Alternative assessment: try it and you'll love it!

When asked to decide between traditional and new, institutionalised and alternative, I would always choose a mixture of both because I see value in established ideas, methods and suggestions, but I also think that their should be some dialectic and development. In other words, I believe in expanding and enriching existing experiences so that they may fit the new environment and vice verse, adapt the new teaching environment to include existing traditions. That is why I think it is important that English language teachers should know about alternative assessment (AA) options.

The most important aspect of alternative assessment is that it is performance based as it implements activities that reveal what students can do with language, emphasising their strengths instead of their weaknesses. This means that the teacher can adapt AA to the students and that means that the teacher can actually create the kinds of situations and challenges that the learners are most probably going to encounter in real-life communication. Most important of all is that students can evaluate their own learning and learn from the evaluation process by applying the assessment criteria their teacher has defined for them either on their own performance or on a peer’s performance. Therefore, a further positive aspect of AA is that it can foster both self-assessment and peer assessment.

Prior to choosing a particular AA instrument, a rather essential characteristic about AA in general should be focused on – AA instruments are not only designed and structured differently from traditional tests, but are also marked (graded) differently. That again implies that the teacher familiarises themselves with the various marking strategies available within the area of AA. This basically means that the teacher must pre-define the criteria according to which the assessment shall be performed and the scale according to which the assessed performance shall be evaluated. Well, the scale part is easy. Yet, it has to be pre-defined as the teacher needs to have some outcomes in mind and points to be allocated to them.

Regarding criteria, teachers should start by planning authentic content based on which the criteria will be defined. For starters, here is a list of possible authentic content that might be integrated into an AA instrument:

1. Discussion topics or issues of interest to the students provoking critical thinking and individual opinions; 
2. Audio/ video material representing real-world communication contexts and situations; 
3. Real problem solutions requiring the creative use of language rather than simple repetition. 

Such content can easily be analysed in terms of assessment criteria and there are several ways to achieve it. A possible list of criteria might include:

1. Learners produce a quality product or performance (written or spoken) based on the proposed discussion topic; 
2. Students are able to reproduce real-world dialogues based on suggested situations; 
3. Students provide independent solutions to proposed problems. 

And last but not least, the scale should be defined horizontally and vertically, meaning that each criterion is assessed and evaluated separately against a certain scale. For instance, the first criterion supplied above, assuming spoken production is expected, could be marked on a scale from 1 (the lowest mark) – 5 (the highest mark) in the following way:

1	2	3	4	5
learner produces a poor quality product as they are hardly able to state their opinion and manage to supply only one argument to substantiate it.	learner produces a product of sufficient quality as they are able to state their opinion at least remotely and manage to supply two different arguments to substantiate it.	learner produces a product of satisfactory quality by stating their opinion rather clearly and by supplying at least two different arguments to substantiate it.	learner produces a solid product by stating their opinion in coherent sentences while substantiating it with more than two solid arguments.	learner produces a high quality product by stating their opinion in coherent sentences, substantiating it with several solid arguments and linking it to a real-life example.

Personally, I am a fan of Rubistar, an AA instrument based on rubrics which can easily be used for the evaluation of both written and spoken performance. Another rather useful AA instrument is the K-W-L Chart, which I have already mentioned in my post on Skills (the section on reading comprehension). This AA instrument is based on three assessment stages as it is meant to assess ‘what the student knows’, ‘what the student wants to know’ and ‘what the student has learnt’. Both rubrics and the K-W-L chart may be implemented as self-assessment tools.

A K-W-L chart sample might look as follows:

Knows	Wants to know	Has learnt
Lincoln was important.  His face is on a penny.  He's dead now.  I think Lincoln was a  President.  He was a tall person.	Why is Lincoln  famous?  Was he a good  President?  Why is he on a  penny?  Did he have a  family?  How did he die?	Lincoln was President of the U.S.  He was the 16th President.  There was a war in America when Lincoln  was President.  He let the slaves go free.  Two of his sons died while he was still  alive.

There are other AA instruments that can easily be implemented. However, these shall be presented in a new post.

Help learners be autonomous in order to become more autonomous

A lot of fuss is being made regarding learner autonomy because there seem to be too many issues to be resolved prior to actually tackling the implementation of any form of autonomous learning in or out of the language classroom. 

The first issue to be resolved is the difference between learner autonomy and self-instruction. It seems to me that sometimes it may be difficult to see the difference. Accordingly, providing proper instruction to students may be difficult. Another problematic issue is whether learner autonomy should be considered a capacity or behaviour? Is it learner responsibility or learner control? Finally, does learner autonomy necessarily mean teacher autonomy? And vice verse?

In order to resolve these issues, the teacher who would like to have more autonomous learners should start by analysing their own autonomy first, which leads to the next issue: how do we determine how autonomous we actually are? Is there an evaluation kit for it?

The most general presupposition about autonomy is that it implies freedom from external control, that is being independent enough in what one is doing so that a) nobody thinks the person needs control and b) the person feels secure and comfortable enough not to fear any form of potential control. 

An autonomous teacher would then be the teacher who is a) capable of self-directed professional action,  equal to self-directed teaching and b) self-directed professional development, which in turn, is equal to self-directed teacher-learning. Both these capacities necessarily include freedom from control over professional action and development.

The question to be raised at this point is how to help learners develop that same autonomy. The primary guideline should be to help them acquire the capacity of self-directed learning and development. A logical presupposition certainly is that once students have learnt how to learn, they will learn how to develop that capacity. Thus, we are back at the beginning: How do we, the teachers, presuming we ourselves are autonomous, teach our students to be autonomous? More than that, how can the computer help us?

The greatest challenge for the teacher is to prepare tasks and activities by providing a certain level of freedom and yet offering enough support at the same time. Given the premise that this blog is meant to provide ideas for computer-assisted language learning, a brilliant way to achieve the balance between said freedom and support is by means of a webquest.  

A webquest is an enquiry-oriented lesson format in which most, or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. The trick is to provide the students with some information to start from and then let them search for the rest of the necessary information on their own. The next step is to have them process the information and produce some result in the form of written or spoken assignments. Both the information provided and expected as well as the final production may include all sorts of formats, types, resources, forms, genres, etc. It will all depend on what the students are expected to learn. 

A webquest I have tried and have had quite some success with is Zunal, an online webquest maker providing all the necessary elements for an interactive web-based enquiry-oriented lesson. 

The special thing about Zunal is that the basic layout, structure and elements are already there. It is up to the author to decide how many of the elements shall fit the objectives of the lesson and be included in the final format. Every segment of the webquest can be created separately and include various forms of information.

For instance, the teacher can provide links to online resources or include a selection of documents the students are expected to read. Furthermore, a template can be provided for a writing assignment, audio/ visual material can be added, vocabulary can be added with direct links to dictionaries explaining the item. Finally, an evaluation rubrics can be added and included as a reference for the students to follow when completing their writing tasks. The rubrics can outline the expected criteria and provide the level of expected performance by clearly stating the way a certain criterion, if completed to a certain amount, will be assessed.    

A webquest my students do for their Legal English 2 course is Let's get Tom's job back! The point of this webquest is that the students write a claim containing all necessary legal arguments to get an employee’s job back. The termination of Tom's employment is a result of nepotism in the work place, which means that it is an example of an unfair dismissal. All the details, the background story as well as the instructions are provided in the various sections of the webquest. The students have to work through the separate sections on their own, read the supporting material posted in the relevant segment, write the claim by using the provided template, submit the claim to me per e-mail and present the case in front of the entire group acting as if they were in a real employment tribunal. 

A webquest like this takes more time than some usual lesson. The format is obviously demanding which is why the students encounter certain difficulties especially in the segment when they have to complete the independent research. That is why they are allowed to contact me during the realisation period and ask for additional explanations. However, I do not offer precise instructions how to complete the separate tasks, I just direct their attention to the segments, I remind them of the fact they have to open the segments in the provided order and follow the steps as indicated, I suggest they download the template and the reading material, etc. 

A thing I have learned about students in general is that they tend to be terribly impatient with online material. Once they are allowed to browse the Internet on their own, they start opening the links almost randomly and then they forget to return to the steps at the beginning, or they miss some important intermediary task. That is why the teacher should be there to provide some support and help the students develop some work procedure, follow some order, stay within a certain framework, etc. An important aspect of autonomous learning is making the right choices at the right moment. A rather wrong choice would be to ignore the supplied material and search for other resources. Some students opt for that and start meandering and roaming the Internet losing thus every sense of direction. It is almost as if they think that they will prove to be more autonomous if they search independently and more elaborately ignoring thereby the provided instruction. That is why teachers should constantly remind them to stick to the assignment at least at the early stages of their development. Once they develop the competence to make independent choices, the research will follow a certain path and they will not waste any time wandering around pages they do not need at all.

Another thing I have noticed after applying the webquest about Tom's unfair dismissal with two generations of students is that they do not like the reading material. In the section "Your task in detail", there are two online documents providing basic information on the issue of unfair dismissal and the tribunal procedure resulting from it. The students are expected to read these carefully and base their claim (a template is provided) on the information they gather. Some of them ignore the two resources provided and get frustrated when their claim does not meet the criteria presented in the section "Evaluation". It is almost as if they do not want to make use of the autonomy offered to them as it is a lot more effort than when they are given some material they are expected to analyse and reproduce in some way or the other. Well, no surprise at all, is it?

A general conclusion would be that students have to be directed to autonomous learning all the time whether they like it or not. And it is the teacher's job to assist them on that way.

Legal English incorporated

The last post was devoted to the area of Business English and some ideas how to make students do some individual research in order to be able to write about a task on their own and eventually even be motivated to present it on their own. Well, this post will be an attempt to follow the same line, but in the field of Legal English.

Needless to say, Legal English is probably one of the worst types of ESP. When I first started teaching it, I was scared to death. All I could think about was that my students would be running out of the classroom screaming for help. Those who stayed, probably wanted to roll on the floor in utter terror thinking of their own studies as having reached the point of demise! 

Well, obviously, I had to think of something to make them stay. What is more, they had to survive!

I will not be talking about the way I teach Legal English. Such elaboration would exceed the primary scope of this blog. Yet, I would like to suggest a few things that can be done to achieve the objectives set by the syllabus. What is more, these things can be done in a computer-assisted context. 

Throughout the semester, I encourage my students to complete extra activities online. Of course, they are being allocated points for those extras and the points are added to their overall performance. Apart from that, they have to do tests, one midterm and one final. At the end of the semester, they then take a final oral exam. In today's post I would like to present some ideas how to motivate students to prepare for that final exam by doing some research online. 

The oral is organised as follows:

They draw a slip of paper from among a set of slips. On that slip, a term is being provided which they have to define. The term has been taken from a predefined list of terms covered during the semester. They are allowed to use the definition suggested in their textbook, or they may offer their own definition. If it is their own, they have most probably found some ideas online. Usually, the better students, or those aiming for higher marks, provide their own definition and their own examples. For instance, possible terms from the course in Legal English 1 include the following: articles of incorporation, nominal capital, rights issue, pre-emption right, etc. If they search online resources, they usually mention other related terms, such as Company House, share consolidation, or right of first refusal because they need these related terms to explain the term they have to explain as part of their exam task.

The second, more demanding part in the exam is the so-called task. Here they have to resolve a problem that is explained on the slip they drew. This task is closely related to the term they have to explain in the first part. The tasks are based on various examples from their textbook as well as examples mentioned by me in class. Sometimes, the students come up with examples they themselves want to know about more, or have heard about. I usually advise that they do some online research and think of possible problems related to the terms from the predefined list. 

As indicated above, part of the course in Legal English 1 is focused on company incorporation. In addition, a part deals with the differences between adversarial and inquisitorial judicial systems. The course in Legal English 2 mostly covers contractual clauses and real estate whereas the course in Legal English 3 focuses on intellectual property, securities, debtor-creditor relationships, etc. The examples we cover in class include a lot of situations from real life, such as stories about takeovers in Serbia, private businesses, the contract they signed when they enrolled at the faculty they are attending, the famous "I agree" button they click when installing something, etc. I then want them to research issues, such as contractual obligations, clauses, breech of contract, etc. They do not know what the tasks are about, but they can follow the list of terms and read about cases including the term they have on their list. 

What follows are examples of tasks my students usually get in the exam along with the respective term:

Legal English 1
common law
You have been a civil law practitioner in a non-EU country but are now interested in a job of a common law practitioner in the UK. As you have found an add about a school offering a scholarship for a course in common law, you have applied for the course because you need the knowledge. You are at an interview trying to convince the people you are the perfect candidate for the course.

corporate veil
You are a shareholder at a company and the CEO has committed fraud by selling some shares twice. The employees are now suing the board, you among them. Of course, you do not want to be held responsible as you knew nothing of the CEO’s activities. Address the judge and try to convince him that you are innocent.

Legal English 2

enforceable right
Your friend borrowed some money from you and he signed a promissory note to pay the money to a colleague of yours who you owe some money. All deadlines have expired, your colleague is asking you about the money, but your friend says he does not care about the promissory note. He claims he was drunk at the time he signed it and that he cannot remember he has ever signed such a note! As your colleague has initiated a law suit, you are now at court trying to defend yourself.

restitution damages
You have hired a contractor to do some adaptations in your office premises. The completion period determined in the contract is 1 month. You paid in advance but the weather has been bad so no work could be performed. Now, two months later, you want your contractor to take up the work but he claims that the contract has expired and that he is under no obligation as far as the adaptation works are concerned nor does he want to give you your money back. You are at court and trying to get some justice.

Legal English 3

cybersquatting
You have started a dot.com connecting contractors with companies who are in need of particular services. You act as mediator and charge them with a small commission. Recently you realised that one of the contractors is using your site to promote his services on his own. You’ve pressed charges against him and are now addressing the judge seeking justice.

price-fixing
You are a small individual taxi-driver. As you do not belong to any association or company you cannot know when the other drivers change their prices. Obviously, business has been quite bad for you on behalf of the price-fixing applied by the other drivers. You have initiated a law suit based on bad competition. Address the court and try to get some justice. 

Though these tasks might seem difficult, students actually manage to address each task quite successfully. Obviously, they find the situations and examples interesting so they try to find out more about them. 

Business English incorporated

Another stumbling point in everyday language teaching and learning is to make students complete some research, do some writing about what they have researched and then present it in class. The fact that students hate writing in a foreign language is already enough. But have them do some research prior to it and then, on top of it, force them to speak in class! Blasphemous!

Well, there is a cure for that. 

Several years ago, I used to teach Business English at a tertiary institution where my students had to prepare for the TOEFL test and for an entrance exam for an MBA course in the States. My group included students from lower intermediate to advanced students, which is why, quite expectedly, I had great difficulty finding a way of teaching that would cater for their different levels. 

One aspect that I had to cover in my classes was that of advertising and marketing. One of the units was covering the process of launching and commercialising new products. Different segments were being introduced, such as creating an advertising plan, developing a news media strategy, selecting sales channels as well as sales promotions and reaching customers. One way to present and sell products is at a trade fair. Therefore, I came up with the idea to organise a class fair of non-existent products/ services! 

The students were asked to come up with products or services that did not exist! They had to prepare an advertisement for the product/ service, preferably the product itself. They could make a poster, prepare a PowerPoint, make their own video or song. The more creative ones among them came up with all of these. 

Clear instructions had to be provided to include the research part. Namely, the students had to make sure they thoroughly investigated the particular model of advertisement, commercial, endorsement, etc. they decided to use. They had to find out all about the model, analyse it properly and apply it to their own product/ service in as many details as possible. 

For instance, if they had opted for the display stand, a rather popular one and often seen in big shopping centres and supermarkets, they would have to really build it and include all the tiny details that go with it. If they had chosen the endorsement, such as the one often seen in magazines, they would have to use Photoshop or some other imaging tool. 

Although the idea scared some of the students off, an incentive was provided in the form of extra points for excellent oral and visual presentations of the product/ service at the fair. Also, there had to be enough time for the students to prepare for the fair. 

Some of the project/ services my students presented in class included the following:

1. Weed cereals - The student had made the box and put some grass into it. He decorated the box by pasting real paper on it with a photoshopped image of weed and cereals so that the cereals actually looked as if made of weed. A boy was presented pouring the cereals into a bowl. The student had also added all the text usually found on cereal boxes including ingredients and the details related to the producer. To be honest, his final presentation in class was so good that we were at the verge of paying him money for the cereals! He had prepared an excellent speech!

2. Rent-a-professorbot - The student had prepared the very unusual service of renting a robot professor. He had prepared a poster, where there was an image of me, but looking as a robot. The advertising slogan printed on the poster was: She'll teach you English without ever complaining about you! This presentation was very funny as it was a clear allusion to me, but in a very subtle and inoffensive way. The spoken performance was also very good.

3. Invisibility cream - The student had taken an old cream jar which he wrapped in his own label. He had done some photoshopping presenting the stages through which the person using the cream would pass while becoming invisible. He had put some Nutella into the jar, which made the presentation of the product look even funnier as he actually put the Nutella on his face claiming that he was invisible! The performance was at a high level as well.

4. Barum-barum - A group of six students chose to prepare a beverage made of water, cocoa powder and a bit of rum flavour usually used for cakes. This presentation was the most brilliant one as the students had actually prepared the beverage, brought it to class, arranged a sales stand, prepared a written presentation illustrating the product and recorded their own video commercials, i.e. three commercials they themselves acted in! I consider this presentation the best that any group of students has ever made for any of my Business English classes because they all spoke, they had all written and they had all participated, which is not quite common when a group of several students (allegedly together) prepare some group assignment.

There are many more examples, but the scope of a regular post would be by far exceeded. After all, there should be some room for new ideas in the future. I must admit that I still keep the recordings, the posters, the PowerPoints, the photographs I took while they were presenting their products and services. I can only recommend this kind of computer-assisted learning as it is a lot of fun and at the same time yielding really good results in three different skills: reading, writing, speaking!

Struggling with group work?

I guess that every teacher has had to endure the frustrating experience of wanting to do something really different and then realising that it turned out rather disappointing. Motivated by enlightening inspiration and magical revelation,  you prepare some brilliant group activity, you bring the material you spent hours preparing and then... nothing! 

Group work, project development and class discussions are not something students like to do. But why? They always complain they would like to step out of the ordinary and do something really different. 

The problem is that they generally do not like to speak in class. Teachers have to realise that students sit there mainly because they loose points for attendance if they don't. Since they do not want to have something as trivial as that influencing  their final mark, or because they realise that attendance points are easy points to make, they come to class and they just sit there. How frustrating that is!

My experience has shown that in each group of students, there is usually one student (or if I am lucky, two or three of them), outspoken enough to participate and willing to say something. Yet, most often, they are willing to say something only when I call out their name. In other words, the only way to achieve at least some sound of them is to have each student do a sentence or provide an answer in some exercise. It is difficult to get out of the old-fashioned approach where the teacher calls out a student, asks a question and the student is literally forced to say something. Bottom line, learner autonomy suffers and no independent learning can be furthered. Group work seems out of the question.

Anyway, there are ways. A very good activity I have had quite some success with is a group task I call "The trial". It is suitable for any level and for any setting. The main idea is that the teacher chooses a topic, any topic, and puts it on trial. This topic could  (or should) be related to some content in class. My experience proves that boring reading topics may be turned into rather interesting material when the students are challenged to prepare for "The trial".

The students are divided into three groups: the defence lawyers, the prosecutors and the judges. The first two groups, the lawyers and the prosecutors are each instructed to prepare two sets of information: 1) arguments they would use to defend/ prosecute the subject matter on trial and 2) arguments they would use as replies to accusations and points stated by the opposing party. The third group, the judges, should prepare a list of anticipated arguments and be ready to come to a verdict based on whether their anticipations have proved correct or not. The role of the teacher is to be an arbitrator, who will try to keep the discussion from meandering and make sure that all arguments are fully explored before a new one is introduced.

Topics I have tried out so far, ranged from television to the death penalty. For instance, when my students did the death penalty, I instructed them to prepare the arguments as explained above. They had a week to prepare for the task and they were allowed to use as many sources as they could find - preferably online reading resources. I instructed them to take a look at resources, such as the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia, the Act to Introduce the Code of Crimes against International Law, International Criminal Law in Germany and United America Criminal Code. As it was a group of 24 students, there had to be eight students in each group. In order to have each of them prepare at least something, I divided the topic into eight subtopics so that each of them would have to prepare one aspect.

The subtopics were as follows:

1) death penalty in the legislation in Serbia

2) death penalty in the legislation in international law

2) death penalty throughout history

3) death penalty in practice in Serbia

4) death penalty in practice in the international setting

5) the issue of human rights

6) the level of effectiveness of the punishment

7) the possibility of rehabilitation of offenders who have escaped the death penalty

8) What when somebody is executed and then discovered innocent?

I had planned a ninety-minute session for the activity but it turned out that we could not explore all the arguments in one session so we decided to take up another one the following week. 

Now, the results were encouraging. Since each student had to focus on a very narrow topic, they prepared very well for it. In class, I asked them to sit physically divided from each other. In other words, I had the opposing parties move their chairs to two opposing walls, while the judges took their places at the wall in between. I then called out the first student from the lawyer group and asked for the argument regarding the first subtopic. After having stated their point, I asked a student from the prosecutor group to reply and to propose a new argument in line with the information they had prepared at home. Then the lawyer student could reply to the newly-stated argument. Then I asked the judges to come to a conclusion regarding the first subtopic based on the merit they could identify in the opposing arguments and replies. After that, we moved to the second topic. As expected, the most heated discussion was brought about with the issue of human rights and the level of effectiveness of the punishment. That is exactly why we had to plan a new session so as to cover the last four topics, which then, not surprisingly at all, took us another ninety-minute session. The follow-up I came up with after the first session included a short summary of their points of view. I waited with the assignment after the second session was over and I was surprised to find out that each of them submitted a summary. Never before had that happened!

My conclusion was that there are two points that turned this particular task into a successful activity: 1) the preparatory step was linked to rather narrowly defined subtopics so that each of the students had a clear representation and expectation of the task in class and 2) I controlled the discussion so that they could not deviate from what they had prepared. In other words, the prepared list of subtopics was both an agenda and our anchor to hold on to in case of insecurity, stage fright and similar reasons leading to possible failure.

I am not sure whether an activity like this could and should be planned more often during the semester. The predicted scope of classes might make it rather impossible as other aspects and segments in the syllabus would suffer immensely. Yet, I am positive that two classes per semester (maybe even four) should not harm the course. Quite on the contrary, considering the benefits of "The trial", I would gladly substitute some of the boring activities in my Legal English course more often. 

Creative writing

When it comes to creative writing, or writing in general, most teachers complain that it is very difficult to motivate students for activities directed primarily to this skill. Even when students realise they have to write once in a while, the final products are often below some expected standard.

The Internet offers many possibilities for the practice of writing skills. Not all of them may be considered appropriate for the predicted objective and outcome planned either by the syllabus or the particular writing activity. The problem is that even if there are ready-made tools, they either look like Word, or are based on a particular content, which does not fit the content of the class.

A writing tool I find interesting and appropriate for the purpose of pracitising creative writing at tertiary level, is Printing Press. This is a very simple tool and it may be used in various ways as it offers the possibility of creating newspaper articles, flyers, signs, posters and brochures. Each of these forms is supported by a ready-made template and each template offers several different layouts. This would be an excellent tool to use in an ESP context where students could be motivated to produce pieces of creative writing based on the content covered in class. 

It is a well-know fact that the content to be covered in an ESP course would never win the most-interesting-thing-to-study award. Be it as it may, the content has to be covered. What is more, the content has to be studied well enough and be produced at a new level so that the teacher has something to evaluate and assess. Teachers involved in ESP know very well how painstaking and frustrating is is when the students a) do not understand the content in the amount expected of them and b) when they do not know how to complete a writing assignment based on that content!

Printing Press seems to offer quite a nice deviation from the routine. For instance, if students are bored with the usual writing tasks in their textbooks, they might, for instance, be motivated to start a quasi-journal of their own, with proofreaders and editors included. One of the options available in Printing Press is the creation of a  brochure, which would be quite suitable for the purpose of a brochure or journal format as the several layouts and templates offered in the tool may be used with that end. What is most important is that as long as work is in progress, the brochure (or other type of document) can be saved as a draft and forwarded to different recipients or saved on one's own computer. The separate documents once created can be saved and reentered when needed. Students can work on it in their own time and the teacher may still have insight into their writing and even direct and correct them if necessary. When the final version of the brochure has been completed, it can be emailed to the authors as a Pdf.

Let's take a demanding text covered in a tertiary English for medical purposes course. A text that could occur in a text book might be something like this one - Pulmonary edema. The text covers several different subtopics related to the main topic, diffusion, circulation, compensation and treatment. Each of these subtopics is loaded with information and vocabulary that might prove problematic in an essay. Assuming the teacher wants the students to write a summary of what they have learned from the text, the students could be directed to Printing Press and choose a brochure as their template. If they do so, they will have a front and a back side available to be filled with text and images. The teacher might suggest that each of the predicted columns available on each side of the brochure could be filled with one of the topics from the text and have the students work either in pairs or individually. They could each (or in pairs) be assigned to summarise one of the subtopics mentioned in the text. If there are more students, more different brochures can be created. Once completed, the document can be emailed as a Pdf to all the other students and the teacher.

A follow-up exercise could be peer assessment in the sense that the brochures are shared with other students and groups who may then assume the roles of proofreaders  and editors and evaluate each others' writings.  

Computer applications to start from

Many language teachers who would like to embark on the journey called CALL, most often do not know where to start. Therefore, this post will be devoted to the possibilities of basic applications of the computer, such as word processors, games and communication via networks in connection to language teaching and learning. 

The most important thing to tell people who want to use the computer in the process of teaching a language is that there is actually no need to be afraid of  programmes, platforms, workspaces, tools and different media. What is more, some of the basic computer applications can be used at all times, even offline or without any Internet at all. The beauty of the basic applications is that they may spice up the class, turn a rather boring activity into some new strategy and students will feel more engaged as they will be the ones using the computer. 

There are many different applications of the computer to be listed, but the ones that are easily implemented in any language classroom are the following:

Text processor

Almost all computers come with some text processor already integrated in their basic installation. The most common one will be Microsoft Word. Obviously, the skill of writing will benefit most from this application and it is up to the teacher to incorporate it into their teaching. A wide range of tasks, such as fill-in-the blanks, cloze test, comprehension tests, summarising, slash story, etc. can be both prepared and executed in Word. 

A more important, yet rather disputed aspect of Word causing a lot of controversy among teachers is that of spelling and proofing. One of the reasons for disagreement referring to the usefulness of the spell checker can be found in the fact that users simply cease to worry about their spelling as they know the program will check it anyway. Even if the user decides to turn off the option “check spelling as you type”, the fact that one does not have to worry about correct spelling is there. Another very important issue is that the spell checker is open for additions, even wrong ones. In other words, the user can add to the dictionary but the program cannot say whether the added word is correct or not. Furthermore, the pre-programmed stylistic and grammatical suggestions the spell checker offers sometimes may not be the best option. For instance, passive constructions will almost regularly be marked as incorrect. 

Concerned teachers worry about the writing skill among their students and they are perfectly right. However, if the spell-checker is deployed as a teaching aid for the purpose of practice, it may be used quite successfully. 

Two ideas for the use of the spell checker in class:

1. The spell-checker as a peer-assessment tool.
This approach might prove rather handy when practising new vocabulary. Students could work in pairs taking turns dictating and typing. One student would be dictating the vocabulary and the other would be typing. After the first student has completed dictating a certain set of items, they could check the list manually and then run the spell-checker. Some way of tracking the differences or missed spelling mistakes could be worked out in advance and turn the entire activity into a fun way of learning. In that way, the process would not be that futile and the text processor would be an extremely useful application. 

2. The spell-checker in a spelling bee contest
Spelling bees are very popular among younger learners and they fall into the category of group activities. They could easily be turned into competitions both at the level of one group but also used with more than one group competing with each other. The spelling bee could be conducted in a single-computer classroom, preferably with a projector. One student could be named arbitrator. That student would have to sit at the computer and type what the student currently spelling is saying. The rest of the students could then guess whether the vocabulary item has been spelt correctly or not. The arbitrator student would then run the spelling checker and announce either a correct or incorrect answer. The teacher could prepare a score board and be the one to track the results of the competing students/ groups.

Games 

It goes without saying that there are many uncleared aspects regarding the application of games for the purpose of teaching and learning in general (Play Station, Nintendo Wii, XBox, etc. included). The antagonisms between those for and those against will always be there.

On one hand, there is the undoubtedly positive aspect of enhancing collaboration among players and in the case of strategic games, the skills of reading and writing are developed as well. Players communicate at every level when playing online games. Many teachers point out that cognitive functions, reflexes, strategic decision-making and intrinsic motivation can be developed quite successfully when applying games in the teaching process. On the other hand, the danger of addiction is always present and teachers find it difficult to control the amount of their students’ performance and achievement as one never knows whether the students are really interested in learning or just chasing the score.

Careful application and limited usage of games in the teaching process may be beneficial which is why this area should probably be integrated in research plans yet to be realised.

Two ideas for the use of games in class:

1. English online gamezone
A game I would recommend for older language learners and adults, despite possible disagreement coming from parent and fellow teachers, is Grammar of Doom. It is a brilliant compilation of different grammar exercises wrapped into an adventure game set in a medieval castle environment. The  player is an adventurer trying to find the secret to a mystical place called the Temple of Doomed Grammar. There are ten rooms in the temple and each is full of tricks and traps. In order to pass through, the player is confronted with various grammar exercises, riddles and tasks. Only by solving them correctly, will the player be allowed into the next room and thus onto the next level. The separate tasks are various in both form and content. There are activities, such as multiple-choice, match, fill-in-the-blanks, combine, etc. including content, such as modal verbs, irregular verbs, spelling, antonyms and synonyms, etc. Needless to say, language practice and engagement in the form of reading comprehension, critical thinking and decision making is high. Experienced gamers will find it easy to shoot bats in order to collect the right letters for a word, or step on stones with irregular verb forms in order to reach a new room fast enough.  

2. English language games
This collection of various games is suited for work with younger learners and children. The    
teacher may choose games in accordance with level and content. Thus there are games ranging from vocabulary practice to derivations and suffixation. Some games are context-based and related to a particular piece of literature, such as Romeo and Juliette or 1984. Of course, all the games provide instant feedback and may easily be implemented in any class activity as they do not take more than five minutes each.


Computer-mediated communication (CMC)

The most popular activity related to the use of the computer is actually communication based on MOOs (Multi-user domains, Object Oriented) as well as social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. The good thing about MOO is that it functions in the form of writing, speaking and listening. Therefore, all these forms of communication may be used in the process of teaching not only for the purpose of material presentation but also as a form of informing and notifying, instructing and offering feedback. Another possibility are webinars and different ready-made platforms available online (PBworks, ILIAS, MOODLE, etc.), which can be used as virtual classrooms. The overall positive aspect is that CMC can be both controlled and restricted much easier than any other form of virtual communication as the teacher can be the administrator in complete charge of all activities introduced via these applications.

My example for this particular application is:  The use of Facebook in ESP

Since I have always claimed that anything available on the Internet can be used for teaching purposes, I would suggest the most controversial of all social networks - Facebook - as a discussion forum in an English for Specific Purposes course! It might be used as a means of consolidation following some difficult reading related to a very specific topic loaded with new vocabulary.

The teacher would have to create a closed group and invite the students who are expected to participate in the forum. Let's imagine the topic covered in class was 'Secured transactions'. This topic, when covered in a Legal English course, includes the legal aspect of security and quasy-security, the rights and obligations of the debtor and the creditor as well as the separate meanings a certain collateral may have in such a transaction. Assuming that the teacher has covered the text in class and explained the vocabulary, the students could be instructed to prepare one of the three aspects mentioned above: legal aspects of securities, debtor - creditor relationship and the status of the collateral. If there are many participants, they could be divided in groups of five or more. Each of the aspects should then be studied at home. The teacher would have to provide relevant resources so as to prevent the students from reading either wrong resources or overloading themselves with information exceeding the purpose of their course. After a day or two, the teacher could start discussions by posting questions on the Facebook group. Once the discussion has started, the teacher may assume the role of an observer and arbitrator. The beauty of it is that the teacher may immediately monitor student performance and assess it in accordance with set objectives and outcomes.