I started teaching an online English for Professional Purposes course in October, and it’s been a really interesting experience so far. The participants in the course work at the Institute of Public Administration in Bahrain, and I was tasked with creating this course for them through the English Language Programs Virtual Educator Program. I hope to write more about this experience later, but today, I want to share a bit more about one activity we worked with to describe trends and data in English.
Participants in the course said they wanted to build their English skills and feel more confident using English in their work with external partners in Bahrain. One of the skills they often use, depending on their department, is describing trends and data. Whether they are sharing information internally related to events or projects, or they are reporting to external partners, describing how something has changed over time is a specific skill that they use in English. In this post, I will share an activity that we did to explore the topic of describing trends and data.
Describing trends and data activity
This activity was a part of an online course synchronous meeting. We use Microsoft Teams to facilitate our meetings, but the materials I created are in the Google Suite. The activity was implemented as a whole group with breakout meetings among smaller groups of participants.
Building vocabulary
To get started, we previewed some important vocabulary related to the topic of describing trends and data. I wasn’t quite sure going into the activity how familiar participants would be with these terms, and it turned out that quite a few were new for many of the participants.
To explore the vocabulary, I asked the participants to read through the words together and look up any terms they weren’t familiar with. Then, we discussed the vocabulary as a big group, defining the terms as needed.
Using vocabulary
Once we were in a good place with the new vocabulary, I asked the participants to use the terms to describe a graph. The graph was taken from an older Business English textbook called Double Dealing because it is a book I had on hand. Ideally, we could have used a more recent graph.
Participants discussed the data in small groups before we came back together as a whole class. Each group shared one sentence describing the graph. We talked about the vocabulary in use and went over any questions that came up.
The next part of the activity included a cloze paragraph that used the key vocabulary. I asked participants to work in small groups to complete the paragraph with the key terms, and then we went over the answers together. This was another opportunity to see the terms in use, and we discussed questions about how to use the terms appropriately as they came up.
Other useful language
In addition to the key vocabulary in the first part of the activity, we also discussed useful phrases for describing trends and data. Some of the phrases were used in the cloze activity paragraph, so we had a chance to explore how they might be used in context.
Putting it all together
The last part of the activity included a chance for participants to describe another graph using the key vocabulary and phrases. The graph for this activity is also from the old textbook, but it was adequate for our purposes.
I asked participants to work in pairs or small groups to write a brief report about the data. Their challenge was to use the target vocabulary appropriately to describe the information in the chart. Once participants completed the task, we shared our descriptions in a whole group discussion. Again, we discussed difficulties using the new vocabulary and any other questions as they arose.
Activity follow-up
Most of the activity took place during one synchronous meeting, but we did some review and follow-up in our next class meeting as well.
I asked participants to describe another graph. This time the graph was more recent, and it presented the data as a bar graph instead of a line graph. Participants worked in small groups to prepare descriptions, and then we discussed the data as a whole group. This was another opportunity to address any lingering questions related to the new vocabulary and useful language introduced in our previous lesson.
Participant feedback and reflection
Overall, the activity felt like it went well. The participants were actively engaged with the content, and from my side of things, it seemed to go pretty smoothly. The activity had a balance of small group and whole group tasks that felt like it allowed participants to process the new vocabulary and share their ideas in a low-stakes environment.
Throughout the activity, participants mentioned how interesting and useful the content was to them. It was validating to know that some of the terms were new for the participants, and the task seemed to align with the work they were doing in English at the institute.
If I were to do this activity again, I would perhaps take the time to find more recent graphs with a variety of different data being represented. The activity could also be adapted or extended to include tasks where participants bring their own data to describe. For example, participants could bring a table or graph they needed to describe in their actual work, and we could work together to describe it in English. That would add an additional layer of relevance, possibly.
Materials
If you’re interested in using or adapting the materials, you can find them below. The materials are available for educational use, not for commercial uses.
Describing data and trends handout
Describing data and trends slide deck
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