ELTA Newsletter March April 2016

ELTA

N E W S L E T T E R ISSN 1820-9831 (ONLINE)

ELTA NEWSLETTER : MARCH - APRIL 2016 www.elta.org.rs

ELTA Newsletter • March - April 2016 • Volume 10, No. 2

ELTA Newsletter ISSN 1820-9831 (Online) ELTA – English Language Teachers’ Association Nemanjina 28, 11000 Belgrade Serbia + 381 (0) 63 210 460 + 381 11 36 11 644 ext. 110 elta.kancelarija@gmail.com Olja Milošević, ELTA President serbia.eltapresident@gmail.com

Editor-in-Chief: Maja Jerković, Vocational Medical School, Zrenjanin, Serbia Co-editors: Milena Tanasijević, English Language Lecturer, Belgrade Metropolitan University, Serbia Branka Dečković, Vocational Medical School, Kragujevac, Serbia Milica Prvulović, PhD candidate, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, Serbia Zorica Đukić, The School of Pharmacy and Physiotherapy, Belgrade, Serbia Bojana Nikić Vujić, MA, The School of Pharmacy and Physiotherapy, Belgrade, Serbia Vicky Papageorgiou, ESL Instructor, Metropolitan College, Thessaloniki, Greece Proofreaders: Milena Tanasijević, English Language Lecturer, Belgrade Metropolitan University, Serbia Bojana Nikić Vujić, MA, The School of Pharmacy and Physiotherapy, Belgrade, Serbia Editorial: Zorica Đukić, The School of Pharmacy and Physiotherapy, Belgrade, Serbia Cover designer:

Marija Panić, ELTA - English Language Teachers’ Association, Belgrade, Serbia Website: http://elta.org.rs/elta-newsletter/ Send your submissions electronically to: newsletter.elta@gmail.com

The authors bear full responsibility for the content of their articles.

ELTA Newsletter is published bi-monthly.

Send your submissions electronically to: newsletter.elta@gmail.com

Dear all, We are delighted to launch the March issue of ​ ELTA Newsletter which continues to share a wealth of ideas and educational information with our readers. We hope you will find it interesting and useful.

To begin with, in the column ​ A Day in the Life of​ , you can read the interview with a “Woman of the Year.“ Thanks to Vicky Papageorgiou, we meet the great Shelly Sanchez Terrell, an international speaker, teacher trainer, e­learning specialist, and the author of The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers and Learning to Go. Anytime is the perfect time for storytelling. J.J. Wilson reveals why stories are so powerful as teaching tools for students of all ages. You can find his advice in the ​ Borrowed From section.

In the article for the ​ Teacher Development column, Vafeidou Avgi discusses the benefits of Dogme methodology in the classroom and insists that “Teaching Unplugged“ can contribute to the regeneration of the classroom atmosphere.

In this issue, you can also read about SOL, British culture, language, and an authentic immersion experience by Kirsty­Ann Bowie within the column ​ Culture Corner​ .

Teachers can find tips how to use short videos and avoid dull and monotonous grammar lessons in the ​ Feature Article​

by Svitlana Tubaltseva.

In the ​ Bookworms section, Elina Karamichalis reviews the Business English coursebook ​ At Work by Paul Walsh and Milena Tanasijević examines "Teacher Stories" written by various ELT professionals..

There are three articles in the ​ Students’ Corner column this time. You might be interested in what students have to say on ethnocultural stereotypes, modern tribalism or healthy lifestyle.

The ​ Upcoming Events section is an excellent reminder. Nevertheless, if you want to mark 400 years since Shakespeare’s death, do not forget two competitions organized by ELTA and the early bird registration deadline for the 14th ELTA Conference, which is 22 April 2016.

Finally, we would like to thank our readers and writers for their comments, suggestions or contributions. We want this newsletter to be valuable to you so, please, share your feedback to help us improve. We invite you to send us your contributions at newsletter.elta@gmail.com! You can also find us on www.facebook.com/eltasebia or Linkedin.

Happy reading!

ELTA Editorial Team

Interview with Shelly Sanchez Terrell Vicky Papageorgiou, English instructor, Metropolitan College, Thessaloniki, Greece

Shelly Sanchez Terrell is an international speaker, teacher trainer, elearning specialist, and the author of The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers and Learning to Go​ . She has trained teachers and taught learners in over 20 countries as an invited guest expert and has been recognized by the ELTon Awards​ , The New York Times​ , ​ N ​PR​ , and Microsoft’s Heroes for Education as a leader in the movement of teacher driven professional development.

Recently, she was named Woman of the Year by Star Jone’s National Association of Professional Women​ , awarded a Bammy Award as a founder of #Edchat, and named as one of the ​ Big 10: Most Influential People Transforming EdTech by Tech & Learning (2015)​ . ​ In 2015, she founded ​ Edspeakers to help spread diverse voices at education conferences worldwide.

Url­ ​ http://ShellyTerrell.com Twitter handle­ ​ @ShellTerrell

Vicky :​ Hi! First of all, I would like to say that it is a pleasure to have you as a guest.

Shelly : ​ It’s my pleasure. Whenever I can meet up with friends, even virtually, I try to make the time.

Vicky : I know that you are extremely busy every day trying to juggle an amazing number of tasks successfully so I‘d like to ask you to describe a typical day of yours.

Shelly : ​ I have two types of typical days. If I’m not traveling, my day consists of at 1 to 3 virtual trainings with teachers either via a webinar or learning management system (LMS), grading, updating websites, phone call meetings for consultations or projects, conducting interviews, and hours on social media (Twitter, FB, Instagram, Voxer, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, my blog, etc.) for my various passion projects and as

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one of the social media managers for American TESOL. Most of my day is spent creating and designing content. Typically, I write at least one blog post or article a day, create a lesson plan, and do some graphic design. I also help at least one or more teachers find resources.

I travel at least 100 days a year and usually more. When I travel, I do most of the rest above in addition to giving keynotes and workshops in countries worldwide.

Vicky : ​ Can you tell us where you are teaching/working currently?

Shelly : ​ Currently, I work for American TESOL as an instructional designer, social media specialist, and instructor for the course I designed, ESLTEC.com. ​ I also work as an ESL Specialist for the U.S. Embassy and Georgetown University. I also manage the various projects I’ve founded, which include The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers (30Goals.com) and Edspeakers.com.

Vicky ​ : You initiated the movement called ‘30EduGoals’ and hundreds of teachers followed you and started writing, reflecting on their practice and blogging because of you. How does it feel really to be able to have an impact on so many people from different cultural backgrounds and different countries?

Shelly : ​ I feel really blessed to be able to inspire and help teachers worldwide.

Teachers are what help shape the world. I still pinch myself and am in awe that teachers complete the goals and share their passion with me daily.

Vicky : ​ Your book is already a big hit. Do you have any future plans for a new book?

Shelly : ​ I also published ​ Learning to Go with The Round. I’m working on a few projects including a digital citizenship book, Byte­Sized Potential in a Digital World of Possibilities. This one involves lessons to help students learn science, math, and English, but also impact their world through social media. I’ve already tested out some activities with teachers worldwide and give some free templates on my blog, TeacherRebootCamp.com, such as the student epic selfie adventure and creating hashtag movements. I am working on a lesson book based on the use of emoticons and emojis for writing and literacy. I also do creative writing and am working on finishing my second novel.

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Vicky : I also know you are a visiting lecturer in Venezuela (or is this a permanent position? ­ You have to enlighten me here). How easy is it to teach in another country? What can be the possible problems?

Shelly : I love the teachers in Venezuela. I have many close friendships there now.

VENTESOL has adopted me into their family and I’m thankful especially to VENTESOL President, Mary Allegra, who has created the many projects to have me visit and work with such a dedicated group. I am fortunate the U.S. Embassy and VENTESOL have continued to bring me back to help them develop and design online courses at the universities, train teachers on how to integrate technology and mobile learning, and help institutions develop their own textbooks.

Vicky : When ​ DO ​ you find some free time for your private life with such a busy schedule?

Shelly : I have to make time and will often send myself Google calendar reminders to take time off. I’ve learned to let go of perfection in my work and be satisfied with great work but having a life. When I travel to other countries, I take time to visit with friends and go on adventures. When I’m with friends, family, or loved ones, I put down my phone and other digital devices so I can give the moments the attention they deserve. Of course, this is a learning process and in the beginning I wasn’t so great at taking time for myself. I’ve realized it is really important so I keep up with my health, spirit, and passion.

Vicky :​ Thank you so much for your time! ***** Vicky Papageorgiou ​ is a foreign language teacher (English, Italian, Greek) with approximately 20 years of experience, mainly with adult learners. She holds an MA in Education (Open University of Cyprus) and an MA in Art (Goldsmiths College, UK) and she has just completed kher PGCE in Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David for. She studied in Greece, Italy and the UK but also participated in an international project for the McLuhan program in Culture and Technology for the University of Toronto, Canada. Her fields of interest are Technology enhanced learning, Art in ESL, critical thinking, Inquiry

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Based learning and teaching adults. She is currently based in Thessaloniki (Greece) working as an Adjunct Lecturer at Metropolitan College.

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At Work: A Book Review Elina Karamichalis, Mediterranean College and LTES, Thessaloniki, Greece

Keywords:​ Business English, English Language Teaching, activities, adults, conversation, speaking

Name one thing for which teachers of Business English, and not only, spend a lot of time, when preparing for a lesson? Coming up with ideas for speaking activities that are creative, smart and stimulating. If these activities are addressed to adult learners, this task becomes even more challenging.

Being an English language teacher, who mainly teaches Business English to adults, this book is extremely helpful, insightful and time­saving. What I believe is mainly lacking from language teaching coursebooks and not only, is developing speaking and conversation skills that are more natural. This is what all adult students wish to work on. Improve their speaking skills and interact more effectively and naturally with their colleagues, in an English speaking working environment, when in business travel, among other cases.

At Work by Paul Walsh consists of twenty

Business English speaking activities, which are categorized in six common situations found in the working environment. These activities can be addressed to all levels, from false beginners to more advanced, since the language can be adjusted accordingly. The activities can be altered to suit all fields, since students from sales and customer care to doctors and computer engineers can use them. The language and skills taught can be applied in a medical conference, or a general company meeting, in which some charts and graphs may be discussed, by a customer care service representative, who probably receives a lot of complaints from customers and the Human Resources Manager, who needs to negotiate with workers and their demands.

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This book is also a time saver for teachers, who spend hours trying to come up with smart ideas, exercises and practice activities for their lessons. These activities represent and depict real, everyday situations, in which students can easily adapt to, regardless of the field they work in.

*****

Elina Karamichalis studied English Literature at Berea College of Berea, Kentucky, USA. She also holds a Master of Arts degree in Media Communications from Webster University of St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She has been involved with ELT since 1997, teaching both adolescents and adults. Since 2009, the focus has been teaching Business English to adults, both in one­on­one and

group

sessions.

She

regularly

attends

education­related as well as ELT­related ​ seminars and workshops. She is currently engaged as an oral examiner and evaluator for Cambridge English, CAMLA and National Foreign Language Exam System (KPG). Besides teaching, she has performed research and worked as a research assistant in the Media Literacy field.

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Book review: Teacher Stories reviewed by Milena Tanasijević, ELT Lecturer at Belgrade Metropolitan University

This book presents a different, very significant perspective of the life of a working ELT teacher. The author­editor voices what we, as teachers, have already realized but not really stated – our industry is rather profitable, but teachers are not even seen. Teachers face pressures from many interested parties and this book is a kind of a journal where some of us, six people from our side of the fence, retell their stories with which we can easily relate to.

The first story is told by Sabine Cayrou​ . She teaches in Berlin​ . She perfectly describes the Monday morning of a teacher getting ready to face a new group. We can easily identify with the packed backpack which makes our back hurt, as well as the stage fright feeling which is to be expected when you face a new crowd. The story is filled with humour which makes the feeling of nervousness and the grey atmosphere of the first morning of the working week shade away. The anecdote described tells the story of a student napping, or rather sleeping, and mind you – snoring during class. The teacher did do her best to keep the spirit high, woke up the student and even tried to crack a joke about it (which is to be applauded). However, the humour did not travel well and the student never showed up in class again.

The second author is Helen Waldron who works as a freelancer delivering in­company courses in Hamburg​ . She vividly describes the corporate world, which is really not us – by education, train of thought, or even image. She goes through security – with respect, she tried to fit in the dress­code by adding a touch of her own (honestly admitting that office fashion is not ​ her thing) and she discovers that employees are mostly – unhappy. Their unhappiness goes to the level of them kind of envying her freelance position. They have been pressured by their day­to­day office routine and seem to be whispering in low voices that they would like to prep for new job interviews. Why is it that managers do not notice the gloomy atmosphere? Or is it that they

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notice it, but do not bother – since the fact of life is – employees are generally afraid to break the routine and start doing things differently, on their own or with another company?... The author describes the meeting with another colleague, who faces the reality of living of a small amount of money which is not enough for decent health care… The prospects are becoming smaller and smaller, freelance or not. The question that hangs in the air is – is there really a choice? Is the psychological freedom of being a freelancer sufficient job­related satisfaction?

Maybe the readers of this story will find another issue or question to be resolved, it is really worth reading.

The third story is shared by Greg Bond. He explains that he started teaching in East Germany, since the prospect of working abroad appealed to him. He taught students at the Karl Marx University who were trained to work abroad. He confesses that he didn’t know much about teaching, but he was taught previously, so that counts, right? He was eager to explore the world behind the Iron curtain which meant that the teaching part was not really the highlight of his day.

He would get out of bed fifteen minutes before class in the morning and make a decision about what to teach on his way to work. The topics to be avoided were, obviously, politics and religion.

He used to buy a bottle of milk which he would have during class, as breakfast. One morning, he improvised completely and started asking questions about milk… asking questions about where it came from, what we could do with it… Apparently, the discussion was more lively than ever… Then, the conversation proceeded to eggs… and to chickens… The class was enjoyed by everyone, he was even presented with a chicken himself as a memento… His true memento from those days was the milk bottle, the inspiration that brought about the change to task­based teaching In East Germany.

The story written by Paul Walsh is a tribute to his dear friend Joe. Apparently, Joe Morton had an MA in Literature from Glasgow University, used to live in Paris for some time and had a bit of a drinking problem, not without a reason, the author assures us. Joe seems to be quite an interesting man to be around. The story presents some letters which were shared among the friends, which tell us quite a lot about their shared history. The letters date back to 2006. The author himself explains that he trained for EFL jobs in Krakow​ , his course was the most affordable one. The reality of our newly trained colleagues, in Eastern Europe or elsewhere, is that we are short of money, looking for a teaching job eagerly. His first position was in a small place called Debica​ , which is described as a place where there is nothing to see, but with a thriving ELT scene. Apparently, that is where Paul and Joe met. The letters that they

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exchanged show us that Joe went back to Scotland​ . He wrote from Glasgow in 2007 and started working in a call centre, but was looking forward to teaching in Poland again. In 2013, Joe explains that he lost his teaching position in Poland​ , since the work force of Polish teachers is more affordable for the school owner. Not knowing what the next move will be, Joe plans to possibly go to teach in Russia, or do free lance in Poland. The problem is the insurance – which is really a substantial amount... Unfortunately, in September 2013 Joe was not looking forward to a new school year since he was taken ill, in a UK hospital. He mentioned having liver problems. The letters present that Joe is really sick, spending his time in hospital, seemingly losing weight despite having an appetite… The shock comes in a form of a letter from Celine​ , his daughter, who was named after Joe’s favourite writer – who explains that Joe had lost the battle with the alcoholic liver disease.

The author feels bad that he couldn’t make it to his funeral in Glasgow​ . Remembering all the good times they had after classes, he shares the painful truth – he couldn’t manage to travel since he could not afford it, and he couldn’t rearrange his classes. This is something which resonates well with all the teachers worldwide. We are doing our best, but we do not earn much.

Our life really runs around schedules, upon which we often cannot influence. Our life is a routine, with clear­cut lines. Friendship with a colleague is really valuable. The time off work spent with a colleague who is in the same boat is precious. Paul, we are all sorry for the loss of your friend.

Mohammed Quaid makes the point of poor management in our industry. He describes his experience at a school which is managed top­down, where all the teachers and administrative staff are intimidated by the lack of proper judgement of the principal who has the mantra – the students are paying, the students are right. The author explains that when the teacher faces a discipline problem, students run to the principal who scolds teachers of not handling the matter – discreetly! The principal is presented as being quite cynical, if not childish. The story with the secretary who was looking for a DVD player all day long, and stayed extra to try to find it (eventually discovering that the principal hid it! to teach her a lesson that she should be more careful because there might be a next time when someone would really hide it!) is beyond belief. The poor lady was under a lot of stress and tried to do her job properly, eventually breaking down in tears and expressing a wish to quit. The other teacher was complaining about making a joint decision with the principal to write test questions on the board after discovering

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that the copy machine had broken down. They decided that they were better off having the test instead of postponing it. The person in charge of teaching stated that it was not a good idea (after the test), and the principal – mind you! – scolded the teacher for taking that approach.

When reminded that they had made the decision together – again, more than immaturely, the principal stated – he agreed with the proposal of writing the questions of the board in order to test the teacher if he would make the right decision, and obviously – the teacher failed.

I myself have reservations about management in our industry, but these accounts were shocking. Readers do feel for our colleagues who have a stressful time at their posts, when it is not really clear who the child is – the management or the students.

The story of Neil Scarth takes place in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria​ . His classes were attended by a rather interesting student, whose complexion would reveal that she was a Roma​ .

However, the lady’s complexion was dark walnut only because life had made it like that. She was a quiet student who explicitly chose not to participate in pair work, who chose to be silent and observant… which kind of made the teacher not comfortable. There is always the danger that other students might choose that path, too, who is stop the anarchy in the classroom?

Class after class, the lady was obviously tired, shy, quiet… until there was a power­cut or similar, where the entire class was left in darkness. By accident, of course. Only then, the lady started sharing. Darkness was her natural habitat, since she was working on a television, doing night shifts, possibly editing. It was kind of obvious that she had a hard time going through life, working at night, not being able to afford to sleep during the day. She explained that she had learnt German, but English was the language of the moment… Worried at the prospect of losing her job, she had a sister to take care of, as well, she managed… She managed to go through life quietly, patiently, with the spirit of a person whose entire life is described in her complexion.

The author explains that the lady never shared much again, when the classroom was filled with light.

We never know the full background of our students, do we?

The final part of the book reveals a line or two about the authors who we thank very much. For sharing their teaching context with us, thus making us feel that we are not alone in the world when we face a new group, or the corporate context which is clearly not ours, when we face a new teaching approach, a new country where we work, awful management, or quiet, sad students… Thank you for your courage!

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*****

Milena Tanasijević has been working in ELT for 16 years, her current position being the ELT Lecturer at Belgrade Metropolitan University where she prepares and implements blended and distance learning courses. She has taught very young learners, young learners, teens, young professionals, adults, in­company courses… She has also researched various aspects of the ELT context, as well as worked as a teacher trainer. However, she feels at best and most at ease ­ in the language learning classroom, both traditional, as well as virtual.

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Storytelling in ELT First published on ​ blog.reallyenglish.com J.J. Wilson, a writer and teacher

Keywords: ​ storytelling, ELT

INTRODUCTION Two weeks ago I was ​ interviewed​ a ​t the ACEIA Conference in Spain. My interviewer – knowing that I’d just published a novel – asked me what role narrative plays in teaching. For a second, my mind went blank. Then I managed to bluster my way through an answer: something about storytelling being used in education for thousands of years. I waffled on that theme for a minute and then concluded “story is essential to the human condition and therefore it’s part of education.” Phew.

Later, when the interview was over and I was able to breathe again in the comfort of my hotel room, I asked myself: why are stories so powerful as teaching tools? Here are ten answers.

STORIES AS TEACHING TOOLS *Stories are the world’s oldest technique for ​ teaching and memorizing​ , and they still retain their magic. They are how we read the world. We tell our life “story”. We gossip – another form of storytelling. We watch films, soap operas and the news, read novels, short stories and comics. Why? To experience a story. *Stories exercise the ​ imagination​ . When we hear or read a story, we co­create it in the mind. It becomes a little film playing inside our heads. If we’re lucky, we may feel as if we’re living two lives.

Published with the courtesy of J.J. Wilson 14

*Stories involve ​ emotions​ like fear, sadness, and joy. These engage us and help us to empathize as we inhabit the lives of others. *Stories are usually ​ chronological​ . They contain a beginning, a middle (or sometimes a muddle) and an ending. This structure helps to guide students as they follow the sequence of events. *Stories use ​ formulas​ that translate across cultures. In all languages, stories contain conflict and a hero who braves obstacles to find his/her salvation. Stories also use linguistic formulas: “once upon a time” … “and they all lived happily ever after”. *Stories contain ​ rich vocabulary​ : adjectives to describe wizards and witches, powerful verbs to invoke battles and bust­ups, and vivid descriptions of mountaintop castles or crepuscular caves. *Children’s stories often use the three Rs: ​ repetition​ , ​ rhyme ​ and ​ rhythm​ in lines such as “fee­fi­fo­fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman”; “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”; “What big eyes you have! What big ears you have!”

These lines are like ritualistic incantations, and they reinforce language. *Stories contain ​ language play​ . Fairy tales and folk stories often contain playful words, puns, and riddles. They also include names that invite readers to enjoy language for its own sake: Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Tom Thumb. For Charles Dickens fans: Ebeneezer Scrooge, Oliver Twist, Pecksniff, Fagin, Magwich. *Stories are ​ multi­purpose​ : in language­learning terms, they can involve all four skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening); can be long or short, funny or sad; and can use an inexhaustible range of grammar and vocabulary. *Stories express ​ cultural beliefs and values​ . In religious texts, stories such as the parables in the Bible are a vehicle for moral guidance. But non­religious texts often contain a moral, too. In fairy tales, the good live happily and the bad die horribly. In noir fiction, everybody loses, even the winners. And in all fiction, the hero teaches us how to behave when the walls are caving in and the vultures gathering.

Published with the courtesy of J.J. Wilson 15

APPROACHES TO STORYTELLING IN CLASS After considering the above, I thought about all the approaches to storytelling that I’ve used in class or heard about over the years. They come under three categories: (1) Students read a story or listen to a recording or watch a film clip.

(2) Teacher tells a story. Students listen.

(3) Students tell a story. Everyone listens.

Within those categories there are many variations. In recent years, the options for (3) have widened. Digital storytelling may involve animation and story­boarding software, or it may combine audio, video and graphics. The icing on the cake might be to publish stories digitally.

Many classes benefit from the idea that, like dance and music, storytelling is a performance art. It comes to life in front of an audience. The current trend is to focus on students telling anecdotes about their lives, because these are personally meaningful to them, but there are numerous types of story – film or book plots, biography, and folk tales, to name a few, all of which can be used in class.

SCAFFOLDING A STORY How do you make a complex story easier for students who have a very low level of English? Here are some ideas: *Use ​ bilingual storytelling​ . This only works if your students all speak the same L1 and if you speak it, too. You code­switch while telling the story. For example, if your students are Spanish speakers: “one day there was a rabbit, ​ un conejo,​ who lived in

a ​ campo​ , a field. The rabbit had fifteen brothers, ​ quince hermanos​ , and ten sisters, ​ diez hermanas​ .”

*Use ​ pictures​ to support the story. Students are given several pictures, Before listening, they try to put them in order and guess the story. I saw this done with photos illustrating the life of Nelson Mandela. The act of manipulating pictures motivated the students to listen carefully.

Published with the courtesy of J.J. Wilson 16

*Use ​ key words​ from the story. As with pictures, these act as advance organizers for the students, who predict what happens in the story. *Use ​ TPR​ (Total Physical Response). The students act out the story. For younger learners, simple repetitive gestures can be effective. I saw one teacher recount a fictional tale of an epic kayak journey. Whenever the hero was in the kayak, the students did a rowing movement. They loved it and it kept them involved throughout. *Use ​ jigsaw stories​ . The students read or listen to only a part of the story. Their partner has the other part. They come together to piece together the whole story. *Use the ​ teacher’s voice​ . The voice is the storyteller’s most valuable tool. Through it, the teacher controls volume, emphasis, pace, vocabulary and grammar, length of utterances and length of story. For more on this, see Alan Maley’s book ​ The Language Teacher’s Voice​ .

CONCLUSION In 1984, linguist Thomas Sebeok was presented with a daunting challenge. A nuclear waste repository was under construction beneath Nevada’s Yucca mountain. The mountain would remain radioactive for thousands of years. How could people be warned not to go near it? The Department of Energy planned to erect a huge fence with warning signs in six languages. But Sebeok pointed out that no languages remain comprehensible over many thousands of years.

His solution (which was rejected) was to start an “atomic priesthood”, a team of oral myth­makers who would spread the legend of the radioactive mountain. They would tell this tale so powerfully that it would live on from generation to generation. How telling that in this hi­tech world, the best bet for longevity did not lie in technology, which dates so quickly, or even in language itself, but in the power of story, the most ancient tool of all.

Published with the courtesy of J.J. Wilson 17

This article first appeared on December 3, 2015 on http://blog.reallyenglish.com/2015/12/03/storytelling­in­elt/

Bio

J.J. Wilson is a writer and teacher. He has published over 20 books in the field of language learning and teaching, as well as fiction, memoir, journalism, and poetry in the UK and the US.

Published with the courtesy of J.J. Wilson 18

Learning a Living Language

Kirsty­Ann Bowie, Sharing One Language

British culture from the outside manifests itself as a representation of London landmarks, royalty, her majesty the Queen, James Bond, David Bowie, Harry Potter and a Received Pronunciation or cockney accent that is quite commonly broadcast in the media or in movies.

In reality, British culture and language are so diverse that you only have to travel 10 miles in any direction to come across a difference in accent, use of colloquial language, slang, local understanding, intonation, word stress, volume, and varying social boundaries.

In order to recognise the differences, you have to be a bit of a traveller in the UK, a journey I have taken myself, after having relocated from Scotland down to the South West of England in 1998.

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Glasgow, Scotland

As is typical in the west of Scotland I had a strong Glaswegian British accent, only one that was very region specific and was not easily interpreted globally.

My colloquialisms were obviously clearly understood by other people in my area. These were environmentally learned language processes which developed through nurture from childhood. At no time did I attempt to justify my language use to myself, or question the grammatical context, speed or intonation. It was a true implicit learning experience.

'​ The quickest and best way to learn a language is to approach the process as a child would. You don't memorize flashcards, and you don't complete pages of homework. You just listen, absorb, and speak. Being an immersion environment helps language learners to learn a target language naturally, like a child'. (Katheryn Rivas)

English language has so many varied facets. Within different regions we can use completely different words and phrases that are locally understood, a common one in central Scotland being 'That's pure gallus' meaning that's fantastic.

Blackpool, Lancashire.

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Go into the North of England and you will hear phrases such as 'Ey up chuck' which means hello!

I had my first interaction with a non­Scottish person when I was around 5 years old. We undertook a family holiday to Lancashire in the north of England. I discovered that a bacon roll was a 'bacon barm' and in Lancashire food was known as 'scran' I also noted that everyone called me 'love.'

Bullring Shopping Complex, Birmingham.

Moving into the Midlands, they are likely to be havin’ a bostin’ time (great) and variations on the verb ‘to be’ using am in place of are and forming colloquially contracted phrases like ‘yaum (you am) havin a laugh!’

Dublin, Ireland.

Ireland has brought us key colloquial phrases such as 'Top of the mornin' to ya' meaning good morning, are likely to use irregular grammar patterns ‘They do be spending so much time on their phones’ and have a nickname for the police known as the 'guards'

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I've observed that some accents have a stronger stress and some have a softer output. Some accents tend to put more stress on 'r' on word endings where as others tend to use the 'schwa' sound to end words. On top of this, vowel sounds vary greatly across the UK and can give the impression that two people are saying completely different words to a non­native speaker.

The Valley of the Rocks, Lynton, North Devon.

On arrival in Devon, I became more aware of the variation in linguistics. I ascertained that the meaning of language can vary greatly depending on where you are. I actually laughed out loud when I heard someone say 'lovely jobbie' which means nice job. Where I come from this means a toilet motion. I also learned to understand Devon dialect phrases, the common use of the infinitive 'be' in all tenses and persons 'whose hat be that?' and the omission of certain prepositions and definite articles ' We're goin' up park'. The phrase 'Where you to?' confused me for some time, and if I had never heard it in context I would not have been able to figure it out as where are you going.

However, 'alright my luvver?' is socially acceptable and even considered to be friendly in Devon. In Scotland that is likely to get you a slap, as inferring someone is your lover can sound a bit dodgy.

The goal for students is to learn a living language, as it is actually spoken. Right from learning about the way people joke, and the types of jokes that are considered funny both locally and nationally. There's also idiomatic ways of speaking that aren't necessarily considered slang. I.e.

'I'm tied up right now'

22

There is a whole host of language that is learned more easily in the environment you are in. I came from an inland town and although we had a canal, the whole sea, ocean and maritime theme language of North Devon was an awakening for me and I only became cognisant about through using it to teach. Would I have used this language had I not moved? It looks unlikely, as language acquisition is at its best when the learning takes place in context for a purpose.

Ilfracombe Harbour, North Devon.

Research on immersion practices has shown that where a learner engages within an L2 environment, a student’s ability to perform academically on standardised tests increases, alongside a growth in confidence in using the language. (Turnbull, Lapkin & Hart 2001)

In my opinion, just visiting Britain does not count as true immersion. Learners have to engage with the environment in a real way that is of a benefit. It's from this perspective that I strongly believe in the ethos of SOL and the integrated experience that it is able to provide.

23

SOL is able to provide a true immersion experience that combines explicit language acquisition in the classroom reinforced and recycled in use within the local environment, using the language for a purpose. Taking part in this process enables learners to infer from their environment whilst speaking to local people, performing tasks and communicating with their host families. It is during this that the learners will acquire implicit learning scaffolded by the language they are taught in the classroom.

In a style that is similar to CLIL practices, we try to ensure that students are learning in English, about different topics which they are immersed in, in an English environment, where they have to communicate in English for the majority of the time, improving their pronunciation, comprehension and global understanding.

Building on the learning are the often awe­inspiring views in Devon, which I must confess were my reasons for choosing to relocate there and would motivate even the most reticent student to express their beauty and description using English!

Come and visit and immerse your students in the Atlantic Ocean!

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References:

Kathryn Rivas http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/languageimmersion.htm

(Turnbull, Lapkin & Hart 2001) http://carla.umn.edu/immersion/documents/ImmersionResearch_TaraFortune.html

Picture References: The Queen:​ h ​ttp://freetibet.org/files/queen.jpg James Bonds (various):​ h ​ttp://www.playbuzz.com/nadavk10/are­you­a­true­007­agent David Bowie:​ h ​ttp://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/david­bowie­is/about­the­exhibition/ Glasgow:​ h ​ttp://www.glasgow­cathedral.com/ Blackpool:​ h ​ttp://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/03/05/blackpool­tower­appoints­finn­pr Birmingham: http://www.staffordshireliving.co.uk/2013/08/selfridges­celebrates­decade­birminghams­bullring/ Dublin:​ h ​ttp://www.thousandwonders.net/Ireland Lynton:​ h ​ttp://www.ingleside­hotel.co.uk/north­devon­coast­gallery/valley­of­rocks.php Tied up:​ h ​ttp://www.toonvectors.com/clip­art/cartoon­man­tied­up­black­and­white­line­art/15135 Ilfracombe: https://new.devon.gov.uk/northdevonnews/2015/03/24/royal­navy­vessel­to­visit­ilfracombe/ Clovelly Lifeboat Station:

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https://www.facebook.com/SOL.Sharing.One.Language/photos/pcb.950618741641619/950614064 975420/?type=3&theater Surfer:​ h ​ttp://www.everythingexmoor.org.uk/encyclopedia_detail.php?ENCid=947

*****

My name is ​ Kirsty Bowie and I am currently employed as Course Manager for Sharing One Language in Barnstaple. I’ve worked with SOL for over 4 years, initially as a teacher, then as lead teacher where I had a role in overseeing and co­ordinating English immersion courses in England. I qualified initially as a Primary Teacher after having completed my Bachelor of Education in 2007, and worked for some time in mainstream, but soon found my heart was with SOL’s multicultural ethos.

I’m CELTA qualified and in my free time I like to run for charity and explore the beautiful Devon coast.

26

Use of Short Videos to Practice Grammar in a Communicative and Engaging Way in ELT Classes

Svitlana Tubaltseva, Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding, Mykolaiv, Ukraine

Keywords: ​ grammar, video, personalization, communicative approach

INTRODUCTION

The words grammar or grammatical tenses when pronounced by English ​ teachers usually bring depression and outcry in many ELT classes, which sometimes can be partly justified as some of the students might have had a previous bad experience in secondary schools where the common grammar lesson includes numerous grammar exercises, translation and no hint whatsoever of real­life communication. Throughout my teaching experience, I faced that situation in a class so many times that it finally brought me to think how teachers can avoid falling into the trap of having a dull and monotonous grammar lesson but instead make your students practice grammar in a motivating and amusing way. So, what is the magic bullet?

METHODOLOGY

My main objective was to help my students practise and revise tenses but more importantly make the experience exciting and functional. As Tomlinson [2011] stated, materials should maximize the learning potential by encouraging intellectual, aesthetic and emotional involvement which stimulates both left and right brain activities. As most students enjoy various kinds of videos or visuals, I chose a famous short video ‘Signs’, a Cannes Gold Lion Winner 2009 to practice such grammar tenses as the Present Simple, Present Continuous, Past Simple and Past Continuous, as well as modal verbs, ‘going to’ and, potentially, vocabulary of daily routine and emotions. There were several reasons behind the choice of this movie. First, it is a speechless film, which drives students to comment on what is happening on the screen, and short enough for them not to become bored. Second, it is a 12 minute moving romantic film about a lonely boy, who starts communicating with a cute girl in the next building using written signs and eventually they meet each other. This short movie can be used with both teenagers and adults. The lesson I am offering below is one of the possible ways of what can be done with

27

videos to practise grammar. The following lesson plan consists of six stages which can be extended according to your context.

LESSON PLAN

The ​ first stage of the lesson is a lead­in. In order to make students ready for the lesson and ‘hook’ their attention, the teacher writes the title of the film on the board and asks them to say what the word ‘signs’ means for them. This task is aimed to check the knowledge of the key word, activate their mental cognitive activity and personalize the topic. After that, the teacher says they are going to watch a film which is called ‘Sings’ and by the end of the watching, the students’ task will be to find out the reason behind this name.

The ​ second stage is to watch the first part of the video. The teacher tells the students to watch the main character Steven carefully and describe what they can remember about him. The main objective here is to show the right context for using the Present Simple and practice it talking about general facts and daily routines. The teacher tries to elicit information by asking questions like the following ones :

What does Steven do?

How old is he?

Where does he work?

Where does he live?

Who does he live with?

Is he happy?

After that, the teacher suggests watching this part again and asks the students to make notes about Steven’s daily routine. Next, the teacher divides the students in pairs. Then, the first person in each pair prepares and asks questions about what Steven does every day and the second person answers them. Then, they can swap. Alternatively, the teacher can elicit the targeted language (e.g. Present Simple and phrases such as ​ get up, get dressed, make breakfast, get to work, go by train, do paper work, etc.) by asking the following questions in a teacher­student interaction pattern:

What does Steven do in the morning?

Does he have breakfast?

How does he get to work?

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What does he do at work?

Does he like his job? Why (not)?

Where does he have his lunch?

What does he do after work?

In the ​ third stage, the students watch the second part of the video where Steven’s life changes and he meets a girl. The fact that the video is speechless gives the opportunity to the teacher to ask the students to describe what goes on on the screen. The teacher can pause every time the action changes and ask the following questions :

What is Steven doing now?

Where is he going?

What is he feeling now?

Why is he doing that?

This time the students must practice the Present Continuous. The teaching objective of this stage is not only to revise the Present Continuous but also to identify the context where it is used and differentiate it from the Present Simple. To achieve this, the teacher can ask the students what the difference is between two questions : ​ ‘what does Steven do in the morning?’ and ​ ‘what is he doing now?’ and under what circumstances students must use them appropriately.

During the ​ fourth stage​ , the students should watch the third part of the film where Steven hesitates to ask the girl out and next day she disappears. This stage is aimed at giving a more communicative practice and stimulate the students’ mental activity. At this point, the teacher can ask the students to give their opinion on why the man did not do what he wanted and predict the future events. If the students are of a higher level, the teacher can practice ‘going to’ and modal verbs talking about future predictions.

In the ​ fifth stage​ , they watch the final part of the video where they find out the end of the story.

In order for the sequence of lesson activities to be more logical and justifiable,the teacher reminds the students the initial questions, which were asked at the beginning of the lesson, – ‘What do signs mean in the film?’ . Furthermore, the teacher asks the students to reflect on the film and give their own opinion in order to personalize the topic.

Finally, the last stage of the lesson, the ​ sixth​ , is devoted to summarizing what students have watched which can be done in writting or in speaking . The teacher asks the students to retell or

29

write the story using the Past Simple and Past Continuous. In order to trigger their knowledge, the teacher can write a sample question on the board and elicit possible answers.

Teacher​ : When Steven was working in the office, what happened?

Student​ : When Steven was working in the office, he saw a girl.

Here, the teacher highlights two different tenses and asks the students which tense describes the main action and which one a background action. After checking and practicing the students’ knowledge of the targeted language, the students can continue with the task. According to the number of students in the class, it can be done in small groups or individually as a home task.

ADAPTATION

The lesson plan presented above is a backbone of the lesson, which can be adapted for different levels of English. In my teaching practice, I held this lesson with different students from elementary to advanced levels. With low­level students, the lesson can be aimed only at practicing the targeted grammar of the Present Simple and Present Continuous or vocabulary of daily routine. With higher­level students, there are many ways to make the lesson more complex and more challenging for the students. First, the teacher can present or revise the vocabulary of feelings and emotions to describe how the emotional well­being of the main character has been changing throughout the film. Second, the teacher can practice future tenses and modal verbs for practicing predictions and speculations. Third, for big groups with creative students the teacher can suggest writing their version of the story and only then watch the end of the film.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I was striving to present how communicative and motivating a grammar lesson can be in this lesson plan. The importance of grammar in language teaching is crucial for communication which is also supported by Geoffrey Leech, Margaret Deuchar and Robert Hoogenraad [2006:3] who claim that “… the term ‘grammar’ refers to the mechanism by which language works when we communicate with other people’’. Using modern technologies, massive resources of videos and visuals in an engaging and stimulating way can improve students’ understanding of grammatical tenses and their communicative functions in the language.

References:

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●

Leech, G., Deuchar, M., and Hoogenraad, R. 2006 English Grammar for Today: A New Introduction, Second Edition. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

●

Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). 2011 Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

●

​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEIdACFBhGE

*****

Svitlana Tubaltseva has successfully done her Master degree in Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the University of Portsmouth, UK. She has worked in different teaching environments such as summer and language schools, business English courses, work placement projects, exam preparation courses in England, Ukraine and Slovakia. She is currently working as a Lecturer of English and Applied Linguistics at the Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding, Ukraine. She is interested in functional language teaching, task­based learning and text­driven approach. e­mail:​ svitlana.tubaltseva@nuos.edu.ua

31

“Us vs. Them”: The Correlation of Modern Tribalism with Religion Darko Perić, student, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade

Abstract

Modern tribalism is a term referring to an emerging social phenomenon manifested in the growing tendency of contemporary people to identify with certain traditional social groups they belong to, be it social class, religion or nationality; instead of pursuing their own individual identity. A direct consequence of this phenomenon is thought to be a growing desire to belong to separated groups, as well as xenophobia, dogmatism and passing judgment. This behavior is often related to reverting to traditional values and older models of behavior. Given the fact that religion is an extremely influential social factor that tends to preserve traditional values, the purpose of this paper was to explore the possible correlation of this “tribal mentality” with the values of both religious individuals – specifically those who identified with the religion inherited from their family and predecessors – and individuals who differed in this respect. A survey was conducted with the help of 187 anonymous respondents, and their attitudes were presented and analyzed in this study. The results indicate a subtle, yet regular and noticeable interrelationship between traditional forms of religion and attitudes typically associated with modern tribalism, and provide insight into relatively unknown social causalities.

Keywords​ : ​ tribal mentality, ethnicity, tradition, religious affiliation, collectivism

Introduction

The state of affairs within the global political scene and the modern lifestyle likewise point out that the postmodern age has brought upon the world new and seemingly unprecedented models of social and political behavior. A particularly curious phenomenon is embodied in the outbreak of what the Russian­American author Ayn Rand referred to as “new tribalism” or the “tribal mentality” in a lecture delivered in 1977 on the topic of “Global Balkanization.” Rand explains tribalism as the collectivist tendency of the contemporary individual, confused by postmodern relativism, to embrace older, conservative and retrograde models of behavior by empowering and adhering to the dogma imposed by conservative factors of the society (Rand, 1990).

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According to Rand, tribalism is the primary sociological cause of the emergence of political separatist movements across the world; one of the examples mentioned was the – in Rand’s words, foreseeable – dissolution of the Republic of Yugoslavia (Rand, 1990). The common historical association of the Balkan region with ethnic struggles – seemingly directly related to the phenomenon of tribalism, has motivated the author to conduct research that would examine the basic indicators of tribalistic inclinations found among a sample mainly consisting of young Serbian citizens.

Although the aforementioned regional phenomenon served as inspiration for this paper, the paper will not focus on a regional parameter. In an article titled “It’s Not Just Islam, It’s the Tribal Mentality”, California State University Professor Bruce Thornton talks about the interrelationship of religion and tribal mentality – according to him, Islam has “theologized” the tribal mentality by redefining the tribe as its adherents (Thornton, 2015). While this concept may be more drastically expressed within radical religious groups, the possibility exists that in the postmodern era, religions in general demonstrate such behavior. The hypothesis of this paper is as follows: since tribalism is ultimately linked to bonds formed through hereditary tradition, individuals adhering to the religion of their “tribe” are expected to display a more distinct form of tribal mentality than those who reject the religion they were born into. A survey was used, based on an online questionnaire, to determine whether those participants who profess their traditional religion exemplify the basic tendencies of tribalism, as opposed to the participants who declared a departure from their traditional religion.

Methodology

A survey was administered for the purposes of this study, in the form of a questionnaire written in English and created with the use of the Google Forms online software. The questionnaire comprised fifteen questions, fourteen of which were obligatory and offered the participant a choice between multiple answers, the final one optional, allowing the participant to additionally comment on the survey. The questionnaire was open to participants from 19 April 2015 to 24 April 2015, and was distributed by means of the online social network Facebook. In total, 187 responses were received, which can be separated into groups according to the following criteria: age group, gender and religious affiliation. Due to the fact that the largest number of participants was between 21 and 30 years old (52.7%), followed by those up to 21 years old

33

(35.6%), the study shall be considered a general display of the attitudes of the young Serbian adult population. The participants were not evenly present in terms of gender, due to the social circumstances under which the survey was undertaken (most of the respondents were presumably the predominantly female students of the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade), and among the total of 187 respondents, 155 were women and 32 were men. The crucial distinguishing criterion was established in the third question (which was whether the participants affiliated with the religion they had been born into)1, inasmuch as a comparative analysis of the results of these separate groups was performed in Microsoft Excel, since it presents the central question that shall be examined in this study2.

General Response Analysis

This section shall provide a brief and introductory general overview of the total sum of responses. The participants, 187 in total, were separated into two groups, according to how they responded to the question whether they adhered to the religion assigned to them at birth – 68 participants responded with “Yes” (36.7%), and 119 with “No” (63.3%). The replies of those groups are compared in a separate chapter. The study mainly examined the young adult population, since 88.3% of the respondents were under the age of 30. It should be noted that, according to the criteria implied by Rand (1990) and Thornton (2015), the participants largely displayed a very liberal and secular disposition, favoring contemporary humanist ideals over traditional values, in contrast with the primary indications of the tribal mentality. The eighth question in the survey presented the respondents with a list of “values and ideals”, and required that they select those considered worth protecting. Ranked according to the highest response rate, the points were as follows: human rights (92.6%), works of art (72.9%), and individual achievements (69.1%), followed by tradition and heritage (62.2%), ethnic autonomy (25.5%), and religion (21.3%)3. Considering this, the study shall mainly address the slight, yet consistent differences between the answers of the two aforementioned groups. The general public’s understanding of the phenomenon of modern tribalism appears limited, and the purpose of this study is to provide a basis for further research on this insufficiently explored topic.

Comparative Response Analysis 1

In further text referred to as the “affiliated” or the “non­affiliated”.

The questionnaire was designed so as not to directly reveal its purpose to the respondents.

3 This part of the questionnaire was analyzed only in this section due to a very even response rate.

2

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This section of the study is dedicated to a comparative analysis of the two main respondent groups. The first point of interest is the question of participant gender. The percentage of the men was lower in the religiously affiliated group (11.8%) than among the non­affiliated (18.5%), unlike the women, who displayed a 6.7% difference in favor of religious affiliation. These findings may be seen as contradictory to the popular layman theory that men comprise the conservative, traditional element of the patriarchal, male­dominant society.

Following that question, the participants were asked to state the extent to which ethnicity and religion were relevant in their lives. In the non­affiliated group, minorities of 10% and 11% answered with “Important” and “Crucial” regarding ethnicity and religion, respectively. However, in the affiliated group, a considerably higher number of participants chose these answers – a surprising 35% for both questions. This would appear to suggest a strong link between ethnical identity and religious adherence. When asked whether they considered their family authorized to influence their important personal decisions, 11% of the non­affiliated answered affirmatively, as opposed to 28% of the affiliated. Notably, the third possible answer (“It shouldn’t, but it does”) was chosen by 35% of the first and 28% of the second group. Not only does this imply that the participants who disliked their family’s authority were inclined towards secularity, but it also indicates a significant level of discontent within the presumably more conservative group (equal to the percentage of those who declared themselves obedient) – this could be a sign of a growing urge for personal freedom within the more obedient group.

Furthermore, the respondents were required to answer whether they felt proud of their ethnicity, and whether they considered their ethnic group endangered by other such groups in some way.

The latter question was of particular significance since Rand’s depiction of tribalism implied that it produced a feeling of fear and distrust on an ethnical level (1990). Although the majority of respondents continued to display individualist attitudes, the question regarding ethnic pride had a somewhat larger share of affirmative answers, insofar as 41% of the religiously affiliated and 23.5% of the non­affiliated respondents answered “Yes”. While this confirms the expected correlation of religion with ethnic identity, it also points out an unexpectedly warmer reception of the concept of patriotic pride. The findings for the second aforementioned inquiry appeared somewhat grim – 17% of the respondents within the religiously affiliated group strongly felt that their ethnic group was in direct danger from antagonistic groups. Whereas this may not seem

35

drastic at first glance, in many other responses the study displayed subtle statistical differences between the groups. The results lend strong support to the argument that xenophobia, a major issue of contemporary society, is empowered by conservative tribalistic factors, among which a feeling of religious belonging may be included. The exact nature of this interrelationship is unclear, but the hypothesis found support in the findings of the following question – an inquiry as to whether the participants ever felt distrustful towards someone due to different ethnic backgrounds. Once again a discrepancy was noticeable, this time with a 5% difference in favor of the traditionally religious group’s affirmative responses.

The next issue of importance was how the respondents perceived and evaluated cultural tradition. The questions presented to them were whether they were in favor of preserving tradition within a contemporary lifestyle, and to what extent they thought the preservation of cultural tradition might possibly have a detrimental effect. The general consensus of the affiliated respondents was that preserving tradition was important and useful (61.7%), while only a minority of the non­affiliated group (42%) shared this opinion. Notably, only 3% among the former believed that cultural preservation brought more harm than good, as opposed to 14.3% of the respondents from the latter group. Both groups expressed very moderate feelings concerning the possible harm caused by preserving cultural heritage – over 70% of each group stated that it was possible, but highly unlikely. However, zero of the non­affiliated group respondents believed that tradition can in no way be harmful, whereas a small, but noticeable portion of the traditionally inclined group (7.3%) agreed with the statement. Although it may well be true that religion is closely followed by an appreciation of heritage, it should be noted that the older models of behavior it is clearly associated with may prove dangerous, and sometimes contradict the basic humanist values of contemporary civilization. Absence of religiosity appears to coincide with a higher level of awareness of this potential danger.

Collectivism within nationality and ethnicity may be considered a major indicator of the presence of tribalism. The survey respondents were thus presented with a hypothetical scenario of their moving abroad, followed by an inquiry on how likely they would be to seek out other members of their ethnic group. The findings suggest that the examined generations are characterized by a strong spirit of practicality and utilitarianism, since an overwhelming majority stated that they would do so only if there was a practical reason for that. However, nearly a quarter of the respondents in the affiliated group chose to answer with “Definitely”. Despite the relatively mild

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nature of the previously mentioned statistical differences, this particular result makes a remarkably strong case for the possible correlation of religion with the tribal mentality manifested in the respondents’ visible tendency to seek out what may be a modern version of historical “fellow tribesmen”. Evidence suggests that the less significant differences encountered in each of the previous results depict regular and constant attitudes and inclinations rather than mere numerical coincidences.

This is further supported by the results of the last question of the survey, which required the participants to state whether they believed in a kinship shared between members of a contemporary “tribe” of some kind that could not be felt or understood by outsiders. The non­affiliated respondents were three times as likely as the affiliated group to state that they valued individuality over such feelings. On the other hand, 31% of the traditionally religious participants felt strongly convinced of the importance of such bonds. Concluding this section, we can note that this phenomenon reflects Rand’s statement that those inclined towards modern tribalism (in a religious context within this study) manifest both a feeling of attachment to their inherited social group as well as distrust towards those perceived as outsiders within the immediate social spectrum (Rand, 1990).

Conclusion

This study was conducted in an attempt to examine and explain a relatively unknown and emerging social phenomenon, the importance of which may not yet have been fully grasped by the major world­shaping political powers. The results of the conducted survey clearly confirm that modern tribalism is to some extent present among the young Serbian adult population, and that it exists in an obvious correlation with hereditary religion. It should be noted, however, that the manifestations of tribalism encountered in this survey were miniscule compared to those previously described by various authors, and that any attempts to generalize a person’s religious attitude would certainly be intercepted by the complexity of personal dogma and individual belief. Thus a further study of the social reality and evident manifestations of religion would be more advisable than an exploration of the personal attitudes and intimate philosophical feelings associated with it.

Although previous researchers unanimously agreed on the harmful and dangerous nature of

37

tribalism, in no way does the author suggest that religion and conservative inclinations should be seen as direct causes of detrimental social behavior. The issue in question is complex enough that, without a sufficiently large sample of respondents and a serious, scientific approach, only the symptoms would be explored, while the causes would remain unseen. The results of this study suggest a number of new areas of research that could focus on the underlying causes of this phenomenon and possibly provide an explanation for the fear, distrust, and separatism experienced by the postmodern individual, as well as seek a remedy for what might be one of the major problems faced in the world today.

References

Rand, A. (1990). ​ Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. ​ New York: Penguin Books.

Thornton, B. (2015, 12 March). It’s Not Just Islam, It’s the Tribal Mentality. ​ Frontpage Magazine.

Retrieved

April

24,

2015,

from

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/bruce­thornton/its­not­just­islam­its­the­tribal­mentali ty/

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Appendix Attitude Survey Please help me with my research by filling out this questionnaire! It shouldn't take more than several minutes. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Please state your age.*Required ●

up to 21

●

21 ­ 30

●

31 ­ 40

●

over 40

Please state your gender.*Required ●

Male

●

Female

Do you affiliate with the religion you were born into?*Required ●

Yes

●

No

To what degree is your ethnicity important to you?*Required ●

Irrelevant

●

Somewhat present in your life

●

Important

●

Crucial

To what degree is your religious affiliation important to you?*Required ●

Irrelevant

●

Somewhat present in your life

●

Important

●

Crucial

Should your family be able to influence your important life decisions?*Required ●

It shouldn't

●

It shouldn't, but it does

●

It should

Do you take pride in being considered a member of an ethnic group?*Required ●

I do

●

I don't

Do you feel your nation or ethnicity is in some way endangered by others?*Required

39

●

Certainly

●

To some extent

●

Not really

Which of the following values and ideals do you consider worth protecting?*Required ●

Ethnic autonomy

●

Individual achievements

●

Religion

●

Works of art

●

Tradition and heritage

●

Human rights

Did you ever feel distrustful towards someone because they belonged to a different ethnic group?*Required ●

I did

●

I didn't

Do you feel it is important to preserve tradition within a lifestyle?*Required ●

It is useful and important

●

It is irrelevant

●

It does more harm than good

Do you feel preserving tradition can sometimes be harmful?*Required ●

Never, it is a good thing to do

●

It can, but usually doesn't

●

It is often harmful

If you moved abroad, would you seek out members of your own ethnicity?*Required ●

Definitely

●

Only if there is a practical reason

●

I wouldn't

Is there a kinship or bond shared between members of a family, ethnicity or religious group which cannot be experienced with those outside?*Required ●

Yes, there often is

●

There may be, to some degree

●

Individuality is more important to me than these values

Any additional comments are welcome. :)

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*****

Darko Perić​ is a student of English language and literature at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. He is interested in literary and art theory, anthropology and cultural studies, and writing poetry and fictional prose, so far having published a volume of poems. The unstable modern social climate and issues of identity motivated him to learn and write about their intricate nature and their underlying causes.

Mentor: Tamara Aralica, language instructor, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade

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Gaining Weight and Attending University: the Connection between Being a Student and Failing to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle Jovana Điporović, student, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade

Abstract

Many students find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of unhealthy eating from the very first year of university due to the lifestyle changes that accompany living on a tight budget, not having enough time to focus on eating healthy and, perhaps most markedly, stressing over their studies. Although this issue has been widely popularized in English­speaking countries, it has never been touched on or researched in Serbia, with most young adults shrugging it off as a natural occurrence that comes with being a student. The main issue that is to be explored in this study is whether or not there is a direct correlation between attending university and gaining weight, with emphasis on factors stemming from university life which possibly impact Serbian students the most when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The survey was conducted online and a sample of 196 respondents took part. The results show that, while the correlation may be present, more attention should be given to the actual causes of unhealthy lifestyle habits in students, such as stress, fast food intake and overall lack of time to dedicate to a healthy diet and doing physical activity.

Keywords:​ weight gain, healthy lifestyle, stress, student life, university students

Introduction

During the last thirty years, the connection between gaining weight and starting university has frequently been brought into question, primarily in the US where the term “freshman fifteen” was first coined in the 1980’s, later becoming known as the “freshers’ flab” in the UK and the “first year fatties” in Australia and New Zealand. Essentially, the term “freshman fifteen” refers to the alleged average of 15 lbs (approximately 6.8 kg) that students gain during their first year of university. Over the years, many scientific studies related to this have managed to disprove this theory, or more specifically debunk the fifteen­pound­gain myth, on account of magazines, websites, and other media outlets tending to exaggerate the amount of weight that freshmen

42

actually gain (Vella­Zarb & Elgar, 2010). Nevertheless, Vella­Zarb and Elgar (2010) noted that the increase in weight is indisputably present, although it “is not as dramatic as the ‘freshman 15’ myth implies” (p. 322). In addition, when examining some variables associated with gaining weight in freshmen, Wengreen and Moncur (2009) found that the students who gained weight were less physically active than they were in high school, and also more likely to eat breakfast and sleep more than the students who did not gain weight.

On the other hand, although weight gain linked to starting university still garners a considerable amount of attention, a four­year study conducted at Auburn University in Alabama tested and confirmed the hypothesis that weight gain caused by factors revolving around student life goes well beyond the freshman year. The authors of the study, Gropper et al. (2012), reported that the four­year changes included significant weight gains for 70% of the participants, ranging from an average of 12 to 37 lbs (5.4 to 16.8 kg). Later on, Gropper went as far as to assert that “[the term] ‘college 15’ is more accurate” (as cited in Weaver, 2012, para. 4).

What can be observed here is that previous research conducted on this topic mainly involved examining students from English­speaking countries. However, it goes without saying that student life in the US or the UK differs exponentially from that in Serbia, and these differences are glaringly apparent in the diversity of student facilities available to American and British students in terms of how much they strive to promote a healthy lifestyle at university. This paper, rather than focusing on exactly how much weight Serbian students gain, attempts to shed light on the negative aspects of student life in Serbia, particularly its impact on students’ food choices, as well as how stress and other factors associated with student life tie in with possible weight gain or falling into bad eating habits.

Research Methods

For the purposes of obtaining data, an online questionnaire was created as a Google Docs form and distributed online over the course of three days—between April 14 and April 17, 2015. A total of 196 people submitted their responses during this time period, with 137 of them being female and 59 of them male. To ensure that students of all years would take part in the research, as well as a larger variety of respondents, the questionnaire was posted on the pages of several prominent Serbian student groups on Facebook, having thus reached people attending many different faculties in Belgrade, including but not limited to: the Faculty of Philology, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Biology, the Faculty of

43

Mathematics and the Faculty of Medicine. The questions in the survey were designed to look into the students’ eating habits, possible weight gain and those factors which might have caused it such as stress, different life situations, fast food intake, as well as their opinions on the feasibility of balancing a healthy lifestyle while studying at university.

As regards the reasoning behind the selection of this method, an online questionnaire was the most obvious choice in terms of time­efficiency and exposure to a potentially wide range of respondents. During the three days of gathering submissions, the number of responses to the questionnaire was consistently high—around 65 on average. Furthermore, the aforementioned Facebook groups boast hundreds and thousands of members, predominantly current students, owing to which representative information was acquired with great ease.

In retrospect, taking into account the great number of responses that were obtained in a comparatively short amount of time, as well as the enthusiasm of Serbian students who had shared and promoted the research among their friends from different faculties, a larger sample of respondents could have been realized had the questionnaire remained online for a while longer. However, it was taken down after reaching nearly 200 respondents for fear of the data becoming too overwhelming to analyze. Should any future researchers decide to examine this subject on a grander scale, they might choose to expand the research by administering it over a longer period of time, thus allowing scope for more people to participate in it. Moreover, the male­to­female respondent ratio was greatly unbalanced in favor of the females. This did not, however, prove to be an obstacle to the study itself.

Finally, a major drawback of this research is the fact that it does not take into account the genetic predisposition of people to either gain or lose weight easily ‒ something that needs to be considered should this topic be tackled on a more serious level.

Discussion and Analysis

Out of the 196 respondents who took part in the survey, nearly half of them (47.4%) reported they had indeed gained weight since they started university, a sufficiently higher number than those who said they had not (23%). On the other hand, over a quarter of them (29.6%) had “nothing to report”, i.e. they had experienced some weight oscillations, but they were not significant or unusual for them in any way.

These percentages account for all the undergraduate (and some graduate) students who filled out the questionnaire, among whom freshmen make up only 14.8%, i.e. 28 students. It is

44

interesting to note that out of these 28 first­year students, 22 reported to have gained weight since the beginning of their studies ‒a striking 78.6%. The relevance of these statistics is evident inasmuch as they confirm Vella­Zarb and Elgar’s (2010) previously mentioned inference about freshmen weight gain.

When asked about their personal opinion on what it was that had caused them to gain weight, a remarkable 95.7% of the ‘weight­gainers’ listed factors caused by university life as the main reasons. However, it should be pointed out that out of the 93 respondents who had gained weight, only 68 of them took the time to write an elaborate answer explaining why university life had contributed to it ‒therefore,

it is unclear whether the reasons would have differed had the remaining 25 provided a response. As it was, the responses turned out to be surprisingly similar to one another, with the top four reasons being: (1) ​ stress at 36.76%, (2) ​ lack of exercise and overall ​ physical inactivity at 32.35%, (3) excess intake of ​ fast food at 33.82% and (4) ​ lack of time to care about their eating habits and/or prepare healthier meals at 13.23%. Nearly all of these (otherwise generic) causes of weight gain were declared to be directly linked to ‘having to deal with university­related issues’.

Moreover, what sets stress apart from the other leading causes of weight gain in the students is also the fact that 104 (53%) of them admitted to ​ eating more when they were under stress​ , particularly when studying for exams or due to other worries related to their studies; 33 (16.8%) gingerly said it happened only if they were under too much stress, whereas 59 (30.2%) of them insisted they did not do this at all.

Another hypothesis related to gaining weight that was examined in this study was that students who still live at home with their families presumably manage to eat home­cooked meals more often—and therefore have less of a propensity to buy fast food—than their colleagues who either live by themselves or with other people as their flat mates. However, the results of the research show that there is in fact no significant difference in terms of weight­gain between the students who live at home and their ‘self­sufficient’ counterparts: among the 74 students who still live with their families, 36 (48.6%) of them reported to have gained weight, and of the other 121 students, 57 (47.1%) reported the very same thing. For that reason, it may be concluded that students can be prone to gaining weight or succumbing to unhealthy eating habits regardless of their life situations.

However, weight gain is not the only reflection of an unhealthy lifestyle. In keeping with that fact, a whopping 80.6% of the respondents ​ deem it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle while being a student​ . This point is further emphasized by the following statistics:

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when it comes to which factors affect their food choices the most, 50% of the respondents selected ‘ease and speed’ of preparation, 30.1% of the respondents said it was the cost, while health came last at only 18.9%.

The students also seem to frequently opt for fast food, as 84 (42.9%) of those surveyed admitted to consuming foods such as pizza, hamburgers, French fries and ready­made meals several times a week; 54 (27.6%) said it happened a few times a month and ‘almost every day’ for 28 (14.3%) of the respondents, while 30 (15.3%) claimed it happened very rarely.

Additionally, when looking at where the students normally eat or buy their food, it was unexpected to find that 91 (47.2%) of them said they cooked and prepared it on their own, which is more than twice the number of those who frequent bakeries and fast food restaurants on most days of the week (44 students, i.e. 22.8%). Only 42 (21.8%) of the respondents said they usually ate at cafeterias.

As for cafeteria food, just under two thirds of the respondents (65.3%) find the choice of meals there only ‘somewhat varied’, indicating that the choices are often too limited to enable students to maintain a healthy diet, while 19.4% of them find the choice of meals in cafeterias ‘high­fat and mostly unhealthy’. This point is particularly relevant because it reflects the way students feel about the effort, or lack thereof, that gets put into the promotion of healthy food choices in state­funded facilities such as cafeterias and halls of residence.

Lastly, when looking at how much students are willing to spend on food, 158 (81%) of the respondents stated they tended to spend a lot of money on it, with 49 (25.1%) declaring that most of their money goes on food, while the other 109 (55.9%) are of the opinion that it is ‘often inevitable’ not to. On the other hand, only 38 of the students claimed that they either could not afford to splurge on food (4.6%) or that they would rather spend their money on other things (14.4%).

Conclusion

The results drawn from this study demonstrate that many students do gain a certain amount of weight while attending university, and the study has also gone some way to explaining why this may be the case. While there are admittedly some external factors that should be considered which were not thoroughly explored in this paper, the students who participated in the research almost unanimously agree on the fact that their dietary habits and health choices have suffered due to university­related issues on the whole.

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It goes without saying that busy student lives are to be blamed for the reduction of physical activity and the time and money spent on preparing or opting for healthy meals, so it remains uncertain whether the students will ever be able to implement any quality changes to their eating patterns and way of life while still at university. However, bettering student facilities, such as cafeterias and halls of residence, could help make life easier for the students, perhaps in terms of healthier meal options; other kinds of support could also be provided by teaching students how they can avoid stress­eating, and encouraging physical activity whenever possible.

All in all, further research on this topic could investigate the factors related to student weight gain in more detail, and also hopefully offer some more constructive conclusions and other solutions to how Serbian students could sidestep this ‘side­effect’ of university life.

References

.

Eight in 10 students gain weight at university. (2013, September 30). ​ Slimming World​ Retrieved from ​ http://www.slimmingworld.com/press­articles/student­special.aspx

Gropper, S. S., Simmons, K. P., Connell, L. J. & Ulrich, P. V. (2012). Changes in body weight, composition, and shape: a 4­year study of college students. ​ Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism​ . Retrieved from http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/citedby/10.1139/h2012­139

Vella­Zarb, R. A. & Elgar, F. J. (2010). Predicting the ‘freshman 15’: Environmental and psychological predictors of weight gain in first­year university students. ​ Health Education Journal​ , 69, pp. 321­332. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/Predicting_the_freshman_15_Environmental_and_psycholo gical_predictors_of_weight_gain_in_first­year_university_students.pdf

Weaver, A. (2012, September 20). Auburn University study on weight gain among college students published in Canadian journal. ​ Wire Eagle​ . Retrieved April 25, 2015 from http://wireeagle.auburn.edu/news/4599

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Wengreen, H. J. & Moncur, C. (2009). Change in diet, physical activity, and body weight among young­adults during the transition from high school to college. ​ Nutrition Journal​ .

Retrieved from ​ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2720988/

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Appendix

Questionnaire

1. Sex: ●

Male

●

Female

2. Which year are you currently in? ●

First

●

Second

●

Third

●

Fourth

●

Other: __________

3. What is your current living situation? ●

I live at home with my family.

●

I live in an apartment alone.

●

I live in an apartment with one (or more) flat mate(s).

●

I live in a dorm/hall of residence with other University students.

●

Other: __________

4. Where do you normally eat/buy your food? (“Normally” meaning most days of the week.) ●

Bakeries.

●

At the cafeteria.

●

I cook/prepare my own food.

●

Fast food restaurants.

●

Other: __________

5. How often do you eat fast food? (Pizza, hamburgers, French fries, ready­made meals, etc.) ●

Almost every day.

●

A few times a week.

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●

A few times a month.

●

Very rarely.

6. Do you think that the choice of meals available in cafeterias enables students to eat healthily? ●

Yes, the meals are varied enough to maintain a healthy diet.

●

Somewhat; the choices are often limited.

●

No, the meals are high­fat and/or mostly unhealthy.

7. Do you tend to eat more when you’re under stress, e.g. while studying for exams or due to other worries related to your studies? ●

Yes, it helps me de­stress.

●

Not really; only if I’m under too much stress.

●

Not at all.

8. Do you spend a lot of money on food? ●

Yes, most of my money goes on food.

●

I try not to, but it is often inevitable.

●

No, I can’t afford to splurge money on food.

●

No, I'd rather spend money on other things.

9. Have you noticed any weight gain since the start of and during the course of your studies? ●

Yes, I have gained weight.

●

No, I haven’t gained weight since I started University.

●

There have been changes in my weight but they weren’t significant or out of the ordinary for me.

10. In your opinion, what is it that caused you to gain weight? (Feel free to skip this question if you haven’t noticed any significant changes in your weight since you started University.)

11. Do you think it is difficult to eat healthily while you’re a student? (For any reason, starting from lack of money, lack of time, etc.) ●

Yes.

●

No.

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●

I’ve never paid attention to that.

12. Which of these affect your food choices the most? ●

Cost.

●

Ease and speed.

●

Health.

***** Jovana Điporović​ is a student of English language and literature at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philology. Her main aim since the beginning of her studies has been to observe the ways that English helps connect people of different nationalities and cultures. A strong proponent of the American spelling and pronunciation rules, Jovana’s interests include writing fiction, blogging, exercising and poring over Neil Gaiman’s novels.

Mentor: Andrijana Broćić, language instructor, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade

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Ethnocultural Stereotypes: Students’ Associations to EU Member States Miloš Gajić, student, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade

Abstract Ethnocultural stereotypes are often examined by the associative method, i.e. a word association test. The test consists of a list of words, the so called stimuli. For each stimulus, the respondent should write what first comes to their mind. It can be a symbol, word, phrase, sentence, or more than one sentence. Their responses are called verbal or free associations.

The aim of the research is to reveal both the positive and negative stereotypes that the students of the Faculty of Philology have towards EU member states. It was conducted during a four­week period in April 2015. The word association test was administered to forty students on the social network Facebook. In order to examine the topic in detail, the author conducted an interview with Professor Rajna Dragićević, PhD, a full professor at the Serbian Department of the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philology. This research can be used in lexicology, linguocultural studies and ethnopsychology, and may also contribute to the lives of ordinary people in raising awareness of their perception of the world.

.

Keywords:​ ​ associative method, association, ethnocultural stereotypes, students, linguocultural studies​

Introduction

The associative method is relatively new in linguistics. According to Dragićević (2010), associations were originally used to prove that the organisation of the mental lexicon resembled a cobweb. She claimed that “the entries of the mental lexicon are connected into a network”1 (p.

108). The mental lexicon is defined by Milojević (2000) as “the term for personal word knowledge, which is a subset of the abstract lexicon” (p. 107).

As Piper (Piper, Dragićević & Stefanović 2005) stated, under the term associations we usually mean verbal associations, i.e. linguistic realisations of associations. A large number of linguocultural studies have used them to examine ethnocultural stereotypes. Popović claimed

1

This quotation has been translated from Serbian by the author of this research.

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that a stereotype was “the basic unit of cognitive linguistics research on the linguistic perception of reality”2 (Popović, 2008, as cited in Dragićević, 2011, p. 203). If we stick to this definition, we can make a clear­cut distinction between two groups of stereotypes. Bugarski (2005) compared autostereotypes to heterostereotypes, the former being the perception of one’s own group and the latter being the perception of other groups. On the other hand, Brown (1980) ​ distinguished between positive and negative stereotypes. He concentrated on the group of stereotypes that were not true: False stereotyping is another negative aspect of cultural stereotyping. Sometimes our oversimplified concepts of members of another culture are downright false. Americans sometimes think of Japanese as being unfriendly because of their cultural norms of respect and politeness. (p. 126) Taking all the above into account, the research was carried out with the aim of exploring students’ attitudes towards the member states of the European Union (the EU). Long before this research was conducted, Serbia had launched EU accession negotiations, and it seemed logical to obtain information regarding the following questions: What do the students know and think of each member state? Do their answers reflect any stereotypes?

Methodology

The research took place over a four­week period in April 2015. Forty­one subjects took part in it – forty students and one full professor. The methodology employed included a word association test and an interview.

Since the associative method, along with the word association test, has not been widely used yet, we should go through a historical overview of its usage. According to Dragićević (2010), Kent and Rosanoff were among the first researchers to administer a free word association test comprising a hundred of the most common words. This inspired many researchers all around the world to create word association dictionaries and thesauri.

Nowadays, this method is more popular in former Eastern Bloc states than in Western Bloc countries and the USA. Currently the largest word association thesaurus is the Russian one.

There are also word association dictionaries of Belorussian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak and Bulgarian (Piper, Dragićević & Stefanović 2005). However, association dictionaries of French

2

This quotation has been translated from Serbian by the author of this research.

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and German were created too (Debrenne, n.d.). It is worth mentioning that a considerable effort was exerted in Serbia to make such a dictionary and also a reverse word association dictionary.

As Dragićević (2010) explained, a word association test should consist of “stimulus words” 3(p. 113). Respondents should write the first word which comes to their mind. She called the responses “reaction words”4 (p. 113). As for this research, the stimulus words were the names of all 28 EU member states. This test (see the Appendix) was made to look like a questionnaire with open­ended questions, using Google Forms – an online platform for creating and analysing surveys. It was distributed to forty students from the Faculty of Philology on the social network Facebook. The respondents were asked to write down their responses to as many stimuli words as possible. They were also informed that the test was anonymous and that they should feel free to skip the countries for which they did not have any associations. The nature of the test was expected to increase the respondents’ honesty.

Apart from its advantages, the associative method also has some drawbacks. Firstly, complete honesty cannot be guaranteed. Sometimes, respondents try to give answers that may sound more interesting or more euphemistic than what they really think. This is especially an issue with the names of the EU member states, which is a highly productive ground for witticism.

Secondly, Dragićević underlined that a researcher should obtain no fewer than 500 associations and that the stimuli should be carefully chosen (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

However, this study was carried out on 40 respondents.

Because of the abovementioned disadvantages of the associative method, an interview was conducted with Rajna Dragićević, PhD, a full professor at the Serbian Department of the Faculty of Philology. She is a co­author of the Serbian Word Association Dictionary and its reverse version. She has also written many studies and articles regarding ethnocultural stereotypes and verbal associations.

Findings and Discussion

Since the volume of the obtained data is immense, the results of the research shall be presented in the following way. All 28 EU member states will be organised in small groups, according to their geographical position in Europe. The final part of this section is a summary of the interview with Professor Dragićević.

3

This quotation has been translated from Serbian by the author of this research.

This quotation has been translated from Serbian by the author of this research.

4

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The first group comprises Eastern Europe states, i.e. the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It was observed that there was an obvious lack of associations regarding these countries, even though this was not unexpected. The reason for such results may lie in the fact that Serbia has never had close connections with them. Accordingly, the Serbs are unaware of these countries’ cultures, traditions, history and lifestyles. Interestingly, the majority of the responses to these stimuli were the names of these three states (e.g. ​ Lithuania and ​ Estonia were the associations for the lexeme ​ Latvia)​ . Another interesting fact, which can be put under the category of negative and false stereotypes, was that a certain number of the respondents considered them unimportant, irrelevant and classified them as “dying countries”. The only indicator that the participants had at least some knowledge of these states was that they mentioned ​ basketball​ as an association for Lithuania.

On the other hand, the respondents expressed more than great familiarity with western countries, i.e. Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The results confirmed that there were no negative stereotypes when it came to the majority of them. The only such stereotypes were that ​ the Irish are always drunk​ , though there were some

reactions involving Irish culture and traditions (​ green​ , ​ St. Patrick’s Day​ , ​ clover​ , ​ Guinness​ ).

Moreover, the associations produced by the Netherlands regarding weed, marijuana, drugs and prostitution are likely to become a negative stereotype in the future. The Netherlands also provoked some positive associations, such as ​ tulips​ , ​ bicycles and things related to the arts. All of these countries had their capital cities as common reactions. Since France and the United Kingdom have long and remarkable histories, it seemed logical that the vast majority of the answers were related to their cultures, arts, architecture, etc. France has always been a country of good wine, cheese, perfect romance and great love, and such were the answers. The most popular responses for France were ​ the Eiffel Tower and ​ Paris​ . As for the UK, the largest percentage of the respondents mentioned the Queen and terms related to the Royal Family, as well as its capital ­ London. A large number of the respondents opted for words designating weather (​ rainy​ ), the British accent (​ posh​ ), tea, literature (​ Shakespeare​ , ​ Harry Potter​ , ​ Agatha

Christie​ ), etc. One of the stereotypes for the UK was the description of its people as ​ kind and

polite​ . Finally, Belgium was mostly associated with chocolate, whereas Luxembourg provoked few reactions, most of which were associated with wealth and the size of this country.

A few answers were offered for the Nordic EU countries, i.e. Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Still, the number of them was not as small as for the Baltic states. ​ Cold weather and the excellent standard of living and ​ the Vikings were the associations which these countries

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shared. What can be singled out as a negative stereotype for Denmark is that the Danes are cold​ . The responses for all of these states related to the arts: ​ Hamlet,​ ​ Hans Christian Andersen

(Denmark); ​ Lordi​ , ​ Nightwish​ , ​ HIM​ , ​ Eurovision,​ ​ death metal (Finland); ​ ABBA,​ ​ Greta Garbo (Sweden).

Going down the European map, the countries of Central Europe come next. These are Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Slovakia. A few of these states can paired following the associations they shared with one another. Austria and Germany shared the fact that many Serbs go there to work. Germany and the Czech Republic were both associated with beer​ , whereas Germany and Poland were associated with World War Two (​ Hitler,​ ​ Auschwitz,​

war​ ). Also, the most common answers for Austria and the Czech Republic were the names of

their capital cities – ​ Vienna and ​ Prague.​ Austria, Germany and Poland had a few responses

related to renowned artists and scientists (​ Mozart​ ; ​ Bach​ , ​ Einstein​ , ​ Gutenberg,​ ​ Kant​ ; ​ Chopin,​

Marie Curie​ , ​ Copernicus​ ). The stimulus with the fewest associations was Slovakia with 23 blank

spaces. The few responses given for Slovakia had to do with ​ the Czech Republic,​

Czechoslovakia and its capital ​ Bratislava.​ One of the stereotypes for Germany was that its

people were ​ strict​ and ​ severe​ .

Close attention should be paid to Serbia’s neighbouring EU countries, i.e. Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia5. Bulgaria and Romania shared some negative stereotypes, such as ​ the Roma ​ and ​ the ​ impoverished.​ Another association for Romania was

Dracula (as well as ​ vampires and ​ Transylvania)​ , while Bulgaria elicited tourism and cheap summer and winter holidays. As for Croatia, the most common ones were ​ Zagreb and Dubrovnik​ , which came as a surprise given the large number of negative and false stereotypes,

like ​ our enemies and ​ it’s not safe there​ . Another former Yugoslav republic, which is an EU member state – Slovenia – turned out to be strikingly similar to Croatia when it came to the most common association. In this case, it was the capital ​ Ljubljana.​ Surprisingly enough, 9 out of 40 respondents gave no answer to this stimulus. The only negative, and possibly false, stereotype was ​ wannabe Austria​ . Unlike all the other neighbouring countries, Hungary had no stereotypical associations.

The rest of the countries belong to Southern Europe and these are: Cyprus, Greece,

Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain. The common association for all these countries was tourism – s​ ea, beautiful nature ​ and summer holidays​ . The well­known stereotype for Cyprus was not 5

Although these three countries are considered to be in Central Europe, the author decided to put them in a separate group of the Serbian neighbouring countries. Slovenia was put in this group because it was part of the former Yugoslavia.

56

excluded this time either, and the author received a few responses concerning the Greek–Turkish dispute over this country. What was unexpected was that only one person mentioned words related to Greek mythology when responding to the lexeme ​ Greece​ . The

widely famous ​ pizza​ , ​ Rome​ , ​ pasta​ , ​ fashion and ​ Venice were inevitable notions related to Italy.

And as for Spain, the reactions were predictable and involved ​ flamenco,​ ​ sangria and ​ castanets.​

Strange as it may seem, Madrid was nowhere near as frequently mentioned as Barcelona was.

On the other hand, Malta and Portugal did not evoke many associations. Portugal was most associated with ​ football​ and ​ Cristiano Ronaldo,​ whereas Malta was associated with ​ an​ i​ sland.​

Finally, the interview consisted of two sets of questions. The first set related to the associative method and word association tests. Professor Dragićević explained that this method would be perfect if there were any possibility to obtain responses from all speakers of one language. So, researchers tend to choose students to be their respondents because of their being cooperative. This method is widely used in lexicology and linguocultural studies. She also argued that the results obtained with this method might change in the future. However, she emphasised that the chances of associations to some basic lexemes (e.g. a friend, good, to love, a head, an eye, to go, a house) changing are minimal. She asserted that the conspicuous absence of an association might mean that the stimulus lexeme was new to the language or that the respondents did not understand its meaning.

When asked about ethnocultural stereotypes, she answered that they were conditioned by globalisation, history and the media. Globalisation wipes out all national borders and assimilates various traditions and cultures. As for history, she claimed that it had had a huge impact on the creation of stereotypes. She gave an example of Serbian students’ associations to Germans, all of which were related to World War Two. When compared to this research, the answer that Professor Dragićević gave shows a distinct similarity. The last factor in the creation of ethnocultural stereotypes is the media. They have a huge impact on people’s perception of the world (personal communication, April 23, 2015)6.

Conclusion

The study has gone some way towards understanding ethnocultural stereotypes. One of the best methods for collecting data when examining them is the associative one. Despite some disadvantages of this method, it is still valid and can reveal both predictable and unpredictable 6

This interview has been translated from Serbian by the author of this research.

57

information. In this study, a large number of well­known stereotypes towards EU member states have been presented, described and discussed. The overall conclusion could be that the respondents had mainly positive attitudes towards them. This gives way to promoting tolerance and multiculturalism, which are the postulates of the European Union.

In conclusion, this study may be of use to lexicology, linguoculturology and ethnopsychology. In the words of Dragićević (2011), ethnocultural stereotypes “show the flow of collective expression into the meanings of some proper nouns which do not normally have the ability of marking, but, as a rule, only that of naming. In that way some proper nouns, which give names to ethnic groups, countries, cities, etc., take their meaning”7 (p. 212). What is more, as Piper (Piper, Dragićević & Stefanović 2005) pointed out, the creation of a dictionary of stereotypes would raise awareness of whether our perception of the world was false or not.8

References

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Brown, H. D. (1980). ​ Principles of Language Learning and Teaching.​ Prentice­Hall.

Bugarski, R. (2005). ​ Jezik i kultura​ . Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek.

Debrenne, M. (n.d.). ​ Le Dictionnaire des Associations Verbales du Français et Ses Applications.​

Université d’Etat de Novossibirsk. Retrieved April 26, 2015 from https://www.academia.edu/12038809/Le_dictionnaire_des_associations_verbales_du_fran% C3%A7ais_et_ses_applications Milojević, J. (2000). ​ Word and Words of English​ . Belgrade: Papirus. * Драгићевић, Р. (2010). Лексикологија српског језика. Београд: Завод за уџбенике. Драгићевић, Р. (2011). Лингвокултуролошка упоредна истраживања етнокултурних стереотипа. ​ Анали Филолошког факултета​ , 22, 201–204.

7

This quotation has been translated from Serbian by the author of this research.

This summary has been translated from Serbian by the author of this research.

8

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Пипер, П., Драгићевић, Р., Стефановић, М. (2005). ​ Асоцијативни речник српскога језика.​

Београд: Београдска књига, Службени лист СЦГ, Филолошки факултет у Београду.

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Appendix

Word Association Test

This form is anonymous. For the following member states of the European Union write the first thing that comes to your mind once you read them. It can be anything: a word, phrase, sentence etc. If nothing comes to your mind, feel free to skip the question.

Austria ________________________________________________________ Belgium ________________________________________________________ Bulgaria ________________________________________________________ Croatia ________________________________________________________ Cyprus ________________________________________________________ The Czech Republic ________________________________________________________ Denmark ________________________________________________________ Estonia ________________________________________________________ Finland ________________________________________________________ France ________________________________________________________

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Germany ________________________________________________________

Greece ________________________________________________________ Hungary ________________________________________________________ Ireland ________________________________________________________ Italy ________________________________________________________ Latvia ________________________________________________________ Lithuania ________________________________________________________ Luxembourg ________________________________________________________ Malta ________________________________________________________ The Netherlands ________________________________________________________ Poland ________________________________________________________ Portugal ________________________________________________________ Romania ________________________________________________________ Slovakia ________________________________________________________ Slovenia ________________________________________________________ Spain ________________________________________________________

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Sweden ________________________________________________________ The United Kingdom ________________________________________________________

Interview Questions

1. Students provided you with the data for the Associative Dictionary of the Serbian Language. Why are students always chosen to be respondents when it comes to this method?

2. Why is the associative method important for linguistics?

3. Are the results obtained by this method reliable enough to be used for generalisations about a certain group?

4. In your opinion, what is the main problem of this method?

5. How likely are the results to change after a certain period of time, when testing is done again?

6. Does the absence of associations imply anything?

7. Since the associative method is used for examining ethnocultural stereotypes, how can these stereotypes be recognised?

8. Do you think that globalisation has an impact on the creation of ethnocultural stereotypes?

9. Do you think that the past has an impact on the creation of ethnocultural stereotypes?

10. In what way do the media impact on the creation of such stereotypes? Is that impact seen as manipulation?

*****

Miloš Gajić is a student of English language and literature at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. His main interests include languages, politics, journalism, dance and theatre. He speaks three foreign languages ­ English, Spanish and Catalan. He is ambitious and dedicated to his studies, with the aim of becoming a professor and linguist.

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Mentor: Ana Tomović, language instructor, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade

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Why I love Dogme Vafeidou Avgi, Aristotelio College, Greece

Abstract This article presents the theoretical principles of Dogme and discusses the beneficial uses of Dogme methodology in classroom practices. It insists that Conversation­driven teaching or Teaching Unplugged can be as conducive to learning (if not more) as contemporary digital methodologies. Dogme is a communicative approach to language teaching that encourages teaching without published textbooks and focuses on conversational communication among learners and teacher. Advocates insist that by incorporating it in the valise pedagogique, the free­spirited, learner­centred and learner­generated teaching­unplugged approach with its materials light, conversation­driven and exploitation of the emergent language principles can contribute to the regeneration of the classroom atmosphere. However, opponents criticize Dogme for its perceived rejection of both published textbooks and modern technology in language lessons and believe that it increases the teachers’ embarrassment, perplexity and constraints. The article is based mainly on my reading, on my twenty­seven year experience of teaching not only in Greece but also in various impoverished contexts abroad and on numerous unstructured discussions with hundreds of colleagues, learners and parents throughout all those years.

Keywords: ​ Dogme, teaching unplugged, materials light, conversation­driven, emergent language, autonomy, regeneration.

Introduction Contemporary English Language Teaching classrooms and lessons are characterised by an abundance of teaching resources, materials such as coursebooks, photocopiable resource packs, flashcards, cuisenaire rods, word lists, and various kinds of technology applications such as e­books, videos, CD­ROMs, computers, OHPs, tablets, Interactive Whiteboard softwares, wikis, glogsters, weeblies and so on. Dogme is a profoundly communicative approach which believes in lessons done without any materials and technology or lessons that can make an

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eclectic compromise and accept minimum materials and low technology. Its aim is to effectively deal with the needs and concerns of the learners in the classroom, to promote a sincere, warm and equal teacher­learners dialogue and to free teachers and learners from the suffocating boundaries of predetermined lessons.

Dogme has ten key principles: 1. Interactivity​ between teachers and learners and amongst the learners themselves.

2. Engagement ​ of the​ l​ earners by content they have created themselves 3. Dialogic processes ​ where knowledge is co­constructed 4. Scaffolded conversations ​ where the learners and tthe eacher co­construct the knowledge 5. Emergence​ of language and grammar from the learning process 6. Affordances ​ through directing attention to emergent language.

7. Voice, ​ i.e the learner’s voice is given recognition along with the learners’ beliefs and knowledge.

8. Empowerment ​ of the ​ learners and teachers by freeing the classroom of published materials and textbooks.

9. Relevance​ of materials (e.g. texts, videos) for the learners 10. Critical use ​ of ​ published materials and textbooks in a critical way that recognizes learners’ cultural and ideological biases.

Scott Thornbury (2000), the father of Dogme, and his devoted follower Luke Meddings (2001) have introduced and analysed the positive sides of this approach in various ways (e.g. articles, books, videos, seminars, blog discussions, lectures) to a wide range of audience internationally and globally. Thornbury and Meddings focus the critique of textbooks on their tendency to focus

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on grammar more than on communicative competence and also on the cultural biases often found in textbooks, especially those aimed at global markets.

Literature review In 2000 Thornbury decided to use in the ELT classroom the Dogme principles which were initially applied to the cinema. The manifesto of the Dogme 95 film­making collective or, in other words, the "​ vow of chastity​ " was signed in 1995 by a group of Danish film­makers. They rejected the technical complexity of film­making and focused on the plot and the psyche of the characters. Dogme 95’s first commandment is that:

“​ Shooting should be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where the prop is to be found)​ ” (Thornbury, 2000).

In the same way, Thornbury suggested a shift from materials bound lessons to dialectical ones which would take place in a room with a few chairs, a board, a teacher and some learners and would focus their interest on the inner life of learners through authentic communication.

Meddings (2001) saw in Dogme an alternative approach that constantly draws on the experiences of the learners, is valid, flexible and adaptable to most contexts.Thornbury translated the above ‘commandment’ into classroom terms as follows:

“Teaching should be done using only the resources that teachers and learners bring to the classroom – i.e. themselves – and whatever happens to be in the classroom. If a particular piece of material is necessary for the lesson, a location must be chosen where that material is to be found (e.g. library, resource centre, bar, learners’ club.)

(Thornbury, 2000)

The literature on the usefulness and the general benefits that derive from the application of Dogme in any context is rich because Thornbury & Meddings have been very prolific in their effort to familiarize all the ELT practitioners with the details of this pedagogic ‘​ chastity​ ’.

However, those who oppose to Dogme see this call for a ‘​ vow of chastity’ ​ as unnecessarily

purist and fear that it might be daunting for some teachers –both newly trained and more experienced­ to work without the security of a textbook.

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It has to be said that the idea of a materials­free approach is not new. Back in 1963 Ashton­Warner in her article ​ The Roaring in the Chimney supported that rich materials deprived learners of using their own imagination and of picturing their own ‘ideas’. In the late 80s, Underhill was sceptical about the use of coursebooks written by people who had never met the learners of a specific class and did not know their learning styles and preferences. He went on and suggested teachers and learners’ creating their own materials based on what they wanted to say and what they were able to say.

Neither the idea of conversation­driven lessons making good use of the emergent language is a new one. Socrates, the classical Greek Athenian philosopher, used a communicative approach between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking. The Socratic method or ​ elenchus​ , which seems to have strongly influenced Dogme, is a type of pedagogy that encourages social interaction and productive dialogue and leads learners to teacher­independence and autonomy. Likewise, Vygotsky’s theories emphasize the fundamental role of language and collaborative dialogue in the development of cognition. In recent years Norton (2009) added that everytime language learners speak, they negotiate meaning and construct their identity. Thus interactive communication in real ‘talking classes’ ‘scaffolds’ learning, helps learners mature and acquire language functions. Hedge (2000:13) said: “​ There is a principle underlying current ELT practice that interaction pushes learners to produce more accurate and appropriate language, which itself provides input for other students”​ .

On the other hand, Gill (2000) supported that the 'no­tech' approach may work in many cases, but doubted the extent of its applicability to all contexts and cultures. He believed learners should be exposed to all possible resources due to the diverse learning opportunities they offer and feared that the absence of materials might be a challenge for less experienced teachers and might turn bad teachers into even worse ones. Undoubtedly, some teachers may feel that their role and 'power' is being undermined by this more learner­centred approach whereas some learners may feel uneasy about it at first, feeling they are not being spoon­fed a teacher­led lesson.

Some say that the Teaching Unplugged approach is better to be implemented in one­to­one lessons or in small classes where a teacher can easily identify and control all the contextual and

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cultural parameters. Though true up to a point, it has to be said that it is always a challenge to manage large classes and attract their attention. Unmotivated learners can exist in every classroom context , thus teachers should aspire to activate learners’ existing schemata, bring their lives in the classroom, speak the same language as the learners and be aware of their needs in order to provide interesting and consistent lessons.

Others say that the Teaching Unplugged approach is not practical in all contexts and teaching environments. Undoubtedly, there is a grain of truth especially with absolute beginner classes.

In all other contexts (e.g. low­intermediate levels, exam classes) the learners bring language and prior knowledge and it is therefore quite easy to adapt the approach to their needs.

Absolute beginners have almost empty language banks, their minds are like ‘​ tabula rasa’ and it is difficult to work with them, motivate them and build language. However, good teachers claim this is indeed the challenge: to start from where the young learners are, encourage them to learn and gradually construct learning.

But what is really a Dogme lesson?

A Dogme lesson is one in which the experiences, thoughts and knowledge of the learners in the classroom play the first role. It is a primarily communicative learner­driven lesson that is language­rich and books­and­technology­free or simply light where teachers use only the resources that they and learners bring to the classroom ­ i.e. themselves. In 2000 Thornbury was the first who questioned the contribution of materials overload and Obsessive Grammar Syndrome to language acquisition and learning. Numerous opposing ideas and views were expressed on the Dogme discussion forum ​ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dogme and through articles. Simon Gill (2000) expressed strong doubts about the applicability of Dogme and supported that ‘​ all the resources teachers use from a piece of chalk to a multimedia centre, can be valuable if used in a principled way’​ . The literature and past research on Dogme have focused on whether or not this approach is conducive to learning and on how useful or not it would be if we implemented it into classroom practices.

The teacher who uses the Dogme methodology goes into the class with no prepared plan and an open mind. Learners and teacher sit around the table and start talking. The Dogme lessons usually begin by simply asking a question which they expect all learners can answer.

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Afterwards, they continue by making use of what learners’ generate from a single word, allowing conversation to take place, shaping it and giving them immediate feedback; learners then have the opportunity to reformulate. The more differentiated, collective and asymmetrical the classroom culture is, the more facilitated the joint negotiation of meaning and construction of knowledge occurs.

When the teacher steps back and reduces her/his role, the learners are allowed to take control of the lesson and guide its direction.They rely on each other to reformulate questions, thus reducing their reliance on the teacher and encouraging group collaboration. Once the lessons start, they seem to take on a life of their own, with the students carrying the teacher along with their flow of ideas, contributions and enthusiasm. In their feedback, learners usually express the desire to “​ listen and talk to the teacher about things that are relevant​ ” to them and thus still see the teacher as the centre of the group. Most learners stress the importance of listening to and learning from each other, they like this kind of “free” interaction that comes from within themselves rather than being something imposed by the teacher. Inevitably,​ ‘communicative competence emerges normally from practice in communicative interaction that has meaning’ (Holliday, 1994: 54). It is obvious that the learners are aware of the fact that language is an emergent phenomenon and this kind of unprepared production which gives them a sense of ‘ownership’ of their learning increases their intrinsic motivation. Moreover, the non­stop dialogue in the classroom enables teachers to observe their learners and learn them better, and based on the nature of these observations they can modify their decisions concerning the application of methodologies.

Dogme in diverse classroom contexts Dogme is malleable and elastic; it can make some compromises and use different models of language in different contexts in order to meet the challenge of various learner populations and have the best possible learning outcomes on all levels. It can be used in combination with a coursebook or photocopiable authentic texts, it can employ pair and/or group work, it can use real­life tasks, simulations and role­plays (TBL), invest in experiential learning and project work and it is free to adopt drills, rote memorisation and translation to some extent (AUL). Lozanov’s Suggestopedia (1979) can make learners of a Dogme lesson have great results if they use their brain powers and if teachers employ relaxation techniques as a means of retaining new knowledge. Alternatively, a Dogme lesson can employ aspects of Gattegno’s Silent Way such

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as gestures and mime, aspects of content integrated learning (CLIL) or of any other theory of language or theory of learning which in turn will underpin choices of classroom methodologies and activities. These choices should be culturally­sensitive and be made at the local level after careful consideration of all the contextual factors.

The sociopolitical and sociocultural circumstances of every country are interestingly challenging and need to be studied in­depth before taking decisions concerning the implementation of Dogme or any approach in general. Learners of any context should be provided with the knowledge which does not alienate them from their familiar home culture. In Eastern countries like Japan or in African countries like Sierra Leone, the principles of Dogme should be incorporated without using common Western practices. Learners in those countries are not used to expressing themselves openly and communicating with their classmates in the classrooms. In Turkey learners resort to their mother tongue the minute they encounter the very first language difficulties. Teachers have to be patient, give them time to get accustomed to speaking in front of an audience and allow them to use their mother tongue or stay silent if that makes them feel safe. Thus depending on the characteristics and dynamics of the cultural context, a ​ pedagogy of the appropriate (Widdowson,1994) should be used, revise Dogme and practice that adapt it to local conditions in order to apply the ‘global thinking, local teaching’ ​ Berman (1994) recommended.

Feedback on Dogme applications I have personally used Dogme, actually hybrids of it, in a variety of contexts and I have exchanged views with many satisfied colleagues who dared to apply the ‘no­tech’ approach against all odds. In a technological society where parents are lured to register in schools that proudly advertise the existence of interactive whiteboards and computers in their premises, teachers who manage to teach lessons with the bare essentials are real artists. Most colleagues have concurred that Dogme helps them invest in human relationships and gives learners plenty of opportunity to express themselves. They maintain that the absence of technology and materials makes room for connecting learners to learners and learners to teacher through conversing, bringing learners’ lives in the classroom, exploiting emergent language and formulating and reformulating thoughts. The general idea is to develop a person­centred approach, communicate with learners genuinely, respect their personality and

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accept them; after all, Rogers (1951) insists that acceptance is essential to human development.

Teachers satisfied with the educational outcomes say that: ​ a) it takes some time to make the lesson roll smoothly, ​ b) their lessons are dynamic and learners enjoy them, ​ c) they themselves enjoy the lessons and learn much, ​ d) ​ learners, both synoptic and ectenic­ learn to speak by using the language, ​ e) learners enhance vocabulary, ​ f) learners develop autonomy and take control over and responsibility for their learning, ​ g) learners achieve personal growth through fruitful organic interaction, ​ h) ​ learners think the lessons are very interesting, ​ i) Dogme is a multi­faceted methodology that, if cleverly used, is appropriate for all kinds of learning styles: auditory, visual, tactile as well as kinesthetic and ​ j) parents are satisfied with the low –or no­ cost of books.

Teachers dissatisfied with their application of Dogme ­mainly in absolute beginner classes­ say that: ​ a) learners in large classes are unmotivated and class management is difficult, ​ b) absolute beginners have no language deposits and it is difficult to build on non­existent language, ​ c) it is difficult to cope with the absence of materials and technology, ​ d) there is a lot of ‘empty’ and awkward time during the lessons, ​ e) the absence of a lesson plan makes their lessons inconsistent and unfocused, ​ f) they do not feel comfortable and safe, ​ g) ​ learners do not like the lessons and ​ h)​ parents complain about the whole teaching approach.

Less qualified and experienced teachers may fear the non­stop dialogue which might expose their deficiencies or may need detailed lesson plans that increase their feeling of security.

However, teachers should bear in mind that just as someone can become musical virtuosos through practice, so too they can become virtuosos in Dogme with patience and practice.Using an Aristotelian metaphor, I wish to say that the process can be compared to learning a musical instrument: initially it’s a lot of hard work to learn the scales and practice the finger­work, but eventually it becomes second nature.

Conclusion Personally, I love Dogme because it combines both learner­centred and humanistic techniques by creating a classroom which includes:

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●

language as an emergent phenomenon coming from within the learner

●

a focus on learners’ interests, experiences and desires

●

the creation of a positive affective learning environment in enhancing learners’ confidence and self­esteem

●

cooperative, interactive learning

●

the production of language for genuine, meaningful communication or social interaction

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handing over control to the learners in lessons based on learner­generated input

●

increased motivation

I love Dogme because it can trigger learner creativity and promote communication and autonomy.

Bibliography

Fulan, M. ​ 1991. ​ The New Meaning of Educational Change. ​ London: Cassel.

Freire, P.​ 1997.​ Pedagogy of Freedom.​ Westview Press.

Hedge, T.​ 2000. ​ Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. O ​UP

Holliday, A. 1994. ​ Appropriate Methodology and Social Context​ . Chapter 2 'Coral gardens'.

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Meddings, L & Thornbury, S. 2009. ​ Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching.​ Peaslake: Delta Publishing.

Norton, B. ​ 2009. Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change.

Longman.

Rogers, C. ​ 1951. ​ Client­centred Therapy.​ Cambridge Massachusetts: The Riverside Press.

Rosenholtz, S.J. 1989. ​ Teachers’ Workplace: The Social Organization of Schools. ​ N.York: Longman.

ELT Journal Asthon­Warner, S. 1963. The Roaring in the Chimney in ​ Teacher 1963.​ London: Virago.

Available at: ​ http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/sources.htm

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Berman, R. 1994. Global Thinking, Local Teaching: Departments, Curricula, and Culture. ADFL Bulletin Vol. ​ 26,​ No. ​ 1. pp. 7–11 (5)

Gill, S. 2000. ​ Against dogma: a plea for moderation. ​ IATEFL Issues ​ 154. Available at:​ http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/gill.htm​ . Accessed 7.9.11 Thornbury, S. 2000. A dogma for EFL. ​ IATEFL Issues 153. Available at: http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/Dogma%20article.htm​ . Accessed 7.9.11.

Underhill, A.​ in the 80s.​ Teaching without a Coursebook.​ Available at: http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/sources.htm Widdowson, H. G.​ 1994. The Ownership of English. ​ TESOL Quarterly​ 28/2. pp. 377­89.

Useful Internet links Thornbury, S.​ 2000. D is for Dogme An A­Z of ELT Scott Thornbury's blog http://www.scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/z­is ­for­zpd/ Thornbury,

S.

2009.

Dogme:

nothing

if

not

critical.

Available

at:

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/dogme­nothing­if­not­critical Yahoo Dogme discussion forum​ ​ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dogme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_language_teaching

Useful videos Doing a Dogme lesson: ​ http://youtu.be/C5ZPlrMajDA

I​ nterview with Luke Meddings: ​ http://youtu.be/yrXIBY7MMzs Luke Meddings at the International House Conference 2012: ​ http://youtu.be/51Gs4mmB2h8

***** Avgi Vafeidou has been involved in English language teaching for twenty seven years.

Vafeidou speaks French, Serbian, Croatian, English, Italian and Esperanto, has a bachelor degree in English Philosophy and Literature from the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, a postgraduate diploma in Education Psychology from the National and Kapodistrian University in Athens, a full DELTA diploma from Cambridge University, an MA in ELT from Leeds

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Metropolitan University and is now doing a PhD on Intergenerational Classroom­based Studies in the University of Thessaly.

Email: ​ avafidou@hotmail.com

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​ ELTA Newsletter​ March ­ April 2016

UPCOMING EVENTS

● ● ● ● ● ●

Conferences Seminars / Trainings Competitions Summer Camps Webinars Announcement – Call for papers

CONFERENCES

* Call for papers still open for some of the conferences, check it out

rd​ ✓ The 23​ TESOL Macedonia­ Thrace Northern Greece Annual International Convention

Date: 26­27 March, 2016 Place:American College of Thessaloniki For more, follow the link: ​ tesolmacedoniathrace

✓ Graz ConneXion, ELT Frameworks

Date: 1­2 April, 2016 Place: Department of English Studies of the Karl­Franzens­Universität Graz, Heinrichstraβe 36, A­8010 Graz For more, follow the link: ​ Graz ConneXion, ELT Frameworks

✓ TESOL 2016 – International Convention & English Language Expo – Reflecting Forward Date: 5­8 April, 2016 Place: Baltimore, Maryland, USA

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​ ELTA Newsletter​ March ­ April 2016

For more, follow the link​ : ​ TESOL 2016

th​ ✓ 24​ Annual HUPE Conference

Date: 8­10 April 2016 Place: Hotel Ivan ­ Solaris Beach Resort Šibenik, Croatia For more, follow the link​ : ​ HUPE Confrerence 2016.

✓ IATEFL Birmingham 2016 Date: ​ 13th­16th April 2016 Place:​ I​ CC​ , Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2EA For more, follow the link​ : ​ IATEFL Annual­conference Birmingham­2016

th​ ✓ 14​ ELTA Serbia Conference – ​ One Child, One Teacher, One Book, One Pen can Change the World

Date: 20­21 May 2016 Place: Singidunum University Belgrade For more, follow the link: ​ ELTA Conference

* ​ Call for poster session at ELTA Conference This year’s poster session is a 45 minute presentation where teachers demonstrate a lesson plan or a classroom activity on the topic of William Shakespeare. It is presented on the poster and half of the time is devoted to questions and answers. The posters will be displayed in the venue hall and the presenters are expected to share ideas with participants.

For more, follow the link: ​ Call for poster session

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​ ELTA Newsletter​ March ­ April 2016

✓ 25th BETA­IATEFL Annual International Conference ‘Teaching and Learning English: from No Tech to High Tech. How to Motivate Learners?

Date: 4­5 June 2016 Place: Plovdiv, Bulgaria For more, follow the link: ​ 25th BETA_IATEFL Annual International Conference

✓ ELT Forum Date: 10­11 June, 2016.

Place: University of Economics, Bratislava, Slovakia For more, follow the link: ​ ELT Forum

SEMINARS / TRAININGS

✓ Towards Better Understanding 8 Date: autumn 2015 ­ spring 2016 Place: 16 towns in Serbia For more, follow the link: ​ TBU

✓ On­line courses – International Teacher Development Institute

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​ ELTA Newsletter​ March ­ April 2016

For more, follow the link: ​ iTDi.pro

COMPETITIONS

ELTA COMPETITION SHAKESPEARE 400 for teachers and students To mark 400 years since Shakespeare’s death, ELTA is organizing two competitions for English language teachers and students.

We invite you to send your authentic lesson plans, quizzes, games and other classroom activities related to the Bard’s life and work, which will be posted on ELTA’s site and Facebook page. Each month from February to May 2016, two book prizes will be given to teachers who send us the most inspiring ideas, and in June 2016, the teacher whose activity wins the most likes on Facebook will be given a special prize.

For more, follow the link: ​ Call for ELT Activities

SUMMER CAMPS

✓ SOuL Camps for Teachers Dates: ​ July 31st – August 7th 2016 and 11th – 18th August 2016 Places: ​ Penzión Roh, Lubina, Stará Turá and Eco­Center “Radulovački”, Sremski Karlovci, Serbia

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​ ELTA Newsletter​ March ­ April 2016

For more, follow the link​ : ​ SOuL Camps

✓ SOL Programmes for Teachers in Devon

Date: Summer 2016 Place: Devon, UK For more, follow the link​ : ​ SOL Programmes

✓ SOL Programmes for Students Date: Summer 2016 Place: Devon, UK For more, follow the link:​ SOL Programmes

WEBINARS

✓ Macmillan webinars Macmillan webinars

✓ OUP webinars OUP webinars

✓ SEETA Webinars SEETA Webinars

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​ ELTA Newsletter​ March ­ April 2016

ANNOUNCEMENT

English Language Teachers' Association of Georgia (ETAG),TESOL affiliate since 1995

ETAG has created a new academic journal for the scholars working in the field of Humanities and we want to invite experts internationally to contribute to it.

Call for papers is announced for the first issue of Online Journal of Humanities (OJH) created jointly by the English Teachers’ Association of Georgia (ETAG) and Tbilisi State University (TSU). Online Journal of Humanities is a peer­reviewed academic journal aiming at creating an open space for the exchange of theoretical and practical ideas in different areas of Humanities at both pre and post doctoral levels. OJH is monolingual and publishes articles only in English. It is officially registered under ISSN 2346­8149. Deadline for submitting the paper is March 15, 2016.

We also invite scholars working in different universities of the world to apply for the membership of our Advisory Board.

For more detailed information please view the website: etag.ge journal Or contact project manager Rusiko Tkemaladze rusikot@yahoo.com or editorial secretary Nino Jojua etagjournal@gmail.com

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COPYRIGHT

BY ELTA SERBIA

English Language Teachers' Association (ELTA) Nemanjina 28 11000 Belgrade