- One of your areas of interest is the use of advertisements in ELT. Does the use of ads develop all four language skills?
Yes, it does. It all depends on the teacher of course. There are ads which are excellent for listening as they contain lots of language (e.g., ‘Ads for ELT – Air Middle Earth’). Then there are other ads which lend themselves to speaking – for instance, you can set up an activity where students in pairs watch a different ad and they have to describe it to each other so they can choose the best one (e.g., ‘Ads for ELT – Together [Ants]’ and ‘Ads for ELT – Together [Crabs]’). But what about Reading, you may ask? Well, the teacher can write a text describing the ad and then include some minor differences in it. So, students then have to watch the ad, read the text and spot these differences (e.g., ‘Ads for ELT – Bad Day’). The possibilities are endless.
- What ads do students prefer – metaphorical or straightforward ones?
You might expect that the answer to this one would be ‘b’ – that all students would go for a straightforward story for instance, perhaps one about a puppy (see ‘Ads for ELT – Story 2’). But this is not necessarily the case. Some of the best ads are truly imaginative – and students love them! One of my favourite ones is ‘Ads for ELT – Art’. You just get students to watch it and then write what happened. Afterwards, you can get them to do research and give mini presentations about each of the paintings featured in the ad.
- What are the main benefits of using ads in the ELT classroom?
Well, ads are authentic, they are short (which means you save precious classroom time) and they are ‘highly condensed’. For instance, if you were to describe what happens in the 60-second ad ‘Ads for ELT – 007’ it might well take you three minutes (and it is quite hard too – try it!). The best thing however is that ads are designed to be engaging – they have to be so as to intrigue the listeners/viewers so that they seek them out and share them. The three fantastic ads in the clip ‘Ads for ELT – Little Angels’ are a perfect example. Naturally, we can exploit this feature to the full by getting students to share their own favourite ads.
- Are teachers willing to try something new? Do they possess the skill to analyze an ad? Do they discard the idea of using ads as a teaching tool due to insecurity?
I don’t think it’s insecurity… After all, there is nothing revolutionary about using ads in class – I mean, it’s not like saying ‘OK – take your kids out of the classroom’ or ‘Get rid of the furniture and do an aerobics class in English’ (actually, that would be a good idea…) No, I think the reason teachers are reluctant to try out new things is that they simply have too much on their plate – what with lesson prep and admin work etc. etc. But things are different if along with the ad they also get a ready-made handout (with activities AND the Key) that they can use in class. For instance, check out this clip: ‘Ads for ELT – Blind Date’. Notice the link under the video? Now, click on it. ?
- Is CLIL, STEAM etc. a method or a trend?
I think that all these approaches share one thing in common: the realisation that language is (and should be seen as) a means to an end. You cannot get students interested in Grammar and Vocabulary; content matters – enormously. For decades, the basic criterion for the selection of materials was ‘Does this dialogue contain the grammar structure I want to teach?’ or ‘Is this text at the right level of language for my students?’ But wait – what about the content? Advertisers know this (watch ‘Comedy for ELT – The Mansplainer’ [a spoof ad]). My main goal as a teacher is to get students so hooked on such material that they will seek it out by themselves. And ads are potentially addictive.
- How has Covid-19 changed you as a person and a teacher?
It hasn’t. In terms of lifestyle, I am a naturally boring person (but please don’t tell anyone ?) so staying at home for me meant more time with my books! As for the teaching part, well, when things change, we have to adapt – so now most of my lessons are online. I believe teachers should be resilient. We have to learn to roll with the punches. In fact, I believe that teachers should be like the chickens I saw in a fantastic Mercedes ad (‘Mercedes Ad – Chickens’); notice that whichever way you turn the chicken’s body, the head stays upright! Brilliant!! (25 million hits – you can’t go wrong… ?)
- What is the main point you'd like readers to go away with?
Here it is: until recently, advertisers have been focusing on trying to persuade customers to buy a particular product (‘tell and sell’). This is exactly what we teachers have been doing too (only in our case we would perhaps call it ‘explain and assign’). However, things are changing. For me, the brilliant McDonald’s campaign where they got consumers to create their own burgers (see ‘Psychology and ELT – Ownership’) points the way forward: we want to move from passivity to active engagement. For instance, what if we were to get students to design their own ads? (see ‘ELT Projects – Advertise your Teacher’ for example). So this is the take-away message: we need to move from ‘Tell and sell’ to ‘Participate and Play’ ?.
