Here at Cambridge, we’re always keen to improve our ELT course books and materials by researching into how English is really used in everyday life, both by learners of English and by expert speakers. As part of this research, we’ve been collecting samples of spoken English from school students worldwide – particularly primary and secondary students, but we are also collecting recordings from adult learners too.
To help us gather more samples of spoken English from learners, the Language Research team launched our Language Research Ambassador competition last year for teachers and students all over the world. From October 2015 to April 2016, we asked teachers to submit recordings of their students to help us with our research into spoken learner English. The conversations could be on anything from discussing digital detoxes, deciding on what you’d take with you to a desert island to talking about men on the moon and describing puppets.
The response to the competition was overwhelming! Receiving recordings from schools in the Philippines, India, Spain, Saudi Arabia and more shows the willingness of teachers around the world – of course, this may also have a little to do with the chance to win an iPad mini and receive certificates for themselves, their school and their students.
The certificates in particular proved very popular! It was a tough decision, but the winner was eventually decided based on the number and quality of the recordings, range of students involved, and communication with us here at Cambridge, amongst other things.
And the winner is… Krenare Lleshi at Mileniumi i Trete in Kosovo – she did a great job and all of her students were fantastic for taking part. You can see a photo of her with all of her students holding their certificates at the top of this post. Krenare certainly felt both she and her students got a lot out of becoming language research ambassadors!
“By taking part in this research, I was reminded of our students’ potential and their willingness to participate in extracurricular activities. I was impressed by the significant number of students who were interested and took part in this research. Moreover, I was able to learn more about them outside the regular learning environment and could see how open they are. On a personal level, the participation on this research has helped me become more experienced in collecting and co-ordinating data.”
Of course, we can’t forget to mention our runner up, Remedios Gomez from English Learning Solutions in Spain. Well done to her and to all of her eager students too! As Remedios said:
“Taking part in the Language Research Ambassador competition has been a very positive experience; it was a definite success among students.”
We are so pleased with how the competition went that we decided to run a second phase that will end on 31st July this year. We’re looking for more teachers from around the world, including the UK, to contribute to our research. Go to our website to find out more and to sign up! And please feel free to pass this post on to anyone you may know who would love to get involved.