Methodology

Using wikis in the classroom
Having recently taught an online course on using wikis (like this one!) in teaching, I thought this slideshow might provide an interesting introduction to the topic:

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Using Storyboards in Role-plays
In this video recorded earlier this year in Barcelona, Mark explains the narrative principle in role-plays. He demonstrates the use of storyboards to role-play a variety of business socializing scenarios.

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**Community Language Learning (CLL)**
From our LCCI Cert TEB course:

Here is a recording of Mark explaining how Counselling learning can work in the business English context, either with a small group, or, still more effectively, in a one-to-one situation.

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Tom has found the following related articles:

Scott Thornbury mentions the method in his article on the [|Onestopenglish] website, in which he describes it being used with a group of beginners as follows:

//… if the teacher and the learners share the same L1 (first language) a lot of time can be saved sorting out difficulties by using translation. In fact there is a whole language teaching method that is based on this very principle: the students talk and when they have problems they ask for a translation. The method is called Community Language Learning (CLL) and it works wonderfully – especially for beginners – so long as the class is not too big. Here is a description of a typical CLL-type lesson (from my book [|How To Teach Grammar], Longman, 1999). For this lesson the teacher uses a cassette recorder with a microphone on an extendable lead. (She could also use a hand-held personal stereo that records). She asks the small class of about six learners to sit in a closed circle; the microphone is placed in the centre of the circle; the teacher stands outside the circle and operates the cassette recorder herself.//

Click here for the complete article: [|Methodology: beginners in company]

Also on the [|onestopenglish] site, Alan Maley provides a little more background when he writes:

//CLL is one of the so-called ‘designer’ methods which arose in the flurry of methodological experimentation in the 1970’s (along with The Silent Way, Suggestopoedia, TPR etc.), which form part of the Humanistic Approach to language learning. The key features of all these innovative methodologies are that they all in some way flouted the current language teaching orthodoxy, that they all had a guru who was regarded by devotees of the method with something approaching religious awe, and they all developed from outside language teaching, they were all fairly rigidly-prescriptive, and they all emphasised the learners’ responsibility for their own learning.//

Click here for the complete article: [|Methodology: community language learning]

Gillian adds:

On CLL - if anyone is planning to do sth on this I've just found a chapter on the subject in a book called '[|Dictation]' by Paul Davies and Mario Rinvolucci (Cambridge 1988) - it's short enough for me to scan and email if anyone needs it. The links that Carl and Tom give both say that CLL is good if the class is small and Mark really sold the idea for one to one. In the chapter on CLL Davies and Rinvolucci explain two methods for larger classes.

They also wrote another book in the Pilgrim/Longman Resource book series called [|The Confidence Book]. They also give a useful quote by Caleb Cattegno (creator of the [|Silent Way]) ' Every student knows more than they think they know. Every student knows much more than the teacher thinks they know'. (my apologies if this is already in the notes that Mark gave us - I'm still in the process of going through everything but with my assignment in mind).

Cuisenaire Rods
Here is another short video of Mark demonstrating the use of [|Cuisenaire Rods]. Here, as you'll remember, Mark uses his own "life-line" to show how the grammar, in this case tenses and reported speech, naturally springs from the activity rather than being imposed on it, or the student(s). We also see how the rods can be used for practising the language of trends.

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