Jay Doubleyou: February 2025

This is a unfortunate, since reading has so many scientifically-backed benefits: it increases intelligence, improves memory (especially in later life), makes it easier to relate to others, reduces stress, helps us to sleep better, and more.

So why aren't people reading as much as they once did? And what can be done to reverse this trend? In this post, I take a stab at answering both those questions. Here are 5 reasons why people aren't reading, and 5 good solutions to this problem...

5 Reasons People Don't Read Anymore, And 5 Good Solutions

There are indeed ways to reverse this:

From a silent reading club in Plymouth to "book fairies" who hide interesting reads around Cornwall, book lovers aim to open a new chapter on the story of people's relationship with reading.

Most imagine reading to be a solitary pastime but a group in Plymouth has found fellowship through enjoying books together. Members of the Silent Book Club, which meet in venues around Plymouth, bring their favourite books to read quietly for an hour before chatting and sharing recommendations. The club has its roots in the USA where it was formed by Guinevere de la Mare, with her friend Laura Gluhanich, in 2012. From its beginnings in San Francisco it has grown to have more than 1,500 chapters in 54 countries, including Plymouth in Devon.

Research by The Reading Agency, external, a charity encouraging leisure reading, including audiobooks and e-books, found those who considered themselves readers reported higher levels of social connection, sleep, better concentration and higher empathy. Carina Spaulding, the agency's head of research and evaluation, said data in a 2024 report showed reading as an activity in itself helped people feel more connected to others.

In Cornwall, a group of "fairies" are helping give people greater access to books. Unlike the fairies found in story books, they do not have wings or leave money in exchange for teeth, but instead hide books in public places for people to find. Carys Wiggans, who began the Cornish branch of The Book Fairies, said: "It's about getting people to read books that maybe they wouldn't normally read or have access to books that they don't have access to. There's no cost, there's nothing that is required from them except that excitement."

Can book fans turn the page on decline in reading? - BBC News

With more here:

Silent Book Club - About

Plymouth, Devon, UK – Silent Book Club

Official Cornish Book Fairy | Facebook

Tuesday, 25 February 2025

"thinking inside the box" - teaching approaches for the online classroom

Teaching and learning online became necessary if not commonplace during the pandemic:

Jay Doubleyou: the homeschooling revolution

Jay Doubleyou: is e-learning a good thing?

Jay Doubleyou: how to teach on zoom

Now the teaching and learning world is a very different place:

Jay Doubleyou: the english teaching industry is evolving

And today there are all sorts of great places to go online:

Jay Doubleyou: great online resources to improve your english

Jay Doubleyou: voice recognition apps to help learn english pronunciation

But even before 2020 this was already happening - as we learnt to adapt our teaching and learning approaches to the 'online classroom'.

The following are notes from an excellent seminar given in February 2016.

Screen-sharing is so easy:

Show your screen during a meeting - Microsoft Support

Sharing your screen or desktop on Zoom

Material-free lessons: getting teachers and students to notice:

Pedagogical grammar: teaching options, with Scott Thornbury – The TEFL Zone

The role of ‘noticing’ in grammar teaching – The Art of TESOL

Noticing and second language acquisition: Studies in honor of Richard Schmidt | NFLRC

There are lots of tools to help working online:

Virtual Classroom and LMS Software | WizIQ

Online Learning With The World's Most Popular LMS - Moodle

Learning management system - Wikipedia

Open eLMS: FREE LMS that's AI Powered - Open eLMS

25 Free LMS in 2025 to Check Out | SC Training

The Socratic method in online teaching:

How I Designed an Inclusive Socratic Seminar (and You Can Too!) - YouTube

Refresh Online Discussions with a Socratic Approach | U-M LSA LSA Technology Services

Socratic method of teaching In Online Tutoring

Finally, there are a lot of free online seminars for teachers:

Training | TeachingEnglish | British Council

Events Oxford TEFL • Oxford TEFL

Teaching English online | Cambridge English

With thanks to Nicola Clarke-Siegel:

Nicola Clarke-Siegel - English Teacher - The Abbey school Faversham | LinkedIn

Sunday, 23 February 2025

british universities cutting foreign language courses

The British (and Irish and Americans and Australians) don't have to learn French or German or Chinese or whatever - which might be the answer to why the British don't learn foreign languages.

These subjects are clearly not seen as a priority in Britain.

The problem is that this is self-perpetuating - as for years, the UK's critical shortage of foreign language teachers has meant students can't be taught.

As reported earlier in the month in the i-paper, language courses are in danger of dying out - with university lecturers facing losing their jobs.

Yes, it seems that Modern Languages degrees are at risk in UK unis - as reported by the EL Gazette and Sofia Smith Galer:

That is, at least, what Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said recently in an i paper exclusive. “The single biggest problem facing our country is the catastrophic decline in language learning, both in schools and now at universities. Learning a modern language becomes a little bit like learning Latin and Greek. It becomes something that ancient universities tend to do and other universities withdraw from.”

88 out of 166 UK universities are running either redundancy or restructuring schemes, and languages degrees are seriously at risk within this climate because fewer students seem to want to take them. The number of students taking up language degrees has dropped massively in the last 20 years; in 2003, there were more than 160,000 language undergrads, whereas in 2019 there were just 75,000. This is in line with declining numbers at GCSE and A Level, too...

Multilingualism brings innumerable health and social benefits; something for me to unpack, perhaps, in another newsletter. Quite apart from languages generating more job opportunities for young people, linguistics as a discipline is also incredibly important in the development of AI; without such expertise, we put ourselves at a technological disadvantage.

Another area of concern as I write my book on linguicide are the UK’s long suffering indigenous languages; when the cuts were tabled in Aberdeen, Gaelic was one of the single degree programmes that was facing the axe.

If you are British and hear rumours or reports that your university is considering cutting jobs in languages, I’d like to hear about it; I’d also be interested in hearing about the gravity of cuts you have already had to face in the last five years.

And yet, decision-makers need to realise that English is not the language of the successful British exporter.

Where's the money in that?

Tuesday, 18 February 2025

how to become an excellent teacher - giving feedback and demanding high

For teachers to really get it right, they need to connect with their students - and what students want more than anything is to have their teachers tell them how they are doing.

As educationalist John Hattie discovered in his research, the most important thing is feedback - answering the question ‘what has the greatest influence on student learning?':

Jay Doubleyou: students want feedback

It's all about trusting relationships and 'oodles of feedback':

Schools to provide a positive , optimistic, invitational, trusting and safe learning climate. One that welcomes student errors and develops positive peer influences.

Teachers who are seen by their students as quality teachers. Who provide clarity of expectations and a belief that all can learn. Teachers who are 'open' to new ideas, who develop a positive learning climate, and who value the importance of student effort to improve.

Jay Doubleyou: students want feedback part 2

Educationalist Scott Thornbury also sees feedback as central:

feedback | Search Results | An A-Z of ELT

Correct Me If I'm Wrong (Scott Thornbury) - YouTube

Vic Richardson draws on similar research with similar results:

Vic Richardson - Developing teachers for stronger results - YouTube

All of this amounts to gathering the evidence and realising what students need and what teachers need to do and to be:

Jay Doubleyou: evidence-based teaching

Over a decade ago educationalists Adrian Underhill and Jim Scrivener launched a new initiative:

Demand High Teaching asks: • Are our learners capable of more than we currently ask of them? • Have the tasks and techniques we use in class become rituals and ends in themselves? • How can we stop “covering material” and start focusing on the potential for deep learning? • What small tweaks and adjustments can we make to shift the whole focus of our teaching towards getting that engine of learning going? TTJ 25_2

What is Demand High? | Demand High ELT

Here's an excellent introduction they wrote for the Guardian:

Teachers urged to go beyond 'right' answers and stretch all learners throughout the lesson

And here's their blog:

Demand High ELT | A discussion about re-inventing our profession

Here Silvana Richardson gives a talk and workshop session on the topic of demand high and quality learning:

Silvana Richardson - Beyond demand high: Making quality learning happen for all - YouTube

But let's finish with a video from Jim Scrivener:

Are you challenging your students enough to learn English? How do you know if tangible learning is taking place in your English language classroom?

Jim Scrivener - Demand High for teachers and learners | TeachingEnglish | British Council

And there's lots more!

Why “Challenging” Isn’t Quite The Right Goal

Demanding the best from your students, and helping them believe they can achieve it (Infographic) - McREL International

Monday, 17 February 2025

using the white/black/interactive board in the esl/esol/tefl class

Have you used a white board (or black board!) or some sort of digital board (online or interactive) recently - and what have you used it for?

It can be a very useful tool indeed - and can be planned quite carefully.

For example:

ESL Activities: Disappearing drill
get students to draw, show/mime, or explain vocabulary using the board
timelines
create your own blockbusters for the board: Blockbusters Grid Game Templates | Teaching Resources
auditory pelmanism on the board: Pelmanism: a fun way to teach vocabulary - Alex Walls ELT
using the board to display visuals and students' own work
reverse translation/reverse quizzes
'GLALL' (a Game-Like Activity for Language Learning) Lesson Share: Playschool for grown-ups? Changing the rules of the game in language teaching | Article | Onestopenglish

And more ideas to plan for:

brainstorming using a mindmap/spidergram
prediction and input before another activity
feedback after an activity

When it comes to more spontaneous use of the board, we need to think about:

colour-coding for different aspects of language

word class
grammatical features
collocation

where to write on the board
how long to leave it
what the students should be recording themselves
features of pronunciation

phonemic script
word stress and sentence stress
connected speech
intonation patterns

more than just words: context, dialogue, sentences

And all of this can be used for recycling and practice at the end of the lesson:

definitions, explanations, translations
more sentences/collocations/examples
topic around the word
synonyms/antonyms
drilling/pronunciation

The board can also be used for language improvement - or delayed error correction:

a handout featuring examples of typical spoken errors to examine via the board

Some basics:

how clear and large is your writing or typing?
how about dividing the board into sections?!
don't worry if your spelling is wrong! get the students to look it up!
ask your students for feedback about using the board

And we can all reflect afterwards about how we've used the board.

Finally, some links/further reading:

BILBROUGH BOOK.indb

With thanks to JW for putting on an excellent seminar.

Wednesday, 12 February 2025

teaching informal spoken language in the esl/esol/tefl classroom

Teaching a language in the classroom is perhaps the wrong place to do it: after all, students will be meeting and using the language OUTSIDE the classroom, where a lot might be very different!

A good thing to do in the classroom, though, is to look at the differences.

Here's a very good guide:

How To Teach Formal And Informal Language | EnglishClub

With a few activities here:

Formal and informal language games - UsingEnglish.com

Ultimately, it's about encouraging students to learn in that 'real environment':

Creating informal English learning opportunities – Reset Training and Support

To finish, here's a specific question based on the very English phase "and stuff like that": what informal spoken language should we be teaching and how can we do it?

The academic response is in Language issues — NATECLA volume 14 no 2

With more access, with some great ideas and practical input here:

Language Issues: The ESOL Journal: Ingenta Connect Table Of Contents

Language investigations - Teach Real English!

Specifically here:

‘and stuff like that’ informal spoken language, pp.148-155 in Best of Language issues: articles from the first 20 years of NATECLA's ESOL journal

Best of Language Issues : Articles from the First 20 Years of NATECLA's ESOL Journal (Best of Language Issues : Articles from the First 20 Years of NATECLA's ESOL Journal): Amazon.co.uk: Bhanot, Rakesh, Illes, Eva: 9781872972855: Books

Linguistics Research Digest: Spoken language and stuff like that

how to get the shadowing technique right

This blog came across the 'shadowing technique' for the first time back in 2012:

Jay Doubleyou: speaking fluently

And that was from Julian Kitagawa/Northbrook:

Doing English with Julian Northbrook (PhD)

And he has posted some great videos on shadowing:

English Speaking Practice | How to improve your English Speaking and Fluency: SHADOWING - YouTube

Which is Better: Shadowing or Repeating? - YouTube

Here's an update from 2017 with a few other links:

Jay Doubleyou: the shadowing technique

And again from 2022:

Jay Doubleyou: shadowing

Here's a video, also from 2022, from another 'language expert', Hadar Shemesh

Do you use shadowing when practicing English? Shadowing is one of the best ways to improve your English speaking skills as it helps improve pronunciation, intonation, and vocabulary. It can also help you improve unconsciously things like rhythm, stress, grammar, and more. Sounds like fun, no? But, it can also be a WASTE OF TIME! Without proper guidance, it’s easy to fall into the trap of practicing it in an ineffective way! And then you won’t be seeing the results you COULD be seeing. 👉 If you’ve been using the shadowing technique for a while, in this episode you’ll discover the biggest mistake people make when shadowing, and also learn a bunch of other tips to optimize your practice 💪 👉 If you have no idea what shadowing is - this video is definitely for you as you’ll learn about one of the best practice techniques, and how to do it right! 🔥🔥I collected a list with all the best apps and resources for shadowing, for you! You can get it here http://bit.ly/shadowingEng

Shadowing Technique in English: are you wasting your time? - YouTube

With more of her very engaging videos here:

Accent's Way English with Hadar - YouTube

Here's another look - seeing which technique is better:

SHADOWING or REPEAT - Which is best? - YouTube

And here's a very good suggestion:

Shadowing has become popular with English learners. It's a method where you listen and repeat. You continue listening while you're speaking. The biggest problem I see with this method is that you can end up with issues with your pronunciation. You end up mumbling as you try to keep up with the natural audio. A good test is to record yourself while shadowing. If you sound good, continue doing it. If not... ... try this instead: 1. Listen to an English phrase. 2. Repeat the phrase and record your voice. 3. Compare your version with the original. 4. Make any changes you need to make. 5. Get long-term repetition

Shadowing: Can This Method Help You Speak English Fluently? - YouTube

Try these methods - focussing on your own pronunciation - and they should really help you speak both more fluently and with more confidence!

Thursday, 6 February 2025

the lazy teacher

'Lazy teachers' are considered to be a bad thing.

This is from a rather long blog piece:

If you’re going to take on the responsibility of educating, do it with vigor, focus, and commitment. Because if you can’t do that, the students, parents, and world at large won’t shed a tear when ChatGPT replaces you.

Lazy Teachers Are a Problem - by Justin Cottle

That's one, perhaps rather 'lazy', view...

Another view comes from a very popular book:

Have you ever wondered what would happen in your classroom if you simply stopped teaching? Over the last few decades the demands of countless education initiatives, not to mention the pressures good teachers put on themselves, have seen so much teaching squeezed into our lessons, it must have squeezed out some of the learning. Maybe if we spent a little less time teaching and gave students a little more time to learn, things would be different. Maybe this would allow us more opportunities to build relationships with the class and develop that all-important rapport with the individuals who might just need us most.

The Lazy Teacher's Handbook – New Edition - Crown House Publishing

This is from the author Jim Smith's website:

It is known as the Lazy Way – a philosophy that shifts the emphasis from teaching to learning, as well as shifting the workload from the teacher to the students.

Lazy teacher

Here's a very useful list on how to be a lazy teacher:

10 Things I Learned About Teaching As A Lazy NQT

Here's a nice chatty introduction with some good tips:

It’s time to be The Lazy Teacher – Hardly Hamilton

And here are details of an online course:

Centre for Creative Quality Improvement · Assessment and the Art of Lazy Teaching · Centre for Creative Quality Improvement

Finally, this is from another long blog piece which should stimulate some more thinking about doing more with less:

In friendly conversation, people sometimes ask what I do. When I tell them one of the ways I earn income is by creating and selling lesson plans online, a common response goes something like, “Wow … that seems kind of lazy for the teachers to just buy lesson plans. I always thought that was part of their jobs… but I guess that’s cool you can earn money that way.”

In Defense of the Lazy Teacher - Feel Good Teaching

Monday, 3 February 2025

the future is ai

Where are we going with artificial intelligence?

We can look at stories:

Artificial intelligence is a recurrent theme in science fiction, whether utopian, emphasising the potential benefits, or dystopian, emphasising the dangers.

Artificial intelligence in fiction - Wikipedia

If you want to understand where technology is heading, science fiction is a good place to start.

Cell phones, tablets, drones, earbuds and more all once just existed in the imagination of fiction writers. Even words like ‘cyberspace’ and ‘credit card’ were first penned by them.

The most prevalent trope is AI turning against humanity, as depicted in Terminator, the Matrix, I, Robot, and many more. This trope usually treats AI and humanity as two distinct, separate forces.

What Science Fiction Gets Wrong About AI

However, there are books and films that are more nuanced: