Summer is here and so are English language intensive courses. Adults and teens are lining up at your classroom doors, full of enthusiasm and ready to learn English. But soon they’re staring out the windows, looking up at the bright blue skies and wishing they were on the beach, or - frankly - doing anything but studying English for the next 100 hours.

So how can you turn it around and keep your learners on track and motivated this summer?

Systemic racism has a negative impact on the education of many students across the world. This can start as early as preschool.

Studies have also shown a correlation between teacher expectations and student achievement. Worryingly, these expectations can be negatively affected by racial prejudice.

Education should be a powerful force for social change

In recent history, various events have sparked a global uprising against systemic racism and discrimination. Protests have touched every part of society, from arts to sports to politics to education. A key demand is for real, structural change to society so that the lives of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) are valued as they should be. 

Mutuma Ruteere, former UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, said that “education has a central role in creating new values and attitudes and providing us with important tools for addressing deep-rooted discrimination and the legacy of historical injustices.” 

Promoting diversity and inclusion

As we look to the future, and imagine a world we want to live in, it’s important to examine how we create these materials and courses. Our aim is to ensure that what we produce is bias-free, inclusive and actively anti-racist.

Education will always remain a key instrument for disarming ignorance and bigotry.

We set up an Employee Resource Group (ERG), which has created a set of principles for Pearson authors and editors. The group’s aim is to lay the groundwork for courses that reflect all parts of a diverse society. 

The guidelines were developed by our BAME and African American ERGs. Ade Gachegua led the project alongside internal and external consultants, including the author of the Black Curriculum Report, Dr. Jason Arday. 

Challenges to overcome together

The guidelines identified five main challenges and suggested the following ways to overcome them:

1. Underrepresentation 

Are people from a BIPOC background equally represented in educational products? The guidelines recommend that people of different ethnicities should be included in all course material and portrayed as equal to one another.

Choosing texts and pictures which promote racial equality is also important. 

2. Exaggerated negative associations 

Negative associations are exaggerated when unfavorable characteristics or traits are linked to people of minority ethnicities again and again. This is how stereotypes are built and reinforced in the minds of learners.

We can take steps to prevent this by choosing our language carefully, avoiding racist texts and refuting any suggestion that behavior is linked to one ethnicity more than another. 

3. Limited positive associations 

Stereotypes of all kinds can be harmful - even positive ones. The guidelines recommend including people from minority ethnicities as positive role models in all contexts, not just the ones they might be traditionally associated with.

This way, we broaden our learners’ horizons and show them that they have the potential to succeed in any field, regardless of their background.

4. Missing stories 

When it comes to contributing to public life, individuals from minority ethnicities are often overlooked. For example, when it comes to history, educators tend to disregard contributions from ethnic minorities.

It’s not because their contributions are less significant, but because the long history of racism has led to their contributions to public life being more limited and deliberately overlooked. 

It’s important that educational materials include these ‘missing stories.’ This helps learners to develop a richer and more diverse view of society and its participants. 

5. The ‘problem’ frame 

Educational texts often speak about people from BIPOC backgrounds as helpless victims of their ‘own’ disadvantage. Instead, we need to view racism as a systemic, social and institutionalized problem, external to the individuals that it affects. 

Authors and editors use the guidelines and an accompanying checklist to ensure that our courses reflect all parts of a diverse society. This means that you can be confident that the classroom materials you’re using to teach your students will empower each and every one of them to reach their full potential.

You can apply this checklist to your own teaching and resources to help you ensure that what you are covering is diverse and inclusive. Making for a more positive classroom experience for all. 

Further reading

If you’d like some practical tips on making your classroom more inclusive, look at our blog post on the importance of teaching values to young learners. You can learn about bringing cultural diversity into your classroom as well. 

When you’re teaching English to young learners, you might find that there are a few students in your class who are struggling. But sometimes it can be hard to tell why. Is it because their language level is low? Or are they finding classroom work difficult because of a general cognitive difference, like dyslexia? 

You are nervous, yet excited. You want to appear relaxed and fun, but still be taken seriously. Most of all, you are keen to make an excellent first impression.

With all that in mind - planning your first English classes of the year can be a daunting experience.

Here are six things to consider when planning your first classes:

1. Set clear aims

Whether you are teaching young learners, teenagers or adults, it’s important you discuss the aims and objectives of the course from day one. You’ll need to learn more about your students' needs to do this. Why are they learning English? Do they want to prepare for an official exam? What activities do they enjoy? What things do they need to improve the most?

The way you do this will depend on the age of your learners. For example, with adults and teens, you could get them to interview each other and write a report about what they found out. With younger children, do a survey they can complete using smiley faces.

2. Find out students’ interests

Although you should understand your students' needs and why they want to learn English - to help make your classes relevant and engaging - you should also discover what they enjoy doing outside of class.

To do this, get students to write mini bios you can stick around the classroom. Or have them prepare presentations where they share something they are passionate about with the rest of the class - using coursebooks. As a class, go through the contents page, vote on which topics students find most interesting, and start with those.

3. Break the ice

You want your first class to be fun so that students are motivated, and associate English language learning with something they can enjoy. Ice-breakers can also be an excellent way to get to know each other and learn about your students' current level of English.

Activities where students have to ask each other questions work well.

4. Provide a comfortable environment

Young learners and teenagers tend to be shy at the start of a course - especially if they don’t know each other. Develop a rapport and break down boundaries by including team-building activities in your first class. Your aim is to have all the students feeling more comfortable with each other before the end of the lesson so that there are no awkward silences in future lessons.

5. Manage expectations

Managing expectations is an essential part of a teacher's job. Make sure in the first class you are clear about what you expect from your students and what they can expect from you.

Have students brainstorm the rules for the class and then make a big poster or ‘class contract’ which all students have to sign. Display the poster on the wall so you can always refer to it if someone misbehaves.

Try to keep the rules as positive as possible. Instead of writing: 'Don’t speak your first language', write: 'Try to always speak English and ask if you don’t know a word'. If you are feeling really brave, you can even get your students to devise a list of rules for you which you can display on the wall next to theirs.

6. Make it challenging

It’s great making your first lesson fun - but there’s nothing more motivating than leaving a new class and feeling like you’ve made a good decision and you are going to learn lots (and you aren’t wasting your time or money). This is especially important for adult learners.

So, as well as getting to know each other and finding out their needs, teach them something new. This could be 10 new pieces of vocabulary, how to structure a letter or report, or a list of resources they can use at home to practice their English.

No two teenagers are the same. Within all of our classes there tends to be not only a range of English proficiency levels, but also general learning styles, maturity, motivation, and personalities. This diversity can bring some challenges, but also opportunities to vary your classroom activities and teaching methodology.

Here are some ways to help deal with mixed-ability classes and ensure all your students experience success in their language learning journeys.

Intelligibility is the art of being understood by others. Many students think they need to speak a language flawlessly and with a native-like accent to make themselves clear, but this is not quite true.

While there is a correlation between proficiency and intelligibility, even students of lower general proficiency are capable of expressing what they mean, in a way that the listener understands, if they are using good intelligibility practices.

Being understandable in a second language is often extremely important in work environments, especially as the world becomes more connected and job markets more competitive. 

Intelligibility is a vital aspect of communication but it is not exactly a skill in itself. Instead, it is a combination of fluency, pronunciation, and managing your speed of speech. To reflect how important this is for language learners when studying, traveling or at work, we use an Intelligibility Index as part of our Versant English Test scoring.

This index is based on factors affecting how understandable speech is to fluent English speakers. These include things like speed, clarity, pronunciation and fluency. Ranging from 1 (low) to 5 (high), the Intelligibility Index shows how intelligible someone’s speech in English is likely to be in a real-world situation.

Let’s go into some activities and exercises you can try in class to help your students improve their intelligibility with their English and speaking skills.

Learning English with music can enhance learning and create a more engaging and dynamic classroom environment. In a previous post, we discussed if music can help you learn a language; this post looks at how music can be incorporated into the classroom.

Using music in your classroom can help improve student motivation, focus, and retention of information. Here are some ways you can use music to enhance your classroom teaching:

What is independent learning?

Students who are actively involved in deciding what and how they learn are typically more engaged and motivated.

That’s not surprising, because independent learners are extremely focused on their personal learning objectives.

According to Philip Candy, independent learning is “a process, a method and a philosophy of education whereby a learner acquires knowledge by his or her own efforts and develops the ability for inquiry and critical evaluation."

The 23rd of April marks the birth (and death) of William Shakespeare: poet, playwright and pre-eminent dramatist. His poems and plays have been translated into 80 languages, even Esperanto and Klingon.

It is remarkable how Shakespeare’s iconic body of work has withstood the test of time. More than four centuries on, his reflections on the human condition have lost none of their relevance. Contemporary artists and writers continue to draw on his language, imagery and drama for inspiration.

But, despite the breadth and longevity of his appeal, getting students excited about Shakespeare is not always straightforward. The language is challenging, the characters may be unfamiliar and the plots can seem far removed from modern life.

However, with the right methods and resources, there is plenty for teenagers and young adults to engage with. After all, love, desperation, jealousy and anger are feelings we can all relate to, regardless of the age group, culture or century we belong to!
So, how can you bring classic Shakespearean dramas like Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth to life?

There are many ways for your learners to connect with Shakespeare and get excited by his works. Here we’ll show you three classroom activities to do with your students and some indispensable resources to ensure that reading Shakespeare is as accessible and enjoyable as possible!