jeff stanford
Lecturer on the MA Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the University of Leicester, Doctoral Researcher in Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Lancaster.
Location London
Activity
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Welcome, Karem!
This MOOC certainly does look at some of the issues teachers face and looks at possible causes. -
Welcome, Tracey
I hope you find this MOOC interesting. It certainly covers a range of fields all relating to Applied Linguistics. -
Hi Chris! Yes, that's very much what we hope. Do feel free to ask any questions about the main MA. There is also a live webinar at the end of the MOOC where you can meet some of us and ask more questions!
Jeff -
Welcome, Salman.
This MOOC should certainly help you understand some of the theory behind the practice of teaching English. -
Welcome, Geetha!
You'll find a lot in this MOOC about the use of words in many different contexts. -
jeff stanford made a comment
Hi everyone! I'm Jeff Stanford and will be one of the moderators on this MOOC.
I look forward to reading your comments and questions.
Jeff -
@IsequielAfonso by 'targetable' I assume you mean 'achievable'?
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@ I totally agree with you, Angela. I have too often observed classes where a sort of 'dead' learning is going on. It's rather soul-destroying, especially when there are so many exciting creative ways of teaching/learning.
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jeff stanford replied to Amanda Rautio
@AmandaRautio Indeed, and help learners feel more motivated to learn by focusing on their achievements.
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@ZeinabMuhsinAlghurabi So you'd like to remove high-stakes summative tests and keep formative (potentially helpful) evaluation.
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jeff stanford replied to Zakaria Razza
@ZakariaRazza Yes, and it presupposes that the tests are somehow perfect measurements of the designated competences, which of course they cannot be.
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jeff stanford replied to Samy Shebl
@SamyShebl Fulcher isn't drawing a line. He's suggesting that there was a move towards a more egalitarian society (removal of privilege), which was nevertheless affected by socioeconomic background.
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There are some specific tests for healthcare workers such as https://www.occupationalenglishtest.org/test-information/healthcare-professions/medicine/
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@VittoriaTelo I think you've highlighted some very real problems related to the importance of effective measurement of language.
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Hi Ei, Yes you make a good point. The IELTS may not be fit for purpose if the immigrants in question do not need to competent in more formal English.
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Hi Virginia
If by tests you mean 'formal' tests, then the answer is 'no' there are certainly other ways. Consider, for example, observations, interviews, project work, portfolios, self-assessment, peer-assessment. -
Yes @RocioAldeco . Of course, it's meritocratic when it's based on a set of assessment criteria (a criterion-referenced test), and is less so, when it's based on fixed percentages of test-takers being allowed to pass (a norm-referenced test).
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jeff stanford made a comment
Hello, I'm Jeff Stanford, one of the moderators for this week. Thanks for your comments so far. You're already bringing up interesting testing-related concepts like fairness, validity, measurement, usefulness, which we'll explore during this week. Jeff
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@LizW Hi Liz. These are the last few days of this MOOC, but do feel free to go through all the materials while it's still open.
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@AnnaKavanagh Yes. It obviously requires a bit of student training, but it's eminently doable.
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@AnnaKavanagh There is a twitter corpus in case you'd like to investigate this further: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Edinburgh-Twitter-Corpus-Petrovic-Osborne/0f9e183f256e7275ca879ca825ecd1cd6f4c5049. You could also use tools such as AntConc to create your own corpus.
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@EmmaSnipe https://www.english-corpora.org/movies/ offers a corpus of movie dialogs
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jeff stanford replied to Sachiko Igarashi
@SachikoIgarashi A useful link, Emma.
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@AnnaKavanagh Yes, it's rather like the 'Thank you for not smoking' sign that you might find in public places, which is really a command.
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@SachikoIgarashi @EmmaSnipe @MargaritaBlaha The point you make, Emma, is also echoed in Lewis's book 'The English Verb' which I mentioned in the last section of this MOOC (5.3).
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@SachikoIgarashi It's worth investigating the nuances of modals. I still remember the simple guidance in the book 'The English Verb' by Michael Lewis (1986) https://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Verb-Exploration-Structure-Meaning/dp/090671740X which offered a simple way of understanding the concepts behind them. The past form often creates a distance which is...
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@SachikoIgarashi Yes, it has all sorts of useful applications including learning vocabulary, collocations, translation work, writing and others. I hope you enjoy this week!
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jeff stanford replied to Anna Kavanagh
@AnnaKavanagh And yet... he's been amazingly successful
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jeff stanford replied to Paul Onuh
@JoannaK @PaulOnuh If you go to youtube and search for 'women with low voices' you can find some interesting examples of the effect of lower pitch on listeners. E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35AGICScBzA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcE_6M1YuK8 . The second one includes a clip of Margaret Thatchers speaking with a lower voice.
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@SusanFriese As Pam mentioned earlier, Jenkins is trying to be of practical help by identifying key components of pronunciation what would help make us all more intelligible to each other.
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@SusanFriese I have a friend who has grown to dislike readers' interpretations of texts and now lists to more robotic text-to-speech versions of books so that he can interpret text the way he wants.
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@IrinaNekrashevich Good point, Irina. I don't think the intention of the task is to normalise prejuduce, but to raise awareness of it.
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@clairemaurice long live netflix! There's also a chrome extension for 'learning languages with netflix' which provides additional language learning support for some languages.
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@ToniGlasson I'd love to know why that is the case!
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@THWEIBAMAHMOUD Are you referring to Mandarin?
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@IbrahimTezel which of the German accents are you referring to, I wonder! There's a rather old YouTube video of Peter Frankenfeld imitating many of them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZiLwyXXKEw&t=165s. As you can hear, they vary enormously!
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@SachikoIgarashi I totally sympathise with that challenge, Sachiko, as I have the same problem when I'm operating in other languages. What we'll be looking at this week though is how pronunciation varies according to the speaker and the situation. So I hope you finish the week feeling a bit more confident about recognising different sorts of pronunciation and...
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jeff stanford replied to Elfie Handcock
@ElfieHandcock I do like your ideas and all the other ideas on this page! They all focus on positive energy, engagement, appropriate activity. The challenge is to have all this in countries which have strong assessment regimes. It's possible, but often quite challenging.
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@LornaP Unfortunately, it is a common approach to teaching languages which I have witnessed in many state secondary schools (e.g. in Uzbekistan, Armenia, Ukraine) in recent years. The good news is that large organisations within the countries and from outside are making tremendous efforts to change this.
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@IbrahimTezel @fatehhassan There's a very popular TED talk by Amy Cuddy about how changing your body language to affect your state of anxiety: https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are
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@clairemaurice What would help you allay that nervousness? Getting started, knowing more about the course, planning your study? Something else?
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@ElfieHandcock Yes, you've hit the nail on the head. So how much pressure is acceptable? One approach could be to get students very excited about forthcoming tasks in the first place so that they downplay their fears when they perform their tasks.
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@SachikoIgarashi What helps with the assessing speaking is to have a clear reason for testing and a clear idea of what aspect of the language is being tested. E.g. whether we want to know about students' ability to make presentations, perform a transaction in a shop, hypothesise, complete a certain task. Once we know what we're testing, it should be easier to...
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jeff stanford replied to Emma C
@EmmaC and @EddieFaureWalker Thanks, both. Both terms are indeed softer. Progress seems to imply a more fixed goal than reflection which could be pondering the past to imagine (or work out) the future.
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jeff stanford replied to Emma C
@EmmaC I think you make a good point about the term 'assessment'. There is a danger of negative connotation. Maybe AFL can be seen as an attempt to evolve the connotation. Can you think of a better term?
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jeff stanford replied to Ahmet Can Genco
@AhmetCanGenco And did you find you were learning items that would help you get a better mark in the test, or would help you learn all aspects of the language, or perhaps both?
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jeff stanford made a comment
There are some very suggestions in this section. The follow-up question, of course, is to what extent are language skills and concomitant assessment sufficiently well developed in the countries you live in? E.g. How many British firefighters can operate in widely-spoken immigrant languages like Punjabi?...
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jeff stanford made a comment
There are some good comments in this section. I think some of you have captured how unease and discomfort are caused by the lack of expected moves. Teachers/moderators could certainly be of help in helping language learners get a sense of what moves would be more appropriate.
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@GlennFulcher And if you use the Chrome browser, there should be an button which offers to translate on the right hand side of the URL .
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@AmandaWelfare Well, isn't it, indeed! Hope all's well with you!
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Good point about native speaker responsibility, Terry. This is one of the things that Milton Bennet tries to promote in his model of intercultural sensitivity https://organizingengagement.org/models/developmental-model-of-intercultural-sensitivity/. The problem may be that a lot of native speakers (L1 speakers) don't even see it as a responsibility.
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You're making some very good points here! As several of you write, it is important that Cameron is basing her conclusions on data. If you're interested in this, here's a link to an article with some other perspectives on the debate by Elizabeth Stokoe: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/do-women-and-men-talk-differently
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jeff stanford replied to Andrew K
@AndrewK Thanks for the explanation. You'll find a mixture of prompts throughout the MOOC. There are texts, videos, quizzes, polls, padlets. We've tried to include a broad variety. The steps are often short, but there are a lot of them each week and they are all interrelated.
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jeff stanford replied to Andrew K
@LorenaMoraesAlmeida Thanks, Lorena. Don't forget yesterday was day 1 of the course. In previous runs there has been a lot of engagement. over the weeks. Let's hope this is the same. So a call to everyone: don't hold back with your comments, ideas and questions!
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jeff stanford replied to Andrew K
What do you mean exactly?
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jeff stanford made a comment
Hello to those of you who've just joined! I'm Jeff Stanford - a Teaching Fellow on the MA course, and a moderator on this MOOC. I look forward to reading your comments and trying to be of help.
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jeff stanford made a comment
Goodbye from me, too. It's been a pleasure reading your contributions over the past six weeks. I hope to see some of you on the course itself. I hope this is motivated you all to investigate applied linguistics yet more and discover the relationship between theory and practice. All good wishes - Jeff
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jeff stanford replied to Barry McDonald
@BarryMcDonald Thanks, Barry. Yes, it's certainly good to be aware of a variety of approaches to helping students with grammar, and asking them which approach they find most efficient.
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jeff stanford replied to Sviatlana Labanava
@SviatlanaLabanava There's plenty more to be had on https://www.davidcrystal.com/GBR/David-Crystal
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jeff stanford replied to Eduardo Mórlan
@EduardoMórlan Here's a link to the abstract: https://core.ac.uk/display/322715262. There's another link on that page. If that doesn't work, maybe Nick will help out.
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jeff stanford replied to Gerard Brady
@GerardBrady Julie will probably explain this better than I will, but I think she means that Lesson Study doesn't have as its main focus what the teacher does in the classroom. Rather, it looks at how well the jointly-conceived (with other teachers) lesson plan worked to help the learners learn.
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jeff stanford replied to Yann D
@YannD Yes, your last sentence reminds me of a well-known article ;ublished in 1984 by Richard Allwright: Why don't learners learn what teachers teach? He answered the question by showing that students have different perceptions of what actually happens in class and accordingly develop their own learning agenda.
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jeff stanford replied to Dawn Blackmore
@DawnBlackmore It certainly looks like Icelandic. Maybe Agneta will comment on this.
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jeff stanford replied to Barry McDonald
@BarryMcDonald Which other effective approaches to teaching grammar did you have in mind?
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@EduardoMórlan It's really worth persevering. Once you're in, you'll find it's a very useful tool.
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@GerardBrady Yes, Michael Lewis's 'The English Verb' also has it the other way round.
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@EduardoMórlan Maybe try opening it in a different browser.
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jeff stanford replied to Eduardo Mórlan
@EduardoMórlan And has that guidance proved to be useful/accurate?
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jeff stanford replied to Kanchan Barua
@KanchanBarua, what kind of guidance were you given?
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jeff stanford replied to Eduardo Mórlan
@EduardoMórlan Yes, there's another good one offered by Lancaster Uni: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/corpus-linguistics?yoReviewsPage=2
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@LouiseW Could you give some examples of where the terminology is confusing.
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jeff stanford replied to Thomas Wendorff
@GerardBrady Yes, that's right, and it can be studied as a separate subject at places like the University of Cardiff.
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@SanchitaRobey In fact I had two violin teachers: the first insisted on learning the grammar of the violin first, and we played relatively few pieces of music, but got a very good technique. The second astounded me by asking me to 'perform the first bar of the Glazunov'! In a flash it totally changed the way I played that bar. The 'grammar' of that bar then...
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jeff stanford made a comment
Not so many of you have stuck it out, but I've really enjoyed reading your comments about the social aspects of pronunciation. I hope this unit has inspired you to find out more about English and other languages.
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Have you tried using VPN?
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@EduardoMórlan I wasn't aware of Michael Caine being despised, but he certainly helped improve the status of non-RP
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@NIkkiRaye Would it give teachers useful guidelines for prioritising items within their pronunciation teaching, though?
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@AnnetteBird Yes, I've gradually adopted that preference, too, though I find I seem to have automated text for a while before I get to real responses.
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@EduardoMórlan Thanks for sharing those. You're absolutely right: it's about making whatever accent you have as accessible as possible to your audience.
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@GerardBrady Would you say the issues with Stephanie's speech relate to the pronunciation of individual sounds or to connected speech? And is one of those more important than the other?
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@EduardoMórlan How interesting (again!). More proof that accents open up a pandora's box of prejudices.
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@BarryMcDonald hmmm... if you'd said 'Ontario', would he have known?
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jeff stanford replied to Eduardo Mórlan
@EduardoMórlan How interesting! Thank you so much for sharing that. I find it quickly addictive. What a difference between, say, Chiapas and Chihuahua! Are those pitch leaps common in Chiapas?
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The thing is, Annette, there's nothing we can do to stop the change. I think we'd be amazed at the different in accents from just 200 years ago. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ywg03b574oQ&feature=share gives you an idea of how the Edwardians spoke.
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comfortable in your shoes!
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Mario, which particular British English accent do you aspire to?
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Yes, and ultimately we want our accent to be appreciated.
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jeff stanford replied to George Adams
Maybe you were influenced by your context. ie you heard and mirrored interlocutors' pronunciation of those words. I've caught myself saying schedule as /ˈʃɛdjuːl/ and /ˈʃkɛdjuːl/ for that reason.
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jeff stanford replied to Eduardo Mórlan
Ecuador also uses 'vos' and I was chatting to a Venezuelan recently who used it. It's worth checking up on this, maybe.
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jeff stanford replied to Barry McDonald
Yes, and within our lifetimes the way many sounds are pronounced by the majority is likely to change.
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That's quite amusing, in fact! Maybe the database is limited to the UK?
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and was it correct?
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jeff stanford replied to Annette Bird
I sympathise. When my kids were young they would sometimes say, 'dad, stop talking like a teacher', when I was making an effort to be as clear as possible.
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jeff stanford replied to Mario Peralta
How do you go about neutralising an accent?
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jeff stanford replied to Dawn Blackmore
It sounds as if you, like others, are adept about being flexible with your accent to facilitate communication.
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jeff stanford replied to Eduardo Mórlan
Good to hear you speak, Eduardo. I agree: you are very clear and easy to understand.
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jeff stanford replied to Romina Linardi
by 'harsher' and 'softer' do you mean without and with voice. Voiced consonants are those that have vibrating vocal cords as in 'd, g, v'. Unvoiced equivalents are 't, k, f. There's also a sh/zh pair in which zh 'as in 'garaGe' is voiced.
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jeff stanford replied to George Adams
Hi George
Do you know what it is about your accent that makes people think you have a UK or South African accent? -
jeff stanford replied to Louise W
Hi Louise. You come across as sensitive and accommodating, which are both very useful qualities.
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Thanks for that list, Dawn. It looks like a useful, practical set of guidelines to encourage speaking.
