Reflections on SLRF: Very Pleased with the Plenaries!
I had the opportunity to attend the Second Language Research Forum at Columbia University Teacher’s College this fall. It was the first research-focused conference I had ever attended and I must say, it was well worth the trip! I was only able to attend for one day, so I did my best to maximize the experience! There were many wonderful paper-based presentations to attend, but the most useful and most interesting lectures were the “star-studded” plenaries. Honestly, I have never found a plenary speech particularly practical. Inspiring? Perhaps. Informative? Maybe. However, the two plenaries I attended, one given by Dr. Rod Ellis and the other by Dr. Ron Lyster, were informative, inspiring and, at times, even practical! I would like to share a few key takeaways with you from these lectures that hopefully will be useful in your day-to-day practice.
This was a very informative lecture that worked to break down the differences between Focus on Form (FonF) and Focus on Forms (FonFs) and how these approaches have grown and changed throughout the years. Just as a quick recap, FonF is an approach to teaching that eventually grew into Task-Based Learning and Teaching. Basically, one’s approach to the classroom would be reactive. You would teach what is needed in the moment based on the students’ performance. The style of instruction strongly encourages the students to notice and become aware of language and language issues and there is a strong emphasis on meaning and the negotiation of meaning, prioritizing this over form. FonFs is an approach to teaching in which specific language items are taught to students as discrete lessons. The lessons and the syllabus are pre-planned and students are given explicit instruction on language which can be form-focused, meaning-focused or a combination of both. The big difference here is that FonFs is structured and planned and FonF builds off of what the teacher notices the students need in the moment. Here is a helpful chart contrasting FonF, FonFs, and FonM (focus on meaning):
So, what does this mean and why is this useful for the average teacher?
Dr. Ellis stressed that there is a difference between Focus on Form as an approach (basically Task-Based Learning) and the daily use of focus on form as a teaching procedure. He worked hard to explain during this lecture that focus on form as a procedure can be used within the FonF or the FonFs reproaches. The key is that teaching is based directly on the student’s needs and encourages student cognition and awareness building. So, what is focus on form as a procedure? Here is how Dr. Ellis broke it down:
- Meaning of the target language is primary
- This includes a set of procedures used by the teacher to draw attention implicitly or explicitly to problematic forms
- It can be planned
- It can be implicit or explicit
- It can happen before, after, or during a task
- It can be reactive or nonreactive
I found this particularly useful because it is important for teachers to be able to talk about teaching and to label what they do and discuss the rationale behind their beliefs, approaches, and classroom teaching methods. As I listened to Dr. Ellis speak, I realized that I couldn’t align with FonF or FonFs directly. I didn’t want to pick just one approach. What I could get behind, though, was directly considering how I could use focus on a form as a teaching procedure in my personal practice.
Dr. Ellis closed his talk stressing that more research needs to be done on the helpful effects of focus on form as a classroom procedure. You can read more about his suggestions for areas to research in my notes here.
Dr. Roy Lyster: Making research on ISLA (Instructed Second Lanuage Acquisition) Relevant for Teacher Practices
This lecture was a call to action of sorts. Dr. Lyster’s goal was to show how useful SLA research is for teachers in terms of building confidence and allowing teachers to discover what works or doesn’t work on their own to make powerful discoveries about learning and teaching that can inform day-to-day teaching practice. The first step in this process is to show how accessible conducting research can be. In this plenary, he presented a few successful studies he spearheaded which involved and empowered teachers throughout the research, planning, and implementation process. This lecture was interesting and informative while giving me some great ideas to use in the classroom!
Dr. Lyster is currently specializing in facilitating bilingual content-based instruction (integrating language and content) in French/English language schools in Canada. In order to really see what works, he has enlisted the aid of teaching cohorts in Canadian public schools in trying out new ideas and conducting research on these experiments. He also goes into schools as a consultant to guide teachers through the content and language integration process. Throughout the presentation, he not only gave examples of research and discussed how this process was positively received by the teachers involved, but he also covered successful methods used to integrate language and content across the curriculum. It was a fully loaded session!
The main takeaway I would like to share from this session is not concerning the research, but is connected to content-based instruction. As a teacher trainer, I often work with teachers who are at a loss in terms of how to successfully integrate language and content while still giving both an equal focus. Dr. Lyster presented the hourglass model as a way to balance this out. I found this model simple and easy to understand and I am looking forward to applying it in my own teaching and teacher training.
The lesson is an hourglass because you would start out by focusing on content, then move into language focus, and finally back out into the content focus. There are 4 stages and I will describe them briefly:
- Noticing: This stage is primarily content-focused and typically involves a text. This text would become the context for the Guided Practice stage below. However, at this point in the lesson, the students are purely interacting with the content (math, history, science), though the content contains the language the students will eventually work with. This might look like an article on the Civil War taken from a U.S. textbook.
- Awareness: This is the guided discovery stage for the language focus. The students would interact with the text from the Noticing stage to discover patterns in the language being taught. This would look like a task that gets students to notice the past tense verbs in the Civil War article from the textbook.
- Guided Practice: This stage provides explicit practice in the language. However, this practice would continue in the vein of the content being learned. This would look like controlled practice on the past tense, but all the practice activities would be focused on facts about the Civil War.
- Autonomous Practice: This is an application stage for the content knowledge, however, students are expected to use the language covered in the previous stages during this practice. This would look like an essay written for homework about the Civil War.
I feel that this model could be applied to any knowledge- or skills-based teaching, particularly Academic English. I believe that you could integrate academic skills with corresponding language easily using this model. I have yet to try this out, but I am looking forward to experimenting with the hourglass!
I have presented just a couple of key ideas that I took away from the plenaries. However, if you would like to read more, feel free to have a look at my notes here. I was able to sit in on many interesting sessions and you may find something you can use in your day-to-day practice! Basing teaching ideas and classroom beliefs on current research is something I am trying to do more of in my everyday approach. I hope that my thoughts here can help you do the same!
Author’s biography:
Autumn Westphal is the Head of Teacher Training at Rennert New York TESOL Center in New York City. She is a licensed teacher trainer and trainer of trainers through the WL-SIT Graduate Institute. She works on developing curricula for teacher training courses and creates professional development workshops for the teachers at her school.