TESOL academics win award for contributing to pedagogy and enhancing the student experience
A team of academics from the Department of English has been awarded the Faculty Sir Alistair Pilkington Award for devising and delivering a series of classes for speakers of English as an Additional Language (EAL) at North Liverpool Academy (NLA). The Pilkington award celebrates outstanding contributions to pedagogy and the enhancement of the student experience by staff in each Faculty.
The academics teach on the MAs in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and MA Applied Linguistics & TESOL in the Department of English. Many students on these programmes need to gain work experience in authentic TESOL classroom situations, while NLA has many EAL students whose parents need to be better able to speak with teachers at parent-teacher meetings.
After a learning needs analysis, co-leaders of the initiative Dr David Oakey and Dr Lesley Randles designed a series of six English language classes, informed by their own and other research in the field, to improve parents’ speaking skills in the context of parent-teacher meetings. Topics included “Showing listenership” (led by Dr Christian Jones) and “Vocabulary for parent-teacher meetings” (led by Clive Newton). The MA TESOL students first observed the classes, applying what they learned from modules on their MA, then acted as assistants and helped the parents in groupwork and roleplay tasks set by the class tutor. The classes culminated in a dry-run of a parent-teacher meeting which was led by the MA TESOL students themselves. A total of 10 EAL parents and 11 MA TESOL students participated. Two students on the MA Applied Linguistics who were already experienced English language teachers also acted as mentors to these less experienced students.
All the parents agreed that the classes had improved their understanding of spoken English and they felt they were able to communicate better in meetings, especially one-to-one. The MA students agreed that the classes enabled them to better carry out observation tasks, gather information in a diary form, and apply concepts studied on the MA modules to a real-world classroom context.
Mrs Rebecca Bailey, Head of English as an Additional Language at NLA, said how pleased the school was about the outcomes from the classes. “Some of our EAL parents are apprehensive about coming into school because of the language barrier, so we wanted to reach out and offer them support. The classes have had a massive impact on the school; the parents that came in have all now attended parents’ evening. That’s had a really positive impact and has bridged that barrier. We are more confident now with getting parents in.”
Dr David Oakey, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and TESOL and co-leader of the initiative, said “I am delighted that our efforts have been recognised through the Faculty Sir Alistair Pilkington award and I congratulate the team. This initiative is a successful example of extra-curricular learning and engagement with the Liverpool Civic Region that has had a positive impact on our MA students’ skills development and employability while at the same time helping NLA engage with parents. We are planning to repeat the project with BA English Language undergraduate students to give them authentic classroom experience. We will also expand it to include Year-11 students at NLA to potentially influence their choice of a Liverpool BA English Language degree as a first step towards a TESOL career.”
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