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.

How to Create a Great E-Learning Environment

After having taken a nice long vacation from email, the Internet, Twitter, and my blog, I am feeling recharged and ready to start 2013!  It is clear for me that 2013 will be a year of growth in e-learning and managing training virtually.  So I thought I would start by recording what I have learned so far.

For those who do not know, I never finished my university diploma.  I dropped out of college due to financial constraints and "other pursuits" in 2001 and it has haunted me ever since.  So in 2010 I restarted my journey toward societal acceptance by enrolling in online study from the University of Maryland to obtain my BS in Marketing.  Over the past two years I have seen all sorts of teaching, moderation, tasks, and so on from the professors of the university.  Combined with my limited experience in conducting training online, I'd like to share...

Best Practice in Online Learning or How to manage an asynchronous online conversation...

1.  Start off with a general introduction

One of the over-arching themes of adult online learning is that the participants place their daily lives on hold during the course.  They are extremely interested in really getting to know the other people in class and friendships come naturally.  Therefore, it is best to leave the personal introduction task as general as possible.  In fact, the wording, "Post an introduction of yourself," is typically sufficient to build a proper collaborative network.  This type of task will truly encourage the learners to read and remember the posts of their peers.

2.  Reduce teacher talking time

Teachers should moderate the discussion as little as possible.  Remember, the key aspect of online learning is that the learners "find their own path".  Any guidance, correction, or feedback will only disrupt that process.  Besides, feedback is generally best when withheld until grading an assignment.

Additionally, because the participants are reading all of the other posts there is no need to refer to the opinions of other class members.  Saying things like, "Interesting point of view, but I think Jenny might disagree," is simply a waste of time.  The learners will have already read the post and in fact are probably already preparing a response.  The same is true for links to additional material.  One characteristic of adult learners is that they are only interested in learning the material provided in the course.  Optional links and 'for more information' resources are seen as disruptive.

3.  Set rules about how often and when posts must be written

The real value of an online forum is the number of posts the class can write.  This shows real collaboration.  The quality of the ideas is only secondary.  Therefore, your learners will truly benefit from rules like, "Post your response by Tuesday, one reply to another classmate by Friday, and two more replies by Sunday."  These rules ensure that ideas are spread and that everyone is getting the most from the discussion.  Furthermore, it will help the learners manage their lives better and assist them in prioritizing their tasks.

4.  Focus on the theory

Adult learners are fascinated by theoretical learning.  In surveys, most respondents say what they enjoy most is reflecting on theoretical tasks and coming up with ways to apply them to their real world situations.  By providing practical tips and applications, the teacher is only robbing the learners of this opportunity.

5.  Rewards and praise often fall flat in adult courses

It is a universally accepted truth that only children respond well to praise and reward for positive effort and results.  For adult learners the reward is the course itself (and naturally any certification).  Therefore, providing positive comments to good ideas or dedication to the group should be minimized.  The learners will undoubtedly find it condescending and resent the trainer.  Along with this, competitions and games should be removed completely from the adult online training environment because it will only cause further demotivation.

6. Keep tasks open ended

When giving instructions, remember to keep them as general as possible.  Use vague verbs like discuss, reply, and consider because these will yield the best results for online discussion.  Also, because adult learners are continually focused on achieving the learning objectives, there is no need to inform them of the purpose behind the individual tasks.  The extensive introduction document you send at the beginning of the course will be read with vigour and the learners will clearly see how everything fits together.  Giving a purpose is simply redundant.

7.  Summarize activities are the best

Perhaps the best online discussion activity is to ask the learners to summarize a document, chapter, website, etc.  The most effective way to generate differences of opinion is to have 30 responses which all say the same thing.  The students will discuss continuously about why and how one summary is different than others.

So those are my lessons learned for effective e-learning.  Happy moderation and I hope you have a great new year!

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.

The Communicative Event... Session Recap

I heard my approach to needs analysis mentioned many times this past weekend at the BESIG conference and I am more than a little thrilled to have struck an issue which reached BE trainers.  As a relative new-comer to ELT I am always hesitant about saying how things should be done.  And at a place like BESIG, I am looking out at an audience which, in the case of the PCS, had well over a century of experience.

The purpose of this post is to recap my talk on Communicative Event Analysis, to add some background to the idea, and to reanswer some of the questions which were dealt with rather poorly in the session.

The Talk

During the talk I first outlined what I had learned from the needs analysis tools I see most often on the Internet, in trainer handbooks, or in course materials.  Unfortunately, due to a technical issue, the bullet points did not appear on-screen.  Please take a look at this version of the presentation for those items.

The Communicative Event from charlesrei

Context

It appears that the term 'communicative event' is gaining acceptance among some readers (and even non-readers) of my previous post "Why Needs Analysis Isn't Working".  Let me provide a little context about how I use this term.

For me a communicative event is anytime the learner is either the sender or receiver in the S/R communication model.  This is different than "an English situation".  In some cases, such as reading a document on the company intranet, the event "understanding and interpreting the information" is the entire situation.  However in many cases, such as a longer meeting or a company visit, there are many events in one situation.

Example 1

I have learners who make customer visits (the situation).  In this case there may be several events.

• Reporting to reception
• The initial greeting when being welcomed
• Relationship building through small talk while walking to the conference room (or other area)
• Meeting the others for the meeting
• Talking about the agenda or plan for the visit
• Starting the meeting
• Presentation phase
• Question phase
• Discussion phase
• and so on...

The idea with the form is to find the situation and start to define the communicative events.  But different cultures, discourse communities, job functions, and conventions will change the events conducted, the duration, and importance of those events.  My goal from the forms and the follow-up questions is to the find the order and importance of these events.  Artifacts such as old meeting agendas, mintues, slide decks, and emails make this much easier.  In general, however, I will try to focus on those events which are high value.  Reporting to reception is generally not high value.  For a secretary the small talk while going to the conference room will be much higher value than some others to create a welcoming first impression on the guest.

Example 2

Sometimes the communicative event is not directly linked to the situation.  I had a learner who worked in a call center.  At first thought, we needed to be working on telephoning, troubleshooting, politeness, etc.  However, her needs were actually quite different.

She was receiving the calls from German customers about problems with their telephone service.  But the company also had call centers in India.  Therefore, all the troublshooting guides on the Intranet were in English and all the incident tickets had to be written in English.  But she was speaking German on the phone.

So for the training, we needed to focus on quickly searching, reading, and interpreting the troubleshooting guides, and on writing short incident reports in English... all while speaking German.

Munby

Recently, I stumbled upon some past work on the communicative event from 1978 by John Munby.  It just goes to show that there is rarely a truly new idea.  Sadly, I have not even scratched the surface on his research, but it appears he advocated this approach to syllabus design long ago.  My initial impression is that he takes it a bit further (down to sentence level) with "micro-functions".

My apologies to Mr. Munby if I have inadvertently plagiarised his theories.  This was completely new to me until only recently.

Expertise, Assumptions and Materials

The main message I would like to give is three fold.  First, we are the language and communication experts in the room.  Asking the learners to map their own way to success is simply not effective.  Of course, we need to accomodate their goals and expectations.  But they do not know what a function is, they cannot name the words they don't know, and they cannot identify what makes their language different than their target.

Second, we cannot make assumptions that we know meetings, presentations, negotiations, etc.  Course books do an excellent job of providing functional phrases, but often assume that all meetings are the same and all presentations are alike.

Third, we cannot limit the learners' needs to what we know how to teach.  Many times what we know how to teach is either of marginal importance (e.g. making arrangements on the phone) or will not help alleviate their communication difficulties.  Tailor made training means just that... going out and developing original lessons and materials which will help our learners.  Of course, some recycling happens, but trotting out a different permutation of the same stuff is not ideal.

Question and Answer

I'd like to apologize to the audience (both around the world and in the room) for my poor responses to your excellent questions.  I was a bit overwhelmed by the simulcast, the technology challenges, being filmed, the time limit, and staying on script.  Thank you to the gentleman who politely helped me deal with one question.  So here is my second attempt.

Identifying needs for pre-experience learners or 'just-in-case' training

Very valid question... this method is generally limited to learners who currently use English in their workplace and have the goal of improving their immediate performance.  However, after having conducted this type of needs analysis for over a year, I do see patterns which can assist pre-experience learners.  Please check out my post "What I Don't Teach and Why".

One general thing I see in my market is that most communication is internal and virtual.  This means lots of information exchange on progress, processes, and rules but less persuasion and general conversation.  Communication is often reading and writing messages to conduct some kind of transactional information exchange.

For external contacts, I see more voice communication, but typically also little face-to-face contact.  Also, these external contacts are typically long-standing customers and preferred suppliers.  These conversations are more like colleagues than the more traditional customer-provider relationship.

I will also use my gained knowledge of communicative events from other learners to extrapolate what pre-experience learners are likely to be doing.  Sometimes these tasks are similar to what they are already doing in L1, and sometimes we have to make a few assumption based on job function (e.g. accounting, project management, etc.)  One note here is that most course books written for business management schools are heavy on strategy and business theory.  Most daily workplace communication is not about these topics.

Specfic lesson ideas from communicative events

The first thing is that it gives me a clear idea of which functions, grammar, and vocabulary to practice in certain contexts.  I know precisely what kind of authentic materials I should be looking and asking for.  Then, I have a pretty good idea of what to do with them when I have them.

During a role-play it gives a good idea of what roles to assign to whom, or how to change them to fit their real-world needs.  It also gives me an idea of how to design specific lessons.  For example, I have a group of secretaries and we recently rehearsed that long walk from reception to our conference room.  We made role cards for the 'visitors' like: 

You missed your connection in Amsterdam.  You are tired and hungry.  You want to be nice, but would rather not have small talk.  You are looking forward to the end of the meeting and you are dying for a cup of coffee and to know where the restroom is.

This is your first trip to Germany and you are really looking forward to it.  You want to do some sightseeing while you are here and pick up a few gifts.  You really hope the meetings can be short so you that you can look around on your own.

So, I hope that helps cover those two questions better than my spontaneous answers.

Sorry for the long post, below you can find the handout for the session and thanks to all who attended from around the world and in Stuttgart.

Handout - The Communicative Event

Are We Fulfilling Our Promise?

I would first like to thank everyone who joined us for the PCS at the BESIG 2012 Annual Conference.  I know it was a financial and time committment on your part and I hope that the sessions were worthwhile.

For those who could not attend, I believe you missed a very valuble session and I hope you will be able to make the next one.  But I understand that distance, financial, and training constraints prevented you from joining the session.  So I will do my best here to recap my workshop on assessing and reporting training quality.

Here is the available video of the presentation.  Note, it starts when I am speaking about the benefits of a quality assessment with clients.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktZiYB9DIbY&feature=youtu.be

Let's start with the presentation and follow with some of the explanation.

Are we fulfilling our promise from charlesrei

Are In-Company Trainers Afraid of Assessment?

As expected at a BESIG conference many of the trainers came from the educational setting in which assessment is a part of life.  However, I see that in the in-company setting assessment is avoided.  As long as the learners leave with smiles and the manager seems satified then we carry on as though everything is hunky-dory.  But there are considerable benefits to a comprehensive assessment program.

Business terminology:
cost-plus pricing
value-based pricing

Kirkpatrick's Four Levels

This is nothing new.  Donald Kirkpatrick described these levels long ago, but they continue to be the gold standard in training assessment for corporate training.  I think we need to be able to accomodate these client expectations of results with quantitative and qualitative data.

Impressions from Workshop

First, I would like to commend Target Training (one of the key sponsors of the conference) for supporting their staff to achieve certification on the Kirkpatrick model.  During the workshop one mentioned that I was not presenting the most recent developments on this.  He is correct, for more info check some of the more recent references.  However, in the sense of ELT and assessing Business English training, I feel that the traditional framework is already a significant step in the right direction. 

To invert the model (as is currently being taught) or to add a fifth level of monetary ROI (as has been advocated) are simply not steps either our profession or our clients are ready to accept.  And unless we are going out and setting up massive training programs, maybe is it unnecessary.  Therefore, it is more practical to focus on the traditional four levels approach.  However, I find it outstanding that this company is not only taking this approach to corporate training, but also developing their people.  It is far too rare in our industry.

Horton's External Factors

The problem with adopting the four levels without consideration is that is can lead to distortions.  It tends to ignore external factors.  I believe the Holton's simple and effective organization resonates which the BE trainer because we can fully identify with these challenges.  Now, Holton actually does not think Kirkpatrick model is effective at all (and they have a personal dislike for each other).  But strangely, his own 'model' looks extremely similar.  So for the sake of simplicity I just super-imposed Holton ideas on the pyramid.

Surveys

A quick note about surveys because we talked a lot about this in the sessions.  These are not the end-all-be-all of assessment.  They are certainly valuable and quite easy to administer, but do not generally tell the whole story.  On one of the first slides, I showed the menu of assessment tools I see being used.  All have their place and all are valid, we simply need to understand which level they are assessing and how external factors can influence them.  I went to the talk by Judith Mader on performance-based testing which reveal some of the challenges with setting criteria.  This is what I use to judge learning, albeit on a smaller scale than her university.

But in response to questions about how to operationalize this I have uploaded an example survey that I use.  This is by no means perfect and I customize certain sections depending on who, what and when I am conducting the assessment.

English Training Feedback Form (Email)

Putting it Into Practice

It would be impossible for me to understand each training situation of the audience and we saw from the feedback that some have never thought about this, some have taken on part of this in their work, and some are already using these methods daily.  Additionally, some have no control over the assessment methods used in their organization.  However, it was very nice to hear some trainers talking about how they planned to change the way they speak with the learners to either get information on the transfer environment or gain insights on behavior/results.

Some other ideas were to review their feedback form, conduct some sort of before and after assessment, and to use a simple method like the workshop notes page in the handout.  I was really happy to hear that suggestion because, of course, this is the way the workshop was designed.

Reporting

This was not really discussed that much in the groups but I think it may be the most important step, especially for training companies running many classes with many trainers.  Because the information for the report will come from many sources it needs to be organized to help drive improvement.  I also think it is the best tool for initiating trainer cross-talk.

For example, Trainer A consistently gets great feedback on reaction.  The learners love her, she plays games and there are lots of laughs.  On the other side, Trainer B scores great on learning and preparing people for meetings.  Sit the two down together and Trainer A gives a few lesson ideas for more fun and relaxation in the classroom, and Trainer B shares how she builds simulations to help for meetings.

I know that reporting sounds like tons of work and a boring admin task.  It is if there is no point, it is actually very motivating if everyone knows that this report will generate suggestions and action points to improve.

So... thanks to all who came!

Handout - Are We Fulfilling Our Promise

Making an Impact by Understanding the Learner's Goal

I am about to share a lesson I taught this morning in a one-to-one lesson.  This lesson flies in the face of many of the 'tenants' of ESL and learning in general.  The intent is to show how teaching Business English in-company can be markedly different from other environments.

Learner profile

The one-to-one lesson takes place once a week for one hour.  It was not set up as an individual training, but the woman is level A1 and there were no other employees with such a low level.  She works in the accounting department for a multi-national and handles a range of international tax issues, mostly around withholding tax.  The learner is in her mid- to late- fifties and generally doubts her ability to learn English.

More importantly, however, is the fact that she doesn't really want to 'speak' English, she only wants to handle her international tasks until she retires.  I repeat this often, but it is definitely true in this case; she does not have a language problem, she has a communication problem.  We have done a communicative events analysis and found that emails to inform others about processes are the most routine situations.  She must also receive and understand emails asking questions about payment status and how to apply for withholding tax exemptions.

Lesson

I had planned to start looking at the passive in the lesson to help her explain a process.  We had just finished looking at adjectives as a method toward the past participle because it fits nicely into L1 German.  However, I started the lesson by asking, "Is there anything specific you want to talk about this week."

She told me that she had to write an email to a supplier about why an invoice has not yet been paid.  Okay... let's do it.  She explained the situation in German and I did a little graphic representation on the flip chart in English to confirm my understanding.  She agreed that I had.

Template

I wanted to give her a template for this type of email.  I boarded a template I use for writing emails of bad news.

1.  Unfortunately / I'm afraid / Sadly...
2.  Why
3.  Give options
4.  Offer help
5.  Apologize for the situation

I clarified that we did not want to take responsibility for the situation because it is not our fault.  She dutifully noted the template.

Then I filled it by writing her email (while eliciting things she should know from our training).  To check her understanding of the sentences, I asked her to translate them into German.

Dear _____,

Thank you for your email.  (Her sentence.  We have worked on emails before)

Unfortunately, we are still waiting for the withholding tax exemption from the central tax office.  We forwarded all your information to the government on/in _________.  But it takes some time for processing.  I cannot say when it will be confirmed.

We can either wait for the confirmation or we can pay the invoice now.  But I must withhold the 15.8%.

I can try to call the tax authority but sadly, I cannot speed up the process.

I apologize for the situation, and I will do everything on my side to complete the transaction.

If you have any questions, please contact me. (Again, her sentence.)

Best regards,

I wrote the email for her on the flipchart (filling the template) and she copied it.  I then asked her to read it aloud for me to check her dictation and to drill a few words.

We then discussed a few elements from the email.

1.  Performatives - We honed in on "I apologize" as this was a new word for her.  Then we looked at other performatives like suggest, propose, invite, request.

2.  either... or... - We will see this construction as we continue looking at processes.  She wrote 5 sentences using either... or....

3.  Forward - This was also a new word for her, although I'm sure we've covered it before.  We made a quick mind map of email words:  forward, reply, attach, confirm, sign.  Okay, they're not all email words, but they fit together for her.

Outcome

To close the lesson, we took a look at the email again and I elicited ways she could use the email as a model for other situations.  In the end, she decided that she would save it in Word and use it whenever she had to give bad news about the withholding tax process.  In fact, she writes this type of email about twice a month.

To conclude, I doubt she can speak anymore English that she could before she came in.  She is undoubtly confused about most of the grammar in her example.  But she does understand exactly what each sentence says.  It will be much easier for us to cover this later.  In fact, we can dissect our example even further in future lessons.

But most importantly, she has a communication tool.  Remember, she doesn't need the English... she only wants to communicate the idea.  I consider this a successful way to spend 1 hour.

What I Don't Teach and Why

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

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

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

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

Negotiating

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

Idioms

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

Storytelling

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

The Present Perfect for Past Events that Have Present Importance

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

Phrasal Verbs

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

Telephoning to Make Arrangements

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

Report Writing

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

Writing a Letter of Complaint

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

But...

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

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