As I was ill last week, I couldn't manage staying until the 3 minute nuggets, so here's mine (I have a feeling

that I wouldnt have adhered to 3 minutes!): Demand High in the ELT classroom A few questions to ask yourself:
What sets the pace of work in the class? The materials or the learning? Is the teacher the interaction hub? Do you ask questions to collect right answers or explore learning? Who answers the questions? Is it typically the fastest / brightest? Do you rubberstamp? Do you get into praise inflation? Do you ever work one-to-one within the group? What I was particularly interested in is how a lot of what Scrivener said was related to our own ethos and ties in with TEALS: 1) A lot of new teachers time classes based on materials / teachers notes within materials, rather than timing stages based on development of a skill or competency, and this is something that I think should have a stronger focus on Teacher Training courses. This ties in to the idea of Pace not just varying interaction patterns, but varying the place that learning is coming from (making it a student, a group of students, an online resource etc rather than materials) 2) What is the purpose of questioning a learner? Is it to receive an answer or to present a further moment within a class at which development can be explored? Scriveners example was termed as rubberstamping the habit of reacting with a nodding head / big smile when a correct answer is given, rather than remaining impassive, thereby giving the class the opportunity to discuss / agree / disagree (no student would volunteer a contrasting answer after the teacher has nodded their head in agreement at an answer already). 3) Praise inflation the act of exclaiming brilliant when something is clearly at best OK. The idea of Demanding High is that we provide an extra challenge to students, so that they feel that they have earned praise, and that they have received an upgrade to their language something that is not necessarily exhibited by merely delivering a correct answer. I think this relates to Push in our 7 Ps. 4) Working one-to-one within the group this ties in with Candys session on using the student as a resource. In that demo, we watched on as Simon took the role of an individual student within a classroom, and I think we can agree that it was an extremely valuable interaction for him as a student. What Scrivener also talks about is the value of this interaction to the other students. I think that using oneto-one techniques in a group setting is something that shouldnt be underestimated, and I think the CertTEALS model of having different teacherstudent group sizes will really help develop new teachers one-to-one skills perhaps the training should include examples of how these techniques are transferrable. I have been exploring Demand High over the last 6 months, and did some research for my DELTA (Experimental Practices) you can find my article on Scriveners website here http://demandhighelt.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/demand-

high-a-delta-experimental-practice-simon-richardson/ (there is also a link to my

DELTA essay below the article). What I found particularly interesting was observing student reactions to one-on-one techniques being used in the group setting, and Im certainly happy to discuss my findings / plans for future research if anybody should so wish!

Simon