10 ways to tackle coronavocab: #7 The Stats

Much of the coronavirus news has revolved around the numbers. We've got used to statistics and graphs being a regular feature of daily news updates. We started off by trying to flatten the curve, we've learnt to look at the rolling average rather than the daily numbers because of fluctuations and reporting delays and now we're all worried about a second peak …. or is it a wave or a spike?

Looking at recent corpus data, 'wave' seems to be very much in the lead.

This might be an angle that especially appeals to students with more of a STEM-inclination, EAP students, IELTS candidates and some Business English students too. These are all groups who need to be able to talk about numbers, trends and statistics and for whom much of this vocab could be usefully transferrable. As before, tackling all of these in one go would probably be overload, so pick one or two graphs to discuss and describe, and mix these trending items with revision of some of the more standard stats vocab that students may already be familiar with (rise, increase, fall, drop, trend, etc.).

Some examples in context:

The community is making an extraordinary effort to flatten the curve of infections.

We're two or three weeks behind the curve here as far as the spread of the virus is concerned.

Experts now believe the country has passed the peak of virus deaths.

Without such measures being continued, a second wave of infections is likely.

Overall the 7-day rolling average, which smooths out daily variation, is showing that the number of deaths is beginning to trend downwards.

The epidemic curve suggested a period of exponential growth from March 10 until March 24, with a 2.2-day doubling time.

Scientists believe the current R rate is between 0.6 and 0.9 in Britain.

The models predict 7,200 COVID-19 cases by beginning of June.

The man who tested positive may have been France's patient zero.

The number of daily new coronavirus cases has plateaued at around 900 to 1,000 over the last week or so.

We know the virus can have a long tail and other cases can pop up.

Activities:

• Again there are plenty of good explainers out there, as texts, videos and infographics, that you could utilise in class for vocabulary and discussion:
• flatten the curve: text, a graph and audio from a US health blog here.  
• flatten the curve: a short text and graph from The Guardian here. 
• Lots of useful graphs and commentary on the BBC wesbite here. I especially love the animated graph of cases worldwide. 
• More or less : Behind the Stats: personally, I'm a big fan of this BBC Radio 4 programme that takes a look at the statistics in the news and which has provided a wealth of information throughout the pandemic. You can download it as a podcast from the BBC website here . Some of the downloads are full 30-min episodes covering a number of topics each and there are some 10-minute slots just on a single topic. With higher level classes, taking one section on a particular topic would make an excellent listening activity. The presenters not only explain the statistics, but also question the way they've been presented in the media and what particular statistics can and can't tell us. Great for critical thinking, especially with EAP students.
• Get IELTS candidates to practise their part two writing task using some of the many real graphs, charts and diagrams around in the media.
• With Business English learners, taking a graph relating to the progress of the pandemic to describe could be a starting point that then leads onto a discussion about how it's affected the learner's own work or industry at different points. Could they build their own graph to describe? Mine below is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but theirs could be as serious or as fun as they choose. There'll be more about the language around work and business in my next post.

Create-your-own graph

 If your students are really interested in the statistics, there's a more detailed, academic glossary here. There's another useful general coronavirus glossary by the BBC here. And a reminder that there are lots more tips and activities around teaching vocabulary generally, including sections on EAP, ESP and exam prep, in ETpedia Vocabulary.

Key Words for IELTS

Last week, I received advanced copies of three books I worked on earlier in the year - Collins COBUILD Key Words for IELTS. I was involved with the books right from the early stages; planning the layout, developing the features and putting together the word lists, so it was quite exciting to see the finished product.

The books kind of bridge the gap between a vocabulary practice book and a specialised dictionary. Each of the three titles (Starter, Improver and Advanced) contain vocabulary that's aimed at helping students move from using general English towards the more formal, academic-style language needed for the IELTS exam. The words are presented in expanded dictionary entries, with definitions relevant to the academic usage of the word, examples, collocations, synonyms and usage notes.

I know that my own IELTS/EAP students sometimes find standard advanced learner's dictionaries a bit frustrating because the more formal and academic senses and derivatives of words often get little or no coverage - because they're less frequent in everyday usage. In these books, the more unusual senses and formal parts of speech (such as the abstract nouns so common in academic English) get equal coverage and IELTS-style examples.

Also at this level, it's often the case that the first word a student comes up with doesn't quite work in the context, so they need to be able to play around with vocabulary. For this reason, we've shown different parts of speech together (because sometimes a noun form works where a verb doesn't fit) along with possible synonyms that might fit in better.

The books are out in January and I'm going to be really interested to see how they go down with teachers and students. As a writer/editor, you really hope that all the ideas you put into a book will be obvious to the user and that they'll get as much out of it as you'd hoped. Keeping fingers crossed and looking forward to feedback in the New Year.

Teaching to the test

Over the past four weeks, as well as teaching my usual pre-sessional, EAP classes, I've also been doing some extra IELTS preparation classes. Most of the pre-sessional students complete an assessment at the end of the course which their departments accept as the equivalent of an IELTS score. This assessment takes the form of an individual research writing project in their subject area, a timed writing task, an oral presentation (on the project) and an academic discussion task, all geared towards preparing them for their studies once they arrive in their departments, hopefully in a couple of weeks' time. So although these classes and assessment are roughly 'IELTS equivalent', they're quite different in style and format.

Some students though from certain departments are required not just to complete our course, but to retake the IELTS exam and achieve a specific score. So it's these students who I've been running extra exam preparation classes for. They've all taken the exam before, so know what it's all about, but just need extra practice honing their exam skills. And I have to say, it's been a bit of an eye-opener. Although I "coached" students on exam preparation courses back when I first started teaching, it's not something that I've done for ages, and I'd forgotten just how formulaic it can all be. I've also realised just how simplistic the IELTS writing tasks are compared with what we teach them in the pre-sessional classes. I seem to have spent a lot of my time telling the IELTS students to ignore what they've been learning for the past few weeks when it comes to the IELTS exam. It feels odd to be "un-teaching" things! A lot of that is just down to the length of essay they're required to write - you can't do anything terribly fancy within 250 words. But it has made me wonder how much a reasonable IELTS score really says about a student's readiness to cope on an English-medium university course.