to be a student in your class, you could be in trouble :-0

7. Will I meet or exceed students’ expectations?
This is a difficult one to know. The only way to find out is to regularly ask students for feedback on your teaching. This could be a quick question at the end of each lesson or a more detailed poll. You must try and understand their needs to be able to answer this question – find out the reasons they are studying, how they like to study and what kind of content, strategies, activities they like. Providing them with a variety of content, strategies and activities will perhaps provide them with a better basis on which to assess you. I think providing them with feedback on their learning is also a critical channel of communication to gauge each other’s expectations.

8. Am I a bad teacher because the other teachers get Kit-Kats?
There’s always one teacher who is bought Kit-Kats and coffee by his/her students, and it could, perhaps, sometimes, on occasion… lead you to ask “Where’s my Kit-Kat? and “Am I doing something wrong?” The answer is probably “no”. I’m usually happy I have taught a good class and that the students have enjoyed it. That’s enough. There are usually more than enough things students do that are better than Kit-Kats, like coming to my desk after class to ask questions, putting an effort into their homework, getting on with their work with enthusiasm.

9. Why do they dislike the textbook?
I’m not a big fan of textbooks myself. I have to use Anglo-centric books with my Arab students – too often the two are ill matched. Students cannot bring their own cultural knowledge, schemata, etc to get excited about a text on something so alien to them (a lot of the content of international course books). A lot of the content is simply culturally inappropriate. I have to use a lot of supplementary material with the course book and incorporate my own material with that of the book’s content. I try as much as I can to create mirror texts based on my students’ own culture that are similar in form and style to those in the course book. These can be used as a lead-in to the book content or as an extension of it.

10. How do I overcome observation nerves?
In my very first observation on my CELTA course in 1993, I lost control of my lips – my students and those observing noticed and kept looking at them; my heart pounded so hard I thought the class would see it; my voice hit octave levels I thought had disappeared in my early teens; I knew from the heat I was emitting my face was red; I wanted the ground to open up so I could escape. Strangely, all of that happened only in the first 20 seconds of the lesson (it seemed a lot longer), after which I got into the full swing of things and forgot about observation nerves and even the fact I was being observed. It never happened again. I still do get nervous before an observation and that is totally natural. I overcome this by telling myself the nerves will automatically disappear two seconds after I start the lesson. It’s also a good idea to ask the observer to focus on some aspects of your teaching to suggest improvements – it’s so important for the observation to work to your benefit and not just be an admin procedure. Of course being well planned helps a lot. I also find teaching a lesson for the first time increases your adrenalin and performance. I can remember teaching a “tried and trusted” lesson which I felt didn’t go as well as first taught. And most importantly – don’t try to read too much into the totally blank face of the observer – it’s called “looking”.

Coming soon – Questions 11-20

Not the game – Just questions I ask (asked) myself

I knew everything when I first started teaching. Mwaaahahahaha.

I’ll say that again…  Mwaaahahahaha.

No need to ask questions about what I was doing in the classroom. It was easy – you just stood at the front of the class and explained for one hour what the present progressive was and then asked if there were any questions. :-0

That was in 1989 and I was a cowboy teacher in Bangkok. I loved it because I had just quit my job as an accountant in England. It was the first job I’d had that left me with a smile on my face when I went home every evening. I did that Bangkok job to earn some cash to save up money for the flight to Australia so I could continue backpacking. I worked every day for 11 weeks and decided I wanted to be a TEFL teacher.

After 2 1/2 years of living in cheap guest houses, tents and sleeping underneath buildings, I went back to England. I wanted my CELTA to continue my travels. I went to Izmir, Turkey to do my CELTA. And then the questions started coming. Thousands of them. The first one was – Just what was I doing in Thailand with a 99.3% teacher talking time?

More followed:

First peer-observation questions (Izmir):

1. Why isn’t the floor opening up so I can make my escape?
2. Why are my lips quivering uncontrollably.
3. Why do my peers have to stare at me like that?
4. Why aren’t all students answering all of my questions using the form I’ve just presented?
5. Why did that 28-minute role play take 28 seconds? What now?

Post CELTA questions (On the plane from Turkey to Japan):

6. How in the name of all methodologies and dangling participles can I teach English?
7. How does one become a butler?
8. What happens if they ask me to explain the difference between phrasal verbs constituted by a verb + particle + object(s) + wh-clauses, and those taking a transitive verb + preposition + pronoun + wh-clause. …….. What’s a phrasal verb?
9. Will they sell Jeremy Harmer books in Japan?
10. How many TEFL teachers drive BMWs?

First job interview questions (Osaka, Japan)

11. Why a question on how to teach the passive? He knows I just finished my CELTA. Grrrrrrrrr….
12. Will my 11 weeks of experience be enough to get this job?
13. Am I really being interviewed for a job in one of Japan’s biggest schools?
14. Will I have enough money left to survive to the next interview if I don’t get this job?
15. Why doesn’t he know what a CELTA is?

First lesson questions (Japanese conversation school, Japan)

16. Why aren’t they laughing at my really very hilarious jokes?
17. What’s “Are you having a good time?” in Japanese?
18. Why do they all nod when I ask them “Do you understand?” and then look confused when I say “OK, go.”?
19. Should I go for sushi after this lesson and then do karaoke and then go back to England?
20. Ahh… wait… someone answered… could there be a career  in this for me?

Well, they weren’t the 20 questions I had in mind at all when I started this post. They suddenly appeared from nowhere. The 20 questions I had thought about and written down will come in the next two posts.

Five more activities on the FIFA 2010 World Cup

… just in case there aren’t enough already on the Internet

A. World Cup sentence starters

1. I think vuvuzelas are …
2. So far, the World Cup is …
3. It’s great South Africa is the host nation because …
4. One thing the World Cup needs is …
5. World Cup or Olympics? I think …
6. The best player in the tournament …
7. My favourite World Cup moment is …
8. This World Cup will be best remembered for …
9. If I were a player at the World Cup, I’d …
10. The World Cup is …

B. Two-minute debates

Stand students in two rows facing each other. The teacher tells side A they firmly believe in the argument in column A. Do the same with side/column B. The teacher allows two minutes before moving to the next debate. Move one student along so everyone has a new partner for each debate.

C. Mystery World Cup headlines

Students talk about these mystery headlines:

1. Wayne Rooney to play for Brazil
2. World Cup to restart
3. FIFA says teams must field 5 women players in final
4. Cheering banned at World Cup games
5. All World Cup games now only 20 minutes long
6. World Cup winning captain to become UN boss
7. Use of hands allowed at 2014 World Cup
8. Lionel Messi now a goalkeeper
9. Players must celebrate goals by dancing
10. New barefoot rules for 2014 World Cup

D. New rules for a better 2014 World Cup

You are on the FIFA committee to change the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. With your committee member partner(s), discuss what changes you could make to…

1. The ball
2. The referee
3. Substitutes
4. The goals
5. The offside rule
6. The stadia
7. Ticketing
8. The players
9. The spectators
10. Player celebrations

E. World Cup associations

Agree with your partner on which thing in these categories best fits the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Share your ideas with the class. Vote on the best idea for each category.

1. A colour
2. An animal
3. A food
4. A feeling
5. A time of the year
6. An item of clothing
7. A piece of technology
8. A song
9. A company
10. A person

World Cup football stuff – including 110 all-skills lessons

The World Cup – The biggest sports spectacle in the world. Bigger than the Olympics. Bigger than a president’s inauguration. Bigger than The Simpsons. It’s the FIFA Soccer World Cup.

64 match report lessons – one for every game played (9 pages each, plus listening)
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/world_cup_news_2010/front.html

44 other lessons I made for the World Cup
Before proceeding with the post, some World Cup materials for your classes:

32  nine-page handouts, plus listening, plus online activities for each of the 32 teams at the World Cup at http://www.listenaminute.com

Spain Win the 2010 FIFA World Cup – A 13-page intermediate news lesson.
Germans Want Revenge on Paul the World Cup Octopus - An 11-page pre-intermediate news lesson.
2010 South Africa World Cup – a 9-page one-minute listening lesson.
World Cup Just for the Rich? – An 11-page pre-intermediate news lesson.
World Cup Insured for $9 Billion – A 13-page intermediate news lesson.
English Soccer Boss in World Cup Scandal – A 13-page intermediate news lesson.
Baboons a 2010 Soccer World Cup Problem – A 13-page intermediate news lesson.
Football – A 9-page listening lesson.
Lionel Messi Biography – A 14-page all-skills lesson.
Wayne Rooney Biography – A 14-page all-skills lesson.
Christiano Ronaldo Biography – A 14-page all-skills lesson.
David Beckham Biography – A 14-page all-skills lesson.

There will be a daily round-up (graded at pre-int / int level) of the tournament – again, 9 pages, listening, online stuff… at http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com – At least I hope to do this.

Larry Ferlazzo has the biggest list of World Cup resources I’ve ever seen. You’re spoilt for choice here.

Worth waiting for
It only comes around every four years but is definitely worth waiting for. This time it’s in South Africa – the first African nation to get the event.

What makes it so special? The beautiful game… the passion… the players… the goals… the action… the drama… the joy… the heartache… the English….

The English?
Well this is a blog for teachers of English and the language is an important part of this world sporting festival. In Japan, I loved listening to the Japanese commentators infusing hybrid English compounds into their stream of Japanese. My fave was “nice heading shooto” (nice header). The upcoming tournament will be my second in the UAE.

Some quotes on why football is the greatest game on Earth

Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.
Bill Shankly – One of Liverpool Football Club’s most successful managers

I fell in love with football as I would later fall in love with women: suddenly, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain it would bring.
Opening sentence from book “Fever Pitch,” written by Nick Hornby

An artist, in my eyes, is someone who can lighten up a dark room. I have never and will never find any difference between the pass from Pele to Carlos Alberto in the final of the World Cup in 1970 and the poetry of the young Rimbaud, who stretches cords from steeple to steeple and garlands from window to window. There is in each of these human manifestations an expression of beauty which touches us and gives us a feeling of eternity.
Eric Cantona – Legendary France international and Manchester United maestro

Some English football terms used as everyday idioms for your students

• kick it into touch    (cancel something or say no to something)
• score an own goal    (make a problem for yourself)
• moved the goalposts  (made unfair changes without warning)
• let the side down     (do badly so your team loses)
• what time’s kick off     (when does the party / meeting / wedding… start?)
• give it your best shot    (try your hardest)

20 items of World Cup trivia

1. Protocol dictates that only heads of state and tournament winners are allowed to touch the World Cup trophy.
2. World football’s governing body FIFA claimed a combined world audience of 26.3 billion TV viewers for the 2006 tournament, with 400 million watching the final.
3. South American and European countries have won the World Cup 9 times each. No other continent has produced a World Cup champion.
4. The winners since 1962 are from: South America (Brazil – 1962), Europe (England – 1966), South America (Brazil – 1970), Europe (West Germany – 1974), South America (Argentina – 1978), Europe (Italy – 1982), South America (Argentina – 1986), Europe (Germany – 1990), South America (Brazil – 1994), Europe (France – 1998), South America (Brazil – 2002) and Europe (Italy – 2006). This means in 2010 the winner will be from South America?
5. Out of the 19 World Cups so far, 6 have been won by the host country.
6. No European team has won a World Cup played outside of Europe.
7. The highest attendance at a World Cup match was 199,854 at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro in 1950 for the game between Uruguay and Brazil.
8. Brazil are the only country to have appeared in every Finals – 19 tournaments from 1930 to 2010.
9. The most common score in a World Cup finals match is 1-0 (18%).
10. Gonzalez / Gonzales is the most common surname of World Cup players – 17.
11. In 1930, the ‘football-crazy’ King Carol II of Romania personally selected the national team. He also asked their employers to give each player a three-month leave with full pay.
12. The trophy was stolen while on exhibition in London just before kick-off of the 1966 finals. It was found hidden in a garden in South London.
13. The term ‘group of death’ was first used by the Mexican press to describe Group 3 at the 1970 tournament. The four teams were England (reigning champions), Brazil (champions in 1958 & 1962), Czechoslovakia (finalists 1962) and Romania.
14. Norman Whiteside was the youngest player ever to play at a World Cup Finals. He was 17 years and 42 days old when he played for Northern Ireland in the 1982 World Cup.
15. The quickest World Cup sending off was just 56 seconds. Jose Batista got sent off for Uruguay against Scotland in the 1986 World Cup Finals.
16. The 2010 World Cup qualification consisted of 853 games, which produced 2,344 goals and saw 268 countries eliminated.
17. A total of 2,063 goals have been scored in World Cup Finals. Brazil are the leading scorers with 201.
18. The smallest attendance at a World Cup finals match was 300 at Romania and Peru during the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay.
19. The Frenchman Just Fontaine holds the record for the most number of goals at the Finals. He scored 13 in 1958.
20. The longest surname of a player at the Finals was that of Lefter Kucukandonyadis who played for Turkey in the 1954 Finals.