Do these sound at all familiar? In our work with English teachers all over Italy, we have heard these dozens of times. It is not at all uncommon for English teachers to be concerned about their own level of English.

The good news is there is a solution that is cost- and time-effective: English-for-Teaching, a specialised methodology designed to improve English proficiency in the specific field of English Language Teaching, not in general.

Our programme Speak Better Teach Better is based on this construct, so if you…

• teach a foreign language,
• want to improve your English speaking, including your vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation,
• need to discuss and learn new and practical teaching strategies for your classroom

… read on, as our programme might be exactly what you need.

The growing need for better English proficiency in Europe and Italy

It is no secret that English is the global language, but some wonder: is it destined to remain the global language? According to a report from the British Council on the future of English Language Teaching in Europe, the answer is yes: English will remain the dominant language in Europe, and with more people speaking it, teachers will need higher proficiency to keep up (British Council, 2018). Indeed, efforts all around Europe are being made to improve teacher proficiency in English.

The Italian case is a perfect example of this. Only about a third of Italians claim that they can have a conversation in English (European Commission et al., 2017) and a number of government policies have been in place for the past two decades to improve English language teaching. These ranged from the Progetto Lingue at the start of the century and have evolved with the introduction of CLIL in schools in the early 2010s and of the INVALSI English test at all levels of public education.

And that’s not all: since 2017, English is a requirement in all public concorsi – meaning that some English proficiency is always required to access a public government job.

This is especially true of teaching: in the 2020/2021 concorsi, teachers of all subjects had to show they had a B2 level of English as a minimum, while English teachers needed a C1 level.

Indeed, spoken proficiency is one of the three criteria used to evaluate teachers’ oral exams in the concorso ordinario, as explained in the quadri di riferimento:

The “oral interaction” criterion focuses very specifically on production and comprehension on teaching-related topics:

Teachers’ English proficiency: a vital competence, a potential obstacle

Many teacher development programmes assume that English language teachers have a good level of proficiency and thus do not work on developing it. However, language proficiency is a vital aspect of teacher competence – indeed, the first one listed by Jack Richards (2010) in his model of teacher competence:

So, if teachers’ English proficiency is regarded as so important by governments and society at large, what do teachers themselves think and how does it affect classroom teaching?

In terms of what teachers think, research suggests that especially “non-native” English teachers may perceive their proficiency as low and be concerned that it decreases with time (Guo et al., 2022).

This lack of proficiency in turn affects their self-confidence: as Jack Richards (2010: 104) reminds us, “a language teacher’s confidence is [..] dependent upon his or her own level of language proficiency, so a teacher who perceives herself to be weak in the target language will have reduced confidence in her teaching ability and an inadequate sense of professional legitimacy”.

This is by no means only an Italian problem: English teachers’ proficiency is a key aspect of teacher competence that is the subject of many teacher education programmes around the world. An example that is close to home is how important it is as a cross-curricular goal in Erasmus+ projects.

The limitations of a general English approach to enhance English teachers’ proficiency

English Language Teaching is a very peculiar subject, as English is simultaneously the medium and the content of instruction. In other words, you are supposed to be teaching in a language… that is also the content that students need to develop. This is unique to language teaching and as such, programmes that aim to improve teachers’ proficiency of “general” English are unlikely to be very successful in the short term.

Indeed, research shows (Freeman et al., 2015) that general English courses for teachers, based only on broad CEFR descriptors to define learning outcomes, “do not address or specify the specific demands of language use in the classroom” (p. 131). These might include micro-tasks such as managing disruptive behaviour, explaining pronunciation or giving feedback to a student’s oral production.

A specialised, cost-effective approach: English-for-Teaching

This is why we have researched and adopted an approach that is more effective (and cost efficient!) for language teachers: English-for-Teaching.

English-for-Teaching is an approach that develops the specific command of English that teachers need in the classroom. It is for teachers who use English as the medium of instruction although they also know the students’ first language, use instructional materials (e.g. textbooks) and teach students who are at beginning or intermediate levels (Young, Freeman, Hauck, Garcia Gomez, and Papageorgiou 2014).

English-for-Teaching moves away from general English proficiency to a more useful, time efficient approach for teachers that “can respond to often heard comments that general language training takes too long to make a difference in the classroom. By focusing on the work itself, English-for-Teaching can help teachers make more efficient and effective use of their time, energy, and experience” (Freeman et al., 2015, p. 137)

The LanguagEd English-for-Teaching new programme: Speak Better Teach Better

Based on this research and on years of work with language teachers in Italy, we have worked as a team for 6 months to design a conversation programme based on English-for-Teaching.

The programme is called Speak Better Teach Better and it aims to develop two key aspects simultaneously:

• Speaking proficiency, including fluency, accuracy and use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation
• Teaching skills, including teaching strategies and knowledge of topics of common interest for language teachers in schools

The programme leverages English-for-Teaching to make sure you get the best value for your time and money. Its methodology is based on these tenets:

If you’re curious about the programme and you think you might like to join it, send us a message at languaged.courses@gmail.com!

As you know, I did, and I already shared some lesson ideas on Marcell Jacobs’ historic win in the men’s 100m race.

But today, I woke up to this video, which is… how do I put this delicately? Oh, yes, pretty funny to watch (for an Italian, that is, not so much a Brit!).

It shows the last few seconds of the Men’s 4 × 100 metres relay at the Olympics, where Italy beat Great Britain by a hundredth of a second.

The video can obviously be seen as pretty amusing to an Italian audience, but it may also have some potential for the English Language Classroom, which got me thinking:

Here are all my ideas. Of course they don’t make a coherent lesson plan: to do that, you need to follow a much more structured approach.

However, they are hopefully some inventive little ideas that you can either use in your classes or apply to other video extracts.

1. Trim the video

The beginning of the video can be a little unclear to school-age students, so I decided to make it into a 4-second (rather than 5-second, huge difference, I know!) video. The result is this video, which starts at 1 second:

Learn how you can start a video at a specific time on YouTube at this page. This can be a useful skill when you find a good video for a class but want to only show the final section.

For more ideas on good videos to use with teenagers, see our top 8 video ideas.

2. Sentence stress

As we know, stress in English utterances is specific to the language, as certain words (normally, content words like nouns and verbs) are stressed – unless of course the speaker wants to emphasise certain words on purpose.

Failure to recognise and be attuned to English sentence stress is a frequent cause of listening problems. As I discussed in a previous article, listening can be taught and developed through an approach that focuses on developing the processes of listening, one of which is recognising stressed words.

In the video extract, the speaker says:

Is it going to be gold for Great Britain? No, it’s Italy!

Ask your learners to recognise which words are stressed (e.g. ‘gold’): this will also help identify and reflect on how the unstressed words are pronounced (see below).

3. Common reductions

Listen to the video again: does the speaker actually say “going to”? No, he says “gonna”.

Gonna as a short for going to has become common, especially in spoken English. Ask your learners to try to transcribe the section and then have them focus on how going to is produced as gonna. You can then focus on:

• Other similar reductions they may be familiar (or unfamiliar) with, such as wanna or gotta
• The extent to which such reductions are appropriate for different genres and situations. We can no longer say, for example, that gonna is unsuitable for the written word or for formal situations: how about, respectively, texting and Bush and Obama using gonna when addressing the nation?
• Look up going to in YouGlish and have your learners listen to how it is pronounced differently by different speakers. As you will see, sometimes it’s not even pronounced gonna, but I’mma

4. Weak forms

The extract contains a few weak forms, i.e. syllables that are not stressed in an utterance and are hence pronounced differently, often with a schwa sound.

For example, the word for in “is it gonna be gold for Great Britain” is not pronounced /fɔːr/ but /ˈfə/. This can be a good introduction to the theme of weak forms in typical words like an, and, it, etc.

5. Elision

Another interesting feature of connected speech is elision, whereby a sound is dropped.

Watch the video again: which sounds are dropped?

Well, for example, the /d/ in gold!

Read more about features of connected speech in this article.

6. Glottal stop

And now onto one of the most typically British features of connected speech: the glottal stop. As the name suggests, it is a glottalisation of the /t/ sound.

Can you spot it in the video?

Yes, it’s so coincidentally in the pronunciation og Great Britain!

7. Great Britain: a bit of geography, politics and history

The video mentions Great Britain. This would be a cool springboard for a broader discussion of the term Great Britain, including:

• What it means politically and the differences with the UK or the 4 nations
• Why Great Britain is one team at the Olympics but then has multiple teams in the Euros
• The history behind Great Britain

8. Grammar: It as a dummy subject

Did you notice that the speaker in the video says “no, it’s Italy”?

Well, what does it mean in this context? Does it carry any meaning or is it used as a dummy subject? A good question for a bit of emergent grammar.

9. Intertextuality and background knowledge

Now, the video can make you chuckle if you’re Italian, there’s no question about it. It has been shared widely because it’s so funny to watch (again, for an Italian, not so much for a Brit!)

This video can be used to reflect on background knowledge: why is it funny? What background knowledge (e.g. about previous Italian wins, about the Italian-British rivalry) is needed to understand why it’s funny? This is also useful for broader awareness of the role of background knowledge in listening comprehension.

To emphasise that the video has been regarded by many as funny, show them this video: someone even made a remix of the video!

10. Personal response

People will react differently to videos and, more broadly, to events. The video can lead to some interesting discussions if learners are asked, for example, how the video made them feel or what their thoughts were on the Olympics. You may also have students of different nationalities in your classroom, so that might add to the discussion. This can also take the form of a writing task in which students choose their 3 favourite events in sports history and describe them.

Ah, believe it or not, I’ve made it to 10 ideas out of a 4-second video!

Can you add any ideas to my list? Let me know in the comments section!

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In this article, we have rounded up some of the latest, most interesting articles and tools related to teaching pronunciation.

I’m an English Teacher: should I worry about my accent?

Do you sometimes worry about your accent in English? Pronunciation expert Mark Hancock has recently blogged about this type of anxiety that teachers sometimes experience. If you want to read more about this, accent prejudice and intelligibility, check out his article.

Priorities in teaching pronunciation: the Lingua Franca Core

You might have heard about English as a Lingua Franca by now. But did you know that someone has researched the features of English pronunciation that are essential to teach in a lingua franca framework? These are grouped under the “Lingua Franca Core” and they provide guidance on which pronunciation features to prioritise. Laura Patsko and Katy Simpson explain it clearly and concisely in this blog post.

The basics of teaching pronunciation

If you’re wondering where to find some clear guidelines for teaching pronunciation in your classes, Macmillan ELT have compiled a Youtube playlist featuring experts like Adrian Underhill and clips from BBC Learning English.

Tool of the week: Forvo

If there’s one tool you’re going to need when teaching pronunciation, it’s Forvo! Simply type in a word and you’ll be able to hear different pronunciations in several English varieties.

If you have enjoyed this article, we send out a weekly email digest featuring the latest articles, videos and free lesson plans on language teaching! You can sign up at this link.

In this blog post, I’d like to talk about something that I feel we as teachers tend to avoid: our failures. Sometimes, no matter how scrupulously you plan a class, it just won’t go well. And while there may be several different reasons for this, sharing experiences can help improve our practice.

As teachers, the pressure to always succeed can be overwhelming, so acknowledging, sharing and reflecting on what went wrong and why that may be can only aid in normalising failure as a part of life, and perhaps becoming active and positive recipients of feedback in the future. By the way, don’t take my word for it: have a look at Thomas Farrell’s views on teacher reflection as a tool for development.

The story

​So here I am with what I’m hoping will be only the first episode of What Went Wrong, on features of connected speech. I was teaching a one-to-one class based on this text and I thought I’d exploit it to do some work on connected speech with my B2 learner. I focussed on this extract:
​
I arrived at the youth centre that morning feeling full of trepidation. There was a gang of 12 helpers including me and each pair had been allocated a particular age group. Mine was the 10 to 11 year olds. Even with the planning meeting I had attended the week before, I worried about whether I was up to the task. Why hadn’t I read through the copious lesson plans we were given beforehand? And wasn’t the average 10-year-old more interested in the latest Play Station game than making things with paper and glue?

and asked my learner to make some hypotheses about how this text might be read at normal speed by a Brisith speaker (as we both live in the UK), what the content words would be and what reductions might occur in spontaneous speech. I was hoping specifically to elicit weak forms of function words such as “a” and “of”, as we’d talked about them before.

My aim was never for her to gain productive competence of these features, but indeed receptive competence that might help her with her decoding (by the way, see Cauldwell 2018 if you’re interested in how weak forms of function words cause decoding problems in listening or our post on listening instruction). Therefore, I didn’t ask her to read the text out loud, but just to listen to me read it and confirm her hypotheses.

WWW moment

The student made her hypotheses, but when I started reading, she would interrupt me at times and ask me to repeat so she could hear better. The fundamental issue with this is that by stopping and starting, I wasn’t reading in exactly the same way and she was (understandably) hearing slightly different things. I then proceeded to read the whole text again without interruptions so that she could further check her hypotheses. Eventually, she’d picked up on a few features, which I was happy with, but seemed a little confused and tired.

What I learned from all this

• when practising listening to features of connected speech, make sure learners are sufficiently familiar with them. Upon reflection, this was a bit too soon for her and she would’ve benefitted from further and more controlled exposure to these features;
• relying on your own reading of a text may be convenient, but no two reads will ever be the same; therefore, the next time, I will record my voice and play the audio file to ensure consistency;
• with this kind of practice, the learner has to concentrate hard on some very small details: all of this is cognitively demanding and this might be why she interrupted me. Next time, I will give her the recording so that she can decide for herself when to pause, rewind and listen again, which will be far more personalised;
• I need to further emphasise that, at least at an initial stage, this work is for receptive rather than productive purposes. Especially if your learners are living in an English-speaking country, like mine is, they may want to try their hand at producing these features straightaway, but if input-based theories SLA theories have taught us something, it is that having learners produce the target language straightaway will not necessarily help them transform input into intake.

That’s all for this episode of What Went Wrong: sharing my moment of shame has really helped me reflect, I hope it will help you too!