Instituto de Enseanza Superior

Paran, Argentina

Trabajo final de Adscripcin

The difference that makes the
difference

Profesora Adscripta: Carolina Clerici

2000

The difference that makes the difference

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: for those who learn through their eyes

Cards

Charts

10

Written posters

13

PART TWO: for those who learn through their ears

15

Dictation

16

Songs

18

Tapes

23

PART THREE: for those who learn through their bodies

26

Simulation

27

Games and kinesthetic activities

28

Realia

29

PART FOUR: for those who do not learn

31

CONCLUSION

34

APPENDIX

37

BIBLIOGRAPHY

39

AFTERTHOUGHT

40

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For those who think

Theres nothing new under
the sun
And for those who believe
Theres a lot to be done

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PROLOGUE

The present work is the result of a two-year investigation for the subject
Metodologa Especial, Observacin y Prtica de Ensayo, taught by Estela Gambeln de
Gmez at the Instituto de Enseanza Superior, in Paran. It is meant to reflect good
management of both theory and practice, as well as the personal contribution I can make
from my short experience in teaching.
What meant the starting point of this work was a phrase I found in In Your Hands
by Jane Revell and Susan Norman (p.27):

Beware that there are other ways of thinking about things and
doing things that might be just as valid or effective as your ways

I decided to cal my work The Difference that makes the Difference because this
happened to be a recurrent expression all through the reading time. Thus, the expression
itself is not mine but I share the NLP principle that there is nothing in this book that you
did not already know or had tried, but that we can always do something different and make
a difference.

I must admit that it is not easy to be original in the field of English Language
Teaching since a lot has already been written about it. However, it is worth recycling easy
techniques to make lessons interesting without spending too much time and money.

During my last year in college, I could appreciate how trainee teachers depend on
ready-made activities and photocopies for lesson planning. It is true that they are an easy
way to work since the only thing left for the teacher is to find a good activity to photocopy
and hand it out to students. I am not denying how useful they are, especially nowadays,
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when teachers seem to rush from school to school and have hardly any time to dedicate to
every course in particular. I do not mean that the activities in course books and photocopies
should be banned from the classroom. I just want to show my experience in making the
most of a 5-cm-long photocopy; in actually doing without it, whenever possible; in making
a difference.

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INTRODUCTION
The aim of this paper is to give examples of easy techniques to work in class
without too much preparation and without spending too much money or time.

My hypothesis is that teachers should not rely so much on photocopies for teaching
English nor on activities that other people designed for other situations with other students.
Although the topic may sound somehow odd for a work of this nature, it has been my main
concern for the last four years.

My idea of saving up money and time is by no means new, it has been developed
by Henry Widdowson (1978). He admits that the beauty of these cue-cards is that they
can be used at any level, an important factor to consider for teachers, who often have little
time for preparing lots of new materials (p.55)
Littlewood (1981, p.ix) declares that the purpose of his book is practical: to help
teachers broaden their repertoire of techniques, so that they can enable learners to
communicate more effectively in a foreign language. It seems to follow the same
hypothesis that lies behind my work but this author definitely did not consider how he
himself relies on cards and other expensive material that is necessary in order to work the
way he proposes. Quite a number of activities have been designed to develop from pictures
and material which sometimes cannot be reusable and photocopies do seem to be necessary
to go through the activities he includes in his work.

One of the best ways of doing without photocopies is working with visual aids and
visualization. They turn teaching more real and alive, and they help convey meaning. It is
well accepted that, whenever students have something to look at, they feel engaged.
Photocopies are visual aids, actually, but they may also act as distractors, because handing
them out takes time, and because they are sometimes overused not only in the English class
but also in many other subjects at school.

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As Donn Byrne (1976) mentions, the value of visual aids depends on how much
they contribute to the learning process. Their function is not to make the lesson more
colorful or to demonstrate the teachers versatility either in constructing or handling them,
but to make learning more effective (p.128)1
Visual aids are good for visual people, for the eagle-eyes as Jane Revel calls
them. But they are not the only kind of students we have in the classroom, so it is good to
keep in mind that auditory and kinesthetic people do not always profit that much from
visual aids.
Jane Willis (1981) seems to be concerned with helping teachers cope with
problems like overlarge classes, or lack of equipment (p.vi), which seems to be in the
same line I claim my hypothesis. She devotes a whole chapter (unit 6, p.39) to the topic.

As an NLP-er, I have divided my work in four parts.

1. Part one includes techniques to help people who learn through their eyes, as well as
those who have not learned to enjoy using their eyes, yet.
2. The second part has examples of activities for those who learn through their ears.
3. Part three contains ideas to aid students who learn through their bodies.
4. However, if students do not seem to learn the way you teach, you can think of teaching
the way they learn. I am still working on part four...

I felt very proud of my division, until I found it in NLP For Lazy Leraning and I
felt disappointed. Anyway, there is nothing new under the sun and this is what Shakespeare
said a long, long time ago.

This division is arbitrary because it is well-known that nobody actually learns

through one channel only. I chose to follow the division just to please my love for order
and organization.

For more information on the use of visual aids see Donn Byrne (1976, p.129-138)

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PART ONE

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CARDS
They are a good resource when courses are not very crowded. At schools were
there are more than thirty or forty students per class, it may mean that some cards do not
go back home. It is necessary to tell students to be really careful with them.

Flashcards and pictures

Flashcards2 are good for teaching vocabulary, guessing games, oral compositions,
etc. Pictures, as Donn Byrne (1976) calls them, are useful for the production stage, since
they are non-verbal frameworks for language practice. They are good prompt for dialogue
production and role-playing. They stimulate interpretation and discussion and they help
students get their own viewpoints at higher levels. Students can go beyond what can
actually be seen in the picture to whats implied by it. (p.84)

Flashcards and pictures should be large enough for students to be able to see them
from the back of the classroom. They can be drawn using a thick felt-tip pen or they can be
cut out from magazines. In my opinion, the simpler they are, the more useful they will be
for later activities. You can ask students to draw pictures themselves. Those with spatial
intelligence would love to do it. But they need not always be present and visualization is as
useful in this case. Many students think in images and pictures, so they will not have much
trouble using their minds to create their own pictures. They only need a good guide.

Why are flashcards, pictures and visualization so important in

learning a foreign language?
Taking into account Saussures description of the linguistic sign, we know that
every sign is made up by a significant and a signified, i.e. a concept and an acoustic image.
We could illustrate what happens in Spanish speakers minds when they learn a word, in
this case tree:
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&
rbol

Knowing that there is a tendency to associate the mother tongue directly to the
foreign language, we could assume that the process in the mind of a Spanish speaker
studying English could be the following:

rbol
Tree

My point here is to show that flashcards, pictures and visualization may help
students associate directly the concept in English with the acoustic image, without going
through translation. So making good use of visual aids and visualization may have a very
positive effect on teaching vocabulary, and the result may be illustrated thus:

&
Tree

Cue cards and role cards3

Cue cards and role cards guide students for pair works and role-plays4. These cards
could be written on posters. Students can read them from the board and act out the
situation. For example:

Ask about the weather in:

- Bariloche
- Gualeguaych
- Tucumn
- Misiones

Answer about the weather:

- Tucumn
- Misiones
- Bariloche
- Ushuaia

See Donn Byrne (1976) p.38 and 45.

For more information on the distinction between cue cards and role cards see Jane Revell (1979) p.50
4
See Pasut and Ferreira (1997, p.93) for a step-by-step explanation of the role-play.
3

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- Ushuaia

- Gualeguaych

For higher levels, where students comprehension level is higher, cards can contain
more complex instructions and they can guide more complex and longer dialogues. Such is
the following example.

You are a tourist. You do

not know the city. You want
to go to a disco and to a
restaurant. You also want to
make a phone call. Ask
somebody where you can go
and how to get there.

You live in Paran. A tourist

needs some information about
the city. Answer his/her
questions and give instructions
to get to the places he/she
wants to go to.

Acting out some short dialogues, plays, etc. takes almost no material and may be
quite motivating for the sake of being different. Many students are used to acting since
drama has been included as a subject in many schools. This means that it would act as a
cross-curricular activity at the same time.

There are some good examples for developing drama techniques in the classroom
which Maley and Duff (1978) include in their work. It is worth mentioning one of the
activities they propose where they develop a class role-play on the basis of a set of
flashcards (see below). The activity is called The lost property office and students
develop dialogues in pairs claiming back an object (which they have on the card) at the lost
property office.

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From Maley and Duff (1978) p.84.

CHARTS
It is quite easy and quick to copy a chart on the board for students to fill in or go
through an activity. The use of charts and visual displays in general helps students with
spatial intelligence. The information on the chart can be used for different purposes:

1. Talking about routines

The teacher can design a chart on the board (see below) and ask students to fill in
the first column with their own answers and then complete the second column with their
partners information. For this activity, students have to make an appropriate question to be
able to get the information they need.
What time do you...
You

Your partner

Get up?
Have breakfast?
Have lunch?
Have dinner?
Go to bed?
As a way of checking the activity, the teacher can ask students to make an oral
report of the answers they got. They can use first person singular or third person singular,
according to the structures they are practicing.

2. Writing about routines

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Charts are very useful as prompt for writing. The following chart, which takes very
short to build on the board, can be the guide for students to write a composition about
someone else. Thus, they practice routine and third person.

Thursday
6.30 get up + breakfast 7.30 French class
7.30 school
8 home, no dinner
1 lunch at school
8.30 video games
2 club + John & Paul
11.30 bed
P.O.: On Thursday, Tony gets up at 6:30 and has breakfast. He goes to school at 7:30. He
has lunch at school at 1. Then, at 2, he goes to the club with John and Paul...
I used this chart at a 1st course at a private school and students could work for more
than forty minutes. An alternative for this activity would be to ask students to fill out the
chart with their own information, swap charts with their partner and describe his/her
routine according to the information s/he has put on the chart. Using their own life to write
about could turn out to be more motivating than just introducing an unknown somebody
elses piece of information. This kind of activity, as well as writing and story telling, are
well-known for being good to help students with linguistic intelligence. Another good
reason to use it in the classroom.

3. Making comparisons
The following chart could be useful for students to work on comparisons. The have
to fill in the chart according to their opinion about the elements included in the chart. For
example:

Big
Modern
Beautiful

Paran
+

Buenos Aires
+
+
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Cheap

P.O.: Buenos Aires is bigger and more modern than Paran. etc.
For comparisons to be authentic, it is a good idea to use charts with students
information, as I have just claimed. The following example starts as a pair work, where
students collect information about their partner/s. The follow up activity may be a report,
using the comparative or superlative forms according to the number of students
participating in the activity. (The last column is only used to practice superlatives)
How many do you have?
You

One partner

Another partner

Brothers
Sisters
Sweaters
Pencils
Cassettes
P.O.: Mary has more sisters than I have. John has the most sisters.

4. Games
Charts can be used to have fun in the classroom. There are many authors who
include games with charts, such as Fun with Grammar, etc. a very well-known game
students love to play is guerra naval. The teacher can ask students to draw a chart on a
piece of paper including, for example, 8 columns and 8 lines. Then they write a letter for
each column and a number for each line, thus:
A

1
2
3
4
5
6
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7
8
She takes one chart for the whole class or asks a student to draw it while she
explains how to play the game. She can split the class into two teams or play individually
to get marks for her students, especially near the end of the school term. Behind each
square there is a question (this can vary according to the teachers needs). Students start
aiming bombs at the chart and the teacher gives the question. If they answer correctly, they
have a point. If not, the other team has to answer. If the student aims at a square without a
question they either lose the turn, a point or there is another consequence that the teacher
considers fair.

Being fair is very important for students. According to Jeremy Harmer (1991) is a
possible cause of disruptive behavior. Games, when not handled tactfully, turn the class
into a real mess. Having all the rules clear is the first step to solve the problem. It is
important to include games in the classroom because boredom is another cause of
disruptive behavior in the eyes of this author.
Another idea to play with charts5 is to hide pairs behind the squares of a chart and
ask students to find them. It is similar to a memory game since the pairs only appear once
someone finds both of them. It is an interesting way to consolidate verb forms, especially
the past and participle of irregular verbs. It is also useful to work with opposite adjectives,
minimal pairs (phonetics), etc.

In addition, all these activities based on reasoning are very useful for students with
logical mathematical intelligence, those who learn while they think about things.

WRITTEN POSTERS
In my opinion, it is important to take into account that posters should not be
designed to be used only once and then thrown away, since it ends being as expensive as
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using photocopies. It may not be a good idea to let students fill in the gaps or match on
your posters since they cannot be used again. As Olga Hubicka claims in her article Group
and pair work If material is well-made, it is not only more motivating for the students to
work with, but it is also more durable and can therefore be used with a number of different
classes (p.9)

A possible solution in the case of gap filling could be to write down numbers in
every gap and repeat those numbers outside the posters for students to fill in. For example:

My name __________(1) Carola. I am

__________(2) Gualeguaych, but I live
__________(3) Paran now. I am __________(4)
teacher and I __________(5) at a private school. I
am 23 years __________(6)
1- is
2- from
3- in

4- a
5- work
6- old

In the case of matching exercises, the teacher could prepare independent posters for
the columns to be joined and stick them separately. In this way, students draw the lines on
the board.
Whats your
How old
When is your
Where do you
What do you

live?
do?
are you?
Birthday?
name?

See Fun with Grammar.

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PART TWO

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DICTATION6
Although dictation has long been criticized and banned from the English classroom,
it should not be considered a bad thing. Dictation has proved to be useful, as long as we
make good use of it. It is important when our objective is to develop listening skills, as
Donn Byrne (1976) admits. Students are exposed to chunks of language and they are able
to understand the general meaning. With this general idea in mind they are able to look for
the necessary language to express it and decipher what the actual message was.

Donn Byrne (1986, pp.20-21) claims that dictation has a good point on involving
overt responses from students. It involves both listening comprehension and writing and it
is more difficult than we consider, he adds. He suggests that we should use it to practice
specific pronunciation, such is the case of minimal pairs and homophones, which require
understanding of the whole utterance to be identified. For this purpose, it is better to use
sentences rather than whole passages. When using passages for dictation, he admits that
they should not be too long or include sentences that cannot be split into meaningful units.
If there are long sentences, we could repeat them as many times as necessary instead of
dividing them up.

While Donn Byrne considers that dictating isolated words is bad, Revell and
Norman (1997, p.37) do not seem to agree with him. They suggest column dictation and
they consider it a good way to integrate the four skills. They also suggest giving each
student half of the dialogue and dictating it to one another (p.139).

I tried the technique at a private institute with a small group of advanced students.
The result was outstanding! I told students to make 5 columns, one for each of the senses:
smells, sight, hearing, touch and taste. Then I dictated some isolated words that they had to
put under the column they considered appropriate. I started with things like hamburger,
TV, etc. which relate somehow directly to one of the senses and then I swapped to words
which are harder to classify, such as love, learning, boyfriend, etc. when I told them to
6

See Donn Byrne (1976) p.18

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write their own names, they felt really surprised but they managed to put it under one of
the columns. Then they had to get into twos or threes and explain what they had written.
They got to know each other better and shared. And I had no visual aids or photocopies; I
spent no money or time; it was just them and me. I just let them get their feelings flow
together with their language.

Dictation is helpful to save time when we need some sentences or questions for
students to work later on. Such is the case of the activities I include later for working with
songs. It takes short and it allows working long.

During my term as a trainee teacher, I had the opportunity to use dictation at

school. The experience was satisfactory and it was quite motivating for being different.
The objective was not only avoiding the use of photocopies, but also teaching students
punctuation marks and conventions of written texts, such as stop, comma, etc. The same
dictation was used later as a gap-filling exercise and as the introduction for a dialogue
which students had to produce in pairs. The subject matter of the class was simple past
tense and the lesson was also a good opportunity to consolidate location of places.

Last Tuesday ___________ a holiday. As I didnt

___________ classes, I ___________ downtown to do some
shopping. First, I ___________ some clothes and then I
___________ back home. I ___________ lunch, but I didnt
___________ much because I ___________ hungry. Then I
___________ a tourist in the street and he ___________ me
for some information about Paran.
Tourist: Excuse me. Are there...
Me:......................................................
Tourist:...............................................
Me:.....................................................
Tourist:...............................................
Me:......................................................
Tourist:...............................................
Me:......................................................

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SONGS7
They are very attractive for students and teachers. They are real English input easily
found outside the classroom and they are usually very motivating. As Donn Byrne thinks
(1986, p.92) they are real and once again provide a link between the classroom and the
outside world. They are enjoyable and therefore memorable. Even if they present
difficulties of comprehension, there is an incentive to overcome them.

Revell and Norman (1997, p.110) share this view, in the sense that they consider
that songs help create a good rapport in the classroom since it maximizes similarities
between the teacher and her students. Whenever the teacher is interested in something they
like and knows about it, she is felt closer. She meets them at their map of the world.
Once we match8, they add, we can begin to influence, if we choose to, and if it is
appropriate. In fact we can only influence from a matching position from a position of
rapport. (p.13).

Songs are helpful when we have students with musical intelligence. Taking into
account that they think via rhythms and melodies, we can notice how they remember
complex structures they have heard in songs while we still insist on their learning third
person singular present simple. They find it easy to keep the rhythm and they will achieve
a good pronunciation soon as long as they have the chance to learn the way they learn.
They can even make sense of complex abstract lyrics because they are usually used to
analyzing songs.

Copying the lyrics on the board is time-consuming and demotivating so,

sometimes, it might be necessary to photocopy the lyrics for students to be able to work
with, though, it is not always the case. Now I present some examples of how I have worked
with songs in schools where there are about thirty students per course.

See Donn Byrne (1976) p.17 and 92.

They refer to matching as doing the same thing as somebody else does, for example listening to the same
music your students listen to. They believe it helps communication.
8

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1. True / False exercises

The following activity was used in a 4th course at Normal School. It was a
consolidation lesson for modals to indicate: prediction, permission, advice and obligation.
Students had to listen to the song Father and Son by Boyzone (see Appendix) and say
whether the statements were true or false.
1. The son shouldnt make a change
now.
2. The son should relax.
3. The son should take a vacation.
4. The son is allowed to get married.
5. The son should react quickly.

6. The sons dreams will be there

tomorrow.
7. The father had to listen to his parents.
8. The son will die.
9. The son has to learn a lot.
10. The father was allowed to cry.

When I checked this activity, I put into practice an idea I found in Diana Beavers
NLP For Lazy Learning (p.33-34). It is called pose-pause-pounce. I posed the question, I
paused to have everyone think at the same time and then I pounced on someone for the
answer. I think it is useful to keep them all on their toes. Jeremy Harmer seems to agree
with her since he considers that asking questions in a predictable order is de-motivating
and a possible reason of disruptive behavior.

However, in cases where questions are harder to answer, this technique could make
students affective filter go up, for students might be put under pressure. In this case they
can volunteer to answer or they could be told in advance to think of it and take the time
they need to get ready.

2. Answer the questions

This activity was used at a 5th course at Normal School to consolidate WHquestions. In the first stage of the activity students listened to the song Frozen by
Madonna (see Appendix) and answered the questions (which had been dictated). Although
the language items contained in the song were complex from the grammatical viewpoint,

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the activity was designed so as to be easy to understand at the first listening of the song
since the answers and the questions were the same as the words in the lyrics.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

What does he only see?

When is he frozen?
What is he consumed with?
What does he waste his time with?
When is he broken?
What would happen if she could melt his heart?

7. What should he know?

8. What will happen if she looses
him?
9. What is love?
10. What does she need?

The follow-up activity was designed to practice reported speech:

Report the following statements:

- You only see what your eyes want to see.
- How can life be what you want it to be?
- If I could melt your heart, wed never be apart.
- Give yourself to me.
- If I lose you, my heart will be broken.
Later that year I used the same song to consolidate reported speech. I gave them the
lyrics where some of the sentences had been turned into reported speech. First they had to
turn them back to direct speech and then check if their answers were correct.

At a higher level, where students are ready to listen to the song and process the
information at the same time, the following activity can be successful: students listen to the
song Nothing compares to you by Sinead OConnor (see Appendix) and answer the
questions.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

When did he go away?

What does she do every night?
What does she do all day?
Where does she have dinner?
How does she feel without him?

6. Where did she go for a solution?

7. What did the person say?
8. What happened to the flowers?
9. What is living without him like?
10. What does she want to do now?

I worked with this song at school and the last task was to write a summary of the
story. Students worked in pairs to tell the story with their own words, since they did not s
ee the lyrics until the end.
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3. Tell the story

As I claimed before, story telling is motivating for students with linguistic
intelligence and also for those who do not have it well developed yet. This kind if
intelligence is especially necessary in a foreign language class, so any activity that depends
on it will have good effects on your students. If the objective of the lesson is to develop
writing skills, a good activity could be the following. Students listen to the song
Norwegian Wood by the Beatles (see Appendix) and tell the story, the teacher may help
them by providing some verbs in the infinitive so as to guide students.

have be good ask stay tell sit look

notice be not sit bide drink talk say be
time tell work start laugh tell crawl out
sleep wake be alone fly live be good

Story telling fits the category of metaphors that NLP considers important. Diana
Beaver (1998) claims that Metaphors and stories are an excellent way of getting your
message across without interfering with someone elses model of the world, of making
suggestions without telling the other person what to do. Songs usually do not help build
stories for beginners because the lyrics often are too abstract or use complex language.
However, some of them can be adapted or students can write the story behind the song,
like what happened to the singer, why is s/he singing that way, how is s/he feeling. The
possibilities are endless.

4. Listen and do
Students may listen to a song and have to do activities without actually producing
any language. This is the case of arranging paragraphs or putting words in the correct
place, for example. I designed an activity with Alanis Morissettes song Hand in my
Twitter: @CarolaClerici

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Pocket (see Appendix). Students are given the following chart and the words that appear
below it. Their task is to think before hand where the words could go according to their
meaning and then confirm or reject their hypothesis as they listen to the song.
Im broke but
Im poor but
Im short but
Im high but
Im sane but
Im lost but
What it all comes down to. Is that everythings gonna be fine, fine, fine.
Ive got one hand in my pocket and
I feel drunk but
Im young and
Im tired but
I care but
Im here but
Im wrong but
What it all comes down to? Is that everythings gonna be quite all right?
Ive got one hand in my pocket and
What it all comes down to? Is that I havent got it all figured out just yet?
Ive got one hand in my pocket and
Im free but
Im green but
Im hard but
Im sad but
Im brave but
Im sick but
What it all boils down to? Is that no ones really got it figured out just yet?
Ive got one hand in my pocket and
What it all comes down to, my friends? Is that everythings just fine, fine, fine?
Ive got one hand in my pocket and
Im chicken shit - Im focused - Im friendly, baby - Im grounded - Im happy - Im
healthy, yeah - Im hopeful, baby - Im kind - Im laughing - Im overwhelmed - Im
pretty, baby - Im really gone - Im restless - Im sober - Im sorry, baby - Im underpaid Im wise - Im working, yeah - the other one is flicking a cigarette - the other one is giving
a high five - the other one is hailing a taxi cab - the other one is playing the piano - the
other ones giving a peace sign

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TAPES9
Workings with cassettes without photocopies may be demotivating if the tapescript
is long enough for students to lose the gist. A good solution could be using shorter
tapescripts, splitting them up, or making pauses for students to be able to do the task. It is
possible to ask students to listen to the cassette and tell later what they remember, they can
also work in pairs to try to remember a bit more, or they can work in larger groups.

Littlewood (1981) offers an interesting classification of listening activities (p.68)

which I will follow for my work.

1. Performing physical tasks:

This kind of activity is usually associated with the Total Physical Response
techniques developed by Asher. However, it is not the only possible way of having
students do things after verbal and non-verbal prompts. Brumfit and Johnson (1979)
include a whole appendix (p.205) in which the teacher can work without photocopies at all.
The activity is based on the listening of a tape and lots of follow-up activities are presented
by the authors.

Identification and selection: the learner needs a set of pictures. S/he listens to the
tape and according to the dialogue or description s/he has to decide what picture is being
referred to. This activity can be adapted to large classes, for example, by sticking only one
picture to the board and having students work in groups. This is not the only way to work. I
remember giving students a song just to listen. The activity came afterwards when they had
to describe the singer and the addressee. It was interesting to see how everyone had
pictured a completely different character after having heard the same song.

Sequencing: the author suggests that students can be given pictures and, while they
listen to the tape, they place the pictures in the correct sequence. This activity is similar to
the way I worked with the song Hand in my Pocket by Alanis Morissette.
9

See Donn Byrne (1976, p.15, 111-113). And (1986, pp. 16-21)

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Locating: students place items into their appropriate location according to the tape.
They can use linguistic reference from the lyrics to locate the song or the singer. They can
work with the singers biography or they can place songs in time.

Drawing and constructing: while students listen to a description or discussion,

they can draw a scene, etc. They can create a whole comic strip after listening to a song or
to a story. They can turn a tape into drama and that is also constructing.

2. Transferring information:
Students can listen to the tape and put the information into a different format, like a
chart, a gap filling exercise, etc. Organizing, manipulating and other strategies turn out to
promote learning when students have interpersonal intelligence. I remember using this
technique with adults at a private institute. I made them listen to a tape where a person
described his meals and my students had to draw the tables with the food the recognized
from the listening. Then they compared pictures and they had a lot of fun. Adults are
skeptic about strange ideas in the classroom, except when the teacher is so convinced
that it seems as though it had ever existed.

3. Reformulating and evaluating information:

The teacher gives students a more global task. Students are asked to reformulate the
text in their own words, they can make a summary, take down notes, etc.

Diana Beaver (1998) considers that listening is not taught at school and some
people never seem to learn how to do it at all. She gives some ideas how to work about it.
She quotes an anecdote about her headmistress. This lady used to read to her students
while they were doing something different, like knitting or needlework.

These two activities are not something my students enjoy doing very much but
working with videos was something I found pretty similar. I remember that once my
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students were engaged in making posters in group while I played some news I had taped
from the radio during my trip to California and they got a lot of information. The result
was surprising and it worked better than all the times I had them focused on the listening
itself. The activity did not work likewise with everyone, but auditory and kinesthetic
students made the most of it.

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PART THREE

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SIMULATION
Littlewood (1981, pp.49-62) grades activities taking into account teacher-control
and learner-creativity As this control becomes less tight and specific, so there is increased
scope for the learners creativity. In this respect, the activities can be viewed as part of a
single continuum which links pre-communicative and communicative activities. When
students perform memorized dialogues, there is maximum teacher control and minimum
student creativity.
Control

Creativity

Performing memorized dialogues

Contextualized drills
Cued dialogues
Role-playing
Improvisation
(adapted from page 50)

There is a tight link between Littlewoods classification and NLP metaprograms10.

Performing memorized dialogues helps students who are reactive (15-20%) and think and
plan before they act; it also helps those who have a procedures program (40%) and like to
be given the correct steps and the right way to do things; and it is useful as well for those
who are specific (15%), they like to focus on the details. It is the moment when students
with intrapersonal intelligence have the chance to feel comfortable with the situation. The
more time they have to plan, the better, since they need more time alone to get ready for
the situation.

Improvisation, on the other extreme of the continuum, is suitable for the other kind
of students: those who are proactive (15-20%) and act first, even without thinking; it is
good for those who have an options program (40%) and love choices for the course of
action they undertake; and it also helps those who are general (60%) and like to have big
pictures. Students with bodily kinesthetic intelligence will feel comfortable with this kind
of activities. They will have the chance to gesture naturally, touch, build on the spot, etc.

10

See Revell and Norman: 1997, pp.122-125

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According to statistics, we can assume that improvisation is better for 38-40% of

students, which happens to be the majority. Performing memorized dialogues is then
suitable for 23-25% of them. Activities comprised halfway between them would be good
for the rest (35-36%).

GAMES and KINETIC ACTIVITIES11

The importance of movement in the classroom is one of NLP presuppositions.
Milton Erickson (see Revell and Norman: 1997, p.20), for example, found that it is
possible to overcome the paralysis caused by polio by rehearsing body movements. So
following the idea that mind and body are a unit, we could assume that games and
kinesthetic activities can do a lot of good to our students, especially those who have bodily
kinesthetic intelligence and find it hard to be quiet while they learn.

There are many examples of games that can be played without photocopies or
without any material at all in Bello et al. (1990, pp.136-157). Nowadays, most course
books include games to play with students. Sometimes, with a simple poster, a coin and a
marker for every player students can play by themselves. Stepping Stones includes one
after each unit.

1. Guessing games
Guessing games in pairs are easy to settle. When teaching the present continuous
tense, for example, a quick follow up activity could be the following: students work in
pairs. One of them writes a sentence such as Im swimming. The other student has to
guess, either by asking (Are you reading? Are you sleeping?) or by giving a statement
which the partner confirms or rejects (You are reading. You are sleeping), according to the
structures that they have been taught and have to practice at this stage.

11

See Donn Byrne (1976) p.99 and 104

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2. Total Physical Response

Activity and learning are closely linked and students, especially kids, need
activities to stimulate the mind. They can move with songs as a way of dancing or miming
the lyrics, etc.

Asher already declared that it is possible to learn a language through the association
between language and movement. Taking his theory to the classroom, we can mention
Simon says as the best example of a game or kinetic activity.

REALIA
Real objects need no special preparation beforehand. Using simple objects may
help not only in teaching vocabulary, but also as prompts to practice structures or develop
situations. Authenticity is very important in the classroom, since many students do not
learn effectively with lets pretend this or imagine that. They need real-life examples
and real reference. On the other side, we have those students who believe that teaching
without aids is commonly found in boring and lazy teachers who just want to follow the
book or copy things on the blackboard. Reality in the classroom is necessary but no
overusing is ever good. There must be some fantasy as well and some unreal situations.
An activity I tried myself, at a 4th course at Normal School, is the following: I gave
students different old and useless objects, which they were supposed to sell to the rest of
the class. The objects were an old bobby pin, a pencil-sharpener, a rubber band, a used
stamp, a tiny plastic bag, a button, etc. They had to use their imagination a lot to be able to
convince the rest of the group that their product was worth buying. They did not realize
that the objective was to practice passive structures to describe objects, such as:
It is called...
It is used to...
It can also be used to...
It was invented by...
It costs...
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Realia is not only an object, it may also be the classroom, the teacher and the
students. Brumfit and Johnson (1979) include two activities that are based on the resources
available in every classroom. Here is a copy of the activity:

From Brumfit and Johnson (1979) p.203

The best realia a teacher can ever use is her humanity and experience as well as her
students, as Revell and Norman believe (1997, p.19), as well as Gertrude Moskowitz, who
devotes her whole book to make the most of you and your students for teaching.
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PART FOUR

?
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And those who do not learn?

Before you do anything about it, there are five questions that are essential when we
deal with learning.
Where?

People learn everywhere.

When?

People learn all the time.

What?

Things that touch us in some way.

Why?

Because we are curious about the world.

How?

We get the information through our senses and then the brain takes over.

We could assume that, if we want our students to learn English, we should do

interesting things to touch them, appealing to all senses at the same time...

If students do not seem to learn the foreign language we are trying to teach, it might
be because we are not teaching it in the same way they acquired their mother tongue.
Diana Beaver (1998) makes some suggestions related to the topic (p.122).
We were born with a need to communicate in order to survive.
Our attention was on the communication, not upon the language itself.
We modeled other members of our family.
We used trial and error until we were understood.
All verbal communication was greeted with pride, joy and encouragement.
We were learning in a safe environment.
We were not constantly corrected.
We have an inborn understanding of how language works.
We did not have to learn regular verbs before being allowed to talk.
We were allowed to learn in our own way.

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She adds some ideas to apply in the classroom of lazy learners (p.123).

Take on the identity of a native speaker. This gives you the freedom of the behaviors of
the other language to do things, without embarrassment, that you would not normally
do, like waving your arms about.
Model the teacher, so you get into the physiology of the language: take on all their
movements, facial expressions everything; you will be surprised how much
information you pick up.
Pretend you understand everything: even if you do not at the beginning, you will by the
time the speaker has finished we all repeat ourselves endlessly.
Say the word in your language, standing in one spot; then move to another spot and say
the word in the other language. What differences do you experience? Whereabouts in
your body does each word come from? What does each word feel like?
Have fun!
Explain to your conscious mind what you are going to do and, as it will undoubtedly
get very bored with all the frivolity, ask if it would like to go off and so something else
while you are playing with the other language, knowing that it can come back later, as
soon as you need it.
Remember: you are communicating everything else is irrelevant.

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CONCLUSION
After reading the four parts that compose my work, you can be sure that I am in the
group of those who believe that there is a lot to be done. I decided to include part four after
having the opportunity to notice that there is no method that can work at perfection. There
is only a teacher with ideas and students.

NLP is the approach that underlies my work, my life. At first I felt somehow
skeptic but then I started acting as if the whole theory were true and it made a difference.

I knew that mind and body are interconnected but I had not realized how much
and to what extent. When I changed my mind about teaching, my body and the entire
physical environment changed with me.

I understood how everyone has a different map of the world, people have
different ways of learning. At this moment I understood that it is really necessary to have
different ways to teach.

All the things I had done were my feedback, I know they were not a mistake or an
error. Being wrong means that there is still a choice to be better. Unluckily, a corollary is
that this work itself could be wrong but I am happy to know that time will help me make it
better. There is no failure, only feedback... and a renewed opportunity for success.

I was shy at first, but what I believed to be true became true. I learned to trust
myself, and this is demonstrated by the fact that I am letting people read my work, my
ideas, the result of my research, my beliefs....

Knowing what I wanted helped me get it. Perhaps this is not exactly what I
wanted but what I got really shows that there once was a way and I took it.

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I discovered that the resources that I needed were within me. This is the result.
Teaching can take place even without any resources at all. What we need is just
imagination and will. The rest comes alone.
Is it in fact necessary to use an aid at all? Because, after all, one visual aid is always
present in the classroom: The teacher.
D. Byrne
Communication is non-verbal as well as verbal. So both aspects are important.
All activities I included in drama, games and songs are included under the heading of nonverbal, which sometimes is put aside in the classroom.

The non-conscious mind is benevolent. And although this presupposition took me

longer to internalize, I could finally put it into practice when I asked my students to listen
while they were busy doing something else.

Communication is non-conscious as well as conscious, and this is the NLP

presupposition I still find hard to include in my classroom and in my life. After learning
some graphology, I discovered that the strongest psychic function I have is perception, and
this is hard to conciliate with the non-conscious mind. Perceptive people are aware of
every detail, they have strong sense of reality.

All behavior has a positive intention, so when students do not behave properly,
they might be trying to let us know that our ways are not their ways. Time to change.

The meaning of my communication is the response I get. so after I work with a

new technique that I consider useful, I can welcome or reject my hypothesis according to
the expressions I get on the faces of my students. Other times, I see the results in exams.
And the best way of getting feedback is when your students ask you to do it again.

Modeling excellent behavior leads to excellence, this is the reason why I keep
watching my colleagues. The idea is not to copy her activities but to perceive how she
deals with the whole teaching situation.

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In any system, the element with the greatest flexibility will have the most
influence on that system. The more flexible we are, the more influence we will have on
our students.

My work is not meant to be a recipe but a humble contribution, bearing always in

mind that being creative is the only way to success in teaching.
I am not trying to present a conclusive case but to start an inquiry.
H. G. Widdowson

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APPENDIX
SONGS
The songs listed bellow have been referred to in previous pages. They are also
included in the enclosed tape. Here they appear in alphabetical order.
Father and Son

Frozen12: You only see what your eyes want to see / How can life be what you want it to be? /
Youre frozen when your hearts not open / Youre so consumed with how much you get / You
waste your time with hate and regret / Youre broken when your hearts not open / Chorus: / If I
could melt your heart, wed never be apart / Give yourself to me. You hold the key / Now theres
no point in placing the blame / And you should know I suffer the same / If I lose you, my heart will
12

Written by Madonna & Patrick Leonard. Produced by Madonna, William Orbit & Patrick Leonard.
Keyboards & additional programming: Marius DeVries. String arrangements: Craig Armstrong; additional
arrangement: Patrick Leonard. 1998 WB Music Corp. Webo Girl Publishing, Inc. admin. by WB Music
Corp. No Tomato Music ASCAP

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be broken / Love is a bird, she needs to fly / Let all the hurt inside of you die / Youre frozen when
your hearts not open / (Chorus) / You only see what your eyes want to see / How can life be what
you want it to be? / Youre frozen when your hearts not open / (Chorus x2) If I could melt your
heart...
Hand in my pocket 13: Im broke but Im happy. / Im poor but Im kind. / Im sober but Im
healthy, yeah / Im high but Im grounded / Im sane but Im overwhelmed / Im lost but Im
hopeful, baby / What it all comes down to / Is that everythings gonna be fine, fine, fine / Ive got
one hand in my pocket and the other one is giving a high five / I feel drunk but Im sober / Im
young and Im underpaid / Im tired but Im working, yeah / I care but Im restless / Im here but
Im really gone / Im wrong and Im sorry, baby / What it all comes down to / Is that everythings
gonna be quite alright? / Ive got one hand in my pocket and the other one is flicking a cigarette /
What it all comes down to / Is that I havent got it all figured out just yet? / Ive got one hand in my
pocket and the other ones giving a peace sign / Im free but Im focused / Im green but Im wise /
Im hard but Im friendly, baby / Im sad but Im laughing / Im brave but Im chicken shit / Im
sick but Im pretty, baby / What it all boils down to / Is that no ones really got it all figured out just
yet? / Ive got one hand in my pocket and the other one is playing the piano / What it all comes
down to, my friends / Is that everythings just fine, fine, fine? / Ive got one hand in my pocket and
the other one is hailing a taxi cab
Norwegian Wood: I once had a girl, or should I say / She once had me. She showed me her room.
Isnt it good, Norwegian Wood / She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere / So I
looked around and I noticed there wasnt a chair / I sat on the rug, biding my time, drinking her
wine / We talked until two and then she said its time for bed / She told me she worked in the
morning and started to laugh / I told her I didnt and crawled out to sleep in the bath / And when I
awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown / So I lived the fire, isnt it good, Norwegian Wood.
Nothing Compares to You: Its been seven hours and fifteen days, since you took your love away
/ I go out every night and sleep all day, since you took your love away / Since youve been gone I
can do whatever I want, / I can see whoever I choose / I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant /
But nothing, I say nothing can take away these blues / Cause nothing compares, nothing compares
to you / Its been so lonely without you here, like a bird without song / Nothing can stop these
lonely tears from falling / Tell me baby. Where did I go wrong? / I can put my arms around every
boy I see, / But theyd only remind me of you / I went to the doctor and Guess what he told me, /
Guess what he told me. He said: Girl, youd better try to have fun no matter what you do, but
hes a fool! / Cause nothing compares, nothing compares to you / All the flowers that you planted
to mamma, in the backyard, all died when you went away / I know that living with you baby was
sometimes hard / But Im willing to give you another try.

13

Alanis Morissette: vocals & harmonica. Glen Ballard: guitars, keyboards, recording & mix. Jagged Little
Pill. All songs 1995 MCA Music Publishing. Vanhurst Place Music BMI. Aerostation Corporation
ASCAP (controlled and administered by MCA Music, A Division of MCA, Inc.) 1995 Maverik Recording
Company.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
-

Beaver, Diana (1998) NLP for Lazy Learning. Element Books limited. USA.

Bello at al (1990) Didctica de las Segundas Lenguas. Estrageias y Recursos Bsicos.

Santillana, Espaa.

Brumfit, C.J. and Johnson, K. (1979) The Communicative Approach to Language

Teaching. OUP, Great Britain.

Byrne, Donn. (1976) Teaching Oral English. Longman, London.

Byrne, Donn (1986) Teaching Oral English. New Edition. Longman.

Harmer, Jeremy (1991) The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman,

London and New York.

Littlewood, William. (1981) Communicative Language Teaching. CUP, Great Britain.

(1990, twelfth printing)

Maley, Alan. and Duff, A. (1978) Drama Techniques in Language Learning.

Longman.

OConnor, Joseph and Seymour, John (1993) Introduccin a la Programacin

Neurolingstica. Urano, Spain.

Pasut and Ferreira.

Revell, Jane. (1979) Teaching Techniques for Communicative English. CUP.

Revell, Jane and Norman, Susan. (1997) In Your Hands. Saffire Press, London.

Willis, Jane. (1981) Teaching English through English. Longman. (1995, sixteenth
impression)

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AFTERTHOUGHT
When I started off this work, like three years ago, I took it
easy. T made a rough copy which I still keep in my desk drawer
and it meant a starting point for a lot of new things. I knew it
would be really hard and I took the challenge, but I never
imagined how full of things I would be after finishing, new
theories, books in mind, big ideas...

I started with the specific bibliography, then I moved to

other books related to the topic and once I found myself
browsing through Psychology books and stuff. It turned out to be
like a way of life and although there is a concrete result which
you have in your hands there is also an abstract process
which I have in my mind.

Im done.

No, Im not. At the beginning of college I thought I knew

everything, then I realized I knew nothing, so I learned
something. It takes forever to learn but this makes life more
interesting, doesnt it? John Grinder was really right when he
said that we should always keep a dream beyond your dream so
when you get it, you still have something to do. So I wonder
what is next...

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