Motivating materials for teaching English at secondary level

"Motivating materials for teaching English at secondary level" was the title of a Comenius in-service training course held last month at the International Study Programmes in Gloucester, England. The bursary was part of the European Socrates Community Programme.

Apart from its academic framework, the course offered cultural visits to Gloucester's Norman Romanesque Cathedral and to the National Waterways Museum, which forms part of Gloucester's historic docks.

We also watched A Midsummer Night's Dream at Llanthony Priory and Much Ado about Nothing at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

The class of 27 teachers from all over Europe was addressed by Joy Sullivan, advanced skills teacher, who presented a workshop on Shakespearean comedy, with particular emphasis on Much Ado about Nothing.

Ms Sullivan examined the word-play on 'nothing' in the title and focused on the power-struggle between the sexes as both Beatrice and Benedick try to outwit each other and, in the end, fall in love with each other despite their earlier protestations.

The workshop also focused on the teaching of English as a foreign language, with the emphasis on cross-curricular language teaching for mixed ability classes. Dr Diana Hicks talked about 'International English' as the language which we, as teachers of English, must foster and which is not necessarily the same language spoken in the UK.

Her emphasis throughout the sessions was on fluency. While accuracy certainly had its place in TEFL, the balance was far too much in its favour at the expense of fluency, i.e. the ability to communicate in English at all.

Dr Hicks emphasised that teachers should seek inclusivity, i.e. the technique of shifting responsibility to the students and offering choices which will encourage them to participate in the lesson. With regard to textbooks, Dr Hicks recommended Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) textbooks which are topic/content/theme-based.

Three days consisted of workshops on TEFL. Graham Workman took a broad look at various aspects involved in the modern TEFL classroom, including an examination of some of the estimated 5,500 new words and expressions that have entered the English language in the past six years, phrasal verbs - how these can be made more meaningful, the use of collocations with common verbs, the phonemic script, silent letters, accent, intonation and the use of timelines and concept questions to explain most of the tenses in the language.

Both Dr Hicks and Mr Workman have long years of experience in the teaching of English as a foreign language both in the UK and abroad. Dr Hicks is co-author of Cambridge English for Schools (a five-level course for secondary school students), while Mr Workman is author of Concept Questions and Time Lines.

Emmanuel Azzopardi Department of English, St Paul's Missionary College emmanuel@spmc.edu.mt