265

THE BI-MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS
OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

LINKING, DEVELOPING AND SUPPORTING ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING PROFESSIONALS WORLDWIDE

November–December 2018 Issue 265

The times they are a-changin’—in ELT, too – Elaine Hodgson
A tale of a translation project – Alireza Talebzadeh
Strategies for autonomous intentional vocabulary learning – Nicky Blikker
Using drama with young learners – Diana Velcheva
Little ‘n’ large in English: a pedagogy of diminutives and augmentatives – Deak Kirkham

ISSN 2412-6578
 November–December 2018
Issue 265

From the Editor

ISSN 2412-6578

IATEFL is a truly international organisation, and this is reflected

in the current issue of Voices. Our feature articles in this issue
come from ELT practitioners who come from, or who are Contents
based in, Brazil, Iran, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and the UK.
Elaine Hodgson has recently moved from her native Brazil to   2 From the President
the UK. Naturally, she was concerned about how she would
be received as a teacher of English, and her article outlines Feature articles
her experiences at a language institute in Cambridge. Do   3 The times they are a-changin’—in ELT, too
you use translation in your classes? Alireza Talebzadeh does, Elaine Hodgson shares her experiences as a
Tania Pattison, with overwhelmingly positive results; read his article on this
Editor non-native teacher of English in the UK
topic. Nikki Blikker reports on her research into vocabulary
acquisition strategies with university-level trainee teachers in the Netherlands—what   5 A tale of a translation project
worked, what did not. Moving to Bulgaria, Diana Velcheva describes her use of drama Alireza Talebzadeh explores the use of
with children in Years 3 and 4; the dramatic productions her classes created are truly translation in the EFL class
impressive. Finally, for those interested in applied linguistics, Deak Kirkham takes us   7 Strategies for autonomous intentional
through the use of language to express the concepts of large and small, in English vocabulary learning
and in other languages. Nicky Blikker takes a proactive approach to
In our regular columns, four books specifically related to teacher development are promoting vocabulary learning
reviewed, Stephen Dodds shows how project-based learning motivated both students
10 Using drama with young learners
and teachers at his school and David Heathfield presents another of his delightful sto-
Diana Velcheva writes and directs plays for
ries. This is the last of David’s columns for Voices (for now); I would like to thank him
her young learners, with positive results
for his wonderful contributions, and I hope he’ll be back with more at a later date.
The SIG Spotlight in this issue is the Teacher Development SIG; Coordinator Tyson 12 Little ‘n’ large in English: a pedagogy of
Seburn tells us about the goals and activities of this SIG. The activities of various SIGs diminutives and augmentatives
and Associates are outlined, and we have reports of two recent SIG webinars. Deak Kirkham explores the concepts of big
As I write this at my home in Ontario, Canada, the weather has turned decidedly and small in English and other languages
cool and autumn is in the air. If, like my two children, you have recently started a new
academic year, I hope it has gone smoothly. If you are in a part of the world where Regular columns
summer is on its way, I wish you a happy and relaxing time. As the year draws to a 15 World storytelling David Heathfield
close, I am thinking ahead to 2019—specifically, to the January issue of Voices. To
17 Materials reviews Ruby Vurdien
mark the new year, we are planning a relaunch of the magazine, with a new design
and new columns. Look out for the new issue in early January, and do consider 19 A teacher's voice Stephen Dodd
writing for us. If you would like to write for Voices on any aspect of ELT—teaching,
management, training, materials writing, or anything else ELT-related—please don’t Inside IATEFL
hesitate to get in touch with me at editor@iatefl.org. Meanwhile, enjoy the last few
20 Spotlight on TDSIG
weeks of 2018, and I’ll see you in the new year!
21 Focus on the SIGs and webinar reviews
24 From the Associates
25 Coming events
The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language was founded in 1967 26 Who’s who in IATEFL
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Correspondence relating to Newsletter content should be clearly marked for the attention of ‘The Editor of two of our colleagues. Simon Greenall, President of
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Disclaimer
Carter both left us in September. Our thoughts are
with Simon and Ron’s families and friends at this time.
Views expressed in the articles in Voices are not necessarily those of the Editor, of IATEFL or its staff or trustees.
Both Simon and Ron will be remembered at the Tribute
Copyright Notice
Copyright for whole issue IATEFL 2018.
session at the Liverpool conference in April 2019.
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IATEFL Voices 265   1

From the President
From the President
Margit Online discussions for
Szesztay
has been
professional development
involved One way in which our Association fulfils
in teacher
its mission of helping ELT professionals
education
for the to develop is by creating online plat-
past 25 forms for discussion. While these have
years. great potential, they also pose some
Her professional interests challenges.
include group facilitation,
learning through discussion,
creativity in ELT, the teacher IATEFL platforms for
as educator, and building professional discussion
professional communities.
In addition to the main IATEFL Facebook
and Twitter groups and the IATEFL blog, our Special Interest
Groups also offer a range of discussion forums: their own
Facebook groups, Yahoo discussion lists and blogs. The chat
box function during webinars also provides an opportunity
for the exchange of ideas and the sharing of resources
related to a theme, though the continuous comments can
make it hard to stay focussed. At times, interesting issues
come up during webinar Q and As, and these are often
followed up by a blog post in which the presenter reflects
further on the questions.
Some benefits
There are many ways in which such online discussions can
contribute to professional development. It can be enriching
to see the multitude of perspectives on any one issue. As
the participants often come from a range of cultural back-
grounds and teaching contexts, some comments can help
us to appreciate the relativity of our own teaching situation.
Questions can emerge that nobody had thought of before—
perhaps not even the person asking them!
The exciting thing about a fruitful discussion is that there
is a spontaneous, unpredictable element to it. Last but
certainly not least, discussion can be the cement that binds
communities. And as our discussion platforms are open to
non-members, participation can help newcomers and those
who cannot afford membership to get to know us and feel
part of the extended IATEFL community.
Some challenges
I have come across an extended metaphor that compares a
discussion to the landscape around us. In The Art of Focused
Conversation, Brian Stanfield (2000) talks about the need to
marshall group discussion through ‘the shallows of trivia, the
rapids of argumentation, or the clouds of abstraction’. For
example, during an online discussion, digressions and per-
sonal comments that only a small in-group can understand
can take us in the direction of the shallows. The starting
point is also significant: a discussion is more likely to gather
momentum if the initial question is seen as relevant and
worth exploring.
2  IATEFL Voices 265
While differences in viewpoints are the main driving force
of a discussion, the rapids of argumentation probably pose
the greatest threat. Emotionally charged comments, blanket
statements, and repetition of points, can take us closer
to the rapids. A discussion can swiftly degenerate into an
argument that can feel like two camps facing each other
with hostility.
Every profession has its own specialised terms and con-
cepts; their overuse, though, can cloud our vision and make
it harder to follow the thread. Even the use of abbreviations
that insiders take for granted can pose a challenge to
newcomers. In addition, talking in generalities can make us
feel like we are in the clouds and have lost touch with the
realities of classrooms.
Meeting the challenges
Most IATEFL online discussions have designated moderators
who are tasked with making sure that the communication
stays respectful. This is helpful, but, at the same time, we
can all be moderators. Most of us are aware of the principles
of a civilised discussion but can forget them in the heat
of the moment. So before pressing the ‘post’ button, it is
sometimes worth asking ourselves questions, such as:
• Am I making a new point here?
• Is this relevant to the main thread?
• Is this comment going to take the discussion forward?
• Am I speaking from my own experience?
• Am I being economical with words?
• Is my comment free of emotionally charged language
that might be hurtful to someone or lead to ‘tit for tat’
exchanges?
We can also help to take the heat out of a discussion that
has spiralled out of control. It is hard for the people who
are emotionally triggered to step back and see the process
more objectively. Social media with its option of ‘likes’ and
other emoticons might actually contribute to the ‘two camps
facing each other with hostility’ feel. These can highlight alli-
ances and can take the focus away from the issues. A fellow
discussion group member can sidestep the emotional tangle
and bring the focus back to the topic.
IATEFL’s social media policy provides some useful guide-
lines to help us avoid the dangers of online discussions and
is well worth reading. (You will find it on our website under
‘About IATEFL, Key documents’.) Being familiar with them
might also help us to be better moderators when it matters
most: in the heat of an actual discussion. I wish the IATEFL
community many more thoughtful and fruitful discussions!
With best wishes,
Margit
Reference
Stanfield, B. (ed.). 2000. The Art of Focused Conversation.
Toronto: ICA Canada.
 November–December 2018 Issue 265
The times they are a-changin’—
in ELT, too
Elaine Hodgson shares her experiences as a non-native teacher of English in the UK.
If you are a non-native teacher of English, how would
you feel if you were invited to teach English in the United
Kingdom?
This was exactly what happened to me even before I left
Brazil. I received an email from a very well-known language
institute in Cambridge explaining they had received my
CV via a former student and asking me if I would like to
teach teenagers in their summer course. I was pleased
and surprised for a number of reasons—first, because an
acquaintance had recommended me without my knowl-
edge, but mainly because moving countries generated a lot
of insecurity regarding my professional future in the UK. I
believe many non-native EFL teachers would feel insecure in
the same situation.
I had to refuse their initial offer as they needed someone
for an immediate start. However, two days after my arrival in
the UK, they wrote again inviting me for an interview. To cut
a long story short, I had other commitments and could not
accept an offer to teach full-time on a residential course for
ten days, but I enthusiastically agreed to substitute a teacher
for three days. Although my experience of teaching in the
UK was extremely limited and I have no illusions about it
being a universal truth, I believe it is worth sharing with our
community, given that moving countries is becoming more
and more common and that many of us aim at working
abroad.
First impressions
My interview with the Director of Studies went smoothly.
She explained what they needed and what they expected
from teachers in their summer courses, and she asked me
to describe my teaching and academic experience. Towards
the end of our interview, I brought up the non-native issue.
After all, I was in Cambridge, where courses of English
can be more costly than in other parts of the country and
where thousands of students invest time, effort and money
to study the language. She said that what mattered to
them was to have qualified teachers, whether native or
non-native, and that their students did not complain. She
went even further, saying that the only complaint they had
received concerning non-natives had happened years ago.
The parents of a student had refused to pay for a course on
which the teacher was not British. She had replied, saying
discrimination was illegal in the UK and that they could
choose another school. Funnily enough, the teacher the
parents had complained about was British; they thought
she was a non-native because of her last name. It is also
important to mention that on the school website there is
no mention of teachers being native speakers, but that they
Feature articles
look for ‘suitably qualified and Elaine
experienced  staff’. This leads me Hodgson
to my second point. is an EFL/
ESL materials
Qualifications and writer, teacher
and teacher
experience trainer. She
Coincidentally, when I was prepar- has also been a supervisor on
the Distance MA in TEFL at
ing to write this short article, I
Birmingham University (UK) since
came across a post on a Brazilian 2006. She holds an MA in
teachers’ social media page about Applied Linguistics from the
teaching opportunities abroad. State University of Ceará and a
The writer of the post explained PhD in Linguistics from the Federal
University of Ceará (Brazil). 
that although he was a qualified
teacher, he found it extremely difficult to find jobs in Italy
as ‘almost all schools made it clear that they only hired
native speakers’. This became a very popular topic; the last
time I checked, there were over 300 comments describing
both positive and negative experiences, including being
paid less for being non-native. At some point, as usually
happens when this topic arises, the controversial fact that
‘some schools prefer native speakers to qualified non-native
speakers’ was mentioned. This, I believe, is a mistaken
comparison. Though there must be schools that actually
do that, and though this seems to have been a common
practice in the past, hiring teachers just because they are
native speakers of English is becoming
increasingly rare in my view. The biggest
issue is with qualified native speakers vs.
qualified non-native speakers. Investing in
I have no reliable data to back up my qualifications
impressions, but I tend to believe that to and gaining
work abroad, qualified and experienced
non-native teachers would be at a disad-
experience
vantage if they were competing for the still seems to
same position with equally qualified and be the safest
experienced native teachers. So, when road, both to
it comes to qualifications, it is wise to
finding and
always keep learning and to try to be a
step ahead. Having an initial teaching keeping a job,
certificate definitely helps, but it is not and to seeking
the end of the road. If that is all we have a promotion or
to show, I don’t think it will be enough.
a better job
I also believe that in serious language
courses, payment is based on qualifica-
tions, experience, number of years at the
same institution, commitment and other criteria we usually
see in job adverts. It is true that some desired or essential
qualifications and experience are not always relevant for the
job (or at least do not seem to be) but there is not much we
IATEFL Voices 265   3
Feature articles
can do to control these variables. Investing in qualifications
and gaining experience still seems to be the safest road,
both to finding and keeping a job, and to seeking a promo-
tion or a better job.
Students and prejudice
Prejudice is always a risk, but it is something we can fight
against. Of course, it is much easier said than done, but
the important thing is that it can be
done. In my experience of over ten
years supervising MA students from all
Prejudice over the world for a British university,
and in my brief experience teaching
is always a
EFL in Cambridge, I have not suffered
risk, but it any kind of prejudice. In the language
is something course, for instance, there were three
we can fight groups of adults from different coun-
against. Of tries: Austria, Chile, Italy, Japan, Saudi
Arabia, Spain, Sudan, Switzerland, the
course, it is United Arab Emirates and Turkey. They
much easier knew from the start that I was Brazilian
said than and that I had been in the UK for only
done, but the twelve days. That did not seem to be a
problem at all, and the school’s policy
important
on hiring non-native teachers (I was
thing is that it not the only one at the school) was
can be done key. Another thing that makes a differ-
ence is being resourceful and relying
on different techniques. I could not
rely on cognates, for instance, and had
to mime, draw and make comparisons. Google was also a
popular tool among students.
Native versus non-native: is it that simple?
I constantly have the impression that when we talk about
native or non-native teachers, we are talking about some
specific nationalities, particularly British and American. I
wonder if teachers from the Caribbean, Africa, or Austral-
asia have the same prestige. Even when it comes to the
British and American standard, do teachers from Glasgow
have the same perceived prestige as teachers from London?
4  IATEFL Voices 265
How about teachers from Louisville compared to those
from New York? It is a shame that the standard British and
American models are often seen as the only ones. I like to
think that globalisation has promoted changes in this area
and that coursebooks, though still timid when it comes to
models, have been trying to include more diversity, par-
ticularly in listening materials. This may gradually change
students’ and teachers’ perception of what ‘nativeness’ is
and lead people to question the importance of having native
teachers. A natural consequence, I hope, is that in a not-
so-distant future, our origin and first language will have no
impact at all on our employability as teachers, and the focus
will be on our abilities.
The times they are a-changin’ ... and they have been
changing for a long time. Bob Dylan released this song in
1964, and changes since that time have been non-stop,
including in ELT. Back then, you could be refused a job in a
language institute, even in a non-English-speaking country,
if you did not speak American or British English; I doubt this
happens so frequently nowadays. Colonisation, combined
with globalisation, has led to the prevalence of the English
language in various professional, academic and social con-
texts. A growing need to learn English has led to a growing
number of students and, consequently, to a growing need
for teachers. I would say that it was almost impossible
for a non-native to find work as a teacher outside their
own country twenty or thirty years ago, but now, though
there are still difficulties and prejudice has not been totally
overcome, it is a more achievable goal. Proof of this are
the testimonials of teachers who have had this experience,
such as those published by BrELT (A Global ELT Community
Made by Brazilians) in their section ‘Brasileiros pelo Mundo’
(https://breltchat.wordpress.com/iniciativas-brelt/entrevistas-
brelt/) and by TEFL Equity Advocates and Academy in their
section ‘Teacher Success Stories’ (http://teflequityadvocates.
com/teacher-success-stories/).
There is still a lot to be done, but it is undeniable that the
market has improved for qualified non-native teachers. Let’s
keep welcoming change.
elainechaveshodgson@hotmail.com
 November–December 2018 Issue 265
Feature articles

A tale of a translation project

Alireza Talebzadeh explores the use of translation in the EFL class.
Introduction Method Alireza
Participants Talebzadeh
The grammar-translation method (GT) is an approach
is an EFL
whereby the L1 equivalents of new words are given, sen- Two groups of 12 students in Years teacher and
tences are translated into learners’ L1 and grammar rules are 10–12 in state high schools were teacher
explicitly presented and explained by the teacher. GT fell into selected. These students had achieved trainer
disfavour with the advent of more communicative methods, the highest scores on a translation test working
for the
and although some of its basic elements and principles have administered to 70 students at five
Education
survived, especially in state education systems around the schools and had already expressed an Ministry in Iran. He is also the
globe (Popovic 2001: 1), translation has often been frowned interest in the project. Iranian schools are president of IATEFL Associate
upon, not allowed, or used as a ‘last resort’ in classes where not coeducational, so the 24 students AzerELTA in Iran. Al likes trying
modern methods are favoured. were already divided into male and new ideas and using Internet-
based technology in class.
In recent decades, however, translation and the role female groups. The English proficiency
it might play in ELT has received considerable attention, level of the participants was around A2 on the CEFR scale.
and attitudes towards translation are changing. Now, Materials
more teachers are talking about the place of translation in I had already prepared a booklet on the ABCs of translation
language teaching, and there is an increasing number of
in Farsi with a glossary of terms and concepts relating
articles on how to use translation effectively in the language
to translation skills; these included such terms as ‘target
classroom. Complaining that there was hardly any mention
language’, ‘source language’, ‘interpretation’, ‘machine
of translation in ELT at the time of doing his CELTA, Dellar
translation’, ‘idioms and expressions’ and ‘proverbs’. The
(2012: 26) stresses the importance of ‘noticing’ language
booklet provided tips on how to translate effectively into
patterns, specifically lexico-grammatical patterns. Even in a
the L1 in such a way that readers would understand the
few conversation coursebooks, small sections are devoted to
translated text and sense no taste and flavour of the
translation: learners translate a few sentences into their L1.
source language. I also included a few samples of my own
Doing so can motivate learners and can inspire confidence,
translation works. Both online and paper mono/bilingual
pride and respect for the L1.
dictionaries as well as online tools were also used.
Popovic (2001: 1) reminds us that the ‘L1 ought to
The main source of articles to be translated was
be employed judiciously’. We need to have students
The Times in Plain English, Health & Education section
concentrate more on English words and expressions than
(http://www.thetimesinplainenglish.com). All articles on the
on their L1 equivalents, while getting them to take care of
website are shortened and rewritten versions (i.e. plain
interference and interlanguage elements. It is obvious that
language versions) of authentic articles which originally
English vocabulary is quite new to students whereas they
appeared in the New York Times. Many interesting topics are
are already familiar with that of their own language. With
addressed, relating primarily to health, politics, the environ-
this in mind, I carried out a translation project in my local
ment, education and immigration. The website contains two
context in which students in Years 10 to 12 were required
important features: the ability to listen to the text, and an
to translate from English into Farsi, Iran’s official language
online dictionary. There is also a ‘Tips for Teachers’ section
and medium of instruction nationwide. A brief description
for use in class.
of the project is as follows.
Process
Aims Having been invited to take part in the project, participants
The project had a number of aims: to improve students’ attended an orientation session in which they were briefed
vocabulary; to help them learn expressions and language
patterns; and to have them explore suitable equivalents
through the use of search engines, online platforms and
mono/bilingual dictionaries. A further aim was to familiarise
students with basic translation skills, while raising their
awareness of the extent to which languages can differ in
terms of structure, culture, vocabulary and idioms. The proj-
ect was also designed to serve as a model for Project-Based
Learning (PBL) as a teaching method; EFL teachers would be
shown how to plan, develop, implement and lead a teach-
ing project in their context.

IATEFL Voices 265   5

Feature articles
on the project and raised any questions. Over a further four
workshops, participants were each given a copy of my book-
let and were taught basic translation skills; they also received
their copies of articles which I had selected from The Times
website. Each student had a different set of articles. The
plan was for students to work on their articles individually,
at home or in school, and translate them from English into
Farsi. To translate the articles, they would use search engines
and dictionaries; they would discuss equivalents, new
words and expressions, and technical
terms with their teachers, parents and
friends and come up with a profes-
Participants sional translation.
were happy Each group met once a week. In
to be part of each session, participants took turns
the project. reading out the part of the article
They felt they had been asked to translate
for the session. In addition to their
proud of their own articles, all participants had cop-
achievement ies of the other participants’ articles.
and found it One student read out the English
a useful way article, sentence by sentence, while
the translator read out his or her Farsi
to enrich their
equivalent, explaining and justifying
vocabulary in the translation where necessary. The
a meaningful other participants discussed and gave
way feedback on the translation, sharing
their ideas and comments on the
words, phrases and sentences. The
students surfed the internet, Googled, and used dictionaries
on their phones, tablets or laptops. It was interesting to see
how they discussed, argued and shared their views and com-
ments—this was maybe the most exciting and interesting
part of the project. Sometimes the word-by-word translation
of idioms created a lot of fun. Students kept a vocabulary
notebook in which they wrote down the equivalents and
different meanings of new words and expressions they came
across in context so that they could practise, revise and
memorise them. With the assistance of Leila, a colleague
who helped me to run the sessions, I acted as moderator,
and occasionally I had the final say when participants failed
to reach an agreement on a sentence or an equivalent! The
translator was either given the green light to proceed to the
next part or made changes to the translation. When one
participant was finished, we moved to another.
So it went on for two months. Participants learned with
6  IATEFL Voices 265
and from each other. Occasionally, parents and teachers
were invited to sit and watch the discussions, and a few
were even tempted at times to give their opinion or make
a suggestion! Over time, the articles were all translated into
Farsi. The students typed up their projects and emailed me
their work. As project manager I made a few slight changes,
if necessary, to their drafts.
End product
The final Farsi versions of the articles were compiled into
both a print and an e-book. The students’ photos appeared
at the top of their translated texts. The original (English)
articles as well as the way the project was conducted were
also included in the book for the benefit of readers. The
copies were (e)mailed to state schools as well as shared on
social media and in communities of practice in the area.
The students’ work has appeared on the tables of teachers’
rooms, in education offices and on the bookshelves in
school libraries. In the near future, the articles are going to
be published on online news websites.
Variations
The project received positive feedback from teachers,
students and parents and managed to actively engage
students. Participants were happy to be part of the project.
They felt proud of their achievement and found it a use-
ful way to enrich their vocabulary in a meaningful way as
well as in a contextualised fashion and to improve their
translation skills. They reported having learned from this
process-oriented journey to effectively take advantage of
their devices such as smart phones and laptops, and they
said they retained new words and expressions longer as well.
Any teacher who is interested in adopting and applying
this approach in practice in their own context may consider
the following variations;
• interpreting i.e. simultaneous translation and dubbing
animated movies into L1;
• translating from the L1 into English;
• using authentic texts instead of non-authentic ones from
websites, or letting learners choose the articles and stories
themselves;
• doing joint translation projects, such as having participants
work together in pairs or in groups of three, four or five;
• having students give a presentation of their project in class;
or
• using an online platform to create working groups of
participants.
Happy translating!
talebov@yahoo.com
References
Dellar, H. 2012. ‘Translation: tackling the taboos’ in M. P.
Díez, R. Place and O. Fernández (eds.). Plurilingualism:
Promoting Co-operation between Communities, People and
Nations. Bilbao: University of Deusto.
Popovic, R. 2001. ‘The place of translation in language
teaching’. Sue Leather Associates. https://www.
sueleatherassociates.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/
Article_translationinlanguageteaching.pdf.
 November–December 2018 Issue 265
Strategies for autonomous
intentional vocabulary learning
Nicky Blikker takes a proactive approach to promoting vocabulary learning.
It can no longer be assumed that an adequate lexis
will simply be ‘picked up’ from exposure to language
tasks focusing either on other linguistic aspects or on
communication. Rather, a more proactive, principled
approach needs to be taken in promoting vocabulary
learning. (Schmitt 2008: 332)
Many ELT professionals recognise Schmitt’s call to supple-
ment incidental vocabulary learning by adding an intentional
vocabulary-learning strand to their curriculum. Due to
pressures on classroom time, students are then, in practice,
often expected to study vocabulary from wordlists in their
own time, something that they struggle to do effectively.
Our first-year students, training to become English teach-
ers in Dutch secondary schools, are no exception. Joining us
with a minimum of A2 for the productive skills and B1 for
the receptive skills, these students are expected to raise their
levels for all English language skills to C2 before the end of
the four-year course. Proficiency training is complemented
by vocabulary self-study modules, whereby (primed) produc-
tive mastery is tested.
Disappointing exam results and an appeal for study
support from the students led us to pilot a vocabulary
acquisition strategies training programme. The aim was to
Figure 1: Model for autonomous intentional vocabulary learning
Feature articles
offer a toolbox of cognitive strategies Nicky
for the students to experiment with, Blikker has
personalise and adopt as they felt fit. worked as
a teacher
In addition, metacognitive and self-
trainer
regulation strategies were practised to for NHL
help the students to take control of Stenden
their learning process. Hogeschool
in the
Metacognitive and self- Netherlands since 2013.
regulation strategies
As a framework for training self-study skills, a model for
autonomous intentional vocabulary learning was developed,
inspired by Tseng and Schmitt’s Model of Motivated Vocabu-
lary Learning (Tseng and Schmitt 2008); see Figure 1.
Six weekly sessions were held, in which the cognitive
strategies were introduced. Each week, the students were
expected to experiment with three of these as homework.
Directly after the lesson, they were required to set them-
selves SMART vocabulary-learning goals for the following
week, and at the end of the week they completed an online
‘microblog’, in which they reflected on their vocabulary
learning. Guiding questions encouraged consideration of
aspects of time management, the effect of their study
environment on their study process, and their management
of boredom and other negative emotions. Finally,
they commented on the extent to which they had
met their weekly vocabulary-learning goals and,
on the basis of their reflection, on any adjust-
ments that they intended to make to their study
routine the following week to enable them to
study more effectively.
Cognitive vocabulary acquisition
strategies
The cognitive strategies offered on the training
programme are listed in Table 1. A brief explana-
tion is given of each.
These strategies were chosen to help the
students attain not just ‘vocabulary breadth’, but
also ‘vocabulary depth’. Vocabulary breadth refers
to the number of words one knows, regardless of
how well one knows them, and involves estab-
lishing the form−meaning link only. Vocabulary
depth, on the other hand, refers to the quality
of lexical knowledge: how well does one know a
word? Does one know enough about it to be able
to use it correctly?
A representation of Nation’s nine compo-
nents of vocabulary depth, each of which has
IATEFL Voices 265   7
Feature articles
Shallower cognitive vocabulary acquisition strategies Deeper cognitive vocabulary acquisition strategies
Strategy Explanation Strategy Explanation
Written repetition Repeatedly writing down words that need Using rhyme Learning rhyming words together
to be learned and creating a mental image of
the combination
Verbal repetition Repeatedly saying words that need to be Using mnemonics Creating memory prompts, for
learned for difficult spellings example using the letters of the
word or by seeing a word within
a word
Recorded wordlists Recording words that need to be learned Making personal Connecting a word to a personal
together with their definitions, and listening associations experience to form a mental image
to this recorded wordlist repeatedly.
Vocabulary-testing Wrts, Memrise, Quizlet, etc. The Memory Palace Associating words with locations
apps method along a familiar route, so that they
can be retrieved later by ‘walking’
the same route
Using the pronunciation Clicking on the audio button Looking up synonyms/ Words with a similar/opposite
function in digital antonyms meaning
dictionaries
Looking up collocations Words that commonly go together
Mind mapping Making visual the connections
between words, regarding
meaning, synonyms/antonyms,
collocations, first letter sounds,
rhyme, associations, etc.
Noting grammatical Word class, irregular forms, verb
features patterns, phrasal verbs, etc.
Making new context Using words in new meaningful
sentences and/or crazy sentences
Word building Noting the root, prefix(es) and
suffix(es) from which complex
words are constructed; grouping
words that belong to a word family
Table 1: Cognitive strategies offered on the vocabulary acquisition strategies training programme

a receptive and a productive dimension (Nation 2013), is

shown in Figure 2. The cognitive strategies introduced in the
training programme were categorised as shallower strate-
gies (aiming at vocabulary breadth) or deeper strategies
(training vocabulary depth) accordingly.

Field study
During the training programme, the students evaluated
the cognitive strategies they had been exposed to. They
described their experiences with them in their microblog
entries and rated them in terms of usefulness for their
vocabulary learning during the following training session. In
the final session, they selected the five strategies that they
had found most useful and the five that they had found
least useful.
Shortly after the training programme had been com-
pleted, the students took a vocabulary exam. Their grades
were compared with those scored in a pre-test before the
training began and their progression rates were calculated.
Although these progression rates were higher than the
Figure 2: The nine components of lexical knowledge average progression rate achieved by a control group, sta-
required to ‘know’ a word tistically the difference was not significant.

8  IATEFL Voices 265

 November–December 2018 Issue 265
1. Vocabulary-testing apps
2. Making personal associations
3. Written repetition
4. Making new context sentences
5. Verbal repetition
Figure 3: Five most useful cognitive strategies from the
vocabulary acquisition strategies training programme
Nevertheless, valuable feedback was given by the stu-
dents about the training programme. Although in class
they gently protested about the weekly goal-setting and
reflection obligations, in their microblog entries they wrote
freely about the difficulties they had encountered with the
planning and management of their autonomous vocabulary
learning. The following quote shows one student’s apprecia-
tion of being helped to ‘learn to learn’: ‘I learned a lot this
week! I feel like these vocab lessons have really helped me
with learning how to plan.’
A ranking of the five cognitive strategies that the
students found most useful is shown in Figure 3. Not
surprisingly, using vocabulary-testing apps tops this list. The
students enjoyed the gaming aspect of this strategy and
the fact that it could be used anywhere, for example while
waiting for a train. Making personal associations and new
context sentences were also found to be motivating due to
the room they allowed for personal input, whereas written
and verbal repetition were considered necessary for an effec-
tive imprinting of words.
Equally interesting is the ranking of the five cognitive
strategies that the students found least useful, as shown in
Figure 4. For the majority of the students, ‘cringing’ at hear-
ing their own voice caused too great a distraction for them
to be able to concentrate on the recorded wordlists, and
recording the words and their definitions was considered
by many to be too time consuming. Mind mapping, noting
grammatical features and using rhyme were often also
rejected on the grounds of taking too much time. Several
students wrote that they found it difficult to come up with
rhyming words.
However, there were exceptions to each ranking. A
limited number of students found the time spent entering
wordlists into vocabulary testing-apps inefficient. Students
with a more auditory learning style benefitted from recorded
wordlists, and those more visually orientated embraced
mind mapping and accepted the time investment involved.
1. Recorded wordlists
2. Mind mapping
3. Noting grammatical features
4. Using the pronunciation function in digital
dictionaries
5. Using rhyme
Figure 4: Five least useful cognitive strategies from the
vocabulary acquisition strategies training programme
Feature articles
These rankings demonstrate a slight bias towards shal-
lower cognitive strategies and against deeper strategies,
in both cases in the ratio three to two. Nevertheless, both
strategy types were represented in each, which confirms the
importance of offering a range of strategies of both types.
Furthermore, slight variations between data collected
weekly and that collected in the final training session sug-
gest that the closer students are to taking an exam the more
they tend to favour shallower rote-learning strategies. This
is possibly caused by an increasingly urgent need to ‘cram’
large numbers of words, which shifts the balance from
vocabulary depth to vocabulary breadth.
After taking the vocabulary exam, students from both the
training programme and the control
group indicated which of the cognitive
strategies from the programme they
had used to prepare for the test. The
Students
fact that those most used and those with a more
least used were very similar for both auditory
student groups suggests that the pro- learning style
gramme had only a limited influence
benefitted
on strategy selection. Nevertheless, it
does appear to have stimulated the from recorded
use of a greater number of cognitive wordlists,
strategies per student. and those
Conclusions
more visually
orientated
Although not conclusive, this study
indicates that a vocabulary acquisition
embraced
strategies training programme may mind mapping
be an effective means of supporting and accepted
ESL students’ autonomous intentional the time
vocabulary learning. Despite being
investment
applied here in a tertiary education
context, the cognitive strategies involved
introduced are equally relevant for
secondary school students. Emphasis
should be placed on those that emerged as the top five
most useful strategies, while offering a range of shallower
and deeper strategies to cater for all learning styles. Fur-
thermore, attention should be paid to metacognitive and
self-regulation strategies: managing autonomous intentional
learning is a life skill, one that is applicable in all (language)
learning contexts.
n.blikker@nhl.nl
References
Nation, P. 2013. Learning Vocabulary in Another Language
(2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmitt, N. 2008. ‘Instructed second language vocabulary
learning’. Language Teaching Research 12/3: 329−63.
Tseng, W. T. and N. Schmitt. 2008. ‘Toward a model of
motivated vocabulary learning: a structural equation
modelling approach’. Language Learning 58/2: 357−400.
IATEFL Voices 265   9
Feature articles

Using drama with young learners

Diana Velcheva writes and directs plays for her young learners, with positive results.

Diana ‘Tell me and I will forget; show me them from reality and send them to a better imaginary world
Velcheva, and I may remember; involve me in order to rebuild their value systems. In short, children
an and I will understand.’ Confucius should be part of something interesting, like drama, in order
innovator
to show themselves, become better persons and develop
in the Why drama? more motivation to learn.
Bulgarian
educational There is a popular cartoon of a man Using drama is an innovative approach to ELT in Bulgaria
system, behind a desk, asking a group of and one which I have used successfully in my English classes
teaches animals to climb a tree; the animals at Dreamers private school in Varna. Drama is a learning
at Dreamers private school in
include a monkey, an elephant, a pen- approach which puts students in roles and allows them to
Varna, Bulgaria.
guin and a fish. The fish, of course, play completely different characters. It is a way to suppress
cannot climb the tree. The point of the cartoon is that the tension, improve classroom relationships and even increase
same task cannot be used with all learners. In the case of the teacher’s authority. I have deliberately given roles that
young learners, they are all working at different levels, and require a partnership of children who have been in conflict
we cannot ask each of them to ‘climb a tree’ without taking to see if this affects their relationship. Indeed, after the first
into account their individual characteristics. I think this is week the tension diminished, they improved their communi-
one of the main reasons why many children lack the desire cation and they stopped arguing.
to study.
Two years ago, I stood in front of some very clever Year 4
children and was faced with some young people who didn’t
want to open a textbook and didn’t want to write the same
word 20 times in order to remember it. I recalled that, as a
teenager, I was happiest when I came home from school and
listened to the tapes of my favourite rock and alternative
singers. I was singing the songs, learning the texts directly
from the cassette covers. I said to myself that I had to find an
interesting way for these children to learn. A completely dif-
ferent approach to the modern child is needed, when after
the end of the school, young learners are so attached to
their mobile phones. An approach is needed that can break

10  IATEFL Voices 265

 November–December 2018 Issue 265
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
With my Year 4 pupils, I decided to produce a play using
Shakespeare’s original words to show the kids that there
was a lot to be learned. The children embraced the idea
of the
​​ play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, and they began
to rehearse with great enthusiasm—even in their breaks,
in the school’s corridors, everywhere. After learning many
skills, including ethics, aesthetics, creativity, theatrical acting,
English language and a lot of positive emotions, students
performed ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at the Puppet
Theater Varna.
After these drama classes, when we had English again,
I made my students write the new words once again. This
time, they did it with pleasure and treated the subject in a
totally different way. Drama had provided these children
with a positive spiritual influence.
‘The Fairy Night’
My most recent project was a play called ‘The Fairy Night’,
which I wrote myself, based on a beautiful, mystical song I
had heard. When I checked all the grammar and the new
words which I am obliged to teach in Year 3, I decided to
write a play that would include a lot of this material. The
nine-year-old children and I worked together to come up
with characters and roles; these corresponded to specific
characteristics or requests of the children in the class. Some
of the students wanted to be fairies, others chose princes,
kings or dragons. Every wish was respected. Some children
didn’t want to talk, and I gave them roles that didn’t require
talking, just acting. Then I explained the grammar and the
Feature articles
new words which were included in the
play. The play is in Shakespearean style
as well, and it is about two couples in
love. The boys don’t know if the girls love
them and are worried about this. The girls
don’t know, either. For 30 minutes, the
young heroes are searching for answers;
they ask for help from the Fairy King,
who has magical powers to make people
fall in love. They show him respect and
self-sacrifice by helping him to save his
beautiful queen from the evil dragon.
When the boys return to their village,
they see the love in the eyes of their girls.
My teaching style is to delegate as much as possible to
the children, and I invited one of my students to design
the choreography for the play. The
children worked enthusiastically
and had a great time working as
a team; within a few months, the
play was ready to be performed.
It is important to note that all
children, whether they had acting
roles or not, knew the play by heart
and had become more patient with
each other.
With the help of Dreamers’
school manager Sofia Myankova,
we entered the play into the Tenth
International Festival in English and
Children’s Creativity, ‘The World
in Children’s Hands’, in Balchik,
Bulgaria. We won second prize in
the Dramatic Art category. The play
was rewarded by the organisers and Sofia Myankova
the international jury with a golden
bowl, medals, awards and diplomas. One of the awards was
a diploma for ‘brilliant ideas, superb performance, love for
art and passion for teaching’. This further
encouraged the children and motivated them
to learn English even more.
Some of the
Conclusion students
In conclusion, I must emphasise that drama in wanted to
a foreign language encourages the develop- be fairies,
ment of children’s abilities in a creative and others chose
cognitive, emotional and personal sphere. It is
princes,
an innovative teaching method which builds
responsibility, self-confidence and character.
kings or
Drama classes also help to optimise the stu- dragons
dents’ relationships with the institution, with
teachers, with classmates and ultimately, with
the world. This is why it is very important for young people
to be involved from their earliest years in this art and to be
part of building a new, holistic approach to English language
teaching.
sheherezada7@yahoo.co.uk
IATEFL Voices 265   11
Feature articles

Little ‘n’ large in English: a pedagogy

of diminutives and augmentatives
Deak Kirkham explores the concepts of big and small in English and other languages.
Deak Kirkham What characteristic might the fol- diminutive can be cute, but it can also be ridicule-worthy.
fantasises about lowing pairings share with each The demotion of the former planet Pluto resulted in the
mountain- other? A balrog and a hobbit; construction ‘to be plutoed’, meaning to be reduced embar-
top campfire
Jupiter and Pluto; a bassoon and a rassingly to a lower status.
conversations
with Ludwig piccolo; an oak tree and a bonsai? Finally, popular culture is replete with diminutives. We
Zamenhof, One answer might be that they have the 1960 chart-topper ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow
Wilhelm von are all large and small versions Polkadot Bikini’ and the children’s song ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’
Humboldt and of things (entities in Tolkien’s leg- (sometimes ‘Incy Wincy Spider’) alongside diminutives of
Soren Kierkegaard. (Noam Chomsky
endarium, celestial bodies in our fairyland, Rumplestiltskin and Little Red Riding Hood. In film,
most definitely not invited.) In the
real world, he messes around with solar system, wind instruments and we find the sidekick motif realised by R2D2 to C3PO, Verne
non-Anglophone lexico-syntax. trees). Big and small are salient Toyer’s Mini-Me to Mike Myers’s Dr Evil and the character
His favourite language of those he cognitive categories for humans, Utivich’s nickname ‘The Little Man’ in Tarantino’s Inglourious
doesn’t speak is Cymraeg (second up there with agency, causation Basterds.
is Magyar).
and tense, and it is no surprise, We turn now to a brief discussion of the diminutive and
therefore, to find they have their own metalanguage: the augmentative in some of the world’s languages, after
diminutive and augmentative. This article will consider the which we return to English and possible pedagogies of the
big and the small, the little and the large, firstly from a diminutive and augmentative.
linguistic point of view, and then in relation to the teaching
of English. A linguistic overview, and the relative
Does size matter? oddity of English
Dutch, the second closest language to modern English (after
First, however, what is size? It is nothing absolute, for sure.
West Frisian) loves a diminutive. It boasts a highly salient,
A big mouse is not bigger than a small elephant and a fast
productive set of diminutive forms prototypically -je but also
car is not faster than a slow fighter plane: size adjectives
allomorphic variants such as -pje, -kje, and -tje depending
in language are interpreted relative
on the phonetics of the final segment of the stem. Thus
to their noun. Moreover, although
we get neefje, appletje, dingje and zoentje (respectively
in English we’re happy with ‘quite
little nephew; little apple; little thing, or ‘knick-knack’; and
A big mouse is big’ and ‘rather small’, if things are
little kiss, peck). A similar form finds itself in certain female
extreme on either scale you’re in
not bigger than trouble: ‘quite enormous’ and ‘some-
names (Janneke, Marieke), and some forms exist only as
a small elephant what tiny’ don’t quite work; instead diminutives, such as meisje, ‘girl’, from non-extant meid.
and a fast car in that world of absolute adjectives, Most often, the Dutch diminutive has a positive connotation
of various shades; however, pejorative qualities can arise as
is not faster we have to work with being ‘utterly
in certain uses of mannetje (‘little man’).
enormous’. Finally, oxymora surface
than a slow Hungarian, one of the few non-Indo-European languages
in the world of the little and large:
fighter plane: you can earn a small fortune, be a big of Europe, offers similarly salient and productive diminutive
size adjectives baby, take a big sip and have fought suffixes, -ka/-ke and -cska/-cske (the alternation reflect-
ing the vowel harmony of the language). Turkish has two
in language in the Battle of Little Big Horn.
diminutives, -cik  and  -ceğiz, the former associated mainly
are interpreted However, size is not simply a
with talk directed at children, the latter connoting compas-
question of size. Humans imbue
relative to their the category of size with various
sion and empathy. Esperanto, the world’s only (ever) widely
noun other subjective characteristics. Aug-
spoken constructed language, boasts a diminutive and
augmentative infix, respectively -et- and -eg-. This, arbaro
mentatives can take on shades of
(forest) can become arbareto (wood) and arbarego (large
connotation. To my reading, a ‘mega-
forest). Similarly domo (house) yields dometo (cottage)
market’ has a positive connotation:
and domego (villa). In Esperanto, as in Dutch, the -et-/-eg-
the term ‘megamarket’ connotes large-scale variety and
infixes can attach to adjectives: varma (warm) à varmeta
choice that go beyond economic need into leisure and
(lukewarm) and even stand as lexems in their own right: ete
enjoyment. By contrast, the term ‘overlord’ connotes a
(‘little-ly’) is a common adverb for ‘slightly’ or ‘a bit’.
somewhat menacing image for me. At the same time, the

12  IATEFL Voices 265

 November–December 2018 Issue 265
In English, however, instead of the relative regularity
and productivity of the languages above, we find a range
of patterns available for the expression of the diminutive /
augmentative. Consider words from Italian with variants of
Italian -ino: cappuccino, piccolino, violin[o], panini (plural
of ‘pan + ino’). Each of these is derived from a diminutive,
although the sense has been lost or obscured in some. It is
certainly not productive or creative. Perhaps more salient is
the French-derived -et/-ette ending as in applet, booklet,
leaflet, piglet and roulette although again only in some
does the diminutive shine through and productivity is not
present. Of a more Germanic hue, the -ling suffix sees
itself at work in princeling, underling, foundling, gosling,
duckling and darling among others and the more produc-
tive [i:] sound expressed graphically as ‘-y’ or ‘-ie’ is not
found only in common nouns (doggy, kitty, duckie, cookie,
dearie, laddie, girlie, mummy) but also as a relatively com-
mon way of producing endearing forms of names (Davey,
Susie, Frankie, Debbie, Johnny). On the issue of names and
titles, English offers lexical (as opposed to morphological)
ways of doing the diminutive. We find ‘old’ being used in
this way not only in ‘Little old lady’ but also ‘poor old John’,
‘lucky old John’ and ‘good old John’. Dickens bequeaths
us forms such as ‘Tiny Tim’ and ‘Little Dorrit’ and folklore
offers us ‘Little John’. In the augmentative world, we find
‘Big Dave’ which may mean heavy set, or the father of Little
Dave.
One exception to this apparent historical messiness may
be Australian English which has developed a fairly system-
atic, if edge-of-grammar, diminutive system. With ‘-o’ and
‘-ie’ as frequent exponents, some of which have yielded
forms that have made it ‘back’ into British English, we find
alkies, arvos, barbies, biccies, brickies, budgies, cardies,
ciggies, delis, firies, garbos, greenies, journos, lippy, pressies
and, of course, selfies.
English does offer a few fairly productive diminu-
tive prefixes: ‘mini-’, ‘micro-’ and ‘nano-’ among others.
Minibars, minibreaks, miniseries, minimarts, microwaves,
microcomputers, microcosms and microteaching are all of
relatively recent formation and nanotech is one of many
neologisms with that prefix. In the world of the augmen-
tative, English seems a little more regular. The adjective
‘grand’ has attached itself as a prefix to a range of lexemes:
grandparents, grandstand, grandmaster; ‘macro-’, ‘mega-’
and ‘super-’ are all well established in the language with a
range of roots to which they attached; and the more recent
‘uber-’ seems to be on the rise. Lexically, contraction like ‘a
helluva(n)’ or ‘whatta(n)’ may be classified as augmentatives
as in ‘a helluvan article—whatta writer!’.
Mega-pedagogy or a pedagoge-ette?
With such lack of regularity in English augmentatives and
diminutives, is this a case of ‘linguistic significance but
pedagogical irrelevance’ (Kirkham 2018)? This article does
not take that view. Instead, this final section will sketch
some approaches to diminutives and augmentatives and
their possible place in English language teaching. One such
has been hinted at already. In the tech-ready classroom,
Feature articles
one approach into diminutives and augmentatives may be
through folkloric and popular culture, science and tech-
nology. We’ve mentioned Rumplestiltskin, Mini-Me, Little
Red Riding Hood, balrogs and hobbits, nano-tech, and
plutoisation. Such an array of salient cultural phenomena
suggests a possible lesson or series of lessons driven by
investigation of these things around which one might wrap
some of the language of the little and the large. This could,
of course, take many forms, but one approach might be a
thematically ordered series of little-n-large phenomena (say
folklore à film à science and tech à geography) into each
of which a scattering and splattering of relevant lexis and
morphology
Another way in is through the history of English. Such
courses do (rightly) exist; personally, I’d like to see more of
them. The discussion above pointed out Germanic, French
and Italian influences on the language. In any course
that examines the history of Eng-
lish, diminutives could make a (mini)
appearance. Text-driven approaches
also seem to suggest themselves. I’ve
discussed the role of inauthentic texts
in the teaching of various linguistically … we find alkies,
complex constructions such as noun- arvos, barbies,
noun compounds and light verbs;
the same applies to diminutives and
biccies, brickies,
augmentatives. Two texts might be budgies, cardies,
constructed, one of which features ciggies, delis,
various examples of diminutives, the firies, garbos,
other of augmentatives; students
greenies, journos,
then identify the forms, discuss and
categorise, and then attempt a similar
lippy, pressies
paragraph with these forms. and, of course,
A fourth way, an approach that selfies
lends itself perhaps most easily to
more academic settings, is through
the linguistics of diminution and aug-
mentation. A linguistically conceptual
approach would invite learners to con-
sider the concepts of diminutive, augmentative, pejorative
and laudative and their interactions with each other, before
perhaps reflecting and reporting on examples in their own
languages. This would provide the empirical groundwork
and conceptual framework for an application of the same
approach into English.
A final way capitalises on names and titles. There is much
language work to be done in names in English (and their
differences with other names) such as male/female versions
of names, names that connote class or geographical origins,
and adjectives formed from names (Victorian era, Dickensian
poverty, Churchillian rhetoric). A lesson on names might
include nicknames formed through ‘-y’ addition, and as such
lead into other forms of the diminutive.
Concluding (self-referential) comments
And that’s a sketchette of diminutives and augmentatives
in English in all their uber-variety and complextasticness.
As an area of the English linguistic system, it may have
IATEFL Voices 265   13
Feature articles
been disregarded a tad and undertaught a touch, perhaps
because of the lack of systematicity that it seems to offer.
However, we hope in this article to have let a titbit of the
mega-complexity—and uberinterest—of this mini-domain
of the language to shine through just a smidgeon. It’s a
country mile from some of our staple fare (paragraph struc-
ture, tenses, consonant clusters and seminar skills) but no
less deserving of our, and our students’, time and attention.
Give it a go—you might just get a coupla laughs, or maybe
have a whole lotta fun.
efl.researcher.deak@gmail.com
Reference
Kirkham, D. 2018. ‘Linguistics and language teaching:
a case study of linguistically significant pedagogical
irrelevance’. Journal of Applied Languages and Linguistics
1/1: 5−16.

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 November–December 2018 Issue 265
Regular columns

World storytelling: Teaching the

tale
David Heathfield encourages learners to tell stories.
The comic Middle Eastern tale ‘The Fool and the Donkey’ is perfect On through the streets and David
for students to learn to tell kinaesthetically. Here is the transcription of on away from the town to Heathfield
David Heathfield telling the story, which you can listen to on YouTube his home went the fool. And is a freelance
storyteller
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMu9Ste_uqA. when he got to his home he
and teacher
turned and ... uhhh: ‘When I trainer. He is
The Fool and the Donkey bought you, you were a don- the author of
One morning, the fool woke up and he thought, ‘There is key. But now you’ve turned Storytelling
into a boy.’ With Our
one thing I need, I need a donkey.’
Students:
‘It’s true, I was a donkey Techniques for Telling Tales
So he left his home and walked until he came to the town.
when you bought me, but, from Around the World (DELTA
He came to the donkey stall. There were many donkeys. Publishing) and Spontaneous
Some were big and some were small. Some had long ears you see, before that I was a Speaking: Drama Activities for
and some very short. But among them there was one donkey boy. I was rude to my mother, Confidence and Fluency (DELTA
that had long, floppy, silky ears. and my mother said, ‘If you Publishing). He is also a member
are ever rude to me again may of The C Group.
‘This is the donkey for me.’ you be turned by the devil
into a donkey.’ And so it was. But now that you have bought
The fool paid the donkey stall holder and he led that
me, I am a boy once more and I belong to you.’
donkey tied by a rope away from the stall and through the
streets of the town, and there were two boys. ‘You belong to me?’ said the fool. ‘I cannot own a boy. Go,
go, but promise me this: when you go to your mother, do not
‘We can trick that donkey from that fool.’
be rude to her again.’
One boy went up and he took the rope from around the
The fool slept that night, and when he woke in the morn-
donkey’s neck and he put it around his own neck and fol-
ing he realised there was something he still needed ... He
lowed the fool, who didn’t even notice.
still needed a donkey. He went away from his home, taking
The other boy led the donkey back to the stall to sell it. his last few coins, and walked until he came to the town;

IATEFL Voices 265   15

Regular columns
through the streets he came until he came to the donkey
stall. And there were all those donkeys large and small, some
with larger ears than others. And among the donkeys he
noticed there was one donkey with long, floppy, silky ears.
He knew that donkey. He went over to it and he lifted its
ear and said: ‘You foolish boy, I said never be rude to your
mother again!’
A lesson plan
Preparation
It is a good idea to practise standing and acting out this tale physically
as you tell it to make the story learning process simpler for students.
After telling
It is likely that some students will have missed the punchline (this hap-
pens to me all the time) so you might ask ‘Was the boy ever a donkey?
Was the donkey ever a boy?’ (The answer in both cases is, of course,
‘no’—only in the fool’s mind is the answer ‘yes’.)
Invite a student who has a good grip of the story to join you and
act out the scene between the fool and the boy in front of the fool’s
house. The student can play the boy while you play the fool. Do not
stick word for word to the text of the story you have told, as long as
the main ideas are there. You may need to prompt the student from
within your role as fool if some key information is missed.
Invite all the students in pairs to act out the same scene (but not
chorally). The performances will, of course, be different from each
other in style, mood and physicality.
One volunteer pair can show their scene to the class. A task for
students watching is to give verbal feedback about one thing that
impresses them in the pair’s performance.
Stepping the story
In this physical approach to story-learning, pairs of students step
through the story, remembering it part by part. First create space in the
classroom. Model stepping the story with a confident student at your
side, arms linked by the elbow if possible. Together, remember and
retell the story. When you get to the end of the first part (what would
be the first paragraph if it were written down) take one step forward
together. Then remember the next part before taking a second step.
As they watch, the other students have the chance to hear the story a
second time and fix it in their memories. Go on to the end.
The students are now ready to step the story in pairs from the
start. The fact that they have acted out the scene between the fool
16  IATEFL Voices 265
and the boy before will make it easier for them to get to that part
and then recall it successfully. Remind students to take their time and
find the detail in the story and to be careful to avoid colliding with the
other stepping pairs. Each pair goes through the story with their own
rhythm. Be prepared to prompt pairs who lose track of the narrative.
Every pair of students will step through the story in their own way,
some talking together, others in turn, some asking and answering
each other, some as if ticking off items on a list, some miming actions.
When students have got to the moment when the boy leaves the
fool, bring them together and ask the students what they imagined as
they were stepping the story. Some have mental images of the land-
scape of the story as they step through it, some are actively involved
as characters in the story, some might even feel the heat and dust of a
desert landscape, even though you may not have described this.
Now elicit the end of the tale from the class as a whole.
Each student can now tell the story individually to a partner. A show
of hands will tell you which students feel most confident to tell the
story first and these students can pair with students who prefer to go
second, sitting face to face. Remind listeners to focus on the storytell-
ing supportively and to help the storytellers if they need prompting.
The listeners then have their turn as storyteller.
Extension
Encourage students to retell ‘The Fool and the Donkey’ to people they
know outside the class. This could be done in a carefully managed
way; for example, students visit another group of students in another
classroom and each finds a new partner, this time someone who
doesn’t already know the story, to tell it to. Additionally, this can be
set as an oral homework task: students tell family members or friends
outside class (and perhaps teach them some English at the same
time!). By this stage students are starting to innovate and ‘make the
story their own’.
Here is a group of international students learning to tell the
same story, also kinaesthetically but in a slightly different way:
https://youtu.be/9nVIZQOlm6M.
www.davidheathfield.co.uk
Find out more about IATEFL’s SIGs
If you would like more information about IATEFL’s Special Interest
Groups you can visit the website at http://www.iatefl.org/special-
interest-groups/sig-list or contact the coordinators of each group at
the relevant email address for details.
Business English – besig@iatefl.org
English for Specific Purposes – espsig@iatefl.org
English for Speakers of Other Languages – esolsig@iatefl.org
Global Issues – gisig@iatefl.org
Inclusive Practices & SEN SIG – ipsensig@iatefl.org
Leadership and Management – lamsig@iatefl.org
Learner Autonomy – lasig@iatefl.org
Learning Technologies – ltsig@iatefl.org
Literature – litsig@iatefl.org
Materials Writing – mawsig@iatefl.org
Pronunciation – pronsig@iatefl.org
Research – resig@iatefl.org
Teacher Development – tdsig@iatefl.org
Teacher Training and Education – ttedsig@iatefl.org
Testing, Evaluation and Assessment – teasig@iatefl.org
Young Learners and Teenagers – yltsig@iatefl.org
 November–December 2018 Issue 265
Materials reviews
Edited by Ruby Vurdien
In this issue of Voices the focus is on teacher development. David Rixham explores how Language Assessment
for Classroom Teachers can be beneficial to teachers in terms of implementing meaningful assessment in the
classroom. Nicky Hockly explains how Best Practices for Blended Learning provides a good starting point for
those wishing to incorporate blended learning in their courses. Hilary Livingston concludes that A Handbook
for Exploratory Action Research is helpful for teachers wanting to enhance their teaching skills. Peter Beech claims that the focal point of Second
Language Pragmatics is an examination of how second language learners acquire the ability to use language appropriately. Enjoy your reading!
Best Practices for Blended
Learning
Pete Sharma and Barney Barrett
Pavillion Publishing, 2018
254 pages
ISBN 978-1-911028-84-0
Blended learning is an area of growing
interest in ELT, for teachers, learners and
educational institutions. Aided by devel-
opments in technology and the increased
ubiquitousness of computers and mobile devices, blended learning
is part of the slow but inevitable trend towards the normalisation of
online learning in our field. As such, this is a timely publication. It not
only provides a clear account of what blended learning is, but also
suggests practical ideas for how to put it into practice.
The book is divided into three sections. Section 1 provides helpful
background information on blended learning, including a brief sum-
mary of research, a description of the main blended learning models
and a consideration of the challenges and success factors for blend-
ing. A framework for blended learning is described, and the various
technical options for providing out-of-class work are explored. This
first section also includes regular ‘Reflection’ boxes with questions that
invite the reader to think about the issues presented; these could be
useful for teacher development or teacher training. Section 2 consists
of practical ideas for blending the main components of language
learning (grammar, vocabulary, and the four skills), as well as ideas
for integrating games and projects, and assessment, into a blended
approach. Section 3 focusses on resources, including handy tips on
how to evaluate hardware and software for blending, tips for teacher
trainers, and suggestions of further resources to explore the topic. The
book also contains a number of photocopiable worksheets, suitable
for teacher training, and also for creating a blended English language
course.
Of particular interest is the ‘Blended Learning in action’ chapter in
Section 1, which provides ten case studies of how it has been imple-
mented in a range of ELT contexts. These contexts include blended
learning with young learners, university students and adults, and
cover both general and business English courses in several countries,
including Italy, Tunisia, Mozambique, Venezuela, Peru, Slovenia, Spain
and the UK.
Overall, this is an opportune and useful account of blended learn-
ing, suitable for teachers, trainers, academic directors and school
owners interested in the practical application of this increasingly
popular model of teaching and learning. It provides a good starting
Regular columns
Ruby Vurdien
manages White
Rose Language
School in Spain.
She has been an
EFL teacher for
over 30 years.
She is also a
teacher trainer
and a Cambridge
English Speaking Examiner. Her
research focuses on CALL.
point for those wishing to set up and run their own blended learning
English language courses.
Nicky Hockly
Director of Pedagogy, The Consultants-E
nicky.hockly@theconsultants-e.com
Language Assessment for
Classroom Teachers
Lyle Bachman and Barbara Damböck
Oxford University Press, 2017
289 pages
ISBN: 978-0-19-421839-9
Forming part of the Oxford Handbooks
series, Language Assessment for Class-
room Teachers aims to assist teachers
and trainees in their use of classroom-
based assessment by considering several key aspects resulting from
current theory and practice in the field. The authors refer to the need
for language assessment to be seen nowadays not so much as a means
of statistically analysing scores obtained in tests, but rather as a guiding
principle for establishing the beneficial consequences of assessment
for the stakeholders concerned. Teachers, students, parents and school
officials are all members of a socio-cultural context directly affected by
the assessment process.
The book comprises four parts. In Part 1 the authors put forward
the rationale for their approach to classroom-based assessment and
explain its application. Instruction is given on important formative and
summative decisions which will determine possible changes to the
focus of classroom teaching and whether objectives have been met.
Part 2 focuses on a systematic justification of the conceptual framework
involved; this is termed an assessment use argument (AUA). Questions
considering the consequences of assessing students, deciding when
to assess, interpreting test results and recording students’ perfor­mance
are examined in meticulous detail. Part 3 deals with the technical­-
ities of the approach’s practical application. By using the AUA, the
teacher is able to construct an assessment task template from which
target language use (TLU) tasks can be developed. Finally, Part 4
provides examples that illustrate the process described throughout
the book.
In line with our expectations of published material from this
bespoke series of teaching manuals, this book is rigorous in its main
endeavour. Classroom testing is scrutinised in such a way that teachers
following these guidelines will be able to see the use of assessment as
something purposeful, rather than a hit-and-miss activity which may
IATEFL Voices 265   17
Regular columns
lack direction and not necessarily help to readjust teaching methods
when required. The book’s underpinning lies in the above-mentioned
questioning process practitioners should focus on before deciding to
test their students. The activities included to facilitate this are designed
in such a way that teachers have at their fingertips an easily accessible
compendium which will provide them with useful advice on how to
implement meaningful assessment in the classroom.
David Rixham
EFL teacher, White Rose Language School, Valladolid, Spain
d29brett@gmail.com
A Handbook for Exploratory
Action Research
Richard Smith and Paula Rebolledo
British Council, 2018
115 pages
ISBN 978-0-86355-885-6
A Handbook for Exploratory Action
Research is an impressive resource for
any teacher who finds the thought of
‘academic’ research overwhelming or
daunting. This handbook is a ‘grassroots’
approach to research, born from a project developed for secondary
teachers in Chile in conjunction with the British Council and the
Chilean Ministry of Education. It uses the real-life classroom successes
and challenges experienced by the teachers involved in this ‘Champion
Teachers Action Research Project’, guiding the reader through the
steps of exploratory action research. The aim is to help teachers
develop professionally by first having them reflect on authentic class-
room experiences (‘explore’) and then using this information as the
basis for creating a research project (‘action’).
Written in an informal style, this book is well structured, effectively
guiding and inspiring the reader via a series of tasks to develop their
own action research project. The table of contents essentially outlines
the process of exploratory action research, starting with a reflection
on what goes on in the classroom and continuing through the process
to the final chapter, which discusses ways to disseminate research.
Colours, illustrations and a large font make this an easy and appealing
read, with many additional online sources referenced throughout for
those wanting further information. texts for pragmatic development is followed by a chapter on teaching
All in all, I consider this handbook my best find of the year. Its
concise and practical approach to classroom research is useful for any
teacher wanting to improve their teaching skills, and would be ideal for
anyone wishing to do some ‘kind of’ research but not knowing where
to start. As the authors state in the introduction, ‘We have deliberately
aimed for as non-academic an approach as possible to reflect the
idea that teacher-research is by teachers and for teachers and their
students, not needing to adhere to relatively dry or ‘academic’ norms
of presentation or to standards of rigour which are imposed from the
Materials to
If you are a publisher or author and wish to have a book or other resource reviewed, please do not
send the material but contact Reviews Editor Ruby Vurdien rubyvurdien@gmail.com with a blurb
review? or website link to the resource, and cc editor@iatefl.org.
Ruby will consider suitability and fit, and allocate a reviewer to whom the material should then be
sent directly. We look forward to hearing from you.
18  IATEFL Voices 265
outside.’ The result is an excellent, easy-to-use practical handbook for
teachers at all levels.
Hilary Livingston
CELTA, MEd. Curriculum Studies/TESL,
College of the North Atlantic Qatar 
hilary.livingston@cna-qatar.edu.qa
Second Language Pragmatics
Naoko Taguchi and Carsten Roever
Oxford University Press, 2017
336 pages
Paperback ISBN 978- 0194200558
This book is one of the latest in the excellent
Oxford Applied Linguistics series, which draws
on current research in the disciplines underpin-
ning language teaching and so provides a
strong theoretical base for our practice. This
volume comprises a comprehensive overview of interlanguage prag-
matics, which ‘has evolved as the field that investigates L2 learners’
ability to comprehend and perform pragmatic functions in a target
language and how that ability develops over time’ (p. 5).
For scholars new to the field, the opening chapter situates the area
of second language pragmatics within its broader context, distinguish-
ing cross-cultural, intercultural and interlanguage pragmatics. This is
complemented by a broad-based overview of the disciplinary domain
and history in Chapter 2. Given that second language pragmatics is
an interdisciplinary field involving the relationship between second
language acquisition research and general pragmatics, this chapter
provides an introduction to some key elements, including speech acts
and implicature, politeness in context and conversation analysis.
The book’s central focus is an exploration of how second language
learners acquire the ability to use language appropriately according to
the participants and social settings; besides teaching and learning, it is
also concerned with how this ability can be researched and assessed.
Chapters 3 and 4 cover, respectively, theoretical models of pragmatics
learning and development, and research methods in L2 pragmatics,
while the following two chapters focus on what learners have in
common in terms of their pragmatic development and the individual
characteristics that differentiate learners. A survey of the varying con-
and assessing L2 pragmatics. Apart from summarising recent research
findings, the authors conclude with a consideration of gaps in the
current literature in order to propose directions for future research.
This volume is designed to be useful to researchers, teachers,
teacher trainers and postgraduate students. As a thorough introduc-
tion to the field, it serves as an excellent starting point, and for readers
wishing to explore further there is a comprehensive list of references
spanning 36 pages.
Peter Beech
University of Nottingham Ningbo China
peter@peterbeech.com
 November–December 2018 Issue 265
Regular columns

A teacher's voice
Stephen Dodd shares his experiences with Project-Based Learning.

Why Project-Based Learning? Empirical studies (Astawa, Stephen

Artini and Nitiashi 2017) have Dodd is a
Project-Based Learning (PBL), defined simply as a learning strategy teacher with
shown that PBL can have a signifi-
which is organised around projects, has received a lot of attention 25 years’
cant beneficial effect on students’
recently. In our school we decided to roll out PBL due to a dissatisfac- teaching
productive English skills, and we experience. He
tion with the status quo in both teaching and learning. Students
feel that this is supported with holds an MA
were expressing dissatisfaction in their feedback—many made it very
our own hands-on experience of in Education
clear that they were tired of using a coursebook—and at the same Technology
using PBL so far. We have seen a
time, staff were becoming more reflective about their approaches to (TESOL) from the University of
sea change in how students feel
teaching. In fact, when teachers went off piste and stopped using the Manchester. He is currently director
about what they are learning. PBL of English in Liverpool, a private
coursebook, PBL seemed to come about in a natural way: students
is student-centred, it is flexible to school specialising in Project-Based
would nominate topics, decide what needed to be learnt and bring in
students’ actual language needs, Learning (PBL).
all manner of learning tools such as their own mobiles. This seemed to
it focusses on collaboration and
us to be PBL in action: from the students, for the students. Seeing such
digital literacy skills, and it is exciting! Students use their own phones
an enthusiasm for change, we knew we had to harness
to research a topic, record an interview and take notes,
this energy and formalise it.
and they sometimes even present their findings on their
How we use PBL own phones. No two projects will ever be the same
Our context is typical of many language schools in the
Seeing such an and so each one tries to cater for the group’s particular
UK, with students coming from abroad for what is enthusiasm needs; students report that they love presenting their
generally a two-week stay. They are usually young profes- for change, we findings, which is a key part of PBL. Essentially, they take
sionals who need English for their current or future jobs. knew we had ownership of their learning.
Most have a B1 level of English, but the level could be Admittedly there is a lot of groundwork to be done if
lower or indeed higher.
to harness this PBL is to be successful. We have found that the transition
Our projects last for a week and are set up by the energy and to PBL is not an insurmountable hurdle if it is approached
teacher. We use a project template to ensure that formalise it in the correct way by preparing students and teachers for
students know where they are going and what the the change slowly. We are proud at English in Liverpool
goals and objectives are. In terms of language input, to be offering this type of course. So far, the change has
the teacher first identifies language that the students been welcomed, and we are looking forward to experi-
are likely to need to complete the project. Then the teacher prepares menting more with PBL in 2019 when we will be running more courses
lessons that focus on the chosen areas, and students use the language from April onwards on a variety of topics for more language levels.
to try to complete the project work. This is the initial phase; in the next chitchat_73@hotmail.com
phase, the teacher monitors students as they work and feeds in bits of Reference
language to individual students when necessary. It can be hard to keep
Astawa, N. L. P. N. S. P., L. P. Artini and P. K. Nitiasih. 2017. ‘Project-
all students on track and invariably some students work harder than based learning activities and EFL students’ productive skills in English’.
others, but in small classes of about eight students this is not really an Journal of Language Teaching and Research 8/6: 1147−55.
issue for us.
Using PBL does not mean there is no scope for language work.
At any stage the teacher can (and does!) step in and stop the work
taking place in groups, revert to their traditional role and ‘teach’ the
group language which needs more explanation and practice. This has
the advantage of inputting new language that you know the students
actually need, when in so many schools the PPP model is common
regardless of current student knowledge.
Our results
PBL is a fresh challenge for the teachers who are willing to implement
Reading this online?
it, and with sufficient training and practice, our teachers have reported
You can choose the way you receive
feeling much more positive about what they are doing. Teachers
receive an intensive two-week training course which covers both the IATEFL Voices in the Members Area
theory and the practice of PBL in the form of workshops and talks;
Just log in at www.iatefl.org to change
most importantly, they shadow classes who are using PBL so they can
see how it works in practice.
your settings

IATEFL Voices 265   19

Inside IATEFL
Spotlight on Teacher
Development SIG
Teacher Development SIG (TDSIG) values our
history (we’re the oldest) and continues to
evolve with regard to who we are and how
we connect with teacher development issues
across our widely varying teaching contexts
(we’ve experienced enormous growth this year,
too). Let me explain.
Who we are
We provide a forum to develop our potential
as teachers, to cultivate our abilities to navi-
gate the challenges and successes of being a
teacher, and to invigorate satisfaction in our
ongoing work. With us, you can share your
experiences and learn from the experiences of
others. Our community encourages us all to
undertake activities that focus on personal and
professional development. We use our aims to
guide our approaches:
• to enable and encourage all teachers to take
responsibility for professional and personal
evolution throughout their careers;
• to promote individual and institutional
awareness of the importance of teacher
development; and
• to encourage the provision of facilities for
teacher development which do not already
exist.
Like most educators, we struggle with the
duality of value for membership and open
access resources, though I believe we mitigate
this challenge in a fair way. Having said this,
we continuously reflect on and re-evaluate
our choices as representatives of and from
feedback by our membership. While we seek
new ways to accomplish our three aims each
year, we currently offer the following initiatives.
Publications
Our publications team of Fiona Mauchline,
Adam Simpson, and Chris Farrell combine
efforts to curate and edit a diverse array of
print and digital media submissions from our
members, both past and present.
One mode for this showcases our past in
order to connect to our present. In April, we
released TDSIG Book 1: Early Selections, which
groups articles written for our newsletters back
in the day (1986−1992) into themes of ‘Teach-
ing in Context’, ‘Gender in ELT’, and ‘What is
20  IATEFL Voices 265
Harrison, Matthew Noble, Rich Portman, and
Christian Tiplady. While we actively update our
website as the hub of information about all our
initiatives, we try to interact and share teacher
development resources directly with our com-
munity through Facebook and Twitter. For
example, one of our recent post series shares
our list of open access journals. Beyond these,
our open access offerings include:
• Developod, the TDSIG Podcast: discussions
about ELT with a TD focus between members
and sometimes with well-known profession-
als. Recent episodes include a post-conference
interview with Adrian Underhill (Episode 4); a
review of being 2018 TDSIG scholarship
the point of TDSIG?’ among others. All current winner by Gerhard Erasmus (Episode 5); and
TDSIG members receive this in the mail while a member-driven look at catalytic concepts in
supplies last. In time for Liverpool, TDSIG Book TD (Episode 6). You can subscribe to Develo-
2, which draws on more recent articles, will pod wherever you get your podcasts or just
bridge our past and present. Our first trilogy taste it at bit.ly/developod.
will end with TDSIG Book 3 … but that one’s
still under wraps.
A second mode, our bimonthly eBulletin,
focuses on our present impacting our future
by examining timely themes. For example,
September was ‘TD plans: the months to
come’ as many of us entered new terms, while
November is ‘Experimental TD’ as we seek to
weave new threads into our practice. Featured
regions showcase issues that matter in differing
teaching contexts; September featured South/
East Asia, while November features South
America.
• TDLive: online community meetups to
synchronously chat with live guests about
different aspects related to teacher devel-
opment. We’ve talked with past TDSIG
Coordinator extraordinaire Sinéad  Laffan
about what we do (Live #1); explored the
benefits of reflective teaching (Live #3); and
most recently had an in-depth discussion
on TD during short courses (Live #4). Watch
For more detailed information on contribut-
ing, please visit tdsig.org/publications.
Online community
Likely our most obvious presence is through
our online community team, consisting of Mike
 November–December 2018 Issue 265
recordings at bit.ly/tdsiglive or experience
these live by liking us on Facebook.
• Web Carnival: our
annual online month-
long event, uniting
stories from members
and non-members
alike through the-
matically connected
blog posts, short
videos, audio clips, and a culminating live
series of webinars. Contrasting with 2017’s
‘learning when the wheels fall off’, this past
February, we looked at success stories of
teacher development and what led to these
successes. To see what we mean, browse
through tdsig.org/webcarnival for inspiration
on contributing next year.
Outreach and collaboration
Cecilia Lemos and Angelos Bollas strive to
foster connections with IATEFL Associates and
other local teaching organisations to bring
together face-to-face opportunities. As a char-
ity, not a product sponsor, we support these
connections through event brainstorming and
co-organisation, promotion, and—if we’re
very lucky—an extra pair of hands on-site. In
Focus on the SIGs
Learning Technologies SIG
The Learning Technologies SIG is always on the
forefront of promoting good uses of technol-
ogy and offering its members and friends
professional development opportunities in cut-
ting edge research and practice. Why don’t you
try to join one or more of the events we have
planned? We are hard at work organising:
• An online conference on Artificial Intelligence
and its role in English Language Teaching,
Learning and Assessment. Artificial Intel-
ligence is already a part of our daily lives
and there are some serious questions to
be considered as to whether and how it
can help in the classroom. Come join us on
Friday 9 November 2018 at 1pm GMT. For
more information, visit https://ltsig.iatefl.org/
the-role-of-artificial-intelligence-ai-in-english-
language-teaching-learning-and-assessment-
either-friend-or-foe/.
• Our strand at International House Barcelona
ELT conference (8−9 Feb 2019). Five expert
Inside IATEFL
May 2018, we teamed up with ELT Ireland
for an event on tackling the four big chal-
lenges of teacher development: engagement,
usefulness, visibility and sustainability. TDSIG
members attended at a discounted rate.
Finally, continuing with our recent tradition
of collaborative IATEFL Pre-Conference Events
(2017 with Learning Technologies SIG; 2018
with Leadership and Management SIG), you
may have noticed our upcoming collaboration
with the amazing Global Issues SIG, where we
will examine the question ‘Are you a social
justice warrior?’ by ‘exploring the ifs, whys,
and hows of social justice in our practice’. In
Tyson Seburn
anticipation of this event, we’ll examine the
connotations of this question and how this
topic appeals to teacher development and
identity. The event itself promises to dig deeply
into this highly engaging and timely topic
through a diverse set of short talks, Q&As,
and ample participant-driven open-space dis-
cussions (in true TDSIG fashion). For more
information, please visit tdsig.org/pce.
Tyson Seburn
TDSIG Coordinator
tdsig@iatefl.org
travel grant to a lucky LTSIG member to help
them to offset their conference expenses.
• Our IATEFL pre-conference event in Liverpool
on the theme of Feedback in a Digital Age.
No matter what age group you teach, you
want to provide your students with effective,
engaging and timely feedback. So come
and join us on 1 April 2019 to learn and
experience hands-on how to increase choice,
engagement and flexibility. Our opening ple-
nary speaker, Russell Stannard, is particularly
known for his work and research into using
technology to provide feedback to students.
The rest of the lineup will be announced
soon. There is also a travel grant of £300 for
a lucky LTSIG member to attend the event.
So stay tuned, check out our social media
channels and website and try to arrange your
plans so that we get together somewhere
around the world at an LTSIG event.
speakers will comprise our lineup and LTSIG
Sophia Mavridi
members will be able to attend the confer-
Coordinator
ence at a discounted rate. We will also offer a
ltsig@iatefl.org
IATEFL Voices 265   21
Inside IATEFL
Global Issues SIG
PCE, Liverpool
GISIG is jointly running their PCE in Liverpool
2019 with TDSIG. A number of speakers are
confirmed, and a call for proposals has been
put out to members of both SIGs for the
remainder. The final line up of presenters was
announced in mid-September.
International Museum of Slavery
conference collaboration
As part of the activities planned for the Liv-
erpool conference, GISIG is hoping to liaise
with the International Museum of Slavery and
The No Project to raise awareness of slavery,
past and present. Initial discussions have been
positive, and the next step is to agree on activi-
ties that are engaging, relevant and easy to
organise, given space limitations and logistical
considerations.
ELTA-Guinea Bissau/GISIG special edition
newsletter
Linda Ruas, Publications Coordinator, has been
working on a joint newsletter with ELTA-Guinea
Bissau. This special edition of the newsletter
reflects GISIG’s on-going involvement with
African TAs and represents an opportunity to
highlight teachers’ issues in Guinea Bissau and
other countries in the region. The newsletter
was published in September.
Special Days lesson plans publication
GISIG member Margarita Kosior has been
busy curating a collection of lesson plans from
the Special Days page of the GISIG website.
When ready, this extremely useful resource
will provide a wealth of ready-made lesson
plan ideas for teachers to use in class, related
to special days on the calendar, such as World
Day of Social Justice (20 February) and World
Humanitarian Day (19 August).
Julietta Schoenmann
Joint Coordinator
gisig@iatefl.org
Teacher Training and Education
SIG
TTEdSIG has two pieces of exciting news to
share: the first is about new members who
have joined the team, and the other is about
the PCE in 2019 that we are organising with
BESIG.
Back in July, we advertised for new commit-
tee members to allow the TTEdSIG committee
to reach its members using different channels.
We were fortunate enough to attract the
attention of several members who showed an
interest in volunteering. As a result, five new
members joined our team at the end of July:
22  IATEFL Voices 265
• Publicity Coordinator: Matthew Ellman
• Membership Coordinator: Bahar Gun
• Webinar Manager: Lucy Pereira
• Discussion list moderator: Ozlem Zengin
• Treasurer: Adam Bandstra
You can find more detailed information
about the committee members’ roles and back-
grounds at https://ttedsig.iatefl.org/about.html.
We have developed the abstract for our
Liverpool PCE 2019, held jointly with BESIG.
Next year’s PCE is entitled ‘Training (Business)
English teachers to prepare learners for modern
workplaces: integration of soft skills’. We are
planning an interactive day dedicated to the
practical and practice-based needs of trainers
and teacher educators. Sessions will be led
by experienced practitioners who will offer
hands-on activities while actively involving
participants. For more information, please visit
https://conference.iatefl.org/pce_betted and
register. We have limited availability.
We are looking forward to seeing you in
Liverpool!
Burcu Tezcan-Unal
Coordinator
ttedsig@iatefl.org
Research SIG
On 8−9 June 2018 the Research SIG held the
fourth annual ‘Teachers Research!’ conference
at  Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, Turkey.
This conference brought teacher-researchers
together to share their ideas. For more details,
please visit http://resig.weebly.com/teachers-
research-istanbul-2018.html.
Right after this event, an online discussion
was held via our Yahoo group, which now has
over 800 participants, to continue discussing
issues that had arisen from the conference.
For more details, visit http://resig.weebly.com/
online-discussions.html.
On 13 August 2018, ReSIG organised a
Quick Fire MA Presentation event at the Uni-
versity of Warwick which brought MA students
from several UK universities together to share
their MA dissertation work. For more details
visit http://resig.weebly.com/the-ma-elt-quick-
fire-presentation-event-2018.html.
In August, ReSIG launched a call to submit
short accounts of teacher research experiences
to be compiled in a publication. This promising
project is moderated by our outreach coordina-
tors, Elena Oncevska Ager and Loreto Aliaga.
For more details on this initiative, please visit
http://resig.weebly.com/this-month.html.
On 5 November, Emily Edwards (co-editor of
our newsletter) will give a webinar on ‘Action
research: collecting and analysing data’. The
webinar will be of particular interest to teachers
who are preparing to conduct action research
for the first time.
In April 2019, ReSIG will be holding its PCE
in Liverpool. The focus is on communicating
and learning from teacher research and will be
organised around poster presentations and two
plenary presentations. Dr Anne Burns will talk
about ‘Possible ways that academic research
could be communicated to teachers’, and Dr
Richard Smith will discuss ‘Potential oppor-
tunities for academics to learn from teacher
research’. We invite proposals for poster pre-
sentations from teachers actively engaged in
research; from research mentors who support
teachers in doing research; and from academics
who might like to share what and how they
learn from teacher research.
We offer ReSIG members a scholarship to
attend/present at the event (£200 for travel
and expenses, and free registration). For further
details please visit our website.
Ana Inés Salvi and Kenan Dikilitaş
Joint Coordinators
resig@iatefl.org
Materials Writing SIG         
Annual conference, Oxford, 22–23 June
2018
MaWSIG and Oxford Brookes University joined
forces to curate a two-day face-to-face confer-
ence called ‘Materials writing: opportunities
and challenges’. Our main themes were: get-
ting started with materials writing, the exciting
new directions ELT materials will take in the
future, and innovative ways to tackle chal-
lenges that can occur in the materials creation
process. A full write-up of the event will be
available to MaWSIG members in our annual
ebook.
Liverpool 2019 PCE competition
We are running a competition with the Global
Issues SIG called ‘Cinema inspirations’. Submit
an ELT lesson plan based on a film related to
global issues, and you could win free entry to
the MaWSIG or GISIG 2019 PCE in Liverpool!
Full details are on the GISIG website at http://
gisig.iatefl.org/resources/cinema-inspirations/
cinema-inspirations-competition.
MaWSIG ‘What about ...?’ webinar series
MaWSIG is organising a series of monthly
webinars: the ‘What about ...?’ series. Each
webinar will be led by an expert or experts
in specific aspects of materials writing. Brian
Tomlinson gave the first webinar entitled ‘What
about principles for materials development?’
on 8 September 2018.
 November–December 2018 Issue 265
SIG personnel changes
MaWSIG recently welcomed Fiona Mauchline
as new Joint Events Coordinator. She takes
over from Phil Bird, who helped to organise
several MaWSIG events.
Membership perks
Two new perks for MaWSIG members are:
SIG webinar reviews
Assessment methods: the
pros and cons and associated
challenges
Charalambos Kollias
Testing, Evaluation and Assessment SIG
Building a test can deceive us teachers into
thinking that it is a simple task. This, as we
sooner or later may come to find out, is not
so. Charalambos Kollias, in his 11 Septem-
ber webinar, took us on a journey through
the complexities of classifying and designing
response items.
As part of assessment methods, item types
and response types play a fundamental role
in the accurate assessment of language skills.
As a highly experienced and passionate lan-
guage assessment specialist, Charalambos
amply detailed the different types of response
types—selected, constructed and extended
responses—and their different expressions.
While detailing the pros and cons in a logi-
cal sequence, he guided us through these
concepts and tactfully stopped at different
points in his expedition to help us question
ourselves and reflect on whether each type
really enables learners to ‘perform to the best
of their abilities’.
In giving webinars, instructors or experts
always seem to strive for the right balance
between being entertaining and educational,
and they often fail to achieve it. This was not
Inside IATEFL
• 15 months’ membership of the Society of
Authors (https://www.societyofauthors.org/)
for the price of 12 months.
• A 50 per cent discount on a subscription
to Text Inspector (https://textinspector.com/),
the web tool allowing you to analyse the
difficulty level of texts in English.
the case in this session. While the Lancaster
University expert encouraged us to take into
considerations many aspects we may not con-
template when test-building, he did so in a
natural manner which at times resembled a
casual chat on a college campus.
I would fully commit to being on the
lookout for more of his webinars. He has truly
depicted some of the scenarios we face, some
of the questions we ask and some of the
responses we seek.
Samuel Benitez
samueltareas@gmail.com
What about principles for
materials development?
Brian Tomlinson
Materials Writing SIG
Brian Tomlinson’s webinar on Saturday 8 Sep-
tember was well attended and provided novices
and experts alike a welcome opportunity to
hone their knowledge on some of the basic
principles underlying materials development.
Participants came away from the experience
ready to jump back into their projects with a
fresh eye and renewed enthusiasm.
His hour-long session hit on some key
notions, including the importance of the
authenticity, quantity, quality and variety of the
multi-modal input our learners are exposed
to via the materials we develop. The constant
recycling of content—the lack of which is a
To access these discounts, simply send an
email to mawsig@iatefl.org and request the
discount codes.
Alex Popovski
Coordinator
mawsig@iatefl.org
common critique of coursebooks—is crucial,
as is the need for the input couched in our
materials to be meaningful to our learners’
lives, to ‘speak to them’. Input must be not
only comprehensible and contextualised, says
Tomlinson, but also fully embodied—a notion
this reviewer too often neglects: it is not only
the words and sentences our learners read and
hear, but also all of the extralinguistic informa-
tion (intonation, volume, repetition, sensory
associations) accompanying contextualised
language, that enable learners to progressively
integrate what they take in.
He advocates for the inclusion of task-free
activities, whereby he begins a lesson with
some input requiring nothing on the part
of the learner: the teacher reads a poem,
cracks a joke or tells a story, for example,
providing material which learners can archive
in a notebook and revisit at their leisure. This
massively increases exposure and creates an
affective link between the human beings we all
are, one which transcends the basic learner−
teacher relationship. He also shared with us
his conviction that emotional involvement in
the materials used—a text, for example, that
makes them laugh, or one that triggers feel-
ings of empathy or outrage—is key to learners’
involvement and, hence, to their learning.
All in all, it was an exciting and engaging
webinar, the first in a series that promises to
get all members who are interested in materi-
als writing back into the swing of things this
autumn.
Chad Langford
chad.langford@univ-lille.fr
IATEFL Voices 265   23
Inside IATEFL
From the Associates
IATEFL’s Associates Representative, Lou McLaughlin, brings Associate news.
This issue contains some event reports directly from the Associates themselves, providing insight into what other
TAs do.
We would love to share your news, so please get in touch with reports on your events which have taken place.
Please send your reports to associaterep@iatefl.org.
Report from Ghana
Accra GATE: Annual Regional Delegates Conference, Ghana
Association of Teachers of English
By Isaiah Adzigodi
Our annual conference was held
on 15 and 29 March 2018,
for Basic and Secondary School
Teachers respectively. The theme
was ‘Equipping the English
language teacher for quality
teaching’. The event brought
together over 500 participants to
experience two days of learning,
networking, knowledge-sharing
and problem-solving.
At the Basic session, the keynote address was by Otor Plahar from the Ministry
of Education. The Director of Basic Education, Margaret Okai, underscored the
relevance of Basic Education in the formative years of young learners. In other
sessions, delegates learned about CV writing and the need for professional
development. A co-compiler of the Cock Crow, the core Literature book for junior
high schools, encouraged members to develop a love for literature and to guide
their students to do the same.
At the Secondary session, keynote speaker Evelyn Kwarko indicated the readi-
ness of the Ghana Education Service to support teachers in improving teaching
and learning. Delegates enjoyed sessions on summary writing, proposal writing,
the services provided by the British Council, and the need to think creatively.
At both sessions, president Isaiah Adzigodi led members through the chal-
lenges encountered in bringing the Accra GATE to its current vibrant state. He
charged members to be more committed to the interests of GATE and their profes-
sional development, and he requested more resources for our schools and more
attention paid to teacher welfare. A number of resolutions were passed relating to
these matters. Participants left for their respective destinations well equipped with
the tools needed for improving the quality of teaching English in schools in Ghana.
Contact Isaiah K. Adzigodie, myisaiah20@gmail.com, for further information.
24  IATEFL Voices 265
Lou McLaughlin,
Associates Representative
Report from India
ELTAI Tirupati Chapter—6th Annual
International Conference 2018
By Dr. G. Reddi Sekhar Reddy
ELTAI’s conference, ‘Recent trends and innovative practices
in teaching English language and literature’, was held on 16
and 17 February 2018 in association with Chdalawada Rama-
namma Engineering College, Tirupati. The prime objective of
the convention was to provide an international platform for
English educators and research scholars aspiring to be Eng-
lish educators, and to acquaint delegates with recent trends
and innovative practices in teaching English language and
literature. The conference attracted 190 participants from 15
states of India and from outside the country.
The keynote speaker, Professor D. S. Kesava Rao, spoke
on ‘Dynamic Assessment: a viable and better alternative’.
Plenary speakers covered a variety of themes: Sri Dhanappa
M Metri spoke about self-directed professional development
for English teachers; Professor Madhuranthakam Narendra
focused on innovative methods to teach literature; Dr G.
Reddi Sekhar Reddy strove to build confidence among
teachers with his pragmatic observations on the challenges
English teachers are facing; and Professor M. A. K. Sukumar
took the delegates to the world of Shakespeare with his
lecture on how literary texts can be used for better facilita-
tion and professional development.
A further 180 research papers on recent trends and
innovative practices were presented. The event witnessed
more challenges than opportunities, indicating the need for
professional excellence. However, technology-enabled Eng-
lish language learning was accepted as an opportunity to
enhance the quality of English teaching. Selected qualitative
papers were published in the conference proceedings and
the Journal of English Language and Literature.
Dr G. Reddi Sekhar Reddy, Secretary Tirupati Chapter
and Director of the Conference, stated in his conference
report that the chapter is going from strength to strength.
Delegates agreed that they had had a wonderful oppor-
tunity to listen, interact and share information related to
various recent advancements and innovative practices in
teaching.
The chapter announced its intention to publish the suc-
cess stories/outcomes of the meet in the October 2018 issue
of ELT@I Tirupati Chapter Journal of English Language and
Literature (ETCJELL).
 November–December 2018 Issue 265
Inside IATEFL

Coming events
2018
November
7−10 Democratic Republic of the Congo
Class International Annual Conference, Kinshasa
‘The future of ELT, ESP and the role of English education in the
development of a nation: an implication in peace building’
10 Czech Republic
IATEFL IPSENSIG at the 23rd P.A.R.K. Conference, Brno
Event link: http://secure.iatefl.org/events/event.php?id=163
16−18 Romania
31st IATEFL BESIG Annual Conference, Iaşi
‘Exploring the frontiers of business English’
Event link: http://besig.iatefl.org/event/iasi/
23 Germany
IATEFL LASIG Conference with University of Duisburg-Essen,
Essen
‘Reforming the foreign language classroom; empowering students to take
ownership’
Event link: http://secure.iatefl.org/events/event.php?id=139
23−26 Japan
JALT 2018 44th Annual International Conference on
Language Teaching and Learning, and Educational Materials
Exhibition, Shizuoka
‘Diversity and inclusion’
Event link: https://jalt.org/conference/jalt2018
February
23−24 Greece
TESOL Macedonia-Thrace, Northern Greece 26th Annual
International Conference
‘Hands on: Solving classroom issues’
June
21−22 Montenegro
ELTAM Montenegro First International Conference
‘Empowering 21st-century leaners and educators: meeting challenges,
exploring solutions’
The most up to date version of the calendar can be found on our website
www.iatefl.org/associates/associate-events
and http://secure.iatefl.org/events/
Submissions for the calendar are welcome and should be sent to
membership@iatefl.org. Submissions should follow the format in the
calendar above, and should include submission deadlines for papers for
potential presenters.
So that we receive your announcements in time, please check Voices
(p. 1) for the copy deadline and the publication month of each issue.

2019
January
18−19 Thailand
Thailand TESOL 39th International Conference 2019,
Bangkok
‘Changes and chances in ELT’
Event link: http://tesol.conferences.in.th/

DON’T FORGET

iatefl
LIVERPOOL
2019

2–5 April 2019

53rd Annual International
IATEFL Conference and Exhibition
Arena and Convention Centre (ACC),
Kings Dock, Liverpool, UK
Pre-conference events 1 April 2019
See https://conference.iatefl.org/
for more information and
important deadlines

IATEFL Voices 265   25

Inside IATEFL

Who’s who in IATEFL

Patron: Professor David Crystal, OBE, FBA BESIG editorial team: Roy Bicknell (Editor-in-chief) Membership officer and Blog editor:  
roy.bicknell@besig.org and Lynn Nikkanen Micol Beseghi
Advisory Council Webinar organiser: Giovanna Tassinari  
As Patron: David Crystal
English for Speakers of Other Languages Giovanna.Tassinari@fu-berlin.de
As Editor of the ELTJ: Dr Alessia Cogo (ES(O)L) Social media manager and newsletter editor:
Individual members: Amos Paran, Roy Cross, https://iateflesolsig.wordpress.com Djalal Tebib vis_oe@hotmail.fr
Adrian Underhill, Catherine Walter,   Joint Coordinators: Lesley Painter-Farrell and   Newsletter editors: Irena Šubic Jeločnik and
Johannes Wassenberg Oya Karabetca esolsig@iatefl.org Michelle Tamala
Newsletter editor: Oya Karabetca Newsletter editor and website organiser:
Board of Trustees Reviews editor: Lesley Painter-Farrell Lawrie Moore
President: Margit Szesztay president@iatefl.org Committee members: Pauline Blake-Johnston, Reviews and Reflections editor: Diane Malcolm
Vice President: Harry Kuchah Kuchah   Janet Golding, Roshii Jolly (co-opted), Mike Chick dianelm@gmail.com
vp@iatefl.org (co-opted) and Caroline Okerika Treasurer: Fumiko Murase
Treasurer: Colin MacKenzie treasurer@iatefl.org
Secretary: Ros Wright
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Leadership and Management (LAM)
Membership & Marketing Committee Chair: https://espsig.iatefl.org https://lamsig.iatefl.org
Mojca Belak mmcom@iatefl.org Coordinator: Aysen Guven espsig@iatefl.org Coordinator: Andy Hockley lamsig@iatefl.org
SIG Representative: Judith Mader   Joint Events and Communications officer: Newsletter editor: Loraine Kennedy
sigrep@iatefl.org Caroline Hyde-Simon and Agnieszka Dudzik kennedyloraine00@gmail.com
Associates Representative: Lou McLaughlin Journal editor-in-chief: Mark Krzanowski Secretary: Jenny Johnson   
associaterep@iatefl.org markkski2@gmail.com jennyjohnson.btn@gmail.com
Digital Committee Chair: Shaun Wilden Public Relations and Scholarship Manager: Website coordinator: Andy Hockley  
digitalchair@iatefl.org Albena Stefanova lamsig@iatefl.org
Web manager: Semih Irfaner Committee members: Marina Gonzalez,  
Committee Members George Pickering, and Josh Round 
Associates: Lou McLaughlin (Chair),   Global Issues (GI)
Natalie Chambers, Nazli Gungor,   gisig.iatefl.org Literature (Lit)
Marta Bujakowska Joint coordinators: Chris Sowton and   https://litsig.weebly.com
Conference: Margit Szesztay (Chair),   Julietta Schoenmann gisig@iatefl.org Coordinator: Rob Hill litsig@iatefl.org
Louise Atkins, Angelos Bollas, Jon Burton,   Discussion list moderator: Iqbal Dhudhra Events coordinator: Eveline Reichel
Alison Medland, Sarah Mount, Leanne Smith, Discussion list animator: Bill Templer   Advisory Board Member: Alan Pulverness
Sarah Ward and Daniel Xerri templerbill@gmail.com apulverness@TransformELT.com
Digital: Shaun Wilden (Chair), Louise Atkins,   Event organisers: Leonor Marin and Julie Pratten Social media coordinator: Christien van Gool
Heike Philp, Syke Annamma Kumaran,  
Membership and social networks: Vacancy cmmhvangool@planet.nl
Mercedes Viola, Maria-Araxi Sachpazian
Publications Coordinator: Linda Ruas and   Treasurer: Amos Paran amosiatefl@gmail.com
Finance: Colin MacKenzie (Chair),  
Karsten Gramkow, Emily Gross, Wayne Rimmer, Rose Aylett (co-opted) Webmaster: Malu Sciamarelli
Lizzie Wojtkowska-Wright Materials/Publications Coordinator: Vacancy Newsletter Editor & Academic Journal Editor:
Membership & Marketing: Mojca Belak (Chair), Newsletter editor: Stella Smyth Chris Klein-Wolf
Natalie Chambers, Gerhard Erasmus,   Social media coordinator: Gergő Fekete Advisory Board Member & Academic journal
Anthony Gaughan, Nicola Perry Issues Month Coordinator: Dragana Stegic co-editor: Carel Burghout echidna2@xs4all.nl
Publications: Harry Kucha Kuchah (Chair),   Webmaster: László Hajba hajba.laszlo@icloud.com Learning Technologies (LT)
Eleanor Baynham, Roy Bicknell, Vicky Saumell Advisory committee: Dennis Newson,   https://ltsig.iatefl.org
Scholarship Committee: Maureen McGarvey Wolfgang Ridder and Margit Szesztay
(Chair), Ben Beaumont, Eryl Griffiths,   Coordinator: Sophia Mavridi sophia@ltsig.org.uk
Amos Paran, Adrian Tennant, Sarah Ward Inclusive Practices & SEN (IPSEN) Newsletter editor: Graham Stanley
Voices Editor: Tania Pattison editor@iatefl.org https://ipsen.iatefl.org Treasurer: Vicky Saumell treasurer@ltsig.org.uk
Conference Selections Editor: Tania Pattison Coordinator: Varinder Unlu ipsensig@iatefl.org Social Media Manager: Raquel Rebeiro
cseditor@iatefl.org Joint events coordinators: Anette Igel and   Events Organiser: Nikola Fortova  
IATEFL Representative on the ELTJ panel: Anne Margaret Smith events@ltsig.org.uk
Shelagh Rixon Membership coordinator: Jana Jilkova Development Administrator:  
IATEFL Representative on the ELTJ Newsletter editor: Rachael Harris Christina Giannikas Koutinas  
Management Board: Catherine Walter Secretary: Rom Neves christina.giannikas@cut.ac.cy
Social media coordinator: Carina Ruttinger Website editors: Phil Longwell
Special Interest Groups (SIGs) Committee member: Roseli Serra
Treasurer: Phil Dexter
Business English (BE) Web manager: Sharon Noseley-Kallandzhs Materials Writing (MaW)
www.besig.org https://mawsig.iatefl.org
Learner Autonomy (LA)
Joint Coordinators: Evan Frendo and   Coordinator: Aleksandra Popovski  
Dana Poklepovic besig@iatefl.org lasig.iatefl.org
mawsig@iatefl.org
Development and administration coordinator: Coordinator, PCE and LASIG Showcase
organiser: Christian Ludwig lasig@iatefl.org Deputy Publications coordinator: Penny Hands
Andrzej Stesik andrzej.stesik@besig.org
PCE organisers: Leni Dam lenidam@hotmail.com Joint Events coordinators: Katherine Bilsborough,
Event coordinator: Helen Strong   Clare Maas claremmaas@gmail.com and  
helen.strong@besig.org and Lienhard Legenhausen
Fiona Mauchline
Newsletter editor: Chris Stanzer   LASIG Showcase and local events organiser:
Anja Burkert anja.burkert@aon.at Publications coordinator: James Styring
chris.stanzer@besig.org jamesstyring@yahoo.co.uk
Treasurer: Steve Miller steve.miller@besig.org Local events organiser: Katja Heim
Technology and social media coordinator:
Website coordinator and BESIG online team Publications officer: Jo Mynard  
Jennifer Dobson
coordinator: Rob Howard and Oksana Hera jomynard@gmail.com
Strategy and finance coordinator:  
BESIG online team: Grace Alchini, Kirsten Blog editor and LASIG Showcase organiser:
Lewis Lansford lewis.lansford@mac.com
Wäachter, Mercedes Viola, Oksana Hera,   Sandro John Amendolara
Web coordinator: Nicholas Tims 
Rob Howard, Sue Annan

26  IATEFL Voices 265

 November–December 2018 Issue 265
Pronunciation (Pron)
https://pronsig.iatefl.org
Coordinator: Catarina Pontes pronsig@iatefl.org
Journal editor: Gemma Archer speakout@iatefl.
org
Events organiser: Tatiana Skopintseva
Finance officer: Piers Messum
Members-at-large: Jonathan Marks, Jane Setter
and Robin Walker
Webmaster: Alex Selman
Facebook and webinar coordinator: vacancy
Research (Res)
resig.weebly.com
Joint coordinators: Kenan Dikilitaş and Ana Ines
Salvi resig@iatefl.org
Development officer: Christina Gkonou cgkono@
essex.ac.uk
E-news editors and Governance and Records
officer: Nicola Perry nicolaperry57@hotmail.com
Event coordinator: Barbara Roosken   Member without portfolio: Dave Allan
b.roosken@fontys.nl  dave@nile-elt.com
Membership coordinator: Rob Cooper
PCE organiser: Yasmin Dar yd19@leicester.ac.uk
Newsletter editors: Mark Wyatt   Acting Coordinator: Burcu Tezcan Unal
wyatt_mark@yahoo.com, Amol Padwad
(co-opted) Dario Luis Banegas (co-opted) and
Emily Edwards (co-opted)
Outreach coordinators: Elena Oncevska Ager
elena.oncevska@gmail.com and     Linda James
Loreto Aliaga Salas
Publications officer and treasurer:  
Sian Etherington s.etherington@salford.ac.uk
Membership and Scholarships coordinator:
Larysa Sanotska 
Web and digital media manager:   adam.bandstra@ieu.edu.tr
Ernesto Vargas Gil
Online discussion and board moderator: Chris
Banister
Teacher Development (TD)
https://tdsig.org
Coordinator: Tyson Seburn tdsig@iatefl.org
Online team: Michael Harrison mjah84@gmail.com
and Tyson Seburn
Bulletin editors: Adam Simpson   omissions in these listings.
adams@sabanciuniv.edu and Fiona Mauchline
Inside IATEFL
Book editor: Chris Farrell
F2F events coordinator: Angelos Bollas
Associate liaison: Cecilia Lemos
Online community team: Christian Tiplady,
Matthew Noble, Rich Portman
Testing Evaluation and Assessment (TEA)
https://tea.iatefl.org
Joint Coordinators: Ceyda Mutlu & Neil Bullock
teasig@iatefl.org
Events coordinator: Mehtap Ince   Social media coordinator: Dirk Lagerwaard
mehtappince@gmail.com
Newsletter editor: Maggi Lussi Bell  
teasigeditor@iatefl.org
Social media manager: Vacancy
Webmaster: Thom Kiddle thom@nile-elt.com
Webinar team: Neil Bullock teasig@iatefl.org and
Sharon Hartle sharonhartle@yahoo.it
Membership coordinator: Mehvar Ergun Turkkan
mehvare@hotmail.com
Teacher Training and Education (TTEd)
https://ttedsig.iatefl.org
ttedsig@iatefl.org
Events officer: Birsen Tutunis
Discussion list moderator: Ozlem Zengin
ozlemzngin@gmail.com
Newsletter editor: Jennifer Book  
j.b.book@sussex.ac.uk
Publicity and membership managers:   info@iatefl.org or telephone +44 (0)1795 591414
Matt Ellman mellman@cambridge.org and  
Bahar Gun bahar.gun@ieu.edu.tr
Treasurer: Adam Bandstra   Trustees and Committee Members can be contacted by
Webinar manager: Lucy Pereira  
lucy.pereira@ieu.edu.tr
Webmaster: Kalyan Chattopadhyay
Young Learners and Teenagers (YLT)
https://yltsig.iatefl.org
Coordinator: David Valente yltsig@iatefl.org
Publications editor: Amanda Davies  
ylteditor@iatefl.org
Joint events coordinators: Lia Testa Teismann
and Leticia Moraes yltsigevents@iatefl.org
Online events coordinator (webinars):  
Joan Kang Shin jshin23@gmu.edu
Online events coordinator (web conference):
Sinem Daridere yltsigonline@iatefl.org
Public relations coordinator: Bruno Andrade
yltsigpr@iatefl.org
Business development coordinator:  
Simon Pounder yltsigbdo@iatefl.org
Web coordinator: Dave Dodgson
Head Office
Chief Executive: Jon Burton
Deputy Chief Executive: Louise Atkins
Finance Officer: Emily Gross
Conference Organiser: Alison Medland
Deputy Conference Organiser: Sarah Ward
Sponsorship and Exhibition Officer:  
  Leanne Smith
Membership Officer: Natalie Chambers
SIGs and Publications Officer:  
  Eleanor Baynham
Key Administrator: Katy Suckling
Finance and General Administrator:  
Head Office staff can be contacted via email
emailing info@iatefl.org
The Editor of Voices can be contacted by post at
IATEFL 2–3 The Foundry, Seager Road, Faversham, Kent
ME13 7FD or by email at editor@iatefl.org
Administrative staff, SIG Coordinators and Local
Associations can be contacted directly at the addresses
above and below.
In a large organisation like IATEFL people are always on
the move and contact details can rapidly become out of
date. Please email info@iatefl.org if you find any errors or

Associates  (as of October 2018) BETA (Bolivia) ELTA (Serbia)

http://www.elta.org.rs
BETA (Bulgaria)
Associates are now listed by name with ATEF (Finland) www.beta-iatefl.org ELTA/GB (Guinea-bissau)
web contact details only. In cases where http://www.suomenenglanninopettajat.fi BNTEA (Benin) eltagb1.wixsite.com/elta-gb
Associates were in the process of signing www.bntea.org ELTABB (Germany)
or renewing their Associate agreements ATEI (Iceland)
www.ki.is/feki BRAZ-TESOL (Brazil) www.eltabb.com
at the time of printing their names may
not appear in the list below. In case of ATEL (Lebanon) www.braztesol.org.br ELTAF (Germany)
doubt please contact IATEFL Head Office. www.atel-lb.org CAMELTA (Cameroon) www.eltaf.de
Modifications to contact details in this
ATER (Rwanda) http://camelta-cameroon.weebly.com/ ELTAI (India)
list should be sent to Head Office.
http://www.aterw.org/ CEPABETA (Cameroon) www.eltai.in
ACPI (Costa Rica) ELTAM (Macedonia)
ATES (Senegal) CI-ATEFL (Cote D’ivoire)
www.acpi-tesol.com www.eltam.org.mk
ATETE - SELF (Denmark) CLASS (Congo, The Democratic
ACTA (Australia) Republic Of The) ELTAM (Mongolia)
www.tesol.org.au AzerELTA (Iran, Islamic Republic Of) www.mongoliatesol.com
www.eltanet.org CYTEA (Cyprus)
AINET (India) cytea.weebly.com ELTAM (Montenegro)
www.theainet.net AzETA (Azerbaijan) http://eltam.me/online/
www.az-eta.org E and M - GATE (Germany)
AMATE (Czech Republic) http://englisch-und-mehr.de ELTA-Rhine (Germany)
www.amate.cz BC TEAL (Canada) www.elta-rhine.de
www.bcteal.org EATE (Estonia)
ANELTA (Angola) www.eate.ee ELTAS (Germany)
APC-ELI (Cuba) BELNATE (Belarus) www.eltas.de
www.ir.bsu.by/kel/teachers/belnate.htm ECUATESOL (Ecuador)
APPI (Portugal) http://educ2016.wix.com/ecuatesol-org ELTAU (Germany)
www.appi.pt BELTA (Belgium) www.eltau.de
www.beltabelgium.com EKADEVE (Greece)
ATECR (Czech Republic) www.ekadeve.gr English Australia (Australia)
www.atecr.weebly.com BELTA (Bangladesh) www.englishaustralia.com.au
www.belta-bd.org/ ELT Ireland (Ireland)
www.elt-ireland.com

IATEFL Voices 265   27

Inside IATEFL
ETAG (Georgia) MEXTESOL (Mexico) UzTEA (Uzbekistan)
www.etag.ge http://mextesol.org.mx/? www.uztea.uz In a large organisation like IATEFL
ETAI (Israel) MORCE-Network (Morocco) VLLT (Levende Talen) people are always on the move
www.etai.org.il www.morcenet.org (Netherlands) and contact details can rapidly
ETAS (Switzerland) NATE Russia (Russian Federation) www.levendetalen.nl become out of date.
www.e-tas.ch http://nate-russia.ru/ WITESOL (United States) Please email
FAAPI (Argentina) NATECLA (United Kingdom) http://witesol.com membership@iatefl.org if you find
www.faapi.org.ar www.natecla.org.uk YamELTA (Russian Federation) any errors or omissions in these
FEELTA (Russian Federation) NATESOL (United Kingdom) www.yamelta.ru listings.
www.feelta.wl.dvgu.ru www.natesol.org ZATESL (Zimbabwe)
FORTELL (India) NELTA (Nepal)
www.fortell.org www.nelta.org.np
FORUM (Kyrgyzstan) Nile TESOL (Egypt)
GATE (Ghana) www.niletesol.org
www.facebook.GATE PAET (Cyprus)
GELI (Cuba) PATEFL (Palestinian Territory,
GEN TEFL (Thailand) Occupied)
www.gentefl.org Saudi Organization of EFL
Education (Saudi Arabia)
HELTA eV (Germany)
www.helta.de SELTA (Senegal)
www.selta.sites.google.com/site/
HELTA Honduras TESOL englishlanguagecell
(Honduras)
http://hondurastesol.wixsite.com/ Slovak Chamber of English
heltahn/ Teachers (SKA) (Slovakia)
http://scelt.wordpress.com
HUPE (Croatia)
www.hupe.hr SLTA (Sweden)
www.spraklararna.se
IATEFL Chile
https://www.iateflchile.cl SPELT (Pakistan)
www.spelt.org.pk
IATEFL Hungary
www.iatefl.hu SPELTA (Russian Federation)
www.spelta.stormway.ru
IATEFL Peru
https://sites.google.com/site/iateflpe/ TATE (Tunisia)
www.tate-tunisia.com
IATEFL Poland
https://iatefl.org.pl/en/ TEA (Austria)
www.tea4teachers.org
IATEFL Slovenia
www.iatefl.si TEFL China (China)
www.telf-china.net
IATEFL Ukraine
http://ukraineiatefl.wix.com/ TEFL in Yemen (Yemen)
iateflukraine www.yementefl.webs.com
IELTA (Iran, Islamic Republic Of) TEFL Qatar (Qatar)
www.ielta.ir www.teflqatar.org
IETA (Indonesia) TELTA (Tanzania, United Republic
www.ieta.or.id Of)
IndiaCALL (India) TESOL Arabia
www.indiacall.in www.tesolarabia.org
INGED (Turkey) TESOL Canada
http://inged.org.tr/ www.tesolcanada.org
JALT (Japan) TESOL France
http://jalt.org www.tesol-france.org
KATE (Korea, Republic Of) TESOL Greece
www.kate.or.kr www.tesolgreece.org
KELTA (Russian Federation) TESOL Kuwait
www.tesolkuwait.org
KOTESOL (Korea, Republic Of)
http://www.koreatesol.org/ TESOL Macedonia-Thrace
N. Greece (Greece)
KSAALT TESOL (Saudi Arabia) www.tesolmacedoniathrace.org
www.ksaalt-tesol.org
TESOL Spain
LAKMA (Lithuania) www.tesol-spain.org
lakmaonline.lt/
TESOL Sudan (United Arab
LATAZ (Zambia) Emirates)
LATE (Latvia) http://www.tesolsudan.net
www.late.lv TESOLANZ (New Zealand)
MATE (Haiti) www.tesolanz.org.nz
www.tesolhaiti.org Thailand TESOL (Thailand)
MATEFL (Malta) thailandtesol.org
www.matefl.org UALTA (Ukraine)
MELTA (Germany) http://ualta.in.ua
https://melta.de/ UKBET (Bangladesh)
META (Moldova) www.ukbet-bd.org
http://meta-moldova.md

28  IATEFL Voices 265