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.

Logic puzzle activity for summarizing and clarifying

I regularly remind my learners to continuously summarize and ask clarification questions in L2.  During my observations of meetings, I often see cases of miscommunication which could have been avoided by a simple timeout to summarize and check that everyone has the same understanding.  In fact, if there is one communication skill needed to work effectively in L2, this is it.

But sadly, I have always had some trouble designing activities which forced the participants to use checking, clarifying and summarizing.  Luckily, I found one in the The Big Book of Conflict Resolution Games by Mary Scannell.

Basic procedure

Find a logic puzzle with 15-20 clues.  Cut up the clues and deal them to the participants.  They have to solve the puzzle without showing the others their clues.  Time: approx. 40 min for a group of four.

If you aren't sure what a logic puzzle is, it is a paper game in which you have to find certain combinations using clues.  For example, 5 friends went to a restaurant, each person ate a different dish, drank a different drink and paid a different amount.  One clue might be, "Janet did not have the cheeseburger and paid more than Frank."

What happens

The group will probably first try to collect all the variables (the names, the dishes, etc.).  Then they start reading the clues.  In some groups each person reads all their clues in sequences, while in others (the more effective ones) they take turns reading clues that are relevant to the current discussion.  They are continually asking to repeat, checking and summarizing.  The trainer can collect and add phrases throughout the activity.  Additionally, they use great language to keep the others on track in the discussion.

Training aids

I don't allow my groups to use any visual aids... no shared notes, no whiteboard, no cards with the variables, nothing.  Each person can use their notebook to make personal notes, but cannot share it with others.  I find that this makes it more challenging and forces the participants to use verbal communication.  I suspect that visual aids would make the puzzle easier to solve, but would require less language.  Second, my engineers discuss complicated, interlocking problems all the time and I find that it more or less recreates this complexity.

The larger question of feedback...

This brings me to the larger question of feedback and how to train it.  After all, summarizing and checking are the purest forms of feedback, but depend on the listener.  Surprisingly, while I find that summarizing and checking are the linguistic functions most often missing from discussions, the lack of feedback is the most common observation my participants make about their own discussions.

Here's why... asking for feedback is delicate and often ineffective.

I think we all know about open and closed questions.  And I think we can all agree that closed questions for checking understanding are not as effective.  In my experience, "Did you understand?" is pretty much worthless.  Second, I think we can agree that while a backbrief ("Please tell me what I said.") is highly effective, it is only realistic in highly direct discourse communities.  In the workplace, there is too much chance for a loss of face.

So, I prefer to help my participants draft a series of open checking questions for them to use in discussions.  In essence, it is teaching them the same skill we use as trainers for comprehension questions.  These are higher order questions which demonstrate understanding.

Examples:

• What have we forgotten to consider with this plan?
• How do you think this will affect ______?
• How does this compare to ________?
• What kind of experience do you have with this?
• What do you think are the next steps?
• What problems do you think we might have?

For more structured practice, creating these types of questions for a presentation works nicely... then try to add them into spontaneous discussion.

So, I am happy with the results from the logic puzzle activity to generate a true need for clarification, checking and summarizing but it doesn't solve everything.  The more difficult step is to train effective methods for requesting feedback.  Once the participants have it though, they notice a clear difference in their discussions and meetings.

Revisiting the Communicative Event

Another post-Cologne article...

During the workshop, we talked some about customizing training.  But following the discussions within some of the groups, there seemed to be some uncertainty over communicative events.  In general, I thought this idea had spread so far through conferences and blog posts that most trainers understood.  Or maybe it is just so ingrained in my training that I can't see training without it.

Let's look quickly at customization.  We can customize a course/lesson at several levels.

A slide I didn't use in Cologne, but probably should have.

At the top level is the skill (e.g. write a report, lead a meeting).  I don't really see this as customization.  Sure, we can give the skills various priorities and/or remove a skill completely, but this is still course book territory.

Below that is a skill to perform a certain function.  For presentations, that might be to persuade, introduce, report, etc.  Most course books have taken lessons to this level and include different sections for different types of meetings.  This is nice but we're really counting on the fact that the course book author hit the nail on the head.

My default level of customization is on the specific event, which includes contextual information (but is still largely content neutral).  For example, writing emails to request information, making a telephone call to confirm arrangements, etc.

Finally, I will customize to what I call the 'ESP' level which includes content.  This is usually accompanied by more corpus analysis.

If you look through the levels, the assessment criteria change considerably from one level to the next.  Moving to each level requires that the participants have more uniform needs.  My general rule is to customize to the lowest level, and approach the next level outside of the group.  If the client isn't willing to pay for the next level, I stop.

Defining performance objectives

This has a huge impact on defining performance objectives.  If you are designing a course, only write the can-do statements to the appropriate level.  For large groups (hundreds of participants), I typically stop at the second level.  For groups which share a job function or field, I can often get to high frequency events.

The difference between a communicative event and an English situation

I am guilty of often using the terms 'situation' and 'event' interchangeably, but they are decidedly different.  A situation includes one or more communicative events.

For example, a presentation may include several communicative events.

Slide 1 - Inform management on status of a project
Slide 2 - Report on research
Slide 3 - Compare alternatives
Slide 4 - Propose a solution

This presentation may be accompanied by...
- defending an idea
- asking questions of speculation
- responding to factual questions
- eliciting opinions
- adding additional comments to presented information
- summarize an agreed decision
- delegate tasks

These generally look like a classical list of functions from a course book.  The contextual information makes them communicative events.  How many people are in the meeting and who are they?  How much time do you have?  What types of interference (or 'noise') are present?  These factors affect communication style, register, etc.

The same is also true for things like emails.  In well written emails, each paragraph performs a different function.  How you organize those paragraphs and the wording you use depends on the context.

As you can see, we are starting to enter the world of communication skills here.

Does a description of the situation give you the communicative events?

Yes and no.  I still use the needs analysis form I mentioned at BESIG Stuttgart (blog post), but it takes some further questioning and analysis to get to the communicative events.  I typically do this by asking a series of questions to describe the 'steps' of the situation.  I may draw a diagram of the situation on the board and ask about the participants, objectives, etc.

Back to sourcing materials... this is where getting a look at artifacts can be really helpful.  Without question, some background in business really helps in 'visualizing' a situation and dissecting it into its various communicative events.

I have found that there is considerable overlap among communicative events.  This is true among different fields, job descriptions and channel (email, telephone, meeting, etc.).  The interlocutors are generally the same (i.e. the learner communicates with a certain group) and the purpose of the communication is often similar.  For example, adding a comment to a pdf report written by a colleague is often identical to adding a verbal comment in a meeting.  However, if the report/presentation is by a manager or someone external to the company, the language changes.

Is there a list of communicative events?

Not yet.  If there were, it would probably look like a matrix.

We can assume that there are a definite number of functions.  We can also assume that there are definite number of contextual combinations.  Theoretically then, there is a relatively fixed number of communicative events.  It may then be possible to somehow create a database which takes contextual information and matches it with the purpose of communication to spit out the best possible language.

But that is all theory... in my next post we'll look at "Training for the Real World".

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.

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.

BESIG Prague Presentation - Assessing Role-Plays and Simulations

To those who attended my workshop at the BESIG Annual Conference, I would like to say again how much I appreciate it.  My jaw dropped when I saw the names of the presenters in the other rooms and I was amazed at such a wonderful turnout.  Thank you.

As I mentioned, I have uploaded my slides from the presentation and there is a short explanation of the main points.  However, to support BESIG and the BESIG newsletter, I agreed to write a more comprehensive summary in the next newsletter.  I am normally open about sharing my ideas, as long as they are non-proprietary, but in this case I would like support the organization.  I am proud of the work BESIG has accomplished and thankful for the opportunities I have gained from membership.

Assessing role plays and simulations from Charles Rei

Slide 3 - My assumptions about the audience and the industry.
Slide 4 - An example of a communicative event the participants wanted to improve and which I needed to assess. (Not a real picture of my students - but very close to reality)
Slide 5 - Defining good practice for the communicative event by mindmapping.  For the scrum event, this was completed using Post-It notes, but I forgot to take a picture (not thinking I would present it).
Slide 6 - An example of how I turn good practice into linguistic areas.
Slide 7 - The assessment rubric for the manager of a scrum meeting based on the students' idea of an effective scrum.
Slide 8 - 4 levels of listening by the trainer when monitoring the role-play/simulation.
Slide 9 - The 3 sources of feedback post task completion.
Slide 10 - Workshop portion - Audience must conduct a simulation.  The coffee break at a conference - meeting someone new.
Slide 11 - Helping the groups build their rubric .
Slide 12 - Task set up.
Slide 13 - Feedback.
Slide 14 - How this fits into a lesson plan/course plan.
Slide 15 - Another example of an assessment rubric but with weighted criteria.  Also very simple to implement.

Again, I am sorry I will not give you more details on the session.  Please read the next issue of Business Issues from BESIG for more.

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.

Linguistics Theory and Real World Training

I am not a linguist.  Most of what I have learned about the field comes from the Wikipedia Linguistics section and observation both in class and in the real world.  I'm always impressed by trainers and academics who work in the various subfields like Pragmatics or Phonology.  Without question, I owe much to their research and effort.  The depth of their analysis is simply breathtaking.

Nor am I an expert in Second Language Acquisition.  My initial education in SLA was simply by critically reading course books and asking, "Why did they write it this way?"  Now, I rely on Scott Thornbury for this, as I suspect many front-line teachers do.  My initial goal was to simply understand what he was talking about.  The real gold mine of knowledge is not his A-Z blog, but rather his list of written works.

All too often, it takes considerable trailblazing to link these theories to the reality of my learners.  The enhanced analysis produced by academia is often so detailed we can miss the forest for the trees.  We are now mapping collocations across two centuries (BYU/Google Books) and assessing the pragmatic meaning of utterances with conceptual nouns at such a minute level it leaves the trainer lost for clear guidance.  We are even left trying to define methodologies across a spectrum of distant names like Krashen and Lozanov.  Lives are spent specializing in these fields.

But as Business English trainers we cannot turn our backs on this range of knowledge.  The other extreme is just as fruitless.  There is a pull on our community to become experts in the "skills" such as negotiations, intercultural communication, and presentations.  This is a louder and more public group of experts.  There is a shine to these practitioners and perhaps more money.  But this is not my role either.  I believe our purpose is to link these two fields.

Furthermore, our knowledge base needs to be broad enough in both areas to identify the correct communication tool.  Sometimes it is skills, sometimes it is linguistic.  One thing is for sure, we cannot expect linguistic experts (e.g. published course books) to give us everything we need to know about skills and we should not trust skills experts to provide linguistic expertise.

Here are two examples of how this works...

Skills Problem

A participant in one of my courses recently asked me to help him with a problem with an American colleague.  He wanted a sentence he could say to show that he was offering help.  The colleague in the US always reacted unexpectedly.  Defensive would be too strong of a word, but he always seemed uncomfortable with the offer and rejected it immediately.  The learner here in Germany thought he had said something wrong and he had somehow offended his colleague.  The American would never accept his assistance and he wanted me to give him a sentence to make it better.

But this was not a linguistic problem.  The problem was instead with the team dynamic and the difference in organizational culture between the German and US departments (notice here it was not national culture). I sent the following email and we had a meeting to discuss the issue.  By the end of the meeting we had worked down to sentence level.

Unfortunately, there is no ‘silver bullet’ for this type of reaction.  Instead, it appears that the relationship is not the best.  His response to offering help is only a symptom of the real problem.  The question is then... what is the real problem?

To start, I would need more information to help define the issue.  Then we can formulate a strategy for dealing with this person and identify language which would resonate with him.

So here are some questions and feedback:

Trust is built on character and competence.  Do you believe he is competent?  If not, why?  What do you think about his character?  What does he think about his own competence?  Is he new in his position or field?  Is he stressed from the expectations of the job?  What does he think of your competence and character?  How can you tell that he feels that way?  Do you trust him?  Does he know you trust him?

Team building is not easy and goes through phases.  How long have you worked together?  Do the team members really know each other?  Does the team have a common purpose and result?  Does everyone know it?  Are the members committed to the team or are there other priorities?  What are they?  What is the definition for success for your team?  Does your team have a track record of successes?  Is there a reward for success?  Does your team accept and use conflict as creative/critical thinking?  How do you and your colleague fit into this team?  Do you have roles?  Did the boss give you those roles or did they evolve?

Everyone has goals and motivation.  What are his goals?  (e.g. Is he trying to prove himself to the team?  Does he want a promotion?)  What does he think your goals are?  Why?

Everyone has assumptions.  What does he think about the department in Germany?  What does he think about working with Germans?  Why?  Based on those assumptions, is he positive, negative, or neutral about working with your team?  What are his assumptions about you?  Why?  What are your assumptions about him?  Does he feel them?

Everyone has pride.  Clearly, you are proud of your children.  You talked about them on the first day we met.  You are also proud of your intelligence (and you should be).  You seem to enjoy the mentor role.  Do you want to mentor him?  What is he proud of?  Why?

You don’t have to answer these questions in an email, we can discuss it.  But I would like you to think about these questions.  When we have an answer to these questions then we can work down to sentence level.

So, I hope we can work together on this and develop a solution.

By the end of the meeting we had identified several team and trust issues and dealt with ways to handle them.  We also discussed the word "just" with the continuous form to show intent.  To give this type of training we need to know about trust, team building, working in virtual teams, and the effect of personal goals on communication.

Linguistic Problem

Most of my learners are using English in virtual meetings with native speakers, India, and China.  Their biggest concern is comprehension.  In this case the problem has less to do with the set phrases in the meeting or even running effective meetings.  The answer here is in pronunciation and phonology.  To help ease the communication problem I laid out a plan to tackle accents and connected speech.  The group is B1 and they are within a comfortable discourse community and lexical set.

Step one was to introduce sentence stress and reduction in connected speech among native speakers.  Then I could approach syllable-timed and stress-timed languages.  Additionally, I could dive into Learner English to identify certain phonemes which might be causing problems.  Mixed with a healthy dose of authentic listening, we might just be able to crack this nut.

The plan got off to a rocky start.  I started with reviewing the pronunciation of weak auxiliaries and short forms.  This was okay, but when I took it a step further and showed them "h" dropping, they were resistant.  In fact, there was nearly outright revolt in the class as suddenly they believed that I was teaching them some laughable dialect of American English.  One woman went so far to say, "No, no... this is not right.  My British supplier speaks a very good English.  He does not do this."  But I know this exists!  Mark Hancock and Sylvie Donna said so!  And I have heard it often first hand.

Clearly more research on my part was necessary.  In the end I found the answer by digging deep into the linguistic research world.  It turns out that the answer is in German, not English.  In Modern German Pronunciation, Christoper Hall points out that reduction and assimilation is common in everyday German (which I knew from my own problems in my second language) but that it is also rarely used in formal contexts.  He states,

"English weak forms are dictated entirely by the stress and rhythm of the sentence and are completely unconnected with differences in style, in other words, weak forms in English are used even in very formal speech. ... The use of German weak forms, on the other hand, depends decisively on the pronunciation style... The general rule is that in formal pronunciation weak forms are less frequent..." (p 154)

So, here was the key to unlocking the comprehension issues in the virtual meetings.  First, I had to show them that weak forms do not affect image as in German.  Then we could deal with sentence stress.  Then the plan could continue.

These two examples show how our profession is not a one-or-the-other field.  Instead it is a balance between the two.  To fulfill our role and expectations, we must be able to balance these two influences.  If we feel ourselves uncomfortable within the skills area or relying too heavily on course book 'expertise' we need to improve our business communication competence and relevance.  On the other hand, if we find ourselves drifting too far into the flashy world of TED talks and intercultural negotiations, we need to pull back and rediscover our linguistic roots.  Striking the right balance is not easy for me, but my learners benefit greatly when I get it right.   

Four Groups... One Long Lesson

A few weeks ago I held a live session on needs analysis for the EVO Designed for Business course.  The course is designed and moderated by some of the most talented trainers I've ever met and it was an honor to be involved.

During the live session, I talked about a common technique I use when the needs of the learner aren't necessarily aligned with what the organization would like to see in the training.  To facilitate both I simply change the context of the task, but not the task itself.  This is nothing new; course books do it all the time.  For example, instead of making arrangements for a business meeting... we make arrangements for a barbeque.  The learners get the 'break from work' so many are looking for, and they are still learning the language and skills needed in their jobs.

However, because I almost never use course books, I instead look for simple things in the learners' lives to exploit for skills practice in the classroom.  During the live session I gave the example of the May Tree, a tradition here in Bavaria.  You can find the live session recording here.

To follow up, I'd like to give an example of how this is scalable to various classes.  In this example, I have taken a different point of view on task based learning.  Instead of one class completing the task over several lessons, various classes work on the task in sequence to complete the overall project.

Lesson Plan:  The Glühwein Stand (Mulled Wine Stand)

Class 1 - Intermediate, 6 Students, 60 min
Objective - Proposing ideas, giving justification, describing purpose, agree / disagree

I explained the task that today we would plan a glühwein stand for the city christmas market (this class was in early December).  The profits would go to charity.  Each class throughout the day would use the work from the class before to take the next step.  For this group, the task was to identify all of the resources needed to start the stand.




Source:  eltpics, @jeeves_ http://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/8197827162

The learners were all given stacks of note cards and told to brainstorm all the things they need.  Write each resource on a different card.  Then they created an affinity diagram in the middle of the table and assigned the resources a catergory name like "Equipment", "Staff", "Materials", "Documentation", etc.

Throughout the lesson, I offered feedback, injected useful phrases, highlighted vocabulary, etc.

Class 2 - Upper Intermediate, 3 Students, 60 min
Objectives - Clarifying, vocabulary for regulations, collocations, syntax, and brevity

At the start of the lesson I gave the group the stack of note cards from the previous group and asked them to 'recreate' the affinity diagram.  The group asked me questions to clarify what the cards meant and the categories.  I recorded and added clarifying phrases on the board.

I then told them to focus on the legal aspects of the stand.  What authorizations would be need?  They researched the information (in German) on the web and had to explain it in English (a common task in their work).  On two websites, I asked them to translate particularly complex sentences, identify collocations, and condense sentences.

Their final task was to create a list of steps to be completed in order to get city approval for the stand.

Class 3 - Pre-Intermediate, 6 Students, 60 min
Objectives - Asking for opinions, stating opinions, saying numbers, talking about budgets

The lesson fit perfectly with the previous lessons in that we has just practiced numbers and talking about costs.  This group was given the note cards from Class 1 and given the task to create a budget for all the resources.  How much do the cups cost?  How much does it cost to rent / buy a stand?  Etc.  Feedback... naturally.

By the end of the lesson they had a catergorized budget on A4 paper.  I ran to the copy machine for the next lesson.

Class 4 - Intermediate, 7 Students, 60 min
Objectives - reach an agreement, discussion options, formal emails for assistance

Finally, each student in the last class was given a copy of the proposed budget from the lesson before.  Their job was to create a profit projection and determine how they could make the most money.  The charity wanted to know how much in donations they should expect before approving the project.  I turned over the white board to one of the learners and got out of the way.  During the discussion they decided that the best way to save money was to ask for volunteers and donations of equipment.  They made a profit calculation and make a list of people / organizations to contact for support.

A natural follow up task was for them to actually write the emails for support.  Each student was given a different contact person and they had to request a donation for the stand (equipment, volunteer support, etc.) or authorization from the charity and government (from Class 2).

By the end of the day I was able to write an email to all of the students and tell them how much money we would donate as a result of their work.  The feedback was great and several suggested that we acutally make it a reality.  I guess that would have to be another lesson.

They used the functional language needed in their work, but the context was something taken from their personal lives.  Combined with doses of feedback... the lessons were very student led and had minimal teacher talking time.

Two Easy Peer Feedback Methods

Peer feedback can be extremely valuable in the BE classroom, especially when it comes to communication skills.  There are two reasons for this.

First, my learners are typically all in the same company and/or department and have a better grasp of the conventions within the discourse community.  Second, the learners have years of experience and training in various areas which they can draw upon to give feedback.  For example, several of my learners include project managers who have taken part in many training sessions on relationship building and giving feedback.  It is great to spread that knowledge.

Of course there are many other great reasons for constructive peer feedback, but there are also dangers, too.  Without direction and some limits, peer feedback can be overly positive or only highlight shortcomings.

For example, here is some peer feedback I received on a proposal I wrote for a university class.

·         Your introduction is very wordy.  I would consider consolidating some of the paragraphs and cut back on so many words.  Once you write the Letter of Transmittal you will realize most of what you wrote in your introduction will also be in your Letter of Transmittal.  Your introduction should be concise and to the point. You use too much detail for the reader in the first two paragraphs, which led to repeating most in the body of your proposal.  

·         Your title page doesn’t include who you ultimately want to read your proposal.  In our textbook on page 289 the title page lists who it is prepared by and who it is prepared for.  The prepared for individual will also be the name you address your Letter of Transmittal to. 

·         I would also consider spelling out what R&D because readers may not understand the acronym. 

·         You are also missing table of contents, which is a requirement for the report.

·         When using visuals you should name them in the proposal i.e. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. Also if you pulled your illustrations from somewhere else you need to cite those as well. 

Hardly motivating... did I do anything well?  By the way... I did fine on the final assignment.

A Simple 3-2-1

I like to use a simple 3-2-1 feedback format for peer feedback.  I simply write on the board prior to a presentation, meeting, email, etc.

Write:
3 things they did well.
2 things they can improve.
1 thing you want to take and use in your presentations, emails, etc.

Then after the simulation/role play, I give them time to fully write out their feedback for the person.  I do not read them and let the learner look at them without pressure after the lesson.  Typically, the learner will come back the next week and thank their classmates for the excellent responses.  Then when we are giving class presentations, all participants are more likely to give complete, honest, and constructive feedback because they will receive the same in return.

Email Workshops

A second method for extensive peer feedback is email workshops.  I will set up pair groups and give each pair the task to write an email.  Each situation will be similar.  Note:  I will change the emails based on the target function.

For example: (the learners are told to fill in details to fit their job/situation)

Group A

• To introduce yourself to a new business contact.  You will be working together in the future.

Group B

• To follow up on a conference.  You met the person for the first time and talked shortly, exchanged cards and agreed to stay in touch.

Group C

• To get in touch with a former friend / colleague.  You were close before but lost touch after several years.  But now you may need some help from him / her.

Then, the pairs compare and contrast their emails based on subject line, greeting, opening, structure, opening for discussion/response, closing, formality, and length.

Then I will have someone run to the copy machine and make copies for everyone.  Note: I give them an email template on A4 paper with all the top fields and a writing area.

Then the members of the three different groups will read the other emails.  While they are reading, I will mark the emails for accuracy and vocabulary.

To conclude, the members of the groups will meet together and discuss dos and don'ts in there situations, good structure, appropriate phrases, etc.  We will bring all the information together on a powerpoint slide and that will go out to the participants.

The participants absolutely love it.

So, two ideas on how I use peer feedback in my classrooms.