Adding pragmatics to training: Example lesson

It's great that the field of pragmatics is getting so much attention in Business English at the moment.  I see the Chua Suan Chong gave a presentation on the topic at IATEFL Manchester. And over the last several years, I have been talking with Ed Pegg from The London School of English about the issue, especially as it pertains to the soft-skills aspects of his training.  We see it as an important aspect of the training and perhaps something which is either misunderstood or under-represented in training.

In fact, I am not completely clear about how to integrate the 'meaning derived from context' into my training.  I am not educated as a linguist and my knowledge in pragmatics is less than expert to say the least.  Luckily, I have access to the Journal of Pragmatics, but my general thinking comes from Steven Pinker.

But I decided to give it a try with a controlled scenario and topic... namely giving tasks to others and politeness.  This is a good situation because the situation is easily identifiable and there are normally only two people involved.  Second, forms of politeness are probably the simplest form of altering language to fit the relationship and situation; it can done at sentence level.

The lesson

Participants:  2-6
Time:  60 minutes
Level:  B1 and above
Training aids:  whiteboard/flipchart

Training objectives:
- be able to give clear tasks and instructions which include task, method and outcome
- be able to encode the imperative based on the relationship/desired relationship with the audience
- understand how language conveys both content and interpersonal information

Method: presentation with open questions/discussion, modelling and practice

Step 1 - The structure of giving tasks

Note: This structure is based on the military standard of task, condition, standard for giving tasks/orders.

With 60 minute lessons, we don't have a bunch of time for all that schema activation rigmarole so I tell them that we are going to look at the language for giving tasks.

I write the three steps on the board with space in between:
1.  Clear task statement
2.  Method (tools, resources, etch.)
3.  Outcome (expected result, timeline)

We talked about the consequences for productivity if one of these items is missing.  We all shared examples where one element was missing and how it could cause confusion or some mismatch between the expected outcome and the actual result.

My example: I work embedded in a team and we have worked out a standard method for giving component status updates during their weekly engineering steering meeting with the full development team.  One week, a peripheral member of the team was asked to give an update on his component.  It was a very nice presentation but it did not fit the group norm.  The standard is 1-2 slides, both of which have agreed upon templates, content and style.  The update should take 5-7 minutes with questions and discussions taking 5-10 minutes longer.  His presentation was well done but didn't follow the template, went into too much detail and took over 20 minutes.  He not only wasted the time of others but also his own by preparing such a long slide deck.  He had been given the task, but not the method (the template) or the outcome (the group expectation).  This caused a slightly embarrassing moment as the manager had to remind him at the end of the presentation to watch the video I created with guidance and ask the others for advice on how we do things.

This is the communication skills section of the lesson.  But as a BE Trainer, my job is also to take it to the next step and break this down to sentence level.

Step 2 - Task and method verbs

The next step is to fill the steps with language.  I focus on the verbs.  I explain that some verbs make good task statements and others don't.  We should use verbs with a clear outcome like present, report, test, make, create, design, etc.  We should not confuse them with method verbs like consider, talk to, contact, think about, discuss, use, compare, etc. which do not have a clear outcome.

This learning point often generates a little discussion because it is common practice in the company for managers to confuse the two, especially the word discuss.  Then they often wonder why there is no tangible outcome.

To close this section, I write a few example task and method sentences on the board for demonstration (in imperative form).

They practice this by giving me/their partner tasks from their work.

Step 3 - The communication model

With these established, I draw a simple sender-receiver model on the board.  I use light bulbs and binary to represent message and encoding/decoding.  I explain that in the best case the receiver's light bulb is the same size and color as the sender's light bulb.  To do that we encode the message, which we have just done by giving it structure and words.

But then I change marker colors and explain that we also encode messages to deal with the relationship with person.  This can be independent of the content.  I draw a second set of binary (encoding/decoding) to show this second layer of communication.

In some groups the discussion moves into eliciting feedback or getting a backbrief from the receiver to ensure the meaning has been transferred accurately.  This is a common question/problem, but it is only a secondary aim of this training session.

Step 4 - Changing politeness

Using the relationship color, we add phrases and formulations to change the imperative task and method sentences.  I add them on a continuum from most polite to more direct.  The usual suspects arrive on the board like "Would you please..." and "We would like you to...".

The board then looks like this:

This is when things get interesting because as we increase in politeness, the formulations move from command form into either requests or suggestions.  It starts the longest part of the lesson as we discuss and debate situations in which to use these different formulations, how they can change even with the same person, etc.

One issue we discussed at length was whether the receiver would understand the request and suggestion forms as an order, or merely an option.  In other words, would they work?  Of course the answer to that depends on the situation and whether the relationship was dominance, reciprocity or communality.

Another that came up is how relationships can shift and change.  For example, sometimes the participants and I have a reciprocal relationship, but that during this lesson, I was in a position of dominance because I was the content holder.  They were the recipients and even the setup of the room gave me the dominant position (at the board, standing, all eyes on me, note taking).  At that moment, it was perfectly acceptable for me to use the raw imperative to give them instructions.

A third issue was to discuss how the encoding is not just a product of the relationship and context, but also helps define the relationship.  We brought out examples in which the relationship is unclear, such as when they communicate with the engineers in China.  By using the imperative (or even the 'please version') we sending interpersonal information.  It seems to create a subordinate role for the Chinese and what happens when we want to change that role?  More importantly, how do they feel about that role?

One discussion went into learning pragmatic understanding.  We all laughed at how children do not understand the request and suggestion forms as a command.  They view it as license to do what they want.  We talked about how we knowingly teach this to our kids.  I used this as an example that we all have the ability to understand pragmatics from our native language.

Another point we discussed is dealing with low-level speakers.  We agreed that in the case of low-levels, we can use a more direct form to assist comprehension, but that we should also plant these sentences in other words/body language to convey the desired relationship information.

A final topic we discussed was how switching occurs within formalized relationships types.  For example, why do some managers encode orders to their assistance as requests even though both sides are fully aware of the dominant relationship?  This corresponds to whether the request and suggestion forms would be understood as the commands they really are.  A second example is what happens when a team member is promoted from within to lead the team.  In that case, the new leader has to 'work down the ladder' because an immediate use of the straight imperative can cause awkwardness and animosity.

Throughout the lesson, whenever there was uncertainty or a debatable issue, we acted out the situation at hand and gathered group feedback on how it felt and whether it was appropriate.  The task structure is very simple and requires little prep.

So as you can see, there is a lot to discuss here.  I reminded every group that the best communicators are the ones who can adeptly switch encoding depending on the situation and the audience.  Furthermore, learning these concepts helps open the door to future training in more complex situations.  I can now link this with formality, genre and tone.

So far, I have used this lesson five times.  Each one was slightly different, but I am extremely happy with the results.  The participants were fully engaged, they included repetitive practice of the learning points and I believe they now have a basic understanding of how language affects relationships.  Perhaps I have stumbled upon a nice method for bringing pragmatics into the classroom.

My Journey in Training Methods

I received some constructive criticism about my post on Business English in 2014 and it sent me into reflection.  One of the points was that we do have a working methodology for Business English training.  The author was promoting a BE certification course which I cannot currently endorse.  This is not to say certification courses (including the one the author promoted) are bad, just that I cannot clearly judge the value from the marketing material.  I am always a bit skeptical of business models which leverage the value chain (i.e. profit from teachers/trainers).  You can read more about this in my post about the value chain.

I continue to believe that existing methodologies of BE training are unsuitable to the realities of our clients.  It is helpful here to reflect on the methods I have tried and the results I have found.

Welcome to ESL!

I was politely indoctrinated in the communicative approach.  My CELTA course was at the Berlin School of English.  I had excellent teacher trainers and a wonderful education.  They taught me how to effectively survive a course.  There is no doubt in my mind that it was extremely helpful.  But, I took the good with the bad.  I learned that ESL lessons have a specific structure (generally according to Jeremy Harmer).  I learned how to manage time, select activities and how to create space for expression.  I also learned how to worship publishers and how to professionally photocopy.  Occasionally, I still find the citation strips of paper stuck in my library of course books, and I clearly remember how I broke the paper cutter at my first employer from overuse.

It was a valuable experience and I am thankful to have had it.  But it also became clear that it didn't work exactly as advertised.

I was immediately placed in Business English because of my background, my personality and I looked good in a tie.  But when I tried the methods from my CELTA, something was missing.  First, course books work on a grammar syllabus.  I haven't found one which doesn't (despite their claims).  If you know one... please let me know.  They work on a grammar syllabus because the CEFR is grammar based.  I'm sure that the authors of the CEFR would disagree but the words "routine" and "everyday" appear quite often in the lower levels.  In practice, books still take a grammar-based approach (typically under the cover of functions).

You're in the Army Again...

I realized that ESL wasn't working.  I was happy because I always knew what to teach - ESL told me.  But I wasn't really making a difference.  So, I made the transition to performance-based training.  I was well aware of tenants of PBT from my time in the army (see my post Lessons Learned from the Military).  Basically, we looked at the expected performance, broke it into concrete steps and then we trained and tested it until the performance met the standard.

This required a change in needs analysis and assessment (I have posted about this transition often).  I made the switch and things were good.  I could clearly identify the skills gap and train to fill it using ESL-structured blocks.  Performance and confidence improved dramatically.  My students reported exceptional improvement.  I was training to task using ESL-structured lessons.  But then things began to change.

Bite the Dog

The problem with all of this was that it was taking too much time.  I wasn't profitable.  I could not sustain a fully needs-based course.  It took 45 minutes to think about and prepare an hour of training.  My blended approach of fully needs based (customized) training with ESL teaching techniques generated much higher progress and high customer satisfaction and progress, but was still unsustainable.  Then I discovered Dogme which essentially said that if I could spontaneously create pedagogical activities, I was good.

I embraced and switched my focus from planning to recording and reviewing what happened in the lessons.  My post I Only Have One Lesson Plan is the essence of that approach.  It works, no question for me.  I saw immense progress, validated by real world performance, and my clients were extremely happy.  I was now incorporating everything into my training... the communicative approach, performance-based training and Dogme.  But then it changed...

The Patient has Complications

With greater customer satisfaction, I began to get closer to the organization and the real needs of the learners.  Suddenly, I had jumped into a deeper pool than I had imagined.  The problems were glaring.  It wasn't the language which was holding things back, it was cultural and communication skills.  In other words, speaking better English was not equal to higher efficiency.  In some cases the bottleneck was the language, but often it was only a contributing factor.

I remember speaking with some BESIG members a few years ago that our clients often equated a communication problem with a language problem.  The simple fact is that in the mind of the client language = communication.  I feel my mandate is to solve communication problems with a focus on language.  But as I moved, the situation became more and more complex.

Everything is Nothing

So, here I was... faced with an universe of methods and ideas.  I needed to teach the English language through the communicative approach, clearly understand the performance gap, let the learners direct the training and understand the real barriers to communication.  The result was not good.

• The ESL approach is long, boring and often useless.  Following a prescribed set of activities may be useful for mastering certain concepts, but we often don't have the time to fully complete the activities or the learning objective does not match the need.  The ESL approach is overly sterile and reflects a notional reality.  
• The communicative approach is right in creating a communication gap, but what happens when communication is no longer a problem (higher levels)?  ESL doesn't really have an answer to the image needs of BE students other than restrictive language exercises.
• Performance-based training works great with the communicative approach as long as there is a performance gap.  In other words, it is nice as long as there is a clear need.  It doesn't work when the need is reached or when the learner is striving for an intangible ability.  Then we have to revert to something like the CEFR.
• The trainer cannot sustain Dogme for more than a 50 hours of training.  It works great in short-term courses.  Dogme relies on the immediate recognition of need and spontaneous input and task creation to fill the gap.  I have difficulty keeping such a variety of task contingencies in mind.  The result is repeat task types which nullify the entire approach.
• Dogme kills vocabulary development.  The most critical piece of feedback from my learners is that I do not help them produce new vocabulary.  I have tried my best through review and in-lesson note taking to improve this aspect, but vocabulary retention is still less than 10% per lesson.  ESL methods and course books are better at this.  It is also a vital part of their needs.
• Office communication is unbelievably complex.  I have had the chance to read countless authentic emails, documents, reports, etc. as well as observe meetings and telephone conferences.  There are pragmatic, semantic and cultural issues at every turn as well as linguistic.  I have no doubt that clients attempt to solve communication problems with language training.

Conclusions

First, I think the complexity of our mandate is higher than our clients realize.  I sincerely believe that we are hired to facilitate communication not just that someone masters the Past Perfect.

Second,  I do not think existing ESL methods (including existing ESL-derived BE teaching methods) fulfill this need.  ESL prescribes a certain learning plan which does not fit with the immediate or medium-term needs of the learners.

Third,  Dogme is too loose.  It fails to fulfill the steps of Bloom's Taxonomy (as I implemented it) because it relies too heavily on the learner's sense of dedication to complete self-study.

So, I have tried all of these and they are not the complete solution.  Parts of them are valuable and I recommend a teacher development package which presents new trainers with challenges, but the solution is not in the book or on the internet.  We need to take BE further.

I'll present my work in Graz at the BESIG Summer Symposium.  It will be the culmination of a year of training with an entirely new approach which better fits the realities of BE training.  So far, it solves these dilemmas and provides the balance my participants and I need.

The Late Winter Doldrums - A Journal Entry

I hate routine.  I feel uncomfortable when I sense that things are becoming stale.  I like the creativity dial to be turned up to 11.  Yet over the last month, I have the feeling that I and my participants are just going through the motions of teaching and learning.  I feel the learning has stalled a bit and participants are leaving the training underwhelmed by the interaction, engagement, and challenge.  Like many trainers, my gut reaction is to simply blame myself for delivering poor training.

The main purpose of this blog is to help myself get out of situations like this, reflect on my training, set priorities, connect with others, and drive myself to do better.  So today I will give a report on yesterday's training and hopefully identify ways it could be better.

Context

On Tuesdays, I have a full day of training at the research and development department of a manufacturer.  The project is quickly approaching its two-year mark and has been extremely successful in terms of progress, value delivered, and participation among the employees.  The training day is built around 5 one-hour group sessions with similar language levels.  The overall ability of the department is very good and my groups range from B1 to C1.  Additionally, I have introduced special mixed-level 45 minute sessions for secretaries and technical English vocabulary.  Finally, the project includes some time for individual or small group coaching and general support for English communication.

After such a long time, I am so familiar with the business and internal processes that I often know more about the organization and current events than the individual participants.  The classes provide a knowledge sharing function (both among participants and between groups) as well as a tool for building communication competence.  I am treated much like a co-worker.  It has become very comfortable, but comfort also breeds laziness.

My day...

I started the morning at 6 am to brainstorm the lessons.  I read the class notes for the previous two weeks, looked back at the training report for the last quarter, and entered a few tentative topics for the day's sessions.

I arrived at the company at 7:30 and set up in my morning conference room.  Luckily, I was able to meet and talk to an American employee who handles documentation with American regulators.  I have been trying to pick his brain for the last few months about how the company communicates externally in English.  Because of regulation, there are many written and unwritten rules about drafting documentation.  For example, the company must make sure that it does not make unsubstantiated claims in brochures.  Specific wording is required and some words are taboo.  Finally, documents cannot bend the truth, and must not raise questions among regulators.  My goal is to ensure that I am training language correctly and not teaching vocabulary or phrases which might cause regulatory problems.  We had some small talk and arranged to meet another day so he could give me some resources and I could find out some of the issues the department faces in internal and external documentation.

I also stopped by the project sponsor's office to say good morning, find out how he was doing, and let him raise any issues about the training.  After a few minutes of small talk he asked me about my reservation for the conference room.  He had a supplier meeting and was having trouble finding a place.  I said I would talk to one of the admin assistants and see if my back-up room was available.  If so, he could use mine.  He told me not to worry about it and that he thought he had another solution.  Finally, he mentioned that one department wanted to add several employees to the project and that he might have to clarify the issue.  Then we talked shortly about how it is a good sign that people want to join the training because it means the employees are talking about how useful the training is (this is covert customer relations and feedback).

A cup of coffee later and it was 8:00 - time for a 45 minute session on technical English.  Recent sessions had been around software development and testing.  On this day, I brought my toolbox from home.  A very simple lesson with only one participant.  The session is open to all and optional.

1. The participant pulls out a tool and we write the name on a note card.
2. We talk about different versions of the tool and add them to the note card (internet helped here).
3. We talk about the last time they used it and what it is used for.
4. The realia causes questions about similar tools and related vocabulary.
5. Repeat.
6. We collect the note cards.  I read a card and the participant holds up the tool.
7. I give the note cards to the participant, they read the cards and tell me if I hold up the correct tool (sometimes I am right, sometimes I am wrong).

Despite the high level of the ability in the department, they often lack such general vocabulary.  Several have asked for help in this area.  For example, hammer and nails are easy, but most do not know wrench, pliers, insulation tape, or drill bits.

At 8:45 the first level class began and there was a quick good-bye and hello.  The B1-B2 participants took their normal seats in the classroom.  This is by far the class I am most proud of.  Five of the six participants came to the lesson and attendance is always excellent.  They are unbelievably smart and inquisitive people (this goes for the whole research and development department).  Over the last two years they have made so much progress that I am left in awe at far they have come.  The lesson time is great, they all use English in their jobs, and I think the training has been quite good.

This lesson, however, was a complete failure.  They have a coursebook (Business Result Intermediate) which we almost never use and by now is too easy for them.  But I decided to use it for a lesson on presentations.  We did the opening exercise about a company mission statement, listened to the model presentation, did the comprehension activity, and then finished the key phrases activity.  By that point, eyes were glazed over and I had lost them.  This was Charles going through the motions.  Everything about the lesson was too easy and I could see it going south the whole way.  I could feel the groan when I said, "Turn to page 78."  The intro activity failed to generate any comments, and by the time they heard my computer say, "Audio fifty-one," they were barely listening.

Here's my problem with this lesson and this group.  First, this was the third lesson of the last five which has included listening (or watching).  They want to speak and if my computer speakers fill the space, there is not any for them.  Second, the time is so short that if I try to use a typical teaching workflow, I do not really have time for much small group or pair work.  Thus, the speaking becomes teacher to learner.  I assume too much of a dominant presence in the room.  Third, they asked to work on presentations but I am constrained.  The lesson does not really offer enough time to prepare and deliver a presentation in the same lesson.  Self-study is near zero so I cannot expect them to prepare something outside the class.  I tried that last year, they discussed and decided on the topics, but it never materialized.  They just felt guilty and I needed to change tactics.  A few weeks ago they gave a spontaneous talk to introduce themselves, describe their department, and finally to explain their experience.  These went well, but they were too short and I want something more complex.

This book lesson included adjectives to describe a company.  To try to save the lesson, I asked them to find adjectives which described companies like Ikea and McDonalds.  I then set them the task of creating one slide with adjectives for a company and presenting it to us next week.  Let's see what happens.  I need to do better.

At 10:00 it was time for the next group, a C1 group of three participants.  As a side note, I have problems with level binning under the CEFR and I cannot really tell where C1 stops and C2 begins.  Let me put it this way, these participants are so good that I have a very difficult time figuring out what to teach them.  The easy way out would be to focus more on communication skills but they are also such expert international communicators with immense emotional intelligence that perhaps they should be teaching me (and often they do).

On this day, two of the three attended with one woman on vacation.  We are currently in the middle of a project to deliver a workshop.  The group consists of one mechanical engineer, one software engineer, and one project coordinator.  Thus, we devised a simple project in which the project coordinator would lead the planning and organization of a workshop with the two engineers giving presentations on new technologies in mechanical and software/hardware engineering.  The 'audience' of the workshop is a group of doctor candidates at university and their goal is to collect ideas from these researchers on how the company can use breakthrough technologies to drive innovative solutions and products (we are assuming the naivete of PhD candidates).  We have a hard deadline for the workshop because the project coordinator is pregnant and we want to finish before she goes on maternity leave.

Unfortunately, the software engineer could not bring his laptop to lesson so we could not discuss and finish writing his presentation.  So instead, we started talking about his upcoming business trip to Paris to a customer and the difficulty of meeting customer expectations for high-end products.  During the discussion, I picked up on the response, "I fully agree," which did not sound natural.  Many of our lessons feature collocations and phrases to help them sound more like native speakers.

In this case, I pulled up Just the Word on the projector (we do this often) and identified several collocations with agree including entirely, generally, and reluctantly.  Next, I turned the conversation to performative verbs.

Another tangent... For me, the debate about English as a Lingua Franca is largely settled.  It clearly exists and I am quite certain of what it is.  For me, the question was closed after watching Mark Powell talk about Lean Language.  In fact, this video helped make me the trainer I am (good or bad).  I still have not found a more valuable and worthwhile resource for teaching.

Here is Part 1... you should really watch all five parts.

Second, Chia Suan Chong interviewed Vicki Hollett a couple of years ago on ELF in which she mentioned performatives between NNSs.  Sadly, I have since lost my other sources on this element of NNS interaction.  But my observations of written and spoken international communication have always confirmed that using words like suggest, apologize, agree, propose, and invite are valuable to international communication.  They can often be a short cut to developing functional language.

So, I told the participants that these verbs can be very useful when speaking with other countries, but they may be used less often among native speakers.  We pulled up a teaching website (nicely British) for phrases to agree and disagree and compared the use of functional phrases.  At this level, they should be able to use to both and adapt their language to the ability of the audience.

One participant then asked me if I could tell the difference between a NS and NNS author when reading a text.  I told them that I could nearly always distinguish a German author because I knew the language, but that their level was so good that sometimes I could not tell from their writing.  They had recently written presentation abstracts and 75-word bios for their project (with NS models) and I could not tell they came from NNSs.

We then discussed some of the ways I could identify a German translation or author.  We discussed the prominent use of nouns in German and reformulated a few example sentences (we had done this before).  We also looked at the use of the passive (also common in German).  Finally, I wrote a few example sentences with endless relative clauses and broke them down into smaller sentences using the subjects this, that, and it.

Overall, I think this was very good lesson.  I felt like a language guide and I feel they left with a better ability to change their language depending on the audience, which is a key skill for them to master.

At 11:00 it was time for the B2 group but my inbox showed that only one person would be able to join the lesson.  This group is particularly difficult to plan for.  The test engineer who came would likely pick up on the fact that I ended the previous sentence with a preposition and ask whether it was allowed.  In fact, many of our lessons focus on the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammar (thanks Scott Thornbury and Michael McCarthy!).  He is a language lover and generally believes that proper grammar is the primary measure of language ability.  He studies Mandarin in his free time and often sends me clarification questions when he senses non-standard forms of English.  Unfortunately, most of his language learning has come from critically reading formal texts and his spoken English lacks staccato sentence rhythm. It can be difficult for listeners to patiently wait for the end of a thought or sentence.  Another participant in the group has similar difficulty in spoken fluency.  The group is rounded out by a Spanish woman with great speaking skills but tons of L2 interference and a new participant looking to gain speaking practice and refining feedback.

With only one participant, I took a tried-and-tested lesson plan... "What are you currently working on?"

He told me that he is working on software testing documentation and I questioned him in detail about the purpose of the document.  With another learner I might have seized this topic and looked at improving his writing.  But with this man, whose grammar is flawless and writing puts NSs to shame, clear explanations and spoken communication are the focus.  I asked him to change places in the room and for him to take the whiteboard.  I asked him to please draw and explain the process of the document.  What is the trigger for writing it?  What is the approval process?  Who reads it and why?

This placed him completely out of his communication comfort zone.  First, he is less aware of the non-linguistic aspects of communication such as visual aids and body language.  He is not used to creating a visual representation of thought and would prefer to simply rely on words to convey his message.  Twice I had to ask him to draw what he meant because I couldn't understand (keep in mind here that I have been working with the department for years and I am very familiar with internal processes and documentation).  Second, he is not adept at eliciting or reading feedback.  He does not include feedback questions and generally has trouble reformulating explanations.

My feedback was much less on the language (only a few lexical gaps) and much more on structuring messages and making things tangible.  I told him about the importance of examples, but left the visual representation topic for another day.

However, he expects language input and as a Business English Trainer, I am focused on giving it.  During his spontaneous talk he continually used the passive.  At lower levels I would praise this usage when describing a process.  But for him, he is simply overusing the passive and the sentences lack meaning.

Below is my 'board' which was in MS Word on the projector screen.  I wrote his passive sentences and the italics show his reformulations.  The reformulations might not be perfect, but the lesson is to reduce the passive voice.

At 12:00 I began my one-hour lunch break.  My wife and I are inching toward buying a house and we are seriously considering moving to a town in which one of my participants lives.  But not only the town, but also the same street.  So, I personally wanted to find out what it is like to live there.  I visited her desk and we had a half-hour conversation about the town (in English of course).  She is a B1 level and she likes to talk about her new house and her hometown.  We talked about land prices, lots for sale, directions, advantages and disadvantages, etc.  It would be nice to categorize this as a lesson, but let's be honest... it was just us talking (I was happy she asked many questions).  She did get speaking practice and the chance to use some functional language, but I was really just curious about the environment (I am also hesitant about giving feedback when colleagues can hear).  She loved it, I was very happy to get the information, and it is great to have such chances.  I ran to the canteen for a quick lunch and starting thinking about the afternoon sessions.

1:00 - It was time for the lowest level group of the day, B1.  Like the morning group, these participants have made great progress over the years.  I must remind readers that although two years seem like a long time, we are only talking about 60-70 total class hours over that period.  This group, like the B1+ group in the morning, has a bit more structure than the higher levels.  I generally approach things more systematically, but I am also very flexible to participants' just-in-time needs and communication issues.

I had planned a class to have a status update meeting.  We had had a listening lesson with phrases a few weeks before and I wanted to encourage them to apply what we had learned.  But the rule of thumb is that when I plan something, the participants bring something else.  If I don't plan, they bring nothing... go figure.

One of the weaker members of the group came in the lesson talking about a discussion with a German supplier which was frustrating.  I let them discuss the issue in German for a few minutes (she started in English but quickly changed to L1 because she was so wound up about the issue).  When I am teaching, I am always looking for topics like this because they are real and known.  If you have read my post "I Only Have One Lesson Plan", you will know that I am always seeking moments when I can capture the topic and turn it into relevant training.

But let's analyze a bit what was happening in the classroom at that moment.  First, I think she was quite concerned with her image to colleagues, suppliers, and even her trainer.  Her written English is well above her level and she knows it (plus, I've told her).  She does not like my visits to her desk or speaking in class because (I think) she feels mistakes might embarrass her in front of others.  In the group, she is the only person who is still unwilling to take risks and make mistakes in the search of learning.  Second, she came into class with something on her mind and she wanted to tell her colleagues about it.  She was proud of how she had handled the situation.  Third, she had attached emotions to the story and she really wanted to communicate what happened.

My thinking was to let her finish, let her tell her story in German.  Let her shine and get praise from her colleagues.  Cutting her off or forcing her to speak English would only have caused frustration.  I need her to feel accepted and comfortable in the group.  I need her to speak!  Listening to her story I realized that she had all the grammar to tell this story in English and about 75% of the vocabulary.  But she needed scaffolding and time to tell it.

Here is where I made the wrong decision.  Instead of giving her the opportunity and structure to formulate this story in English, I took another route.  First, I told her that I did not understand everything she had said (a lie) and I asked her clarification questions about the story.  Specifically, I asked questions which targeted specific lexis, "What does the supplier make?" [looking for the word cabinet].  This is simply bad training.  It is completely unfair to ask participants to produce words I know they do not have with the hope that they will somehow emerge with some Pavlovian bell.  I have watched other trainers do this and reminded myself not to fall into this trap.

During the story, she raised a common topic within the group - people who do not respond to emails in a timely manner.  This was my second mistake.  I decided to focus on this subject and work toward phrases for making suggestions.  This was TEFL pure, I pulled out a function from my portfolio and not what they immediately needed.  This is not to say that making suggestions is not useful, but taking the lesson toward simple negotiations would have been better.

Why did I choose this topic?  Because I am horrible at responding to emails.  I have been working on it for years but I do not seem to be getting any better.  I made the lesson about me and that was a mistake.  It should always be about them.  In fact, I am wondering whether all the lessons for this day were more about me and what I want than about the participants and what they want.  I need to listen more carefully.

So, we discussed as a group our frustrations about people who do not answer emails.  We discussed how often it happened and why.  It was generally a good discussion and I was writing their thoughts on the board (adding vocabulary).  Then, I revealed that I am horrible at writing back and I feel really bad about it (again about me... arg).  Next, I asked them to give me tips on time management and handling correspondence.

Each person talked a little about how they handle emails and we stumbled across some lexical gaps like out of office reply, respond, and immediately.  They used several phrases we had seen to make suggestions and I put a few more on the board.  Time was running and I considered having them write an email to follow up when someone does not write back, but it would have taken too long.  We shared ideas on how we use email, telephone, and the chat tool within the company.  The participants were able to vent a little and discuss the issue, but I am generally dissatisfied with the lesson.  The topic has great potential and I did not use it.  Now I have lost it.  The discussion was dominated by the confident speakers.  The dynamic reverted to teacher-student and not student-student freedom.  I could have done better.

At 2:15, I was looking to rebound from two poor lessons and two average ones.  I needed to refocus and salvage my day.  But I was also battling thoughts far away from the training and was having trouble focusing on the next lesson (I'd been watching my inbox fill up all day among other concerns).  Also, the last group lesson is a B2+ group with the most inconsistent attendance.  These lessons are always a one-off and it is nearly impossible to link them because the people change so often.  Finally, I am never as focused in the afternoon as the morning.

Two participants from six appeared and I was happy to see the weakest member of the group in attendance.  He is a software testing engineer and has been working on an individual project for quite some time to develop a software requirement.  The requirement is highly political and costly and he is generally fighting a losing battle of mixed department interests.  The company works on a product development cycle and the two participants find themselves on the extreme ends of the process.  One defines the requirements for the product, the other tests the completed system at the end.  I do not need to introduce a notional information gap (like a role-play) because there is enough of a gap already.

The tester started by talking (without prompting) about how his project is going and his latest successes and challenges.  He brought up the document management process and I asked them to map the document management system over the product development process.  Specifically, this was about how the company organizes product requirements both at the macro and micro level.  This may seem like Greek to you, but I'm sure you would get the hang of it after some time around software project management.

Within a few minutes, all three of us were standing at the whiteboard with markers in our hands drawing diagrams, explaining processes and folder trees, using examples, discussing constraints and problems with the system, etc.  The two participants were sharing their perspectives from their ends of the system.  We were having a meeting.

I noted a few comments for feedback but the 'meeting' took so long that I only had time to look at collocations with suffer, cause, and face.  I corrected their usage, added a few more collocations and we transformed the collocations into different tenses.

It was not really the home-run lesson I had been looking for but I felt good about the discussion.  I was able to give some on-the-spot corrections and some delayed language feedback.  The participants were able to compare notes on a real business process and produce language they need in work.  The weaker student highlighted a few words he remembered from the stronger student.

Finally at 3:15 I had my final session of the day, a repeat of the technical English vocabulary lesson.  Two engineers came who I'd seen earlier in the day.  I pulled out the tool box and we repeated the same lesson as above.  The 45 minute session was fun (they are both women in their thirties and we laughed about men and tools, "better to have it than to need it") and I believe they picked up on the vocabulary (we'll see).  Again they were quite surprised that they did not know the words for such everyday tools.

At 4:00, I packed up... exhausted... and went home.  Typically, I would have stayed longer and visited the participants who could not come to their lesson.  But I am increasingly getting requests for support via email or chat, I needed to save a few hours.

In a quiet apartment I had the chance to catch up on the emails I had received that day including a few urgent coaching requests.  I created Quizlet flash cards for the adjectives and antonyms from the 8:45 lesson.  I sent out 'board work' photos or documents from the lessons.  I responded to all the outstanding issues and I felt good.  It was an average day of training and was not quite good enough, but I was happy.

Not so good...

So overall, the day was okay but I feel like it lacked creativity.  The participants and I are all in the February doldrums, a long way from vacation and the winter keeps dragging on.  We are not at our best and that is frustrating.  We are all stressed and tired.

If you have managed to read this long, I'll ask you... What do you think about my training on this day?  How do you shake yourself awake when projects are for a long time or things become stale?  How do you reinvigorate yourself?

What I Don't Teach and Why

There are several things I have all but removed from my training.  I am not unprepared to teach them nor do I inherently disagree with these points, but they consistently fall into the low frequency/low value part of my training plan based on the learners' need.

Whether it is part of a lesson plan, encountered in the lesson, or part of feedback, I typically evaluate the relative importance of the language item.  This includes lexis, grammar, functions and skills.

Frequency is how often they will use/see the language in their work tasks and international communication situations.  Value represents the impact of the item on a range of categories including possibility for miscommunication, impact of miscommunication, typical audience, effect on respect and reputation, impact on the situation intent (persuade, inform, build relationships, etc.).

From this I notice several topics which consistently drop in importance and do not warrant spending our limited training time on the subject.

Negotiating

While certain functions within the negotiation dance such as suggesting and bargaining (really just a disguise for the II Conditional in a grammatical syllabus) are useful, my learners almost never face this context.  For my German learners, there are few employees who have this responsibility without the pre-requisite of proficient English.  I will cover suggesting and the II Conditional in other contexts, but my general rule is, "If we can't create a simulation for it from the class, don't have a role play about it."

Idioms

Sorry, but they are all but gone.  This is based on several factors.  My learners normally have limited NS contact.  Of those they do work with, there are fewer exchanges with 'novice' international communicators.  In my observations, these Americans and Brits are experienced enough to monitor idiom usage.  They may add great color to language and provide for a quick laugh in class, but we can find humor in other ways, and giving the idioms a trainer 'stamp of approval' will only increase the chances for miscommunication when they use them with other NNSs.

Storytelling

I understand that telling good stories is important in building relationships.  But I also know many NSs (myself included) who can tell some really horrible stories.  In general, I find that when they want to tell a story... they get it out.  For the grammar, the narrative tenses only seem to increase doubt in my learners.  For the vocabulary, we simply don't have time to cover enough topical areas to fill the gaps.  Other elements (like linking phrases and adverbs of commentary) can be placed into other areas as well.  We do cover adjectives to describe emotions and other ways to express interest, surprise, stress, etc... but storytelling is not a key aspect of the training.

The Present Perfect for Past Events that Have Present Importance

This is always the element of the present perfect that confuses my learners the most.  As an American, I also see it as a nice element of British English.  So, I typically only teach the present perfect in two ways:  1)  life experience, 2)  giving current facts and states context.  I don't really see much wrong with saying, "If it is a finished action, put it in the past."  After all, my German learners typically make the opposite error and put everything in the present perfect.

Phrasal Verbs

This follows much of the idioms line of thinking.  We will look at the overall meaning of 'get' (get back, get up, get + adj) and few key phrasal verbs we see often in BE like 'pick up' and 'drop off'.  But when I see list of 500 Phrasal Verbs, I move on.  Remember, my learners are primarily communicating with other NNSs where proficiency levels are often lower.  Setting the idea of 'one word - one meaning' may sound sterile and cold, but ultimately much more effective in their high frequency situations.

Telephoning to Make Arrangements

How this became the standard for telephoning 101 in course books I'll never quite understand.  My leaners don't make arrangements by telephone... they make them with Outlook (or at least email).  My suspicion is that this lesson just mixes so nicely with the grammatical syllabus which states we need to learn the present continuous for the future.  By the way, this grammar is often not so important with my learners either.  By the time they are ready to learn, I typically already hear it emerge from on-the-job exposure.

Report Writing

Nope... don't do it.  I have a few questions about this.  Who has time to write and read prolonged reports?  My learners don't.  Some do write reports, but they are typically under 200 words in total with a wide range of images and graphics.  Who read these reports?  In most cases I have seen, the report travels at a maximum of two level horizontally or vertically.  Presumibly at that level, relationships, trust, and respect have already been developed.

Writing a Letter of Complaint

When was the last time you or someone you knew wrote a letter to a hotel to complain about the accomdation or service?  I have two types of learners, complainers and non-complainers.  The complainers already know how to do it (in any language, I think), and it feels unnatural for the non-complainers.  Yes, there are situations that are 'unacceptable' in daily business and conflicts do erupt between suppliers, customers, and colleagues.  Through my coaching I get to see them regularly.  Expressing disappointment or frustration may be a better way to describe this.  This is easily covered by teaching common uses of 'still', the 'present perfect continuous', and 'not...enough'/'too'.  Needless to say, I haven't seen a letter in a long, long, time.

But...

While these items are rarely part of my training, I would never refuse to work with learners to develop them.  For some job functions, these items may be more important (e.g. secretaries, intense work with NSs, specific department functions) and will be included in the performance objectives.  Furthermore, as they begin to master their current tasks, we will shift our importance to focus on future skills.

The point is, no materials writer knows my learners as well as I do.  What the ESL profession thinks they should learn is often not that important.  When planning lessons and dealing with emergent language, we need to pick and choose how we spend our time and their effort.

Intercultural Training; The Options for a BE Trainer

Of course any issue covered by Chia Soun Chong gains immediate attention and debate.  And of course it is great to see some of my mentors like Marjorie Rosenberg and Ed Pegg add their thoughts.  So, I figured it might be time for me to reflect a bit on my approach to intercultural communication and how it applies to my business English training.

I have identified several options for the BE trainer to train the effect of cultural interference on their communication.

Option 0 - Ignore it.

Option 1 - Train 'above the surface' aspects for various cultures (etiquette, dos and don'ts).

Option 2 - Train values, norms, and beliefs for selected countries pertaining to class or likely interactions (often BRIC and US/UK).

Option 3 - Train learners about their own culture (whole iceberg) to raise awareness of differences and perceptions.

Option 4 - Train overarching concepts of inter-cultural communication (e.g high/low context, ethnocentrism, non-verbal message codes, uncertainty avoidance).

Option 5 - Train learners to recognize when culture has affected communication and how to resolve it.  This is often in the form of 'critical incident' training.

In discussion with Carl Dowse, he offered another option, giving learners a skill set (such as that provided in Bob Dignan's book Communicating Internationally in English) for the learners to handle a range of cultures and personalities.

Each of these options has advantages and disadvantages and the choice should depend on the training situation.  For this reason, the trainer should know when to apply various resources in training.  Course books handle this in various ways.  For example, Market Leader has tended to go for option 1, whereas Intelligent Business has gone with a mix of option 3 and 4 with an introduction to inter-cultural communication concepts and a rating scale for the learner to assess their own culture.  Either could be appropriate depending on the learners.

For this reason, we need some kind of assessment criteria for how to introduce this into our training.  I offer several criteria...

Needs - what do they want?
Time - how much time do we have and are we sacraficing language work?
Trainer and learner expertise/experience
ROI - how much will the training impact their communication effectiveness?
Behavior change - how much will the learners change/have to change to meet the goal?
Relavence - how likely are they to experience these concepts?
General to specific - where do we balance dealing with culture and handling personality types?

On this last point, we need to assess which cultures we are talking about here.  Ed Pegg and I were on the verge of a book deal on this one in Glasgow.  Hopefully, he can remember what we talked about.  Are they purely national?  Probably not.  Instead, they most likely include a whole range of cultural influences.

At the end of day, we can look at the materials we have and determine which option is best.  In my case, I most often find that option 3, teaching them their own culture from an outsider point of view, is most effective.  I train monoligual and often monocultural classes.  For them, the greatest benefit comes from seeing that what is normal and understood amongst themselves is often a far cry from what outsiders see, hear, and believe.

To give you an idea of the training, I have included the template presentation I give to my German learners.  Not all slides are used in training and this presentation does not include the discussion or activities which emerge from it.  These slides are generally introduced with the scenario: "This is training for employees in the US.  Your job is to review the presentation and determine if it is accurate and helpful for them."

Germany intercultural communication training

View more presentations from charlesrei.

So with all these options, it really is up to the trainer and learner to decide on what the right course of action is.  Simply training culture merely because it is in the material is not the best plan.  Additionally, not considering it at all is certainly not appropriate.  As business English trainers, our mandate is to improve the communication our clients.  If we stop at the present perfect continuous we are not realzing our value sold.

10 Tips for ESL Presentation Coaching

For me, one of the most rewarding experiences as a trainer is to rehearse actual presentations and web meetings with participants.  For them, it is a huge confidence boost and helps them stay on message during the real thing.  For us, we gain valuable insight on the business, and are better able to provide targeted follow-up training.

This situation, however, requires trainers to change roles and expectations for the training event.  When setting up the training there are several keys to success.  First, try to have the training in the same environment as the real event.  If it is online, set up a web meeting.  If it is in a technical training room, reserve the training facility.  Second, try to get the presentation before the event to help you prepare.  For the most part the rehearsal will be participant led, but walking in with some warning of what you are about to see it helpful.  Third, make sure the participant brings a printed copy of the slides to the training.  Constantly changing between presentation view and edit view in PowerPoint disturbs the flow of the rehearsal.  It is better to make written notes on the slides for later reference.  This also allows the participant to review what we covered after the training.  Finally, try to enlist the help of a colleague to sit in and also give feedback and take notes.  This person will help refine the content of the presentation and can augment trainer feedback.

Once the training is arranged there are several tips for a successful coaching, here are ten.

1.  Audience Analysis

More than likely, the presenter has been so wrapped up in the details of the presentation that they have forgotten about the audience.  First, elict as much information about the audience as you can.  Who are the attendees?  What are their jobs?  What do they expect to get from the presentation?  Second, because most presentations are given to other non-native speakers, try to find out what level of English we are talking about.  Very often I see slides come back from the translators at a higher level.  We need to make sure the audience will understand what we are presenting.

2.  Modelling

It is helpful to give the participant a starting point by modelling the introduction or certain key parts of the presentation.  This could include key diagrams and graphics or particularly complex topics.  Remember to keep the model at the level of the participant.  So, if the presenter is B1 and the audience is assumed to be A2, keep the language appropriate.  Setting the bar too high is demotivating for the presenter.  We are hoping to avoid the phrase, "Oh wow!  You should give this presentation."

Modelling also provides the opportunity for the trainer to highlight discourse markers like "First..", "Next...", and "Let's take a look at..." as well as topic and slide transition phrases.  The model is only to get the ball rolling and should be as short as needed (typically 1-2 minutes is enough).

3.  The slides as an aid / hindrance

The slides can both help and hinder the presenter.  The presenter will naturally want to use the text from the slides as much as possible to help them find the words.  This causes several problems.  First, it normally distorts their body language and reduces the impact of their voice.  Second, if the attendees are not clear about the meaning of a bullet point, explaining it in the same terms will not help their understanding.  Finally, overusing the text often disturbs the flow of the explanation.  The presenter explains bullet point one... stops... reads... then explains bullet point two.  This makes it difficult for the listener to get the context of the slide and how all the parts fit together.

On the other hand, slides can provide a great reference for the presenter to organize their thoughts and signal where discourse markers should be placed.  I advise my learners not to have written notes or slide presentation notes because they already have most of the information on the slides.  Instead, we should look how we can use the text to aid the presentation.  I recommend placing some key words in bold, italics, or in different colors so that when they look at the screen they can quickly identify the main points before speaking.  Often, I will also have the learner turn away from the screen or close their eyes and simply talk about what they know on the subject.  This helps give the slide more flow and explains the text in different words.

4.  Timing

In most cases, the English presentation is copied or adapted from a presentation in L1.  The learners often fail to realize that presenting in L2 will take much longer.  Sometimes to fit the presentation into the allotted time slot, difficult choices must be made.  For example, if the most important information is at the end of the presentation, you might want to consider reorganizing the slides.  We don't want to be rushing to finish during our main point.  I find that the same number of slides and amount of content will take at least 50% more time than in L1 (depending on level).

This is also a time to remind them that going faster is not really the best answer.  Because the audience is also non-native speaker, they will need more time to to read the text, listen to the presenter, and understand the material.

5.  Audience Multitasking

Expanding on this, it helps to shows the presenter what the audience will be doing during the presentation.  In L1, it is possible for the audience to read, listen, and think about the material simultaneously.  In L2, this is a huge challenge.  Often, the presenter will change slides and dive right in talking about the material.  I typically tell the learner not to be afraid of silence.  Give the audience a moment to digest the material.  Don't ask them to read and listen at the same time... they will stop doing one or both.

6.  Two-way Communication

Many business presentations are inherently one-way communication, but in the L2 environment two-way communication is crucial for the presenter.  The audience will be very hesitant to interrupt them with questions and if they don't understand the material they might be too embarrassed to acknowledge it.  I encourage the learners to state at the beginning that if the audience doesn't understand something, let the presenter know.  The presenter will also often try to avoid two-way communication to minimize the demands in English.  They present a slide, transition, and start talking about the next.  Encourage the participant to stop, ask for questions, watch for non-verbal communication, ask for feedback, etc.

7.  Realistic Changes

Most of these training events occur shortly before the real presentation.  It would be great to be part of the drafting process, but that is not always practical.  So when making suggestions for changes we need to be realistic about how much time the learner has.  A rule of thumb is that for small edits, estimate 5 minutes per slide.  For text reorganization, 10-15 minutes per slide.  For larger reorganization and changes, 20-30 minutes per slide.  We don't want to make recommendations and then either stress the learner to make them (giving them less time to consider our feedback) or cause them to doubt the quality of the presentation.

8.  Content Gaps

One helpful thing during the rehearsal is to listen for topics they are not covering.  Have they assumed some kind of prior knowledge because they are an expert?  This is where having the colleague in the room can be very helpful.  When I am reading the presentation before the training, I am thinking of what questions the audience will have for the presenter.  Sometimes we find topics that the participant has simply forgotten to include in the presentation.

9.  Limited Language Input

This is not really the time for language input and correction.  Vocabulary retention is minimal in this context and improving accuracy should not be the aim of the training.  That said, any glaring cultural errors or errors which could cause significant misunderstandings should be corrected.  Occasionally, I will monitor for accuracy, but mostly only to drive future training.  In this scenario, we need to give the learner as much confidence as possible, pointing out verbs tenses doesn't help this effort.  I will, however, listen for words or phrases which are overly used, such as "overview" or "in this environment" and try to help the learner find other expressions.

10. Review and Summarize

Finally, save some time at the end of the training to review what you have covered, distill the feedback into general concepts, and make task lists prior to the presentation.  The coaching event is a stressful time for the learner and they have probably not had the chance to take everything in.  Also, they have been 'on stage' and have not had the opportunity to stop, take some notes, and really consider the feedback.  This review and summary stage helps them implement the advice they have received.

Of course, after the training event, check back with the learner to find out how everything went and congratulate them for a job well done.  The students will be thankful for your feedback and truly grateful for helping them make a great impression on their audience.