1

Vol. 1 N 2

From the Chair

Dear ARTESOLERS,

We are glad to issue our second TEIS
newsletter this year with articles from colleagues
from different parts of the world.

The 7
th
Southern Cone TESOl Covention
held in Buenos Aires this year helped us
promote our Teacher Education Interest Section
(TEIS) and network with many teachers who
visited our booth and also contributed with their
ideas and articles for this second e-newsletter.

Wed like to thank all the teachers who got in
contact with us during and after the ARTESOL
convention and who are willing to actively
participate in order to make the teaching of
English as a foreign language a respected
profession.

We look forward to hearing from you and your
experiences in the classroom.


Alicia Artusi Cecilia Chiacchio
TEIS Chair Chair elect
aliciartusi@infovia.com.ar
cechia@ciudad.com.ar


CONTENT
Page 1
Welcome message from the TEIS leadership
team
Page 2
From the editors
Page 3 -21
1Dealing With Difficulties In Large Classes. Dr Luke
Prodomou
2 Are We Champions? Why? What For?
Julia Franca De Lima And Solange Fish Braga











From the TEIS leadership team

Network!
Do you have something to say about an article in
the previous or current issue of TEIS Newsletter?
This is YOUR Newsletter and we would like to
hear from you.
E-mail us and the authors of the articles. They
expect to get in contact with you to exchange
ideas and concerns.


Survey from the TEIS team
What kind of information would you like to
read in this newsletter?


TEIS Leadership Team 2007-2008
Contact us!
Chair:AliciaArtusi
aliciartusi@infovia.com.ar
Chair-elect:CeciliaChaicchio
cechia@ciudad.com.ar
Senior editor: Marcela Jalo
mljalo@ciudad.com.ar
Editor: Eladia Castellani
eladiac@hotmail.com
Academic Consulting Editor: Mabel Gallo
Secretary: Amalia Marcovesky
amarcove@hotmail.com

3 Enter Sandman Intercultural Explorations In The
Classroom. Maria Del Pilar Martinez.
4 English In The High School Curriculum. Graciela
Baum.
5 A Didactic Sequence Based On A Holistic Approach
To Language Teaching. Marcela Jalo.
6 Writing And Strategies: From What There Is To
What It Should Be. Sandra Bayona.
7 Integration of Skills and Multiple Intelligences
Through Video Clips. Ethel Rosenberg.


TEIS NEWSLETTER

www.tesol.org.ar



2
8 Tips for Writing Essays at University. Silvia
Enriquez.
Page 22 Join our member community

From the Editors

A first look at this second TEIS issue reveals
that we have a mix of contributions and
practical ideas to be implemented in the
classroom and a wide range of topics such
as how to work with video clips or how to
teach writing strategies at higher university
courses.

In times in which disruption and
misbehaviour may easily find their way into
any class, Dr. Luke Prodromou, provides
some insights and practical classroom
solutions to manage large or disruptive
classes.

Jlia Frana de Lima and Solange Fish
Braga from Brazil show us how they could
use a topic so close to Brazilian identity such
as football in their English classes to reflect
on cultural issues.

Adolescents seem to get to lyrics more
readily than to written text, so Maria del Pilar
Martinez provides her students with the
tunes to get them interested in the lyrics.
Read her article, Enter Sandman:
Intercultural explorations in the classroom,
to see how she develops a topic by using a
song by Metallica.

Graciela Baum reflects upon the place
English holds -or is assigned- in high school
curricula and the ways in which teachers
tackle and target its didactic transposition.

Marcela Jalo believes that the most effective
conditions for language learning come about
when students engage in meaningful tasks
on a personal level. She compares two
views of language learning, and designs a
series of activities based on a movie Billy
Elliot to be used in the classroom.

Video clips- a combination of poetry, music
and images reflecting culture- can be used
as a springboard for integrating the four
skills and developing multiple intelligences.
Read Ethel Rosembergs Integration of Skills
and Multiple Intelligences through video
clips.

Writing strategies seem to be an issue
among university students so Sandra
Bayona presents her ideas to guide students
into academic writing.

In the first TEIS Newsletter issue, Silvia
Enriquez, suggested Tips for approaching
the writing of an essay. As a continuation of
her article she concentrates on the actual
moment of producing the written work, and
suggests university students ways to
communicate their ideas effectively.

We hope you enjoy this second TEIS issue.

Marcela Jalo Eladia Castellani
mljalo@ciudad.com.ar
eladiac@hotmail.com
































3


1 DEALING WITH DIFFICULTIES IN
LARGE CLASSES.
Dr. Luke Prodromou. United Kingdom

One of the most chronic problems faced by
teachers is large noisy classes or even small
noisy classes. But even quiet classes may
not be paying attention, even if the students
are looking in your direction; the mind may
be miles away. Another bugbear for
teachers is how to organise pair and group
work. These problems apply to young,
adolescent and adult learners.
In this article I describe techniques for
managing large classes, re-organising them
and getting the attention of students in the
crucial early moments of a class.

Large Classes and Classroom
Management
To be a successful teacher, the sense of
time, of pace, the use of space and the
ability to energise a group of people brought
together on a random basis, are essential, if
elusive, skills in the classroom. We should
encourage teachers to focus on the following
aspects of managing large classes:
* Managing large numbers It is easy to
lose control, or at least the feeling of control,
with large classes of kinaesthetic kids,
restless adolescents and indifferent adults.
* Starting right Opening strategies
and warm-ups are essential for getting a
lesson off to a flying start and may save
valuable time later.
* Handling latecomers Responding to
and integrating learners who arrive late may
salvage the coherence and smooth
development of your lesson.
* Engaging students with the material
Making the textbook and any
handouts you use appealing and relevant to
learners will help keep the class focused.
* Moving students around
Communicating with others frequently
involves interaction and getting students out
of their seats; it is important to ensure
smooth and orderly movement around the
class.
* Drilling Teaching large restless classes
involves making the most of every trick in
the methodologists book including
controlled practice.
* Speaking This basic skill is often
neglected due to negative experiences at
classroom management.
* Finishing right A good class, like a good
performance, ends on a high note or on a
note of calm reflection, whereas most
classes end with an abrupt, relieved and
messy thats it for today.

Activities for Dealing with Diversity

A. Starting right
Entry music
Level Any
Aim To build rapport and create an
English classroom space
Duration 2 minutes at the beginning of
class
Materials A recording of theme music
to begin the class, a CD/tape player.
Skills/language None


Preparation
Get to class five minutes before your
students and cue up the music you would
like them to hear as they arrive.

Procedure
Set the mood for the English class by having
music playing as students come in. Greet
the students, but dont make a big thing of
the music. It should be background music.
Leave the music on as students get settled.
When you turn the music off it will provide a
break, at which point it is easier to get
everyones attention and begin the class.

Note
You can have different music for different
kinds of day:
o a bouncy pop song for a sunny day
(especially if it is the first sunny day
in ages)
o a heavy piece of classical music
(Beethoven or Wagner) for a test
o light classical music (Vivaldi or Bach)
for a normal day
o topical songs for times of the year
(e.g. Christmas, Halloween,
Valentines Day)


4
o music by a certain artist if that person
has been in the news.

B Managing large numbers

The attention-getter
Level Any
Aim To organise the class
Duration 10 minutes
Materials None
Skills/language Understanding
instructions; speaking practice

Preparation
Decide and prepare what your attention-
getter signal is going to be.

Procedure
Tell the class that in pair- or group work
there will often be a lot of noise. It is
important for students to know what they
have to do and when to stop. To ensure this,
sometimes you will need all their attention.
Explain that for this you will show a signal.
When they see, or hear, the signal they
should stop the activity and look towards
you. Explain that for the next activity you are
going to practise the signal with them.
Write on the board:

Work in groups of three or four
maximum.

Let the class organise themselves into
groups. When the noise level begins to rise,
give the signal. Praise the class once they
stop and look towards you.
Write on the board:

Tell each other three TRUE things
about yourself and one LIE.

When most students have completed the
task, give the signal, and praise them again
once they pay attention to you.
Write on the board:

Guess which of the four facts you
heard was a LIE.

Repeat the same process again.

Follow-up
Use the attention-getter signal regularly in
class.
Note
I recommend against using a shouted OK!
or RIGHT! as the signal. Students might
not hear this and repeatedly shouting and
straining is bad for your voice.

The Attention-getter:
o Raising a hand or both hands
in the air
o Ringing a bell
o Clicking the lights on and off
o Holding up and waving some
kind of distinctive object (a
colourful feather or a flag)
o Showing a blank
transparency on the overhead
projector
o Moving to a specific part of
the room and making a signal
o Tapping lightly on the
microphone, if you are using
one


C Engaging students with the material

Listen and stand
Level Any
Aim To get the attention of a large
class; introduce a difficult
listening or reading text
kinaesthetically
Duration 10-15 minutes
Materials An extract from a course
book; pieces of paper
Skills/language Listening or reading

Preparation
Scan your listening or reading text for the
words you want to focus on if possible,
choose words which are repeated in the text.
If you want to add your own repetition of a
word, change the text by replacing the
original words with the words you wish to
focus on.
Write the chosen words on pieces of paper.

Procedure
Give the slips of paper with the chosen
words to different groups of students before
they read or listen to the text.


5
Tell the class you are going to read a text to
them. Every time they hear the word written
on their paper (or any derivative of it) they
have to stand up and sit down again.
After reading the text aloud, ask the class to
recall which words each group stood up to.
Then, ask them to tell you what the text said
exactly?
The students read or listen to the original
text and the lesson proceeds as normal.

Note
This activity is based on an idea by Ken
Wilson. It is ideal for a large class as:
o It always manages to raise a
laugh.
o It gets the whole class attention
o It eases the students gently into
what might be a difficult text.
o It gives them a sense of
ownership of the text: standing
up when they hear their word
makes the text more familiar,
friendlier. When they listen or
read the original text, they are
driven forward by the knowledge
that their words are buried in the
text.


D. Finishing on a lighter note

Split jokes
Level From intermediate onwards
Aim To get students attention;
create relaxed atmosphere
Duration 10 minutes
Materials Slips of paper (or cards) with
half a joke on them
Skills/language Speaking and listening

Preparation
Copy half a dozen jokes onto slips of paper,
in halves. For example,

Waiter, will the pancakes be
long?
No, sir, round.
Procedure
As the students arrive, give them each a
card with the first or second half of a joke
and ask them to memorise it.
Ask any student with the first half of a joke to
call it out. The student with the other half
calls it out.

Student 1: Waiter, waiter, whats this
fly doing in my soup?
Student 2: Swimming, sir!

Students should be allowed to consult their
card if they need support.
When all the jokes have been heard, ask the
students to recall and write down as many
jokes as they can. Remember: this is not a
test but a rapport-building task!

Variations
The students memorise their words and
circulate, saying their half of the joke to
partners till they find their other half. If
you want to change the seating
arrangements, they can then sit with that
person.
Instead of using jokes, you could use
well-known English proverbs (e.g. Too
many cooks / spoil the broth). At the end
of the activity ask students for similar
proverbs in their language.


Dr. Luke Prodromou has published
numerous articles in ELT journals and has
written over twenty textbooks, including the
Star Series (Macmillan) and FCE Grammar
and Vocabulary (Pearson). He has just
completed a new course for young learners:
Smash (Macmillan). He obtained his Ph.D
from the University of Nottingham, UK. He
also has degrees from Bristol, Birmingham
and Leeds Universities. Luke is a Visiting
Fellow of Leeds University (Metropolitan),
UK.
The ideas in this article are based on
material from a new handbook for teachers
Dealing with Difficulties (DELTA Publishing)
which Luke wrote with Lindsay Clandfield.






6


2 ARE WE CHAMPIONS? WHY?
WHAT FOR?
Jlia Frana de Lima and Solange Fish
Braga Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
julisolep@gmail.com
Brazil is considered the country of football
and this has an undeniable importance in
the construction of Brazilian national identity.
Here, football is a kind of sport that involves
contrasting emotions: no other sport activity
joins sorrow and joy, hate and passion as
football does. During the 2006 Football
World Cup, we, English teachers, and our
5
th
, 6
th
and 7
th
grade students from a private
school, Colgio Santa Teresa de Jesus, in
Rio de Janeiro, started a process of
reflection that was later expressed in a
poster entitled Are we champions? What
for? Why?
This poster was presented by the students,
first, at our school during a special week
called Open Space for Education and
Culture. A month later, in November 2006,
it was shown at the 8
th
Exploratory Practice
Annual Event, at PUC-Rio, Pontifcia
Universidade Catlica, in Rio de Janeiro.
Finally, we showed the poster at the 7
th

Southern Cone Conference hosted by
ARTESOL, on July 14, 2007 and it could be
appreciated by teachers and students
present at the event.
World events used in the classroom
Being English teachers, both of us and our
students worked to understand the puzzles
that emerged in our English language
classes during the month of the 2006
Football World Cup. As Exploratory Practice
(EP) teachers, we believe that life in the
classroom is dynamic and that a never-
ending process of observation and collegial
reflection can help us understand the
puzzles that we teachers and learners
are interested in understanding. Football,
competition, national identity had a
considerable impact on the school life during
the World Cup and the English classes
became a forum to welcome this dynamic
process, a place to share and reflect on
different feelings and contrasting
expectations.
Profiting from a popular event: The World
Cup.
In this process, students and teachers read
American, British and Australian online
frontline headlines and their interest and
motivation led them to engage themselves in
many different activities. Fifth 5
th
grade
students (aged 10) wrote their comments on
the World Cup and emailed them to the
newspapers. They also prepared a picture
dictionary about football words contrasting
international English language and
Portuguese cognates. The sixth 6
th
grade
classes (aged 11) did a research on flags
and uniforms and drew players for each
participating country. After that, these
students created soccer board games with
questions and answers about soccer rules
and had fun playing together. The seventh
grade (aged 12) students, in pairs,
researched the official language, currency,
population, area and continent of each
participant country. They drew flags and
wrote a summary of the respective country
research. All classes sang the song by the
English band Queen, We are the
champions and we reflected on the
message and the ideas in it.
All these different activities were taking
place while Brazil was being eliminated from
the competition. The passion, enthusiasm,
joy, creativity, all turned into sadness,
frustration, and despair. Involved by this blue
atmosphere, a group of students
remembered the song and its lyrics triggered
discussion on topics such as these:
Are we champions?
Champions of what?
What for? Why?
Working and reflecting
Those were some of the puzzles that
promoted rich collegial reflection on this


7
famous passion and devotion for football
and the feelings of sadness due to the
countrys defeat. The groups work for
understanding was organized into Potentially
Exploitable Pedagogic Activities (PEPAs).
These are common classroom activities that
offer opportunities for integrating pedagogy
and reflection on issues that puzzle learners
and teachers.
In the table below, we relate the students
puzzles, the activities, the language
teaching/learning points and the
understandings.
Puzzles PEPAs


Are we the
champions?
reading of online
newspapers
research on flags and
uniforms
preparation of picture
dictionary
creation of board games
Champions of what? listening, reading and
singing the song
Why do we like being
a champion?
creation of video-clips
using movie maker
What is it to be a
champion?
creation of video-clips
using movie maker

Opportunities for
language teaching /
learning

Understandings
international words
cognates
nationalities
colors
countries
soccer rules

Sometimes we are the
champions.
Sometimes we are not.
It all depends on our goals
nouns related to
feelings and emotions
We like to be Soccer
Champions
comparative forms of
adjectives
We like to be champions of
football but we would like to
be champions in our lives
simple present:
questions/answers
Is it to overcome difficulties?

Students discussed and reflected on the
feelings that dominated them and the whole
country before, during and after the Brazilian
games. Some of them wrote:

I think being a champion is much
more than winning a game, it is to overcome
limits imposed by life.
We arent champions because
we must reach a lot of goals to get a better
world. We want to be champions of peace,
health and education because we are
looking forward to that better world.
We are champions because
every day we wake up and we are able to
survive in the world we live nowadays.
We want to be champions of
solidarity to help others and to build a better
nation.
During the 8
th
EP Annual Event at PUC-Rio,
Professor Dick Allwright, the intellectual
mentor of the Rio EP Group, answered the
students question about what is to be a
champion: To be a champion is to be the
best you can be, without making that more
difficult for other people.
Follow- up activities
The students understandings of why the
victory or defeat of the Brazilian football
team affected their lives inspired them to
create video-clips about these feelings in the
school computer lab. We worked a lot. The
students excitement was contagious.
Integrating normal classroom activities to the
work for understanding what was going on in
our students and in our lives as teachers,
both inside and outside the classroom, made
our work more productive and pleasant.
References
Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory Practice:
Rethinking practitioner research in language
teaching. Language Teaching Research,
7,2, pp. 113-141.

Solange Fish teaches English in
municipal and private schools in Rio de
Janeiro. She is an EP practitioner and has
been presenting posters and workshops
together with her students at teacher events.
Jlia Frana de Lima is a teacher of
English in Rio de Janeiro public and private
schools. She works with Exploratory
Practice and has been presenting posters
and workshops with students at events.
julisolep@gmail.com




8
3 ENTER SANDMAN:
INTERCULTURAL EXPLORATIONS
IN THE CLASSROOM
Mara del Pilar Martnez
Pergamino, Buenos Aires, Argentina
maryadelpilar@yahoo.com.ar

Language and culture
Language is bound up with culture in
multiple ways (Kramsch, p.3). Because of
this when teachers teach English they
should bear in mind how important it is to
build a sphere of interculturality between the
linguistic forms to be taught and the social
structure those forms come from. In order to
understand a foreign culture, learners should
relate the culture of the target language with
their own. One way of achieving this is to
resort to Literature, the most precious tool
that makes language and culture converge.
It is in song lyrics that Literature finds its
widest expression. There is an undeniable
fact about music: its universality. Music
provides the scenario and lyrics the vehicle
through which expression finds its way.
Through listening to the word and through
further reading the word, people interpret
song lyrics and adequate them to their own
cultural social reality, they fill in the gaps of
indeterminacy (Rossenblatt, 1978) that
there exist in the lyrics with their own stories
/ histories and so they go back into their
past, visualize their present and get forwards
into a projection of their future. Sometimes it
does happen that the culture the lyrics
reflect does not resemble the culture of the
people who listen to it. Here is when
interculturalism comes into play.

Adolescents do get to lyrics more readily
than to written texts, they start by first feeling
identified with the tunes to then become
interested in the lyrics. Taking advantage of
this is the job of teachers. This means,
taking advantage of the pleasure music
awakens in students and profiting from the
learners curiosity for knowing what the lyrics
mean. Bringing songs to class may assure
success in the sense that students
experience appropriation of some songs or
lyrics because of the added value that
English has in the Argentine culture. Thus,
teachers should use this added value in
order to make students reflect on the native
and on the foreign culture, and to promote
multiple responses.

Using song lyrics during the first week of
classes
The following is an account of a whole topic
unit and of how an intercultural approach
was implemented in a state school in
Buenos Aires Province in Argentina.
It was the first day of the academic year and
the students, who up to that moment, had
been always taught English under a
traditional grammar-oriented method that
focused mainly on the testing of how much
grammatical knowledge had been acquired,
were now introduced into a somewhat
different proposal. They were going to follow
a syllabus that had been organized into
topic-units. The first one, the one this article
is about, was called Fears, no textbook
was going to be used, the material designed
for the whole year had to do with song lyrics,
and the evaluation centered on portfolios
and oral presentations.
The first class started with the teacher
writing the name of the first unit Fears on
the blackboard and followed with the
presentation of these lines:

Say your prayers little one
Dont forget, my son
To include everyone.


The students were asked to discuss in
groups and then answer the following:
1. Who is saying this? Who to?
2. What personal experience/s do these
lines remind you of?
3. Where do these lines come from?
4. What time is it? How do you know?

All the students answered the first question
by saying that the speaker was a woman
talking to her son / daughter, none of them
thought it could have been a man; an
answer very coherent with the culture these
students are immersed in, a culture that
positions women as the ones that are in
charge of their childrens religious
education. As for the other questions they


9
said that the lines reminded them of their
childhood, and some said of their
grandmothers. Question 3 had different
answers: these lines are from a letter a
religious book ... a prayer a note
someone wrote etc. As for question 4 all
the answers were coincidental: bed time
because people pray at night. This answer
provided the basis for the next set of
questions:
1. Do you pray at night?
2. Did you use to pray at night?
3. Do old people pray at night? Why?

All the students were able to give an answer
to these set of questions, even the ones
who never prayed or had different religions
or no religion at all.
At this point the students were told that the
lines came from a song by Metallica called
Enter Sandman; most of them knew the
song but they did not know what the song
was about. On the following lesson they
listened to the song while reading the lyrics
and they answered the following:
1. Whats this song about?
2. What is the Sandman?
3. Who or what is the beast?

At this point, the work started to be much
more personalized, the students themselves
decided to leave their groups, for it was very
difficult to reach an agreement as regards
the answers, though they were rather
similar, each of them wanted to talk about
their very own mental representations, that
is their own memories. However, the
interesting part was, in fact, when they had
to answer the question about the Sandman,
in Spanish el hombre de arena, literally
the man made of sand; which did not make
any sense to them. They could not fill in the
gap that this word provided, for their native
culture did not give them the necessary
elements to apply their schemata to the
meaning of the new word; so they just had
context of the song to rely on. Some said
the Sandman was a kind of hero, others a
monster, others said it was a bad character
that frightened little children.
Then, they were given the answer:

The sandman, in
folklore, is a figure
who brings good
sleep and dreams by
sprinkling magic
sand onto sleeping
children. The
sandman is also a
symbol of the
passage of time to
death; he is
sometimes depicted
as the grim reaper
holding an hourglass
and scythe.
(www.wikipedia.org)

At this point they were asked to associate
the Sandman with other characters they
knew from their childhood to see whether
there were any similarities. They mentioned
characters such as: el hombre de la bolsa
(the man with the bag: a man who carries a
bag and puts little children who misbehave
in it); el viejo (the old man: an old man who
scares children who misbehave); la
llorona(ghost of a woman said to roam the
streets wailing); el cuco ( the bogey man:
an evil spirit who scares children); but they
found no coincidence between these
legendary characters and the Sandman.
The next set of questions had to do with
their own fears when they were little
children, and then, they wrote twelve words
they associated with the word nightmare as
an assignment for the next lesson.
On the next lesson they were asked to read
aloud the words they had chosen and they
were told that they had to borrow words 5
words from their mates lists in order to
enlarge their own. After that, they were
asked to classify the words in groups under
headings.
The next activity was to write a poem or a
text using the words chosen. After writing
the poems, and for a coming lesson, the
students answered these questions:

1. Whats your most terrifying dream?
2. Do you have recurrent dreams?
3. How do you fight back nightmares?
4. Do you daydream?
5. Which is your most cherished dream?


10
6. If you could write a message on a wall
for the whole world to see about your
most cherished dream, what would you
write?

For a last activity each group brought
posters about the Sandman and a collage
that represented their dreams. Each group
had to talk about the meaning/s hidden in
their productions. They also brought songs
that talked about their dreams. Imagine by
J. Lennon was the song everybody said was
the best choice for this activity because
these lyrics promote equality and
understanding through cultures.
When the unit finished, they were given
questions to rate these activities in terms of
complexity, personal involvement and what
they had learnt.

Conclusion

Learning a language implies learning about
different ways of thinking and seeing the
world. Interpreting texts means interpreting
cultures and understanding differences by
finding meanings in intertextual relations.
All the activities mentioned above position
students as producers of meanings that
stem from the transfer: their own culture and
take the meaning/s of the target culture,
transform them, adapt them and appropriate
them, so as to allow students to construct
their own personal understanding. Only by
being challenged to make sense of the L2
text will the students widen their horizons.

Bibliography
o Kramsch, Claire. (1994) Context and
Culture in Language Teaching.
Oxford. OUP.
o Enter Sandman by Metallica, The
Black Album, 1991.
BIODATA
Mara del Pilar Martnez is a teacher at
primary and tertiary levels in Pergamino,
Buenos Aires, she is a teacher trainer for the
Buenos Aires province and has lectured
about Teaching English as a foreign
language on many occasions. At present
she is attending a master Degree at
Universidad de Ro Cuarto in Anglo-
American Literature.
maryadelpilar@yahoo.com.ar



4 ENGLISH IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
CURRICULUM

Graciela Baum
La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
graciela_baum@hotmail.com

English in high school appears to be
undervalued and therefore its acquisition
process overlooked- by curriculum
designers. Eighty minutes a week? A
hundred and twenty minutes a week? Not to
mention preliminary organizational instances
which take some ten minutes off net class-
time. And that is what we, teachers, are left
with. Needless to say not enough. But that is
what we have for the moment being, and we
had better make good use of it. The question
is how to.

A valuable sociological construct which can
be easily extrapolated to analyse high
school as a pedagogical setting is the
system of activity coined by Engestrm
(1993). Its parts are: the subject; the
instruments used, mainly the semiotic ones;
the object to be acquired or objective that
regulates the activity; the reference
community in which the subject and object
are inserted; the norms or behaviour rules
which regulate the social relations of that
community; and the rules that regulate the
division of tasks within the activity. These
elements defined by their relative and
reciprocal position- though indefinitely and
dynamically articulated with other elements-
bear a relationship of inclusive separation
among themselves. Whats the heuristic
value of this relation? That the parts of the
system can be separately analysed with the
single aim of understanding the relationship
that holds them together as a system.

Thus, let us start by the subject, the student,
our student. An adolescent whose general


11
phenotypical traits we know. Roughly,
teenagehood equals identity search through
confusable role assumptions, sexual
maturity and ambivalence, instances of
mourning due to losses from childhood,
overidentification and overcohesiveness with
peers, and moral reciprocity, among other
aspects. An adolescent whose curricular and
particularly extra-school contact with English
our object- is mostly rich and personally
significant. Why?
Because he most probably understands and
uses the language of virtuality and
technology, most probably ciphered in
English. He most probably enjoys foreign
music, movies, TV series and cartoons,
most probably scripted in English. He is
most surely interested in getting updated
data whose access is technologically
mediated and referenced in English. He no
doubt chats or would like to- with peers
from other countries and cultures,
doubtlessly speakers of English. And he
buys goods whose operation he decodes
through English; and he dresses in T-shirts
printed with slogans in English...
So, from this perspective, is he far from
English, or is school distancing him our
subject- from English our object? Or,
should we relativize the question and restate
it as: What is our object? Our pedagogical
object, that we strive to didactically
transpose.
Or, self-referentially and reflectively, should
we again reformulate the question into: How
do we teach our student? How should we
teach our student? Declaratively,
procedurally, both ways?

This psychological subject our student-
constructs himself in interaction with the
physical and socio-cultural environment. The
latter, a postmodern world and society with a
strong existential dictum: I am what I have
nowand as effortlessly as possible
Hedonism prevails. However, school our
reference community- is still a modern
institution, inspired by and in Illuminist
principles our norms?- of rigidity,
dogmatism, atomism, and the search of
knowledge for its own sake. Principles which
no longer apply to understand and explain
our, his contemporary world.
Mind you. Our postmodern teenage student
will learn significantly and procedurally, or he
wont. He will relate to English as a tool to
operate upon reality empirically, cognitively,
socio-affectively, aesthetically, or he will not
at all. Not as an end in itself. Not for its own
sake.

He will find in English a means to other
learnings, a passport to other cultures and
possible worlds. He will gain an intellectual
instrument to interpret and reinterpret, to
construct and reconstruct the globalized,
multicultural, multilingual, hypermediated,
and highly provisional world in which he
lives. This is the object, the knowledge of
English we as teachers can and should offer
him. Because this knowledge stems from a
committed and conscientious search into his
position in the world today. This is the
knowledge which would bridge the gap
between real and display learning, between
ephimeral and life-long education.

Mounted on some of the ideas outlined
above, here goes a sample third generation
task (Nunan, 2001) to start reorienting
pedagogical practices in high school.

Sample class
Task title: Wearing Love, Peace and Care
Objectives:
Linguistic: incidental recycling of
imperatives, though no explicit linguistic or
structural focus is likely to occur.
Lexical: vocabulary linked with the topic
emerging from the title. Polar lexis is likely to
appear and worked with.
Functional: opinionating, agreeing,
disagreeing, persuading.
Strategic: use of cognitive strategies to
synthesise ideas; social strategies for whole-
class and collaborative groupwork
interaction and negotiation; metacognitive
strategies to revise, edit and control
processes and products involved; aesthetic
strategies for outcome.
Pedagogical: on-going reflection, critical
thinking, verbalization, awareness-raising


12
and symbolic operation upon the values
approached.
Estimated time: 60-70 minutes.
Stages and Procedures
a.Pre-task and whole-class ice-breaker
(estimated time 20)
Title exploitation. What does the title suggest
to you? Can you wear Love, Peace and
Care?
Contextualization and Instructions
rubrics.You are visiting the USA and decide
to go shopping. You stop in front of a store
called Wearing Love, Peace and Care. Look
at its window! Its full of T-shirts. Which are
you going to buy? Why? Choose two.



(These are supposed to be the T-shirts on the window)

T mediates turns in class discussion and
scaffolds lexis on demand.

b. Task cycle and collaborative group work
(estimated time: 30 minutes)
SS are assigned letters A-B-C-D-E and
grouped accordingly.
Task proper. Contextualization and
instructions rubrics. You look great in your
new
T-shirt but now you want to create your own
slogan for the empty T-shirt.
In groups, discuss your ideas for two new
slogans. Write your slogans. Present
them on the blackboard.
T monitors and assesses collaborative group
dynamics and facilitates task completion.
Once all slogans are on the BB, SS vote
secretely for their favourite. T counts votes
with class and the winning slogan for the
empty T-shirt remains highlighted on BB.

c. Whole-class discussion. Why is this
slogan the class favourite? (estimated time:
15)
d. Outcome. Each group makes a cardboard
T-shirt or uses a real plain one with the
winning slogan and an image drawn or
painted that matches it. They present it to
the
class and pin it up on the classroom wall.
Homework instructions rubrics. In groups.
Make a cardboard T-shirt or use a real
plain one. Write the winning slogan on it.
Draw or paint an image. Be ready to present
it to the class!

Bibliography
Engestrm, Y. 1993. Developmental
Studies on Work as a testbench of activity
theory in S. Chaiklin y J. Lave (ed),
Understanding Practice: Perspectives on
Activity and Context. New York: CUP.
Nunan, D. 2004. Task-based Language
Teaching. Cambridge: CUP.


Biodata
Graduate Teacher of English (UNLP).
Diplomada en Constructivismo y Educacin
(FLACSO Argentina). Especialista en
Constructivismo y Educacin (FLACSO
Argentina). Teacher Trainer (UNLP).
Teacher at Escuela de Lenguas (UNLP).
Staff Teacher at Liceo V. Mercante (UNLP).
graciela_baum@hotmail.com





5. A DIDACTIC SEQUENCE BASED ON
A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO
LANGUAGE TEACHING.
MarcelaL.Jalo
La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
mljalo@ciudad.com.ar

I once read about two different ways of
learning a foreign language and these two
ways were represented by two images. The
Make
love,
not
war

Be
green
Give
peace a
chance

Save the
planet

Why
war?
CREATE
YOUR
OWN
SLOGAN


13
first picture is a large oak tree growing in a
green field; the second is a large jigsaw
puzzle of a tree which is partly completed.
The image of oak and jigsaw represent
different ways of looking at language
learning. For many people, learning a
language is like doing a jigsaw: the language
is broken up into lots of little bits and they
are pieced together, one by one, until the
whole picture is built up.
The other view compares language learning
to the oak. It is natural, growing and
changing. In this view of language learning,
learners learn by doing, by using the
language in contexts that interest them. The
oak and the jigsaw also help us with the
problem of what to deal with in a class.
When a jigsaw is complete nothing can be
added to it. An oak is never complete- it
grows and changes throughout its life. We
should enable students to grow and develop
at their own pace, acknowledging that
learning English is something that continues
and is not confined to the classroom.

At the heart of my classes is the belief that
the most effective conditions for language
learning come about when students engage
in 'meaningful tasks' on a personal level.
Personalised, authentic tasks challenge and
engage students and this encourages
linguistic 'risk taking'. Language as
communication involves the active use of
grammar and vocabulary to listen and read
effectively and to speak with and write to
other people. In a world that is increasingly
intermeshed economically, environmentally,
and electronically, the ability to communicate
effectively is crucial. It is only through
language that we can communicate with
each other, share our ideas, tell people what
we have experienced, express our wishes
and desires, solve complex problems by
drawing on information we read or hear,
and, above all communicate with people
from other cultures.

The following is the presentation of a class
designed as a series of tasks to deal with
the topic of plans and ambitions using the
film Billy Elliot, which is about a boy who
becomes fascinated by the magic of ballet
and decides to have ballet lessons secretly
and against his fathers will. Billy shows his
extraordinary talent and in the end becomes
a successful ballet dancer. This film which is
full of values helps us teachers deal with the
issue of the importance of having personal
dreams in life and fight for what we really
believe in.

Sample class
Material: Film Billy Elliot
Objectives: To promote cultural
understanding/ to improve language
proficiency/ to provide lively and enjoyable
material.
Task 1 . Warming up.
Students do a questionnaire on the topic of
dance to express their personal reactions.
Aim: To introduce students to the topic and
tasks.

Task 2. Read the following paragraph which
is a summary of the conflict presented in the
film and answer these questions:

1) What is the problem?
2) What do you think will happen?

Billys mother is dead. His father and brother
are miners and they are on strike. Billys
father wants his son to learn to box, like he
did and his own father had done before him,
but Billy becomes fascinated by the magic of
ballet. In secret, Billy starts having ballet
lessons every Saturday.

Task 3 Viewing. Watch the following scene
from the film: Billys father comes to watch
him boxing but instead finds him in a ballet
class. Then discuss the following questions
in pairs.
1. Who do you sympathize with, Billy or his
dad? Give reasons for your answer.
2. What can Billy do to make his father
accept his decision?

Then students read the transcript of the
scene they have just watched and put the
lines of a summary from the scene in the
correct order.

Task 4 Problem solving task.
A. Writing. Imagine you are Billys friend.
Billy has written to you about the conflict he


14
has with his father. Reply to him saying what
you think he should do to solve the problem.

Ive made up my mind:
I want to become a ballet dancer so Im
going to take dancing lessons. I want to get
a place at the Royal School of Ballet in
London. Im going to take an audition there.
But the problem is my father. He thinks
ballet is for girls not for boys. Boys should
play football, or do wrestling or boxing. He
doesnt understand. How can I explain I
really want to dance and that I dont want to
take boxing lessons anymore? Why cant he
see dancing can help me have a better life?
I dont want to be a miner. I want to become
a ballet dancer. What can I do to make him
accept my decision?


B. Write a reply to Billy. Work in pairs. Take
turns to read out your letters to the class.
Together decide which group came up with
the best solution.

Task 5. Grammar focus.
Aim: to reflect on language rules deductively
after discussing the movie

1. Billy has a dream. His dream is to
become a ballet dancer. Look at Billys
letter and underline what he says to refer
to his dream.
2. To achieve that dream, he plans to do
something. What does he plan to do?

Complete:
We use .............. to talk about dreams.
(Simple Present: want to)
We use .............. to talk about plans.
(Future: be going to)

Task 6 a)Speaking. Opinion gap. Whole
class discussion

1. What role can significant people play in
your life?
2. How can a parent or a teacher contribute
to build your identity and create a
positive self-image?
3. In the film Billy Elliot, who do you think
plays a significant role in Billys life?

b) Speaking and Writing. Students read the
following saying and discuss about its meaning
with a partner.

Some people come into our lives and
quickly go.
Some stay for a while and leave footprints
on our hearts.
And we are never, ever the same
Source unknown
In the film, Mrs. Wilkinson, the ballet
teacher, plays a significant role in Billys life.
She sees Billys talent and encourages him
to dance. Think of someone who has
influenced your life in a positive way from
your birth to the present. Write a description
of what this person is/ was like and how he/
she changed the course of your life. Look at
the following questions as a guide to write
your description:
1. How old were you when you met this
person?
2. What is/ was this person like?
3. Do you often see this person?
4. How did this person influence you?

Take turns to read out your descriptions to
the group. Compare answers.

Task 7 Listening. In the end Billy achieves
his dream. He becomes a successful ballet
dancer. Students listen to the song I Believe
in the closing scene and explain in their own
words the message. What lines best
summarise the idea?

Task 8 Project work. Students make a
project page. They should include
information about their interests, plans and
dreams.

Optional Follow up tasks:
At home students watch the whole film with
the purpose of doing these tasks:
1. Find some background information
relevant to the film. The miners strike of
the 1980s.
2. How do you respond to the film of Billy
Elliot? Did you find it funny, interesting,
moving? Why?

Conclusion


15
Basing lessons on well-selected pedagogic
tasks means that recycling of common and
typical language features will happen
naturally inside the classroom, and that
learners will be far better prepared for
whatever English they meet and need to use
outside the classroom. In todays
classrooms we probably see a lot of
authentic listening and reading material
being used and far fewer contrived texts
designed to illustrate grammatical form or
present items of vocabulary and with no
attempt to communicate a meaningful
message to the listener or reader. Perhaps
the most enduring legacy of the
communicative approach is that it has
allowed teachers to incorporate motivating
and purposeful communicative activities and
principles into their teaching while
simultaneously retaining the best elements
of other methods and approaches rather
than rejecting them wholesale.

References
Skehan, Peter. (1998). A Cognitive
Approach to Language Learning. Oxford:
OUP
Nunan, D. 2004. Task-based Language
Teaching. Cambridge: CUP.

BIODATA
Marcela Jalo is a teacher at secondary and
tertiary levels in La Plata, Buenos Aires and
she is a teacher trainer for the Buenos Aires
province and at Universidad Nacional de La
Plata. She is also a Coordinator of Adult
Courses at Escuela de Lenguas (UNLP). At
present she is doing a Master in Linguistics
at Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
mljalo@ciudad.com.ar



6. WRITING AND STRATEGIES:
FROM WHAT THERE IS TO WHAT
THERE SHOULD BE.

Sandra Bayona Entre Ros, Argentina
smmbayona@yahoo.com.ar

In Language IX subject of the first term of
5
th
course in both the ELT programme and
the Translator programme at Universidad
Adventista del Plata - the focus is on
academic writing. It is essential that the
students receive not only guidance as
regards linguistic aspects, but also training
in the strategies that they may apply to
achieve a successful end. In previous
courses, students have worked on different
types of texts, and at this advance stage in
their Language course, they probably master
a variety of strategies to which they turn
when they write. However, over-reliance on
such an assumption may lead to
misunderstanding; it is essential to
determine what the students do in the
process of writing, to decide what strategies
should be presented to improve proficiency
in academic writing.

Learning strategies are specific actions
taken by the learners
to make learning easier, faster, more
enjoyable, more self-directed,
more effective and more transferrable to
new situations.
(Oxford 1990).
During the five years of the ELT and the
translator programmes at Universidad
Adventista del Plata, students have worked
with different text types, and they are likely
to have developed ways to approach the
task of producing a variety of texts.
By the end of the fifth course, in the subject
Language IX, they have to face a new
challenge: using the target language to
produce academic pieces. As pointed out
before, they probably possess the
appropriate strategies to be, as Oxford
(1990) puts it, more self-directed and
effective in their learning. Yet, the question
remains: are they competent in selecting
and applying strategies that will help them
accomplish the task of writing academically?
White and McGovern (1994) propose a
survey to lead learners into reflecting on
academic writing. In 2006 and again in 2007,
this questionnaire was given to the learners
to establish, among other points, their self-


16
perceived obstacles in writing and the steps
they take to overcome them (in other words,
the strategies they apply). Though some
differences could be observed, there was
convergence as well.
As regards obstacles, the areas most
commonly identified as trouble spots were
the selection of the appropriate register and
its consistent use throughout the written
production, the correct organisation of the
content into central ideas and supporting
details, and how to reflect this hierarchy in
their papers. Other problems mentioned
were more related to the structure of the
language (mainly spelling and grammar) and
lack of specific vocabulary. Affective areas
were included as well: insecurity when
writing, lack of ideas, difficulties with the time
available.
Regarding writing strategies to deal with
those obstacles, learners pointed out that
their most usual approach is to leave the
writing aside for a while and come back to it.
This seems to be done both while the writing
is in progress and once it has finished, as
the learners report that they usually produce
more than one draft. Another strategy
frequently used is to ask for help; learners
ask a friend or their teacher for guidance.
Other solutions include looking for similar
texts, re reading and re organising their
ideas. Curiously, only a small number of
students (18%) consider it necessary to
research a topic before actually setting to
write. After the information was processed, it
was noticeable that the learners made a
limited use of what Oxford (1990) classifies
as metacognitive strategies (in this case,
they report using organising and self-
monitoring/evaluating). Strategies such as
activating relevant schemata, identifying the
purpose of the task and planning prior to
engaging in writing were not mentioned,
even when they would actually help the
students solve some of the difficulties they
had identified.
It seems clear, then, that it is not advisable
to rely blindly on the assumption that
(advanced) students are aware of and
actually apply the necessary strategies to
successfully complete a (written) task. Even
with an extensive practice in writing, learners
seem to be unaware of the fact that there
are several useful strategies to turn to when
writing. After these results, an emphasis on
the use of a wider range of strategies seems
necessary for the learners in their immediate
situation and in their future professional life.
The data collected proved a suitable means
to the selection of strategies and type of
strategy instruction. Once the strategies to
be presented were identified, they became
the focus during the course. At the end of
the term, it could be noticed that the learners
made use not only of the strategies they
already applied at the beginning of the
course, but others that also proved valuable
for the completion of the task of academic
writing; they were capable of selecting
appropriate strategies as well.
After this experience, carried out for two
consecutive years, it is clear that our
students are proficient users of the target
language; however, assuming they are fully
competent in the selection and use of
strategies may lead to misunderstanding.
Checking what the students are actually
capable of doing in the process of writing will
serve as a guide towards what strategies
should be presented to improve their
mastery of the language, and specifically in
writing academic pieces.
Bibliography
White, R., McGovern, D. (1994). Writing.
U.K.:Prentice Hall.
Oxford, R. (1990). Language Learning
Strategies. What every teacher should know.
U.S.A.: Heinle and Heinle.



Biodata.
Sandra Bayona (English teacher, Instituto de
Enseanza Superior; licenciada en Lenguas
Modernas y Literatura, Universidad Nacional
de Entre Ros; MA TEFL, FUNIBER
Universidad de Jan) teaches Language at
Universidad Autnoma de Entre Ros and
Universidad Adventista del Plata. Her main
interests include learning strategies and


17
distance and on line education.
smmbayona@yahoo.com.ar



7. INTEGRATION OF SKILLS AND
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
THROUGH VIDEO CLIPS
Ethel Rosenberg
La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
ethel_rosenberg@yahoo.com

Introduction: Comparison and Contrast /
Using songs in the classroom?

The idea of using songs and films in the
language classroom is not a new one. As
long as languages have been taught, they
have played an important role in the learning
process, as manifestations of culture and of
the human need to communicate that is
inextricably associated with language.
However, video clips have not always been
that popular, which is unfortunate, since they
are likely to be used successfully with any
age group or level of students, for the
activities can be adjusted to them.

Both songs and video clips give us the
possibility of working on the lyrics, the
message, the syntactic and the semantic
content. Both films and video clips give us
the possibility of working on images, on what
the characters say, on how they say it, and
in what circumstances. But, whereas songs
can be illustrated with a static picture, video
clips offer dynamic images, and whereas in
films the words are closely related to the
images, this is not the case of video clips,
in which the images are rarely connected at
least at first sight- with what the words say.
Therefore, most of the activities described
below can be done not only with video clips,
films and songs, but also with poems, stories
videos and DVDs.

1. Activities: Integration of Skills
The four skills listening, speaking, reading
and writing- are integrated throughout the
following pre-, while- and post- viewing
activities.

A. Pre-viewing activities
Anticipation: title.
In pairs or small groups, students discuss
what the title might mean, what they expect
to see and hear, and imagine an appropriate
context of situation (who would say it to
whom, when, where, how and why). They
use language of probability and speculation.

Prediction: sound without image
Students listen to the introduction of the
song and analize what kind of music it is.
They listen to a few words from the
beginning and try to figure out what kind of
images will appear. This can be done by
asking them to close their eyes and resort to
visualization.

B. While-viewing activities
Jigsaw Viewing
Students work in pairs, sitting opposite each
other, with only one of them facing the
screen. These talk about what they can see
using present continuous and language of
description. The others listen and ask
questions if they need to. Then they change
places.

Dubbing: image without sound
Students speak at the same time as the
characters on the screen, interpreting what
they might be saying. The language of
dialogue or direct speech is practised in this
way, and reported speech can be used
afterwards to report -what they think- was
said.

C. Post-viewing activities
Inference
From what they have seen and heard,
students speculate about the content of the
song. After describing what they have seen
using present perfect, past simple and past
continuous- they are asked to make
predictions, and depending on what these
are based evidence or opinion- they use be
going to or simple future.
-Discussion
Students confirm or modify the contexts of
situation provided at the beginning,
considering the images, music and words
they have now.



18
Visual impact
-Students try to find the relationship between
the images of the video clip and its song.
-Students choose the image that best
represents the video clip. They support their
choice using language of explanation.

Form and Meaning
-In the printed version of the song:
-There are blanks. Students can be asked
to:
-predict what the missing words are, paying
attention to syntax and semantics
-fill in the blanks choosing words from a list
-provide the words according to definitions,
synonyms or antonyms
-There are wrong or extra words. Students
listen and correct them or cross them out.
-There are multiple choices. Students listen
and choose what they can hear.

2. Follow-up: Multiple Intelligences
Though the activities mentioned above imply
the use of some of the multiple intelligences,
here are some ideas to exploit each and all
of them:

Linguistic intelligence: students make
a similar poem or song, a letter from
the addressee to the singer, a
speech or an essay on the topic of
the video clip. In every case there is
a preliminary stage of written
preparation and a final one of oral
presentation.
Logical-mathematical intelligence:
students formulate a hypothesis
containing the idea expressed in the
video clip, or use their critical thinking
to explain what made the composer
write such a song, and what
determined the choice of the type of
music.
Musical intelligence: students sing
the song, clapping their hands,
stamping their feet, tapping their
desks or playing an instrument along.
They show rhythm, pace, speed. The
pause button can be used to play a
part, stop and let them continue
singing without it.
Spatial intelligence: students draw a
picture or make a poster which
summarizes the content of the video
clip, or look for paintings or
photographs that do so, or devise an
image which might represent the
meaning of the title, independently
from the content of the video clip in
particular.
Body-kinetic intelligence students
dance to the music of the video clip,
imitating what they can see on the
screen or recreating it, improvise a
dialogue between the composer and
the addressee (role-play) or imagine
themselves in a similar situation
(simulation), miming and/or acting it
out.
Interpersonal intelligence: students
share experiences telling one
another about similar situations in
their lives, identifying themselves
with both or one of the characters,
describing their feelings, sensations
and reactions.
Intrapersonal intelligence: students
write and/or talk about themselves
explaining what they have said/done
and how they have felt in similar
situations and what they would
say/do and how they would feel in
the future if they went through an
experience like that.

Conclusion
Video clips are readily available for us
teachers and immediately motivational to our
students. They can be immensely valuable
for developing certain capacities, if we
exploit them creatively to bridge the gap
between the pleasurable experience of
listening/watching and the communicative
use of language. They are a useful tool
which we can exploit to animate and
facilitate language learning and acquisition.
It is up to us how much and in what ways we
take advantage of what video clips have to
offer.

Bibliography
Bassnet, Susan and Grundy, Peter (1993)
Language Through Literature. Longman
Murphy, Tim.(1992). Music and Song.
Oxford University Press, England.



19
BIODATA
Ethel Rosenberg is a UNLP English teacher
and Public Translator. She works as a
teacher and as an assistant to the Direction
of Studies at Instituto Cultural Argentino
Britnico de La Plata where she also formed
part of an educational consultant team. She
was an assistant teacher to Language I and
Curso de Consolidacin at the Facultad de
Humanidades and taught Spanish in the
USA. . ethel_rosenberg@yahoo.com




8. TIPS FOR WRITING ESSAYS AT
UNIVERSITY
Part Two: When You Write

Silvia C. Enrquez
La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
silviayenrique@tutopia.com

Although having clear aims and elaborating
ideas previously are also essential, the
actual moment of writing is always
considered the most difficult part of the
process of writing a text. Here is some
advice to make this part of the process more
fruitful.

Using good models

Naturally, reading model essays can be very
useful. From these texts we can learn by
observation, and we will more or less
unconsciously acquire the idea of what
works and what does not work when we try
to communicate ideas. In fact, we have been
doing so ever since we began to read, and
therefore we can use all our previous
experience in reading to help us write better.
But it must be made clear that observation
does not mean copying formal features of
good texts and trying to use them
elsewhere. Therefore, if you want to learn
from good writers, remember the following:
Pay attention to the kind of
vocabulary and grammar these authors
use, but do not attempt to copy
expressions or phrases that you find
useful to try and use them in your texts.
This will work sometimes, but many
others you will be, so to say, planting
other peoples words in the wrong place,
usually because there is lack of
adjustment in style, register or, even
worse, meaning. It goes without saying
that if you borrow longer pieces from texts
and use them as if they were your own,
you would be committing plagiarism, a
disloyal kind of behaviour that can never
be tolerated and is punished by the law.
Besides, of course, you would not be
learning to write, and any trained teacher
will surely notice what you are trying to
do.
Pay attention to the structure that
authors give to their texts, yet do not
copy that structure for your own use, but
rather learn from it how to make your own
organisation. Even though there are a few
lineaments to follow for each text type,
the actual organisation of each text is
given in the first place by the ideas that
the author wants to include in it. This
means that each of us will have to
create an organisation for each
individual text that we write, on the
basis of the general pattern of the text
type. There is no such thing as a safe
structure that always works, because it
was useful before with another idea. If
you try to use the same structure all the
time, you will sooner or later discover
that, in order to follow it, you have to clip
or distort your ideas, or add irrelevant
information.
All this must be remembered at the time of
writing. Here is another list of various pieces
of advice, some coming from common
misconceptions.

Address the reader
Always consider the kind of reader you are
writing for. As a consequence, do not
include in your text information that is
obvious to your readers because it is
common knowledge or can reasonably be
expected to form part of their cultural
background or knowledge of the world. Do


20
not try to extend your text with platitudes or
irrelevant information.

How to start and to finish your piece of
writing
Do not write an introduction about
generalities as a first step to introduce your
topic, unless you really need some previous
information for your main idea to be clear. It
is always advisable to do what is common
practice: begin your text by stating your topic
clearly. Writing more elaborate beginnings is
only a good idea once you have mastered
the basic skill of being clear and not
misleading your readers with unessential
information.
When you have finished writing, check that
you have concluded about the same topic
that you announced you were going to deal
with in the introduction. Make sure that you
have not strayed from your topic, or drawn a
conclusion about only a part of it or some
secondary idea.

Develop sound ideas
Without sound ideas, writing makes no
sense; ideas are the only reason why we
write. No amount of correct grammar or
attractive style can replace them. All formal
aspects are subordinated to the need of
putting our ideas across clearly, and
therefore we can do nothing that will obscure
or impoverish our point of view. This means
that the language that you use must be, in
the first place, accurate and clear.
Style issues
Highly ornamented language IS NOT good
language. On the contrary, if you pay
attention to the style of good writers you will
notice that they tend to choose vocabulary
and structures that are not more complicated
than it is necessary to be clear. On the other
hand, they use unusual or complex
language if they need it, but not for its own
sake. That is, their style is often simple, but
not at all basic.
As a consequence, it is never a good idea to
try to use far-fetched vocabulary and
structures thinking that they will sound
better, or that you need to demonstrate to
your teacher that you have learnt them.
Actually, part of what you have to know is

when and where to use each structure or
lexical item. Using them in the wrong place
is also a mistake.
Besides, when you try to find more high-
sounding equivalents for the common words
or expressions that you can first think of and
you do it thinking about each word or phrase
individually, you run the risk of constructing
sentences, or even whole texts, made up of
words that should not be used together
because, for example, they do not collocate,
or are different from the point of view of
register.
If you do this your text will sound, at the very
least, unnatural and forced, but most
probably the result will be even worse: you
will be constructing a text that uses words
from English, but is not really written in the
English language. This is clearly a mistake.
Do not lose too much time avoiding
repetition. It is not true that repeating
words is a mistake in itself. What is true is
that we should avoid unnecessary
repetition, but only when it is possible,
and you have to learn how to do this. You
can, of course, try to find a synonym, but
this will not always be possible. In those
cases you should try to change the
syntactic structure, or use a pronoun
instead, or find an expression with the
same meaning. But when you do this you
must avoid some possible mistakes:
- Never use a word with only a similar
meaning, because this will distort your
ideas.
- Make sure that the word you use to
replace the word you do not want to
repeat is not itself repeated too many
times this can very easily happen with
pronouns , because in this case you
would only be repeating a different word.
- Never use language that will sound
unnatural only to avoid repetition.
- Be very careful not to make a
grammar mistake only because you are
trying not to repeat a word.
The truth is that many times there is
no way of avoiding repetition: imagine, for
example, writing a text about education
and trying to avoid using the word


21
education more than once. It would be
impossible, as this is your topic. In those
cases, the only option left to any writer is
to repeat when there is no other sensible
alternative. Look at several published
texts to see how professional writers
handle this.
The right length
Do not control the length of your text,
or of your paragraphs, when you are
writing. Paragraphs do not need to have
any particular length, and in fact it is
better if they are not all similar because
this gives variety to your text, and makes
it more readable. The same applies to the
length of sentences: some will naturally
be long, and others short. In fact, this
variation will help you avoid monotony
and will therefore make reading easier.
All you must be sure of is that you can
handle long, complex sentences well, as
this is an ability you should have acquired
by this stage. In short, the best procedure
is not to pay attention to the length of
your constructions.
You ARE a good writer
Most of all, try to develop your own,
personal style of writing, and use it
confidently. Never feel that good writers
write in a way which is not allowed to you
because you are a student. You can do
anything that a professional writer does,
once you have acquired the ability to do it
well. Try more complex organisations and
resources gradually, making sure that
you are able to express your ideas clearly
at all times.

It may seem difficult to put all this into
practice, but consider that most of what has
been said can be summarised in one simple
piece of advice: use your common sense.
This must be remembered at all times.

BIODATA
Silvia C. Enriquez is a Graduate Teacher of
English (UNLP). She specialized in History
of the English Language at UNTucumn.
Since 1990 she has taught English
Language III for the Translation and
Teaching Courses at Facultad de
Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educacin
(UNLP). At present she is Coordinator of
Special Courses at Escuela





Photos from the 7
th
Southern Cone
TESOL Convention July 2007











ARTESOL Committee Members











22














TEIS Members Alicia Artusi, Cecilia
Chiacchio, and Eladia Castellani.
Special thanks to our Editor Marcela Jalo
and to our Secretary Amalia Marcovesky.



The 7
th
Southern Cone Tesol Convention
Opening Ceremony






Opening Ceremony





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