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“This has been one year of a week!” is a phrase I share with students, both as a joke and a nod to the present perfect tense that we have been working on for some time. But the joke lands flat and the present perfect tense gets even harder to explain in my very first online class.

However, let’s go back and look at the seismic shift that happened over a single week in March 2020, producing a tsunami that swept all of us into the isolation of a different world. Some of us got the chance to take a deep breath before the tidal wave hit; some of us didn’t!

In Slovakia, my colleagues and I were rather lucky and managed to take that breath. First, the country got together during the last weekend of February for national and local elections. The following weekend, the teachers of my school got together for a (previously planned) weekend retreat to prepare for an upcoming inspection.

But there was a more urgent issue on everyone’s minds. We were busy discussing the spread of the coronavirus with everybody: with our students in class, in the car on the way to the retreat, in the evening over a drink with the management, and even later with colleagues before going to bed. We spent a productive weekend: sharing ideas on a variety of topics from teaching, trying out coaching and mentoring sessions on one another, and exchanging experiences about the wide range of courses that we offer in our English Language Centre in Bratislava.­­

On the Saturday evening, we first came across the names of different video conferencing platforms, as well as their pros and cons. We hoped we would get a chance to test them out on some of our courses, and then gradually implement them in case we ever needed to switch some of our face-to-face teaching to online delivery. Little did we know how soon this was to become reality!

On the Sunday morning, we all posed for a group photo; not realising that it would be the last time we would all meet in person for the foreseeable future. In the evening, back in Bratislava, the governor of the region announced that all state schools within his authority should be closed. Other municipalities quickly followed suit, especially in view of the limitations imposed on transport and other public services. How to get to work without public transport?

For years, I had been putting off cycling to work but on the following Monday, I finally decided ‘to get on my bike’. At the time, I thought that this would be the main change in my daily routine for the foreseeable future. The adults on my small group courses, held in the school building, expressed a willingness to continue their classes. So, I cycled to work and, given the small size of Bratislava, I felt I could also use this mode of transport to the in-house company courses in various parts of the city. At the end of the day, I felt great and couldn’t help thinking that there could be some positive outcomes arising from the current situation.

By the time I got home on that Monday evening, everything came to a sudden stop. The owner of our school took the sensible decision to protect our staff and students by cancelling all English language classes – both in the school building and the in-company courses, especially as almost all offices had banned outside visitors including, of course, teachers of English. Suddenly, in just one day, I had no courses to teach. What is the solution when everything around you appears to have stopped?

Luckily, we now live in a world where snail mail and the telephone are not the only options to bridge the distance between teachers and their classes. There is a multitude of tools provided by Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Zoom et al, promising to fulfil all our teaching needs at a distance. What can possibly go wrong? Unfortunately, now I know it’s a lot – not only “zoombombing” or unstable connections but also neighbours making all kinds of noises, or the cat lying down on the keyboard of your laptop.

In a recent interview, Yuval Noah Harari (author of A Brief History of Mankind) pointed out that while mankind develops slowly and gradually, there are instances when this process can be accelerated. The example he gave was how his university went from teaching mostly face-to-face to teaching 100% online within a week! Left to normal development, he argued, the university would have taken decades to implement this change. In our case, having pondered over the advantages  and disadvantages of various online teaching platforms during our weekend retreat at the end of February as some futuristic, science fiction fantasy, my colleagues and I were fully engaged teaching all our courses online in the middle of March. Hey Ho!

My first online class with one student was very reassuring. She invited me for an online session as she put herself into voluntary quarantine at a hotel. We used all the possibilities of Google Meet, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the sound and pictures, as well as other features such as live subtitles and the options of sharing video and audio on the screen. My colleagues and I also held our first staff meeting using Zoom. After having a productive online video discussion with 20 colleagues, we all felt a sense of achievement; ready to face the challenges and problems (sometimes they ARE problems!) of online teaching.   

Now, instead of the hustle and bustle of a busy school, our online teaching forums are buzzing with a variety of tools and other gizmos to teach and to entertain the students. We have the feeling that we, as experienced teachers, should already know how use them all. However, we don’t; and neither do our students! Necessity being the mother of invention, this is a good time to offer mutual support, not just to our students but also to our colleagues, in order to make the teaching/learning experience professional and even entertaining.

Not all the companies where I teach have jumped onto the bandwagon yet, and I have already been through a couple of frustrating sessions, for example, where no one has shown up for online classes. At the same time, seeing some of the students that I manage to get to an online class fills me with joy. We are not only socializing but all of us are learning as well.  

About Ondrej

Ondrej Koščík is a teacher, photographer, language and music enthusiast from Eastern Slovakia. He teaches in Bratislava for the Bridge – English Language Centre. Since 2015, he’s been an active member of the Slovak Chamber of English Teachers (a body which organises conferences and other CPD events for teachers) mainly as a conference photographer. When he’s not busy socialising (or being in quarantine), he continues to be a lifelong learner, and to share his knowledge with other teachers. Earlier this year, Ondrej was appointed the official photographer for the main IATEFL conference which was scheduled to be held in Manchester.

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At the end of every year major dictionary compilers choose their ‘Word of the Year’. This doesn’t have to be a novelty word. It can be an old word that has made a comeback or taken on a new meaning, such as the pronoun “they”. The Merriam Webster dictionary famously announced “they” as their Word of 2019 after it became a popular way of referring to people with non-binary gender identities (“Meet my friend. They are a lawyer.”). According to Merriam Webster, “they” saw a surge in lookups in 2019 .

For other dictionary compilers, however, the Word of the Year is not necessarily the entry that was most looked up. Rather, it’s a word of social or cultural significance that captures the spirit of the year gone by. Based on that criterion, the Oxford Dictionaries opted for “climate emergency” as the Word of 2019. Interestingly, the runner-ups (other words that were shortlisted) are all related to the environment, such as “climate denial,” “eco-anxiety,” “extinction” and “flight shame”  reflecting the mood of the year in which Greta Thunberg embarked on her crusade to raise global awareness of climate change. For similar reasons, in 2017, the year marked by malicious misinformation and plagued by pernicious propaganda, the Collins Dictionary named “fake news” as their Word of the Year.

Although it has just begun,  the mood and spirit of 2020 can largely be summarised in one word: Coronavirus. Having consulted major online dictionaries – Cambridge, Oxford, Macmillan – I was surprised to find that the word is already there. Has it always been there or is it a new addition?

The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary even provided the following example, which seems eerily prescient; unless it has been updated very recently:

Precautions were taken to try to limit the spread of coronavirus.

A look up in the Macmillan Dictionary suggests that online dictionaries are indeed updated more frequently than I believed. Their example accompanying the entry is:

On 9 January 2020, China reported a novel coronavirus as the causative agent of this outbreak.

Extensive media coverage of the coronavirus has brought to the fore some interesting words and phrases (I’ve bolded them in what follows). Like “coronavirus” they probably have been out there but have started to occur with higher than usual frequency, for example flatten the curve – an attempt to mitigate the outbreak by reducing the number of new infections. Of course, the best way to achieve that is by social distancing or, in plain terms, staying away from other humans, and, if you have been in contact with an infected individual, through self-isolation or home quarantine. “Quarantine” – a word of  Latin/Italian origin related to a period of 40 (not 14!) days all ships coming into Venice had to be isolated in order to prevent the spread of the plague in the Middle Ages – is worthy of its own article and will not be discussed here. Let’s, however, look instead at unprecedented.

Photo by Nathan Smith on Flickr under a Creative Commons License [CC BY-ND 2.0]

An “unprecedented rise in the number of cases”, “unprecedented time for health workers”, “countries entering unprecedented lockdowns” – all this is just from a quick scan of the news stories from the past few days. Apparently, I’m not the only one who noticed a sudden surge in the popularity of the word, as can be see from this tweet:

(The teacher in me says it should be “number of times”, not amount, but I’m probably being too pedantic.)

Among the verbs that seem to be ‘trending’ in these anxiety inducing times are curb and impose – both useful for academic writing. The former has been cropping up a lot lately as part of the following chunks: curb the spread of the coronavirus or curb the outbreak; but also in curb socializing / movement / the financial impact (of the outbreak). The latter is also useful for students because it is one of 570 words in the Academic Word List (AWL). According to the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), it often occurs with the following collocations presented here in a collocation fork:

I’m sure you have come across most of these in the past few days.

Let’s look at some more examples in context:

• “To put a ring around cities of this size and population is unprecedented” – a quote in NY Times, January 20, 2020
• France imposed a draconian lockdown unseen during peacetime – Aljazeera, March 18, 2020
• How countries from China to Italy have imposed measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 – The Guardian, March 18, 2020

Of course, as we know, the groups who are particularly vulnerable to the virus are the elderly and people with pre-existing health … .

That’s right. This word combination, together with underlying health problems / conditions, has become such a staple feature of Corona-speak that you immediately recalled the last word in the sequence. This is a result of what is known as lexical priming, when repeated exposures (to a large extent in the media) to certain strings of words lead you to expect (=primes you) to hear or see these words together.

Turning now to the field of education, we have also witnessed a slew of buzzwords in the wake of the outbreak. Suddenly breakout rooms and screencasting are the talk of the town.

This is as a result of teachers incorporating digital technology on an unprecedented… that’s right, scale! One term that I hear a lot is remote teaching. Interestingly, we don’t normally say “remote learning”; instead, “learning” and “education” prefer the company of “distance” – distance learning / distance education (again, according to COCA). I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on that.

Finally, the corona crisis has given rise to genuinely new words (neologisms), particularly portmanteau words, i.e. words produced by mashing two existing words. Some examples include:

covidiot (COVID-19 + idiot) = a person who ignores the rules of social distancing or hoards goods. (Which reminds me, we almost forgot to mention panic buying – another collocation that’s gone coronaviral).

Photo by Ben Schumin on Flickr under a Creative Commons License [CC BY-SA 2.0]

quarantini (quarantine + martini) = a drink you have at home while self-isolating (or socially distancing? I’m not sure anymore).

On this note, here’s to your health, and the hope that there’s a light at the end of this Coronatunnel.

Stay well, as we say these days, 

Lexically yours,

Leo Selivan

I would like to thank Rakesh Bhanot, Tatiana Maslova, Daniel Portman, Tomasz Róg, Marlene Goldberg and others who contributed some of the above items in a Facebook discussion.

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About Leo
Leo Selivan began his career in ELT more than 15 years at the British Council in Tel Aviv, where, among other things, he was a content writer for the British Council & BBC website TeachingEnglish. Today, Leo is a freelance lecturer teaching courses in Second Language Acquisition, ELT methodology, Corpus Linguistics and Genre Analysis. He also travels extensively to give workshops, and mentor teachers and teacher trainers. His professional writing credits include Lexical Grammar (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and articles in Modern English Teacher, EFL Magazine, The Guardian Education, Humanising Language Teaching as well as his own aptly-named blog Leoxicon.

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This is a personal diary of a week in the time of self-isolation due to COVID -19. I am starting my third lockdown week during which I have kept some notes that I want to share with you.

Day One (8 March)

My world has suddenly become restricted. Usually, four days a week I get around Milan by bike or tube to reach the places where I teach. This routine will not be possible for some time to come.  

I call one of my friends who teaches in a school where children already use iPads instead of books. She is ready to face this new situation, as are all her pupils, without any major adjustments.

However, another friend is panicking because his PC is very old and even his smartphone is not the latest model. He feels miserable because he thinks that he won’t be able to teach (properly) online. He thinks he may lose some of his classes and worries about paying the bills. To reduce his paranoia, I agree to help him. It is important to remember that with all shops closed, it is still possible to do online shopping and to buy up-to-date technology.

Day Two

Despite the negative situation, I wake up with a smile. Normally, I hate to wake up early in the morning to be at my workplace at 9 am. However, since all my lessons are online now, I can wake up later and teach wearing just a blouse and the bottom of my pyjamas. I can’t help smiling at this thought 🙂

I am tech savvy and am the proud owner of a tablet, a laptop and a smartphone. I have always assumed that online teaching could be normal practice for every teacher. I mean, we all have a smartphone and use Skype, Webex or Zoom; so, no big deal! Not true! While some teachers are enthusiastic about online teaching, others are real technophobes; and many don’t have the proper equipment. I am helping some in the latter group and I have learnt that it is important to project calmness while supporting these colleagues. I feel that this virus is going to give a boost to those teachers who have been reluctant to adopt online teaching.

Day Three

First online lesson today. If you have two students online everything is smooth and easy. However, when you have a class of 46 students, everything is different.  Even in a physical classroom, it can be difficult to follow each of the students but you rely on your eyes and there is a sort of chemistry in the room. Online, however, you are in a different situation, so your perceptions change and time passes differently.

In my virtual class, I ask some students to switch on their cameras; otherwise, I have the impression that I am there on my own. We communicate with the chat function and after a while they also start talking by using their mics. Fortunately, university curriculum is very strict and we have to follow the course book. Normally, in a classroom, I tend to add personalization, and to create new contexts, to teach what is in the book. For this first online lesson, however, I am happy to follow the book because it is a sort of map that my students can follow. This particular unit is about products but even here I feel I can be spontaneous. So, I ask them to share a picture of their latest purchase, and suddenly the lesson becomes lively and there is a sort of personal connection even though I can’t see them all.

Day Four

Online teaching has one disadvantage – you can’t have the same level of empathy, mainly because you can’t look into the students’ eyes. However, there are the emoticons! We have started using them in order to give some sort of colour to our chats. I have established a new relationship with my students because we start the lesson by sharing our ‘feelings’ with emoticons. This new Covid situation is much harder than we all admit, so, it is important to share our emotions to reduce stress levels. So, before we start, we talk about our day and share some emoticons:)

Day Five

I am beginning to feel that I can cope with this lockdown, and there may even be some positive outcomes. First, the ‘clock’ is not important! What is more important is the relationship with people. I have a clearer understanding that we are all human beings, and that our work as teachers can make a big difference. Second, lifelong learning is the key to success because otherwise you are unprepared when facing an emergency like the present one.

Day Six

I wonder what we’ll do when life gets back to normal again. The crisis has made us test new ways of teaching and of communicating. In a way, we are collecting feedback/forward which will be useful when readjusting our practices in the future. Maybe in the future (soon!), we can give more support to teachers by training them to use new technologies as part of pre-service training. Maybe we can create a fund for freelance teachers to help them to buy up-to-date devices. Maybe I am just dreaming 🙂

Day Seven

Thinking about the future – about the next IATEFL Conference 2021. We will all be changed a bit after this, and I’d like to imagine that we can celebrate with a big party where we can hug each other, and talk about how we can improve our way of being teachers by listening to each other and by sharing our newly-acquired experiences.

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About Erica

Erica Napoli Rottstock is a DELTA qualified teacher who works as a freelance teacher in Milan, teaching Professional English at a university in Milan. In addition, she does some online teaching for children who live Gaza on behalf of the Hands Up project.  She has also taught teens and toddlers in the past.

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If you are a member of IATEFL and would like to contribute to the blog, we’d love to hear from you at [email protected] or [email protected]. We’re looking for stories from our members, news about projects you’ve been involved in, and anything else you think those connected to English language teaching would be interested in reading. We look forward to hearing from you! If you’re not a member, why not join us?

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After attending a few smaller conferences and developing a real taste for them, I seized the opportunity to go international, and applied for a stewarding role at the 2019 conference in Liverpool. How did I get to stewarding and what have superheroes got to do with it?  

Once upon a time 

In preschool, I was often asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and my answer was always the same: “I want to be a superhero! Or, a vet”. But things don’t always turn out as expected, and despite my firm belief as a child that superpowers exist, I did not become a superhero. Neither did I go to veterinary school. Instead, 20 years later, I am about to complete a Master’s degree in ELT.

Thinking about it now, I feel that I have always had a profound passion for languages and linguistics. I swallowed foreign books like candy. Be it fiction or non-fiction, I read everything I could get my hands on. Graded readers soon gave way to full-length novels, and once I felt comfortable enough with academic language, books on teaching English and linguistics were my go-to resource. This is how I realized working in ELT is my calling.  

Lifelong learning 

Similarly, the years I spent in class as a student shaped my attitude towards the teaching profession. In a way, all young teachers use these early experiences to form the image of an ideal teacher and then aspire to become one. Little by little, we learn that teaching isn’t just about giving a lecture; teaching it is an art. It’s a professional performance forcing us to be on our toes all the time. It’s a calling with the need of lifelong learning.

In other words, teachers have to be up-to-date with the latest and the greatest trends in ELT as these help us to employ the most promising methods, techniques, and materials that facilitate learning. And since the area of ELT is never truly stagnant, the need for professional development is even greater.  

Cold feet 

However, when the opportunity to attend the main IATEFL conference back in 2019 presented itself, I found myself hesitant. As a teacher who is only at the very beginning of her career, I did not think myself experienced enough to make a contribution to the melting pot of ELT professionals that is IATEFL. My paranoid self even came up with several worst-case scenarios, which at the time seemed quite plausible to happen once I had set my foot in Liverpool.  

In reality, there was nothing to worry about. The actual IATEFL experience was outstanding, and most definitely unique. I felt I ‘belonged’ the minute I walked through the venue door. Everyone was immensely supportive and eager to help; a great springboard for the conference to come. 

The IATEFL 2019 Conference: Liverpool’s linguistic wonderland

The following days were packed with first-class opportunities for professional development and networking with some of the gurus of the ELT world. Workshops, how-to’s in the morning, plenary sessions, careers market, and social events in the evenings perfectly fit into a larger linguistic wonderland. It was truly amazing to start the day by listening to phenomenal plenaries, which were often followed by constructive discussions with other teachers in the conference corridors. 

Moments like these reminded me that I shared spaces with like-minded professionals who didn’t shy away from a conversation about prosody or syntax. They didn’t give me weird looks when I mentioned I’m interested in applied linguistics and materials development but reacted with reciprocal excitement about the subject.  

Such social interactions do not only broaden professional knowledge but also contribute to the understanding of other cultures and social circumstances around the globe. It is because of IATEFL that I now know what it’s like to work in refugee camps or under strict censorship; what the education system in Turkey is like, and what the difference is between China English, Chinese English, and Chinglish. 

Stewarding – a rewarding experience

Apart from wonderful workshops, exhibitions, and social events, IATEFL offers a wide array of possibilities which enable anyone interested to get involved not only as a delegate but also as a volunteer, member, or steward. It was the latter that caught my attention in 2019, and shortly after sending in the application, I found myself flying to Liverpool to become one of the venue stewards.  

Despite the fact that I was no stranger to the role that I had to perform as a steward (I’d already done something similar at some national IATEFL conferences), the steward briefing on day one was more than welcome. We were led around the conference venue in order to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the site, received special T-shirts, delegate badges, and listened to instructions about our respective assignments.   

These included reminding presenters to finish on time, keeping a record of the number of delegates in every session, checking delegates’ badges and directing them around the venue. Needless to say, the job offered a lot of opportunities to interact with presenters and others alike, and everybody contributed something new and different. When I wasn’t on duty, I attended workshops, presentations, visited the exhibition, and tried to enjoy the conference to the fullest.   

Decisions 

The main IATEFL conference is, in comparison to other similar events organized by national teachers’ associations, much more difficult to navigate simply because it’s impossible to be physically present at two equally interesting sessions at the same time – but this is the beauty of it. The conference covers so many ELT sub-categories that it is impossible not to find something of interest. This means that a delegate is usually left deciding between two (if not more) compelling sessions, or, in the worst-case scenario, two special interest groups when deciding which pre-conference events to attend.  

Nevertheless, by the end of the week, I had realized that it was more than worth it. I left the conference with fresh knowledge, new friends, and a pile of books that forced me to repack two or three times until I finally gave in and bought an additional suitcase – a price I had to pay because I couldn’t decide which books to select at the exhibition and then ended up buying them all.

And the future?

As of right now, I don’t think I’m hooked on IATEFL and the professional development it offers for just a year or two. I have a feeling this addiction is going to stay with me much longer.  

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About Tjaša Čuček

Tjaša Čuček is a student member of IATEFL, who is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in ELT at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. As a holder of a Degree in English Language and Comparative Literature, she is interested in Shakespeare, applied linguistics, and materials development.

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I’ve been lucky enough to attend the IATEFL conference every year since….well, ever. The first time I went I distinctly remember the young David Crystal trying to sneak in around the back in short trousers and his school cap, with an exercise book filled with adolescent linguistic thoughts*. 

It was easy to see, year after year, how much the event means to so many people, in so many places.  With that in mind I first persuaded my colleagues to get behind the idea of making our journey count, and using it to raise awareness and support for the IATEFL Projects charity arm of the organisation. IATEFL have never asked me to do this, and, often on learning how I plan to make the journey each year, have even expressly asked me not to!

I have cycled from Frankfurt to Manchester, from Ty Newydd (The Welsh National Writing Centre in Llanystumdwy), from London and walked Hadrian’s Wall. I’ve even dragged friends along, Gary Motteram, Julian Sayarer, Simon Wright and Matt Yallop have generously given both time and energy. Last year I couldn’t do it as my wife was heavily pregnant but was delighted that Emily Bryson and others had taken it on, cycling from Glasgow.

Along the way I’ve cycled, walked, got rained on, slept under hedges, woken up wet and cold at 3am and questioned my own judgement and, always, arrived exhausted and barely able to function/speak coherently through the conference**. I’m always embarrassed if people choose to congratulate me, it’s really nothing much; leave a couple of days earlier, be uncomfortable, have a little slice of mild adventure, raise some money for a good cause. In a sense I think that’s my point: for many of us that attend, it is easy to get to the conference. By choosing to travel in a longer/less comfy/laborious way, I’m trying to highlight how easy it is for many of us to go, and how easily we can help other people get the chance to join us. 

This year I’m travelling by river, canal and beck from York to Manchester. It’s not far, as the crow flies, about 100 kilometres. So I’m going in a coracle. ‘What is a coracle?’ I hear you cry. It’s like a canoe, but it can tell the future (this joke is copyright of Dorothy Zemach. Thanks Dorothy!). It’s not. It’s a very small boat. The smallest. Humans have been using them or craft like them, across the world for thousands of years. ‘Yes, but what does Robert Louis Stephenson say about travelling in one in Treasure Island, Thom?’ I hear you ask:

“I began after a little to grow very bold and sat up to try my skill at paddling. But even a small change in the disposition of the weight will produce violent changes in the behaviour of a coracle. And I had hardly moved before the boat, giving up at once her gentle dancing movement, ran straight down a slope of water so steep that it made me giddy, and struck her nose, with a spout of spray, deep into the side of the next wave. I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly back into my old position, whereupon the coracle seemed to find her head again and led me as softly as before among the billows. It was plain she was not to be interfered with, and at that rate, since I could in no way influence her course, what hope had I left of reaching land?”

That. I’m hoping to avoid that. My own coracle is fibreglass and wood, and small, and goes nowhere fast. I brought it late at night on eBay. I don’t even drink alcohol. I have no excuse. I’ve just always loved playing about on water.

When I first decided to do this I tried paddling upriver with a waterproof bag of kit. I didn’t fall in. I’ve got a map of the route and have been told it will be ‘easy’ and that it is ‘impossible’. Both maybe true on different bits. I’ll sleep somewhere by the river, in my bivvy bag, if it rains, under the coracle. I’ll wear a life jacket and a nautical hat, at a jaunty angle. Because….because I might fall in but I’ll look rakish while doing so.

‘Coronavirus!’ I hear you scream. Well you might. Lap of the Gods at this stage. If IATEFL 2020 goes ahead, I’ll see you in Manchester, soaked but cheerful. If it doesn’t, I’ll go anyway. Not out of pigheadedness, but because if we can’t all meet up and share expertise, ideas and laughter this April, I’d like to celebrate the fact that we want to and will again AND by donating to IATEFL Projects we can make sure others can too.

 

*while this may not be 100% actually ‘true’, per se, it’s a pleasing image of the great man!

**many have commented that this appears to be true at every conference I attend. Harsh, but possibly true…

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It’s difficult to sneeze nowadays without paranoid people looking at you as if you’re the carrier of the deadly novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) – the SARS-like disease that has recently been classified as a global crisis by the World Health Organization (WHO) [1]. Coughing has become even more stigmatized as it could be an early sign of illness symptomatic of coronavirus. When we see news reports about the number of people affected by this viral infection, and those who have been discriminately labeled as patient-under-investigation or PUI [2], we do feel sorry for them, and yet many of us feel confused as it is mind-boggling to fathom how this new strain of virus could have been transmitted from animals to humans. Most of us continue to hope that as long as it doesn’t happen to us, we’ll be okay; and as long as we’re not affected, we are fine. But are we, really? Sadly, the effects of coronavirus have swiftly trickled down from actually being sick to being quarantined even if you’re not showing any signs of the illness – you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, e.g. transiting in Hong Kong or being on the same flight with one asymptomatic passenger. Some are just unlucky to be stranded in an airport where a travel ban was imposed – such as our local and foreign-exchange students whose study plans have been disrupted and dismally affected by the onslaught of this infectious disease. It has now spread and touched a very sensitive nerve, one that may have severe repercussions for us all, particularly for students in Taiwan.

At our international office, I see the ramifications of the spread of not just the disease, but the politicizing of this health crisis. As the only ‘foreign languages’ university in Taiwan, we send hundreds of our students abroad (including Mainland China) either for a student-exchange or internship program; and likewise, we receive a number of foreign students from our partner universities from different countries across the globe. With the new spring semester about to start in a couple of weeks, many of our students were looking forward to spending the entire semester abroad. To be able to study at a partner university, there’s a long list of requirements to prepare e.g. visa, proof of acceptance, English language proficiency test scores (IELTS, TOEFL, etc.), transcript of records – which means showing that they’ve passed all the required subjects, etc. Needless to say, they had to go through the nitty gritty application process and the strenuous internal interviews even before they could make arrangements for their travel plans. All that preparation and the money already spent on plane tickets and accommodation have gone to waste. Students from HK, Macau, and Mainland China are no longer permitted to the country as part of the travel ban, and now Taiwan has been included in the list of countries banned to travel to countries like the Philippines, where many Asian students go to study ESL [3]. We in academia are indirectly suffering, and the weight of stress inflicted upon us and on to our students can be heavy to bear. An increasing number of international students coming to our university this semester have cancelled their plans to come while our own students have been forbidden to travel. Our staff are affected in the same way our students are; we are left wondering when this will end.

With the travel ban in place, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has postponed the opening of classes in higher education to March 02 [4]. International schools have also pushed back the start of their classes to February 10 [5], while local elementary and high schools will not begin classes until February 25 [6]. There is a provision for parents (of students aged 12 below) to take time off work, but only one parent is allowed to do this. This delay in the opening of classes will mean that the spring semester will last till mid-July leading to a shorter summer vacation. However, private kindergarten schools have now resumed classes, while public kindergartens remain closed. The MOE has promised to hand out 500,000 masks for the children in private kindergartens but only to be used if they’re feeling poorly. With the delay of classes, many schools have switched to online instructions. Although e-learning platforms have been widely used in Taiwan, many are simply a repository for learning materials. Some teachers probably do not have the training for or experience of teaching online and using synchronous digital tools and applications.

The current medical threat is a health concern, and therefore it should not be taken lightly, but it is undeniably making things rather inconvenient for all. It also ratchets up political bickering, and the saturation of news media reports that exhort fear and panic among people do not help as they trigger people to become racist and xenophobes. All of these can lead to chaos, and pose an imminent danger of becoming too politically (in)correct while we see the damage to our education and economy happening in front of our eyes.

I wonder how you (your students and the institution you work in) are affected, how are you coping, and what is being done to resolve some of the issues mentioned above?

References

• [1] World Health Organization (WHO). (2020). Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). World Health Organization. Retrieved February 11, 2020 from https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
• [2] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (February, 2020). Information for Health Departments on Reporting a Person Under Investigation (PUI) for 2019-nCoV. CDC. Retrieved February 11, 2020 from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/reporting-pui.html
• [3] CNN Philippines. (February, 2020). Taiwan included in coronavirus travel ban – DOH. CNN Philippines. Retrieved February 11, 2020 from https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/2/10/Taiwan-included-in-coronavirus-travel-ban.html
• [4] Yang, S. (February, 2020). All Taiwanese universities jointly delay opening until March 2 to limit coronavirus. Taiwan News. Retrieved February 11, 2020 from https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3869939
• [5] Baker, S.  (February, 2020).  Virus Fears: Some international schools delay classes, or go digital. Taipei Times. Retrieved February 11, 2020 from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2020/01/31/2003730115
• [6] Hsu, P., Chang, M.S., Kao, K. (February , 2020). WUHAN VIRUS/School opening postponed to Feb. 25 due to coronavirus. Focus Taiwan CNA English News. Retrieved February 11, 2020 from https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202002020016

 

About Dr Aiden Yeh

Dr. Aiden Yeh is an Assistant. Professor and Director of Academic Cooperation & Exchange Section at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, Taiwan, where she also serves as Academic Adviser for Southeast Asian Studies Program. She has a PhD in Applied Linguistics (University of Birmingham, UK) and MSc in ELT Management (University of Surrey, UK).

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I had the pleasure of attending one of Adrian Underhill’s hour-long session – part of the IATEFL monthly webinar series. The subject was how to address spontaneity in the classroom. It started off with the definition of spontaneity and compared this to the idea of improvisation. Spontaneity usually occurs through natural processes without any external influences. It is more of a personal impulse that happens without prompting or premeditation. According to the Collins English Dictionary, improvisation occurs when a person composes or performs on the spur of the moment, without preparation. Underhill pointed out that these definitions do not necessarily help in distinguishing between the two terms as there is some overlap in their usage. I was amused by some light-hearted attempts at conjuring up the verb form for spontaneous as opposed to the verb improvise. Underhill went on to define spontaneity as “emphasising a moment, a flash, unexpected options”, while “improvisation emphasises a sequence, a new story, an unfolding …”. Following this, the discussion then focused on the participants’ experiences of spontaneity.

• What it means in our teaching
• Why and how it is important
• What triggers it and what gets in the way
• How we would describe spontaneity.

There were some interesting issues that could be drawn out for further discussion but due to time constraints, attention then moved on to how and where spontaneity is utilised, viz. mostly in good conversations (we don’t script our conversations) and in performance arts. Underhill used Robert Poynton’s (2012) exhortation to “Notice More, Let Go, Use Everything”. 

1. Noticing more relates to being aware of not just ourselves, but other people, our immediate surroundings, as well as the wider world. 
2. At the same time, we need to release, or let go of, the baggage that stops us from paying attention, such as giving out knee-jerk remarks, or sticking to old habits and attitudes.
3. When we ‘notice more’ and let go of our baggage, it enables us to use everything around us: mistakes, mishaps or other surprises. This also includes how other people can become constant sources of “offers” of spontaneity.

The discussion continued with how we can use “spontaneity in training and development“. Participants were asked whether we agree with the following suggestion: “new teachers tend to follow the lesson plan, but improvisation comes with experience”. Most agreed with this. We are used to being spontaneous in our daily lives, so why not use it in the classroom? If teachers stick to the rigidity of the lesson plan, then they find themselves imprisoned, and possibly slaves to a scripted lesson. This is not to say that the lesson plan has no place in the classroom. Perhaps it is wise to develop the skills of spontaneity as well as being prepared from the beginning. This may be especially useful for newly trained teachers. On the subject of “supervision and feedback“, Underhill recommends exploring “off-plan moments” where teachers and/or observers can talk about offers of spontaneity that were made, exploited, or missed. It would also be a good idea to speculate or reflect on “turning points” where things could have gone off differently during the lesson. Lesson feedback is not advised as a criticism of the lesson but more as a means to encourage a discourse of spontaneity. Underhill followed this up with some ideas for games that would incorporate spontaneity in the classroom. The discussion moved on to the general role spontaneity has in the classroom. He proposed eleven opportunities that teachers could make use of:

1. The teacher should become a “student of offers”. What does this mean? Basically, we should be able to catch the moments as they happen.
2. See things from our point of view BUT see it only as one view.
3. Scan the room. Notice what is emerging. Teachers should be continuously curious for moments of spontaneity.
4. Notice our impact on others. Self-awareness for teachers is particularly useful when it comes to seeing how our students react to us and to our behaviour.
5. Be flexible about our habitual teaching patterns. Develop a sense of humour and see how we can stop being a creature of old habits.
6. Once we see these habits, break these patterns sometimes; not because it is better but to allow the lesson to invite spontaneity. Who knows, something else may happen.
7. Work with what’s happening, rather than what we wish were happening in the lesson. Remember the adage: “Notice more, Let go, Use everything”.
8. Adopting “playfulness” and a “willingness of whatever” attracts spontaneity.
9. Worry less about trying to control everything about the lesson; encourage connectivity and engagement with learners instead.
10. Give up trying to be interesting – just reach out and connect. 
11. Start conversations about whatever matters to whoever is there. The suggestion here is that teachers should make plans but not always expect them to work out.

The webinar closed with a summary of these points:

• We are all spontaneous: It’s a natural characteristic of all human behaviour and it should not be regarded too seriously.
• When we think ahead, we tend to miss most of what’s happening right now in life. So, we need a balance of thinking ahead with what’s happening now.
• Preparation gives us direction and keeps us going. It is also a resource from which we can improvise.
• To make its full contribution, spontaneity needs a discourse.
• Spontaneity can bring added energy, engagement, play and meaning.

So, what did I take away from this session? That my acts of, and reliance on, spontaneity during my lessons after all these years have been acknowledged as valid, and that it does have a place in the classroom. Though not the same, spontaneity has parallels with Dogme ELT methodology that focuses on conversational communication without the use of published course books. Any lesson has the potential in moving off at various tangents, but the danger is that teachers themselves will have to make sound pedagogic judgements and be mindful of not letting spontaneity outrun its course. There are still lesson outcomes to consider, and the possibility that there may be learners who are uncomfortable with spontaneity in the classroom. Thus, should teacher evaluations factor in spontaneity during lessons or is this best left to the discretion of the teacher to decide? There are many avenues for discussion here, but I applaud Adrian Underhill for addressing the elephant in the classroom. Overall, it was an hour well spent.

Useful links:

• Recording of Adrian Underhill’s webinar on Spontaneity in the Classroom (please note you will need to be logged in to the website as a current member to access the recording).
• Blog article: a collage of participant voices and views following the webinar

 

Rozitah Abu Samah, a teacher at The Write Connection in Singapore, holds a Masters degree in Applied Linguistics and TESOL from the University of Leicester and a Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults (DELTA) from Cambridge. She has also studied Theory and Practice in Language Testing at the University of Roehampton in London. She has worked as an IELTS examiner and has also been an online moderator for teacher training courses with the British Council. Rozitah has been a long-term ELT professional, having taught in Bangladesh, Morocco, Russia, Syria, and the UAE, specialising in teacher training, educational technologies and learner linguistic development.

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Introduction

This IATEFL Webinar on Spontaneity took place 4th Jan 2020. 350 people attended, and contributed 6000 words of comment and response. (The talk and slides are available for IATEFL members only: after you’ve logged in go to “My Resources” and choose “Recorded Webinars” from a drop-down menu.)

This post is a collage of participant voices and views, illustrating teachers’ experience of spontaneity and its importance in creative teaching and learning. It does not summarise the content.

A core proposal was that spontaneity is integral to everyday human experience, and of course to classroom teaching, and though current ELT methodology relies on spontaneity to make preparation and classroom interaction work, yet it affords spontaneity no real professional discourse, making it harder to see, discuss, critique, develop, or get better at. I emphasised that preparation and spontaneity need each other, yet we stress one while the other becomes the living breathing elephant in the room.

Each of these participant comments offers an entry point for discussion covering a wide range of views, experiences and concerns about spontaneity. Perhaps the comments here may help initiate such a discourse.

I have not tried to unpack the comments, but grouped them according to the topic at that point of the webinar. For the full context, and to engage in further debate, I invite you to check out the webinar.

What we attend to affects the kind of classroom that comes into being

I proposed that Spontaneity depends in part on what we choose to pay attention to. Quoting Iain McGilchrist I suggested that we make our world by what we attend to, because what we attend to affects what kind of thing comes into being for us, and in that way creates our world.

So I asked a broad and not easy question: What do you pay attention to in your class, and what kind of class does that bring into being? Here are some collated replies:

• I attend to … my students’ feelings, responses, attitudes, behaviour, attention, achievements.
• I attend to what my students need, and recently they need to pass the exam.
• I look at students who are bending over their phones.

What teachers think gets in the way of spontaneity:

Lack of confidence, error correction, students’ questions, time limit, textbooks, lesson planning, the curriculum and administrators, being observed.

You don’t have to depart from the plan to be spontaneous, the plan is only the skeleton.

The plan is the stepping stone, the launching pad for spontaneous interaction. Planning is important but be ready to change the plan depending on students’ needs. But then it may be seen as a sign of unpreparedness.

Why do teacher trainers rarely ask us to improvise?

The offer

I proposed that a core rule in drama, comedy and relationship generally, is to “accept the offer”. In the ELT class the offer could be a look, a reply, a mistake, a question, a silence, an action, a confusion, a laughter, and so on…. A lot depends on how we use, misuse, reject, offers. “It’s not the offer, but what you do with it.” (Keith Johnson). Here is a selection of participant reflections:

• Saying “yes” is the basis for improvisation techniques in drama. By interacting with the students you find they are different from what you first thought.
• Curiosity encourages unexpected outcomes in the classroom.
• Some teachers feel nervous when accepting the offer. The more experience you have as a teacher, the more comfortable and open you are to accept the offer.
• I think accepting offers is essential – they offer a way to start real conversation, which is often funny, and I can make a story out of it.
• But how do we reconcile “offers” of spontaneity with “getting on” with a demanding syllabus?
• I try to accept offers but sometimes it’s hard because it may lead to extended digression.

The Mantra: “Notice More, Do less, Use Everything”

By way of a portable mantra to create a hospitable place for spontaneity in the classroom I suggested this from Robert Poynton: Notice More, Do less, Use Everything. See the webinar for more on this.

• You need to be confident, and not shy of letting yourself be seen as a real person.
• Curiosity encourages unexpected things to happen in the classroom.
• Yes, noticing more brings more chances.
• Start at the other end, notice yourself and your baggage, then work outwards to people, then surroundings, then the wider world.
• This is what makes working with a class so interesting and rewarding.
• For most, spontaneity may mean something is out of control.
• Can spontaneity be taught?
• I think we need to look for spontaneity when we accept people to take training courses too, though. Teacher training colleges seem to be willing to kill spontaneity (at least mine did).
• If you approach your lesson like a conversation that you are sharing, you automatically are predisposed to spontaneity.
• You need a plan, but you also need to be ready to go out of it if necessary.
• There are many classroom activities which generate spontaneous interaction. No need to depart from the plan for spontaneity to occur!

Tips

Supervisors could support teachers to suggest ways of seeing and developing spontaneity. Students are much more engaged in the material when they are engaged in conversations that they are part of, like engaging in a lovely secret! I was in improv long before I was a teacher, and it has helped in all my careers/endeavors, being able to accept offers and let go of ego, fear and rigidity.

If not too much time is devoted to spontaneity, there will be few complaints.

I think that depends upon the cultural environment. Where I am, asking students to go outside a regular framework doesn’t work well.

But then how can you be sure your diversion is beneficial to the students? Of course you could ask the same question about the planned part…

To readers of this blog – if the above has interested you, please have a look at the webinar, and bring your own experience into the debate.

IATEFL members can view the original webinar on this topic by Adrian Underhill here.

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About Adrian Underhill

My interests have been in teaching and training, consultancy and publishing, leadership and storytelling, and playing jazz in clubs and bars. But my current preoccupation is with the free play of purposeful spontaneity in the classroom. I think that all of us are already spontaneous in interaction, but since we don’t talk about it it’s hard to get better at it. Yet spontaneity seems to offer fresh opportunities to connect with ourselves, with each other, with what we are saying, with what matters, and with significant learning. It seems to access the flow of energy in the moment, to make the moment attractive. And perhaps if we can combine this with the preparation we have done beforehand then every lesson might become a naturally significant event. But I think the first thing is to start talking about it…

 

Living in a rural community has shaped my life in many ways. First, when I became an English student, I wouldn’t attend lessons in English schools because they were too far from my living location, a small village in Northern Spain. Therefore I studied using online tools, some of them successfully. At a certain point, I needed a face-to-face tutor. And here comes the voyage: during the year it took me to prepare my C2 Certificate, I had to take four different buses every week in order to reach my English school. It was certainly a time-consuming journey.

Secondly, living in a small remote community has shaped my life as a teacher. My first training course was online, of course, because I couldn’t attend physically any training course, nor they were offered in a 500 km radio location. It was a very basic course for new teachers while I was preparing for the CELTA course. At the same time, I started tutoring small groups of children and adults. Nowadays, I still appreciate the confidence those clients had put in my teaching because, on the other hand, dozens of students were travelling 80 daily kilometres to the nearest town to attend lessons in an English school. That was my issue in the past, that is the issue that students suffer if they want to improve their English and live in an isolated area. It is sort of an issue if you live in a rural area, kind of doomed. But we are not doomed really, we are not second-hand residents. Nevertheless, I am not writing here in order to victimise ourselves but to recognise our own value as citizens and, particularly, as teachers.

My teaching qualification was imperative and necessary to a certain extent, as I had grown a solid base of clients during the last four years. I highly appreciated the convenience of a CELTA interview online, since I was working as a teacher already, full time. Once I got into the course, I realised I was the only rural teacher. I had no colleagues, mates, no references.

If I was asked, I would say the CELTA marked a before and an after in my career. It was a turning point in my professional life. Looking from a different angle, I recognise I felt estranged from the teaching community those days. Furthermore, I didn’t recognise myself as a teacher.

After getting my certificate, I felt valued and accepted within the teaching community, I met colleagues and more importantly, I validated myself as an EFL teacher. Once this had been done, then moving into teacher development was the next step, as much imperative and necessary as the CELTA was.

Within the ELT world, teacher development is crucial due to many reasons: refreshing and improve teaching techniques, gaining knowledge about a variety of fields that might be new for some of us and sharing experiences with fellow teachers, just to quote a few.

Taking teacher development into account, last year I attended a summer school programme at the University of Oxford. As always as I engage in teacher training, I enjoy myself, surrounded by colleagues and discussing ideas, talking about classroom management or revising techniques, to mention a few. My fellow colleagues agree with me on this matter: teacher training and self-development is vital for EFL tutors, especially those self-employed, freelance, working in small and isolated communities, like myself.

I will not lie about it, being freelance is not easy. Being freelance in a rural environment is a crusade, it is a long-distance race in which many finishing lines have to be crossed.

Let’s face unemployment, emigration, low population rates (just to quote the biggest issues that rural communities are confronting), but let’s get students interested in learning English outside the formal education system. Our aim as teachers within the non-formal education is to make sure those students keep their interest alive without having to pop into a car for one hour each day. Let’s provide this service in their small communities and make sure they want to attend English lessons after school. Be creative. Assess them. Support them in each exam. It is our duty to keep on track with our own education and development as well, because as teachers we should never stop being students. We are lifelong learners.

I teach a wide range of ages, from 3-year-olds to adults, individually or in small groups. Working with small groups or private tutoring is not a joy for some teachers. However, I take pleasure in it. I have known some of my students for five years, I have seen them grow throughout the years. There is some complicity, even confidence, when teaching the same students for a long time. We take joy together when we talk about our surroundings and our roots, and some lesson planning is inherently bound to the environment we live in. It is our shared heritage. It is my plan to keep sharing my heritage with students, although the uncertainty is (fore)shadowing the future. But that matter is an interesting topic for another post.

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Cristina Fernández is a CELTA qualified tutor living and working as a freelance EFL teacher in rural Galicia (Northern Spain). She has many years of experience teaching young learners and teenagers in small hamlets and villages. She has a special interest in teaching in rural communities and isolated areas. Cristina is also a member of IATEFL and part of the Young Learners Special Interest Group.

This is the first of a three-part series by Katy Muench, one of the Glasgow 2017 scholarship winners. In this part, she introduces herself and tells you about the process of applying for and getting a scholarship. In part two, she will tell you about her expectations before this year’s conference, and in part three, she will reflect on her conference experience this year. Over to Katy…

Introducing myself

My first career path was journalism and in my early 20s, my goal was to become an international correspondent. My idols were Kate Adie and John Simpson. After graduating, I got a place on a training scheme with a local newspaper and also studied Arabic.

Clearly there was a different path written in my stars, as a few years after working as a news reporter, I was disillusioned. I had itchy feet and wanted to see the world, which is what led me to English teaching, like many others. It turned out to be the right decision as in the last 10 years, I’ve travelled all over the world and turned out to rather enjoy teaching. I’ve always liked the English language and my mother and sister are also English teachers, so perhaps there was no escaping my fate.

I’ve been based in Turkey for eight years, mainly teaching at the university level. It’s certainly an interesting country to work and live in.

I’m also in the process of becoming Delta qualified: Modules 1 and 2 are complete and hopefully, Module 3 will be done this year. This year, I started working as an academic consultant for a publishing company, which is a big change after being in the classroom. I travel around Istanbul and Turkey visiting schools and universities and doing training sessions, observations and book presentations.

Applying for Scholarships

Although I wasn’t born there, I grew up in Birmingham and consider it my home town. Therefore, when I saw that the 2016 IATEFL conference was going to be held there, I decided I had to attend.

When I found out about the possibility of scholarships, I applied for quite a few in a flurry of energy. Although I didn’t win one that year, I came to the conference as planned, where I learned a lot and met interesting people from all over the world who were enthusiastic about English teaching and professional development. I also made a point of attending one of the talks by a scholarship winner.

By the time the deadline for the 2017 scholarships rolled around, I was working in Hong Kong for the summer. Even though I didn’t think I would be successful, I spent a weekend escaping the sticky July heat with the air conditioning on full blast, and worked hard on a few applications. This time I narrowed my focus and just applied for a few scholarships that were the best fit for my background and experience.

Fast forward to late August. Summer school had finished and I was on a Thai island on my way back home. I was feeling a bit down – I wasn’t totally sure of the situation I was returning to in Turkey post-coup-attempt. I was hot, sticky and uninspired. Then I got a lovely email letting me know that I was the winner of the Gill Sturtridge first-time speaker award. Bad mood cured instantly – the timing was very fortunate!

Time since then has passed very quickly and now there’s just a few weeks to go until Glasgow. In Turkish there’s one word for both excited and nervous – heyacanli, and I have to say that word summarises how I’m feeling about the conference and my workshop at the moment.