My Experience of a Team English Workshop

Last week (end of November 2007) I was invited by Ian Smith to take part in one of his Team English workshops run at his school in Klaeng. Before I start, let me give you some background information. I used to work with Ian at a school/college based in Laem Chabang, Chonburi province. I was a teacher there. Ian was Head of Studies. It was at Laem Chabang that I became familiar with some work that a workmate and colleague of mine, Zina Thiravithul, was doing with her friend Maggie MacDonald. It turns out that this early work was in fact the beginning (or birth) of Team English. I was teaching business at the time, so I only had a passing interest in Zina's work, but I was intrigued by what she was doing, particularly an activity she showed me that revolved around the use of basic phonics. It seemed so remarkably effective and it was so ideally suited to teaching young children to read.

Shortly after that, Zina moved to America. I went to work in Bangkok and I later returned to England for a year. While in the UK, I kept in contact with several of my colleagues, including Ian. I became interested in the huge amount of work he was doing (and is still doing) to develop Team English into what it has become now - an innovative method of teaching, which can be seen to work in practice in the classroom, and something that not only benefits students, but also teachers and the schools as a whole.

So, this brings us to the present time when I was invited to the workshop at Klaeng. The workshop, run by Ian, lasted three days. Apart from me there were three Thai teachers taking part: Khru Pueng from Wat Nongkankroo School, Klaeng; Khru Lek from Bansongsalung School, Klaeng; Khru Noi from Banthalambit School, Klaeng; and also, an Australian university student, Meg OConnell from Sydney.

Before we started the workshop, although I had an idea of what Team English was, I had never before seen it work. My understanding was that there were two main aspects to Team English: One, it is different to the traditional method of learning, and two, it can inspire motivation (and therefore classroom control). And both these aspects of Team English provide benefits.

The traditional method of learning is largely based on memory. Students remember individual words that they are told to remember, either verbally, or words that are written down. Quite often these words (or short sentences) are chanted and recited over an over again. The results are immediate. The drilling will ensure that the students can remember those words. But the major problem, which is not immediately obvious, is that the students' learning is limited to only those few words and sentences. If the students see another word that they have not been taught before, they have no idea what is says. Not only does the Team English learning method help students to read, but it also helps with their correct pronunciation - using the alphabet (not the alphabet that is traditionally taught: 'c' as is in see, 'a' as in aye, 't' as in tee etc. but 'c' as in cut, 'a' as in apple and 't' as in tut, so that students in recognising letters, and when applying certain taught phonic rules, can learn to build words themselves - c...a...t = cat). I must point out that what I am writing is based on my own understanding and observation. Other people may identify other important aspects of Team English.

The second aspect of Team English aims at student motivation and classroom control. By dividing the class into teams and appointing captains and vice captains, students identify with their team and are encouraged to ensure that they get maximum points from any games and activities - and also from good behaviour. You see, much of the learning revolves around team learning activities that fosters fun competition between the teams. Students earn points for their team (or lose points in the case of misbehaviour). Team English ensures that the students work together as a team, by helping each other to perform. (The role of the captain is therefore very important in providing leadership). In varying each lesson with different activities, games and role play, students can maintain concentration for longer without becoming bored.

All this sounds great in theory, but at the beginning of the workshop the question remained in my thoughts, will it work in practice? Over the three days, we took turns applying some of the activities to different classes with different age groups. Games such as 'Lucky Dip, and 'Matching relay', were used to teach graphemes, days of the week and months of the year. It was good fun and we all seemed to enjoy it - not just the students, but teachers too. Another activity, 'Team Coaching', encouraged members of the teams themselves to do the teaching, with the teacher simply acting as supervisor or onlooker.

I suppose it could be argued that in the workshop there were so many teachers in the classroom it was always going to be easy to maintain classroom control. So the question is, would Team English help to maintain classroom control in a large class with only one teacher? I put this question to the Thai teachers. They said that maintaining discipline in a large class of students was not easy. What they strongly concluded in unison was that the success of the Team English aspect in maintaining classroom control was largely dependent on the strength of character of the team captains. In fact, they seemed to be suggesting that the team captains were pinnacle to any chance of it being allowed to work properly. They said it was essential, especially in Thai culture with its recognisation of values and respect to hierarchy. As Pueng said,
"Good team captains will make all the difference. If they can control their teams like teachers, there will be few behaviour problems in the class. But if not, there will still be some big problems which may affect the working of Team English. Captains must be trained to have good leadership skills. Then Team English can work well."

I was interested to know what the other Thai teachers thought about the workshop in general:
Khru Noi said,
" In our schools we have very little time to develop our skills as we are so busy with so many jobs. But the workshop has helped us to learn so much, to develop our teaching and develop ourselves as people. The opportunity to do this workshop is very valuable because we, our students and our school will benefit."

Khru Lek said,
" The workshop has enabled me to meet new and interesting people, both foreign and Thai. We have been able to share our knowledge and ideas. The activities will be very useful."

Kru Pueng said,
" The traditional style of teaching uses textbooks and white boards and the children can lose interest quickly because they are only sitting and repeating, so the can get bored easily. This method of Team English has opened knew ideas and the activities help to increase learning in a huge way."

To answer my own question: will team English work in practice? Well, my observation was that Team English provided both immediate and long term benefits - to the students, the teachers and the school. The children enjoyed the activities. And we the teachers enjoyed the teaching.
What was also very satisfying to know, was the fact that children had not just learnt individual words that they the may or may not remember in the future, but with the Team English method they had learnt to build the words themselves. Thus, they had been equipped with the skills to read, for example, the month 'October' - and this benefit would remain with them for the rest of their lives.

Just another day in the drawing room...

Today I joined Prathom 2 and Khru Jeab for an art/vocabulary lesson! Where I learned a few new words myself.

Drawing or miming?

All the colours of the rainbow.

The art competition is coming along nicely, with all the kids participating and anticipating the results. Keep up the good work!

การอบรมเทคนิคการสอนการอ่านภาษาอังกฤษ

ระหว่างวันที่ 20-22 พฤศจิกายน 2550
ณ. โรงเรียนบ้านชำฆ้อ

การอบรมในครั้งนี้ได้มีครูผู้สอนภาษาอังกฤษช่วงชั้นที่ 1 จาก 3โรงเรียนได้แก่

1. ครูจงดี เจริญวงศ์ โรงเรียนบ้านท่าลำบิด
   
2. ครูนงนุช เอมอำไพวงศ์ โรงเรียนบ้านสองสลึง
   
3. ครูกรเทพ จันทนะผะลิน โรงเรียนวัดหนองกันเกรา
   

 
ได้เข้าร่วมสังเกตการสอนและฝึกทดลองสอนการอ่านภาษาอังกฤษโดยใช้วิธี Team English, Lucky Dip, Team Coaching, Matching Relay, Ball Drill เป็นการฝึกให้นักเรียนได้เรียนรู้จากการปฏิบัติ จนเกิดทักษะ เกิดความเข้าใจด้วยตนเอง และมีทักษะในการทำงานร่วมกันเป็นกลุ่มอย่างมีความสุข เด็กนักเรียนมีความกระตือรือร้นในการเรียนภาษาอังกฤษ ร่วมทำกิจกรรมอย่างสนุกสนาน สามารถใช้ภาษาอังกฤษในการสื่อสารได้เหมาะสมกับวัย

จากการสังเกตการสอนในครั้งนี้สามารถนำวิธีการสอนดังกล่าวไปใช้ในการจัดกิจกรรมการเรียนการสอนได้เป็นอย่างดีและควรที่จะส่งเสริมให้มีการสอนการอ่านภาษาอังกฤษอย่างต่อเนื่อง ในทุกระดับชั้น และขอขอบคุณผู้อำนวยการโรงเรียน และคณะวิทยากรโรงเรียนบ้านชำฆ้อ ที่เปิดโอกาสให้ได้เข้ารับการอบรมและถ่ายทอดความรู้ให้อย่างดียิ่ง

Van Gogh, Rembrandts and Prathom 6!

Crayons and pencils, paints and pens; the students have begun to let their imaginations wander on to paper!

With little persuasion, they took to the floor...

...and with Khru Bee's guidance, spent the afternoon using the left side of their brain!

They'll be fluent speaking artists in no time at all!

Teacher Training Starts

What a busy day at Ban Chamkho School! Apart from opening the Art Competition, as blogged by Meg, we had our first group of teachers come in from other schools for some informal training.

All three teachers teach Prathom (primary) 1, so we spent most of the day with P1 students.

Here we are as the day begins. The students are in their teams, but they don't have "uniforms" on yet. From left to right, that's Khru Tan (seated) from Ban Tha Lambit School, Khru Philaiwan and Khru Lek, regular P1 teachers from Ban Chamkho, Khru Dam from Ban Song Salueng School, and Khru Ten from Ban Nongtakrao School.







"1, 2, 3 go!" and the students are getting themselves set up for Phonics Lucky Dip.














Here I am, putting the #2s from each team through their paces.






In the afternoon, it was time for "Team Coaching", where team captains become the teachers. Here's Khru Tan helping the Blue Captain to coach her team on consonant-vowel blends.

What a luxury! 3 teachers between just 14 students. Homework for tonight is to think through how to run this by yourself when you have a class of 40 students. Still, that's what Team English is all about.

COMBINED VOCABULARY and ART COMPETION!

Today we announced the art competition, challenging all grades (from Anuban to Matthayom 3) to get out their paintbrushes and extend their vocabularies! The school was split up in to four groups based on ability and designated a number of vocabulary words to draw. There will be one winner for every word, who will receive a prize of five baht! This provides motivation for the students and rewards them for their efforts. All entries will be handed in by lunchtime of the 30th of November and winners will be announced on the 3rd of December!

Each winning drawing will be loaded on to the blog so that we can all view the artistic talents of the school and benefit from the research and execution of the task.

Chok dee! Good luck!

We look forward to seeing what the students come up with!

Art Competition

According to the foreign language curriculum guidelines from the Thai Ministry of Education, students should have a vocabulary of 2,500 words by the time they finish Mathyom (secondary) 3. That begs the question: what does it mean to have a word in your vocabulary?

Traditionally, in Thai schools, it means simply knowing the word's nominal translation, spelling, and perhaps a rough approximation of its pronunciation. I remember when I first started in this job, showing a picture of a cat to a student, asking what it was, and he proudly responding: "c cat maew", maew being the Thai word for cat. I tried to explain to him that the "c" and the "maew" were really unnecessary; that just "cat" would be fine, but he'd have none of it. "c cat maew” is what had been drilled in to him and “c cat maew” was what he was going to regurgitate!

To break through this kind of thinking, I've been setting up a picture bank of as much common vocabulary as possible. Of course, simply replacing translation with pictures is not going to solve the problem by itself, but it does contribute to the solution.

To that end, we're having an art competition at Ban Chamkho School. Meg O'Connell, a young volunteer from Australia, has come to help out this month, so this has been a good project for her to get her teeth into. Hopefully, Meg will blog a bit about her experiences here before she heads off back to Australia next month.

This Wednesday (14 November 2007), we'll announce the competition to the students, together with target vocab lists for each of Anuban (kindergarten), Prathom (primary) 1-3, Prathom 4-6, and Mathayom 1-3. If all goes to plan, our picture bank should have about 160 new items by the end of the month.

Each winning entry will receive prize money of 5 Baht (call me Mr Generosity ), and more importantly, the honor of being used in our learning materials. So expect some additions to our Downloads section, as Thais love to say, “coming sooooon”.

"Training" at Ban Chamkho School

So, finally the blog is up and running, and I can't think of where to start. Well part of the idea is to change my habit of writing rare epics rather than regular updates, so I'll try not to think too much.

If you'd like to know some background about our project, sorry but you'll have to catch up later - that's an epic that needs to be written when I'm in the mood for it. For now I'll just tell you about what's happening this month.

First, we have teachers from several schools in the area coming to Ban Chamkho School for "training". Training is in quotes because I don't plan to do much formal training. I'm hoping that by coming here and sharing in what we're doing here, it will make it easier to set up something similar in their own schools.

Last term, I think we made great progress at BCK, and ironically, that made it more frustrating for me trying to explain Team English, Synthetic Phonics, Lexical Approach and so on to teachers from other schools. So rather than waste my breath and their time, I invited them to come and see for themselves.

That being said, I did sit down today and map out a rough schedule, so we should have a good mix of observing the BCK teachers, traditional training sessions, teaching practice sessions and workshops.

What's the difference between a training session and a workshop? Call me old-fashioned, but I really dislike confusing these terms. My idea of a workshop is where we get together and physically make something - in this case, teaching materials. Perhaps "sweatshop" is closer to my intention, but then that's not very PC is it?

Anyway, the first group of teachers is scheduled to come Tuesday to Thursday of next week (20 to 22 November). I'll post some details and photos after that.