Skills development

At a general level, the participants were content with what the coursebooks offered in terms of skills development and mostly relied on the coursebook materials and activities in this respect. They claimed that there was a fairly balanced proportion

used. However, each of the participants raised certain questions worthy of further discussion.

6.3.1.1 Speaking

In developing oral communication skills, each of the participants resorted to a wide variety of techniques. However, they seemed to be in general agreement about the most important rule of thumb, i.e., to provide learners with as many opportunities to engage in real-life communicative situations as possible. Emma, for instance, revealed that it was a conscious decision on her part to avoid bringing in previously prepared warm-up activities ahead. Instead, when stepping into the classroom, she normally tried to find out what the students had been talking about in the break before the lesson.

Based on what she had learnt from the students, she generally constructed a warmer activity on the spot. For instance, if students had been talking about going to the cinema at the weekend, she created a role play situation at the ticket office:

I don’t prepare warm-ups ahead of time, I just ask them what has been going on.

And I create a warm-up activity based on what they say had happened to them or what they had done. All the time. So if, for example, they had seen a good movie, then in connection with that movie we talk about why we watch movies like that or I have them act out a scene from the movie. So I always base it on what they say. I think it’s important not come up with artificial warm-up activities. (Emma)

For Emma, making communication fast in order to avoid translating from the mother tongue was also a number one priority. She was of the opinion that if communication was sufficiently swift, then students did not have the time to think in Hungarian and translate into English what they had previously decided to say:

I don’t let them translate from Hungarian into English while they are speaking. I make communication faster than the time they need to translate from Hungarian.

So if they are concentrating on what they want to say, they won’t be able to think about how that thing is said in English, their mind just switches over. So I really strive for this click to happen, for their mind to just switch and they just think in English. (Emma)

Anna and Hanna introduced the genre of presentation in their language classrooms for different reasons. Anna intended to complement the speaking activities offered by the coursebook, which she considered slightly monotonous, concentrating mostly on exchanging opinions or agreeing and disagreeing with a statement or an issue. Hanna wanted to make her students familiar with longer, more structured communicative tasks, since, as she perceived it, mastering presentation skills was not only useful in different advanced level language exams, but also during one’s university studies and professional career. Students seemed to share Hanna’s opinion about the usefulness of presentation skills and were more than willing to complete these assignments, paying a great deal of attention not only to the content of the presentation, but to designing elaborate slideshows as well.

6.3.1.2 Listening

In terms of developing listening skills, the participants were essentially satisfied with the way listening activities were provided by the coursebooks and mostly relied on the textbook materials and tasks. Anna and Nóra both claimed that apart from introducing different dialects, the coursebook listening activities often featured speakers of different age, gender, social status and sociocultural background, which could be considered adequate input for the development of sociocultural competence.

In addition, Anna welcomed the fact that coursebooks also included speakers for whom English is a second language. She maintained that it was of utmost importance for the students to be able to understand, for instance, a French speaker of English, or speakers coming from a Slavic state, since most of the real-life communication students participated in during their travels occurred with L2 speakers of English. Her remark was in line with Murray’s (2012) findings, who concluded that it was vital to develop learners’ sociocultural competence in a way that did not overemphasize the cultural values of one specific target language community.

To further develop sociocultural competence, Márk regarded the use of music as a great source of input in this respect. He regularly used music during his lessons, though he admitted that the songs included in the coursebooks are somewhat outdated.

He reported to have an inventory of songs to be used in the classroom, indicating grammar points or vocabulary topics to which they were suited. Márk also encouraged students to bring in their own music, and concluded that apart from being a good source of input, music is also a very motivating factor in the teaching and learning process.

To complement the coursebook reading tasks, Eszter regularly used excerpts from different television programs on her tablet. These programs ranged from episodes of popular television series to chat shows or even call-in shows. Her experience showed that students immensely enjoyed these activities, much more than the regular listening tasks. She concluded that it was of vital importance to raise students’ interest in English-language television programs so that they would watch them outside the classroom, since the listening input provided in the lessons is not sufficient for real develop

I always clarify it at the very beginning, in the 9th grade, that if someone wants to be successful at listening, it’s not enough. There is no amount of English classes a week that would be enough. So I tell them to watch certain TV channels in English as much as possible and also to watch movies in English with subtitles. But especially if they are watching something online, they should do so with English subtitles. (Eszter)

6.3.1.3 Writing

For the development of writing skills, the participants reported to use the activities provided by the coursebooks. Each of the three EFL coursebooks offered a wide array of written genres, starting with shorter pieces of writing in the first few units, and going on to more complex written assignments. The genres included emails, informal and formal letters to various recipients and with different purposes, and distinct types of essays, such as descriptive essay or argumentative essay. Considering the number of units and the number of lessons per week, students got acquainted with a new written genre and had to hand in a written assignment approximately once a month.

Most of the teacher participants were of the opinion that the coursebooks they used offered adequate input in developing the writing skill, both in terms of the quality and the quantity of written assignments. The inclusion of different types of genres corresponded to the requirements of national and international language exams as well as the school leaving exam. However, Anna noted that shorter pieces of writing, such as notes or memos, did not receive satisfactory attention. Furthermore, she also regarded one written assignment per month insufficient for real development in the writing skills to happen. For these reasons, she consciously incorporated shorter writing tasks into her

discourse competence. Such additional activities included summary writing of a reading or a listening task, or writing a postcard, among others.

Márk and Hanna shared Anna’s opinion in saying that though coursebooks covered a wide range of genres and provided carefully devised and structured lessons to introduce different pieces of writing, the frequency of written assignments was highly inadequate. Therefore, to make up for the insufficient amount of writing tasks, Hanna’s students were always given the opportunity to hand in essays on topics related to the theme of the lessons. Apart from being useful in the preparation for tests or language exams, these written assignments earned extra credits for the students, which contributed to better end-term grades.

Apart from the writing tasks offered by the coursebook, Márk introduced a journal writing task with intermediate or more advanced learners. At the beginning of the academic year, students were given a topic, and starting from that topic, they had to write a letter to the teacher in a separate notebook. In addition to correcting the letters, Márk also replied to them, thus starting a correspondence with every student. The students were expected to write in the journal at least once a month, reacting to Márk’s answer and the questions he had raised. After a while, Márk realized that most of the students thoroughly enjoyed the correspondence itself and replied to him more often than required. The starting topics included eating habits, summer experiences or film preferences; however, as Márk perceived it, the choice of the topic was not of crucial importance, they only served as a starting point to begin the correspondence. Márk also noted that even though he corrected the assignments and required the students to correct the mistakes he had indicated, students were eager to read his answer first.

The fact that Márk’s students overdid the required amount of written tasks confirmed that a time consuming and rather tedious task, such as writing a long letter, could be enjoyable if made interesting to the students. Apparently, Márk’s students were highly motivated by the fact that they were exchanging letters with a teacher, who shared personal information with them. As a result, they were more than willing to complete the written assignments, which in turn resulted in improved writing skills.

6.3.1.4 Reading

The teacher participants shared the opinion that present day EFL coursebooks provided a wide variety of authentic reading tasks, such as newspaper or magazine articles, or excerpts from books. Anna, Eszter and Nóra tended to rely on the materials and tasks offered by the coursebooks. Nevertheless, they agreed on the fact that they normally included additional communication activities before doing the reading and on the basis of the reading comprehension tasks. Anna added that even though she was satisfied with the reading materials, she often found comprehension tasks unsatisfactory. In such cases, she made her students devise reading comprehension questions, true or false statements or vocabulary building activities that they could complete instead of the coursebook tasks.

Emma, Hanna and Márk, though content with the reading materials, highlighted the importance of introducing literature in the language class. Emma noted that it would be essential to include more literature in EFL coursebooks, especially from books or writers which were popular among the student population:

I really would mind if excerpts from the Harry Potter series or from Dan Brown’s books were included. What matters is that they should read in English, especially towards the beginning. (Emma)

On occasion, Emma also used poems in her lessons. She either chose poems from authors whose work was included in the curriculum of Hungarian literature, and thus students had already learnt about them, or included contemporary poetry.

From the intermediate level on, Hanna and Márk normally assigned readings for the summer holiday. Hanna asked her students to vote on a list of titles put together by the students themselves and approved by Hanna. In the previous years, summer readings included novels such as About a Boy, or the first volume of the Harry Potter series. In addition to novels, Márk tended to assign graded readers as summer readings for pre-intermediate groups.

To sum up, Emma, Hanna and Márk were in agreement about the usefulness of literature in the teaching and learning process for various reasons. First, if well chosen, the topic of the book was relevant and consequently motivating for the students.

Second, to be able to read a book in a foreign language was a great sense of achievement for the students. And last, literature is a perfect source of not only linguistic and discourse, but sociocultural competence. A book is full of references about the target language environment and culture, which, even if only passively, are an essential part of the development of sociocultural competence.