Young Turks in ELT – in their own words…

Yeditepe University in Istanbul will be hosting the With or Without Technology conference in a couple of weeks’ time and I’m very pleased to have been invited to give a talk there.

I have been lucky enough to make working visits to Turkey more than a dozen times in the last ten years. Most of these visits have been to ELT conferences and I am constantly amazed at the friendliness, enthusiasm and openness to new ideas shown by Turkish teachers – well, the ones who come to conferences, anyway.

In that time, I have also met some really excellent Turkish teacher-presenters, a lot of whom are into stuff that I know very little about, particularly how to use technology in the classroom. There seem to be thousands of ELT bloggers based in Turkey, too.

I’m really pleased to see that they have also begun to spread their ideas internationally by appearing at conferences outside their native land.

The last IATEFL UK conference in Glasgow had the usual gang of enthusiastic young Turks, so I asked some of them to write a little about what they do and to give details of their blogs. I extended the invitation to some others who weren’t there, and also to a couple of non-Turks who work there.

So, here they are, talking about themselves. I hope you enjoy reading about what they do. 

Esra Girgin

I am an EFL teacher, international speaker, a teacher trainer, Voki team ambassador, Cambridge University speaking examiner and blogger.

I have taught adults, young and very young learners since 2002 and currently I am teaching kindergarteners aged 3-6 at a private foundation school in Istanbul.

I strongly believe in the power of combining web-based technologies and story-telling as they are both engaging and fun ways for teaching and learning. I have a blog where I share my ideas and experiences. Since 2008, I have had a twitter account where I have built and continue to build my personal network, learning from and sharing with colleagues and friends from all over the world.

Twitter: @ekamin

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ekkamin

Blog: http://esraakiskali.edublogs.org/

Eva Buyuksimkesyan

I’ve been teaching English for more than twenty years. I love my job very much. I love learning too, so I attend PD courses and conferences as often as I can. Three years ago, I stepped into social media a little reluctantly, and then I started blogging.

Why was I reluctant? I was wondering whether it was a good idea to keep a personal blog or not as there were so many great bloggers out there whom I admired very much. I was just a teacher, what could I share? Yet, the challenge was there and I took it.

Once I started, my blog decided what kind of blog it would become. I love keeping a blog because I share ideas, lesson plans, I collaborate with classrooms over the world, I ask for advice, I reflect on my teaching and I see where I am going. In short, my blog is my voice. It is my journey in teaching.

A Journey in TEFL http://evasimkesyan.edublogs.org

Twitter @evab2001

Hakan Şentürk

I was born in Germany into a Turkish immigrant family in 1971. It was there that I picked up my first words of English in the early 80s from Heavy Metal songs by Iron Maiden and the Scorpions. I remember trying to figure out what these guys were so angry about and discovered that they were actually talking about some really interesting and cool topics.

We returned to Turkey in 1986, and I was not very happy about it because my Turkish was not that good since I had only spoken Turkish at home. However, I was happy to discover that my English was better than my high school teacher and I became the guy to sit next to in exams!

In 1997, I completed my experimental MATEFL thesis on Computer Assisted Language Instruction. I was fascinated about the idea of using computers in the language classroom because when I had my first computer in high school, everybody was telling me that it would help me learn better. I was playing only games, but I guess that also had a huge impact on my language skills!

I started working at Yeditepe University in 1999, and I’ve been Educational Technologies Advisor and Administrator there since 2010.

I am very interested in Web 2.0 applications and classroom technologies because I believe that the learning habits of today’s learner have changed radically and that we have to address those habits. That’s why I am working on finding new ways and approaches in language teaching and instruction.

My take on using Prezi (http://prezi.com) in the reading class is a direct attempt to make teachers aware of the different options the Internet provides for language teachers. I want to make teacher aware of the different learning environments the Internet can provide for students.

http://teach-me-tech.blogspot.com/

Beyza Yılmaz

I work as an EFL instructor at Ozyegin University School of Language Instruction. I worked as an EFL instructor at Bahcesehir University for six years and as a materials developer for some language courses before that. My MA thesis is on Online Communities of Practice. I have been a member of Webheads in Action for five years.

I have co-moderated some Electronic Village Online sessions and done workshops, talks and webinars both in national and international conferences.

I have always considered learning as a never-ending journey and I believe that in order to cope with the increasing amount of information and to keep up to date, we need to look for alternative ways of professional development. Therefore, I look for different options and try to turn the challenges into opportunities both in classroom teaching and professional development.

As a result, I believe that utilizing the Internet for both of these purposes is extremely important for life-long learning and equipping learners and teachers with twenty-first century skills sets. I consider research to be a very important part of this teacher development process. My research interests cover teacher development, multi-literacies, use of Web 2.0 tools in language teaching and professional development, Online Communities of Practice, instructional design and learner autonomy.

http://byilmaz.edublogs.org/   

Işıl Boy

I work as an ICT Coordinator at Yildiz Technical University, School of Foreign Languages in Istanbul and I’m studying for an MA in Educational Technology and TESOL with the University of Manchester. I also work as a teacher trainer, and have conducted various ICT training courses in pre-schools, high schools, and universities.

I am also organizing an ELT conference entitled Wired In or Out: Web Technologies in ELT Classrooms – Evaluating Current & Future Practice, which I am immensely looking forward to. It will take place in Istanbul in December.

You can follow me on twitter as @isilboy and on my blog, http://isilboy.edublogs.org/, where I share educational technology resources.

Contact me whenever you need help. Isn’t teaching about helping others, anyway?

I would like to extend my special thanks to Ken for this great opportunity; he is always supportive, encouraging and inspiring!

Özge Karaoglu Ergen

I am an English teacher, teacher trainer and educational consultant in teaching young/very young learners and teaching with web-based technologies for international organizations, schools and institutes worldwide.

I am the main author, songwriter and the educational coordinator of the Minigon ELT books that aim to teach English to young learners though stories. I am also working for Mindactiva in the USA as the content and story coordinator of the Yes, I Speak English DVD series that’s designed to give EFL children a jump-start in English. I am the script and screenplay writer of these DVD series and I am developing a course book for the DVDs at the moment.

I have been developing animations, digital games and smart phone applications with my young learners for the last four years.

I have won many awards for my work, including the Medea Creativity and Innovation award and the ESU Cambridge University New Writing Award, which earned me a visit to Buckingham Palace to receive my award from the Duke of Edinburgh. 

I am also a nominee for this year’s British Council ELTons awards with my Bubble and Pebble project. I have a blog where I write about teaching English through technology and web-based tools. I am teaching in kindergarten at the moment and enjoying every minute of it.

My blog: www.ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org

My Twitter handle: www.twitter.com/ozge  or @ozge

Burcu Akyol

I’m an English teacher who thinks that learning never ends and the passion for sharing and inspiring is key to being a good teacher. I’ve been in this profession for eleven years and I consider my job as a great opportunity to make a difference, and this gives me an increasingly strong sense of satisfaction. Our profession is becoming more and more challenging since the conventional education systems do not meet today’s students needs and interests. I aim to develop my teaching, training and management skills continuously and help other teachers overcome the challenges and turn them into opportunities.

http://burcuakyol.com

Nihal Yildirim

I started teaching English part-time in summer camps and private schools while I was still studying at university and I’ve been teaching professionally for two years now. I’ve taught English to many different age levels, from five to forty-five. Currently, I’m teaching primary level students and also university students in a language school.

I love music and sports. And I can see the effects of my hobbies on my teaching. I play the guitar and the keyboard, so I use these instruments whenever I’m teaching a new song. I like moving and action and my students and me often do activities where you can move, dance, play and etc.

I developed an interest in using web 2.0 tools in the classroom, but I don’t want to put it at the centre of my teaching. I enjoy integrating literature, music, drama & role-play and arts & crafts into my teaching.

I started writing a blog in November 2011 and so far I’m loving it. My adult learners also wanted to blog as I keep talking about blogging.

I see myself giving presentations at conferences very soon.

Twitter:     @NihallYildirim

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nilayildirim

Blog:         http://nihalyildirim.wordpress.com

Dave Dodgson

I don’t technically fit into the ‘Turk’ category (but would like to include myself in the ‘young’ part for a while yet!) hailing as I do from Staffordshire in the UK. However, I’ve been in Turkey long enough to qualify for bizden oldun artık (you’re one of us now) status.

Apart from a brief stint in Barcelona, where I earned my Trinity TESOL certificate, I’ve spent my teaching career in Ankara, first working at a dershane (language school for adults) before taking the plunge and into the young learner domain. Ten years on, I’m still working with the little angels in a private college and am now on the verge of completing an MA in EdTech and TESOL via the University of Manchester.

As well as my studies, I’m interested in effectively applying technology in the classroom and through blending learning programmes, autonomous learning and materials-light, student-driven (though not pure dogme) learning experiences.

I’m also active on the busy Turkish conference circuit. I try to bring all of these experiences together with a bit of critical reflection on my blog Reflections of a Teacher and Learner (www.davedodgson.com) and you can also find me on Twitter @DaveDodgson.

Adam Simpson

Like Dave, I’m an honorary member of the posse, both in the ‘young’ and in the ‘Turk’ sense. I’ve been here for twelve years now and love the place more than ever. Having swapped Yorkshire for Istanbul, that’s not too hard, though!

I’ve spent all of my time here working in the tertiary education sector, preparing students for academic life in English-medium universities. I got qualified here initially and managed to land my first job in the same building where I took the CELTA. Since then I haven’t looked back and enjoy my chosen career as much as ever, although it is getting increasingly tough to see the students staying the same age while I get one year older each academic year.

In the past three or four years, I’ve been really growing into the job of teaching – it took that long – and now feel confident to take a regular place on the conference circuit here in Turkey. A big part of this confidence has been a result of the fantastic friendships I’ve made and the goodwill I’ve received since I started blogging about my everyday life as a teacher in a foreign country.

My main goal as a teacher remains trying to make a positive impact on the lives of those I teach, which I feel goes beyond merely improving their language skills.

https://www.facebook.com/theadamsimpson

https://twitter.com/yearinthelifeof

http://www.yearinthelifeofanenglishteacher.com

PS I meant to add a dictionary definition for ‘Young Turk’, so here’s one:

Young Turk

a. A young progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party.

b. A young person who rebels against authority or societal expectations.

Coming soon – Young Turks in ELT blogworld…

It must be a nice feeling to win something, but I wouldn’t know…

When I wrote my last blog, I had just received one of those notifications that basically said You’ve been nominated for this really exciting ELT blog award, which is actually a cover for some commercial venture – aren’t you excited?

Well, yes, I WAS excited the first time I received a nomination for one of these awards a couple of years ago. At that time, I immediately went to the site and checked out the blogs who had also been nomimated in the same category. I visited some of them for the first time. I thought some of them were great.

So the pro-blog award people are right, the system DOES mean that we get to visit blogs we might not have heard about before.

Some of the nominated bloggers were people I already followed on twitter. What happened next was that a number of them started pitching for votes on that very same social media site.

I realised that if I didn’t do the same, I would be left behind. And like anyone, I don’t like to be left behind!

So I wrote a tweet advertising the blog awards and writing a typically English self-deprecating appeal for votes for me. All in 140 characters. A model of efficient self-advertising.

I read the tweet, realised that I didn’t actually WANT to self-promote in this way, and deleted it. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t win the award. Also unsurprisingly, the winner was someone who had relentlessly and repeatedly self-promoted on twitter.

When I got nominated this time, I wrote about my misgivings about the whole idea, here, on twitter and on Facebook.

In the subsequent conversations that took place, there were a number of pro-award comments. How are people supposed to find out about blogs if their attention isn’t drawn to them in this way? The very point I made above, and one that has to be answered.

I suggested we should all promote blogs we had found that were worth a visit. Not a new idea, lots of people have already done this, but a nice bottom-up system to promote good writing, good thinking and good people.

So this is what I’m going to do in my next blog post, with a slight twist.

A lot of teacher-presenters from Turkey have been making their mark at ELT conferences in the past couple of years. Some of them have been pushing the boundaries of the use of technology in the classroom. All of them have been engaging presenters and fun people to meet on the circuit. A lot of them are bloggers. Most of them are quite young (well, from where I’m standing they’re ALL young!) and they are all very enthusiastic about their work.

I asked a few of them to write something about themselves, and to advertise their blogs, too.

So this is my way of advertising a new set of blogs that you might want to read.

The Young Turks are coming to a computer near you. Very soon!

Four of the Turkish bloggers who will feature in my next post

Please don’t vote for me….

I just got this message from the Lexiophiles people:

Hello,

The Top 100 Language Lovers 2012 competition hosted by the bab.la language portal and the Lexiophiles language blog has started and your blog has been nominated in the category language learning blogs. Congratulations! The nomination period goes until May 13th. Feel free to spread the word among other bloggers writing about languages or to suggest one blog yourself.
For further information on the Top 100 Language Lovers 2011 competition, visit

http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/top-100-language-lovers-2012-nominate-your-favourite-now

Best wishes,
Stefanie for the bab.la and Lexiophiles team

Dear Stefanie, 

I’m sure there are bloggers out there who will be excited to be nominated in your competition, and best of luck to them. Whatever turns you on. And I imagine they’re trying to put together self-deprecating tweets and Facebook updates which are aimed at garnering votes without sounding too egocentric or desperate.

I’m not one of them. Call me an old curmudgeon if you will, but I find the idea of hustling and pleading for votes a little bit embarrassing.  I’m not sure why I blog, there are probably diverse and psychologically important reasons that I should chat to my therapist * about. But I’m pretty sure that winning prizes isn’t one of them.

So thank you very much for your friendly message, and I’m sorry that it turned into the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Best wishes,

Ken

* I don’t actually have a therapist. I can’t afford one.

Outside my comfort zone (2) – Slippered for not backing a book…

The story so far – your humble blogger has been persuaded to make a speech at his grammar school Old Boys’ Dinner. He has had grave second thoughts about his choice of topic, which is an ‘amusing’ categorization of teachers into three types. After a reasonable start to his speech, he finds it necessary to quieten down a noisy member of the audience. As a result, the audience is now on his side.

“Where was I?” I asked aloud. “Oh yes, I wanted to talk about some of the teachers at Salford Grammar School that I remember for different reasons.”

I was suddenly aware of the magical effect that silencing ex-Manchester City reserve midfielder Paul Calder (not his real name) had had on the audience. They were now looking at me with a mixture of surprise and admiration on their faces.

The committee chairman’s introduction had clearly made them think I was a Southern Softy – I mean, who in their right mind would leave Salford/ Manchester to go and live in LONDON, for goodness sake??? And why on earth would a Manchester City fan like me choose to be a season ticket holder at FULHAM???

The fact that I also wrote books ‘for teachers and people in China’ seemed to have confirmed my soft status.

But this Southern Softy had made the most belligerent person in the room shut up. People were clearly thinking – maybe this Wilson lad is harder than he looks.

Editor’s note – no, he isn’t.

Shutting up a heckler only buys you a small amount of time, however. I carried on, aware that I somehow had to keep their attention during the remainder of the speech.

‘A bit like inmates of a prison,’ I said, ‘you can divide teachers into three categories.’

This got a bigger laugh than I had expected.

‘Category A teachers,’ I continued, ‘are ones that you like. You walk into the classroom and you think that things are going to be OK. They won’t ask you anything that’s too difficult, and the atmosphere will be all right.’

I went on the talk about a history teacher who fell into this category. His name was Bob Watt and he was a fervent Manchester United fan. It was always painfully easy to divert him from his lesson plan to talk about football, especially on a Monday morning.

Bob would walk in and say: ‘Right, settle down. Now … the Civil War….’

Someone, usually me, would reply: ‘Talking of the Civil War, sir, were you at the City-United game on Saturday?’

This would lead to a twenty-minute diversion into the state of the First Division and United’s chances of winning it, which were usually quite good. This was, after all, the era of Best, Law and Charlton.

Goodness knows what the boys in the class who didn’t like football made of those classes.

Fortunately, Bob Watt’s other skill was an ability to predict which questions would come up in the History exam. He was always right, O-level and A-level. Despite the amount of time we spent talking about football, everyone passed History.

‘The second Category of teacher, Category B, were the ones who, let’s not beat about the bush, scared you,’ I continued. ‘When you walked into the classroom, you were a bit frightened. Category B teachers poured sarcasm on you if you made a mistake – which frankly is a dreadful way to deal with teenagers – and there was always a risk of punishment. Now … I won’t mention his name, but there was a music teacher —‘

About three people in the audience shouted out a name. It was indeed the man I was thinking of. I suppose my attempt to talk about him anonymously had been doomed to failure.

‘As I said, I won’t name him,’ I continued, trying to suppress a smile.

More people shouted out his name.

A bit of background: at the time that I was at grammar school, teachers were still allowed to administer corporal punishment to pupils. Serious punishment meant the cane, and less serious meant the slipper – usually an old gym shoe.

Bend down and think of England, lads…

Music teacher Mr Sharples (not his real name) was an enthusiastic exponent of this method of creating harmony in the classroom.

I told the Old Boys the story of my second day in his class.

On the first day, Sharples had given us all a book and told us to go home and ‘back’ it. For anyone unfamiliar with this notion, the idea was to put some brown paper on the back of the book and sellotape it carefully, thereby protecting the cover and making the book useable by the next intake of pupils.

The problem was I hadn’t heard him tell us to back the book. I was probably day-dreaming. So when he asked us if we had all backed our books, I looked puzzled. However, a quick look round the room revealed that almost everyone in the class had done as they had been told.

‘Wilson, did you back your book?’

He didn’t really need to ask that. It was clear my book wasn’t backed.

‘No, sir.’

‘Why not?’

I decided against using the day-dreaming excuse.

‘I forgot, sir.’

‘Go and stand in that corner.’

I went and stood in the corner.

Sharples’ beady eyes looked for another victim.

‘Flanagan, you don’t appear to have backed your book, either.’

Pete Flanagan (his real name) was a great guy to have in the class. He was an expert storyteller and, amongst other things, he seemed to know more about American cars than anyone apart from Henry Ford. Pete wasn’t the type to fall back on the lame ‘I forgot’ reason for having an unbacked book. He launched into a detailed explanation of the complex reasons why his book wasn’t backed.

‘Well, sir, it’s like this, sir,’ he began. “Me dad drove me home from school, and I put the book in the back of the car. The next morning, me dad off to Grimsby with me book in the back of the car, sir…..’

Pete went on at some length until Sharples eventually stopped him.

‘Go and stand in that corner.’ He indicated a different corner.

What a bloody nerve, I remember thinking. Pete Flanagan had made up a cock and bull story and he was going to get away with it.

By the time Sharples had rounded up all the guilty boys, there were five people in the ‘I forgot’ corner and two in the ‘other excuses’ corner. He went to his drawer and took out a mouldy gym shoe. He looked at the five of us with memory loss syndrome.

‘Bend down.’

He didn’t indicate whether we should all bend down at the same time, or one at a time. No one was brave enough to ask what the system was. We all turned to the wall and bent down. It must have looked hilarious to the rest of the class, but no one was laughing.

Sharples walked down the line of offered posteriors and whacked each one once. We stood up and went back to our seats, where eventually the stinging sensation went away.

He then went to the other corner, where Pete Flanagan and the other story-teller were standing. They bent down, and both received two whacks for their troubles. So much for creativity.

As I reached the end of the story, there were a lot of nodding heads in the audience of old boys and I was struck as I had been many times before by the full implications of an education system which allows teachers to physically attack pupils in this way. It’s an absolute disgrace that it should have been allowed. And for not putting a piece of brown paper on a book!

Later, when all the speeches had been made, I mingled with the assembled old boys. Lively discussions were going on everywhere. They all had stories to tell of canings and slipperings for absurdly trivial, or even non-existent, misdemeanors. Clearly the experience of this bizarre punishment ritual remained firmly entrenched in their minds. Some of them wanted to complain about fifty-year-old injustices.

Two or three of them told even more dramatic stories about Sharples, describing him in ways that I don’t wish to repeat now, whether he’s dead or alive.

This is the hornets’ nest I stirred up with a mildy amusing story about being slippered.

Is this relevant to teachers and teaching today when corporal punishment isn’t permitted? I think maybe it is.

Even without the threat of corporal punishment, there are STILL many ways that teachers can have a negative effect on vulnerable teenagers. Teachers whose modus operandi centres around victimisation, belittling, sarcasm and exerting the power of their position.

Or am I wrong? Are all teachers in the twenty-first century above such damaging ways of teaching? I hope so.

Please leave a comment one way or the other.

PS1 The third category of teachers are the ones who had no positive or negative effect on you and who you have completely forgotten.

PS2 When I told my daughter Rowan that I had been ‘slippered for not backing a book’, she replied: ‘I don’t understand any part of that sentence.’ Her Irish husband asked: ‘Is it something to do with a betting syndicate on the horses?’  

Outside my comfort zone (1) – Making a speech at the Old Boys’ Dinner

Prize Day at Salford Grammar School: Dave Starr, Dave Rimmer, Pete Britton and me

About a month ago, I made a speech at the Salford Grammar School Old Boys’ Dinner.

My two older brothers are stalwarts of the Old Boys’ Committee and have been badgering me for years to get on my hind legs and say something at the annual event. Somehow I’ve managed to avoid attending it for most of the last forty years.

There were several reasons for this. The dinner is always on a Thursday evening, and when I was a full-time teacher in London, it was more or less impossible to get to Salford on a Thursday. More recently, the dinner has often coincided with one of my spring ELT conference visits.

This year, I had no such excuse…

For those of you not familiar with the geography of this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden – oh, sorry, got carried away with a speech from Richard II, there…. if you don’t know where the city of Salford is, it’s stuck like a limpet to the west side of Manchester. Salford used to be heavily industrial, now it isn’t. The BBC has recently re-located a sizeable part of its radio operation to a new site there. The long-running TV soap Coronation Street is set in Salford.

If you know the paintings of LS Lowry, then you may also know that Salford is the backdrop for most of his work. Below is a Lowry painting which is actually called Coronation Street.

Coronation Street, by LS Lowry

Old boys of Salford Grammar School include actor Albert Finney, film director Mike Leigh, singer Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills and Nash) and two members of Joy Division, Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner. And if you know anything about gardening, you may be a fan of Dr D G Hessayon, author of the Expert gardening books, which have sold about fifty million copies. Up there with Headway, in fact.

If you haven’t heard of Dr Hessayon, you can read about him here – http://bit.ly/IERm1q

Salford Grammar School opened in Leaf Square in the centre of the city in 1932. Salford isn’t actually that leafy. Leaf Square is in fact named after Mr J G Leaf, who financed the construction of several public buildings in the area.

In 1956, the school moved to more spacious premises opposite Buile Hill Park, one of Salford’s nicest open spaces. It was in the dining room of the museum in Buile Hill Park that I made my speech at the Old Boys’ Dinner last month. Across the road from the park, where the school I attended used to be, there is now a building site.

On the day of the Old Boys’ Dinner, I drove from London to Yorkshire to pick up my brother Graham, then we drove across the Pennines to Manchester to pick up my other brother Geoff, then into Salford, past the building site that used to be my school and into Buile Hill Park.

We were amongst the first to arrive, and as the two hundred or so Old Boys drifted in, I noticed someone who was in the same year as me. A short man, he had been an aggressive boy at school, not very interested in studying, but a very good football player. He was very confrontational and was also good at looking after himself. I remember not liking him very much and that the feeling was mutual.

I approached him. “I’m really sorry, I’ve forgotten your name,” I said.

“Paul Calder,” he replied. (I’ve changed the name, so don’t google him!)

“I remember you were a very good soccer player,” I added, courting favour madly.

“Right,” he replied. “I just didn’t have a very good attitude.”

Well, at least he seemed to have developed some self-awareness.

I was interested and a bit surprised to hear that he had been good enough to sign for Manchester City. He played for two years in their reserve team and then moved into semi-professional football. I suppose I was surprised because he wasn’t very tall. I think smaller football players have to be very good to get to the top – think of the Barcelona trio of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta.

The SGS Under 15s SGS rugby team sometime in the 60s. I think we broke all records - fewest wins, fewest points scored, most points scored against.

I digress.

We sat down and were served a very good meal by the well-trained waitstaff at the dining room. As the time approached for me to make a speech, I rather wanted to go away and find a quiet corner. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.

The prospect of talking to a large group of men aged between 55 and 85, most of whom had consumed a fair amount of alcohol, was definitely outside my comfort zone. It didn’t help that various people had told me that both of my brothers had made brilliant speeches at the OB Dinner before. I was very aware of the fact that – for this kind of audience at least – I’m simply not in the same class as they are.

For a start, I don’t tell jokes, at least not ones that will amuse a large group of tanked-up Salfordian men. And I don’t live in the north, whereas the vast majority of the people there that evening still live within a few kilometres of where they grew up. And most of them seemed to have done pretty well for themselves.

But the thing that was worrying me most was that I had decided to talk about the only thing I really know about, which is teaching. I was having terrible second thoughts, but there wasn’t much I could do about it now…

I was the second person to make a speech. The first had been some important local cleric. I was surprised that his speech lacked a central theme, and consisted mainly of a series of rather lame jokes. There had been a certain amount of unrest in the room as he plodded on. Paul Calder was clearly bored and talked quite loudly to the people at his table, and even the ones at a neighbouring table, during the speech.

Now it was my turn. The chair of the association introduced me. “To propose the toast to the school, I’d like to welcome Ken Wilson,” he said. “Ken lives in Fulham and is a season ticket holder at Fulham Football Club, apparently.”

He paused. A mixture of boos and sympathetic laughter filled the room.

“And I’m told he’s written a lot of books. For teachers. And for people in China.”

This rather random description of my working life seemed to puzzle most of the assembled Old Boys into silence.

“Anyway, he’s the youngest of the three Wilson brothers, and he’s the last one of them to make a speech at The Dinner. And, let’s be honest, he’s going to have to be good to compare with Geoff and Graham. Gentlemen, I give you Mister Ken Wilson!”

“You can keep him!” yelled Paul Calder.

So now I was on my feet, and the microphone was in my hand.

I started with a story about taking my brother Graham to meet Albert Finney backstage at Wyndhams Theatre in London after a performance of Yasmina Reza’s play Art. Most people found it quite amusing, but Paul Calder started a noisy conversation with his neighbours.

I decided to intervene.

“Paul,” I said. “I know you were a much better football player than me, but this is my speech, so I’d be grateful if you’d just button it for a minute, OK? I’ll have a word with the committee and maybe you can make a speech next year, but this is my turn, so just pipe down.”

I had never delivered a put-down like that before. It isn’t usually required at ELT conferences, where I give most of my talks. There was a moment’s silence. And then a round of applause. The audience were on my side!

And I began to talk about teaching and different types of teacher. And what I said clearly stirred up a hornets’ nest for a lot of people there that evening…

I’ll tell you why next time….

IATEFL Glasgow looms – so here’s a suggestion about your presentation….

Pilsen - not just a Brazilian drink, also a conference venue…

Today is one of those days when you know that the ELT spring conference thing has kicked in, or taken off, or leapt up in front of you – whatever it is that spring conference things do.

I drove my wife Dede to Heathrow to catch a plane to Prague for the ICC Conference in Pilsen. At the airport, she bumped into Michael Carrier, who was hurrying to catch the same plane. They will meet Barry Tomalin when they get there.

I’m also aware that TESOL Arabia has started in Dubai – I followed the tweetstream about Jim Scrivener’s talk there. And this weekend, yet more of the usual suspects are gathering in Bilbao for TESOL Spain.

And looming ahead, like an iceberg in the path of the Titanic, is the big daddy conference of them all, at least here in Europe: IATEFL UK 2012, which starts in Glasgow on 19^th March.

It's the Titanic that's looming here, but you get the picture…

So I have a recommendation for all those of you who are planning to do a presentation there…

But first, some background.

Last weekend I was at the ITK conference in Izmir Turkey, and the weekend before that I did the opening plenary at the Çevre conference in Istanbul. Turkey in particular seems to be very well served with spring conferences – there seems to be one just about every weekend from February to May.

In common with meet-ups in many other countries, Turkish conferences usually have a theme/title. It’s often amusing to see what speakers do to include a reference to the theme, however tenuous.

This year, Çevre had a really interesting theme - Teacher and student in harmony, the language learning duet. They also had a dynamic way of illustrating it.

The conference got off to a roaring start. When the curtains in the main auditorium opened, a rock band pounded into action. When the dust (and dry ice) had settled, one was able to see about five musicians and four singers on stage. And it was soon clear that the singers were not all the same age. In fact, two of them were teachers, English teachers as it turned out. It also transpired that the youthful piano player was a music teacher. What a great way to start a conference called Teacher and student in harmony!

On stage and ready to rumble. The start of my ITK plenary...

Then there was ITK Izmir, whose theme was Liberating the Learner. Both the other plenary speakers, Luke Prodromou and Jeremy Harmer, managed to mention the conference theme on several occasions in their talks. To my eternal shame, I didn’t mention it once.

The last time I did this one-day conference, I think two years ago, the format was all-plenary, with four presentations. Thankfully, this year the organizers had gone back to their original format of three plenaries, plus a set of concurrent workshops in the middle of the day.

I say thankfully because it’s a better format for the participants, and also because I attended one of the most electrifying drama workshops I have ever seen.

It was presented by one of the most dynamic teachers I have ever set eyes on. She was also wearing the highest heels I have ever seen on someone doing a presentation.

From the first moment, I was enraptured by the things she did and said, whilst at the same time constantly alarmed that because of the way she ran around the room, she was going to end up breaking an ankle as she tipped off the heels.

Thankfully (x3) this didn’t happen.

The aims of the presenter, let’s call her M, were manifold – firstly to show how incredibly useful and memorable drama activities are, secondly to remind us that teachers are also actors, and thirdly to make us feel that we weren’t really experiencing the joys of teaching if we didn’t throw ourselves around the room like a Hollywood movie star, or possibly a Hollywood movie director.

These were not all stated aims. These are merely the most memorable messages I came away with from the workshop.

M had eight of her students to help her with the presentation, all aged about 16. The first thing to say is that they clearly adored her, and the second thing is that they had obviously done a lot of rehearsal before the conference of what they were going to do. And part of what they did was to show a lack of interest in the whole classroom experience, so that M could sweep in like Superwoman and rescue them from terminal boredom with a drama activity.

Many of the activities involved students interpreting written dialogues. In one instance, two students stood in front of the class and lamely read out a dialogue from a book. They were doing it badly on purpose, so that she could appear like a wild demon and demonstrate how to breathe fire and brimstone into the words. This is the way to do it, she was saying, with passion and FEELING!

Two of the students acted out an end-of-love affair dialogue. ‘No, John, I don’t want to marry you, I don’t love you any more.’

M ran between them and yelled: ‘Why are you SMILING?? You don’t LOVE him any more! And STOP holding his HAND! YOU. DON’T. LOVE. HIM. ANY. MORE!!!’

At the end of this breathless performance, we gave her a big ovation, and another one for the wonderful students, who had been brave enough to perform in front of other teachers. It must have been hard for then to act badly on purpose, but they did it brilliantly.

It was all astonishing. Amazing. Soooo memorable.

And pretty well unrepeatable by any other person in that room, including me.

So when I went to talk to her afterwards, this is what I told her. You are clearly an amazing teacher, with energy and talent to burn. And you must never change the way you do things, because those kids adore you. M smiled with pleasure at these remarks, which were genuinely felt.

‘Everyone in this room will never forget the experience of watching you,’ I continued. ‘But nor will they be able to replicate what you did. And that’s the problem.’

M looked a bit disappointed by this. ‘So what should I do differently?’ she asked.

‘When you’re in class, don’t do anything differently,’ I said. ‘Your students love your style, and they are clearly all confident English speakers, so it’s really effective. But when you come to a conference, you have to think about teachers who..’

At this point I had to stop myself, because I was going to say ‘teachers who are less talented than you’ but this would have been unfair on the other teachers, who are all talented in different ways.

So I said … ‘You have to think about teachers who do things in a different way to you. And find ways to use these same activities, but in a less … um… theatrical way.’

I hope by the end of our conversation, M understood my message. You are amazing, your students clearly benefit from your methods, now think about how other people can use these same methods in a different way.

So, here are a couple of questions for the hundreds of presenters who are heading to Glasgow next week.

1     Are you going to use classroom activities that ‘work for you’ in your presentation? Great.

2     Is there anything that you do in these activities that might be difficult for someone who isn’t like you? For example, old-fashioned skills like singing, dancing, mime, speaking with an accent, doing quick and memorable drawings on the board? Or new-fangled stuff like switching media during the activity? Also good.

3     Do you have alternative ways of doing the activities that don’t involve using these skills in the way that you do? Can you recommend a way of doing them for people who can’t do stuff the way you do?

You don’t? It might be worth sitting down and thinking of some. 

Final message – don’t present an activity that ‘works for you’ in a way that ONLY works for you. Find ways to make it work for differently-talented teachers.

M – if you read this and want to reveal your identity in a comment, I can then post the nice photo someone took of us!

M is happy for her identity to be revealed. She tweeted this after reading the blog:

Her name is Muge Bilgili. After my talk, another teacher, Nihal Yildirim, interviewed me. Muge helped by holding the camera during the interview.  After about ten seconds, it was clear that Muge was frozen solid, so I lent her my coat while we did the filming, which meant that I was a bit cold during the interview. I think you will agree that the coat looks better on her, even though it’s a bit big.

Ken will be at IATEFL Glasgow with a new talk – Ten quotations (and a few cartoons) to make you think – in the Lomond Hall Thursday 22^nd March at 5.35pm. 

Diary of a language learner – a Good Samaritan passes by….

You can say what you like about social media, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who is constantly amazed and impressed by the help that people offer there. I just received this extended tweet with some tips about learning German. It came from a teacher called Hannah Gurr, who’s based in Bristol.

All I can say is – I wish Hannah was my German teacher. She seems to have nailed the challenge of a language with lots of fiddly endings with some clever mnemonics and some classy use of chunks and contexts.

 Here’s what she wrote:

Great to read on your blog that you’re learning German. You’ve given me so many teaching ideas and tips that I’d like to share with you my tips for learning German as an adult. I’ll tell you the main ones, and you can accept/reject as you like.

Firstly, I’d recommend the lexical approach for mastering article endings. For example, for almost all forms of transport you can say ‘Ich bin mit dem X gefahren’ and you don’t have to worry whether it’s das Auto or der Wagen. There’s only one exception (as in English) ‘on foot’ (zu Fuß).

I think articles and adjective endings in German, are a bit like gerunds/infinitives in English: native-speakers never make mistakes with them, learners constantly do, but mistakes rarely impede communication. However, I wish I had known that it’s best to learn them in chunks rather than just learning a noun and disregarding its gender. Also, it’s confusing for a learner when you’re pretty sure it’s die Tür and then someone says ‘Er hat den Fuß in der Tür’.

You can also take a phrase you might realistically be able to frequently drop into conversation, and use that as a mnemonic. For example, if you say ‘I went there/I did that/I had dinner … with my beautiful wife’ (mit meiner schönen Frau) and learn that by heart, then you will always know how to apply the dative endings to the feminine singular article and adjective.

Ed’s note – she’s right about meine schöne Frau

Meine schöne Frau in Havana Cuba (Kuba?)

Do you have kids? Choose an appropriate epithet and you’ve got a ready-made crib for the dative plural.

Ed’s note – kids?? I have GRANDkids! Here’s a totally gratuitous picture of me with two of them…

Me and Mo and Sadie…

If I were teaching German to English speakers, I would put the articles into four case groups, on large posters on the four walls of the class. I’d also assign a colour as well as a position to the cases.

•    The first I would call ‘Group 0’ (nominative) because there are zero new things to learn, as everybody knows German has der, die, das and plural die. Used with the verb ‘be’.

•    Group 1 (accusative) so-called because there is only one change, as der becomes den. No other changes. Practice with verbs such as ‘have’ Ich habe keinen Stift and ‘know’ Ich kenne ihn gut.

•    Group 2/to (dative – remember to say dem der dem DEN! – it sounds so dramatic!) because this is used with verbs such as ‘give to’ ‘say to’ ‘bring to’.

Practise with these verbs first, then drop in ‘help’ because it’s common – although learners will just have to accept it doesn’t fit in with the ‘to’ mnemonic.

Also, during the course, add to the poster the prepositions which always take the dative: zu, mit, bei – learn useful chunks such as Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag! and zum Fruhstuck. It helps avoid L1 transference as in English we say ‘for breakfast’, ‘for my birthday’, whereas German uses zum not für.

•    The final group (genitive) is best remembered in chunks such as am Ende des Monats/Ende der Woche. By the time you get to this case, your learners should have already encountered it many times! Nothing new to learn! German uses the same system as English for possessives but drops the apostrophe – Kens Auto, and when in doubt, the Genitive can be avoided by using von + dative.

The preposition takes priority when choosing case, but when (as with in) there is a choice, I use the mnemonic ACtion is ACcusative, state is dative, so you know to walk ins Zimmer and to be/stand/sit im Zimmer.

You also have trouble with word order, as you say in your blog: “I’ve only ever made working visits to Länder wo spricht man Deutsch” which should be “Länder wo man Deutsch spricht”.

Ed’s note: If that’s the only mistake I’ve made in the German in these blogs, then I am WELL pleased!

As I continued to learn German I realised I was very adept at using the correct syntax in these types of sentences, as well as the use of ‘him’ and ‘her’, which are particularly tricky.

As in English, the books are organised with what has been judged to be simpler/more fundamental structures first. As I made my way through the units, learning a lot of vocabulary along the way and constantly struggling with articles and adjective endings, I would come up against these ‘advanced’ structures and realise I had mastered them way back.

Hope you weren’t bored by these ideas, and that some of them turn out to be useful for you.

All the best

Hannah Gurr, a TEFL teacher in Bristol

Diary of a language learner, Part 5 – a troublemaker in the class….

I was back at German class last week, having missed two lessons because of my trip to Brazil. I was rather pleased when the early birds in the class smiled and said ‘Guten Abend’ in a cheery fashion when I walked in. Dora the teacher gave me a particularly big smile. She also gave me back the homework I had handed in three weeks ago.

I had worked hard on the two homework tasks. The first was a letter introducing myself and the second was supposed to be a description of a holiday in a German-speaking country. I’ve only ever made working visits to Länder wo spricht man Deutsch, so my homework was about my visit to the ETAS conference in Zug, Switzerland last September – Mein Arbeitsbesuch in der Schweiz.

Dora had requested us to add photos or other visuals to the second piece of homework (nice idea), so there were photos of me talking at the conference, and hanging out with other conference-goers.

I think she knows I do teacher training now.

I was chuffed as beans* at the feedback Dora gave me about my homework. At the end of the letter, she wrote this:

Lieber Ken, vielen Dank für den interessanten Brief. Ihr Deutsch ist sehr gut! Vielen Dank für ihr Feedback. Das war sehr hilfreich.

I think most of you will be able to work out what that means. She found the feedback I gave her before the last lesson very helpful.

The smiley face is also hers, by the way.

At the end of the Arbeitsbesuch homework, she wrote:

Vorsicht (careful) mit den Artikeln der, die, das und Adjektivendungen.

Those bloody articles and endings will be the death of me.

Before I say anything else, I want to congratulate Dora on her clear and precise homework feedback notes, which include pointers to make you think about your grammar, syntax and word order mistakes. There is no doubt in my mind that what holds me back from being an effective German speaker is the trouble I have with articles and adjective endings, so I think these notes are really going to help me improve my German writing.

So – with grammar notes on my homework have I not problems. (Ed: you appear to be thinking in German here)

However, as regular readers of this blog will know – with totally grammar-dominated lessons have I GROSS problems. (Ed: see above note)

So this is the story of the rest of the class, which grammar bestrode like a Colossus. (Ed: now you’ve gone all classical – can you start writing like a normal person?)

When it comes to putting together an ELT coursebook syllabus, authors try to match grammar, function and lexical strands. An obvious example of this would be: present simple tense for habitual actions + talking about habitual actions + food, which gives us such memorably vivid lines as English people eat eggs for breakfast.

The key is to try to disguise the connections, and make the whole thing look like seamless and natural information.

Unit 11 of my German coursebook Willkommen matches health/illness vocabulary, talking about your (un)healthy lifestyle and modal verbs.

Dora started off the class by (I think) revising modal verbs – müssen, dürfen (to be allowed to) wollen (want to), sollen (should) etc.

I say ‘I think’ because I presume she did more presentation work on form and usage during the two classes I was away. As I’ve mentioned before, Dora is very good at eliciting what at least some of us already know. Sometimes, however, it’s hard to work out whether she’s taught it before, or she expects us to know it, or she’s making student prior knowledge the main plank of her teaching method.

She put us into pairs and asked us to write down the forms of the modals. I was paired with Brian, my first chance to work with one of the men in the class. Brian is mid-20s, Irish and works in a Catholic Boys School in east London. He has a nice smile and seems very friendly, but is at the same time a bit unforthcoming about himself. I haven’t yet found out why he’s learning German.

Brian is a godsend for Dora. Every so often, she explains a grammar rule in German, and then asks if anyone would like to translate it. My Irish partner for the evening always jumps at these chances.

“Müssen means ‘have to’ but the negative form is a false friend, because ich muss nicht doesn’t mean ‘I mustn’t’,” he said, echoing Dora’s explanation. “It means ‘I don’t have to’.”

He smiled with great satisfaction when Dora gave him a metaphorical pat on the back for this articulate intervention.

However, something strange happened when Brian and I worked together. We spent a few desultory minutes trading the translations of ich muss, ich muss nicht, ich darf etc. When we got to ich will (another false friend, it means ‘I want to’), I asked: “Gibt mir ein Beispeil” – give me an example.  

Brian looked at me in complete incomprehension.

“An example of what?” he asked in English.

“Put it into context,” I said.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Was willst du am Wochenende machen, zum Beispeil?”

The notion of putting it in context, using any of this language meaningfully while we were checking the verb forms, seemed outlandish to him.

Before he could comment further, Dora brought the activity to an end in her usual idiosyncratic way by saying: ‘StoooooOOOOPPPP’ (It starts quietly and gets louder).

We then helped her create a paradigm of modal forms on the whiteboard. You can imagine I was bouncing off the walls with delight during this part of the lesson.

The board looked like this when we’d finished.

Then it was time to do something from the book. In the health/modals unit, Willkommen has a reading text which consists of four people’s personal statements about their lifestyles. All four statements cleverly integrate information about what the people do, what they aren’t allowed to do, what they should do and what they want to do.

The class had read the text during the last lesson. Now it was time for listening. As soon as the tape started playing, I realised it was simply the same as the reading texts.

We listened (and I surreptitiously read – and I don’t think I was the only one) and made notes on the page. Mine looked like this.

Then we were put in pairs for a bit of exploitation of the target language. We had to find our how healthy our partner’s lifestyle was.

 Brian immediately turned to the woman sitting on the other side and paired with her. Rather too hastily, I thought – what had I done to upset him?? This language learning is increasing my paranoia!!

So now I was paired with Elena, a lovely Spanish woman whose German is like mine – sort of confident/fluent but also faulty. I hadn’t worked with her before, but I did know that she works for a company which sends her to Germany quite often. Highly motivated person with a need for conversational practice. Like me.

Dora said we should use the examples in the book – was tun sie im Moment, was dürfen sie nicht tun (what aren’t you allowed to do – one of the examples in the book was a man with a heart condition who wasn’t allowed to jog), was sollen sie tun etc etc.

I presumed they were just guidelines, so Elena and I talked round the subject, hardly using the key modal language at all. I discovered that Elena goes to the gym twice a week, and also has zumba and yoga classes, plus she goes for long country walks at the weekend. She doesn’t drink alcohol and she drinks a lot of water. And she wants to buy a second-hand bicycle.

No wonder she looks so healthy!

When people started giving feedback, I realised that all the other pairs had worked out how to use the modals from all four columns. They all followed the list in the book scrupulously – what their partner did, what they weren’t allowed to do, what they should do and what they wanted to do. They managed to do this even when it was quite difficult to think of an example (what they weren’t allowed to do was a particular problem).

When it came to my turn, I didn’t look at the book at all. I said what I could remember from our conversation. In my confident/faulty German, it went something like this:

Elena is a very healthy Fräulein, she goes to the Fitness Studio twice a week, and she also does zumba and yoga. She likes going for long walks at the weekend and she doesn’t drink alcohol.

When I finished, everyone, including Dora, looked at me in silence. Clearly they were all expecting more.

‘Um… und auch trinkt sie viel Wasser,’ I added, rather lamely.

Dora looked at me. There was disappointment in her eyes.

‘Und was darf sie nicht tun?’ she asked.

Then I got it. I hadn’t done the task correctly. I was supposed to say something from every column. And – duh! – I hadn’t even asked Elena if there was something she wasn’t allowed to do.

‘Ich weiss nicht,’ I said, now totally embarrassed that I hadn’t done the task right. Then I remembered the bicycle. ‘Ah! Sie will ein Fahrrad aus zweite Hand kaufen,’ I added. It sounded a very odd addendum indeed.

Unlike the previous week, when my partner Celia and I got a big laugh for a piece of acting out we did, my pairwork led to a kind of embarrassed silence. I had not followed the rules. Feedback must contain examples of dürfen, sollen und wollen.

And you know what? It seems to me that the whole class buys into this system except me. Everyone apart from Elena was staring at me with the same accusatory look on their faces. It said: You aren’t following the RULES!

I am now officially a troublemaker.

It’s almost time for my next lesson. I don’t think I will get a cheery ‘Guten Abend’ when I walk in next time.

And I wonder if anyone will agree to be my partner….

The names have been changed.

* Note to non-Mancunians: Chuffed as beans is a northern expression meaning very happy, which may only ever have been used in a few streets near Manchester. Whatever its origins, I appear to be the only living person who still uses it, so don’t worry if you’ve never heard it before.

Diary of a Language Learner, Part 4 – Rays of light!

The story so far – when I turned up for my third German class, Dora the teacher asked me for some feedback. We had only five minutes so I made the following quick recommendations:

• stop asking for responses one by one in the order we’re sitting
• ask for some kind of productive feedback after pair work
• give us clearer models of new chunks of language

Part 4 – Rays of light

One of the things Dora does very well is that she asks us all to sit in different places and work with different people every week. However, what also happens is that we remain bolted to our seats for the entire lesson. We might as well wear aircraft seatbelts because, once installed, we haven’t so far been asked to get up and move around at any stage of the lesson.

This week, there were an odd number of students, so during pair work, I was in a group of three with two people I hadn’t spoken to before; Susan, a rather diffident girl of about 20 who wears glasses and isn’t keen on making eye contact, and Celia, who’s a little older and obviously takes a lot of care about her appearance.

She also looks as if she’s a frequent visitor to a tanning parlour. Either that, or she jets off somewhere hot and sunny every weekend. Every class so far, she has arrived looking tanned and also dressed as if she’s off to a fancy party later.

Maybe she does go off to a party every Wednesday evening, who knows?

Tonight she’s wearing a very elegant black dress with silver sequins, and patent leather black shoes with very high heels. Susan on the other hand is dressed for comfort, in pullover and jeans and flat shoes.

I only mention these sartorial details because we spent most of the lesson working together, and I think it took Susan a little time to feel at ease with Celia. This is something that never occurred to me when I was teaching – could students feel a bit intimidated by other students because of the way they dress?

And so to the class…

The first part maybe could have been less interesting, but I doubt it. Working in pairs, or three in our case, we filled in the definite articles for a lexical set of parts of the body.

The worksheet looked like this:

Riveting worksheet - and this is only half of it…

To make the whole thing even more riveting, the answers were written on the other side of the worksheet. You could almost hear paint dry as we did it.

However, when we finished, Dora asked us all to stand up. What a surprise, and a pleasant one. It was the first time we’d been asked to do something so physically demanding.

We stood up and formed a semi-circle; there was coughing, a bit of stretching and a few of us adjusted our clothing, the kind of slightly embarrassed behaviour you always get when you take English people out of their comfort zone.

The activity was as follows: the first person in the semi-circle had to point to a part of the body. The second person had to say the word with the definite article. If they got the gender wrong, they had to sit down. They were out!

Dora asked the person on the right of the semi-circle to start. The woman pointed at her hand. The second person took a wild guess:

‘Der Hand?’

‘Sitzen!’ trilled Dora, a little too happily, I thought.

‘Das Hand?’ ventured the second.

‘Sitzen!’ said Dora, even more loudly and triumphantly than the first time.

The third person looked very relieved.

‘Die Hand!’ he said, confidently.

‘Richtig!’ said Dora, clearly delighted.

A small spontaneous round of applause broke out.

This was the first fun thing we had done in three weeks, and we all enjoyed it.

It’s amazing how some people can’t actually indicate a particular part of the body. One man gestured wildly in the general direction of his head.

‘Are you talking about your head, your hair, your face or your nose?’ the woman next to him asked in English, to much merriment.

At the end, we all sat down, feeling very pleased about this break in our routine.

Next we worked on the plurals. The plural definite article in German is always the same, die, but there are various different plural forms, like English, but more to learn – die Hand – die Hände, der Arm – die Arme, das Gesicht – die Gesichter, das Auge – die Augen etc

Dora started to ask for the plural forms. She pointed to Celia, who was the first person in the semi-circle on her left.

‘Die Hände,’ said Celia, joyfully. (NOT)

Dora pointed at me.

‘Und die nächste?’

‘Die Arme,’ I intoned.

Dora suddenly remembered my note about not asking for responses round the circle. She swivelled round and pointed at Dan, the young man with the German girl-friend, who was on the other side of the room.

Dan of course was looking at the worksheet, and making a mental note of which one he had to answer.

‘Dan? Können Sie die nächste tun?’

Dan almost fell off his chair in surprise. ‘But surely, I’ll be giving the eleventh answer??’ you could see him thinking.

From that point on, Dora dotted around the room for her answers. The task itself was a bit boring, but the simple change in technique kept us on our toes. 

At a certain point, she elicited a chunk of language, remembered my point about modelling, and asked us to repeat it. It may sound old-fashioned, but believe me, you need it in German.

Next up, some contextualisation – a conversation in a doctor’s surgery.

First, we listened to a recording of a woman going to the doctor to complain about back pain, Rückenschmerzen (note to self – pain seems to be plural in German). The tape is fun to listen to, mainly because the woman keeps making ‘I’m in pain’ noises throughout the conversation.

Doctor: Guten Tag. Was kann ich für Sie tun?

Patient: Aaaargh! Ach! Doktor! Ich habe starke Rückenschmerzen! Aarrgh…

There were smiles round the classroom as the conversation progressed. The audio people had produced a winner here.

The doctor goes on to ask how long the patient has had the pain, says it isn’t serious (that’s realistic – NHS doctors in London always tell you there’s nothing wrong with you – it saves money), and prescribes a course of ten massages.

Ich verschreibe Ihnen zehn Massagen.

Dora then asked us to do the conversation in pairs. I worked with Celia, and she chose to be the doctor.

Then Dora told us to do it again, and this time choose a different ailment.

A break from routine! A chance to be creative! Suddenly I felt inspired!

Using every last ounce of my inconsiderable acting skills, I decided to tell Celia that I had a bad headache.

Aaargh! Ach! Doktor! I began, imitating the woman on the tape. I was obviously speaking a bit too loudly, because everyone else in the class stopped and turned to see if I’d fallen down or something.

I apologised and lowered my voice.

Um… Doktor! Ich habe starke Kopfschmerzen! Aaaarrgh! Oh – sorry!

Celia asked me how long I had had it, said it wasn’t serious, and prescribed some aspirin.

I decided to take to the next level and said I had taken lots of aspirin, and my Kopfschmerzen were still starke.

Celia looked at me with a wry look in her eye.

Also, ich verschreibe Ihnen Morphin.

I laughed out loud at this. Celia doesn’t do proper laughing, it isn’t her style. But there was a trace of a smile.

Dora then asked for feedback! Yay!

‘Would anyone like to act out their conversation for the rest of the class?’

‘Ja!’ I said, rather too confidently. I looked at Celia. She was looking daggers at me.

‘Um… if Celia wants to,’ I added.

‘Celia, möchten Sie es zu tun?’

Celia reluctantly agreed and we did our little turn. When she said she would prescribe me morphine, the whole class laughed out loud. A really big proper laugh.

At first, Celia looked frankly astonished at the sound of laughter. Then a smile of delight spread across her face. It is no exaggeration to say she spent the rest of the class with a smile playing on her lips.

I realised at that moment that, like many people, Celia is basically very shy. I even think the super-smart clothes and the tan are all part of her attempt to hide her shyness.

So my feedback notes to Dora worked, in part. And an added bonus – one of the students will come to the next lesson feeling just that bit more confident about the whole process of learning German.

Result!

LATE BREAKING NEWS

I missed my last class because I was in Brazil. I’m wondering if Dora will ask me to describe what I was doing there – Urlaub oder Arbeit? Holiday or work?

Shall I tell her – and the rest of the class – that I was there doing teacher-training? Any thoughts?

The names have been changed.

Living and working behind the Iron Curtain…

I’m delighted that my first guest blogger of 2012 is Janet Bianchini, who lives in Abruzzo, Italy.

I’m learning German at the moment, as you will know if you read my last three posts here. This simple fact seems to have jogged a lot of people’s memories about their own learning experiences and their experiences of German and German-speaking countries. In Janet’s case, it made her think about the unique opportunity that was presented to her to live and work in the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany as we used to call it, back in 1981.

Apart from her words, as you will see, she still has a store of great images from the time before the Berlin Wall came down and Germany was re-united.

My name is Janet Bianchini and I’m an EFL teacher originally from Oxford, England, but currently based in Abruzzo, central Italy.

I have been teaching for 33 years and I still enjoy the buzz I get from being in the classroom. I am committed to lifelong learning and also interested in the integration of technology within my lessons, both face-to-face and online. I enjoy presenting at international online conferences, where I am happy to share my teaching ideas and experiences.

The East German flag

In 1981, I was just completing a one-year full-time Post Graduate Certificate in Education at Leicester University, specialising in ESL. At the end of a seminar, my tutor Brian Harrison made the following announcement:

“An opportunity has come up to teach EFL to mature students at the Technical University of Dresden. Would anybody like to apply?”

Dresden was of course in the DDR/GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik/German Democratic Republic) or East Germany, as we called it in those days.

Silence filled the room. People glanced around to see if anyone had shown interest. 

“It would be a fantastic experience to see what life is really like behind the Iron Curtain,” said Brian. “And as a foreign guest teacher, you will be very well looked after by the people at TU Dresden.”

I sat up and paid keen attention. Why not?? These two words kept ringing in my ears. Why not give it a go??? What had I got to lose by at least getting further information?  So that is what I did. Out of the class of twelve trainee teachers, I was the only one who felt a true glimmer of excitement at the prospect.

I went for it. I applied and was accepted. There was a LOT of red tape, a lot of forms, a lot of questions, background checks, references, a few visits to the GDR Embassy in London for my visa, and so on.

Throughout this long and drawn-out process, I encountered some resistance from my family and friends who thought I had temporarily taken leave of my senses. 

Their words are still etched in my mind:

There’s no decent food in the shops!

Your salary will be ridiculously low!

You have to queue for everything!

There are police on every street corner!

They will try to brainwash you!

You won’t be able to say what you really think!

You will be kicked out of the country if you don’t follow the rules!

There are no discos there!!! This was one thing that really worried me.

People will only want to make friends with you to get access to the west!

You will be monitored, your every movement catalogued!

There will be a Stasi member in your classes watching for what you say!

The Stasi were the notorious East German secret police.

Everyone seemed to be saying the same thing: Don’t go, Janet!!!!

I was relatively young, care-free, full of enthusiasm, fresh from learning all the latest communicative techniques in how to teach EFL, and I wanted to do something different in my life.  What was I waiting for?  In my usual stubborn fashion, I decided to follow my instincts and not follow the fears and misconceptions of others. 

I knew they had my best interests at heart, but only I could make this decision. It was a once-in a-lifetime opportunity to go behind the so-called Iron Curtain as a teacher and to stay for a whole year, to live and connect with the people, the society, the regime. To find out for myself – was it all true?? Were all the fears based on the real truth, or founded on propaganda reeled out by the West against the Communist state??  Or a mixture of both??? 

I really wanted to find out.  So I did.

First Impressions

In September 1981, I set off by train from Oxford with a little bit of fear and trepidation mixed with excitement. I had been assured that I would be met at Dresden Hauptbahnhof (main station) and looked after by one of the senior members of Dresden Technical University team of professors. 

A flat had been organised for me, with a very low rent. My teaching schedule seemed very fair and quite light at only twenty contact periods a week. I would work Monday–Thursday and then have three whole days free every week to explore the GDR.

It sounded perfect.

The salary was approximately 1,083 DDR Marks per month, 885 after deductions. This equated to approximately £200 per month. No DDR money could be taken out of the country – nobody wanted it. I HAD to spend all my earnings! This sounded absolutely fine to me.

The German border, 1982

Crossing the Inner Border between the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic at Oebisfelde by train was quite nerve-racking the first time.

All the passengers had to get off the train and stand behind a long white line on the platform. Military border guards with guns stood to attention around the station. They were not at all friendly-looking. In fact, they looked really stern, rather imposing and tight-lipped. It was night time, I was on my own and yes, my heart did start sinking and I did begin to wonder what on earth I had let myself in for.

East German passport stamps

One of the guards stood right in front of me and looked at my passport closely. Then he asked me to show him my teeth! I squirmed with total embarrassment. Without explanation, he then took my passport and disappeared for what seemed like an eternity, leaving me to stand behind the white line in a slight panic.

“They are not going to let me enter! Maybe there’s something wrong with my visa!  Oh, no, I’ve had it!!!”

The border guard came back, gave me my passport and ordered me back onto the train. That was it. I was finally going to cross over into the East German territory. My adventure was about to begin. 

By the way, I have never worked out why my teeth were checked with my passport on my first border crossing.  Did the East German state already have sophisticated digital scanning equipment in 1981 to check dental records with official documents? I will never know.

Dresden postcard

Living in Dresden was to be a fantastic experience for me. Dresden was a beautiful city, dubbed the “Florence of the Elbe.” It had been heavily bombed at the close of World War Two and parts of the city and its ruined buildings had been left untouched from that period. This was to remind GDR citizens of the futility of war. 

It was also a vibrant, cultural city. The Dresden State Art Collections consisted of eleven museums. Raphael’s world famous masterpiece The Sistine Madonna is housed in the Old Masters Picture Gallery, along with other magnificent paintings. I used to spend a lot of my free time happily wandering around the galleries. I have a collection of books to remind me of them.

World-renowned Meissen china also heralds from just outside Dresden. The company produces the most exquisite fine bone china in the world. Alas, I was not able to afford to buy a little souvenir, even in those days.

However, I was fortunate enough to be presented by a group of students with a specially commissioned coin of the Dresden Zwinger Museum with the two famous Meissen swords stamped on it. I have no idea how much this would be worth nowadays.

Despite the fears of my friends back home, Dresden had a fantastic social scene and nightlife. East German people knew how to enjoy themselves, pubs, nightclubs and restaurants were always full, and the customers looked immensely happy, at least while they were out having fun.  Beer and the local “Sekt” (champagne) usually flowed. I believe it was a way to forget the strictness and harshness of the state regime.

Learning German in the GDR

During the first three months of my stay leading up to Christmas 1981, I lived a fairly calm and solitary life in between teaching at the TU and interacting with the professors and the students at the campus. 

In the evenings, I took to listening to the big DDR radio I was loaned by the university and yes, the only programmes on offer consisted of news items railing against western corruption and the wicked lifestyles in the west. It was pure propaganda aimed at making East German citizens feel proud that their country was not as debased as those Capitalist countries over the border. Every day I heard how wonderful DDR athletes were, and how many scientific & photographic products were exported overseas. I learned a LOT of German and set phrases!!

In addition, I attended German language classes every week for three-hour lessons together with other language students from other East European countries like Romania. There were also some students from Cuba. 

Our teacher Herr Doring was extremely strict. He used to get very upset whenever anyone made simple prepositional mistakes in the frequent drills he used to set. We did numerous grammar exercises, which I personally enjoyed. Gap fills, sentence transformations, stem sentences and so on. 

Herr Doring started off super strict, and then over the course of the weeks he showed us his gentler side. I knew he really cared about his students and just wanted them to achieve high accuracy. I respected him very much indeed. He was strict but fair. I used to write a comment in my diary after each session.  They usually say “Very good lesson!” or  “Excellent lesson!” so he was definitely doing something right.

Teaching EFL at The Technical University of Dresden

Teaching at TU

I taught small classes of maximum six students – all men and all eminent scientists, doctors, professors and experts in the fields of science, medicine and technology. My students were all “mature”, mostly Elementary level leading towards Intermediate Level. I was the youngest member of staff at the TU and my students were all much older than me. 

With the mature TU students

We had a lot of fun in the classes, which were aimed at conversational English. I used lots of homemade flashcards and I loved teaching the groups. I was so lucky to have only six students and the opportunities for maximising communication were excellent and results achieved in a short time were very good. I was often observed by the professors and luckily they seemed very happy with my teaching.

Later, I found out that I did actually have a secret “Stasi” member (East German secret police) in each class whose job it was to report whether my lessons contained any reference to three taboo subjects – religion, the Royal Family and politics. As you can imagine, it was difficult to avoid talking about these subjects, but somehow I managed it. 

Life is indeed a circle. The “hot” course book in 1981-1982 in the GDR was the Streamline series by Bernard Hartley and Peter Viney and I used “Streamline Departures” for the whole year with my Beginners/ Elementary students.

Streamline - nowhere was beyond its reach in the 1980s...

I still know the contents inside out.

My biggest achievement was to take part in a “Kolloquium” (Conference) at Dresden University entitled “Teaching English to Adults”. I spoke for twenty minutes on “The role of visual aids at the elementary stage”. The conference was attended by professors and teachers from the whole of the GDR. It was a huge honour. I remember feeling elated and so proud to stand in front of so many distinguished educators talking about my favourite subject.

Were all the fears expressed by family and friends true? 

Yes, apart from worries about my social life, they were indeed ALL true, including the fact that some people only wanted to make friends with me because I was from the West. I was wise enough to understand the difference between those that wanted to befriend me for ulterior motives, and those who were genuinely interested in me as a person.

My diary contains a few references to GDR citizens who followed me, citizens who struck up conversations on the tram, who asked me very leading questions indeed, aimed solely at trapping me and revealing my innermost feelings about the regime.

I had the very good fortune to meet some wonderful people from the GDR,  who became life-long friends. Thirty years of friendship that survived the Iron Curtain. Amongst them are my best friends Marion, Gitta and Uli, and Ehrhard, my former colleague and TU mentor.

My year in Dresden was brilliant, because of these friendships. Without their constant support and kindness, my stay might not have turned out to be such an enriching and worthwhile experience. I was indeed very happy in Dresden, and the decision to leave after one year was not taken lightly, but my next port of call to teach EFL was to be the volcanic island of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. 

What a truly incredible year THAT was going to be …..

Keeping Hold of History

I have kept everything from my 1981-82 GDR days. Books, my old passport full of DDR stamps, postcards, letters, pay slips, bank statements, social security book, night club entrance tickets, cinema tickets, stamps, restaurant receipts, tram passes, posters and general ephemera of everyday life. Plus two complete diaries with thoughtful and candid insights.

I also kept all the official DDR telegrams I received. In those days, telegrams were the quickest way to communicate and were very brief, I guess a bit like Twitter is nowadays! 

I knew then that I was living in a momentous period in European history.

Here’s a greetings card with the famous hammer and sickle, the symbol of the GDR and one of my boxes full of ephemera, and bits of everyday life from 1981-82.

Box of DDR memories…

And here’s a ticket for the “Gondel” Night Club.  It cost 2,60 DDR Marks. 

I am still waiting to hear whether a “file” was set up on my movements during the year I spent in Dresden. There are thousands of people in Berlin sifting through the old Stasi files. I have submitted all the paperwork, and time after time, the response has been to write again in two years’ time.  There is a huge backlog.  Writing this post has reminded me to write to the central office again.  I refuse to give up!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/13/east-germany-stasi-files-zirndorf

My physical memories reside on my bookshelf and in two boxes marked simply “GDR”. My spiritual and innermost memories lie deep within my heart, never to be forgotten.

If you want to see what the GDR was like, watch The Lives of Others, an excellent Oscar-winning film which reflects what was going on at the time I was there. When I saw it for the first time, I felt as if I had been transported back in time. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3_iLOp6IhM

Thanks very much to Ken for giving me the time and space to write a guest post on his wonderfully entertaining blog, which is one of my favourites.  It is a great honour to have this opportunity and I am very grateful to have the chance to revisit memories. 

You can visit my blog at: http://civitaquana.blogspot.com to find out what I am getting up to at the moment.