Thinking creatively: Introducing new didactic methods into a course in English for Laboratory Technicians

1 Introduction – The course in English for laboratory technicians at Masaryk University

The teaching of English at Masaryk University is provided by its Language Centre (founded in 1971) whose teaching staff provides courses in several foreign languages, including German, French, Spanish, Russian and Latin. English has been, needless to say, a core subject in all nine faculties of the university. Thanks to the IMPACT Project, ^[1] one of whose five key activities focused on reviewing – methodologically and technically – the ways foreign languages had been taught till then, new opportunities arose and were seized. Thus, several ESP courses came to be re-thought, updated and adapted to the quickly changing demands of their subject areas. These concerned physiotherapy, nutritional science, geology, geography, mathematics and law, to name just a few. One of the courses which experienced a number of modifications is English for Laboratory Technicians, taught in the medical faculty of Masaryk University. One of the most urgent demands was a thorough restructuring of the whole curriculum so that individual English classes would correspond in their content to what the students were reading in other parts of their course. In the present article, rather than compare and contrast the previous teaching method(s) and materials with those now in use, I would like first to familiarise the reader with the course and its specificities; then I will focus on the teaching approach, and finally I will describe one class in particular. In doing this, the aim is to show my reasons for adopting a different teaching approach and techniques that I consider necessary in a contemporary educational system. Also, by contrasting the teaching approach with the practical outcome(s), I would like to put the theoretical basis of the course in a broader, realistic perspective so that both limitations and new methodological vistas become apparent.

The English for Laboratory Technicians is a two-semester course which is part of the Laboratory Technicians Programme offered by the medical faculty and included in the second year of studies. Previously, it was a four-semester course, the first two semesters of which centred on teaching both the anatomy of the human body and different body systems. However, the first two semesters were dropped and the course slimmed down to a one-year course that concentrates primarily on specific laboratory English. It comprises two 14-week terms, each of which shadows the content of what the students have to cover in other subjects parallel to English. Thus, the autumn term encompasses varied topics such as: motivation to become a laboratory technician, haematology, biochemistry, various techniques of laboratory measurement and analysis such as spectrophotometry, electrophoresis, osmometry, chromatography and atomic absorption spectrometry. In the spring, classes focus on topics such as flow cytometry, blood gas analysis, laboratory safety, giving first aid, Gram staining, immunoassays, microbiology and immunology. As can be seen, the scope is wide, and the number of issues exceeds by far the possibilities of what can be squeezed into a ninety-minute teaching unit. The teacher is thus offered freedom of choice in terms of how to teach the content, which materials to use, or which sources to look for. In this way, each week a brand-new worksheet was prepared for the students to use. At the same time, the use of the existing textbook – based on the translation method – was reduced to minimum. Understandably, the vast amount of knowledge covered in combination with a modified teaching approach poses considerable demands on teachers who are not specialists in their students’ disciplines.

Thus, one of the major changes in the course was a shift from textbook-based teaching to an open-source, worksheet-grounded teaching style. In previous years, students could rely on a textbook entitled English for Laboratory Technicians, published in 2007 and based on traditional teaching methods popular in the Czech culture of “teach yourself” textbooks: each unit consists of a lead-in text followed by a one-to-one English-Czech wordlist and vocabulary translation exercises. Grammatical explanations with accompanying gap-fill or translation exercises usually round off each unit. The textbook as such is a major achievement and a priceless tool for students in need of a solid information source. As such, it has remained in use in the updated version of the course, if only as a helpful instrument of additional support. As noted above, this textbook uses a teaching style based on a traditional, teacher-centred model. ^[2] My objective in revising the course was to remove the teacher from the spotlight and bring students into focus instead: not only as individuals striving for achievement, but also as members of working groups. In this way I wanted to put stress on the need for cooperation, getting students ready for their future job in the lab where teamwork is all.

Let us now dwell on the specificities of English for laboratory technicians, which to a large extent determined the structure of the above-mentioned textbook. As mentioned above, the course in English takes place in the second year of studies. Usually, there is one group of about 20 students (predominantly female) with varying competence in English, ranging from FCE level down to A2. Grammatically speaking, at the end of the course, students are expected to have mastered all the structures expected at level B2 of general English, but these grammar structures in themselves do not represent the specificity of this course. The main emphasis is put on the vocabulary encompassing more general areas (why people want to become a laboratory technician, the job of a laboratory technician), general-specific areas (laboratory safety, equipment, first-aid), and highly specific fields (immunology, laboratory techniques, analysing and measuring methods). The main goal of the course is to enable students to use the vocabulary in professional communicative contexts. These concern both the social environment of the laboratory (introducing the job, presenting one’s position and work, talking to colleagues about different aspects of laboratory life), and some more specialised aspects of a laboratory technician’s job (talking about analytical methods, discussing procedures, presenting results). Thus both fluency and accuracy of expression are required.

One of the most important points in teaching English for Laboratory Technicians is probably to raise students’ awareness of the reasons why English is important for them. This may seem obvious to an enthusiastic teacher, but not to someone who is obliged to read a subject included in their curriculum, their only motivation being to pass the final test to get the credits they need. Providing some reasons why English might be helpful is one of the first tasks students are asked to perform at the start of the course. Usually, the group agree on the following: the interconnected character of the scientific world; communication and collaboration with colleagues around the globe; keeping in touch with the latest developments in the field; taking part in international projects and thus making significant progress in one’s career. Other important aspects of motivating students are dealt with later in the article.

As I mentioned above, the move from the previous study material to new, uncharted territory brought about a major change in the teaching approach. Up to then, the grammar/translation method seems to have held sway. Arguably, this approach has its advantages: from the teacher’s point of view, it provides security as all the possible answers (and questions) are already known, being inscribed in the texts and exercises contained in the textbook. The teacher is the omniscient centre of the class prompting students to give the correct answers. Students, on the other hand, are expected to take in a strictly limited amount of knowledge transmitted to them by their teacher. Thus, the whole one-way process of teaching is heavily test-biased and focused on the final evaluation. Systematically taught to reproduce the contents of their textbooks, students learn hard facts about the language and their field (e. g. microbiology), developing one-sidedly the receptive skill of reading. As Promodrou (1995: 35) rightly claims, this test-oriented approach to language learning emphasises failure, correctness, impersonality, anxiety, marks, mechanical content, judgement, extrinsic motivation, competition and teacher control. A teaching-oriented approach, on the other hand, focuses on success, appropriacy, individualisation, pleasure, results, interesting and flexible content, support, intrinsic motivation, co-operation and student control. There being no recipes for success, teachers “must create [their] own personal magic of a more ordinary class” (Prodromou 1995: 36). Most higher education students expect the teacher to be an authoritative informant, but this is not his or her only role. The teacher also has to be a manager with a good knowledge of the language; a monitor well-rounded in ELT theory; a model and a counsellor; a facilitator making students change their traditional attitudes to error; and, last but not least, a friend showing empathy with learners (Prodromou 1995: 36). This enlarged understanding of the teacher’s roles was a corollary to the innovative materials brought into the class, but also one of the conditions of success. Before I embark on a more detailed description of one lesson, I would like first to consider some of the methodological standpoints which led me to introduce new approaches into teaching – and learning – English in the course for laboratory technicians.

2 Creativity in teaching, creativity in learning

As Randal Holme argues, “ESP is not just about finding the right course content, it is also about finding the best way to teach for specific purposes” (Holme 1996: 7). Thus, one of the main tasks for me as a teacher when I began to revise my course was to shed the role of authoritative informant in a class where students function only as providers of correct or incorrect answers to questions on previously presented material, the teacher’s role being to accept or reject their responses. Clearly, this approach, based on automated, individualistic and repetitive activities rooted in rote learning, cannot compete with the demands put on students nowadays. It simply does not prepare them for their future professional career and life in a society hard-wired for flexibility, innovation, cooperation and creativity. In my view, the learning process had to be adapted, and students had to be made the centre of the learning process. So, rather than orienting the class towards teaching, as mentioned above, one should talk about a student-oriented or student-centred class. In doing this, one important feature can be added to the learning process, namely pleasure. Even at tertiary level, learning should provide students with pleasure – the pleasure of learning about new things not from their teacher, but by themselves. Students should be provided with learning activities which are “designed to foster creativity” (Starko 2010: 16). These newly constructed tasks change the interaction between the teacher and the students as they “cast students in the roles of problem solvers and communicators rather than passive acquirers of information. Teachers, in turn, are transformed from founts of all wisdom to problem setters, problem seekers, coaches, audience, and sometimes publicity agents.” (Starko 2010: 16). The class should become a community of inquiry, a place for asking questions. Starko (2010: 16) makes an important distinction between teaching for creativity and creative teaching: “When teaching to enhance creativity, we may well be creative as teachers, but we also provide students the knowledge, skills, and surroundings necessary for their own creativity to emerge. The results […] include real problem finding, problem solving, and communication by students” (Starko 2010: 16). It should be pointed out, however, that activities focused on creative thinking do not neglect the pragmatic aspects of education: “No responsible teacher should devote significant amounts of time to activities that will not enhance students’ opportunities for success, both on high-stakes tests and on the often more complex challenges of life and continued intellectual growth” (Starko 2010: 17). This approach, reminiscent of task-based learning, promotes both open-ended, discussion-focused activities and strict tasks conceived as a preparation for tests. Moreover, it seems to be an ideal way to prepare students for real life with its challenges: “Teaching creativity can help students identify and solve problems, see from multiple points of view, analyse data, and express themselves clearly in multiple genres” (Starko 2010: 17). On the whole, teachers should strive to develop in their students what Edward de Bono (1976) calls “critical intelligence” by promoting active, generative thinking. As the description of one of my teaching units will hopefully show, in this particular ESP course I tried to mix both creative teaching/teaching for creativity and traditional tasks: students should learn in a creative way, but still be able to sit a test or an exam. This mixture of creative and traditional types of activities is probably the most challenging part of the teaching process.

In my approach, I try to bear in mind and put into practice the latest findings in task-based and CLIL methodologies (Ellis 2003; Coyle et al. 2010). ^[3] I attempted to limit the presentation part to the minimum; rather, students were presented with tasks in which the delicate line between the familiar and new, both in content and language, had to be taken into account (Coyle et al. 2010: 95). ^[4] Bringing in a shared responsibility, tasks build a completely new relationship not only among students, but also between students and teacher. Teaching, as Holme (1996) puts it, becomes a partnership between students and their teacher as they support each other with their different knowledge. As Starko argues, “there are at least three things we can do as teachers to help create a classroom where creativity can flourish: teach the skills ^[5] and attitudes of creativity, teach the creative methods of the disciplines, and develop a problem-friendly classroom” (Starko 2010: 120). Given our situation (the teacher being no expert in the field of laboratory techniques, chemistry, microbiology or immunology), the first and the third points were preferred. Getting a class ready for creativity has been one of the main objectives of this revised course, knowing at the same time that one of the most crucial components of a creativity-oriented class is the idea of “transfer[ring] the techniques from classroom exercises to real-life habits of mind” (Starko 2010: 121). Real-life habits of mind require real-life, authentic problems. These should meet three conditions: “they (a) do not have a predetermined answer, (b) are personally relevant to the investigator, and (c) can be explored through the methods of one or more disciplines” (Starko 2010: 16). In our restricted conditions (14 lessons per term packed with highly specific content – we should be reminded of de Bono’s utopian curriculum), little time can be devoted to explicit teaching for creativity itself. Rather, we opted for a more practical approach by designing activities through which students might develop their approach to content and thus to learning. As Schlichter (1986, p. 364) cited in Starko (2010) says, “students are taught that when the task calls for productive thinking they should do four things:

1. Think of many ideas (fluency).

2. Think of varied ideas (flexibility).

3. Think of unusual ideas (originality).

4. Add to their ideas to make them better (elaboration).” (Starko 2010: 128).

Starko (2010: 122) proposes thirteen thinking tools which students should be familiarised with in order to boost their creativity: observing, imaging, abstracting, recognising patterns, pattern forming, analogising, body thinking, empathising, dimensional thinking, modelling, playing, transforming and synthesising. As the description of the teaching unit will hopefully show, I tried to implement as many of these tools as possible.

One of the techniques for enhancing creative thinking, reminiscent of de Bono’s (1976, 1988) “generative” and “lateral thinking”, is divergent thinking, or students’ “ability to think of many different responses to a given situation” (Starko 2010: 127). The most common characteristic of divergent thinking includes all four parts of productive thinking referred to above: fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. However, as Starko rightly asserts, “divergent thinking alone is not creativity. Creativity entails finding a problem or issue worth addressing, generating ideas for addressing it, and evaluating the ideas generated” (2010: 129).

One of the most common techniques for generating ideas is, of course, brainstorming, promoted already by de Bono (1988). Based on the principle of deferred-judgment (Starko 2010: 129), the process of brainstorming “strives for a nonjudgmental supportive atmosphere in which idea production can flourish” (Starko 2010: 129). It supports creativity in that criticism is ruled out, as students should come up with as many ideas as possible, no matter how far-fetched (freewheeling). Moreover, different ideas can be reused and built upon in a process of combination and improvement. Brainstorming seems to be a useful tool for students learning how to generate multiple ideas. Still, despite its widespread use in education (and elsewhere), it apparently has its downsides: it has been found, for example, that group brainstorming is not as effective as individual work (Paulus and Nijstad 2003). The possible causes of productivity loss in groups were described by Sawyer (2007) and identified as topic fixation, social inhibition and social loafing. It is up to the teacher to think of strategies to counteract these dangers. In conclusion, brainstorming is important for any class bent on learning creativity as its most important function is “to practice the flexibility, risk taking, and other habits of mind associated with creativity” (Starko 2010: 132). As will become apparent, brainstorming is one of the pivotal techniques used in our revised ESP course: students should learn how to approach an issue, generate ideas, discuss and classify them. Furthermore, these techniques might be considered as part of the skills which, as Holme (1996) emphasises, corroborating de Bono’s (1976) insights on teaching thinking, ^[6] may be more important in the long run for the students than the content of the course itself.

3 A constructivist approach: Group-work, motivation and post-compulsory education

The shift from teacher-centred to student-centred strategies of learning focused on creativity has been inspired by the constructivist approach, which “enables the individual to go beyond the information given” (Jacques and Salmon 2007: 52). According to this model, “learners should […] be encouraged to discover principles by themselves and to engage in active dialogue with their tutor and with each other, as a learning strategy” (Jacques and Salmon 2007: 52). The knowledge that the students are supposed to acquire is not transmitted to them by the teacher, but should rather be discovered. At the same time, the process of discovery is not individual but based on collaboration: “Taking part in a group of learners with sympathetic and supportive facilitation (or online e-moderation) is critically important to the construction of knowledge. In practical terms, constructivism implies the need to promote discovery, dialogue, interaction, contextualisation and reflection, rather than delivery of content and information” (Cooner 2005 and Stahl 2005 as cited in Jacques and Salmon 2007: 53). The previously promoted learning strategy, which built on a supposed dialogue between the teacher individual students, proved obsolete, impractical and ultimately untenable.

Following these considerations, I wanted to incorporate in the revised course the latest teaching trends, including group-work in any of its varieties. As stated above, the process of education should provide students not only with knowledge but also skills, with some overlap with the real-world environment and conditions. Significantly, group-work pursues certain inalienable social and task aims, developing a sense of commitment and educational scope (Jacques and Salmon 2007: 32). Moreover, as Jacques and Salmon argue, “it […] appears that groups are demonstrably valuable for many of the more sophisticated aims of higher education to do with critical thinking, making diagnoses or decisions, solving problems, and changing or maintaining attitudes to the subject under study” (Jacques and Salmon 2007: 45). I tried to bear in mind these aims when preparing for the classes.

Furthermore, teaching in groups seems to be the ideal way not only of promoting social and thinking skills, but also of shifting the emphasis from the teacher to the students. It thus solves one of the main problems of the course mentioned above: how to make the teacher feel confident in front of a group of individuals specialising in a field he or she is not expert in. Paradoxically, it might seem that abandoning the safe, one-way-traffic, lecture-style approach and opening the space for the students, who might (and they quite often do) ask unexpected questions, is not the best strategy. Still, as my experience shows, the benefits largely outweigh the risks. In line with the wish for a boost in creative thinking, discussion methods are promoted as these “are more effective than didactic methods (e. g. lecture) for stimulating thought, for personal and social adjustment, and for changes of attitude” (Bligh 1998 cited in Jacques and Salmon 2007: 45). Furthermore, according to Bligh, the discussion methods are “no worse than the lecture for effectively transmitting information” (Bligh 1998 cited in Jacques and Salmon 2007: 45). Also, this approach “should encourage students to discover rules for themselves through problem-solving activities, as this will ensure that their concentration is engaged and that their understanding is thorough and lasting” (Prodromou 1995: 8).

The teacher thus assumes different roles, functioning “as a promoter of learning, intellectually critical, stimulating and challenging but within a context that emphasises support and mutual respect” (Jacques and Salmon 2007: 50). The teacher’s role shifts “from one of expert and figure of authority to one who encourages participation, dialogue and interaction by students with course materials and with each other” (Jacques and Salmon 2007: 50). This change is vital not only for the process of education as it takes place in the classroom. It also has wider consequences, as “teachers also convey certain beliefs, about society and the role of the individual within it. They do this (…) whenever they rearrange their students in groups to work in collaboration or in competition with each other” (Prodromou 1995: 8). This view is supported by Holme, who claims that “learning must be seen as a sociological as well as a psychological issue” (Holme 1996: 7). The social role of learning ^[7] in groups is one of the main incentives for a change: the educational process should keep up with the latest trends and the teaching approach should be as attractive for the students as the content itself. Or, even more ideally, the teaching approach should make the content as attractive as possible for the students, who should be able to see clearly the link between what they learn in the classroom and the real world outside its walls. Importantly, this is one of Dörnyei’s (2001) aspects in creating basic motivational conditions. Furthermore, collaborative work based on creativity could help in realising the challenge of cross-linking the academic content of the class with students’ personalities, the socio-cultural context of their lives, and the world as such. In this context, Dörnyei and Kubanyiova (2014), elaborating on their motivational theories, refer to students’ visualising pathways to success in the world, thus making real their vision of themselves. By learning, students see the world differently, the knowledge they gather gains a personal aspect becoming “personally meaningful learning” (Jacques and Salmon 2007: 55). Dörnyei (2001) distinguishes among four major motivational phases: creating the basic motivational conditions, generating initial motivation, maintaining and protecting motivation, and encouraging positive self-evaluation. In the first part of this article, I mentioned the issue of students’ motivation to learn English, giving some sample answers. This corresponds to Gardner and Lambert’s (1972) notion of instrumental orientation in which students are motivated by pragmatic gains, such as a higher salary or a better career. Bearing in mind Dörnyei’s (2001) framework of L2 motivation, my first concern, when planning the teaching strategy for this course, was to create basic motivational conditions, focusing on motivational components specific to the course. Even if the English course is compulsory, students should take an interest in it, and the teacher should be able to justify its relevance to their present and future situation. Analysing the teacher-specific motivational components of his model, Dörnyei (2001) further stresses that the teacher’s personality, behaviour and teaching style play an important role in motivating students. With these considerations in mind, I tried to create a classroom where the students would feel at ease and safe, as language learning is “one of the most face-threatening school subjects because of the pressure of having to operate using a rather limited language code” (Dörnyei 2001: 40). It is vital to establish a positive psychological environment in the classroom. One of the components of this process is, according to Dörnyei (2001), the teacher’s rapport with the students. Other authors share this view: “the teacher has to establish a rapport with the class” (Malamah-Thomas 1991: 14) to enable communication, facilitate classroom transaction (communication of information) and classroom interaction (student-student and teacher-student(s) communication). According to Starko, “a positive atmosphere – a place where people want to be – makes a difference in [students’] creative thinking. If we want to have students engage with content in multiple ways – to think creatively and flexibly – we must create spaces in which such things are possible” (Starko 2010: 246). In other words, students should be supported, teachers should protect their self-esteem and increase their self-confidence, which are ways of maintaining and protecting their motivation (Dörnyei 2001). Students should not be criticised (not even non-verbally) if they are wrong, and teachers should emphasise that it is the students, not them, who really matter in class: “Unconditional acceptance can be manifested in many ways. Any act sending the message that students are important, valuable, and full of potential builds a foundation for psychological safety” (Starko 2010: 245). This corresponds to Dörnyei’s (2001) notions of generating initial motivation, where the teacher increases students’ expectation of success, and the crucial stage of maintaining and protecting motivation, where motivation should be promoted via various techniques, including making learning enjoyable, presenting tasks in a motivating way or increasing learners’ self-confidence.

Hopefully, such a classroom can promote successful learning. The chances are, however, that most students in higher education will still be motivated purely extrinsically, wishing pragmatically to pass the often difficult exams and tests on their way to the diploma or degree. Some of the strategies that are useful in keeping and protecting motivation promote cooperation among learners (Dörnyei 2001). In my case, I focused primarily on changing the teaching method which, in my opinion, should have been the first step towards a shift in students’ perspective. I disrupted the classic lecture-style, translation-based approach and engaged students as much as possible in the hope of motivating them: “cooperative learning methods can be an effective motivator. When students in groups share responsibility for achievement there is a decreased risk of personal failure and increased support for individual persistence. […] Group learning involves shared goals, which leads to increases in students’ sense of responsibility and self-efficacy; it provides a supportive atmosphere for learning” (Nicol 1997 as cited in Jacques and Salmon 2007: 60). Briefly, this goes hand in hand with Dörnyei’s (2001) claim that a change in the teacher’s role aimed at providing students with more autonomy can help to motivate them. The style where the teacher moves into the background is sometimes known as the “facilitating style”. ^[8]

To my mind, the teacher’s best strategy is to exploit students’ intrinsic motivation, which “comes from within, as a positive response to the task itself” (Starko 2010: 247). In this context, Dörnyei (2001) proposes various ways of promoting self-motivation in learners. In a more ambitious way, students might be led to construct a future vision of themselves, leaning on one of their “possible selves” (Dörnyei and Kubanyiova 2014). As Starko further highlights, intrinsic motivation “spurs a person to explore, to persist, and to achieve based on the satisfaction of the task itself” (Starko 2010: 247). Significantly, it also helps promote creativity: “Amabile (1987, 1989, 1996) identified intrinsic motivation as one of the three key elements in creative behaviour. […] Developing classroom structures that support intrinsic motivation is an essential element in the development of creativity” (Starko 2010: 244). Taking inspiration from motivational theories, I particularly tried to break the monotony of learning by changing the pace of the lessons and varying the order of activities. I also attempted to make the tasks more interesting, linking them to students’ lives or real-life situations. Also, tasks should be explained clearly, their purpose and utility made clear as “students are too often required to do things in the classroom just because the teacher says so” (Dörnyei 2001: 79). Before performing the tasks, students should be acquainted with possible strategies to successfully accomplish them. According to Dörnyei (2001), the motivation in students might be kept up if the teacher manages to orientate the class – as a group but also each student individually – towards achieving specific clear-cut goals. ^[9] All in all, my goal was “to create [a] problem-friendly classroom” (Starko 2010: 244), where students do things and don’t just see and hear about them while sitting at their desks. Students should participate fully in the learning process: “Self-initiated learning, which involves the whole person of the learner (feelings as well as intellect) is the most lasting and pervasive” (Starko 2010: 244).

4 From theory to practice: A lesson outline

In the final part of this article I would like to describe in detail, by way of an example, one particular lesson in order to illustrate the shift in the teaching approach I have described above. The topic of this lesson, taught regularly during week eleven in the spring term, is immunology. This in itself being a vast field of study, the teacher has to, and – rather luckily – can, choose from its numerous sub-topics. I opted for allergy, for reasons having to do with the newly adopted teaching approach, namely to engage students in learning by making the topic as close to real life as possible. Thus, the goal of the lesson was twofold: first, the students – future laboratory technicians – should be able to define, in both medical and general English, what an allergy is, describe the mechanism of its origin, distinguish and discuss its different types (and thus allergens), and finally, identify and classify various symptoms. Secondly, they should be able to project the topic – highly specific, abstract and complicated as far as different biochemical processes are concerned – onto their everyday lives. ^[10] The grammar part of this particular lesson, integrated into the scheme, was concerned with indirect speech.

As mentioned above, the teacher’s approach brings with it certain corollaries: focus on fluency, no censorship as far as students’ ideas are concerned, no evaluation, emphasis on group-work (in pairs or groups of four), and collaborative learning where students share, discuss and find solutions by themselves. Importantly, students should be fully engaged as this not only increases their interest and motivation but also boosts the intake of information presented during the lesson. Correspondingly, the teacher’s concern should be to try to make the rather abstract topic (immunology) personal and relevant to real life (allergy in our lives).

At the very start, the teacher introduces the content briefly, showing the outline of the unit on an opening Prezi slide. This is done in accordance with Dörnyei’s (2001) requirement that learners should be oriented to achieving specific and clear-cut goals. Hence, students know immediately what they will have learned by the end of the class. On the other hand – and this also works as a sort of strategy to arouse curiosity and motivate students – they are kept in the dark about how they are going to address the topic. If performed on a regular basis, this element of surprise as to what kind of activity the students are going to perform is likely to create positive tension and arouse expectation on their part. Moreover, it can be considered one of the ways of presenting the unit content in a motivating fashion (Dörnyei 2001).

After the first Prezi slide with its introductory briefing, the teacher moves on to a general lead-in. The second Prezi slide brings up a few questions concerning immunology. These are hidden to begin with and shown one by one, the first of them being as open as possible: “What comes into your mind when I say immunology?” Working in pairs, students are asked to brainstorm as many words, expressions and ideas as possible. Subsequently, the class pools all the ideas, the teacher writing the students’ suggestions on the whiteboard. Students can then discuss whether such and such terms fit the wordlist; the teacher can even ask them to sort the terms into different ad hoc categories. The classification can further be discussed. The immunology terms, serving as prompts, should remain on the whiteboard as students might use them later. At the end of this short activity, the teacher can assess how much the students know and are able to bring up in English concerning the topic. The next questions shown on the slide are concerned with immunology as a subject the students learn in their second year of studies: Is it a difficult subject? What makes it particularly challenging? Do you like it? These questions are deliberately personal with a view to making the students feel safer, given the difficulty of the subject. In this fashion, the first part of the lesson introduces the topic, brings up some basic terms and makes the students feel safe before more challenging tasks come: considering Coyle et al.’s (2010) content and language familiarity and novelty continuum, students are in the comfort zone of familiar language and familiar content.

After this main introductory stage, focused on fluency practice, ^[11] there follows a first set of accuracy-based tasks: students are asked to read a short gap-fill text on immunology. The students are given a time period to read through the text and propose, in pairs, one comprehension question each. The task has been simplified in two ways: firstly, the text itself was shortened and less familiar words replaced with their synonyms (so that exposure to new language is reduced to a minimum); and secondly, some of the terms which figure in it have been discussed in advance and written on the whiteboard. While students read, the teacher completes the list on the whiteboard with some more expressions. The students then present their question to the class and other students try to answer it. After a short discussion about their answers, students are asked to re-read the text and fill-in the gaps with words from the whiteboard. After a given time, the answers are checked by the whole class. Time permitting (these activities can be assigned as homework), two vocabulary exercises focused on accuracy are envisaged: a word-definition match-up and complementary questions for discussion. These were designed in order to prepare the students for the type of tasks they would find in the final test.

The goal of the first introductory part is thus to present, practice and re-use (produce) some of the basic terms concerning the huge field of immunology. In the next sub-part, our purpose is to slim down the broad topic, making it relevant to real life, concrete and, if possible, personal. In this way, the third Prezi slide introduces a sub-theme that, to my mind, fulfils all these conditions, namely allergy. Again, by way of an open lead-in task, students are asked four questions moving from the general to the personal: what an allergy is, what types of allergy they know, what causes allergy, and whether they are allergic to anything (with stress put on the preposition). In pairs, students – negotiating meaning (Ellis 2003) – discuss the questions for a given time. Then, the class check together, students pool their ideas, and again the most important terms are written on the board for later use.

The goal of the next part, which includes a video file, is to familiarise the students with a more specific topic, namely the way allergy is generated in the human body. This can be a tricky part of the lesson as students are exposed to new and quite possibly unknown vocabulary linked to this biochemical process (familiar language vs unfamiliar content in Coyle’s continuum). On the other hand, the task should involve students in the cognitive processes of selecting, classifying, reasoning and evaluating, which are criterial features of any meaningful task (Ellis 2003). Before watching the video, it is advisable to probe students’ existing knowledge and let them come into contact with a set of mixed (both familiar and new) vocabulary. For this purpose, I opted for an affinity diagram. First, the notion of affinity diagram is briefly introduced to students via a graphic on a Prezi slide. Secondly, students are split into four groups of four people and envelopes are distributed, each containing cut-up pieces of paper with terms taken from three different categories: allergens, symptoms and biochemistry. In their groups, students are asked to look at the terms and sort them out into as many categories as they find logical or practical (the three initial categories devised by the teacher are kept secret). After a given time, groups are asked to choose an emissary who then goes to a different group to compare, discuss and perhaps analyse the categories. Subsequently, the emissaries return to their group of origin and report their solutions. The groups then discuss and adjust their lists. In the final step, all groups compare their solutions with the teacher’s suggestion displayed on a Prezi slide. A class discussion can be engaged, questions raised and possibly answered, and other suggestions brought up.

This, then, is the launch pad for the listening part, as most of the vocabulary treated in this section appears in the video: students should now be in their comfort zone, being familiar both with language and content. The teacher tells the students they are going to watch a short (1 min 28 sec) YouTube video about biochemical processes of allergy. Their first task is to watch and listen for a word or words (the teacher is – intentionally – not specific here) from their affinity diagrams that will not have been mentioned in the video. After the first listening, the teacher elicits the term(s) in question. Then, students are asked to look at their worksheets where they find a gap-fill exercise related to the video. First, in pairs, they try to complete as many gaps as they can. Then, they watch (or rather listen to) the video again, writing in the missing words. After the video has been played twice, students compare their answers in pairs and then in groups of four (following the pyramidal group structure). Then, the whole class check the answers together, the teacher writing some more difficult terms on board. Finally, students watch the video once again for a recapitulation. The last task requires the students to answer four open questions based on the video and displayed on a Prezi slide. They discuss the answers in pairs and their suggestions are then elicited by the teacher.

This Q&A session is then used as a prompt for the grammar part of the lesson, which might be considered as an attempt to construct a task whose content is the language itself. ^[12] The teacher elicits the answer to a question, such as “X, are you allergic to pollen?”, then writes it on the board in the following way – X says: “I am allergic to pollen.” The teacher, in the process of “input” or “data-input” (Ellis 2003), then goes on to explain that this is an example of direct speech and describes in detail the characteristic features of this mode of speech, including reporting verb, colon and quotation marks. Next, the teacher writes on the board a prompt for indirect speech, using a reporting verb in the present tense: “X says that…”. The completion is elicited from the students. The most important step in this part of the lesson, however, is to make students realise how reported speech works when the reporting verb is in the past tense. In accordance with the teaching approach mentioned in the first part of this article, the teacher’s goal is to make students themselves discover the rules in action by showing them examples of language. ^[13] The goal is to be achieved via an activity (defined as part of a task in Nunan 1989). For this purpose, two sets of sentences have been devised and written on cut-up slips of paper. These sentences come in eight pairs with similar sentences in direct and indirect speech matched together. The slips of paper are randomly distributed among the students who, each with one slip, are then asked to mingle and find a partner with a sentence that matches theirs. ^[14] As a result, the class is divided into eight pairs of students, each pair having one sentence rendered in two versions, direct and indirect. The teacher allows the students to compare, in pairs, both sentences and to note down any changes they discover. After a given period of time, the teacher elicits students’ suggestions, writing them on the board in distinct categories – verb tense, pronouns, and others (if necessary). After this preliminary, discovery activity, students are asked to complete a set of sentence prompts displayed on a Prezi slide. There are eight sentences in direct speech to be transformed into their indirect equivalents. All sentences have appeared on the paper slips, so students should not have any major difficulty completing them. At this stage, the teacher might give a short explanation by way of a summary. The students then refer to their worksheets to complete one final transformation exercise with new sentences about either the current topic or their subject as such. This accuracy-focused exercise is followed by a fluency activity that should round off the whole class. Individually, students are asked to mention a fact they overheard and remembered during the lesson. The teacher then asks another student to report to the others what he or she has just heard. In this way, the current topic is revised using newly acquired language skills.

5 Conclusion

The goal of this article was to introduce one of the revised ESP courses taught in the medical faculty of Masaryk University. As part of the IMPACT Project, the English course for Laboratory Technicians has undergone a major change regarding its content, which entailed a shift in the teaching approach. In the first part, I pointed out certain features specific to this particular course. The first group of features comprises the external factors influencing the course structure – its relatively short duration (two terms) and time schedule (ninety minutes per week); the rather big groups (20 students at least in the autumn term, though the number can drop in the spring term) with their mixed-ability character (they have attended different schools, been exposed to different approaches, have achieved varying levels of English, ranging from A1 to B1 or even B2, and have different expectations). The other group of features concerns the content of the course and encompasses areas such as the specific environment the students will be active in as laboratory technicians and the highly-specific vocabulary ranging from laboratory equipment, measuring techniques and chemistry to giving first-aid and safety issues.

No matter how experienced and well-versed they are in everyday problems of educating young people, teachers should take an interest, as Prodromou (1995: 36) writes, in different didactic theories, even if their approach proves to be eclectic in the end. The aim of the first part of this article was to outline some basic theoretical notions underlying practical teaching activities. Three main terms stand as building blocks for the proposed methodological conception: creativity, collaborative learning and motivation. Without these, it would be very difficult to bring the new materials to life; in fact, both the new content and the teaching approach are tightly intertwined, mutually conditioning each other. To demonstrate this link, one particular lesson was then described in order to show how far these theoretical precepts can be used. The description of the lesson plan was also meant to show not only the possibilities but also the limits of my teaching enterprise.

Several points of discussion can and should be brought up. Is students’ creativity sufficiently promoted? Is there enough room for creative thinking? If not, how can the teacher ensure that students use their thinking to best advantage? Does creative teaching in itself guarantee a creatively-thinking class? In my course, I tried to design activities which would promote a collaborative, creative and, importantly, happy response in my students. My goal was to forge what Starko (2010) calls “a problem-friendly classroom”, which term, however, I take the liberty of reinterpreting, or enlarging slightly: a problem-friendly classroom is one where problems and problem-solving are welcome. To my mind, it is also a class students should be pleased to attend. One of the major tasks any teacher faces nowadays is to create, psychologically speaking, a safe environment – no one is criticised unduly, mistakes and errors are not taboo, and everyone has a say when an issue is brought up. The teacher’s goal – very delicate in tertiary education – is to get students used to the fact that, regardless of education and experience, he or she may not know all the answers. This, then, is the second main way of shaping students’ personalities. The third way would be for teachers to try to arouse interest in their students, building on their intrinsic motivation. I undertake this mainly by devising activities in which students can find some liberty: liberty of thought, liberty of movement and liberty of working with others. Still, as I hope the unit described above shows, my teaching approach is far from being liberal – students follow the lesson plan and carefully designed paths leading to knowledge. These paths, however, are not clear-cut for them – on the contrary: students are trained to use diverse ways of thinking, find facts, construct their knowledge by themselves or with others, building on what they already know (scaffolding, as defined in Mehisto et al. 2008), observe data and reach conclusions by induction. From the three theoretical building blocks mentioned above, the one concerning creativity seems to require more elaboration. With task-based learning in mind, the teacher might give the students even more challenging tasks, prompting creative thinking in even more ways. Still, I hope that the contrast between theory and practice as suggested above might make room for new ideas and shed some light on weak points in the teaching process that need revision. Despite all shortcomings, however, I hope that, as Prodromou (1995: 37) states, theoretical knowledge has helped me “generate new ideas and techniques in a principled fashion rather than an ad hoc way”. The classroom activities presented above might then serve as an example of an active, open-minded and student-friendly approach which, I believe, is a promising stepping stone for making a dynamic, creative and motivated class of students able to transpose into real life the skills and knowledge acquired during the course.