Page 39 - ELG1704 Apr Issue 446

REVIEWS

Avoid distractions

and make progress

AM Connors-Sadek when they weren’t confronting
knows what summer Tam Connors-Sadek has been using so many unknown lexical items.’
school students are like. the Cambridge English Empower The classroom material is
TThey have a penchant accompanied by regular inte-
for memorising tables of tenses, course, and is pleased with the result grated assessment, validated by
and collecting - like lexical Cambridge English Language
magpies - long lists of sophisti- Assessment, which allows
cated vocabulary. students to learn in class and
All this can make them feel test themselves and study online
like their English is progressing at home.
fast, but Tam – who was director Tam says: ‘For the Asian
of studies at the Sheffield Uni- students, tests are something
versity General English summer they are quite used to, they
programme last year– knows this quite like tests. Most English
isn’t always the case. language teachers don’t like
He says: ‘Students love to testing students – it could be a
learn endless lists of words, but levelling process or it could be
they become a sort of lexical counter-productive.’
graveyard because they don’t ‘But with the Empower
know what they mean or are course it is all based around
unable to use them because they learning-oriented assessment…
are above their level.’ depending on how students per-
But how to get students out form in the tests, they are direct-
of this habit of obsessing over ed either to additional practice
distracting high-brow words and or to extension activities. Also,
phrases, when they also should teachers don’t have to mark
be working on learning to use, the online tests and activities.
competently and fluently, the Everything is marked online so
words and grammar they already students can instantly see how
know? they’ve done.
It was in trying to figure this cal items which aren’t says: ‘They tend to learn ‘During tutorials, it gives
out that Tam discovered the new essential to the whole theme. lots of academic vocabulary, the teacher a starting point for
Cambridge English Empower ‘One of the biggest problems academic phrases but they can’t feedback. It stops students going
course. is that students tend to focus on really just basically communi- under the radar as it can all be
With 400 staff and students both. The one thing they will cate with anybody. monitored by the teacher.’
visiting the summer school over take away is the word ‘utter’. The course, he says, helps Students have access to the
a 10 week period, he knew he This wastes a lot of time in the them to step back and build online materials for 18 months,
had to get it right. classroom and can distort what ‘strong foundations’. so can continue working on
This new course for adult and is important for them.’ ‘I found this approach quite them long after they leave the
young adult learners, he says, Tam explains that part of the logical’, he says. summer school. This, Tam says,
takes a best practice approach philosophy behind the Empow- When he first introduced the went down well with visiting
to language learning, stripping er series is based on Krashen’s course, the reaction of some professors from Japan and South
out distractions and helping ‘comprehensible input plus one’. students was not entirely posi- Korea. ‘The more we used the
students to focus. At lower He says: ‘This means that tive, but this soon changed. book and explored the online
levels, authentic texts have been much of what is in the books, ‘For the first few days, quite platform, the more we realised
adapted so as not to overload they should understand, while a a few students said ‘this is too that this was far more than ‘just
the learner. manageable amount should be easy, we don’t want this sort of another new book’ and is poten-
‘If you use authentic materials beyond their level and challeng- stuff’. tially a game-changer’, he says.
100 per cent you can’t control ing them. The idea is that they ‘I said wait until the end of
them’ he says. ‘Some of the texts learn how to use the grammar the week and see how you feel.
have been graded down, perhaps and the vocabulary appropri- By the end of the first week Cambridge English Empower:
rather than saying ‘he uttered’ ately for their level rather than they had all kind of changed www.cambridge.org/empower
you might say ‘he said’. trying to run before they can their minds. They actually Cambridge English Empower
‘If you use ‘utter’, suddenly walk.’ found they were learning is a finalist in the ELTons 2017
the teacher is off at a tangent A big issue has been with practical competence and how Excellence in Course Innovation
trying to explain a couple of lexi- students on Ielts courses. He to use things more accurately category.

40 April 2017