Vocabulary: making the shift from passive to active

On my trip to Poland a few weeks ago, I was quite surprised at how much Polish I understood (at least when it was written down), because of the similarities to Czech. Not that I really speak Czech, you understand. I lived in Prague for a couple of years, but I didn't make very much effort to learn the language (for all kinds of reasons) and I certainly never really "spoke Czech" beyond a few basic functional words and phrases. Evidently though, I did take in quite a bit of vocabulary, albeit in a very passive capacity.

All language learners have a much wider passive (or receptive) vocabulary (i.e. words they recognise and understand) than the range of active (or productive) vocabulary that they actually can (and do) make use of. Generally, as our learning progresses, the words in our passive vocab get transferred to our active repertoire as we become confident enough to use them. Up to a certain level, that process seems to be fairly natural; we need and want to talk about things which pushes us to start using new words. Somewhere around intermediate level though, that process often stalls. You reach a point where you can communicate most basic ideas adequately, so you just rely on the same old, familiar words and phrases you've grown comfortable with. It may be that your passive vocabulary continues to expand as you read more complex texts on a variety of subjects and you 'learn' new words, but whether those words then get put to use is quite a different matter, because they're often not strictly needed to communicate.

A fixation with new words:

It strikes me that our approach to vocab teaching often tends to reinforce this. Especially at higher levels, there seems to be a perception that vocab activities should only contain completely 'new' words, otherwise learners won't feel like they're learning and teachers won't feel like they're teaching. Many's the time when I've been writing vocab activities that I've had items vetoed because they were 'too easy', the students would already 'know' that word, it was covered at B1, or whatever. It's an attitude that bugs me on a number of levels ...

Firstly, just because you've met a word once doesn't mean you know it. Learning vocabulary is a complex and gradual process that involves repetition and recycling; you need to encounter a word repeatedly in different contexts to get a feel for it. Especially at higher levels, you need to understand how a word's used (its register, collocations, colligation) in order to really get to know it. And of course, English is a highly polysemous language; a single word can have several different meanings or be used in different expressions, so you can't just tick a single sequence of letters off a list and say you know it!

And then there's knowing and there's knowing. We really need to consider whether we're focusing on a particular lexical item because we want students to recognise it (as part of their passive vocab) or whether we expect them to actually start using it as part of their active vocabulary. And we need to think about how we can shift words from the passive category to the active. When students say they already 'know' word, we need to challenge them to start using it; to explicitly recognise and encourage that process of shifting from one set to the other.

A balanced vocab diet:

Oh yes, of course revision and recycling are important, I hear you say, but it's about more than just revisiting words in another receptive context (although, of course, that's important). For me, vocabulary activities need to include a smattering of comfortable, known vocab (perhaps working on those tricky points of usage like dependent prepositions), a handful of genuinely new items (so we all feel like we're breaking new ground) and then a healthy dose of that in-between category of words that we want to move from passive to active. And they need to include an appropriate mix of receptive and productive tasks. Especially when we're looking at those passive-active words, we need to encourage students to really use them, maybe choosing a handful of words they haven't used before to include a piece of writing or in an oral presentation.

If a student tells me that the vocab is too easy or claims that they already know a word, then I'll challenge them to use it, I'll dig a bit deeper into their knowledge. In short, I'll show them how they can know more and use it better. A constant diet of more new words on their own is of no use if understanding is only surface deep.

Poles apart

I've just got back from a whistle-stop tour of Poland; visiting six cities in six days to talk about dictionary skills to some lovely groups of English teachers. It was my first trip to Poland and as ever, one of the most interesting things about visiting a new country for work was the reaction of the teachers to my session.

You kind of assume that teachers the world over will be much the same, and in many ways, they are, but every country throws up something slightly different. One of my very first speaking 'tours', many years ago, was to Ukraine. I was talking then too about dictionaries and dictionary skills, so I was a little surprised when at the end of each session, I had a series of really tough grammar questions thrown at me. I don't think they were trying to catch me out, they were just really into grammar and were taking the (rare) opportunity of having a native speaker on hand to ask.

In Germany, it took me a while to get used to the fact that when I got to the end of my workshop, everyone starting banging on the table. Apparently, it's the normal way to show your appreciation in Germany; the equivalent of a round of applause. A bit disconcerting though if you're not expecting it!

So what did I notice about the Poles? Well, I guess the thing that took a while to get used to was their initial demeanour. For most sessions, they arrived very quietly, with none of the chatter I'd usually expect of a gathering of teachers. They spread themselves around the room sitting separately and mostly at the back. And as I started my session, I was met with a sea of incredibly serious faces. I came to discover that in general Polish presentations (or 'lectures' as everyone kept referring to them) tend to be rather formal, serious affairs. 

And that wasn't the only cultural difference I discovered. One of the points in my session which provoked the most discussion was the issue of politeness in English and how it differs from Polish norms. It seems that Poles tend to be more direct in their interactions, not because they intend to be rude, but because of a subtly different attitude towards interaction between people.  One participant, Ewa in Gdansk, pointed me in the direction of a really interesting article which examines the Polish idea of 'assumed cooperation'. I wouldn't normally quote from the Daily Mail, but apart from a few rather stereotypical references to Polish plumbers, it's actually a good summary of a piece of academic research, in which Dr Zinken from the University of Portsmouth explains:

“One of the reasons behind the difference in phrasing questions … in each language might be because there is a strong sense of communal responsibility and solidarity in Polish culture, whereas in English culture the maintenance of every individual's privacy borders is important. While in Polish the other person's availability … is assumed, in English … the other person's availability always depends on their agreement.”

And of course, in order to secure that agreement in English, we use all kinds of rather long-winded, ‘polite’ language (Could you just pop your signature here for me, please? rather than Sign here, please.) that would just sound plain odd in Polish.

So given cultural expectations about formal ‘lectures’, I'm not quite sure what my audiences made of me pacing around and waving my hands about in a far from formal manner! By the end of most sessions though, I think they'd got the hang of my approach and the serious faces had largely turned to smiles by the time I produced my tablet to take a selfie of the gathering. Sometimes, I even managed to persuade people to hootch up closer to try and fit them all in the picture! Think my selfie technique still needs a bit of practice though ...

In Gdansk

In Wroclaw

In Krakow

In Warsaw

Thanks to everyone I met for a great week and a lovely (if rather brief) introduction to Poland!

Men at the top of ELT?

Okay, so I'm going to jump on the International Women's Day bandwagon like everyone else seems to be today ... And my question is, why do so many of the movers and shakers in the world of ELT seem to be men? Now, before you jump down my throat with examples of influential, talented women - of which I know there are many - I'm talking relatively here. Considering language teaching is such a hugely female-dominated profession at grass roots level, it seems to me that there are a disproportionate number of men in positions of power and influence - whether they be managers or just 'names'; men who write books, speak at events and are just generally known and respected within the ELT community. Try and come up with 5 names in ELT (without consciously trying to think of women!) and I bet more of them will be men than women. Just taking this year's IATEFL plenary speakers as a random, unrepresentative example - four out of five are men.

It's something I often think about in relation to my own career. Generally, I tick along fairly quietly, trying my best be competent at what I do, but without really creating any waves. I'm known amongst my, mostly female, colleagues as being fairly proactive; I do a bit of networking, I go to the odd conference and event, I give the odd talk. In short, I put myself out there and I'm quite happy to talk enthusiastically about what I do and what I'd like to do. But when I occasionally cross paths with those male movers and shakers, I suddenly feel terribly unambitious. Instead of waiting for work to come to them, for others to recognise their talents, for opportunities to come along, they go out and actively make stuff happen. They start up their own projects, they promote their ideas, they take risks. Some do it from the comfort of an established base (with a publisher, a university or other organization), others are more entrepreneurial, going out on a limb.

So why don't I do that? I don't think it's about discrimination and I don't think it's as simple as confidence. I think it's more subtle than that. I guess that largely it's about motivation. I love my job, I have lots of ideas and opinions, and I'm not shy about sharing them, but somehow I just don't take that next step - it's not my whole life. As in any area of life, I think the people at the top, the big names, are those people who've thrown themselves into it completely. Those guys work hard, they put in the hours, they give it their all. Does that make me lazy? Maybe, but I prefer to think of it in terms of balance. My health has already made me think about how many hours I work - I just can't afford to throw myself into a project that sees me working 18 hours a day. But also, I value the rest of my life - at the end of the working day (usually around 6), I like to switch off, to do other things, to forget about work. You won't find me on #ELTchat at ten o'clock in the evening discussing the latest apps for use in the classroom!

Do I feel guilty or frustrated? Occasionally. Do I want to be a 'big name'? No, not really ... especially if it means giving up my cup of tea and afternoon cake sitting on my roof terrace in the sun. Is that to do with being a woman or is it just me?

Expat in an internet age

This week I've been in Malta, staying in a lovely little rented apartment in Vittoriosa, across the harbour from the capital, Valletta. I'd intended it to be a week of working away - bringing my laptop with me to carry on with work - just an escape from the grim British weather rather than a full-blown holiday. Unfortunately, both of the jobs I'd hoped to get on with while I'm here got delayed (story of my life at the moment!), so I find myself with no work to do. And as I wasn't really prepared for a 'holiday' - either psychologically or financially! - I've been a bit unsure about how to spend my time. For the first few days, the sun was shining and I was happy to go out exploring - mostly around Valletta and the "Three Cities". The weather's now turned a bit cloudy and rainy though, so I've been spending more time pottering around the apartment instead, reading and surfing, and nipping out onto the roof terrace to catch some rays when there's the occasional break in the clouds!

What has really struck me being away with my laptop (and Wi-fi in the apartment) is just how different it must be living abroad in the internet age. As well as having access to all the usual email and Facebook, of course, there's news online - at the weekend, I enjoyed my usual "flick through" the Saturday Guardian and even did the crossword. The real revelation though has been listening to UK radio online - on Friday evening I chuckled along to the News Quiz on Radio 4, then laughed out loud at the weirdness of the Archer's theme echoing around my Maltese apartment!

It's made me realise just how very different life as an expat must be now compared to when I first headed off to Greece as a young EFL teacher some 20 years ago. Without wanting to slip into some kind of Monty Python sketch, back then we had very little contact with home bar the odd letter from parents and the occassional out-of-date copy of a newspaper. We didn't have TVs and you could only get World Sevice radio if you had a short-wave radio and even then, I remember having to stand holding the aerial to get reception! Thus I spent the best part of seven years in a kind of expat bubble, not really part of the host culture (first in Greece then in the Czech Republic), but fairly cut off from British culture too. I have a big gap in my knowledge of UK popular culture through the first part of the 90s - I completely missed Take That the first time round (no great loss there, perhaps?!) and there are still certain pop culture references from that time that go right over my head.

Do my current counterparts living in my old Greek apartment now have wireless broadband? Do they all have iphones and laptops - keeping up with their friends on Facebook and continuing their usual media consumption almost uninterrupted? Of course, I knew that the internet had opened up all this stuff, but I think being here this week it's really brought it home to me just how much things have changed. It must make the whole expat adventure a very different experience, both as a lifestyle and as a teacher.

Keeping up

Earlier this week, I was looking at iT's an online magazine for English language teachers that's edited by a fellow freelancer, Robert Campbell. Robert had sent me the link, so I went to have a quick look and nearly an hour later found that I was still browsing around reading interesting bits and pieces and jotting down notes about books that I might think about buying. It made me realise how rubbish I am generally at keeping up with what's going on in ELT.

Amongst certain groups of colleagues, especially fellow lexicographers, I often feel quite the opposite. I know, from experience, that it's easy to stay trapped at your desk, trawling through corpora, caught up in the minutiae of language usage and rather lose sight of your end users. Because I teach, albeit only occasionally, and because I also work in quite a lot of different areas of ELT, I hope I don't let myself get too cut off from the world beyond my desk.

There are other colleagues though who always seem to know about all the latest ideas, to have read all the latest articles and to be participating in numerous online discussions and ELT forums. It makes me wonder where they find time to do any paid work! Or do they, perhaps, view all that time spent "keeping up" as part of their job? And should I be doing more of it? I suppose my main way of keeping in touch is to go to events - things like the annual IATEFL conference that's coming up next month, or the occasional one-off event like the recent BALEAP PIM. To me, they always seem to be worthwhile because not only do they give me an opportunity to catch up with new ideas and get a feel for what people are talking about, but they also provide a chance to network and catch up with friends and colleagues at the same time.

Is the odd few days here and there enough though? I often think it would be good to read more, but never seem to find the time. I wonder if perhaps I should be setting aside maybe a couple of hours in my working week for keeping up-to-date.