On the Road with Gary in… Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Romania

Well, I got back from summer holidays and immediately jumped back in the saddle…er, seat belt again with three trips before the start of the 2011/12 school year: to Serbia for a weekend with Cambridge residential summer school in Kovacica outside Belgrade; for a four-city tour around Bosnia–Herzegovina; and for the Fischer International conference in Bucharest. I was giving lots of different talks, including a new talk on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)which is the subject of this post.

Gary with Serbia English Language Teachers Association (ELTA) vice-president Danijela Serafijanovic

The title of my talk—CLIL Won’t Kill —alludes of course to the Quentin Tarantino films Kill Bill Parts 1 and II.  Now, although Tarantino is my son’s favourite film director, I personally am not a big fan of his: a wonderful stylist, yes, but I don’t find a lot of feeling or emotion (except violence) in his movies.

Anyway, I changed the sword to a nice bouquet of flowers that language teachers can offer to both subject teacher colleagues and to their own language students when involved in what I call either ‘real’ CLIL, i.e. teaching a subject and a foreign language together (as is happening in a lot of countries), or CLIL ‘lite’ which for me means the language teacher bringing topics and activities from other subjects in the school curriculum, e.g. geography, maths, science, history et al, into the language classroom.

Since my audiences were language teachers, we first looked at how language teachers can help their colleagues teaching a subject in a foreign language to, if you will, ‘ride a bicycle built for two’ (That very nice analogy for ‘real’ CLIL comes from a teacher in Novi Said, Serbia, who agreed to let me use it.): choosing and adapting materials, helping with assessment and techniques such as eliciting vocabulary and scaffolding language. We looked at practical examples from the forthcoming (in spring 2012) CLIL Activities in the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers series.

CLIL: Activities with CD-ROM (forthcoming 2012)

For CLIL ‘lite’…Well, you know that all of your students are not going to be future English teachers (although let’s hope some of them will!) and may not be interested in languages.  But they might be interested in math or geography etc.  As an English teacher you of course are not supposed to know a lot about those other subjects. But if you bring into the language lessons some matter and materials from other subjects in the school curriculum, then those non- verbal/linguistic learners can sit up and shine—even in English class.

Good for individual motivation and also for class dynamics seems to me. We looked at examples of how this is achieved in Kid’s Box for Young Learners, More! for tween-agers and English in Mind for teenagers as well as supplementary activities from various Cambridge Copy Collection titles and, of course, extensive reading opportunities in both Cambridge Fact Books for Young Learners and ‘Fact Books’ strand of the Cambridge Discovery Readers series for tween- and teen- agers. Plus secondary school students, who are already thinking about their future university studies and professions, can well profit from a dictionary such as the Cambridge School Dictionary that offers them curriculum words in other subjects for, say, report writing and presentations or just for simple information and interest.

CLIL won’t kill—au contraire! Don’t you agree?

Gary Anderson, Cambridge ELT International Teacher Trainer

PS CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning by Do Coyle, Philip Hood and David Marsh gives a comprehensive look at the subject. And you’ll find some interesting ideas in The TKT Course: CLIL Module by Kat Bentley—even in you’re not taking the Cambridge ESOL Teaching Knowledge Test.

On the Road with Gary in … Russia; Summer Schools and Cambridge English

Forewarning: ‘Cambridge English’ in the running title above has nothing to do with William and Catherine being named by Queen Elizabeth, as you might know, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after their recent Royal Wedding. (You know, I wonder if there is anyone in the world who didn’t view part of the ceremony?  I watched a little over lunch in a restaurant in Brno, Czech Republic with two colleagues – and okay, Olga and Leslie, yes, Kate’s dress was lovely.)

My last trip before the end of this school year (well, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere) and before my

Gary Anderson presenting on teaching teenagers

upcoming summer holidays was to Russia for ‘summer schools’ for (mainly secondary) teachers in St Petersburg and Kazan organised by our Moscow office in collaboration with Britannia Books and the Ministries of Education.

I really like Russia and I’ve been there five or six times. This time I was doing a number of different talks: on teaching tween-agers with More!, teaching teenagers with English in Mind and Interactive, and on using supplementary materials for ‘tweens and ‘teens. I also presented  on the range of Cambridge Classware – digital course presentation software for Interactive Whiteboards or mimio® – a technological device that allows you to turn any surface into an interactive whiteboard.

But I also talked about ‘Which comes first: language development or exam preparation? The chicken or the egg?’. Or maybe you can have both—if you’re using good language development materials (for example from Cambridge ELT) which also prepare for recognised exams (for example from Cambridge ESOL), i.e. Cambridge books for Cambridge exams. (You can share your opinion on the subject by voting in our poll at the top of this page.)

And that’s the idea of ‘Cambridge English’, the new joint partnership between Cambridge ESOL and Cambridge University

Cambridge English

Press: bringing together expertise in exams and in publishing. The two ‘Cambridges’ have already been collaborating on, for example, English Profile and the Cambridge English Placement Test. You may have already seen the new ‘Cambridge English’ logo on the cover of the Cambridge ELT 2011 catalogue.

In Moscow, we have launched the Cambridge English Solution for Schools project developed through a partnership between the Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ESOL and Britannia Books. And there are plans to roll-out the project to other cities across Russia next school year.

So look out for ‘Cambridge English’ events in your country in the near future.

Have a nice relaxing and reinvigorating summer break! As I hope to do here in France before my next trips to Serbia and Bosnia in August for…summer schools and back-to-school events.

Gary Anderson, Cambridge ELT International Teacher Trainer

On the Road with Gary in…Paris and Budapest

 

Stars—international and local… and Happy holidays!

I was fortunate to attend two excellent events recently and re-meet, talk and spend some time with two international stars of our profession: David Crystal at the TESOL France conference in Paris on November 26–28 and Raymond Murphy at Cambridge events in Budapest, Hungary, on December 1—2 to celebrate the silver anniversary of his English Grammar in Use. I already knew Messieurs Crystal and Murphy—and even remember introducing them to each other at IATEFL UK in Liverpool in 2004.

Raymond Murphy, as I’m sure you all know, is the author of the best-selling Essential Grammar in Use and English Grammar in Use, the latter celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year. At the events in Budapest I did an interview with Ray about the ‘past, present and future’ of English Grammar in Use and…English grammar. (BTW: if you’re a fan of English Grammar in Use and fancy being in a magazine article, our colleagues in Japan—where Raymond Murphy travelled before Hungary—are working with an ELT magazine to produce a special article about English Grammar in Use, and would like appreciate your views. Have a look at the Cambridge University Press ELT facebook page  or email <aeraeigo@asahi.com> to find out more.)

Professor Crystal is the author of a multitude of books on language including the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language and the brand-new third edition of the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language as well as numerous other titles, including with Cambridge University Press: English as a Global Language, Language Death, Language and the Internet, Think on my Words: Exploring Shakespeare’s Language, and (my personal favourite) Pronouncing Shakespeare: The Globe Experiment about his involvement in staging Romeo and Juliet at the Globe theatre in London in its original Shakespearian pronunciation. (Maybe you also read David’s blog <david-crystal.blogspot.com>? I do.)

So those are the international stars but in this post I really want to mention (and thank!) the local stars—the organisers of the events: TESOL France President Bethany Cagnol and her team and my colleague Mariann Gyorgy, Cambridge ELT Manager in Hungary.

You know, before I started working for Cambridge I was involved with TESOL France and organising its conferences and since I joined the Press, I’ve have attended numerous Cambridge ELT and other events and I know firsthand how much time and work it takes to organise—and successfully pull off!—such events.

So the next time you attend an ELT event whether international, national or local, please be sure to thank the organisers, OK? Just tell them Gary said to do so.

And to thank you for reading my blog—especially this last one before my end-of-the-year holidays— I would like to send you all this Season’s Greetings card of a nice winter scene in Cambridge of the famous apple tree in front of the entrance to Newton College where that apple dropped (due to gravity, remember?) on Newton’s head…though not in the winter.

Happy Holidays—or, as they say here in France, Joyeuses Fêtes—and look forward to hearing from and/or maybe meeting you at an event next year (cf. Gary’s Upcoming Travels).

Gary Anderson, Cambridge ELT International Teacher Trainer

On the Road with Gary in… Belgium and the Netherlands

Training, trains, football and stuff

Well, the Cambridge ELT webmaster told me that among my recent blog posts, the most popular were those in which I wrote about ‘interesting incidents’ during my travels. She suggested that I write another one like that. So… But apologies in advance as this one will not have any gigantic, gregarious Kazaks snoring on overnight trains nor days of déjà vu while being stuck in Moscow due to an Icelandic volcanic ash cloud.

In fact, the only really semi-unusual travelling incident(s) during my tour in Belgium and the Netherlands last month was the fact that both of the high-speed Thalys trains I took (to Amsterdam and back to Paris) were late. So for the first talk of the tour, we had to rush to Pascal College (a ‘college’ can be a secondary school in the Netherlands) in Zaandam outside A’dam. But when we arrived at the school, the teachers and entire student body — dressed of course in orange, the Dutch national colour — were in the entrance hall in front of a huge screen watching the first football match of their Oranje team in the World Cup. So I sat down and watched the rest of the match (the Dutch beat the Danes 2-nil) — and then the English teachers and I had our workshop on teaching teenagers with the new edition of English in Mind.

I did have to get up quite early the next morning, too early for breakfast at the hotel — but that happens a lot when I’m travelling, so nothing unusual.  Anyway, a tram to Centraal Station for a quick coffee before taking two trains to Tilburg for two presentations at the Fontys Teacher Training University where, near the end of their academic school year, I talked to both the students and their professors about teaching teenagers and also about teaching adults with English Unlimited. You know, I do also like being able to sometimes talk to younger, pre-service trainee teachers.

Then on to Belgium for a few talks including the big event of the tour — a full day (for me!) organised by the British Council in Brussels for about 100 teachers from around Belgium and neighbouring Luxembourg. I gave four different talks: on teaching teenagers and adults again plus on the resources available on the Cambridge ELT website www.cambridge.org/elt and also on supplementary materials for teaching Business English students especially Grammar for Business and the new editions of Business Vocabulary in Use (they’ve always been quite keen on lexis and vocabulary learning in Benelux) with accompanying CD-ROMs.

And then back to Paris on the Thalys train — which was late again! So I missed the end of the France — Mexico World Cup football match which the French lost and, as everyone knows, the insufferable Bleus are now completely out of the World Cup — as are, indeed, both England and the USA. I wonder who will win….maybe the Oranje?

Gary Anderson, Cambridge ELT International Teacher Trainer

On the Road with Gary in… Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Russia

Tools for Teachers, or ‘Fitting round pegs into square holes’

Well (to paraphrase a Bob Dylan song) I got ‘stuck inside of Moscow with the Paris blues again’ for five days last month due to the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud and the crippled European air space situation. Ever seen the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray about a guy who wakes up to the same day, day after day after day…? Well, it was like that for me in Moscow: a big late breakfast in the hotel followed by a visit to either the airport or the Lufthansa office or to get my Russian visa extended followed by a late lunch/early dinner — and then a similar scenario the next day and the next…

Anyway, this came right at the end of almost back-to-back tours in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia and then Russia where I was doing entre autres a workshop entitled ‘Tools for Teachers’ about using materials to supplement courses such as More! for tween-agers and English in Mind for teenagers. Let’s see, in Bosnia I went (on long car journeys) from Banja Luka to Bijeljina to Tuzla to Mostar and back to Banja Luka and then on to Slavonski Brod and Osijek in the Slavonia region in the interior eastern end of Croatia. And in Russia I went from Moscow to Nizhni Novgorod (late evening planes) to Saratov (overnight trains) — and then back to Moscow (for an extra five days).

Gary answering teachers' questions in Russia

But let me explain the running title of the workshop and of this post. (Believe I might have already written about this in a previous post so apologies to any regular readers of this blog but, well, recycling/review is good, right?  And, hopefully, there are some new readers…). I was touring in Belgium a few years ago with Mario Rinvolucri who was working on Ways of Doing in the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers series and Mario tried out an activity on me to activate my ‘metaphoric’ verbal-linguistic intelligence. It’s called ‘proverb reversal’: You take a proverb, reverse the words and think of a context. For example, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ becomes ‘Invention is the mother of necessity’ and the context could be, well, could you live without your mobile phone? If you take ‘Look before you leap’ and then reverse it, you get ‘Leap before you look’ as the parachute instructor told me when he saw I was scared before I jumped. (Some people think you should ‘leap before you look’ in love…of course then you might end up at Lover’s Leap.)

So the proverb ‘As difficult as fitting square pegs into round holes’ becomes ‘As difficult as fitting round pegs into square holes’. For teachers, the context would be trying to fit a class into a coursebook or any individual student into a class. To do that successfully you need ‘tools for teachers’, i.e. supplementary materials from publishers plus your own activities. Because you don’t, of course, teach just the coursebook; you teach the class! During the workshop, we tried out activities from various Cambridge ELT materials to supplement courses: titles in the secondary Cambridge Copy Collection, including Teen World; the Cambridge School Dictionary for those students interested in also knowing words in English for other school subjects and their future careers; and Cambridge Discovery Readers for extensive ‘pleasure’ reading for tween-agers and teenagers—as well as a couple of activities of my own that I used to use with French teenagers when I taught the ‘Teen Talk’ class at the former American Center here in Paris before I started working for Cambridge ELT.

My theme song for the ‘Tools for Teachers’ workshop was ‘Keep on Working’ by Peter Townshend of The Who from one of his solo albums about a man working in his garden — for which he needs various tools. Teachers also need (different) tools. In this case, published supplementary materials and activities of their own and friendly colleagues. Good luck fitting your students (the round pegs) into their coursebooks and classes (the square holes) and… keep on working!  

Gary Anderson, Cambridge ELT International Teacher Trainer