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‘In reality it’s almost impossible’: CLT-oriented curriculum change / Simon Humphries and Anne Burns. // ELT journal. 2015, Vol. 69, No. 3.
2015.
p. 239-248.

Curriculum innovation is challenging and, as several commentators have reported, moves to introduce communicative language teaching in many contexts internationally have resulted in mixed outcomes, or even failure. In an effort to shed some light on this complex problem, this article focuses on curriculum change through the introduction of new communicative textbooks in an engineering college (kosen) in Japan. First, three key factors that inhibit change are considered and then other factors that specifically hindered change in the kosen environment are identified. A study investigating the attitudes and classroom practices of four Japanese teachers of English highlighted a culture of pedagogical uncertainty and lack of professional support. Suggestions for supporting teachers to implement curriculum change more effectively, both in Japan and elsewhere, are drawn out.
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Affordance, learning opportunities, and the lesson plan pro forma / Jason Anderson. // ELT journal. 2015, Vol. 69, No. 3.
2015.
p. 228-238.

This article argues that the most commonly used lesson plan pro formas in language teacher education are inappropriately premised on an outcomes-based approach to teaching, one that is in conflict with what we know about how languages are learnt and how experienced teachers teach. It proposes an alternative, affordance-based approach to lesson planning and makes a number of practical suggestions to modify the pro forma and its role in lesson observation. It is argued that the suggested changes encourage teachers to plan for and respond to the learning opportunities of the lesson, thereby reflecting more closely the practice of experienced language teachers and the reality of differentiated language learning. It also makes recommendations on how such a pro forma could be used in both initial certification and in-service teacher development in a wide range of learning contexts, potentially compatible with product, process, and procedural approaches to syllabus design.
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Data-driven learning: changing the teaching of grammar in EFL classes / Ming Huei Lin and Jia-Ying Lee. // ELT journal. 2015, Vol. 69, No. 3.
2015.
p. 264-274.

This study aims to investigate the experience of six early-career teachers who team-taught grammar to EFL college students using data-driven learning (DDL) for the first time. The results show that the teachers found DDL an innovative and interesting approach to teaching grammar, approved of DDL’s capacity to provide more incentives for students to engage in discussion, and endorsed its effectiveness in transforming relatively passive students into active learners. The results also indicate some challenges that DDL entailed and possible ways for the teachers to meet them. The challenges included increased workload and technical difficulties in designing DDL materials and conducting DDL-centred activities, but the teachers still eventually improved their DDL teaching by following three key practices: reducing the number of corpus entries used, deploying complete concordance lines whenever possible, and asking the students focused guiding questions. This article concludes with suggestions for future DDL practice in EFL grammar classrooms.
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Marriages of convenience? Teachers and coursebooks in the digital age / Christopher Allen. // ELT journal. 2015, Vol. 69, No. 3.
2015.
p. 249-263.

This article reports on a survey of Swedish EFL teachers’ attitudes towards, and dependence on, ELT coursebook packages in the light of recent research into digital literacy. The results showed that while ICT is making massive inroads into language classrooms in technologically advantaged countries like Sweden, the coursebook package still has its place assured among trainee teachers, at least for the immediate future. The current generation of ‘digital native’ pre-service teachers still looks to coursebook packages to structure lessons during teaching practice and as a means of providing extended reading practice in the L2. Their more experienced in-service colleagues are, however, increasingly abandoning the coursebook in favour of freestanding digital resources. Practising teachers in the survey increasingly saw coursebooks in contingency terms and as a ‘fall-back’ position. Finally, the article considers the desirability of a more fundamental abandonment of the coursebook in favour of digital tools and resources in the EFL classroom.
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Moving beyond accuracy: from tests of English to tests of ‘Englishing’./ Christopher J. Hall. // ELT journal. 2014, Vol. 68, No. 4.
2014.
p. 376-385.

This article examines how English is conceptualized in the domain of testing, and particularly the tendency to identify the concepts of ‘standard English’ and ‘native English’ with ‘the language itself’. I argue that such a monolithic view is inconsistent with the diversity of Englishes attestable across both native and non-native users and uses, and that this undermines the inclusion of accuracy criteria in English language tests. Adopting an alternative ‘plurilithic’ orientation, I challenge the traditional view on both cognitive and social grounds, arguing that the Englishes encountered and appropriated by non-native speakers will inevitably be qualitatively different from ‘standard English’ models, and that the effectiveness of the resources learners do develop should be assessed, where appropriate, independently of linguistic criteria. I conclude that a shift is required from tests of English to tests of ‘Englishing’: from testing how people use the language to testing what they can do with it.