"Linking the University and School Classroom through the Use of Materials"

In August, VTTN held 3-day national workshops in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. These were led by a top UK consultant, Sheena Davies (MA,MSc, PGCE, RSA Dip TEFLA), the English Language Training Specialist from The Institute of Applied Language Studies, The University of Edinburgh. Up to 25 participants were invited to take part in each workshop, representing a wide range of professionals from the field of ELT in Vietnam, and consisted of trainers from university training colleges, English language teachers from upper secondary schools and education officials.

What were the workshops about?

The workshops linked to the provincial workshops on-exploiting school text books, which had taken place a month earlier, and the overall aim was to link three areas: teacher training, teacher development and teaching in upper secondary schools. The workshops brought together Vietnamese teachers and trainers with a wealth of experience from across the country and, as a result, the workshops hummed with the exchange of ideas and opinions about practical issues in teaching. The content of the workshop, outlined below, shows the focus of the stimulating discussions over the three days:

Day one: Identifying problems relating to learning, teaching and learning to teach; Materials evaluation: establishing criteria;
Materials evaluation: putting it into practice (activities and exercises).

Day two: Principles and techniques of materials exploitation and adaptation; Techniques of materials exploitation and adaptation;
Integrating language learning, methodology and materials adaptation.

Day three: Demonstrations and peer teaching; Techniques for follow-on training; Production of action plan plans.

What was produced during the workshop?

Evaluation checklists:
a practical tool for teachers and trainers to assess activities and materials used for
teaching English
tried and tested in the workshop
List of activity types and techniques:
an easy-to-use reference for teachers who need more ideas
tried and tested in the workshop l
Teaching plans for:
a) an adapted activity to teach one of the skills
b) an experiential learning activity for teacher training, dealing with methodology
c) a mini-workshop for colleagues, based on the content of this national workshop
tried and tested in the workshop
Action plans:
Each participant produced a personal action plan showing how they were going to share with their colleagues the knowledge and benefits they gained in this workshop.
Reporting back:
All participants completed an evaluation form at the end of the workshop. The results were overwhelmingly positive: everyone gained something from it, especially in the areas of materials adaptation and evaluation, and also peer teaching. They hope VTTN will organise more workshops - of course!

What participants of the national workshops say...

I still keep my badge from the national VTTN workshop as a good memory; it reminds me of those interesting days in August. Our very short summer holiday, with a storm in central Vietnam, did not lessen our eagerness to attend the workshop. The first morning we could not help worrying because we did not know what we were going to do. However, the ice was broken in the first few minutes of the workshop when we began our discussions. The workshop was a valuable chance for teachers from teacher training colleges and secondary schools to exchange ideas in order to increase the effectiveness of teacher training. To me, the most interesting thing was the small changes we can make through material evaluation and adaptation. I still believe that these very simple changes can make an activity successful. To convince people to carry out realistic changes was a big success of the workshop.

It was, in fact, a realistic and practical workshop and it was very useful in terms of teaching and learning English. It is our responsibility to apply what we learned and convince people to make those necessary changes in the way they teach.

Ho Thi My Hau Teacher, Hue City

I tremendously enjoyed attending the workshop and have been able to apply much of what I learned in my teaching here at Hong Duc University. One thing I learned was the importance of incorporating appropriate pre-listening and pre-reading activities in my teaching, both in terms of teaching language skills as well as teaching methodology to my student teachers. I have seen first-hand how the inclusion of such activities can enhance understanding of key material. I have spent much of my time since the workshop developing my own
pre-listening and pre-reading activities. Furthermore, I have made plans to conduct a local workshop for all foreign-language teachers at Hong Duc University to expose them to the importance of including these activities in their teaching.

Le Thi Dinh Teacher Trainer,
Hong Duc University, Thanh Hoa

VTTN is new to us, the school teachers of English in upper secondary schools in Vietnam. Only after we had attended the VTTN national workshop held in Hanoi did we understand what VTTN is and how it works.
In Thai Nguyen, we also have a lot of activities to help teachers of English in their own teaching situations. After the VTTN workshop, we held a provincial workshop for 136 upper secondary teachers. In this workshop, I shared with my colleagues what I had learned from VTTN. All my colleagues were delighted and ready to take part in the activities. They had the opportunity to absorb and discuss new things introduced by VTTN such as ways of using the school books they are teaching, how to plan different activity types in their lessons and how to guide students to take part in classroom activities. This kind of workshop helps teachers be better and more confident in their teaching. It is time for them to refresh their English and they need workshops every year.

Tran Thi My Quang
ELT Specialist Thai Nguyen Department of Education and Training, Thai Nguyen

Referring to the title of the workshop, I have some comments about the 'link' between universities and school classrooms. In Vietnam now, four languages are being taught: English, French, Russian and Chinese. However, hardly any are being taught in the schools of the mountainous regions, border regions and outlying islands, because we lack the teachers. 11 seems that our country has insufficiencies in the teaching of foreign languages, and consequently, the accumulation and continuation of learning in any foreign language is limited. The solution to this problem is not easy and requires a better link between university and school.

Tran Kim Bang
Teacher Quang Xuong 3 Secondary School,
Thanh Hoa

After the workshop, I was determined to organise some mini-workshops for my staff, something I never thought I was able to do, and in fact I have already submitted the workshop plan to my boss.
Evaluating all types of lessons and text books was very challenging. This work was completely new to me and almost everyone else there. However, our hard work paid off: we completed an evaluation checklist and a list of activity types. I find the two lists incredibly useful as I can use them in my teaching. I will try to make my lessons more accessible and effective by using the checklist to identify problems then deciding what needs adapting or supplementing for the Vietnamese context. The list of activities will also be used for different types of exercises as a measure for adaptation and supplementation.
This workshop helped university teachers to be aware of the fact that the adaptation and supplementation of the upper secondary materials are not only the responsibility of school teachers, but also theirs, because they are dealing with student teachers. Once they know the problems that their students face at secondary
school, they will find the best means to help them overcome their future difficulties.
As a college teacher, I think we have to link the teaching process at university to secondary schools through the use of materials.

Cao Thi Thuy
Teacher Trainer, Continuing Education Centre, Nghe An

The workshop run by the DOET in Thai Nguyen included:
• Identifying problems related to learning and teaching
• Materials evaluation
• Watching a model lesson
• Integrating language learning, methodology and
materials adaptation
• Writing lesson plans
• Demonstration/peer teaching

Materials produced international workshops

Eluvation: an essential skill for teachers and teacher trainers

As teachers, we all need to adapt text book exercises, reading texts, speaking practice activities, etc, to better suit our students and our teaching environment. AWealso often need to supplement the text book when the material is insufficient.

During the national workshops, the Hanoi and HCMC groups each produced an evaluation checklist to help teachers and teacher trainers to evaluate teaching materials systematically and logically. After completing the evaluation, the teacher can then decide how best to adapt/supplement the material.
Have a look at the one below for reading/listening lessons and grammar lessons, produced by the Hanoi group. It was tested in the workshop and proved to be very effective, try it out for yourselves!

Evaluation Checklist

Reading and Listening Lessons Y N Comments
1. Is the topic interesting for Vietnamese students?
2. Is the reading/listening text very long?
3. Are there any pre-reading/listening activities? If so, what kind(s)?
4. Are there any while-reading/listening activities? If so, what kind(s)?
5. Are there any follow-up (post-reading/listening) activities?
Speaking? What kind of activity?
Listening? What kind of activity? Writing? What kind of activity?
6. How many new vocabulary items are there?
Are there too many?
7. How is the new vocabulary dealt with?
8. Are there any follow-up activities which:
recycle the new vocabulary, or use it in new contexts? extend the vocabulary items?
Extra questions for evaluating an international book
9. Is the topic culturally appropriate for Vietnamese
students?
10.Would any of the activities be difficult to manage in a large class with few resources and little space for movement?
11.Would any of the activities require a lot of preparation time and resources?

Grammar Lessons
1. How many grammatical items are presented within one lesson? Are there too many?
2. Is/Are the grammatical item(s) presented in a realistic context? In a dialogue? In a spoken or written text? In a situation?
3. Is the new item contrasted with a familiar item?
4. Is the grammar explanation clear and easy to understand?
5. How many practice activities/exercises are there for each new item? What kind?
6. Are there any freer practice activities involving student-student interaction?

Expanding your 'repertoire' of classroom activities

Every experienced teacher has a 'repertoire' of activities for teaching each skill, or to use with a type of material. In other words, s/he knows a variety of different ways of using commonly available material to teach English. Having a large repertoire helps you to make your lessons more interesting and effective; it motivates your students (and you!), caters to different learning styles and can help to practise a wider range of skills.

Here are some ideas from participants of the national workshop in Ho Chi Minh City - use it as a reference for more ideas when you plan your next lesson.

Speaking activities
Roleplay open, guided
Narratives (telling stories)
Find Someone Who ...
Picture description: Picture comparison, Find the differences, Describe and identify, Describe and arrange, Describe and draw, Complete the drawing
Discussions: open-ended (no conclusion); closed (some conclusion, eg. ranking (priority) discussion, survival discussion, problem-solving).
Debates
Interviews
Class survey (questionnaire)
Guessing, speculating, interpreting
Reporting/giving presentations
Planning an event
Giving reasons (for your choice)
Giving opinions, agreeing and disagreeing
Retelling stories/information
Improvising a conversation/dialogue
Situation-response (What would you do? What would you say?)
Personal experiences (likes, dislikes, interests)

Using pictures
Labelling items in a picture
Telling stories/making dialogues
Making sentences, writing descriptions
Asking questions, giving answers
Fill in speech bubbles in pictures and cartoons
Guessing/speculating/interpreting mystery or unusual pictures
Matching spoken or written descriptions to pictures
Picture dictation
Describe and draw
Describe and arrange
Describe and identify
Find the differences between two pictures
Find the similarities
Discuss and compare pictures
Put pictures from a story sequence (cartoon) in the correct order
Discuss cultural differences, referring to a picture
Practise structures

Using dialogues
Gap-fill dialogues: with words to choose or without
Read gapped dialogue and predict missing information, then listen to check
Listen/read to dialogue, then answer comprehension questions
Listen/read to dialogue and identify correct picture
Listen/read to dialogue, then roleplay a similar one in given situations
Listen/read to dialogue, then free roleplay
One-sided dialogue (like telephone conversation): students guess the 'hidden' part
Students make a dialogue; others guess who and where they are
Listen to one 'line' at a time with students guessing/predicting the next 'line'
Students make a dialogue using picture prompts

Pre-reading/ listening activities
Brainstorm on words/ideas/background knowledge of topic
Free talk about the topic/personal experience
Questionnaire on knowledge/ opinions about topic for students to complete
Questions about the topic to discuss
True/false questions on text. Students first guess, then read/listen to check their answers
What students want to know about the topic: students write down their questions then read/listen to see if their questions are answered
Talking about pictures relating to the topic
Roleplay on topic to predict situation or language or activate knowledge about topic
Predict topic from words taken from the text
Rearrange pictures relating to the topic
Use music/song related to the topic to arouse students' interest
Create a list of what they expect to read/hear. Compare with other students' lists. Read/listen to check their predictions

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