Summer break

'Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.'

At least according to Henry James.

And I am inclined to agree.

The sun is most definitely out here, and it's time to spend some time in the fresh air.

As a result, this blog will take a short summer break, returning at the beginning of September.

I look forward to seeing you all then, and wish you many happy summer afternoons in the mean time.

Cheers,
Tony

Feature deletion (ii)

In February I suggested that BE trainers court obsolescence.

Our functions as trainers will gradually be replaced by computer programmes, by internet modules, and by online meeting points for  professionals to practise their business English with each other.

What we do will still be there, but we won't be needed to do it, like an automated factory.

However, I think I may have been short-sighted, behind-the-times, and a little bit optimistic in my assessment.

This is because not only will we disappear, but what we do too.

Anchoring (ii): time management tools

Last week I suggested we need to anchor our learners' expectations with appropriate numbers.

One of those numbers is 80%.

That's not the number of students who fail to use the present perfect correctly, but a reference to Woody Allen's oft-quoted suggestion that 80% of success is showing up.

This number applies to language learning too.

It takes discipline and effort, showing up day in and day out.

But how do we help our learners meet that  requirement?

Anchoring

We may teach language, but numbers play an important role in our profession.

'How long will it take to learn this skill/lexical set/language?' is a key question, but the figures used to answer this will vary enormously.

And they will vary not just because of objective reasons, but because of subjective ones too.

Such subjectivity arises due to a concept which in behavioural economics is called anchoring.

Anchoring refers to the cognitive bias which underpins our decision-making.

For example, when people buy computers, they often compare them in terms of memory capacity because it is a figure with which they are familiar - 250GB is better than 200GB.

However, this may skew our understanding of computers and lead us to ignore more pertinent factors, such as RAM size and processing power, when making our purchasing choice.

Such skewing is also at work in the classroom.

Augmenting online proprioception

Back in April, I wrote about how we need to develop a substitute for the paralinguistic cues we get face-to-face for when we are teaching online.

I referred to this as a kind of online proprioception.

Bob Dignen, who has been leading the way in this area for some time, outlined a handy list of skills required for teleconferencing last week, mentioning the difficulties of speaking as a group without seeing each other.

He notes that in teleconferences 'silence is not an option' as participants have to show that they are engaged, assenting or otherwise, and wanting to take some kind of action, such as speak themselves.

In the traditional teleconferencing scenario, those cues which are usually intuitive, both in their display and interpretation, have to become explicit.

The rules have to be clear to everyone and everyone has to show overtly that they are following them, much as some autists have to negotiate interaction with others explicitly.

But what of online conferencing?

Code red

Do your learners take tests?

If so, what colour will they see in the room where they take the tests?

And how high will the ceiling be?

Perhaps, like me, you've never thought about it.

However, it turns out these apparently incidental details can have an effect.

Proprioception: I see learning people

What makes online teaching different from classroom teaching?

The ever-astute Maxim Achkasov suggested that the difference lies in the way we communicate in the classroom, in  a manner which exceeds the grasp of our five senses.

'There must be one more,' he avers, 'which makes it really different and probably "genuine" from any other way of communication.'

In trying to put my finger on what that sixth sense might be, I found an analogy in Oliver Sacks' excellent book of case studies, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.

In it he relates the story of a patient of his who suffered from a viral infection in her spinal cord, and, as a result, lost the ability to move properly or control the tone of her voice.

The cause of this alarming impediment was the loss of proprioception.

Choice architecture

There is no such thing as a "neutral" design.

So say Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler in their now-classic book, Nudge.

Every design you can think of, from canteen displays to school layouts, nudges people to make one decision rather than another.

They call the people who craft these designs 'choice architects'.

According to Sunstein and Thaler, 'a choice architect has the responsibility for organizing the context in which people make decisions.'

Educators, for them,  are choice architects par excellence, organising the context for their learners' education in a 1000 different ways.

Seating is one of the more obvious types of context in a classroom.

Comfort

From Cleopatra's burnished throne to the leather and wood electric variety, the chair has many guises.

My favourite is the armchair, simply because it is the most comfortable.

I have long dreamt of an armchair I could take with me into the mountains or to the beach.

This is simply so that I may enjoy nature's bounty in comfort, rather than perched on a wet rock, or wedged in between a million pebbles.

This small wish was finally granted  this week when I chanced upon the elegant Flux chair.

Finally, a lightweight foldable armchair enabling me to sit down wherever I want.

My dream has come true.

The mediaeval octopus

Listening to colleagues, it seems that, in our less sanguine moments at least, we imagine the mind of the language learner as something we lay siege to.

It is a recalcitrant mediaeval town, refusing to pay homage to the sovereignty of Application and Diligence.

We must bring it to heel with all the shock and awe at our disposal, engaging the enervated cradle of idleness in every way possible - with the classroom equivalent of cannons and tunnels and plague-ridden corpses lobbed over the battlements.

The mightiest siege engine of them all, however, the trebuchet in the classroom cupboard, is the computer.