International House JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2010

NEWÊ8THÊEDITION
The dictionary that develops
your language skills
Choose it Use it Love it
1
www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com
Oxford iWriter

Editorial......................................................................................... 2
Classroom Matters
Doing task-based teaching – Dave Willis................................................................3
Designing writing tasks – Roger Hunt.
....................................................................7
If I were in your shoes – Margaret Horrigan.
...........................................................8
Genre matters in academic writing – Thomas Baker...........................................10
Discord or symphony:
tips for orchestrating your lesson – Jonathan Lewsey.
.......................................12
Language Matters
Michael Halliday: An appreciation – Alan Jones..................................................13
Grammaring – Wayne Rimmer.
...............................................................................16
Anticipating the effect of the rise
of China on EIL – Jacqueline McEwan.
..................................................................18
Technology
Digital stories – Kirsty McGeoch............................................................................19
Livemocha and the power of social
language learning – Clint Schmidt.........................................................................22
Conference Presentations
The presentation reformation – David Moran......................................................23
Teacher Training and Development
Testing…testing…the IH Kazakhstan
Test-Preparation Teacher Training Course – Adrienne Radcliffe.
.............................25
In training – Simon Bradley.
....................................................................................27
Young Learners
Summer camp considerations – Martin Keon......................................................27
My Tuppence Worth
Leave it to the authorities? Better not! – David Will...................................................29
IHWO News
Lucy Horsefield, IH World.
................................................................................................31
Book reviews
Doing task-based teaching – reviewed by Neil Preston, IH Brisbane ALS...........32
Task-based language learning and teaching –
reviewed by Stefano Maraessa, IH Mexico City.
......................................................33
EAP Essentials: a teacher’s guide to principles and practice –
reviewed by Andrew Scott, IH Journal Editor...........................................................34
Global pre-intermediate course – reviewed by Pete Gibson, IH Bristol...............35
Vocabulary matrix – understanding, learning and teaching –
reviewed by Norman Cain, IH Rome Manzoni.........................................................36
Issue 28 | Spring 2010
Editor:
Andrew G. Scott
ihjeditor@ihworld.co.uk
Editorial Board:
Steve Brent,.
Pippa Bumstead,.
Roger Hunt,.
Jeremy Page,.
Scott Thornbury
Lucy Horsefield
IH Journal Admin &
Subscriptions.
Advertising:
Elizabeth Arbuthnott
Elizabeth.arbuthnott@ihworld.co.uk
+44 (0)20 7394 2143
IH Journal, International House,
Unity Wharf, 13 Mill Street,
London SE1 2BH
ihjournal@ihworld.co.uk
+44 (0)20 7494 2143

IH Journal • Issue 28 • Spring 2010
2
Editorial
The type of teacher I am has changed over time. And the
type of teacher I have been working towards becoming has
also changed over time. Initially, the dynamic and inspiring
teacher trainers on my CELTA course were the goal, some-
thing to aim for long term. Then with my first few years came
experienced colleagues, mentors, the grammar kings and
queens and directors of studies who guided and supported
me through my first classes, courses and levels.
As I became more experienced and my knowledge and
confidence increased, I started to listen more and more to
the learners in order to discover the classroom from their
perspectives. As a DOS, my views of teaching and teachers
changed again and versatility, reliability and professionalism
became increasingly important. This altered again when I
began working as a teacher trainer, as an ability to reflect on
classroom practice, take on board feedback and, crucially,
act on that feedback took on new significance.
While not wishing to stereotype, there are certain types
of teacher to be found across language teaching organi-
zations in different contexts. Some teachers might clearly
fall into one category, while others might change as they
develop.
1) The photocopier: usually difficult to spot behind reams
of photocopies, this teacher appears to equate learning
with handing out paper.
2) Methodical coursebook user: keeps students’ heads
down as they complete every activity on every page
of the coursebook, often in the order it’s printed in the
book.
3) Non-coursebook user: keeps students heads up with
plenty of communication. However, the students don’t
always perform well in tests. Can be difficult for other
teachers to plan and work with: ‘Syllabus, what sylla-
bus?’
4) The performer: delivers well rehearsed routines to a
captive audience. Often very popular with students but
can produce student feedback like ‘I wanted an English
teacher, not a comedian’.
5) Complainer: provides impressive range of grievances.
Best not to engage in conversation if you wish to maintain
your good mood.
6) Avoider of responsibility: blames colleagues, lack of re-
sources, lack of time, the students themselves are all
responsible for any mistakes, problems or lack of prog-
ress in learning. Lesson observation feedback can prove
difficult.
7) The sitter: found seated at every opportunity, sitters of-
ten have issues with establishing and maintaining pace.
It has been reported that skilful sitters are able to write on
the whiteboard without leaving their chairs.
As I look back over my development as a teacher, from
completing the CELTA at IH Cape Town in 1999 to teaching
in Turkey, Italy, the UK and Australia, I see that at different
points I have been all of the above, to a greater or lesser
degree (mainly lesser I hasten to add). By reflecting on our
classroom practices and acknowledging both strengths
and weaknesses, we can ensure our continuing develop-
ment. Identifying and voicing our thoughts and beliefs about
teaching, learning and language, and comparing our class-
room practices with others’ is an effective way of facilitating
this development. Writing for the IH Journal is one way of
achieving this; I look forward to hearing your voices in future
issues.
Andrew G Scott
IH Journal Editor
Elizabeth Arbuthnott
IH Journal Administrator
What type of teacher are you?
Editorial

3
Classroom Matters
Articles | Classroom Matters
1. Introduction
Ideas change and develop. When Jane wrote A
Framework for Task-based Learning (J. Willis 1996), the
rationale was set out in an earlier paper, Willis and Willis
(1987). Both the paper and the book were the products
of research, classroom experience and contact with col-
leagues, notably N.S Prabhu whose work (Prabhu 1987)
has inspired so many of us. Between 1996 and 2006 we
had thought a lot more about the role of language study in
TBL (see D. Willis 2003) and about what TBL has to offer
in classrooms in different parts of the world (see Edwards
and Willis 2005). Jane’s 1996 book was built around the ba-
sic task  planning  report cycle (see below, section 4),
but we felt that we needed to elaborate this. Many lessons
or units are built on a series of tasks which lead on from
one to the other, so we began to talk about the notion of
a task sequence. Most of all we wanted teachers to be
able to apply TBL in their own classroom. This is why our
latest book, published by OUP in 2007 is called Doing
Task-based Teaching, and it was this consideration which
dictated the contents and layout of the book.
2. Teachers’ questions and ideas
We kept getting questions from teachers which obliged
us to be clear about our approach. What exactly is a task?
Can you use TBL with beginners? What about the grammar?
How can I use tasks with my textbook? These are just four
of the frequently asked questions about TBL which we have
been getting at conferences and talks and via email. En-
gaging with these questions helps us to understand what is
happening in classrooms, how teachers are engaging with
TBL and what difficulties they perceive. It is also very impor-
tant to recognise that there are a lot of misunderstandings
about TBL in the ELT literature, in particular the belief that
TBL does not concern itself with the teaching of grammar
and vocabulary.
But we don’t only get questions. We had an email recently
from Joshua Cohen, a teacher at Kwansei Gakuin University
in Japan, which began:
Many of my Japanese EFL university students be-
lieve the key to communicating successfully in Eng-
lish lies in mastering grammar rules and memoriz-
ing vocabulary words. Therefore, they spend huge
amounts of time studying syntax and concentrating
on hundred-dollar words. Although I greatly admire
their pluck, I feel they are not making progress pro-
portional to their efforts.
To help even the ‘linguistic’ score and to give my
students a chance to engage in more meaningful
language exchange I have introduced a series of
tasks into my classroom. Following Willis’ (1996)
framework, the tasks have the ultimate goal of col-
laborative and meaningful communication, how-
ever students are free to use any grammar or lexis
they choose to achieve that goal.
Joshua’s TBLT programme is built around a series of
‘student generated mini-surveys’ or SGMS. After a teach-
er-led introduction to the idea of a survey followed by a
worked example, learners work in groups to choose their
own survey topics. Joshua gave us the example of a
group who decided to find out about their classmates’
eating habits. They began by designing a questionnaire
with items like:
1. Do you buy a school lunch or bring a lunch box?
2. What is your favorite menu in lunchroom? (Why?)
3. What is your don’t like menu in lunchroom? (Why?)
4. How much money do you spend your lunch a day?
5. About size, is it okay for you?
The work is divided out among members of the group.
They carry out the survey and then get together to sum-
marise the results and prepare a report to be given to the
class, sometimes orally sometimes in writing. Here is a
sample:
Many people (24) answered “curry” as their favorite
food said its reason is that they like that taste on
dish. Also is big size, cheap price, delicious taste.
And many people did answer a Chinese noodles
too. Reasons are cheap price, big size and taste.
These points must be important for the staffs of a
lunchroom. As for fish, many people (17) answered
it as don’t like…
After the report it is time to look in detail at some of the
language involved:
I play recordings of native speakers asking and an-
swering survey questions. I ask learners to listen and
match questions with answers or to write out ques-
tions for the answers they hear. This type of inten-
sive listening practice exposes them to authentic
language (Nunan, 2004), and provides a good segue
into the final phase of the task, where we focus on
linguistic elements.
Doing task-based teaching
By Dave Willis

4
There are so many good things about the way Joshua is
doing task-based teaching. Learners have a lot of freedom
to decide on the topic they want to research and how they
want to go about it. This autonomy means that they are
likely to engage with the task. They work in groups using
whatever language they can to achieve their aims. There
will be a lot of language work going on in the groups as they
discuss how best to draw up their questionnaires and pres-
ent their findings. Probably they will check things out using
grammar books and dictionaries, and sometimes they will
ask their teacher to help out. But all of this language work
is prompted by their wish to achieve a communicative pur-
pose. The focus throughout is on a meaningful outcome.
Finally, when there is a focus on linguistic elements, (com-
monly called Focus on Form) learners are well primed for
it. There is no need to provide an artificial context to dem-
onstrate the meaning or function of language. Learners
already have a precise context. In Joshua’s food survey,
for example, learners have been looking for ways of ex-
pressing reasons. They are very ready to take on board
phrases like The main reason is …; Other reasons are…
and so on.
3. Why we wrote .
‘Doing task-based teaching’
So there were basically three reasons why we wrote Do-
ing Task-based Teaching:
• We had researched and thought more about TBL
and felt we had more to offer.
• We were prompted by questions from teachers. It
was clear that many teachers faced similar prob-
lems and had similar concerns and aspirations.
• We were inspired by examples of good practice like
Joshua’s.
When we began to plan the book we had a good idea
of what we wanted to say. This was based partly on
feedback gathered from teachers we met and talked
to in countries around the world. Where possible these
informal discussions were supplemented by asking
teachers to complete a short questionnaire listing the
successes they achieved and the problems they en-
countered working with TBLT, and the questions they
would like answered. We also gained many insights into
TB classrooms worldwide through teachers who were
following our Masters in TESOL programmes at Bir-
mingham and Aston Universities and who researched
aspects of TBL for their assignments (see Edwards and
Willis 2005). In addition to this we sent out a request
to teachers all over the world asking them to send us
a description of tasks which had worked well for them,
together with outline lesson plans of how they had used
those tasks. We also asked them what advice they
would give to colleagues hoping to work with TBL, and
to report difficulties and problems, both those they had
experienced themselves, and those they had discussed
with colleagues. Thirty three teachers responded and
we wove in to our chapters many of their sample tasks
and pieces of advice, as well as including sample les-
sons plans in an appendix.
4. A lesson plan
Here is a brief outline of just one of the lesson plans which
we received. This was from Tim Marchand, a teacher at
Smith’s School of English, Kyoto, Japan. It is a good illus-
tration of what we mean by a task sequence, with both the
questionnaire and the discussion going through the task 
planning  report cycle:
Talking about families—how strict are/were your
parents?1
1 Introductory questionnaire:
When you were a child:
a) Do you think your parents were
strict or easy-going?
b) Did they allow you to stay out late
at night?
c) Did they let you go on holiday on
your own?
d) When you went out did you always
have to tell them where you were
going?
e) Did you always have to do your
homework before supper?
f) Did your parents make you help
about the house?
g) What jobs did they make you do?
h) Did you have to wash the car?
PREPARATION: Teacher makes sure that learn-
ers understand the questionnaire.
TASK: Learners work in groups to answer the
questions.
PLANNING: Teacher tells learners that a spokes-
person from each group will be asked to report the
results of their discussion to the class as a whole.
Learners are given time to help the spokesperson
plan the report.
REPORT: Spokespersons for two or three of the
groups deliver their reports. The other groups listen
and make notes comparing the report with their own
results. Teacher leads a round-up discussion which
will include contributions from groups which did not
report.
2 Discussion: Whose parents were the strictest?
TASK: Learners work in groups to decide which
of them had the strictest parents.
PLANNING: Teacher tells learners that a spokes-
person from each group will be asked to report the
results of their discussion to the class as a whole.
Learners are given time to help the spokesperson
plan the report.
1 You can find a more detailed description of this lesson in Doing Task-
based Teaching and on our website at: .
www.willis-elt.co.uk/taskbased.html

5
REPORT: Spokespersons for two or three of
the groups deliver their reports. The other groups
listen and decide which parents were the strictest.
Teacher leads a round-up discussion which will
include contributions from groups which did not re-
port. THIS IS VERY REPETITIVE OF LAST REPORT
PARA.
3 Listening: Tim made recordings of some of
his friends talking about how strict their parents
were. For example:
My Dad is a quiet man really, so he didn’t re-
ally make me do much at home. He sometimes
asked me to wash his car or cut the grass, but I
was never forced to do it, and I could usually get
some pocket money for it as well. I think my Mum
was also pretty easy-going; she let me stay out late
with my friends. As long as she knew where I was,
she wouldn’t mind so much what I did.
4 Language practice:
For the form-focused work, the final stage in a
task-based cycle, Tim devised activities to focus on
expressions of permission and compulsion.
In the book, we wanted to encourage the kind of creativ-
ity displayed by teachers like Tim and Joshua so we tried
to provide clear guidelines for devising a range of different
types of tasks, planning task sequences and building them
into workable lesson plans.
5. Bringing it all together
As you can see from these examples we have tried
in the book to provide readers with procedures they
can try out in the classroom, so that they can get a feel
for TBL and how it works. We also used the information
gleaned from our panel of teachers to help us anticipate
and answer the questions teachers might have about
TBL – questions like those listed in my second para-
graph above. We have included a chapter on teaching
grammar and vocabulary in a task-based approach,
which draws a distinction between a focus on language,
when learners work on grammar and vocabulary for
themselves, and the more traditional teacher led focus
on form. We have tried to make it easier for teachers
to introduce TBT into their classrooms by showing how
they can integrate TBT with their course book. There are
guidelines on task design, including a chapter on tasks
based on written and spoken texts. And for course de-
signers there is a chapter on syllabus design showing
how the can-do statements central to the Common Euro-
pean Framework can be fleshed out within a task-based
framework. This chapter looks in detail at the notion of a
pedagogic corpus which argues that learners learn from
processing and analysing text, not from de-contextual-
ised sentences designed to illustrate the grammar of the
language.
We are still learning about task-based teaching, and we
continue to hear from and interact with teachers all over the
world. We would love to hear from you. You can contact us
through our website www.willis-elt.co.uk where you can find
lots more about TBL.
REFERENCES
• Edwards C. and J. Willis 2005 (eds.) Teachers Exploring
Tasks in ELT. Oxford: Palgrave Macmillan
• Prabhu N.S 1987 Second Language Pedagogy. Oxford:
Oxford University Press
• Nunan D. 2004 Task-based language teaching. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press
• Willis D. 2003 Rules, Patterns and Words: Grammar and
Lexis in English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press
• Willis D. and J. Willis 1987 ‘Varied activities for variable
language.’ ELT Journal 41/1: 12-18
• Willis D. and J. Willis 2007 Doing Task-based Teaching.
Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Willis J. 1996 A Framework for Task-based Learning. Har-
low: Longman Pearson Education
Dave Willis has been in ELT for more than forty years. Apart from the UK he has worked
in Ghana, Cyprus, Iran and Singapore, including twenty years as a British Council of-
ficer. His last job was at the Centre for English Language Studies at Birmingham Uni-
versity, where he worked until 2000, mainly on MA TEFL/TESOL and Applied Linguistics
programmes. He is now an Honorary Senior Research Fellow.
His last book, Doing Task-base Teaching was written with his wife, Jane, and published
by OUP in 2007. His main area of interest is language description and the place of lan-
guage study within a task-based approach - the subject of his book, Rules, Pattern and
Words (CUP 2003).

global
global voices | global English | global vision
A truly global outlook
for today’s adult learners
Visit the website to learn about global English with
Professor David Crystal
www.macmillanenglish.com/global
LEARN ENGLISH
LEARN ABOUT
ENG
L
I
S
H
L
E
A
R
N
T
H
R
O
U
G
H
E
N
G
L
I
S
H
Follow Global_Course on
For more information contact:
Aimee Green
Tel: 01865 405802
Email: a.green@macmillan.com

7
With the possible exception of art forms such as poetry,
all authentic writing is written with a particular reader in mind
and has a specific purpose. The intended readership and
purpose of the piece of writing determines the linguistic style
of the text and the sort of inclusions that would normally be
expected to be present.
For example a magazine article about dolphins will dif-
fer markedly from an academic paper on the same subject;
business letters are usually written in a formal style and in-
clude a number of formulaic expressions that would not be
found in an informal email to a friend. Newspaper articles
on a particular news item differ widely from paper to pa-
per depending on the perceived readership – hence one
paper might describe a particularly hot summer day as a
‘scorcher’, while another may describe it as an ‘exception-
ally warm day’.
Readers expect certain conventions to be followed when
they read a text: business people expect a letter to be ad-
dressed to the reader as ‘Dear Sir or Madam’, they expect
an introductory opening in appropriate style and they expect
brevity and clarity in the content of the letter. The reader of
a newspaper article expects a headline then a concise de-
scription of what happened followed by further detail which
the reader decides to read or not depending on personal
interest in the topic or the interest created by the opening
lines. Newspaper readers do not expect to see a lot of back-
ground detail before getting to the ‘news’ of the item: this
always comes first.
Even in children’s stories there are strict conventions.
For example the use of reported speech, the past perfect
continuous and some of the lexis in the following from Gold-
ilocks and the three bears is wrong:
‘And mother bear enquired as to who had been eating her
porridge’ (CF: ‘Mummy bear said: “Who’s been eating my
porridge?” ‘). Writing for children is in the here and now, or
‘once upon a time’ at least, and uses direct speech.
In other words texts are written to conform to a particular
genre, with a particular type of reader in mind and with a
specific purpose whether this be to inform, to complain, to
invite or to thank.
However this is frequently not the case with writing tasks
set in ELT classrooms. Such ‘tasks’ as ‘Describe a recent
holiday’, ‘What would you do if you won the lottery?’ and
‘Describe a childhood experience’ are common but do not
take account of a number of issues such as:
• Who is the intended reader?
• What sort of style is the writer to adopt?
• What sort of information should be included?
• What should the text length be?
• What is the purpose of the text?
• Does the student have anything to say on the topic?
These questions also impact on the marking of a piece
of student work. One common criterion for assessment is
task achievement, however, the examples cited above do
not have a specific purpose therefore it is impossible to say
whether or not this criterion has been achieved. Another cri-
terion is the appropriacy of the language used; however, as
no genre style has been indicated it is impossible to assess
this criterion. At best a marker might focus on such things as
grammatical accuracy and spelling, although a task such as
‘What would you do if you won the lottery?’ might elicit little
more than something resembling a shopping list and such a
list could be written with equal accuracy by an intermediate
student as by an advanced level student. Therefore what is
expected and what is being tested or assessed in terms of
grading is unclear.
A model of a valid writing task
Background: this task was designed for a multi-lingual
group of young adult students at upper intermediate level
studying to take the IELTS examination in the near future
with the intention of entering a British university. The group
have studied a number of different text types and the linguis-
tic conventions in each including pseudo-scientific reports
and articles such as those found in publications such as
National Geographic; news articles on current issues from
different newspaper types; formal letters in the context of
financial and general business English and informal letters
and emails. They have also studied examples of academ-
ic writing such as discursive essays, reports describing
processes and conventions such as sentence types in para-
graphs and punctuation.
The task:
“What are the arguments for and against children learning
one or more foreign languages from the age of seven? Is
it better to learn one foreign language fluently or to have a
superficial understanding of three or four? Refer to how and
when you learned languages other than your own mother
tongue. The text you write is intended for publication in a
Sunday newspaper supplement and should be similar in
style to the text in the reading test above.”
NB: The section written in italics above is particularly im-
portant as the students had just read a text on this topic
which provided them with ideas on the sort of things they
‘And mother bear enquired as to .
who had been eating her porridge’:
designing writing tasks
By Roger Hunt

8
Perhaps some of you know that 2010 is the UN’s year of
biodiversity. Now, biodiversity is a term I heard a few years
ago and it essentially was used back then to refer to the
animal and plant kingdom. However, if we take Bill Bryson’s
(2003) word for it, our every atom is part of something more
immense and more ancient than our physical essence, the
universe. In this sense, every human being is essential to
the well being of the world as we know it. This is particularly
true if we think of what a group of people can do to cause
disruption to the Earth and its well-being, but this is not my
issue here. I am not interested right now in groups. Quite the
opposite. I am interested in individuals.
My English language teacher slant on 2010 as the year
of biodiversity is on the individual. My slant is that every hu-
man being is special because they are different and have
something to give. For so many years we have focused on
similarities among peoples and cultures to disperse intol-
erance. It is, however, natural to feel comfortable with the
familiar. There is no real learning if we focus on what is the
same so let’s try to appreciate what is different between cul-
tures as well. That is my biodiversity…knowing that what is
different about us as individuals makes us special.
The idea
I went to a seminar where the speaker, Vinicio Ongini, pre-
sented his book (2009) in Rome recently and the topic was
the role of shoes in children’s literature and how this fed into
the inter-cultural programme that many schools in Italy are
encouraging. Italy like many nations has a large immigrant
population and the most wonderful state school teachers
who, with little or no support from the state, strive to be
aware of each new student’s situation and how to integrate
all learners into their learning programmes.
I had an entire vision in my head of how this seminar might
evolve. I was of course wrong, the presenter spoke at length
about shoes in fairytales. When I asked my age-old Italian
friend, Rosaria, what the practical applications of the semi-
nar were after about 40 minutes of anecdotes and stories
If I were in your shoes…
By Margaret Horrigan
could include (as opposed to having to only use their imagi-
nations). It was also a reminder of the genre or text style they
should use in their own texts.
Rational underlying task:
• The genre and intended readership is clear and a model
has been provided.
• The task has a purpose in as much as conclusions must
be drawn.
• A wide range of language is required for the task. This
includes discursive and narrative features.
• A word limit is given.
• The task does not rely on imagination: the students all
have backgrounds in language learning and they have
been provided with discussion points in the text they read
prior to this writing task.
Marking criteria:
• Task achievement
• Appropriacy of language used for the genre specified
• General cohesion and coherence
• Conformity to conventions such as sentence types
used and paragraphing
• Spelling and punctuation where misuse of these inter-
feres with comprehension
• Range of language structures and lexis
• Accuracy
• Conformity to word count
Conclusions
More attention should be paid to the design of writing
tasks we set for our students. These should be valid tasks
in terms of clarity in genre style and the intended reader-
ship; the task should have a purpose or outcome; it should
require an appropriate range of structure and lexis; the task
should not rely on imagination which could disadvantage
some learners who may have little or nothing to say on a
topic; a word limit should be set and the students should be
clear on the criteria the teacher uses to evaluate and assess
their finished work.
There is nothing wrong with students engaging in writing
for its own sake – some may well be poets or budding nov-
elists. However, the majority of our students will probably
need to write text to get them through university or business,
therefore we should set tasks which reflect these needs and
ensure we teach these features as well as testing them.
Roger Hunt is Director of Education at International House Barcelona and author of
the on-line teacher training course in teaching writing skills offered by the Barcelona
school.
Please go to http://www.ihes.com/bcn/tt/online/writing.html

9
she pointed out that so far everything was related to inter-
cultural issues. I was enjoying the seminar but had to leave
after an hour and on the way home on the underground
I was already planning my own ‘shoes’ seminar and have
opted to share my ideas here first.
Shoes
When we come into this world the first part of us, usually,
to get here is our feet. From this precise moment the race
to get a pair of shoes on those feet is on! Your very first
pair are very often preserved in bronze! Indeed, the Car-
rie Bradshaw addiction to shoes is not, my friends, a myth.
I know quite a lot of women who have this problem. Why
this addiction? Well, shoes do tend to say a lot about us.
In no less than two Nanni Moretti films, Bianca(1983) and
Sogni d’Oro (1981), the protagonist reveals his ability to
grasp people’s personalities just by looking at their shoes.
In his most famous film, Caro Diario, he bickers with a sur-
burban dweller who proves Morettii 100% right by wearing
slippers in public! You can get your hand and shoe prints
on the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard outside the Chi-
nese Theatre if you are famous enough. The ancient Roman
Emperor, Caligula, was so called after a type of sandal. In
short, we are fascinated by shoes. Always have been and
probably always will be.
There is, however, the significant but not particularly
special issue of student days where buying second hand
clothes is absolutely fine but lowering yourself to wearing
second-hand shoes is not! Shoes have the scratches and
dents of our everyday toils. Shoes have the DNA of sweat
and dead skin cells of the wearer. In reality you can’t really
wash the previous owner away from a pair of shoes, now
can you? In language terms most of us want to ‘pop our
clogs’ ‘with our boots on’ and spend our time here not ‘get-
ting too big for our boots’... shoes are important, I think you
are getting the picture.
The speaker at the seminar I mentioned earlier referred
a lot to Cinderella and the Elves and the shoemaker fairy
tales. I have come up with a few more: Hermes- because
he had winged sandals, The Wizard of Oz- Dorothy and her
ruby red slippers, and, don’t forget that ‘There was an old
woman who lived in a shoe! The speaker also mentioned
one vital piece of information, at least for me, the fact that
shoes come in pairs…
We have a left shoe and, obviously a right shoe. Now, on
reflection, I noticed that the opposite of right can also be
wrong and that the Italian word for ‘left’ is ‘sinistro’ which
also just happens to be the translation for the English ‘sin-
ster’. So, shoes are the person’s yin and yang. We have
both good and evil within us, basically nobody is perfect.
Shoes also come in many colours, shapes and sizes. Shoes
can be new and old…the other opposite of ‘old’ is of course
‘young’. Shoes sometimes have ‘eyes’ where we thread our
laces through and they can often also have tongues. A shoe
also has a sole. So do we, it’s just spelt differently.
Shoe Lessons
So, what to do with the potential of shoes for raising
awareness about how special we and other people are?
What follows are a few ideas on how to use shoes in the
classroom in this, or any other year.
1. Let students talk about their shoes. They may want to
talk about the ones they are wearing which is great be-
cause we can work on the present forms! So, then, the
next logical step is to…
2. …let students bring in an old pair of shoes that they
owned and talk about them. Past tense anyone?
3. Someone else’s shoes? Third person singular and
speculative language such as ‘ I think’, ‘Maybe’, ‘Per-
haps’ etc.
4. Getting pictures off the internet of shoes from around
the world and using these to springboard from specu-
lating or predicting into a relevant text.
5. Students create paper flip flops and write the journey of
the flip flop on the sole. These flip flops could be placed
on display around the school.
6. Find a number of idiomatic expressions which refer to
shoes and write a story around them which you can tell
to your learners.
7. Create a shoe book where you can only see people’s
shoes on one page and on the facing page the words
‘She/He might …’ and elicit ideas from the learners.
8. Take digital photos of your students’ shoes and get
them to write profiles of the owner, not themselves, a
couple of weeks down the line.
9. Create a shoe tree to show how man got to where he is
today by using images of shoes, from more ancient to
modern, and why the shoes look the way they look
10. Bring in a few shoes which are representative of mem-
bers of a family and create stories around them. Shock
the world if you can and create unusual families.
11. Tell them the fairytales involving shoes I mentioned ear-
lier!
12. Let them listen to Depeche Mode’s ‘Walking in My
Shoes’ and fill in gaps in the lyrics
13. If you’ve got a class of fortysomethings they might enjoy
listening to Nik Kershaw’s ‘Wouldn’t it be Good’ and do-
ing a gapfilled lyrics task
14. Both of the previous tasks cry out for a discussion about
why we use shoes to try and imagine another person’s
situation
15. Use the process of making shoes to introduce temporal
cohesive devices
16. Let them tell you what your shoes say about you
17. Read and discuss with them dEBra Canada’s ‘Walk a
Mile in My Shoes’ rare disease awareness week which
is easily found on the internet
18. Have a paper shoe-making competition ala’ Project
Runway to encourage teamwork and co-operation
19. Have a brainstorming session on things you can do with
old shoes…and then do them!!! Check out essortment.
com for other ideas.
20. Let students bring in their old shoes and paint them on
the theme of biodiversity!
21. Create a geographical wall display of shoes!
22. ‘These boots are made for walking’…girl power pre-
Spice Girls!
23. Visit http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/shoe and read
through the endless shoe idiomatic expressions and
get learners to create a role-play/scenario with them

10
24. Bring in a picture of pairs of shoes you would never
wear to teach language such as ‘too high’, ‘absolutely
ridiculous’, ‘way too wild’, ‘far too uncomfortable’… in a
spontaneous manner.
25. Visit http://www.ugandatreeoflifeministries.org/soles.php
to see why some people would wear second hand shoes!
Conclusion
I hope I have left you with a few ideas on how the theme
of shoes can guide your lessons for 2010 as the year of
biodiversity and how to promote cultural awareness and
sensitivity through respect for what is different among peo-
ples. If not, I apologise. But hey, if all you do is plant a seed
in an old boot and watch it grow…
References
* Bill Bryson (2003), A short history of nearly everything
* Nanni Moretti (1983) Bianca: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=gHJtjgc-zuk
* Nanni Moretti (1981) Sogni d’Oro: http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=NKyQXQViRcg
* Vinicio Ongini (2009), Le altre Cenerentole. Il giro del
mondo in 80 scarpe
* http://www.essortment.com/lifestyle/oldshoesrecyc_
sges.htm
* dEBRA Canada: ebrelay.org
Margaret Horrigan has been an English language teacher since 1991. She teaches
adults and children and is a Cambridge trainer of DELTA, CELTA and CELTYL courses
and assessor of CELTA and CELTYL. Margaret holds an MA in Applied Linguistics and
TESOL and is currently Director of Teacher Training at IH Rome.
At the University of Michigan, a genre-based approach is
used to teach academic writing (hereafter AW) (Swales and
Feak, 1994, 2004) for graduate, nonnative students and un-
dergraduate students (Feak, 2007). According to Paltridge,
its basic premise is that language is “functional ... through
language we get things done” (pg 1, 2004). Students are
encouraged to engage with texts to discover functional lan-
guage use at the whole text level. Thus, the conventions of
a particular genre are acquired. This is considered to be
crucial for students writing in a second language (Johns,
1990). There are, however, few (if any) published accounts
of a genre-based approach and a process-writing approach
being integrated and used with English Pedagogy students
in Chile. This article presents an account of an integrated,
genre-based/process-writing experience in the Chilean
context.
Teaching Context
The present author is a new instructor of Academic Writ-
ing II for English Pedagogy students at Universidad Andres
Bello in Santiago. The students are in their third year of
studies, having previously taken Academic Writing I as a pre-
requisite. Class size is approximately twenty students. The
course description defines the writing process approach as
the guiding paradigm for the course. The development of
the students’ ability to use academic rhetoric successfully is
considered an essential aim of the course.
Which genre and which journal?
Academic articles from the field of ELT were the obvious
choice of genre to be used. The question of an appropriate
journal(s) to use was not as transparent, however. Criteria
to be considered were: relevance to the field of ELT, long
term benefit to the student, uniformity of style and rhetoric,
electronic access, and cost.
Relevance to the field of ELT was considered for two
reasons. First, a journal should be widely read by ELT
teachers in many countries. This assures the student
that the conventions and rhetoric, once acquired, would
meet the expectations of a majority of the members of
the ELT community. Consequently, writing done by a
student would be recognized as belonging to this com-
munity. Equally important, the journal should promote, in
an exemplary way, a sense of pride in belonging to the
ELT profession.
A second criteria, long term benefit, is not easily concep-
tualized. A sense of belonging to the ELT profession, critical
thinking, teacher research, membership in a professional
organization, and the habit of life-long professional reading
are all possible examples of sustainable benefits. It is likely
that many of these benefits will persist in direct proportion to
the quality of the journal that is being read.
When uniformity of style and rhetoric is considered, the
case for a single journal is amplified. A single journal in-
creases the probability of student success in identifying
the salient, recurring features of AW in context. General-
izations are proved or disproved based on the repetitive
nature (or lack thereof) of lexical and rhetorical items which
have been previously identified. As a result, a tendency to
overgeneralize would cause little, if any, harm being done.
On the contrary, it may promote the internalization of the
features of AW through noticing (Swain, 2005).
Genre matters in academic writing
By Thomas Baker

11
The fourth criteria, electronic access, takes into account
the technological world in which students live. Nowadays,
most students have been using computers all their lives. In
fact, many would most likely find a world without computers
unimiginable. Therefore, having electronic access to the
journal being analysed is responsive to the multiple ways
students interact with text through a digital medium (Bara-
hona, 2009).
Finally, cost has to be taken into account. It is prohibitive
for a large number of journals that otherwise would have
made the choice of a single journal extremely difficult.
Many students, especially those from a low socioeco-
nomic background, do not have the financial resources
to buy a large number of back issues of a professional
journal. Therefore, the primary option should be a high
quality journal which gives students free access to back
issues. In sum, could one journal possibly meet all five
criteria outlined above?
English Teaching Forum
The present author was informed by the Program Co-
ordinator of English Teaching Forum, Ms. Paulette J.
Estep (personal communication, June 11, 2007), that
articles published in English Teaching Forum are seen
by, “more than seventy thousand readers in over one
hundred countries”. Additionally, hard copies of new
issues are distributed free of charge to ELT teachers
worldwide. Furthermore, a web site is maintained where
past issues can be downloaded free of charge. More
importantly, most of the authors published in English
Teaching Forum are classroom teachers. Thus, English
Teaching Forum easily met all five criteria that were es-
tablished for a journal to exemplify academic writing for
undergraduate English Pedagogy students.
How was the .
journal used?
It was decided to use articles with similar content in the
Prewriting Stage of the writing process to promote aca-
demic vocabulary learning in context. Thus, the topics of
reading, writing, vocabulary, and teacher research were re-
cycled. In addition, the articles chosen were judged to have
long term professional value to the students. Here are the
articles that were used:
“Error Correction and Feedback in the EFL Writing
Classroom”
“Applying Reading Research to the Development of
an Integrated Lesson Plan”
“SWELL: A Writing Method to Help English Lan-
guage Learners”
“Conditions for Teacher Research”
“Two Writing Activities for Extensive Reading”
“Making Sense of Words”
(All articles taken from: http://exchanges.state.gov/
englishteaching/forum-journal.html)
The following steps were followed with each article:
1. Students read the article outside of class.
2. The students’ reaction to the article was discussed in
class.
3. Students underlined citations, rhetorical phrases, lexis
and signpost language.
4. The rhetorical use of the underlined language was then
discussed.
5. A three-paragraph, reader response was written.
Results and Discussion
This reading, speaking, noticing, and writing cycle al-
lowed the students multiple opportunities to actively engage
with academic vocabulary in context as well as to begin to
incorporate the features of AW into their own writing. The
students were able to articulate an understanding of the
features of AW as seen in the English Teaching Forum as
follows:
1. The first person “I” can be used.
2. “You” is never used to address the reader.
3. Introductions include the three-move “CARS” model
(Swales, 1990).
4. Contractions are not used.
5. Modals are used to soften claims (hedges) and mark
degrees of certainty.
6. Citations are a prominent feature and positively af-
fect the writer’s credibility.
7. Conclusions are short, precise and restate the aims
of the article.
8. Passive voice is a prominent feature.
9. Formal vocabulary is used.
10. Noun phrases (nominalization) often replace verbs.
11. Phrasal verbs are rarely used.
12. A rich variety of rhetorical phrases are used to
achieve cohesion and coherence.
13. Sentence length, word order, and word choice affect
the writer’s “voice”.
14. Impersonal language is seen as objective and unbi-
ased.
15. Unsupported claims negatively affect the writer’s
credibility.
Conclusion
The aim of this article was to share an integrated, genre-
based/writing-processapproachtotheteachingofAcademic
Writing in the Chilean context. The students’ ability to articu-
late the conventions of Academic Writing suggests that it is
a viable approach and thus merits further research. Never-
theless, the present results should be taken with caution due
to the small number of participants involved.
References
• Barahona, M. (2009). Web 2.0 tools in ELT. TESOL
Chile Newsletter. Vol. 1, Issue 6.
• Feak, Christine. (2007). Teaching lower level academic
writing using a graduated text approach. Retrieved April
4, 2009 from http://turkey.usembassy.gov/uploads/
images/UhQpvRWzpMoCabcANaHJKg/FeakTeachin-
gLowerLevel.pdf
• Johns, Ann. (1990). L1 composition theories: implica-
tions for developing theories of L2 composition. In B.

12
Kroll (ed.) Second language writing research: insights
for the classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
• Paltridge, Brian. (2004). Approaches to teaching sec-
ond language writing. Retrieved April 4, 2009 from
http://www.elicos.edu.au/index.cgi?E=hcatfuncs&PT=
sl&X=getdoc&Lev1=pub_c05_07&Lev2=c04_paltr
• Swain, Merrill. (2005). “The output hypothesis: Theory
and research.” In E. Hinkel (ed.) Handbook of research
in second language teaching and learning. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Swales, John. (1990). Genre analysis. English in aca-
demic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
• Swales, John and Christine Feak. (1994). Academic
writing for graduate students. Ann Arbor, MI: The Uni-
versity of Michigan Press. (2004). Academic writing
for
Thomas Baker is a CELTA-qualified EFL teacher and writer with seven years experi-
ence in Chile. He is the Editor of the TESOL Chile newsletter, “In A Word”. He taught
at Colegio del Verbo Divino, a Catholic school for boys, for five years. He currently
teaches Academic Writing in the English Pedagogy Department at Universidad Andres
Bello in Santiago, Chile. He has given presentations at conferences in Chile, Argentina
and Peru and is the President-Elect for the 2010-2011 term for TESOL Chile. He can be
reached by email: profesorbaker@gmail.com.
A musician needs to master notes, chords, sequenc-
es and so on, in order to create a piece of music that is
pleasant to the ear. A conductor must inspire, monitor
and lead the performers in the orchestra in order to
produce a symphony. Equally, the teacher may have to
be musician, conductor, and even player, to make pos-
sible the delivery of a lesson that is harmonious rather
than discordant.
To compare a lesson to a symphony may be to
stretch the imagery too far, but surely ELT can learn
from music to enable more effective lessons. It would
be idealistic to expect every lesson to be like a philhar-
monic performance, but no teacher wants uproarious
noise in the classroom. So let’s start with some tips for
reducing discord.
Just as the musician will know an A minor from a B
flat, the English language teacher can benefit from
mastering those pesky ELT abbreviations. So how do
we avoid hitting the bum notes? Well, for example,
T.T.T. does not stand for Take Two Tablets before your
lesson (even though you may need some afterwards)!
Test, Teach, Test, is a tried and tested way to establish
your students’ knowledge and weaknesses, clarify and
reinforce learning, and give them useful practice. ELF
may sound like an engaging little fairy, but leaving fan-
tasyland and treating English as a Lingua Franca will be
more useful in the real world. A TBL lesson will hope-
fully not be ‘too bloody long’ but to be effective it may
include Task-Based Learning, a way for you to elicit
and enable language practice by setting an engaging
and realistic task.
Learning notes is not enough to play a tune; a teacher
needs to speak effectively and clearly to get a message
across or to convey language learning. Phonology is
not the art of text-messaging, so we shouldn’t be afraid
to model and drill pronunciation or stress (without get-
ting stressed). And of course, to be an effective band
leader or conductor it helps to master the Speaking
Skill: first open mouth, then emit air whilst forming ap-
propriate shapes with voicebox, mouth, tongue and
teeth. But do remember to engage brain first!
So why not create your own memorable linguistic
chords, mnemonics, abbreviations or acronyms? Per-
haps you want to remember to FART: Find Authentic
Reading Texts. But no, we want to avoid those discor-
dant schoolboy sounds! So here’s one that may be
more useful and pleasing to the overburdened ear. On
day one of the CELTA course we were coached to en-
sure that lessons include the following major elements:
Set-up; Instructions; Monitoring; Feedback. So I creat-
ed the (almost) acronym SIMF: a short jump from ‘simf’
to ‘symphony’ helped me remember this best practice
advice.
Following a harmonious sequence should help keep
your lessons in key. For example to achieve your re-
ceptive skills aims your melodious lesson plan should
include as a minimum: creating interest, pre-teaching
vocabulary, eliciting and modelling examples and
Discord or Symphony:
tips for orchestrating your lesson.
By Jonathan Lewsey

13
Articles | Language Matters
usage, giving and checking instructions, tasks with
appropriate feedback and correction, and a coherent
follow-up activity. Even if you don’t achieve the kind of
symphonic perfection of a classical music concert, at
least you should avoid the discordant noise of a punk
garage band.
And of course the kind of feedback we want is not a
shrill burst of distorted output coming back through the
poorly-wired microphone; rather we want a well-sung
chorus of clarification, correction and practice that
sends students away humming happily a lovely memo-
rable tune of fluent English language.
Jonathan Lewsey passed the CELTA course at IH Lisbon in 2009. He divides his time
between writing, teaching, translation and management consulting. He works mostly in
London and Lisbon.
Hallidayan linguistics today
With the publication of his Collected Works over the past
several years by Continuum, Michael Halliday has entered
the pantheon of modern linguistics. His name appears in
all good overviews of linguistics, language philosophy and
applied linguistics (see, for example, Linguistic Theory:
The Discourse of Fundamental Works, 1991, by Robert
de Beaugrande; Key Thinkers in Linguistics and the Phi-
losophy of Language, 2005, edited by Siobhan Chapman
and Christopher Routledge). As Mark Lowe put it in these
pages recently (IH Journal, Issue 24, Spring 2008), Hal-
liday has had “a lifetime of amazing achievement”. He
has developed a comprehensive and coherent theory of
language, social interaction and indeed society that chal-
lenged most accepted ways of thinking about language
up to his time. His functional meaning-based approach
has allowed him to account for child language develop-
ment, second language acquisition, language variation
and change, language in the school curriculum, espe-
cially with regard to literacy development, language in
science, and the key role of language in education more
generally.
Halliday’s own seminal output has been significantly
enhanced and extended by colleagues and converts
throughout the world. Ruqaiya Hasan (his wife and long-
time collaborator) has extended his work on cohesion and
semantics, language in context, child language develop-
ment and the ideological content of language. Some of
his erstwhile students now hold important university posts
as eminent linguists in their own right. There is Jim Martin
(who holds a Personal Chair in Linguistics at the Univer-
sity of Sydney), Christian Matthiessen (Chair Professor of
Linguistics at Macquarie University), David Butt (Director
of the Centre for Language in Social Life, also at Mac-
quarie), Geoff Williams (University of British Columbia),
and Erich Steiner (University of Saarland), to name just
this few.
Hallidayan linguistics is actively promoted through the
International Systemic Functional Linguistics Association
(ISFLA), which has met annually since 1992, and whose
congresses attract delegates from every continent. Na-
tional congresses are also regularly organised by (e.g.)
the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association
(ASFLA), the European Systemic Functional Association
(ESFLA), and the Latin American Systemic Functional
Linguistics Association (LASFLA). The City University of
Hong Kong has established the Halliday Centre for the
Intelligent Application of Language Studies (under the
direction of Professor Jonathan Webster, a long-time
collaborator of Halliday’s). The Systemic Functional Lin-
guistics Association of Nigeria (SYSFLAN) has been
active since at least 2004.
Halliday’s view of language
Halliday’s “lexicogrammar” is a functional account of
the “meaning potential” that speakers of English have
at their disposal. For Halliday, a language is made up of
more-or-less closed “systems” of words and grammatical
structures, with our vocabulary constituting a relatively
open system, and grammar a fixed number of relatively
Michael Halliday:
An appreciation
By Alan Jones
Language Matters

14
closed ones. From these systems speakers make selec-
tions in order to construct, simultaneously, “wordings”
and “meanings”. The systems of wordings and meanings
thus available to a language user reflect the social and
cultural context of the language as well as the needs of
the immediate situation. So the meanings that a speaker
can encode, although they may be in some sense new,
are heavily constrained by the recurrent nature of the situ-
ations of use.
For Halliday “meanings” are of three sorts, and every ut-
terance encodes meaning on three levels simultaneously.
The three types of meanings available to speakers are
ideational, interpersonal and textual. These broad types
of meaning are in fact called “metafunctions”. Speak-
ers use their lexicon-cum-grammar over the course of a
given utterance a) to represent experience, b) to achieve
interpersonal goals, and c) to structure information as ef-
ficiently and effectively as possible from a communicative
point of view. It can be seen from this that for Halliday
“meaning” means “function” (more exactly, “function in
context”). The kinds of meaning we communicate can be
overt, as in the words we use and what we say, or covert,
in that the structures we employ indirectly also convey
more abstract kinds of meaning. In 1978, in a seminal
publication called Language as Social Semiotic, Halliday
tied many theoretical threads together to give language
a central but ambivalent place in a powerful theory of hu-
man life in social contexts. Here he develops an explicit
account of how “language and society meet in the gram-
mar” (as Diane Kilpert, 2003, felicitously put it). According
to this account, our language on the one hand shapes the
way we perceive the world we live in and, in particular,
our social world; but, at the same time, through its rich
potential for creating new meanings, it allows us to act
upon and shape that world.
Investigating language as a socially situated phenome-
non, Halliday has revealed the invisible infrastructure of daily
life, and of human relationships and identities. His functional
linguistics, in detailing the nanomechanics of everyday talk
and texts, has shown us how social actors both construct
meaning and are embedded in constructed meaning. The
meaning potential of language, made accessible in this
way, is what gives us our ability to invent and innovate and
(in theory at least) develop the civilizing parameters of our
world.
Eco-linguistics
Halliday is widely regarded as a pioneer of eco-critical
discourse analysis after an influential lecture entitled “New
Ways of Meaning: the Challenge to Applied Linguistics” at
the AILA conference in Saloniki in 1990 (AILA = Associa-
tion Internationale de Linguistique Appliquee, otherwise
the International Applied Linguistics Association). The
lecture has been published in The Ecolinguistics Reader
(edited by Alwin Fill and Peter Muhlhausler, 2001). The
main example he gives in this paper is the widespread
metaphor of economic growth; he goes on to describe
how the English language has become pervaded with
terms such as large, grow, tall, all of which are implicitly
evaluated as positive and good – despite inevitably nega-
tive consequences for the ecology. This is one of the few
public statements Halliday has made about the ideologi-
cal content of discourse in social life (though it must be
said that practitioners of Critical Linguistics and Critical
Discourse Analysis often acknowledge their debt to Hal-
lidayan linguistics as method).
In fact Halliday has always been a political radical, at
least since an early sojourn in China and his involvement
with the British Communist Party while at Cambridge (in
the early 1950s). However, disappointed with Marxist
linguistics (as it was called), he “deferred” political ac-
tivism in order to work on his own theory of language
– though this for Halliday was not so much a theory
of language as a theory of language in social life and
hence a theory of how society works. Halliday has never
engaged directly, or at least publicly, in political debates
and it can be argued that his social theory (and the ar-
ticulation of this in terms of field, tenor and mode) fails to
account, overtly at least, for disparate interests, motives,
and conflict (Jim Martin’s work on hortatory exposition,
and on genre and ideology, has filled this gap to some
extent, but he is more interested these days in positive
discourse analysis.)
Relevance for language teaching
The relevance of Halliday’s writings on language, learn-
ing and society for language teaching is sometimes
underestimated by classroom teachers. Systemic-Func-
tional Grammar (SFG) is felt by some to be too complex
for classroom teaching purposes, particularly in institu-
tions where a communicative approach to language
teaching dominates the curriculum, or where fluency has
priority over accuracy. Yet it was the challenge of teach-
ing Chinese to native English speakers, which involved
explaining the distinct meaning potential of the Chinese
language to his English-speaking students, that led Hal-
liday to ask the kinds of questions about language that
ultimately led to his comprehensive meaning-based ac-
count of English grammar and discourse. And indeed
Halliday and his theories have had tremendous influ-
ence on language teaching in the past, contributing to
the development of the functional/notional syllabus and
the Common European Framework. The communicative
approach, which has been so popular and successful in
its own way, owes a certain amount to Halliday’s ideas
about language (advocates of CLT also like to cite Dell
Hymes on communicative competence). In Britain, Aus-
tralia, New Zealand and Canada, graduate programmes
in applied or pure linguistics are based on his functional-
systemic linguistic theory.
As an English language teacher for many years, some
of the concepts and analyses that I have found imme-
diately relevant and effective in the classroom are the
following:
• Halliday’s work on intonation (Intonation in the Grammar
of English was republished in 2004, with a CD-ROM); his
analysis of English intonation in terms of a smallish set of
meaningful pitch contours (and a part of the grammar of
English) lends itself in a very practical way to the teaching
of face-to-face communication skills;

15
• This leads into a consideration of the Given-New prin-
ciple – a principle for the organisation of information
that is as relevant at the level of entire texts as it is at
the level of the clause, where it is realised in speech
through intonation;
• Halliday’s 1976 book on Cohesion in English (co-authored
with Ruqaya Hasan) is an invaluable aid to understanding
and teaching aspects of grammatical cohesion like refer-
ence chaining and conjunction;
• Halliday’s work on the thematic organisation of texts is
a very useful tool for raising students’ awareness and
control of coherence as well as cohesion in their writ-
ing;
• The concept of grammatical metaphor (where for ex-
ample processes are encoded by nominal groups)
has opened up many new avenues for the effective
teaching of formal, academic or scientific registers of
English;
• Finally, Halliday’s functional breakdowns of grammati-
cal structures (units like nominal and verbal “groups”)
can be graphically displayed on the whiteboard to the
benefit of some intermediate to advanced level learn-
ers.
It is true that from the 1960s on Halliday focused more
on the role of language in learning than in learning lan-
guage. But his ideas on this topic have key implications
for language teaching, which is often (and perhaps nec-
essarily in its earliest stages) carried on as though content
were the least important aspect of language use. Halli-
day would of course argue that the meanings expressed
in language – i.e. “content” – are inseparable from the
wordings used to encode them. The separation usually
made between ‘content’ and ‘language’ in schools and
universities is seen as a pedagogic necessity rather than
an expression of the true state of affairs. The growing
popularity of Content Based Language Teaching (CBLT)
and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in
schools with large numbers of second-language children
and, more particularly, in specialised teaching areas like
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for
Specific Purposes (ESP), reflects an acknowledgement
by educators (and not only language educators) that lan-
guage is central to the kinds of learning where students
must grapple with uncertain knowledge and theoretical
formulations. There is now a considerable literature on
content-based language teaching and the focus is often
on the benefits to be gained from a close integration of
core curriculum with language teaching aims. I would
emphasise here, though, that the integration of content
with language in the classroom calls for very specialised
teaching skills and informed support by the institution if it
is to be successfully carried out.
A personal note
When Halliday arrived in Sydney University in 1976 (to
take up the Foundational Chair in Linguistics) I switched
from undergraduate studies majoring in Social Anthro-
pology to a degree program in Linguistics. I attended
his first (second year) classes in Functional Grammar
and was a diligent consumer of the often semi-legible
stencilled class notes from which gradually developed
(we are told) what is probably Halliday’s most important
publication, his Introduction to Functional Grammar
(1985, 1994; this has not entirely been replaced by the
3rd edition, 2004, co-authored with Matthiessen). Hal-
liday was soon joined by his Canadian PhD student,
Jim Martin. Halliday then hired Barbara Horvath who
taught us Transformational Grammar a la Chomsky and
Labovian sociolinguistics. By the time Halliday arrived I
had read “Language structure and language function”
in the penguin paperback New Horizons in Linguistics,
edited by John Lyons, and “Linguistic function and
literary style: An enquiry into the language of William
Golding’s The Inheritors” in Rules and Meanings: The
Anthropology of Everyday Knowledge, edited by Mary
Douglas (a Penguin Reader). This had whetted my ap-
petite for a kind of linguistics that could actually explain
the whys of linguistic expression, i.e. give explicit rea-
sons for the different ways in which people spoke and
wrote, but also offered insights into a writer’s achieve-
ment of certain literary effects.
Halliday’s kind of linguistics also appealed in that
it promised to help me understand the ways in which
speakers of other languages, and hence people in
other cultures constructed their lifeworlds (it is worth
remembering here that Halliday was much influenced
by Sapir and Whorf). Halliday’s interest in Malinowski
made a convenient bridge, for me, from social anthro-
pology to social linguistics, and Malinowski’s famous
claim that language was primarily “a mode of action
and not an instrument of reflection” was exciting and
new at that time (Malinowski, 1923, p. 312). And I was
entranced, firstly, by the idea that language was so
massively constitutive of knowledge, including mathe-
matical and scientific knowledge and, secondly, by the
idea that language both warranted and mediated social
actions. Halliday maintains that language has evolved
in the context of its use in “the social construction of re-
ality” (a phrase made popular by Berger and Luckman,
1966) or, as Searle has it, “the construction of social
reality” (Searle, 1995).
Conclusions
Halliday recognises the increasing importance of non-
verbal modes of communication in modern life but he also
remarks that there is always a lot of pressure to get away
from language. It’s hard work focusing on language, so peo-
ple want to do something else. So there is always a danger
of people seeing other modalities as an easy option. (Hal-
liday & Burns, 2006: 122)
He points out that language precedes the other mo-
dalities in the lifetime of the individual. It is the primary
meaning-making modality or social semiotic. Halliday
has also shown us that language has played, and con-
tinues to play, a key formative role in the evolution of
human consciousness and society, and he has shown
us in considerable detail how this transpires. This is
perhaps his greatest contribution to modern thought
and resonates with what has been called “the turn to
language” (or “the turn to discourse”). And it should
guarantee linguistics a pivotal role in public debates

16
Alan Jones is based at Macquarie University, Sydney, where he convenes and teaches
on postgraduate programs in communication in professions and organisations. He has
taught academic English (EAP), especially writing, for more than twenty years and now
teaches a course for EAP teachers.
As the traditional cornerstone of the curricu-
lum, there have been no shortage of theories
of grammar and its place in language acquisi-
tion. Grammar teaching has largely followed
its treatment in successive schools of linguis-
tics. For example, the passion for comparative
philology in the nineteenth century fuelled the
grammar-translation method as this facilitated
informed comparison between two language
systems. In the mid-twentieth century, there
was the battle between behaviourism, which
saw grammar as the result of rule-formation mechanisms
wholly responsive to external input, and transformational
grammar, which articulated the principles of internal syn-
tactical rules that were limited in nature but powerful in
application. By the end of the century, systemic-functional
linguistics, with its integration of grammar into discourse,
was influencing the communicative approach. As the
title, From Grammar to Grammaring, suggests, this book
offers a new perspective on the debate. Larsen-Freeman
makes a convincing argument for grammar to be seen as
a skill rather than, purely, a competence. The significance
of this shift in emphasis is such that From Grammar to
Grammaring is a book which really every teacher should
read.
This is not a book review in the conven-
tional sense that it will go through each
section in a linear format supplying illustra-
tions and commentary. In the limited space
available, that process would take too long
and coverage of the main points would be
scanty. From Grammar to Grammaring is
an important book and it does not deserve
to be passed over. Instead, this article be-
gins with Larsen-Freeman’s central thesis
and explores its ramifications. What Larsen-
Freeman does is to react against the preoccupation with
grammar as a body of knowledge. Grammar is much
more than knowing the rules, although this is undoubted-
ly part of the construct (p.14), it also involves sensitivity
to usage. In fact, grammar rules are more flexible than
we think. Larsen-Freeman (p. 54-55) illustrates with the
rule that adjectives pre-modify heads.
the yellow field
the field yellow
However, if the adjective itself has a dependent, it can
only follow the noun.
the field yellow with goldenrod
the yellow with goldenrod field
Teaching Language:
From Grammar to Grammaring
Diane Larsen-Freeman
By Wayne Rimmer
about issues of a social, economic or political nature,
though this clearly has not yet happened. Moreover,
this position makes Hallidayan linguistics potentially
a very radical theory. If our society has been large-
ly “constructed” through language and discourse,
then linguistics, and especially a socially grounded
functional linguistics, provides the tools with which
to critique it. In fact, Hallidayan linguistics is the fa-
voured tool of those who practice Critical Linguistics
(like Roger Fowler and Gunther Kress) and Critical Dis-
course Analysis (such as Norman Fairclough and Ruth
Wodak and Theo van Leeuwen, to name just three). In
this way, systemic-functional grammar generates not
just insights into how we are shaped by our social and
cultural context via language and discourse but also a
critical awareness of these shaping forces. There is no
doubt in my mind that the impact of Michael Halliday
on modern linguistics and the way we think about lan-
guage, society and human consciousness will be felt
for many years to come.
Footnote
Halliday, an Emeritus Professor at Sydney University, is
now in his eighties, and is currently enjoying his retirement
from teaching, though he still lectures widely. Readers might
like to refer to:
Michael Halliday and Anne Burns (2006). Applied Lin-
guistics: thematic pursuits or disciplinary moorings? A
conversation between Michael Halliday and Anne Burns.
Journal of Applied Linguistics 3(1): 113-128.

17
Larsen-Freeman offers a semantic explanation for this
case, namely that the pre-modifier position is the default slot
for adjectives while the post-modifier position is reserved for
more temporary characteristics that result from a specific
cause. But this is to illustrate a much more general phe-
nomenon.
The point of all this is, of course, that rules tend to
be stated and conceived of in deterministic ways,
when in actuality many, although not all, are more
probabilistic, flexible even, bending when it comes
to expressing meaning. (p. 55)
There is a note of caution here for Larsen-Freeman is not
dispensing with the notion of rules. She would not condone
errors like She go to school. Attempts to explain such errors
as a sign of creativity, or to sanction them because they
are evidenced in certain second-language varieties (cf. the
work of Jennifer Jenkins), would get short-shrift in this ap-
proach.
Thus, grammar is not a list of rules which can be
applied to any sentence regardless of the context of
use. Successful communication is marked by a skill
in exploiting the grammatical resource to match the
meaning. This skill is grammaring, the dynamic process
of relating form and structure to meaningful units. Fur-
thermore, in what Larsen-Freeman calls ‘The Grammar
of Choice’ (chapter 6), grammar offers users options
in how they shape the communicative act. An example
given by Larsen-Freeman (p. 57) is word order in con-
structions with two objects. Certain verbs, e.g. give,
send, throw, allow both an indirect object and a prepo-
sitional complement.
Meredith gave Jack advice.
Meredith gave advice to Jack.
Both are grammatical so what is the motivation for prefer-
ring one over the other? Larsen-Freeman has a pragmatic
explanation based on the tendency for information to be
ordered in a unit from old to new, i.e. for the important mes-
sage to get end focus. Thus the first sentence is most likely
to be a response to the question ‘What did Meredith give
Jack?’ and the second an answer to ‘Who did Meredith give
advice to?’ The selection of one construction over the other
is therefore not, completely, arbitrary, but informed prag-
matically.
The book also has insights into the delicate question
of language as a form of social identity and personal ex-
pression. The development of English as an international
language has created a huge interest in socio-linguistics
so it is appropriate that grammar is reexamined in this new
environment. It is important to consider that grammaring
allows the same message to be delivered in different
ways according to the anticipated impact on the receiver.
A well-quoted example used by Larsen-Freeman (p. 65)
is the quotative like.
Emily: He told me like…
This feature is much more characteristic of younger than
older speakers. From a sociolinguistic portrait of the youth
scene in the 1980s, Tagliamonte & D’Arcy surmise that be
like ‘… gained prestige as a trendy and socially desirable way
to voice a speaker’s inner experience (2007: 212).’Carter &
McCarthy refine its usage to situations when ‘… the report
involves a dramatic representation of someone’s response
or reaction (2006: 102)’. Certainly, quotative like is marked,
it is not in this writer’s grammar for example, so on the cru-
cial premise that a difference of form signals a difference
in meaning, like is calculated to construct a specific view
of a speech-act, as well as assert a consciously youthful
identity.
The way that writers/speakers can use grammar to shape
the receiver’s interpretation is highly personalised.
Grammar is much more about our humanness than
some static list of rules and exceptions suggests.
Grammar allows us to choose how we present our-
selves to the world, sometimes conforming to social
norms yet all the while establishing our individual
identities. (p. 142)
In effect, each grammatical choice is unique for that
individual in that context of use. This is not such a bold state-
ment as the inherent creativeness of language has always
been a tenet of transformational grammar.
… much of what we say in the course of normal lan-
guage use is entirely new, not a repetition of
anything that we have heard before and not even
similar in pattern –in any useful sense of the
terms “similar” and “pattern” – to sentences or dis-
course that we have heard in the past. (Chomsky,
1972: 12)
Of course, by ‘new’, Chomsky means variation which
operates within the finite resources of grammar. He is re-
ferring purely to syntactical operations. Larsen-Freeman
opens up grammar as a window into human experience
and the tension between social acceptability and self-
expression. Grammar can be an extension of a creative
instinct which runs deeper than language. Thus, gram-
maring is a natural component of language use, one
which forces constant reflection on the relationship be-
tween form and communicative purpose. When form is
felt to be inadequate, possibly because of a changing
sociolinguistic environment, it can lead to a revision of
the existing grammatical repertoire. In her earlier work,
Larsen-Freeman (1997) claimed that this process eventu-
ally powers diachronical change, i.e. rules are shaped by
usage, not vice-versa.
Clearly, From Grammar to Grammaring raises questions
which go to the heart of language acquisition and what it
means to be an articulate mammal. However, the argu-
ments discussed are far from abstract as a constant theme
in the book, signalled by sections called Teachers’ Voices,
is the reaction and input of teachers from around the world.
The book is also designed to be interactive for there are
Investigations sections with helpful tasks for the reader. In
fact, From Grammar to Grammaring is a very well-balanced
book. It offers a masterful combination of judiciously-select-
ed theory, clear examples, coherent argument and copious
suggestions for good practice. If you only have time to read
one book on grammar, read this one.

18
Wayne Rimmer is Director of Studies at BKC-International House Moscow.
References
• Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge grammar
of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Chomsky, N. (1972). Language and mind. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
• Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997). Chaos/complexity science
and second language acquisition. Applied
Linguistics, 18(2), 139-157.
• Tagliamonte, S. & D’Arce, A. (2007). Frequency and
variation in the community grammar: tracking a new
change through the generations. Language Variation and
Change, 19. 99-217.
Which would you choose from this range of sauces on
display in a Shanghai restaurant?
peru system red pepper sauce
the peppery shrimp slips
lives pulls out the soy sauce
at the end of coriander
explodes the garlic deer velvet
…and do you have a favourite from my Top 10 ‘Chingrish’
delights?
10 Stinky tofu (menu)
9 Rich People Internet Bar
8 Bring Forth ID card (hotel reception)
7 Fragile (clothes shop)
6 Clumsy Craftsman (nick nack shop)
5 Carefully, bang head (airport escalator)
4 Caution: risk of pinching hand (underground train
sliding doors)
3 No admittance to persons with slippery dress (en-
trance to a bank)
2 Declined with thanks: beverage, sloppily dressed
(book shop)
1 Happy ending massage (ad in Shanghai Daily)
I was in China, travelling from city to city on a training
trip and became fascinated by these curious expres-
sions, all of which have no doubt been through one sort
of translation programme or another. Much of this is
anecdotal, but all are genuine examples of what’s ‘out
there’ and some of it involves systematic errors, affect-
ing form.
So the China visit’s got me thinking. As they make their
presence felt on the world stage, with people saying China
will overtake the US economy in 20 years, we can only won-
der at the effect they may have on EIL.
What follows isn’t a theory or suggestion I’m putting for-
ward, but just a contribution to the discussion that’s out
there on EIL (English as an International Language) and
ELF (English as a Lingua Franca). It will do more to raise
questions than provide answers, as I struggle to find where
I stand on it all.
Is it ok that people speak a ‘strange’ or simplified version
of our language? Well, there’s a problem right there. It’s not
our language any more, is it? It’s not something we as na-
tive speakers can decide on. It’s just for us to respond as
teachers, to reflect on the implications of what’s happening
to English.
When talking to the Chinese teachers I was training, I
found myself automatically simplifying what I said. Com-
municating in English seemed as much about my survival
as theirs. I found myself saying ‘maybe they will’ rather than
‘it’s likely they’ll’ or even ‘they might’.
Similarly, in what has seemed a pragmatic and suc-
cessful ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ approach, I’ve
heard others saying ‘I can go…’ without the schwa sound
in the weak form to get their point across to local staff in
the office…though we still teach ‘I can go’ with schwa.
So in my teaching, I model the weak form, often saying to
myself that even if it’s not useful for production, it’s good
listening training, but then might compromise and say the
other, rendering my highlighting of the schwa rather re-
dundant.
What’s developing in India, in China, in Korea, is a sim-
pler form that can be more easily learned and used, that
still does the job. It seems less and less appropriate to
talk in terms of ‘broken English’ and my words when giv-
ing pronunciation input sessions on CELTA courses come
back to me: the important thing is intelligibility, not to
Anticipating the effect .
of the rise of China on EIL
By Jacqueline McEwan

19
Articles | Technology
sound like a native speaker…can we say this applies to
form as well as to pronunciation? My trainee Karina from
Germany says ‘If somebody would have told me…’ and I
understand her perfectly.
So de-grammaticised/ungrammaticised forms such as
the lovely ‘account non-exists’ - as I try to log onto the
internet ‘wideband’ in my Shanghai hotel - allow the Chi-
nese to make themselves understood without the pain,
inconvenience and expense of learning to use an aux-
iliary verb. Borrowing a prefix from an adjective as an
alternative to the auxiliary, as on this sign on the grass in a
Chinese park could also work: I like your smile but I unlike
you put your shoes on my face’.
Perhaps it’s not so much de-grammaticised as pre-
grammar. In the Shanghai metro, a guy looks at his
mobile on the escalator as it tells him ‘you got message’.
My masseuse tells me ‘massage finish’ and I understand
her perfectly. Then back in London, I take time to devel-
op my students’ use of the present perfect – pointless?
Here, we already do it, in the note form used in announce-
ments and instructions. On the 88 from Clapham (does that
make me the ‘woman on the Clapham Omnibus’?) I hear
the automated voice: ‘please stand well clear of doors’. So
we already have a use for the zero article form, might that
convince EIL speakers it’s correct, and make the transition
easier for us?
The big question that came to me was: the whole Chi-
nese nation’s in a race to learn English, but are they going
to learn from us fast enough, before their own brand of
EIL sets in? We know millions are learning it our way to
get an IELTS 6.5 and so achieve the prize of university
entry in the UK. But the bottom line is that for most oth-
er things, doing business for the world, for example, will
something simpler suffice, even work better, suiting their
purpose more effectively? If it’s a race, should we take
the opportunity while we still have it, to expose them to
the English we feel is an acceptable standard, before that
standard is itself irrelevant?
Can we differentiate between speaking and writing here,
as speaking needs to be simpler to facilitate prompt com-
prehension and response, but a more complex written form
can be more easily understood with the luxury of time.
What about our rich language? Catherine Bennett,
writing in The Observer says that the British seem ready
to concede that the mastery of their language has been
greatly overrated. It seems to me that British English
won’t die, it’s just that not everyone will have at their fin-
gertips ten words for how their food tastes, they’ll have
two because that’s all they’ll need to make their point.
We’ll continue to enjoy choosing from our range of ten
words, and we might draw a parallel with the ‘pure Span-
ish’ of parts of central Spain such as Leon. Our journalism
will still be of the same quality – and we’ll still be eloquent
at dinner parties, but will we ourselves have to learn a
different, simpler English to be understood by the rest of
the world?
Jacqueline has been a pre-service and in-service trainer working at International House,
London since 2002. She has worked on IH’s training project in China, training Chinese
state school teachers of English jacqueline.mcewan@ihlondon.com
Digital stories are created by weaving together images, mu-
sic and voiceover narrations into engaging two to three-minute
movies. The stories, told in the first person, are inspired by
significant events, people or places in the narrator’s life and/
or can be based on a certain theme. First developed in the
1990s at the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS), in Berkeley,
California, digital storytelling has been embraced not only by
individuals telling personal stories, but also by organizations,
businesses, activists and educators.
In 2007, I undertook to investigate the process of
implementing a digital storytelling project with two
groups of advanced adult English language learners
at the Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education at
the University of Queensland (ICTE-UQ). After these
initial two rounds of action research, digital storytelling
was incorporated into the curriculum for the advanced
class at ICTE-UQ. I have since had the opportunity
to guide seven more groups through this challenging,
inspiring and rewarding course, which takes place over
a 5-week period with around 5.5 hours of class time
Digital stories
By Kirsty McGeoch
Technology

20
per week. The aim of this article is to give a prac-
tical overview of the steps involved in making digital
stories and how my students have responded to this
process. Before we begin, however, I invite you to
view some digital stories made by my students at
www.l2digitalstorytelling.blogspot.com.
Orientation to the project
Initially, as with any language class, it is important to estab-
lish rapport and start building trust. I usually do this through
a series of ‘getting to know you’ activities, which in the past
have included name games, drama and poetry writing. As an
orientation to the project, I first show my digital story, followed
by examples from the growing bank of work made by past stu-
dents. As part of the viewing process, we also analyze the
stories in terms of the 7 elements of digital storytelling as con-
ceived by the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS):
1. Point (of view): The author must define the point of the
story.
2. Dramatic question: Does the story set up some tension
that is later resolved?
3. Emotional content: Truthful stories that deal with themes
of love, loss, confidence, vulnerability, acceptance and
rejection improve the likelihood of holding the audience’s
attention.
4. The gift of your voice: Record a natural-sounding voice-
over. The teller’s voice is unique and conveys its own
special meaning.
5. The power of soundtrack: Choosing music which com-
plements or adds an extra layer of meaning.
6. Economy: Being selective with the script, editing out text
which is shown and may be conveyed by the images.
The general guideline is about 250–300 words, which
translates into a three-minute story.
7. Pacing: The rhythm of the story is crucial in sustaining the
audience’s interest.
(Lambert, 2002, pp. 45-59)
In addition to the 7 elements, which provide guidelines
rather than a fixed formula, some time is spent discussing
narrative features in general, including drawing the typical
‘shape’ or map of a story and introducing the concept of the
‘Story core’: problem, resolution, change/realization. (Ohler,
2008)
With my most recent group, the students also made a
mini-digital story in the first lesson, using two photographs
and narrating a brief self-introduction. This helped to ac-
quaint them with the basic process and the software we
would be using (Movie Maker 2 and Audacity).
Coming up with a story
Arguably the most challenging aspect of the project for stu-
dents is unearthing their initial story idea. Viewing past digital
stories can begin to trigger memories, as can discussions
based on story prompts about turning points in their lives, their
careers, their passions, influential people or treasured objects.
Free writing on these topics is another effective strategy.
The story circle
The story circle is part of the Center for Digital Storytelling
(CDS workshop model) and is considered to be a pivotal
stage in the process. The group sits in a circle, as the name
suggests, and one by one students read out their first drafts,
or share the ideas in their heads (as is more often the case).
The rest of the group listens attentively and then gives sup-
portive peer feedback. In my experience, the story circle
has helped students to test out their initial script ideas to see
if they are potentially engaging and also to find the focus of
their stories. It is also an activity which inspires the group
to trust each other and has the effect of bonding the class.
“We are much closer now”, one student commented after
participating in the story circle. One issue that needs to
be addressed is the level of personal disclosure. Before we
begin the process, I remind them that they should only share
what they are willing to share; that personal does not nec-
essarily mean deeply private or confessional. From what I
have observed, students seem to have a sense of their own
boundaries.
Script development
Students continue to refine their scripts through a process of
writing multiple drafts with the goal of honing them to fit within
the 300-word limit. They share their writing with their peers and
also review it in response to my feedback, either via email or
over a class blog. Yoon, from South Korea, reflected that dur-
ing the project he ‘wrote his fingers to the bone.’ This aspect
of the project is certainly demanding, but many students have
reported that the process of refining the same piece of writing
boosted their confidence. As the script was part of a larger
goal, students were also more invested in the writing process.
Ana, from Mexico, described how she was prompted to inves-
tigate the past perfect tense in earnest:
“I have to go to the library, borrow a book to check
the tense. I never, never, never do that until this
time because was worried about that so it was really
good for my English.”
Images and storyboarding
When their scripts are reasonably developed, the students
then make a storyboard, indicating the kind of pictures they
intend to use. This invariably leads to alterations in the
script as ideas that can be shown can replace written text
thereby achieving more ‘economy’. Students are free to
use or create their own photographs, or find copyright-free
images online. To introduce students to the basics of visual
grammar (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996) and the use of met-
aphor, we often read and analyse a children’s picture book
called The Piggy Book by Anthony Browne (1996). Again,
we revisit some past digital stories for examples of the cre-
ative use of images.
Voice
Before recording their final voiceovers, the students re-
cord audio drafts of their story using a free open-source
software program called Audacity. After listening to their
drafts, I give each student audio feedback on their pro-
nunciation. For many students, it is the first time they have
recorded their voices and it raises their awareness about
their weaknesses and strengths. Having to record their
voices as part of a digital story project also gives students a
pretext for practicing their pronunciation, with many of them
listening repeatedly to my audio feedback and re-recording
their voices several times.

21
Music
As with images, I direct students towards copyright-free
music. This step is usually left until towards the end as music
can be omitted if there are time constraints.
Putting it all together
The computer lab at ICTE-UQ has PCs, so digital stories
are compiled using Windows Movie Maker 2. Students with
Apple MacIntosh computers can use the free software, iM-
ovie. Final voiceovers are recorded and music mixed using
Audacity and then imported into Movie Maker. Before fi-
nalizing their movies, I have the students view a rough cut
of each other’s movies. This is an opportunity to get valu-
able feedback on whether the story is communicating the
desired message, whether the images are congruent, and
whether the volume of the voice and music is adequately
balanced.
Final viewing
For my research project, the final movies were screened
for the class and invited guests only. More recently, we
have held final screenings in the auditorium for the whole
school to attend. The final screening, be it for an inti-
mate or larger audience, is a vital step in the process.
Students invest incredible amounts of time and effort
in making their digital stories. The final screening hon-
ours this effort, and honours them. It is a truly moving
experience and students are left with a genuine sense of
achievement. Robin from China summed up the senti-
ment well; “I did it!!”
What the students say
While my research and subsequent projects did not set
out to measure gains in language proficiency, students con-
sistently report improvements in their English, particularly in
terms of pronunciation, speaking and writing. Most striking,
however, are the students comments about how making a
digital story is intrinsically motivating and engaging, how it
creates a space for self-reflection and intercultural sharing,
how it builds a strong sense of community in the class, and
how it leaves them with something tangible - an artifact of
which they are immensely proud.
Other ways to use digital storytelling
The kind of digital stories I have discussed in this article
are personal ones. The techniques of digital storytelling,
however, can be used for a variety of other genres, both
narrative and expository. Likewise, digital storytelling can be
adapted to suit different levels of language proficiency. For
example, in 2009, I experimented with pre-intermediate and
intermediate Japanese study tour students each making a
1-minute digital story based around one single photograph
and the details and personal significance behind it. For
more details, click here.
Try it for yourself
After my first digital storytelling project one of my col-
leagues, who was the main class teacher of the advanced
group, said enthusiastically; “This is what teaching can be.”
While the involvement required by the teacher in a digital
storytelling project is significant, the rewards are real. Digi-
tal storytelling in the language classroom goes beyond
language skills. It is a way for students to engage their cre-
ativity, express their identities and find their voices. For me,
helping students create digital stories has been the most
satisfying experience of my career, and I encourage other
teachers to try it for themselves.
For more information about digital storytelling and
links to resources, visit Kirsty’s website or contact her at
Kirsty.mcgeoch@gmail.com.
• Browne, A. (1996). Piggybook. London: Walker Books.
• Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading Images:
The Grammar of Visual Design. New York: Routledge.
• Lambert, J. (2002). Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives,
Creating Community. Berkeley, CA: Digital Diner Press.
• Ohler, J. (2008). Digital Storytelling in the Classroom.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Kirsty McGeoch has worked as an English language instructor for 14 years – in Austra-
lia, Asia and South America. After completing her Master of Education degree at the
University of Sydney in 2005, she received an Australian Postgraduate Award scholar-
ship to write her PhD thesis on digital storytelling in second language teaching and
learning. She teaches part-time at the Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education at
the University of Queensland, and gives professional development workshops in digital
storytelling for teachers.

International House JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2010

International House JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2010

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to International House JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2010

Similar to International House JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2010 (20)

More from Baker Publishing Company

More from Baker Publishing Company (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

International House JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2010