Empower co-author and teacher Craig Thaine, who has been involved in ELT for over 35 years, discusses research on how students prefer to learn and how we can accommodate that. During the webinar, Craig looks at learners’ language needs in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), examples of the kind of language they can study, and how they can focus on this language.
Craig begins by comparing texts from native and non-native English speakers, showing the differences in words and phrases used, as well as the areas where assistance is most needed, such as grammar, style and cohesion.
Key issues for mainstream students are highlighted, before focusing on the two main areas of the webinar; grammar and discourse.
Grammar
From the following, how do EAP learners prefer to study grammar?
• Card games or quizzes
• Rules without examples
• Noticing in academic reading texts
• Exercises on a computer
• Examples that are contextualised in articles
Listen to the webinar to find out if your answers match with Craig’s! The talk goes on to discuss three ways we can enable and encourage students when learning grammar, such as ‘scaffolding’ learners and being directive. Craig also reveals his top tips for aiding language noticing, including among others:
• Providing logically sequenced tasks
• Including a guided discovery element
• Setting a subject-specific reflection task
Discourse
While focusing on genre analysis, Craig demonstrates tasks to use in your own classroom to aid understanding, for example comparing three texts and determining what makes them different.
Watch the full recording below for more details, example tasks, and other hints and tips for improving learning progression:
If you enjoyed Craig’s webinar, find out more by looking at our EAP resources.