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Oxford University Press Telephone Class Trainer Training Manual In this document, you will find all the information you need regarding the teaching of OUP Telephone Class sessions on the ISUS platform.

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Contents

What is OUP Telephone Class? ............................................................................................................................... 2

What is the online Oxford University Press course? ............................................................................................... 3

Study tools ...................................................................................................................................................... 4

Who Are Your OUP Students? ................................................................................................................................. 5

What Do Your OUP Students See? .......................................................................................................................... 6

Booking a session ................................................................................................................................................ 6

Choosing the time and then the trainer, or choosing the trainer and then the time: .................................... 7

Confirming the session: ................................................................................................................................... 8

Synchonizing with their e-calendar: ................................................................................................................ 8

Conducting an OUP Telephone Class session ......................................................................................................... 9

During the session: .............................................................................................................................................. 9

After the session: .............................................................................................................................................. 12

Manually updating the attendance status .................................................................................................... 12

Comments Box Session Summary ................................................................................................................. 13

Motivational tactics to engage your student with OUP Telephone Class ......................................................... 14

What Activities Should You Use? .......................................................................................................................... 15

Needs Driven ..................................................................................................................................................... 15

Instant Content ................................................................................................................................................. 15

Finding Instant Content Activities ................................................................................................................. 15

Using Instant Content Activities .................................................................................................................... 15

Instant Content Structure ............................................................................................................................. 15

Appendices ............................................................................................................................................................ 18

Appendix I – Guidelines for using Webcams ..................................................................................................... 18

Trainer Dress Code ........................................................................................................................................ 18

Going on webcam ......................................................................................................................................... 19

Dress code ..................................................................................................................................................... 19

Appendix II – Frequently Asked Questions ....................................................................................................... 20

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What is OUP Telephone Class?

Oxford University Press (OUP) Telephone Class is a collaboration between OUP and ISUS. OUP students will be

following an e-learning course on the Oxford University Press platform. OUP students will also have access to

two on-demand virtual sessions a month. These sessions will follow a one-step methodology using Instant

activities or needs driven activities. No preparation work is needed nor will there be a formal session report

submitted after the session. We offer the students the opportunity to connect with a native trainer in the

Telephone Class session while completing self-study in the OUP platform.

Key information on OUP Telephone Class:

- Each student will be able to book two sessions a month over a six month period.

- There will be no preparation activities for the students nor for the trainers.

- There will be no formal session report. Instead, we will be asking you to add a brief report in the

comment box on the Session Details page.

- The sessions are not blended with the OUP material, but they are designed to improve

communication and fluency.

- Each session should be 30 minutes (25 minutes connection time)

Topics for the sessions will include current affairs, technology, leisure, culture and sport. You will give students

at least two options to choose from at the start of each session.

Each session will be based around a selected activity and each activity will have three or four slides with topics

for speaking practice and language development.

During the Telephone Class session, you will ask your students:

to clarify which area they would like to focus on in the session, e.g. pronunciation, accuracy or fluency.

To aim for a minimum of 75% student talking time. The session is about them improving their

confidence, fluency and accuracy while communicating.

You will:

Define the objectives at the beginning of the session: “You’ve chose the activity on sweatshops, so we

are going to be looking at phrases for sharing your views, making suggestions on this topic”. On slide

2, you should also redefine objectives.

Point out what grammar concepts the questions are covering as you give the session

Establish a clear error correction policy at the start of the session (e.g. immediate, at next pause or at

the end of the session).

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What is the online Oxford University Press course?

OUP students study on the OUP platform, and this self-study is not blended with their Telephone Class

sessions. There are 12 units per course, and OUP recommends that they follow the course in a linear fashion.

They will do a tutorial after every 3 units which allows them to record themselves.

All of your Telephone Class students will be on a 6 month course, which means that they will, in theory,

complete 1 level of My Oxford English.

Prior to beginning their course, they are sent a

recommended study plan. In month 1, they will

complete 3 units and 1 tutorial. In Month 2, they

will be asked to recycle grammar, vocabulary from

the previous units, to read an e-book and to play

with the tools in Oxford campus.

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In the campus, they can do a variety of didactic exercises with songs, games, quizzes, e-books and articles.

Study tools

OUP Students have access to:

A fully integrated electronic version of the Oxford Wordpower Dictionary with audio of the British and

American pronunciations.

The Grammar Bank which is a quick look-up reference of all the grammar the students study in the

online course. This means that students, regardless

of the level they are studying, can

access all the

grammar

corresponding to

the 10 levels of

the course.

A virtual teacher

(see right)

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Who Are Your OUP Students?

Your OUP students are Spanish civil servants who work in public administration. The civil service

in Spain (función pública) is usually considered to include all the employees at the different levels of the

Spanish public administration: central government, autonomous communities, as well as municipalities. There

are three main categories of Spanish public positions: temporary political posts ("personal funcionario

eventual"), which require a simple procedure for hire and dismissal and is associated to top level executives

and advisors, statutory permanent posts ("funcionarios de carrera"), which require a formal procedure for

access that usually involves a competition among candidates and whose tenants are subject to a special

statutory relationship of work with their employers, and non-statutory permanent posts ("personal laboral"),

which also require a formal procedure for entry similar to the procedure required for the "funcionarios de

carrera", but whose tenants are subject to normal working conditions and laws. Competitions differ notably

among the state, the 17 autonomous communities and the city councils, and the "funcionarios de carrera"

and "personal laboral" examinations vary in difficulty from one location to another.

As of 2014, there were 2.6 million civil servants in Spain (22% work for the central state, 50% for the

Autonomous communities, 4% for the Universities and 22% for local organization such as municipalities and

provinces).

All of your OUP students will be levels 5 and over, so they should have sound grounding in the English

language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Spain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_communities_of_Spain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipalities_of_Spain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain

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What Do Your OUP Students See?

OUP students have an integrated experience with ISUS, meaning that they will only see certain ISUS screens.

As such, it’s important that you not make mention of ‘ISUS’ as either a company or as a platform since they

won’t understand what you’re talking about. For OUP students, you are an OUP teacher.

Booking a session

Students will have an area in the OUP platform that they can click on to access the scheduling engine to book

a session with you. The scheduling engine is embedded into their OUP page (as you can see below). When

booking, they can either choose their time first or choose their trainer first. All OUP Telephone Class sessions

are on-demand which means that the students book the sessions themselves. The sessions must be booked

with a minimum of 24 hours’ notice. Their sessions are not programmed by Coordination, so be sure to have

your weekly availability up-to-date! Don’t forget that the more availability you provide, the earlier you will

show earlier in the trainer carrousel which means that you will have more chances to be selected.

Furthermore, we would like to remind you that you should always mark in green as yellow only counts for

coordination and not for on demand scheduling.

Since OUP students use ISUS exclusively via the OUP platform, their view of the ISUS platform is quite

reduced, showing only certain pages of ISUS within the OUP site. In the next few screenshots, we’ll walk you

through the user experience of the typical OUP student while booking a session.

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Choosing the time and then the trainer, or choosing the trainer and then the time:

The students either select the date and time they wish to have the session (and then select from a list of

available trainers), or they select the trainer first, and then the date and time based on the trainer’s

availability.

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Confirming the session:

Once the details of the session are selected, the student must confirm the booking. Once confirmed, both the

student and the trainer receive an email notification with the details of the session.

Synchonizing with their e-calendar:

If the student wishes to have their sessions in their e-calendar, they simply need to click on the button at the

bottom of the Calendar page:

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Conducting an OUP Telephone Class session

OUP Telephone Class sessions should be held exclusively via Skype or fixed phone. You may use webcam in

your session, but only if the student asks you to do so and only if you comply with the Webcam Rules (see

Appendix I).

All sessions should use either Needs Driven or Instant Content Activities. (Find more information regarding

how to use these, see the Activities section.) OUP Telephone Class sessions don’t require you to prepare them

ahead of time since we give you Instant Content activities that you can use. They also do not require you to

complete a formal session report at the end of the session; however, they do require you to fill out the

comments box with some feedback after the session.

All you need to do is make sure that your student has a dynamic, fun and engaging conversation that helps

them improve their confidence and fluency in English. Remember that OUP students are a different kind of

students to standard ISUS students, and they are looking to improve their conversational skills.

Students will see a view similar to the one below during their session. They will click on the "Clases

telefóncias" button to access OUP Telephone Class content.

During the session:

During the initial small talk and introductions, offer a minimum of two activity choices to your student; these

can be found using the drop down menu under the activity tab. Never prepare the session in advance; you

must choose the activity in conjunction with the student at the start of the session. The small talk,

introduction and choosing the activity should take no more than 3-5 minutes. All students will be level 5 and

over so you should choose only the medium and high activities.

Once decided with the student, select the chosen activity and click “Save”. Ask your student to refresh the

page and then have them click on the “Live Session” microphone icon to open and view the activity. (See

screenshot on next page.)

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Once you’ve assigned an activity, you will need to click on “Presentation View” to open it (see below).

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Once a student has opened the activity, their screen will look something like this example:

They will see all three sections on the same page (i.e. they can toggle between all slides in the same page).

An example of how a typical OUP Telephone Class session may begin is as follows:

Trainer: Hello is this Student?

Student: Hi, yes. Are you Trainer?

Trainer: I am. Pleased to meet you! Are you ready to get started learning English today?

Student: Absolutely!

Trainer: Great! Well, we have several options of things we could talk about today. If you want to talk

about business, I have a great activity about outsourcing. Or if you prefer, we could talk about travel

starting with an activity about Iceland and its hot springs. I also have a great activity about different

types of sports from extreme sports to more relaxing type sports. Do any of these sound interesting

to you, or is there something different you’d like to talk about?

Student: I think I’d like to talk about sports.

Trainer: Fantastic! If you refresh your activity page, you’ll see the activity appear now. Just click on

the ‘Presentation Mode’ button to see it. Can you see it now?

Student: Yes, now I have it.

Trainer: Great! Then let’s get started! If there were only three sports in the world…

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Here are a few key pointers to bear in mind during the Telephone Class session:

Ask students to clarify which learning area they would like to focus on, e.g. “What area would you

like to focus on today: pronunciation, accuracy or fluency?”

Define the objectives at the beginning of the session: “You’ve chosen the activity on sweatshops so

we are going to be looking at phrases for sharing your views, making suggestions on this topic”. On

slide 2, you should also redefine objectives.

You should point out what grammar concepts the questions are covering as you give the session:

“This question is making you practice the conditional. Here you are using the past tense.”

Aim for a minimum of 75% STT. Use your active listening skills to encourage the student to keep

talking. If a student displays enthusiasm, you can go off track to keep them talking.

Establish a clear error correction policy at the start of the session: “I will be giving you feedback at

the end of the session, but would you also like me to correct you as we speak?”

After the session:

After the sessions, you must do three things: (1) manually mark the student attendance in the drop down box,

(2) leave a brief summary in the Comments box on the Session Details page, (3) and click “Save”.

Manually updating the attendance status

Because these sessions do not require a session report, it is ESSENTIAL that you mark the session completed

when you have finished the session. This is done on the Session Details page. If the student was present,

simply select “Complete” from the drop down menu, just as you do when a student is absent (see below).

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Comments Box Session Summary

After the session, you must leave a brief summary in the Preparations Note on the Session Details page. You

should aim to:

a) Praise – Highlight an area where they have shone in the class.

b) Observation – Let them know where there is room for improvement.

c) Recommendation – Give them a takeaway.

Here are some examples:

Dear Anna.

I hope you enjoyed the session today. I thought you did an excellent job in using the new words and phrases

that we saw on Sport. I think you could work a bit more on your pronunciation. Don’t forget it’s not about

speaking fast; it’s about speaking clearly. Looking forward to our next Telephone Class.

Sylvia

Dear Juan,

Thanks for a fabulous session today. Your pronunciation was really good as you made a big effort to speak

clearly. Your next objective is to use some of the phrases we saw in our session, so why don’t you keep notes so

you can review them before our next Telephone Class.

Have a good week!

Sylvia

Suggestions for observation and recommendations

Try to focus more on communication than accuracy. We need to improve fluency.

Concentrating on improving language and expressions will increase confidence.

Focus on accuracy by reviewing what we did in today’s session and making a note of errors which have

come up more than once.

Concentrating more on fluency when negotiating will help to build confidence.

Mistakes can be made, but timing is everything.

Try to slow down a little when talking and focus on accuracy instead of fluency.

Make vocabulary cards to review when possible. This will help enhance active vocabulary.

Try to keep a vocabulary notebook, using word groups, collocations etc.

Incorporating all idioms and phrasal verbs into daily conversations will improve fluency.

Make a note of key phrases and read through it every day, e.g. I'm in charge of and I'm responsible for…

This will help with key phrases being known off by heart.

Writing phrases with new words and expressions will help with remembering all those words that come

up in our sessions

I would really like you to work on improving your range of vocabulary. Keep a learning journal updated

with new words learned.

Once you have updated the session attendance and left your session summary in the Comments

box, click “Save” to update the platform.

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Motivational tactics to engage your student with OUP Telephone Class

With on-demand sessions, it is particularly important that your students feel motivated and engaged after their sessions. You want to be sure that they book the maximum number of sessions allowed with you!

A good place to start in motivating your students is by following the ARCS theory of motivation. You first gain the attention of the students, and then demonstrate the relevance of what you are teaching to their personal goals and needs. The student gains confidence as the learning process unfolds. The satisfaction of the new knowledge provides motivation to continue learning.

Attention

We need students to understand the role that you as a trainer will play in reaching the learning outcome. The student must be aware of the learning partnership that is formed between student and trainer as they work towards the same targets.

Relevance

We need to show the students how studying with OUP and having Telephone Class session will make

reaching their language goals faster. If they are studying to be able to communicate at work, it will facilitate

their daily communication. If they are studying to travel, you can show how the phrases they learn with you

will make a difference.

Confidence

Confidence is all about creating positive expectations!

Make it clear just what is expected of students from their Telephone Class session and what the takeaway will

be. You should set clear goals which students can reach during the session by outlining the objectives and

following the content structure. Successful execution of these tasks will bring about increased level of

confidence.

Satisfaction

Celebrating successes—often we fail to realize the impact of this on adults. Publicly celebrating

success provides reinforcement for the student receiving the acknowledgment. Praise is often overlooked as a

strong motivator for adults. Tell them they have done really well in the Telephone Class session; we want them

to disconnect from the session thinking, “what a great experience, I have learnt so much!”

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What Activities Should You Use?

Needs Driven

Your OUP students may come to you with specific requests, but this will probably be less common than it is

with your corporate students. Be open to helping them, as always, and be willing to change the direction of

the session when they request it.

Instant Content

Finding Instant Content Activities

If you filter in the ISUS activities library by Program= English (OUP) and Type= Instant Content, you’ll find all of

the Instant Content activities for OUP Telephone Class sessions. A sample activity code would be EN BSU1

3001B. It means the following:

ENBSU1 = English language activity for OUP students. This is number one of the three activities for

this week.

3001 = Date and activity number references that you don’t need to worry about.

B = Intermediate level. You will have A, B and C for each activity for each week. A is for low level

students, B is for intermediate level students and C is for advanced students.

You should have a look at the activities that are in the ISUS activities library and begin exploring these

activities early on so you feel comfortable with their general format.

Using Instant Content Activities

Instant Content activities are specially designed to allow you to choose what you work with on the spur of the

moment. That’s right: no need to prepare the session ahead of time! Instant Content is designed to give you

several fun and engaging topics of discussion that you can immediately pull up and talk about with your

students, whether or not your student has prior knowledge of the topic. The activities will be based around

Magazine, so if you use Magazine in your standard ISUS sessions* or you take the chance to read Magazine

every week, you’ll be half-way there! (*Remember that you cannot use Magazine activities with OUP

students.)

There will be Instant Content that are thematically based on Features, Business and Lifestyle so students can

vary their session while always using fresh and dynamic material. Remember, you will be offering the

options as you connect to the session, so you’ll be selling the content to the student by matching his or her

needs to the content that we produce.

Instant Content Structure

Each session will be based around a selected activity and each activity will have three or four slides with topics

for speaking practice and language development. We want to engage our students as quickly as possible and

have them participating in their session.

In each activity, you will have an image and several questions will be provided for you. There is almost no

preparation required! You can concentrate on engaging and motivating the students in the activity. The

activity will come in three levels of difficulty (basic, intermediate and advanced) so that the contents can be

matched to the ability level of the student.

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Here is an example of a 3-slide Instant Content Activity:

Slide 1: Warm up – Open questions to introduce the topic

Slide 2: Objectives - Theme specific vocabulary / Language Practice

Slide 3: Recap - Open questions to incorporate new language and grammar concepts

Slide 1 – The warm up and introduction to the topic

Slide 2 – More focused questions allow for more specific detail

Warming Up!

You can read the questions or ask

the students to read them out loud.

Ask students to respond to the

questions.

Conversation can be promoted in

multiple ways, on or off script. You

can even talk about the image itself.

“What do you think about that..?”

Learning in action!

You can correct mistakes in a variety

of ways from immediate correction

to post correction.

New vocabulary can be extracted

from the slides and from the

students themselves. What better

way of promoting active and

engaged learning during the session!

“How else could you say that..?”

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Slide 3 – Opinion and experience related questions

Practice makes perfect!

You will actively encourage students

to put into practice new vocabulary,

either through expressing opinions

and ideas or telling about

experiences or opinions of others

during the conversation about the

subject.

At the end of the session, you will

get the student to provide a brief

summary of the contents and

provide some recommendations for

their study for that week.

“…Well done!”

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Appendices

Appendix I – Guidelines for using Webcams

Trainer Dress Code

When using a webcam, you are going to literally become the face of the ISUS, and we all know how important

first impressions are! As far as a dress code, we recommend business casual. Imagine you are going to do an

interview on the webcam, and we want to see the best side of you.

Worst case scenario: Best case scenario:

Real scenario (This is what you should be aiming for!):

The lighting

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Check and test your lighting before you go on camera. Try to find a room without windows. If you're in a room

with windows, draw the blinds. Sunlight is great for growing plants, but can be a disruptive factor with

webcams. You don't want your face covered in shadows

The backdrop

Set up your computer in a clean, well lit room. Try and find a plain wall as your background or a picture/

poster that is appropriate.

Going on webcam

On the webcam

Determine a proper distance - It is good to be seen from the waist up. A little tighter is OK, but much more

and you are “all face”.

Posture – Sit up straight.

Be professional and smile – Don’t forget to smile!

Eye contact – Peer directly into the webcam, as if it (the webcam) are the eyes of a person you're speaking to.

Dress code

Dress to impress! Here are some guidelines which will help you determine what is appropriate to wear when

you use a webcam.

Clothing should be pressed and never wrinkled. Torn, dirty, or frayed clothing is unacceptable. All seams must

be finished. Any clothing that has words, terms, or pictures that may be offensive to other employees is

unacceptable. Sports team, university, and fashion brand names on clothing are generally acceptable.

It goes without saying that clothing that reveals too much cleavage, your back, your chest, your feet, your

stomach or your underwear is not appropriate! No pajamas either; bad luck!

Inappropriate attire for work includes tank tops; midriff tops; t-shirts with potentially offensive words, terms,

logos, pictures, cartoons, or slogans; halter-tops; tops with bare shoulders; sweatshirts.

What you can wear:

Casual shirts, dress shirts, sweaters, tops, golf-type shirts, and turtlenecks are acceptable attire for work.

Smart t-shirts and polo shirts. Most suit jackets or sport jackets are also acceptable attire.

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Appendix II – Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do recoups work with the OUP?

Recoups are valid until the end of the students course, they can recoup at any time with any one. The

cancellation notice is 24 hours.

2. Is the OUP included in the trainer performance KPI?

OUP sessions will not be included in any metric involving session reports (entries, ratings, punctuality) nor

session preparation. This said, if a student rates an OUP session, it will be included in the session rating

average.

3. Do we need to send out a welcome email confirming the contact details?

No, Oxford University Press will be checking all the student details, so all you need to do is call them on

the day.

4. Can you save the completed lesson and add the comments later?

No. As the lessons are on-demand, the students need to have their comments at the end of each session.

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