How do we generate language from a topic? - A practical example

A picture is worth 1000 words

This was the title of a webinar presented by Adrian Tennant as part of the MacMillan series.  What follows is a summary of the session.

Adrian began by telling us that two or three 50-word texts should generate five or six hours of teaching.  This was quite a surprising claim and had us hooked from the off!

We were then shown that we don't even need 50 words.  For example, we should treat a picture as a text.  Remember the saying: 'A picture is worth a thousand words'.

Another place to start would be with a newspaper headline.  For example.

Youth Badly Hit in Jobs Market

The ambiguity of headlines like this make them rich pickings for language analysis:

• Who or what does the word 'youth' refer to ?
• What is a jobs market?
• How was/were the youth hit?
• Who or what hit the youth?
• What was the youth hit with?        etc., etc.

This could easily be adapted for low level students:



Young People Can't Get Jobs



Here, you could focus on modals, negatives, the verb 'get', and so on.

A five or six word text can generate 15-20 minutes of teaching and/or discussion, so how much more can be generated from a 50-word text? 

 

With a 50-word text, you can

• pick up on collocations and do vocabulary matching exercises
• isolate the grammar - tenses, comparatives, etc.
• teach a particular part of speech - adjectives, articles, prepositions, etc.
• highlight referencing words - like this, this kind of, these, they, etc.

An example of a short text

Usually in course books, the higher the level, the longer the text.  Remember:

size

doesn't

matter!!

 

Short, complex texts can be much more useful than longer ones.

 

 

 

 

What else can you ask students to do with a short text?

• You can ask students to paraphrase or summarise the text. 
• Use it to increase vocabulary.  For example, you could get students to replace every adjective with a synonym, thus teaching them to avoid repetition in their own writing.
• You can use the text as the basis for a class discussion.
• You can ask students to generate questions from the text for their classmates to answer.
• You can get students to prepare two-minute presentations based on the text.

 

What is the difference between using short texts and using a coursebook?

• The texts are bite-sized.
• The language emerges from the topic, NOT the topic from the language.

 

There are thousands of topic-based lessons for all levels freely available on the internet, covering subjects such as: crime, family, weather, politics, travel, work, relationships, environment, culture, education, transport, etc.

 

Remember!

 

There is no such thing as an authentic text in an EFL classroom.  The minute you take a text into class, it loses it's authenticity!  There are only authentic tasks!

 

How do you create a topic-driven lesson?

1. Choose a topic.
2. Find (or write) short texts about the topic.  These can be like short newspaper articles.
3. Start looking for the language - DO NOT try to write a text to illustrate a grammar point or a particular type of vocabulary.  The text should never be contrived - the language should emerge from a naturally-written text.
4. Design your activities - don't forget to record audio versions of your texts to be able to add listening activities.
5. Always have the topic at the forefront of your mind.

Extension activities

• Higher level students can generate their own texts (this is good for error correction, too).
• Texts written by higher level students can be used in lower-level classes.
• Give students a similar text to the original as a gap-fill - articles, linkers, etc.

Conclusion

 

The most important thing is getting students to notice language through exploring and analysing a text.  We need to teach students how to learn and give them the curiosity and the tools to take control of their own learning.

 

Further reading

 

'Uncovering Grammar' by Scott Thornbury