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Kerry Carruther's IATEFL Experience

This years IATEFL was fun in the sun in Brighton, starting very well with the opening plenary from Peter Grundy. Informative, engaging and entertaining as always, Peter talked about the relative lack of importance of public words in comparison with the thoughts which are triggered by them. In some ways I thought that this was an excellent theme for the entire conference in that what was gained from the talks was not necessarily the exact content but in fact the ideas evoked from the words of the speakers.

Working specifically within the context of teenagers and with CLIL and task-based learning, I focused my timetable choices on talks within these domains or involving English through the arts as I felt this is a field which is expanding all the time and from which we can gain ideas to inspire and motivate our students in any classroom: even within contexts in which it is not possible or viable to have an entirely arts-based syllabus.

“English through the writing on your forehead” by Michael Berman caught my eye. It was billed as a workshop designed to show how learners can develop their English skills indirectly and provided the audience with an interesting array of ideas from visualisation to graphology. As mysterious music was played, we were guided through a visualisation of a faraway temple stepping up to a mirror which revealed our future. Although the future may not have been entirely transparent, it was clear that this type of exercise could benefit students on many different levels, providing both language input and listening practice as well as the opportunity for meaningful production when discussing and comparing what exactly it was they had visualised. Later in the session we were given a short introduction to graphology and asked to analyse each other’s handwriting. Aside from interesting and engaging a room full of EFL professionals, this exercise again provided scope for meaningful production and I could imagine a classroom of teenagers excitedly analysing each other’s handwriting or - for the more cynical of them - protesting the thought that there could be any truth behind it – still however creating cause for conversation.

Sticking with the storytelling theme I also attended a session by a man with enviable storytelling skill, David Heathfield. David has travelled widely learning and sharing stories, and has a very interesting take on how this age old skill can be applied to the language classroom. Within the ESOL contexts of many of the SATEFL members, I believe that stories can be an invaluable tool in the classroom. Used not only to create a closeness between the students and teachers, breaking down barriers of the classroom and creating an atmosphere of sharing, but to provide listening and speaking practise. Stories can be used to address problems ranging from pragmatic competence and cultural understanding to pronunciation, tone and intonation. In my teaching context of teenagers, storytelling allows their imaginations to run free and enables them to grow in confidence as they build their stories to perform to others in the class. TEFL aside I had a lovely evening with David Heathfield and friends, learning and sharing stories from around the world.

Music, they say, is an international method of communication and I have long been an advocate of the use of music in various forms in the English language classroom. My next choice therefore was a session by Mojca Belak from the university of Ljubljana entitled “Voice, Music, Silence”. The programme stated that – “You don’t have to be a musician to attend - the more tone-deaf you are, the more exciting you’ll find it”. Although I’m still unconvinced about that I found the session to have a good balance of discussion of theory and ideas for practical application. Starting off with the idea of awareness of our own voices, both internal and external, we discussed the nature and characteristics of the voice. As a primary vehicle for language it is a shame that we don’t spend more time posing these questions such as “What is my inner voice like?”, “How often do I hear it?” “How does my inner voice differ from my external voice, the voice I present to others?” It occurred to me that these could be key considerations in terms not only of motivation and confidence but also within the domain of sociolinguistics and language identity. How does it affect us when our inner and outer voices are speaking different languages? In the session we moved on to more practical and physical uses of music such as EFL Karaoke –an activity where song lyrics are distributed and each member of the group places their lyrics in order as they are sung in the song,-and an old classic,jazz chants. A favourite of my students ‘ skull cinema’ was also demonstrated. In this activity the students are played a series of clips of music and are asked to imagine a scene of a movie for each clip. If possible they should then bring the clips together to give the whole plot of the movie.

Jill Hadfield’s talk was one that linked all of my ‘arts’ sessions. In “Beginners and creativity: constructing identity, creating community” she talked about the reasons for introducing creative activities with students at the early stages of learning a language and gave some practical examples of how tasks can be scaffolded to help beginners. There is a tendency, I find especially with teenagers, to treat them more like children, or to create what they may perceive to be ‘childish’ activities for them to do because they have a low level of English. Jill reinforced the idea that materials can be used with any level of student and it is merely the task that should be altered. She argued that using creative activities with beginners, increases students motivation through reducing their levels of helplessness, creating a buzz in the classroom and allowing them to create a tangible product. I have certainly seen these ideas at work in the classroom, and in this workshop Jill created this sense of achievement within her audience by designing a task which allowed us in no time at all to create our own Chinese poem. She showed that even a complete beginner can achieve a productive and useful outcome when given the tools with which to do so.
Other highlights of the conference for me were “ A guide to adaptable teaching” by Richard Hamilton, and the Plenary session by Sue Palmer.

Richard’s presentation was about his adaptable teaching toolkit, a talk which provokes thought and gives some practical advice on how to ‘teach the students and not the plan’ : Adapting to the needs of the students need not mean that as a teacher you are losing control. I particularly enjoyed the activity ‘clock ballet’ – look Richard up and I’m sure all will be revealed!

Sue Palmer’s plenary session was in equal measure frightening and inspiring. Explaining her research and theories on how rapid socio-cultural change can and has affected the physical, emotional, social and cognitive development of children, her talk was fascinating. Sharing examples from her own life and her daughter’s childhood she gave a touching and inspirational presentation about how she believes we as adults should go about trying to ‘detoxify’ childhood.
With a huge variety of presenters and session topics at the 2011 IATELF conference, my only complaint would be that even after narrowing down my field of interest, I did not have enough time to sample all the sessions I had circled in my programme. My few days in Brighton were thought-provoking and motivating. I came away inspired to learn more and to share my own ideas. I look forward to 2012 and our very own IATEFL conference in Scotland.

Kerry Carruthers
Director of Studies, Mackenzie School of English