Speaking skills – especially in stressful situations – matter.
Most quality Business English and VESL (Vocational English as a Second Language) programs provide extensive training and practice in both short and long job interviews. Job interviews are stressful – especially for English language learners. In fact, many adult, community college, and university ESL programs also include mock job interviews in the curriculum so ESL students can learn how to better answer simple and difficult questions. After all, many career experts recommend native speakers practice and practice again for these high-stakes interviews. It behooves English language learners to practice, practice, and practice some more for job interviews.
During these difficult economic times, however, Business English trainers, advanced ESL (English as a Second Language), teachers and VESL (Vocational English as a Second Language) job coordinators should focus on an even wider range of interviewing skills. Many people have to interview co-workers, customers, strangers, and even more senior professionals at work. Speaking skills – in particular interview skills – matter.
Informational interviews – where future professionals ask questions to working professionals that hold a desirable position – achieves this goal – and a few more. Informational interviews deserve far more attention in English language programs, but especially in Business English programs and VESL classes since informational interviews provide practical opportunities to develop business contacts and remain a savvy job hunting tactic.
A common practice in the United States in many white-collar professions, informational interviews allow students (or individuals seeking a career change) to meet more successful and senior professionals in a field. From scheduling an appointment and preparing questions to collecting information on common business practices, this professional exercise tests the fluency and language skills. Informational interviews also expand their personal network of valuable business contacts. Sometimes these 20-30 minute interviews, often at offices, offer surprising insights into the typical work experiences and best workplace practices. Topics can range from the biographic to industry trends. Best of all, informational interviews can also lead to job leads, internships, and even new jobs.
This real world assignment can work with high-intermediate and advanced Business English clients. In fact, asking clients or students to find, research, and conduct an informational interview requires a certain level of fluency and confidence – outside the classroom. This challenging, authentic class assignment requires English language learners to perform a vital workplace skill, respond in real time to a potential supervisor, and ask appropriate questions.
What are appropriate questions? Here are a few classic informational interview questions:
How did you first enter the field? Why?
How has the industry changed since you began your career?
Can you describe a typical day at work?
What are some trends that you are watching?
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
What question should I have asked that I didn’t ask today?
These simple questions often provide illuminating glimpses into the professional lives of successful professionals.
I recommend requiring a “trip report” or a presentation to show the results of the informational interview with fellow Business English students,. This reflective exercise requires students to concisely summarize their interview. Learning how to conduct an informational interview is a crucial skill that they can use over and over again during their business careers. Many graduate programs strongly recommend (and sometime mandate) their students conduct regular informational interviews.
From my perspective, adding information interviews to Business English classes and VESL programs seems extraordinarily sensible. It also qualifies as an effective use of precious instructional time. Practical and popular, this multidimensional assignment consistently engages students and provides surprising insights in a university setting. I’ve been requiring informational interviews for several years in my university courses for both native and non-native English speakers. Students consistently rate the informational interview highest among the course assignments – and often praise it on course evaluations.
Therefore, I’m quite confident that quality Business English and VESL programs can clearly benefit from adding this real-world, authentic task to their curriculum too.
Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations – in English!
www.CompellingConversations.com
Why are so many EFL Textbooks so bland, boring, and culturally tone-deaf? Allow me to ask a more polite question.
How can English teachers working abroad and international English textbook publishers both respect local cultures and create more engaging English classroom lessons? The challenge may be more complicated than you might suspect.
A long, informative, and detailed exchange on a TESOL list serve recently focused on the peculiar sensitivities of Saudi Arabian students. An experienced American English teacher reported that his Saudi students expressed anger over a paragraph in their writing book. The imported American English language textbook, which has collected considerable critical praise, contained a paragraph celebrating friendships across many countries and religions – including an unpopular democratic rival nation of the Saudi kingdom. Working in a closed, theocratic society where women are banned from driving evidently raises many delicate problems for English teachers, and many EFL and ESL materials must be carefully edited. Obviously, discussing politics, religion, sexuality, and gender issues is clearly culturally inappropriate and often legally forbidden in this rigid Islamic kingdom.
Without passing judgment for the moment on the Saudi students’ perceptions and religious passions, let’s zoom out a bit. This awkward incident illuminates the need to explicitly tailoring English as Foreign Language (EFL) content to reflect different national cultures. It also identifies a core defect in the many EFL publishers and why so many EFL and ESL textbooks are bland, boring, and heavily censored. Who wants to offend many potential customers and clients by just mentioning a small country’s name?
As I heard explained at two fascinating TESOL workshops for EFL material writers at the 2011 conference in New Orleans, the current practice for EFL publishers is to simply collect all the possible objections, adopt the “red lines” of all countries, and uniformly impose these taboos around the world. The default advice for EFL material writers includes prohibiting not only politics, alcohol religion, sex, and nudity (predictable), but also mention of luck, negative emotions, Israel, gender roles, and pork.
Here are some memorable examples. One EFL materials writer detailed how he had to drop a chapter on bad luck because it implied that God wasn’t in control of events and might encourage superstitious thinking. Another writer told TESOL participants about having to drop a health chapter which included a “no smoking sign” because it implied that smoking was a choice. Another presenter felt proud that he was able to list “negative emotions” such as “bored”, “tired”, “unhappy” when outnumbered by positive adjectives by a 3-1 margin in a chapter on feelings.
Evidently, many educational bureaucrats evidently place creating a “harmonious society” and teaching conformity above actual language acquisition or student expression. Shock, shock. The ban on mentioning Israel comes from – as demonstrated in the Saudi Arabia classroom that sparked this informative discussion among TESOL professionals – the fashionable desire to see a democratic, successful nation abolished among many Arabs. Many British publishers have also found many Arab countries, including several former colonies and a few royal kingdoms the British Empire helped create after WWI, to be important, lucrative EFL markets. The predictable result: pandering to local prejudice and the systematic omission of positive references to Israel.
Naturally, printing world maps that ignore the existence of a small country is also an explicitly political decision so the “avoid politics” advice is a tad dishonest here. Further, as the son of a Holocaust survivor, I find the strange belief that every group deserves a nation except Jews pure bigotry and fashionable group hatred. Yet, for worse or for better, this quasi-official ban seems to be widely adopted by many British EFL publishers. (American textbook publishers, perhaps inspired by a federal law that prohibits honoring the Arab boycott of Israel, don’t appear to follow this particular practice.)
Yet rather than focusing on the passionate politics of the Mideast, let’s remember that the largest clients often dictate content in many fields. And governments and their education ministries remain, by far, the largest clients for international educational publishers. In fact, educational ministries– especially in closed, dictatorial societies where teaching critical thinking is more than discouraged, censorship taken for granted, and English often viewed with some lingering suspicion as an old imperial tongue – hold exceptional power to approve or veto EFL textbooks. Focusing on pleasing these clients, many American and British publishers have chosen to adopt all the “red lines” of various cultures. Unfortunately, this current practice ends up imposing the safest, narrowest paradigm on all their international clients – across the globe. The Saudi standard becomes the standard for French, Brazilian, Japanese, and Korean English language learners too.
After all, efficiency matters in publishing too. From a publisher’s perspective, creating one core EFL textbook and making very minor tweaks (usually illustrations) for each region works just fine. The downside, as many of us know from personal experience, is the resulting product often becomes bland, often fails to engage students, and effectively allows the most closed societies to dictate content across the globe. Both English teachers and their students lose access to more meaningful, reflective, and accurate information and wider, more modern and tolerant perspectives.
Yet satisfying student interest is far less important from a global sales perspective than meeting a ruling regime’s dictates to re-enforce local beliefs and uphold the political status quo. These larger concerns translate into many boring EFL textbooks that both pander and overlook local cultures by promoting a one-size fits all English language learners textbook. As of now, many of these well-known EFL titles still manage to sell huge numbers – and avoid dozens of engaging topics that directly relate to students’ actual lives, experiences, and hopes. For instance, English students in poor Asian, African, and Central American countries currently have to learn about housing vocabulary written from an abstract, universal perspective with examples from London, New York, and Tokyo. How relevant, appropriate, or accurate will the housing vocabulary be?
Yet there is a better, smarter, and more culturally sophisticated way to both acknowledge the political realities of working in closed societies and create more engaging EFL textbooks that express and reflect national cultures. We could develop more appropriate EFL materials that authentically reflect the actual life experiences and aspirations of English language learners in their current context. More on that topic in the next Compelling Conversations blog post.
“The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity, and the brute by instinct.”
Marcus Cicero, Roman statesman and orator
How do potential English teachers gain the experience and knowledge to become successful English teachers? The answer is both more complicated and simpler than many people believe. The internet provides exceptional opportunities for potential English teachers to become autotelic (self-directed) learners. Following your own interest and creating your own educational program has never been easier.
The cult of paper continues to reign – especially in educational bureaucracies. Perhaps this remains the largest discrepancy between ESL and EFL faculties. In immigrant-friendly societies English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors usually have been formally trained in actually teaching ESL learners. Many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors, in contrast, are enticed to pursue teaching English while traveling abroad as a means of earning some extra cash. While some of these impromptu instructors are confident, worldly, intelligent, and often become outstanding educators in their own right, more often they are less-than-successful, holding to the assumption that teaching is easy, and teaching English even easier.
As the Bulgarian adage goes, “Many learn to walk by stumbling.” Over time and after several awkward classes, some instructors grow through experience, becoming better, more effective teachers. A key fact remains the ability to zoom out and reflect upon an English lesson; what worked, what didn’t work, what could be done differently, etc. By reading and reflecting, and then developing Personal Learning Networks, some “instant English teachers” can become stronger and smarter classroom guides.
Further, the reality remains that too many education classes bore students, obsess over theory, and neglect teaching any practical instruction techniques. Plus, these formal certificates and advanced degrees can become rather costly and do not guarantee success in the actual EFL classroom. Combined with the reluctance of so many private English language schools to spend money on professional development and pay higher salaries for more credentialed teachers, many EFL teachers choose to find their own paths to becoming outstanding instructors. Teachers’ conferences, professional seminars, carefully observing successful English teachers, and finding a mentor are all beneficial for English teachers, both novice and experienced, trying to learn how to better instruct their students.
While it is obviously possible for EFL instructors to be hired in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and many other countries without a strong background in teaching, I still recommend that most EFL and ESL instructors get more training and share teaching experiences – for your students sake and your own pursuit of excellence.
Yet this professional development does not have to be sanctioned by any formal educational institution. As the great American historian Henry Adams observed, “”They know enough who know how to learn.”
The best thing that I can advise ESL instructors is to create a PLN, or Personal Learning Network, as it has become the fashionable rage among many English language and trainers around the world. Here are some links for insight into becoming a more learned and practical English teacher, all 100% free internet resources that I personally follow and have learned from over the years.
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ – Larry has become a living legend among American English language and social studies teachers for his ability to find, analyze, and describe the best sites for educators. I learn every time I allow myself the pleasure to explore his “best of” series of links.
http://evridikidakos.edublogs.org/ – Teaching with technology creates new possibilities and Evridiki Dakos has established herself as a leading expert, especially for teaching English to children. Check her creative blog out!
http://kalinago.blogspot.com/ The always informative ELT specialist and conversation enthusiast Karenne Joy Sylvester.
Bottomline: Do yourself a favor, check out these outstanding EFL and ESL experts, and become an autotelic English teacher.
“The beginning of wisdom is in the definition of terms.”
Socrates (469 BCE–399 BCE) , Greek philosopher
Getting students to speak can be a challenge, especially in ESL courses focused on academic writing. Flexibility remains essential.
How does one, for instance, teach the difficult task of writing formal academic definitions in a communicative style? The challenge becomes more difficult if the “high intermediate ESL” class is really a broad multilevel ESL class. Just presenting the standard “term+ class + distinctive feature” formula used in academic writing from the dense textbook won’t work. Defining “erosion”, “enamel”, “folk art” and “network” – the academic writing textbook examples- seems too difficult – and can be a tad boring.
I recently faced this awkward situation. Putting aside the textbook for a day, we took one step back to take two steps forward. We also created a lively ESL vocabulary lesson almost by accident as I redirected the two-hour class toward a communicative ESL lesson.
Students, working in small groups, created a large list of places where people could live – a house, a dorm, a cave, a castle, a duplex, a bungalow, a trailer, a penthouse, a cottage, a villa, a tent, etc. The students further refined the list in small groups, and then focused on describing four types of housing. Students were also asked to think about potential users, applications, materials, and advantages of different types of housing. The ultimate goal would be giving formal sentence definitions that could be expanded into extended definitions.
Given the mixed level, I also allowed the “high-intermediate ESL” students to verify their answers with both electronic and online dictionaries in their groups. By allowing the English students to authentically generate the vocabulary lists in a communicative fashion, the English students seemed both more actively engaged and appeared to enjoy a vocabulary lesson that could have been on the dreary side. They exchanged ideas and clarified the definitions. They also gained far greater comfort in the original task of writing definitions while expanding both their working and academic vocabulary.
What is your dream home? Real estate ads often ask this question. Our class explored a different question. What is a house? Our vocabulary activity lead to some good discussions and concluded with each group briefly offering sentence definitions to describe a wide variety of housing. The relative clauses might have been long, but they were clear and detailed.
Bottomline: exploring interesting topics, evoking student experiences, and requiring students to speak in small groups can work even while working on difficult writing tasks. Score another one for communicative teaching methods!
Sometimes we don’t see what is in front of our eyes.
Today I learned a bit more about my own website from a fellow English teacher and friendly fan.
A gentleman from Tennessee called my home, thanked me for the sample conversation materials, and asked some insightful questions about the updated Compelling Conversations website. I appreciate his call – and his giving a practical suggestion on how to improve the site for adult educators by adding clearer language. The influx of new immigrants, mostly Spanish speaking with limited formal education, can be seen across the United States. As you might expect, many churches are providing many education and literacy programs for new immigrants in the South – often on a shoe string budget. I’m glad that the free reproducible worksheets can be of some assistance.
Second, the gentleman’s call encouraged me to take a longer look at my own website through new eyes. Designed more for English teachers than English language learners, the revised site does include an entire section for students. The materials, however, are probably too hard for most English students to understand since they are written for high intermediate and advanced ESL students.
Fortunately, there are also rough Google translations for the Compelling Conversations website now for speakers of 46 languages. The long list goes beyond the usual suspects (Chinese, French, German, Korean, Spanish) to cover tongues ranging from Albanian and Arabic to Vietnamese and Yiddish! That’s sort of amazing – even if the computer translations remain imperfect and contain many errors. Consider me jealous of my computer’s language skills! Wouldn’t it be great to just know 10 words in 46 languages?
Perhaps in the future. For now, I’m grateful for Google translations – and dedicated English teachers who share their experiences about my small, evolving website and niche conversation textbook. Maybe it is silly, but I still get a kick when – like today – an adult education teacher tells me about how their students enjoy the book – even when it is a bit difficult.
So please feel free to share your experiences, positive or negative, because we are learn from each other. As the cliche goes, “everyone is a student; everyone is a teacher.” Today I learned quite a bit about my own website, its strengths and flaws. Have you visited the revised website yet? What worked? What could be improved? Do you have some suggestions for the next version?
“Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.”
Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), Nobel Prize winner for Literature
Holidays and anniversaries often prompt personal reflections. As 2010 ends and a new year beckons, millions of English language learners and thousands of English teachers reflect on their lives and make new year resolutions.
· What did you find satisfying in 2010?
· What were some magic days and memorable moments?
· What English words will you choose to remember?
· What English lessons would you prefer to forget?
Sometimes we look back with satisfaction on our classroom achievements, and sometimes we look back in regret. A USA Today article proclaimed “2010: The Year Technology Replaced Talking. Yet here we are facing 2011.. Almost everyone hopes for a happy, healthy, and more prosperous and productive new year. The challenge remains how we can move forward, and talking about change and hopes for change seems like a natural place.
Often, we openly declare our hopes and goals for the New Year with bold resolutions that require serious change in our habits. We also know that change can be hard, surprising, and sometimes liberating in our classrooms and in our personal lives.
· What do you hope for in 2011?
· What changes would you like to make? Why?
· How do you plan to realize your goals in the next year?
· How will you measure personal success in 2011?
· How will you measure your academic success in 2011?
· Are you ready to keep your New Year resolutions?
Given the rate of exceptional technological and social change in the 21st century, I find that discussing the topic of Change a perennial winner in my advanced English classes. I often open the Spring semester with this popular conversation activity in the first two weeks. Although public opinion surveys show that only a small percentage of Americans keep their New Year resolutions to change after a month, I suspect we can increase those odds of our English students by candidly discussing our hopes and plans to change.
