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.

10 Things you should learn when starting Business English training

Just doing a little Sunday blog catch up when I came across Rachel Dew's report from week two of her CELTA training in Berlin. It was interesting for me because she is attending the same program I finished six years ago. I thought it was (and I see it still is) a well-run program. Of course looking back, some things are more useful and some less so, but it is not a training course for Business English trainers. It is a preparation course for the more educational side of the ELT industry.

With that in mind, here are 10 things you should learn when starting work in Business English.

1. How to complete a proper needs analysis

This is the starting point with every client. There are many examples of poor needs analysis from the ELT industry. They fit into two categories: 1) those that assess the big four language skills of the reading, writing, speaking and listening; and 2) those that focus solely on the big skills of meetings, telephoning, emails, presentations and negotiations without digging deeper.  Neither will give you much information about what content to bring to the training.

International Business English communication is either event driven (often problem-related) or time driven (routine). Each time the learner needs to communicate in English, there is a clear purpose and desired outcome. The method is secondary (written, in a presentation, etc.).  I recommend either using my analysis of the communicative events or using business processes as Even Frendo has shown. They approach the same problem (why someone is communicating) from two perspectives.

2. How to teach one-to-one

Teaching one-to-one is much different than training a group. The skills for teaching one-to-one are much more closely related to coaching. The training materials needed are different, the methods are different, etc. You will also likely find yourself in very small groups (2-3) which is closer to one-to-one teaching than some of the group methods taught in teacher-training courses. Onestop English has some useful starter tips about managing the one-to-one environment.

As a further step, you may want to learn some methods coaches use to help their clients meet their goals.

3. How to design a training plan assuming fluctuating attendance

Assuming you are working with 'in-service' learners (I hate that term :)) you will most likely face wildly fluctuating attendance. The best you can expect in an in-company course is 80%, but 50-60% is more realistic if there is no training certificate. Do not take attendance personally, it is not completely connected to enjoyment and usefulness. It is often simply a result of the participants' busy lives.

Because of that, you should learn how to be flexible in your course design. In general, each lesson should complete the learning objective for the session - stand-alone. Course plans need to have a more modular structure. It is generally not a good idea to assume the same people will attend next week and they will have prepared thoroughly for the training. This is one reason coursebooks are a bad idea. Books are only slightly modular by lesson (some more than others). I suspect this is to thwart photocopying.

4. How to effectively monitor and give feedback

You will quickly find that speaking is the most desired and most important language skill. Without question, people read and write a lot in their work. But they get by with dictionaries and clarification. It's not the most efficient method, but most learners are focused on speaking.

This means you need to learn how to take effective monitoring notes. Understand the difference between fluency and accuracy speaking activities. I write my notes/monitor on different levels.

1. Content - What are they saying? What are they talking about?
2. Errors - Are they making mistakes they shouldn't? Will they lead to misunderstandings or distract the purpose of communication?
3. Gaps - What are they avoiding? Are they explaining around missing vocabulary or grammar?
4. Emergence - Are they taking risks? What are they creating which we should share with everyone?

Giving feedback is also a skill to learn. It's a good idea for you to process your feedback before throwing it back at the learners. It's also nice to explain the effect of the performance (e.g. how it could cause a misunderstanding). And don't forget the praise - put yourself in their shoes.

5. How to be flexible in the training room

Current teacher training courses stress planning on the assumption of linear course plans. Business English courses (outside of educational institutions) are rarely linear. You will find yourself helping the learners to be highly proficient at one communicative event while largely ignoring others. You will also have to respond quickly to requests or 'just-in-time' learning needs.

As a first step, you should develop and perfect materials-free mini-lessons for common grammar points. Grammar is by far the easiest subset to train because there are a limited number of learning points and they generally have rules. Plus, mistakes are easier to identify than gaps. The greater flexibility you have in the training room to create off-the-cuff activities, the better you can respond to needs and feedback.

6. How to write simple materials quickly

Simple materials are things like vocabulary worksheets and role-plays. You don't need to write an entire coursebook, but you should be able to pound out a worksheet in under a half-hour. In fact, a real skill is to be able to make the worksheet in class with the participants.

Vocabulary is the main issue here. Few available materials can correctly identify the vocabulary your students need. Business communication is content high and quite specific. Publisher have to approach things from a much higher level. You will find yourself collecting dozens of words and terms (don't forget to bring the internet) and you need to do something with them.

You will get better at writing and organizing your simple materials so that they are re-usable and easy to locate at the spur of the moment.

7. How to be a 'model' for skills training

Coursebook audio files are often abysmal. Many are good for listening comprehension because they bring another voice in the training room, but the modelling is often so far from reality that they border on humor. In many cases it is up to the trainer to model certain communicative events.

You will often be the chair of meetings, the presenter, the negotiating partner. You should learn how to do these things well and in the context of the their needs. If you are teaching language for leading a workshop... lead a workshop. Monitor yourself and highlight key strategies and language. And finally, make the model authentic.

8. How to find 'target language' from authentic materials

Authenticity and relevance are key words in Business English and they support something called transfer design, which means to design training so that it is clear and easy to transfer the skill into the workplace. The short cut for transfer is using authentic materials. Be aware that there are two types of authentic materials, those which talk about work (e.g. articles) and those which perform work (e.g. slide decks and emails). In my jargon, I use 'authentic' only for the latter.

If you are working in the company, it's slightly easier to come by authentic materials than sitting in a language school. There are fewer concerns about confidentiality and it's just logistically simpler. When mining authentic materials, it is a good idea to focus more on vocabulary (especially high frequency lexis) than on grammar. You are starting to tap the discourse community, this is only the first step on a long road. :)

9. How to walk and talk like someone on the same level as the participants

You will likely hear at some point that "we bring the language and they bring the business". In other words, we don't need to know their field (or even that it is impossible). Don't fall into this trap. Naturally, it is not possible to be an expert in the field of the learners, but it is possible to become an 'informed interlocutor'. This is someone who can carry on a meaningful conversation about the field and understand the concepts (and even many details) about the work. This takes time and research.

The value of becoming an informed interlocutor is that you can drive the learners into greater detail and create more realistic training. Everyday business communication is extremely content heavy and detail focused. Whenever starting work in a new field (e.g. finance or engineering), do some research about the company, processes and concepts in the industry. Seek to drive learners into greater and greater detail.

Finally, your whole presence and appearance should emulate their discourse community.

10. How to take from coursebooks without breaking copyright

Content will be one of your main concerns when starting out in Business English. Published materials are most people's starting point. Keep in mind that while coursebooks are pedagogically sound, they are not designed with your specific participants in mind. It is also unethical (and illegal) to break copyrights. But coursebooks are extremely helpful.

First, they provide great ideas for activities, especially role-plays. One trick is to read the role-play and think about how you can perform the intent of the activity without the content, or alter the situation to better fit your participants. Plus, nearly every activity type in coursebooks can be replaced with a materials light alternative using the whiteboard, note cards, flip chart paper, etc. Deconstruct coursebook activities to find the core process and insert your own content.

Second, they are a useful resource for determining learning objectives. The table of contents is perhaps the most useful section and I like to consult several books of the same level when laying out course plans. Caution however, most books cover much more grammar than is needed by your participants. For example, if you find yourself inserting the Past Perfect into an intermediate-level course plan, make sure that is really the best use of everyone's time for reaching their communication goals. Also, double-check the communicative events of your learners before embarking on that phrasal verb and idioms module. You can probably find something more valuable.

So, those are my top ten things to learn (and master) during your first view years in Business English.  Also, these are basically the starting points for every trend in BE including coaching, English as a Lingua Franca, materials and learner motivation. I wish you the best of luck and don't forget to have fun.

Sourcing Materials

This past weekend, I held a workshop with ELTA Rhine on customizing training and materials lights lessons.  During and after the session, it was clear that sourcing materials was an issue for trainers looking to focus on relevance.  Let's dive a little deeper into the topic of materials and examine what we need, why we need them and where we can find them.

Assumption 1 - There is a difference between "talking about business" and "talking to do business".

This is Evan Frendo's concise and clear statement about not only materials, but also about the tasks we ask our learners to accomplish.  It is great for the learners to 'teach us their business', but this falls into the first category and will not accomplish all the training needs.  We have to balance both types of activities.

The problem for trainers is that materials "about" business are much easier to find.  The internet is full of them.  Let's take a simple example.

You are training a group in production and one of your can-do statements is that they can explain the production process.  You decide to use a YouTube video about how Lego blocks are made, mine the video for key language and have the participants give talks describing their production process (maybe even on the shop floor).  It's likely that this is a useful skill, but it does not fully simulate a meeting to discuss changes to refine the production process.  We are a step short of achieving full relevance.  Wouldn't it be nice to have an example of the real meeting?

Assumption 2 - Getting the "real thing" is nearly impossible.

We can hypothesize all we want about recording real meetings and presentations.  The simple fact is that we will probably never get the approval to do it.  Non-disclosure agreements are key part of doing business, but they are only a baseline for trust.  There is still a 'need-to-know' level of integration.

The main reason why recording real meetings is a no-go is because the learners are not lab rats.  They are trying to do business in these situations.  Politics, reputations and personal relationships all come into play in meetings.  It is generally best if we don't ask to record them for 'research purposes'.

Assumption 3 - Real meetings are much different than the recorded models in the course book.

Meetings are messy affairs.  I'm convinced that meetings are the most difficult skill.  Topics appear out of blue, there is so much interference (semantic, cultural, pronunciation, technical, etc.) that its a wonder they work at all.  But for the trainer, the most difficult part is that meetings contain highly detailed information exchange.  For an outsider, it is very difficult to 'script' a meeting and practice it.

Additionally, meetings can be very boring.  There are many books and websites about effective meetings for good reason.  Employees are often justified for hating them.  Even if I did have a recording, I probably wouldn't play it because everyone would be asleep.  Most participants and chairpersons will acknowledge that their meetings could be better, but they probably can't say exactly how they should improve.

Example dialog with a participant:

Me:  How could the meeting be better?
Them:  Some people are giving too much information about their topic and it is not interesting for the group.
Me:  Okay, where is the line?  How much information is too much?
Them:  Well, they should only talk about what has an impact on the others.
Me:  I agree, let's try it... in your area, where is the 'information line'?  What level of information is valuable for the others (including the manager), and what is too much?
Them:  Hmm... good question.  That's difficult to say.

Okay, so what can we do?

1.  Gather artifacts.  Emails and PowerPoint slides are relatively easy to get.  One main constraint is the group setting.  If you have learners from different companies and/or departments, the materials cannot usually be used in class verbatim.  They typically need to be altered to conceal the information.  I will often use emails and slides to create my own 'similar' materials - using the same language, but with different content.  Even if you can't get them digitally, just looking at them is helpful.

I call them artifacts because like a researcher, these are any item which reveals something about communication.  Artifacts fall into two categories - communication itself, and evidence of communication.

Communication itself:
- Emails
- Presentations (the written communication)
- How-to's
- Forms (e.g. change request forms)
- Reports
- Handbooks
- Contracts and other formal documents

Evidence of communication:
- Meeting minutes and agendas
- Presentations (evidence of the verbal part)
- Descriptions of meeting (like for a communicative event needs analysis)
- Diagrams and charts
- Excel spreadsheets
- Workflows and flow charts

While these artifacts cannot always be used to re-enact the exact situation, they will often get you much closer.

2.  Research English in use.  I generally use several sources for this.

First, if you haven't read Almut Koester's books on workplace discourse, now is the time.  I also recommend Patrick Lencioni's Death by Meeting and Five Dysfunctions of a Team because they are narratives with great dialog from meetings.

Second, I have used transcripts from meetings to identify some key language.  If you enter "meeting transcripts" into Google, you will find many transcribed sessions from government meetings, hearings, presentations, etc.  I don't use them in class because they are horribly boring, but there are some great phrases.  The problem with these is that they are too organized.  Real meetings are generally more chaotic.  For emails, Evan Frendo has recommended the Enron corpus and it looks promising.  Sadly, I haven't had the chance to go through it.

Third, I use my own life.  I have meetings, write emails, make telephone calls, etc.  I have used my inbox several times in training as the basis for language work.  I collect phrases and vocabulary from meetings I have with other trainers, clients, etc (even if the meeting is in German).

A note about Listening: Collins English for Business by Ian Badger.  This book made quite a splash a few years ago for its recording of real people.  I use it and I like it.  Sadly, there are too few examples of dialog.

3.  Refine role-plays and simulations.  

It is a good idea to ask the participants how the rehearsed situation differs from the real thing.  Inevitably, they will give you a list of things you can't really change, such as accent.  However, they may also give you ideas for your next role-play.  For example, if I get the feedback that some people in the meeting speak too quickly with higher vocabulary, then I might participate in the next meeting and try to fulfill that role.

So, I admit that sourcing materials/resources for customized training is not easy.  But I guess that is the nature of the beast.  If sourcing materials were easy, it wouldn't be customized training, would it?

One final note - observing real meetings is really the best we can do.  I am lucky enough to have a project in which that is possible.  But I understand that this project is different.  It has strong management and participant support is limited to a specific team with in a department.  I have offered to observe meetings in other projects to no avail (after all, you have to get the buy-in from all the participants).  If you find the opportunity... take it.

Pre-experienced and Experienced Learners - Thoughts from Graz

I have been giving presentations and writing blog posts about in-company training for the last several years.  Especially with the presentations, I often have problems trying to fit the content to the audience.  The problem is that I am facing two separate market segments... in-company trainers (often freelancers) who typically have much greater scope in determining needs, selecting/creating materials and delivering training.  But also in the audience are the Business English teachers and lecturers who have less control over the learning objectives, resources and methods.  Additionally, they face drastically different challenges concerning learner motivation, class size and assessment/reporting.  Not having experience operating in such a formal structure, I'd like to pass on some thoughts on what I see as those students enter the workforce and perhaps reflect on where I could see changes in institutional teaching.

Despite being in-company, I actually receive many pre-experienced learners.  My training is often aligned with the company's on-boarding program and the majority of new participants are in their first days or weeks at the company.  It is also normal for me to get participants who do not use English in their jobs yet, but it is coming.  In these cases, I feel I can relate somewhat to the challenges teachers face with pre-experienced learners.

I can draw several conclusions from what I see as these participants enter my training.

1.  Learners who had an English course which was aligned with their field of study had great advantages over those who only had a general Business English class.

2.  Motivation was much higher for learners who clearly understood that a) English would certainly be a integral part of their job and b) being able to conduct their job in English would be a competitive advantage for career progression.  Those who lacked this awareness were surprised by the reality of a bilingual working environment and suffered lower self-confidence.  They often had negative feelings toward improving their language.

3.  If an institution taught English as a practical skill, their graduates were much better prepared.  If the school treated English as a theoretical concept, the graduates were largely unable to adequately perform their tasks in L2.  This mindset was often reflected by the teaching methods and content.  Practical teaching focused heavily on production activities throughout the teaching, not just at assessment.  Unsurprisingly, those who emerged from a more theoretical approach were often overwhelmed by the apparent complexity of the language.

Let me give you examples of things going wrong.  You might be surprised at how often I am faced with entry-level accountants who cannot recognize the basic vocabulary from a balance sheet (almost zero new graduates).  Likewise, I routinely meet fresh-faced employees in the mechanical engineering field who cannot understand even the simplest terms like bearing, dimensions, or bolt.  I see this across fields with the exception of software.  I suspect that is because software terms have been developed in conjunction with the spread of English, they have an advantage because they often do not have L1 equivalent words.  However, you can see how wholly unprepared some of these learners are for performing their job in English.

Of course, I do not want to lump all educational institutions together.  There are many very good programs which are producing excellent international employees.  But the results appear to be hit or miss.  The one area in Germany which seems to be particularly poor is the apprenticeship path.  And this leads to a few observations about the content-need mismatch.

First, students and apprentices need English at a tactical level.  If course books reflect the nature of educational teaching, the content is far too managerial and strategic.  Even university graduates are entering the work force at a low level in the organization structure.  Most English communication at this level is problem oriented.  Companies have automatic processes/workflows and IT systems to handle routine tasks.  If everything runs as it should, very little communication is needed.  However, when the system breaks down, communication is needed to get back on track.  For example, missed deliveries, higher costs, missing files, incomplete reports, etc. are at the heart of communication.  New employees are not generally making business plans, discussing how to foster entrepreneurship in the company, devising a market campaign, or discussing who to promote and why.  Even among high-flyers, the company will not hand this much responsibility to a new employee from day one.  They typically have a separate development path in the company, but still deal with tactical matters at the beginning.

Second, far more English communication occurs internally or semi-internally than with customers.  Evan Frendo is right on the money with this observation and I cannot stress this point enough.  Most companies have strict communication filters between themselves and the customer.  In many cases, all external communication must go through a very small team in the corporate communications, marketing or sales departments.  There are a few exceptions to this, but they are all highly specialized.  For example, the customer service department speaks with customers, as will the accounting department in case of wrong invoices.  By and large however, entry-level employees are kept at arms length from the customer.  More English communication occurs semi-internally.  In this case, the employee needs to work with long-term suppliers or distributors.  While the communication is often between two companies, they work together so often and so deeply that they could almost be regarded as colleagues.  But by far, the most communication is internal - from department to department.  It is generally the consequence of off-shoring and outsourcing which are also the main reasons why English is needed so badly at lower echelons in the company.  A typical situation might be an email between the quality auditor in the home country and the factory in Romania.  Another example is the software developer in India and the tester in Germany.

Third, communication is highly transactional, but... it is far more complex that "Could you please...?"  I hear all the time from new participants that they want to improve "small talk".  When I scratch beneath the surface however, I find that what they really want is the ability to build relationships with their international contacts to ease the transactional nature of business.  They want to build trust with their global colleagues and suppliers.  The second aspect of communicating in companies is that students enter a high-context culture.  Office discourse is so difficult because of the body of shared knowledge, differing objectives and the hierarchical structure of decision-making and information flow.  While the email may be a simple request for clarification on the surface, the context can quickly land the employee in hot water.  I'm not sure this second aspect can be dealt with in education, but the teacher may want to keep it in mind.

So, what do I recommend?

1.  Create a balanced English program - one-third general English, one-third general Business English, one-third field specific "ESP Lite".  General English is important and under represented in the secondary schools (at least in Germany).  From the ages of 12-16, English is taught resembling CLIL.  Looking through the state school books, there is a chapter on Australia, the Big Apple, and reading about Obama's election.  I can distinctly remember helping a friend's child try to learn the words, abolition, underground railroad, whip, and quilt.  Can you imagine the topic?  I don't want to exaggerate, nor do I wish to insult school teachers at all.  I merely want to point out that some of the content prior to entering university is of marginal value in business socializing.  Also, by the time they enter the workforce years later, they often lack the simplest vocabulary to discuss their weekend.  I think ongoing general English learning would be very helpful.  I also think that general Business English is helpful as a foundation up to the intermediate level.  The problem with higher levels is the content of the course book.  Course books are generally organized by field:  one chapter on HR, one on projects, one on marketing, etc.  This works up to B1-B2 but then they become overly specific in the fields.  I think "ESP Lite" would be extremely helpful.  This will help the students prepare for the next steps.

2.  Take a step back from standardization.  I understand that a certain level of standardization is needed in an institutional environment.  However, I also observe that university level Business English teachers are an incredibly talented and professional group.  When I present at BESIG conferences, this is the group which makes me the most nervous because of their knowledge, expertise and experience.  I periodically lead standardized training with larger classes, but I always work under a very general set of can do statements.  Within the statement is enough room for me to maneuver.  I am able to conduct a modified needs analysis to refine the training.  The more detailed the can do statement, the more we rely on the institution's needs analysis.  In others words, the can do statement (and thus the assessment) had better be relevant or else we are wasting everyone's time.  I'm just thinking out load, but do these expert university teachers really need a step-by-step lesson plan with page numbers and activity types?

3.  Fortify the feedback loop from practice to content.  I currently have the suspicion from my pre-experience learners that many need analysis are conducted in Oxford, Cambridge or in the halls of Pearson Education.  Instead, I recommend shortening the feedback loop by drawing on a few resources.  Most institutions have a career placement program to help students transition to careers.  Where are graduates going?  What are they doing?  If a job is unfamiliar, read example job descriptions or visit the US Department of Labor Occupational Handbook for more.  Another idea is to build a relationship with HR groups and/or in-company Business English trainers in the area to get feedback.  For example, did you know that presentations are often much different in technical fields?  First, PowerPoint slides need more text because they must be clear without a verbal presentation.  The slide decks can travel far in the company without any meeting or spoken communication at all.  Second, verbal presentations are typically less than 5 minutes long and the most common visual aid is an Excel spreadsheet.  A presentation given in 'ELT format' is completely irrelevant.

In conclusion, I want to be very clear that my observations about the challenges in Business English teaching cannot possibly reflect every institution and every teacher.  However, I have questions based on the number of participants I see entering the workforce without the ability to conduct even the most routine tasks in their field.  Their brains are full of valuable knowledge and ideas, but they are locked behind the bars of language and skills.  I hope that my thoughts add something to the pre-experienced vs. experience learner discussion and I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Three steps for improving ESP training

I've always been proud of my customer satisfaction figures.  Naturally, when I conduct my appraisals of Kirkpatrick's 4 Levels, I continue to see a slight decrease in results from response to results.  But, what has recently impressed me was how the whole satisfaction curve is starting to shift higher.  Greater engagement, faster application, higher results across the board.  On the emotional side, it is great to feel the customer mindset change from, "It's great training," to "It's absolutely vital training."  On the business side, referrals are up and sustainable success appears within reach.  It's inappropriate to boast, but I am genuinely proud that changes I made in training style and course design are starting to make a difference.  I'd like to describe a few of those changes.

Anyone who has read this blog or met me will know how passionate I am about relevance in training and using performance-based training methods.  In practice, this often means using framework materials.  Taken to the next step, it means using only pens, paper, whiteboards and the internet.  The trouble with approaching training with such limited resources is that you are restricted to the collective memory of the learning team (me + the participants) and what we can immediately resource using the internet.  This poses a distinct challenge for handling ESP situations in which I am not an expert.  Google only handles ESP at a general level, and the participants doubt the ability of the trainer to understand the complexity of the topic.  So here are the simplified steps to ESP.

Step 1 - Get the critical mass of knowledge

Yes, that is right... research.  I know you have heard this before, but it actually takes less effort than you realize.  Here are few ideas for researching an ESP topic.

1.  The standard - have them present it to you in class.  No articles, no handouts, just a whiteboard and a marker.  "Explain this to me."  Check Evan Frendo's blog for an idea on how to do this.  Or simply draw this on the board.

2.  Have sticky fingers - someone brings up a concept or process in class, ask them to send you a diagram of it.  Visit them at their desk... collect artifacts posted around their cubical/office.  Can't take copies or get the information?  Contact your training coordinator to sign a non-disclosure agreement.  I've never had a client refuse... they want this level of relevance.  If a participant talks about a supplier/customer in class, bring it up on the internet and bookmark it.

3.  Text mining - Your chances of piercing the discourse community without text mining and corpus analysis are close to zero.  If you are relying on the ESL publishing industry for this, all I can say is good luck.  My dual language dictionary for engineering is twice as thick as my Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.  There isn't the time here to go into corpus analysis and finding key words or clusters, but it doesn't take that long.  I recently encountered the need for vocabulary around air-cooled systems.  It took me less than an hour to find 200 key words from 'fins' to 'obstruct'.  

Where can you get texts for mining?  Start general... wikipedia.  Then move to specifics by visiting suppliers/providers.  Copy and paste product descriptions into a concordancer for key terms (usually nouns) and scan the text for verbs.  But remember, the goal here isn't to immediately create materials... that step will come.

4.  Use professional associations - Nearly every specialty field has a professional association attached to it.  Want finance?  Go to IFRS.  Want software service?  Go to ITIL.  Want project management?  Go to PMI or search PRINCE2.  Read a bit.

Remember, you don't need to be an expert, just have enough knowledge for the next step.

Step 2 - Demonstrate your knowledge constantly

Okay, so you have some research and knowledge.  You know some key words, a few acronyms and you have a general idea of how theory works.  Now it's time for the next step, use your knowledge.

Situation:  I need to teach my participants in the software department the difference in meaning between will, going to and the present continuous.  For practice, I can:
a) bring in an illegal photocopy from Murphy with sentences like, "Mary ___________ (attend) the party on Friday."
b) bring in an illegal photocopy of a technical English coursebook with sentences like, "Hans ________ (investigate) the bearing failure next week."
c)  write "I _________ (finish) installing the new compiler version." on the whiteboard.
d)  create a two part controlled practice exercise in which participant A creates sentences, then a gap fill for participant B.
Which should I use?

You probably guessed it right, option C or D.  The materials-light approach allows us to continuously create our own example sentences and relevant exercises.  We picked up the key words from our text mining.  We have a pretty clear idea of functions (i.e. grammar) from our needs analysis, diagnostic test and 'explain it to me' activity.  The goal here is three-fold.  We need to teach them the material so they can notice it, test it and use it.  We need to provide them with clearly relevant language input.  And finally, we need to demonstrate that we understand their discourse community for the next step.


Step 3 - Keep pushing them into more detail

In the past I stopped at step 2.  That generated good results, but there was a limit.  It wasn't enough.  Then I accidentally learned that framework materials were the key.  One of my favorite frameworks was the fish bone diagram which is used to analyze the possible root causes of a problem.  In general, the head of the 'fish' is the resulting problem and then then you add possible causes and contributing factors (a term from text mining) into the diagram.  I typically used this framework for could have, might have, etc.  But, then I figured out that as we drove the diagram deeper, the participants lost the vocabulary.  Even more troubling, it wasn't vocabulary which would appear in text mining.

This diagram led to all kind of activities...
1.  Vocabulary, of course... you have internet right?  Don't forget to check the professional association for the right term.
2.  Functions... you can take the results and build them into whatever is relevant.
3.  Skills... most problems are larger than one person and emails for request work perfectly here, meetings, too.
4.  Materials development... check off the words they know from your key word list and make materials within their zone of proximal development.

So then I tried other types of diagrams, like mind maps.  With a financial/tax/legal English client, we now have a working mind map over 10 levels deep as part of a PBL task.  Just keep pushing them for more detail.  As my Germans say, "Ach... die Wörter fehlen."  (Oh... the words are missing.)  But this is exactly my point.  In their discourse community everything general is already understood.  We need to get to the detailed tit-for-tat of their community.  Without research and without demonstrating understanding, step 3 will never happen.

But pushing them into more detail is the difference between great training and training they can't work without.

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?

Giving Learners Control of Skills Training

As I am sure everyone is aware, there are two types of grammar:  prescriptive and descriptive.  Prescriptive is a set of rules which standardize grammar and determine whether something is right or wrong.  Descriptive is a study of language as it actually is used to deduce a set of grammatical commonalities.

It looks like most teachers agree that teaching the descriptive grammar is more useful for the learners as communication trumps some arbitrary form of correctness.  Why, then, are we teaching prescriptive skills?

Prescriptive Skills

There is no one right way to lead a meeting, give a presentation, engage in a negotiation, write an email of request, and so on.  Research on discourse and the field of pragmatics help show something we already know... we change our language as we perceive the situation.  This goes way beyond register and whether something is formal or not.

Some have argued that language teaching should be more contextualized to ensure pragmatics are included and students gain the skills needed to alter their language to fit discourse.  This makes perfect sense.  But sometimes I see materials which have "Key Phrases for Meetings" or how to write a formal complaint.  This, however, adds a certain set of prescriptive rules for communication which may not always be appropriate.

A classic example of this are dialog structuring activities which allocate select phrases to students A and B to be used in a 'language flowchart'.  The context is provided through detailed role-plays and case studies.  But often I feel that these violate my "Train as you Fight" motto I picked up in the military.  In other words, the training context should be as close to real-world conditions as possible - modified only for ability.  This same approach is echoed repeatedly in other training fields when they discuss transfer design.

"Take this three times a day to cure bad meetings."

Descriptive Skills

So, if the intent of skills training is to introduce as much realism as possible, it is best that it includes contextual concerns.  This includes culture and relationship of the interlocutors, the communication conventions (e.g. structure, templates, etc.), intent, and desired perception.  When we add all of these together, it is clear that there is no one best way.

The problem is the complexity of all this.  How are we supposed to find resources for all of this information? How can we possibly create a list of phrases for meetings in every context?  This would be simply unworkable.  No doubt we as a profession have tried.  One day, I would like to compile all the useful phrases for small talk in my library and see how we are doing.

Hard to describe but it looks like art to me.

The answer is two-fold.  One, we have to accept complexity.  We have to understand that by describing something we inherently limit it.  By describing an effective presentation, we make all the other methods wrong.  So what happens if one week we do presentation training and the next week we watch a TED talk?

The second part of the answer is accept that we don't know everything.  The key to skills training is the students themselves. They can quickly offer all the contextual information we need and tell us what success looks like.

Elicited Rubrics

A key element of performance-based training is the assessment rubric.  I have written a bit about performance assessment in two earlier posts (lessons from the military and assessing quality).  Judith Mader has done extensive work on performance-based assessment in the field of pre-experience learners.  She's even written a book about it.  At the heart is designing a list of criteria and then evaluating whether the student met each of those criteria during the task.

For example, a very simple performance rubric might look something like this:

Note:  This is prescriptive...

So, my goal in skills training to develop a rubric which will not only assess the training event, but also give the learners a series of steps to successful fulfill the task.  It also provides ample room for teacher and peer feedback.  These rubrics can be extend to the right to include grading scales and exact performance measures.

Here is an example from a university for a written paper:

So, how do we create rubrics without assuming too much about context?  The answer is sitting right in front of us.  They know the interlocutors.  They know the context.  They know what they like and don't.  Let's ask  them.  By having an introductory conversation about the skill in context we can define the performance criteria together.  Furthermore, they have a stake in the process and are more likely to provide constructive feedback and transfer the skill to the workplace.

Lesson Idea 1 - Email to Request Information

With this B1-B2 class I had already conducted a needs analysis based on the communicative event, so I knew that requesting information from fairly distant colleagues was a common task.  The lesson was only 60 minutes so I needed to keep the frame fairly small.

I started the lesson with 10 minutes of small talk and catching up.  Then we came to the point.

Today we are going to write an email to request information.  You have just received an Outlook invitation for a meeting in Munich on May 29th (Munich is about 2 hours away).  You recognize the name of the organizer, but you don't know him.  We are going to write an email to find out more about the meeting and if we should accept.  I haven't included more information because I want you to fill in the details.

Then I created a mindmap on the board with "Request for information" in the middle.  Above it I wrote "Preferred" and below I wrote "To avoid".  We started by discussing things that should be included in the email (preferred).  We then added items which should be avoided.  As the moderator of the discussion, I made sure is encompassed linguistic as well as topical issues.

Then, they wrote the emails and I wrote one as well.  I ran to the copy machine and make copies for everyone.  While they were reading I marked the emails for corrections.  We then compiled phrases used by the various students to be used later.

This simple mindmap exercise can be done with any communicative event.  What makes a good meeting chairperson?  What should they avoid?  What is good when describing a presentation graphic?  What should we not do?  The teacher can help break it down to sentence level if needed.  But it is important that they provide the contextual information.

Lesson Idea 2 - Presentation Rubric

Above you have seen a prescriptive rubric for a presentation introduction.  I have also made such charts with the class.  Below is a lesson example from a tax consultancy.

Today we are going to practice starting a presentation.  You have been asked by the company to give a presentation to your client about new regulations on value-added taxes in Germany.  You will have to inform them about the changes so that you can file the VAT returns quickly and correctly.  Today we will practice only the introduction of the presentation... what you will say at the start.  So, let's start by talking about what is important to have in this introduction.

After the conversation, the rubric looked like this.

So, as a trainer, I knew what to listen for.  In this case, I actually put this rubric on the projector (I had a flipchart to brainstorm and projector to record) so that the small groups could give peer feedback.

Conclusion

At the end of both of these lessons, I left ample time for feedback and a chance to discuss what had happened during the training.  These rubrics can also be used for review or building to a larger task.

Prescribing a most effective way is not always bad.  Indeed, I use it often for certain groups.  For pre-experience learners there is little alternative.  For wide ranging need sets, it is sometimes acceptable.  And I will also use it for remote training (e.g. eLearning and email coaching) where feedback is not possible.  But this type of training is the lowest common denominator.  It should be better.

The point is, if we profess to know the best way to perform a business skills, we place our learners at a disadvantage.  Just like a prescriptive grammar teacher creates students who cannot operate in the real world, we can do the same with skills.  We need to accept the complexity of our learners' world, acknowledge that neither we nor our resources know everything, and let our students define the context.  Using the communicative event analysis provides us the tool for developing the framework materials, but it is up to the learners to take that step further to outline the rubric.  Naturally, the trainer is contributing every step of the way, but leading by questions... not by prescription.