Category Archives: methodology

5 Myths About Learning

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I spent part of the morning rereading Frank Smith, particularly his thoughts about how we learn. Delightful, insightful, thoughtful.  Here’s an excerpt from his book: Comprehension and Learning but I also highly recommend his book about whole language, Understanding Reading.

One of the things that I think hinders many teachers and stops educational reform is our misguided beliefs about learning. Our beliefs about learning are part of framework that govern our behaviors as a teacher (Stern, 1983; beliefs about language, society, learning, teaching).  If our beliefs are more inline with “how things were done to me” and not research driven – we end up with an educational model that is dysfunctional.

Through my years of teaching, I’ve come to see 5 large scale myths about learning which operate across our teaching culture.  They don’t allow for effective teaching or learning.  I used to adhere to all of them but have worked hard to brush them away from in front of my eyes.   Here they are for your reading and assessment.

1.  Learning is orderly.

Learning isn’t a tidy, stage 1, stage 2, clean, unidirectional affair.  It is individual and we each form and make our own connections to get from A to Z.  Further, there is no way we can measure or be sure of “what” the student will learn. We may be teaching about past participles but the student could be learning how the letter P is written on the board (while viewing us write it several times).  Most of learning is accidental and incidental.

Smith says that the core of learning is through “demonstrations”.  The world is full of demonstrations and in a class or a book/activity – the demonstrations are not just the ones we wish the student to learn.  Each act is a cluster of demonstrations and we can never be sure which the student will learn or consume.  I’ve always been astounded that the research shows that the best way to teach a student to read and love reading is to just have students see you the teacher reading and enjoying text/books. With this demonstration, they are learning just as much as they would by or through a read aloud.

Learning is not orderly, it zigs and zags and as teachers we should believe in the long term goal/destination and not be occupied/frustrated at keeping students on a straight line of learning.

2. Learning is a fight, a struggle. 

Yes, that’s what we are all taught – we have to “wrestle” with ideas and struggle to understand.  However, exactly the opposite is the case – struggle and effort do not happen when there is learning and are actually evidence of the opposite (part of the boredom spectrum with one end being quiet “giving up” and the other end, fierce effort). Learning is not something effortful. When a student is learning, there is engagement, thought, flow, rhythm – the student is within the learning zone and is motivated by each successive success not their failure.

Most teachers teach failure, not success. Most teachers teach students to reach to far ahead instead of that knowledge which is within reach. We teach too fast and too violently for most students.  We leave a train wreck of students who can’t learn, don’t even want to learn,  in our wake.

Learning is what happens when there is an absence of the expectation that it will not take place.

3.  Learning is either on or off. 

So many of us teachers believe that if Johnny is looking out the window, he’s “not learning” and just goofing off.  What we really should be honest about is that he is just not learning what we are teaching or want him to learn.

Learning is something that is a natural part of our cognitive and biological make up. It is never “off”.  We are all constantly learning and are incredible learning machines. This in fact might be our most important human trait – man the learner (and by default, flipping it, man the teacher).

Learning is something active and organic, always on. As a teacher, be aware that a light is always on in our students. We ignore this at our peril.

4. Learning = knowing.  

Learning is mistakenly equated with knowledge.  That we know something means we have learned it.  How mistaken we are!  Knowing is only the start of learning, the surface and appearance of learning. Knowledge is an empty vessel.

As teachers, we need to understand that a student learns something only when they understand and can apply it in a new situation. Our life teaches us what we have learned.  Now you may say to yourself that most teachers know this, it isn’t a myth.  And you’d be absolutely right – teachers do “know” this but have they learned this?

5.  Learning is a solitary act. 

At the end of the day, most teachers believe learning is done alone, in our own heads. It is the grey matter and how it flickers and sparks that counts. That is why we test individuals and put up big dividers between students in test areas.  We want to know what that student learned.

However, we err.  What a student knows and learns is always something that can’t be ripped from the social fabric.  Students learn because they make an investment in “the other”.  This could be an imaginary Harry Potter, their science project peers or a favorite teacher but learning is dependent on the existence of “the other”.  Students learn when they are interested in something someone else is doing – there is no getting around this.  Students also learn as a social unit and should be tested as such, despite our Cartesian and individualist cultural mindsets telling us not to.

 

 

Issues in ELT / Issues in SLA

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I haven’t written much about language recently but I’m definitely always thinking about it. It is itself a jailer, something I can’t get away from and like the adage goes “I am language”.

But been thinking about language as it relates to what we teachers do – teaching it.  I think teachers both need to be aware of the issues surrounding the teaching aspect of their profession but at the same time, the issues surrounding how students learn a language.  Lets call them the practical vs the theoretical ( the house (visible) and the foundation (invisible) ).

So here is a list with a few notes I made along the way, outlining off the top of my head, the main issues in English language teaching (the practical) and Second language acquisition (the theoretical).  Please comment and add your own but I think this list will be helpful to a lot of beginning teachers and help them see the breadth of our profession.

Issues in ELT

1.  Native speaking teachers vs Non-native speaking teachers  - pay / power / role?

2.  The backpacking teacher vs the certified teacher.  Is accreditation needed/useful?

3.  The role of technology.  Problems.  Eteaching boon or bane?.  Teacher training – how?.  Digital literacy.

4.  Textbooks.  Are they necessary?  Are any materials necessary (Dogme)?

5.  Edutainment.  Do students learn through games, being entertained? How much is too much?

6.  Edubusiness.  Does the profit motive hurt / hinder student learning? Are there low cost / no cost alternatives?

7.  Prof. Development.  Does it always mean conferences/workshops? Online PLNs, sharing.

8.   Education vs  Applied Linguistics.  Which orientation should drive the profession and be given importance?  Following good pedagogical practices or the research driven findings of linguists?

9. Proficiency.  What is a fluent speaker?  Can a learner attain native fluency? How do we know what a student knows?

10. Methods.  Is methodology important? Is there a magic bullet/pill? What works best?

Issues in SLA

1.  Poverty of stimulus.  How do we produce language in such unique ways (know and use grammar rules ) without very much input. What’s at work here?

2.  Order of Acquisition.  Does this apply to learning a second langauge?  What are the stages of learning a second language – grammar / words?  What are the differences between L1 and L2 learning?   Interlanguage – does it exist?

3.   Age. Critical period hypothesis.  Are young learners better language learners or just different?

4.  Cognitive Issues.  How does the brain store and process language? How are the brain and language linked. Do we think in words? Can we feel language? How is memory related to a second language.  Does the language we speak change the brain (Whorf)?  What mechanisms drive acquisition?  Innate vs learned behavior.

5. Identity and Culture.  Do we become different when we speak another language?  Culture.  Is language culture specific – how? Is it important to save languages and have many languages spoken in the world?

6. Form vs Function   /   Input vs  Output   /     Skills Focus  vs Immersion 

– do we learn a language best through an inductive nature or by deductive explanation and then application? Do we learn the rules informally or formally?  Can be break up language into discrete skills/units to study or is it too messy an affair?

7.  What is a word?  What is the basis of meaning and upon which communication is built? Semiology – how do things have meanings and what is the relationship? Why can’t a wink be as good as a nudge?

8.  Social factors.  The affective filter. How do factors like intelligence, affluence/poverty, peer grouping,  development, motivation affect learning? Are they critical? Personality – how does it effect learning a language (risk taking).

9.  Aptitude.  Why are some people better at learning languages? Why are females better? What factors drive this success – innate /  learned?

10.  Error correction.  How? Should it be done at all?  What makes a self correcting learner?

If you enjoyed this, you may enjoy “Insights Into SLA”

Student Learning and Trust

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 One thing that I’ve concluded after a few decades in school systems is they operate with a profound distrust of students. Distrust that left on their own students would want to learn something, even choose to learn.

It’s true.  Even the most well intentioned teachers I speak with have a belief that children need to be cajoled, pushed, prodded and controlled – all so they will do the work and learn something.

This pessimism pervades our profession.  I say it without disrespecting the profession and the hard work that is done, day in and day out by teachers who “are there”.  Doing more than most in our society to help the future.  But a truth is a truth and it is what it is.

Children are the only segment of our population confined against their will. We call it “compulsory education”. I believe the problem begins there, caging our children and making school into a punishment rather than a place you want to go to.

It is sad and based on my own experience I reject this belief, a belief that rests too much within the domain of “power”.  You see, if you give the powerless any sort of power, of course, in the short term, they’ll run with it . Students will loaf and be at ease, do little and cruise.  But give it time, trust them and show you trust them – they’ll show you what they are made of.   It’s true and I’ve seen it.

What we lack in our educational system is patience.  We are so, so, reactive. Myopic.  And trust is not a short term relationship but something that like faith, lasts and endures. We need to trust students and let them do of their own and follow the path of self-direction. If we don’t, we create widgets, we create citizens who can’t think for themselves, who just follow the leaders ….. and we know where that end – blind obedience.

Do you trust your students? REALLY trust them?  I hope so……     I hope we start to give students the freedom to be their own method rather than have them follow our own. Learning is always a path trodden by just one.

I’ll end with a fav. song….. about luv but also about teaching (which is but luv in another dress)

Dogme revisited

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This morning, sat down and had some “my time”.  Went through a number of my hundreds of notebooks full of philosophy, essays, poems that I’ve been collecting over 4 decades.  A lot of stuff buried in these books but was surprised to pull open about 50 pages on film. Don’t even remember writing this but it was fascinating. One part was on Dogme, when it was a new approach to film making in the 90s.

It got me thinking about Dogme ELT something I think is often misinterpreted by many teachers. It also is sort of misnamed – if Dogme ELT were to follow the original Dogme manifesto, it wouldn’t ever take place in a class but only use original settings for practicing language. For example, if you were learning about ordering food, you’d do so in a restaurant. The classroom would be anthema for anything but learning metalanguage (language we use to talk about language).

To me, Dogme ELT is about two crucial things:  

1.  focusing class activities around the language of the learner and the resulting emergent language (it is highly personal)

2. little or no use of materials (textbooks, worksheets, cards, tapes, computers etc…)

Too often I hear teachers talk about Dogme ELT like it is just going into a classroom and chatting up, running with  anything that happens. I don’t think this is what it is about and that approach would be Hangout ELT.   In Dogme, the teacher needs to be very experienced in language teaching and interpreting the language of the learners – so they may guide them towards better use and form of that language .

So find below two things.

1.  My rewrite of Dogme ELT imagining if it followed the original Dogme 95 manifesto

2. My notebook entry from the 90s about Dogme, rewritten to apply to Dogme teaching.

Might spark some thought about new possibilities with our lessons and in our classrooms.

Dogme ELT Manifesto: (see original HERE)

  1. All teaching and practice of language must be done “in situ”, in the real location. No fake props or sets but only using real language in a real location.
  2. Teaching is holistic.  There must be no separation of function and form and language is treated not in discrete parts, nor dissected but rather as it is used.
  3. Technology must be simple and hand driven. Chalk, pencils, pens etc…. No use of electronic devices; computers, screens, CD players and so on. The speaker, the human being, is the focus.
  4. Teaching must be real. It can’t be a play, a scripted event. The plan is that there is no plan other than the main objective to start things off.  No fakery, no lying on the part of the teacher.
  5. Extrinsic motivators are forbidden.  The class must not be tainted by point systems, rewards and competition.
  6. There should not be any role playing in the classroom (this is artificial). All language takes place and arises from a real need and impulse.
  7. No use of video to show learners language used in a different time and place. It all happens in the here and now.
  8. The teacher can’t be an actor or use different teaching styles. Nor are there any different types of English to be taught (business, global studies, finance, hospitality and tourism etc…). The only English used is that of necessity that comes from the learner, there is no imposed structure given from the instructor.
  9. The class must be 10 or less students to facilitate real use of the language and proper instructor intervention.
  10. The teacher is part of the class and a learner.  Credit goes to the whole class for any success, not just the teacher.
Dogme Teaching – A revisiting (rewriting for education/teaching of what I originally wrote about Dogme film, substituting “teaching” for references about cinema)

Dogme?!  Everyone is talking about this manifesto, a new and amazing approach to teaching. What a crock!  There is nothing new there, it is all fluff and puff. It is only “style”, how a woman might choose a scarf for her walk. Dressing up. The form of teaching shouldn’t be an absolute, a funnel but open and expansive, a way to more things. Dogme teaching is a way for some but we shouldn’t think that anything about teaching language is a MUST. Nothing is sacred and there are many ways to touch that special place where learning happens.

But even if we accept this new form, this new approach as being new, it certainly isn’t revolutionary or transformative. It hasn’t any developmental gravity, it takes teaching nowhere. It only leaves so much on the cutting floor. It simplifies but at a cost.  We don’t realize it but we all bring so much cultural baggage into the classroom – there must be desks, a chalkboard, students as an audience, 40 minutes …….  Dogme teaching is just another system and jailing – as all ideological, school and teacher led learning must be.

 

New LinkedIn Conversations about teaching

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Our LinkedIn group is growing and there is a lot of sharing of ideas. A great place to do some summer professional development or to add your own thoughts. So here are some recent conversations of note with many comments and insights. Check them out!

(not a member of the group? Please join, just takes a second.)

First Day Of Classes: http://linkd.in/Nlo8oS

What books or articles have most influenced your teaching?: http://linkd.in/Oo0AlZ

If you could change one thing about ELT, what would it be?: http://linkd.in/LxhdZc

Is phonics necessary to teach pronunciation?: http://linkd.in/MTNBYO

How many sounds are there in English? : http://linkd.in/O4uXdv

Should all teachers have a TEFL certificate?: http://linkd.in/LmJVQZ

What’s the best way to use pop songs?: http://linkd.in/O4xzbi

What qualities should an ideal foreign language teacher have?: http://linkd.in/Lxipf2

What will happen if a teacher is more of a comedian than a teacher?: http://linkd.in/Oo4XNU
Introduce yourself to the group: http://linkd.in/MTMQiu

The End is the Start

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I ended my year and sent off my new teachers into the wide world of education. Fingers crossed. Lots to relate about my year pontificating and sharing, nurturing, cheerleading teachers to be, to be reflective about education and schooling.

Here though, I’d like to share how successful my “Project Zander” was. Read about this activity that I did my second week of teaching last Sept. Students write letters to themselves about their goals for the year and how they will see themselves at the end of the class. Then, they address them and stamp them. They are forgotten about and then sent after graduation/class end.

Today, I got my own letter that I wrote to myself then. Wonderful! Also got many emails from my students (no letters :) ) on how excited they were about their letters to self and how helpful it was.

Take a look at my previous post and if you ever get the chance – “do a Zander”!

This poem from the immortal Irving Layton – sums it all up and I shared this with departing students.

There Were No Signs

By walking I found out
Where I was going.

By intensely hating, how to love.
By loving, whom and what to love.

By grieving, how to laugh from the belly.

Out of infirmity, I have built strength.
Out of untruth, truth.

From hypocrisy, I wove directness.

Almost now I know who I am.
Almost I have the boldness to be that man.

Another step
And I shall be where I started from.

Standardized Learning

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One conclusion I’ve come to after years teaching – testing and assessment are poorly used as a way for students to learn.

This is curious and unfortunate because students for the most part DO get motivated and energized through tests and quizzes. The pickle is, the way they are designed doesn’t make the test a learning experience and rather is meant to trick students.  I’m calling for all teachers to review the way they test and I’m offering one example using the popular convention of testing – multiple choice questions.

I recently began one of my classes after the New Year by writing the following on the board. A typical, 3 truths / 1 lie activity where students try to guess the lie.

This new year I resolve to ….

1.  grow my hair long

2. plan my classes better

3.  travel the world and teach

4.  get a new coffee maker

It’s a great activity for teachers to share themselves and also for students to do and allow the teacher to get to know them. However, I’m teaching teachers so I took this opportunity to go beyond the activity and ask them what this multiple choice question might say about assessment and how we decide design these questions.

What’s remarkable about this question is that you can pose it two ways.  One – which statement is the lie?   Two – which 3 statements are the truth?   Now you might think this is just semantics but I believe if we created multiple choice, standardized assessments where the students were asked to not choose just one right answer but  three right answers – they’d learn a lot more. They’d be encountering a lot of “right” knowledge and not trying to side step through a labyrinth of wrong.

Here’s another example.

A typical standardized multiple choice question for language students might be;

Beth ___________ to the store every day.

a) has   b) is    c)  went    d) liked

A multiple choice test that would actually give students more success and help them learn would be them choosing the 3 appropriate language forms.

Beth ________ to the store every day.

a)  went      b) likes    c) goes   d) has gone

It’s important that students choose 3 right answers and not be asked to choose the 1 wrong answer. This way, we can give marks for right answers. This way they feel “success”.

This is just one of many ways we could rethink assessment and make it more about “learning” and less about tricking students. Do you have any other ways?

PS.  The 3 correct resolutions for this year are 2,3,4!

Gems of EFL 2.0 – Classroom Management

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Classroom management related questions are the top email item I get. I get them often from both new and experienced teachers alike. It is a skill that needs a teacher’s constant attention. The ground is always moving underneath us.

In response to this, I created a Classroom Management directory page. Loads of videos, quizzes and go to references to help all teachers. I’ve been updating it recently and hope it helps out some teachers in need.


Find other “gems” in this series.

The #1 …. (teaching factor effecting student success)

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

        The teacher’s own expectation of the students.

 
Yep, that’s right. Teachers who think their students are smart will have smart students (all things equal). It is the factor that is most important regarding student achievement.

I asked my teachers about what they thought was the most important teaching factor effecting student achievement. Most mentioned motivation, some classroom management factors, a few curriculum/materials. Many rightly suggested school culture. However not one (and I have 160 students) got it right nor had heard about the seminal research of Rosenthal and Jacobsen.Teachers’ Expectancies: Determinants of Pupil’s IQ.pdf

Their research raised more questions than it answered. Stimulating read and subsequently tested and validated. They simply set up an experiment where teacher’s were (wrongly) told their students in “x” classes (18 of them) were smart and high achievers. They were actually quite average and chosen at random. They controlled other factors. The result? Students in the classes where the teacher “believed” they were top students suddenly became top students! All simply because the teacher thought they were teaching the cream of the crop.

They concluded that this happens most often with younger students. Also, there are a lot of other possible influencing factors. Yet, time and again, this experiment proves itself.

I put the word “believe” in quotes because it isn’t as simple as just believing in your students. Most teachers believe in their students. What really counts is not just belief but what you really think/feel/know in your gut about these students. It isn’t hope but faith, Meister Echart might have written (for it is the same distinction – hope really means we know one thing but hope for another by chance. Faith means we really believe and that belief effects the outcome).

I really believe that what Rosenthal and Jacobsen illuminated was something Goethe suggested decades ago – commitment. Teachers who are committed to the possibility and achievement of their students will do very well. True commitment is what counts. Are you a committed teacher? I’ll leave you with his quote.

What’s Next?

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The whole month of December, I’ll be highlighting here content/ideas/material that I feel is in need of some “daylight”. There is so much of value and it just needs members to open a window so others can see it/find it.

I’ve previously blogged about the “power of prediction” for language teaching and prompting student language production. Very much along the lines of guessing games. Here’s another stellar way – What’s Next?

They are videos that show a scene. The teacher pauses the video and asks the students to say what will happen next. This can either be by offering some possible outcomes (A, B, C, D) or asking students to use their own thoughts (write down some “gambits” for prompting student language – “I think….. is / age going to ….” | “… is are possibly going to …” | “… might ……” etc ).

It’s easy to do and what’s better, teachers have already done a lot of the leg work. Find many already on EFL Classroom 2.0.

Stay tuned daily, all December for updates like this one – that’s what’s next!


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

It’s Not A Box – Synectics

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My university recently hosted the ICE (Imagination / Creativity / Education) Conference. Instead of giving a presentation and being all concerned with that – decided to join many of my student teachers and enjoy a day of attending the workshops and gathering ideas. So glad I did!

The highlight for me was an Art workshop: Exploring Your Creative Process Through Reflection, Dialogue and Art Making. Basically, we explored the concept of Synectics. We used the book, “Not A Box” (see video below) as “a trigger” to get us risk taking and creating. Something language teachers can do too. I k!now Ken Robinson has made creativity a bigger issue in education (video) but are we doing enough? This lesson really engenders and promotes creativity!

Basically, after reading the book together, we were put into groups and each group given a box. Each group had a box that was of differing sizes, some huge, some tiny. Then, we were asked to say, “This is not a box but this is a …….”. Then, redesign our creation and talk about what principles of Synectics we used while creating.

Synectics is a way of promoting creativity in any kind of class, not just art. Take a look at this wordle and think about how you could use these principles of Synectic design, to “redesign” your own lesson, activity, curriculum into something more creative and “thoughful”.

My group's creation

Not a box. It's a fridge!

Not like the others is a game I made that does the same. Also, this activity is much the same. Basically, we ask our students to think “outside the box”. Try it – you’ll really have a fun, engaging lesson!

Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

On Praxis: Making teaching “real”

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“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”
- Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe

How do we take our teaching to the next step? From mere classroom activity and into the wide, open world?

The world is changing so fast, we don’t even know for what world we are preparing our students who will graduate many years away. Isn’t it imperative that we invoke the “now” and put “purpose” into our classrooms? If not now, when? If we don’t effect change through our students, if we don’t get them changing the world and “doing”, isn’t all our knowledge and teaching but puffery and dross?

Praxis is a word that came up over the last few weeks in my classes. A number of teachers didn’t seem to get it, so I thought I’d write something and clarify my own thoughts about this.

To me, praxis has always been “informed action”. Thought put into action. This is certainly how Paolo Freire, the biggest proponent of “praxis” defined it. He said,

“It is not enough for people to come together in dialogue in order to gain knowledge of their social reality. They must act together upon their environment in order critically to reflect upon their reality and so transform it through further action and critical reflection.”

Crucial to this process is the realization that acting in the world is not an end of thought/knowledge/reflection, rather it is the start of more informed thought/knowledge/reflection. A truly constructivist theory of knowledge that says to all progressive educators – “if you are just being constructivist in the classroom (and your teaching has no purpose, no outside force/life), you are not constructivist, just cardboard.”

The Greeks took praxis as a form of knowledge that could not but lead anywhere but into action and into  ”the practical”.   In a sense, this spirit has shone some light in ELT. We have ESP courses, we have “communicative teaching”, we have “life skills English” etc…  However, I’m not so sure we’ve really done much in terms of praxis – rather just pretended to point outside the classroom rather than go “into the world” and “enact”.

In language teaching, we play the part of “the teacher” so well. We stand and deliver, state rules and exceptions, collect assignments. But isn’t it all kind of a shadow dance, a pantomine? That unless we impact the world and our students use the word in the real world – we are just spinning our wheels and “pretending” (but collecting our paycheck).

This is where technology, the power of connecting people that is available now, steps in. We don’t need to shadow box in our classrooms anymore. Lets bring the world into our classrooms. Let’s take our students out into the streets. Here’s a previous post I have about using “live cams”. I also offer this video of a brave teacher skyping in his parents into his class. Wow! Talk about “praxis”. The Granny Cloud is also an inspiring example.

In addition, two educators I highly value in terms of how they hold up the flag of praxis are Alan November  and Kiernan Egan. Look at both their projects and how they make learning purposeful and relevant to the real world.  Let’s try in our own way to knock down the walls of our classes and schools. However we can. Let’s embrace “Praxis” as part of our teaching philosophy and orientation. Join me…..

If you liked this post – you may enjoy my page of resources/videos on educational thinkers.

Minimally Invasive Teaching

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“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, “the children are working as if I don’t exist.”
- Maria Montessori

During the last year, I’ve been following the KhanAcademy locomotive as it chugs on to distant fertile lands and glory.   I’m a big believer of video and its revolutionary impact to disrupt normal channels of educational delivery.  The KhanAcademy user group (google) emails are just mind boggling. Seems everyone from the granny on the couch to CEOs of major companies are leaving desperate messages – “get intouch with me!”, they scream.  However, I must say that they are on the wrong educational bandwagon.

This post I recently read, highlighted one problem not addressed by the Khan Academy – the motivation of the learner.  Even self directed learning won’t just magically generate a “self directed learner”.  What counts is the environment in which the learner is found. The teacher is essential to this. However, in a very indirect and “get out of the way”, way.

I firmly believe that given a free start, each child, each student, wants to learn and will learn.  We must create the environment from which their seed will grow.  Just like there are seldom any “bad” teachers, just teachers in the wrong environment and place – so too we must get students encountering a world of learning that they themselves encounter, they explore, they engage and nurture. Sugata Mitra has it right – learning is a self-organizing principle.

So without further ado, here is the man. Click the photos of the presentation to get to my favorite presentations detailing his beliefs. See my own posts mentioning him.  Here’s my bio of the man for further reference.  Sugata Mitra

I sure wish Bill Gates would have given him that big bundle of cash. 

 

 

 

 

 

Teach | Learn – download the “techbook”.

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I published Teach | Learn about 8 months ago.  A lot of what I’ve learned and believe about teaching English to students in a classroom went into this simple book. It’s simplicity can be deceiving and it is based on my own belief in SCC or Student Created Content. Find out more through these tagged discussions on SCC.

Beyond representing my constructivists and progressive beliefs in education – I wanted to make a simple book that teachers could use with many levels. A book that didn’t “detrain” teachers but allowed them the freedom to teach but with some basic underlying structure.  Further, in publishing the book online, I was dedicated to my belief that individuals could write, design, publish, print, sell their own textbooks. Not only that – do so in a way that isn’t a money grab but still pays the author for his/her time and labor.

In this vein, I’m happy to let the world download and share Teach | Learn. (click the link to preview and download). I’ve sold enough copies online to recoup my costs (about 235 copies) and now it is time for the child to fly away from the nest.

The book also has accompanying editable lesson files, a voicethread and a power point of the whole book to show on a big screen. You can get these extras as a supporter of EFL Classroom 2.0.

Enjoy the book and all feedback welcome!

 

The #1 … (delivery error teachers make)

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Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Assuming The Students Understand

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

~George Bernard Shaw

I’ve thought a lot about this and based on my own experiences as a teacher in the trenches, based upon my own development and reflection, based upon knowledge of how a brain works and students learn – I’m convinced too many teachers don’t check student understanding enough. Especially language teachers. They assume there is communication with students when indeed, many times, they didn’t understand a thing.

I’m sure it is a familiar scene for all teachers. The teacher talking, explaining an activity or idea. The students nodding. The teacher continuing and assuming everyone understands. Do they?

The pragmatic elements seem to dominate. The students using context and non verbal communication “assume” to understand. Also, students just never want to say they don’t know. They are human. Teachers do the same. They see the polite nod and eye contact, the paralanguage of students and assume they are listening, they understand, there is communication. But really is there? Too often, I believe there isn’t.

As a language learner, I’ve had so many conversations or been in so many situations where this is the case. Teacher assumes she/he is communicating. The students not understanding and just “playing the game”. There is learning failure.

I think teachers need to do several things to avoid this kind of surreal and ineffective situation.

1. Filter the teacher language. This is a teacher acquired skill that often must be done by thinking through the lesson, the language of the lesson.

2. Pausing. Give Ss time to process language. 2nd language learners have brains that are hot and overworked – they need time to process the information.

3. Rephrasing. Get Ss to rephrase and communicate for the class what was said, explained. Students will put the language into a form better for student understanding. The teacher will know the students did understand.

4. Slowing down. All of the above entail that many teachers need to slow down in their lessons. Of course, this entails not pushing through units, coursebooks and you’ll have to negotiate this with your school. It does no one any good to finish a unit, if so little was understood!

Using Songs in the EFL Classroom

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This presentation has always been a fav. of teachers. Here, I add a voiceover and summarizing some of the main points (ever so quickly). Click on the presention to listen and use the slideshow underneath to go to resources highlighting each point (by clicking on the photos). Additionally, the “song” tag gives post gives with more information about using song in our classrooms.

If you liked this post, you might like – Songs With Lyric Sheets

Extensive Watching

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The last few years, I’ve been very focused on the role and possibility of video in the classroom. Thus, my recent work developing EnglishCentral and my focus on the potential of a “Flipped Classroom“.

I had an interesting skype discussion with Dan Soriano (@danhummsoriano ) at the BC in Mexico City. He’s thinking of adopting a Flipped Classroom model as an experiment. During our discussion I returned to a term I’ve used over the years, “Extensive Watching“. I’d like to outline this important concept for language learning here and get your own feedback, opinion, thoughts.

I’m a big fan of extensive reading. It works. If done properly, it allows students to acquire a lot of fluency quickly (so long as equal attention is paid to speaking). However, the rub these days is that many students don’t want to nor like reading. It’s just a fact that I’ve run across time and time again in the classroom. I think it has to do with;

a) Visuality being an ever present force and medium now – through the internet, TV, film etc…

b) Communication. Youth are so connected, never alone and a book entails the place and discipline to be alone with self. Today’s youth want shared experience, a social experience. A book is in their head, the images in their head – something is never shared. A film / video has an objective visual reference and is more shared/social.

As I’ve outlined before, the Gutenburg Galaxy is waining. The role of text is taking a back up role to the cool medium that is the visual realm. This entails a change on the part of teachers. We should now update Day and Bamford’s classic and call it “Extensive Watching“. I took down the book from my self and revisited it. It can simply be re-written for this new media focus.

Students “watch” at their own level and through this massive watching of video with language in context, can, do, will achieve rapid language acquisition. That’s where EnglishCentral is coming from but it could be any source of video that is at the appropriate level for the student and contains motivating, interesting content.

I looked at pages 7-8 of the book, “The Characteristics of Extensive Reading”. I hereby end and hand the torch to Extensive Watching by rewriting this to outline the characteristics of extensive watching (and in a future post, I’ll outline the differences, however obvious, with the “extensive listening” approach).

The Characteristics of Extensive Watching

1. Students WATCH as much as possible. (preferably outside of the classroom – following the flipped model of the language classroom)

2. A variety of videos/film is available in a variety of genres and topics so as to encourage watching for different reasons and in different ways.

3. Students select what they want to watch and have the freedom to stop watching when the video fails to interest them.

4. The purposes of watching are related to pleasure, information and general understanding. The purposes are determined by the nature of the videos and the interests of the students.

5. Watching is its own reward. There are few exercises after watching and only for quickly reinforcing the material.

6. The videos are well within the linguistic competence (level) of the student. Video gives context and allows for a “wider” leveling. Dictionaries are used after the viewing and rarely during the watching of the video. Subtitles in the L2 may or may not be used depending on the objectives of the learning.

7. Watching is both shared and individual. Videos if possible, to be discussed and used as scaffolding material into purposeful communication and speaking practice.

8. Watching speed is at the natural rate of the media’s speakers. Whole watching is the recommended practice rather than stopping and reviewing video.

9. Teacher’s orient students to the goals of the program (communicate the rationale), explain the methodology (how to) and track what students watch, and guide students to get the most out of the program.

10. The teacher is a role model and watcher. They participate and watch what students watch. The extensive watching classroom is a place of equality and a decreased power dynamic between teacher and learner.

To wit:  Extensive Watching works and fosters student self learning and monitoring. It also has the added benefit of having pragmatic features of language (body language, postures, gestures etc…) that help the learner immensely (think of how a baby “makes meaning out of sound”).

Sport and Language Learning

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I’ve been an athlete most of my life. Also a coach and one who’s thought a lot about how to “develop” one’s talent as an athlete.

This has served me well as a language teacher. Becoming proficient or even excelling at a sport bears most of the same developmental patterns that one should step through to become proficient in a language. There are no short cuts!

Furthermore, we teachers should note that we don’t really “teach” a language – rather we provide the conditions through which a learner might practice the skill that is “speaking a language”. We should focus on performance not product (knowledge of the language itself). In essence, a teacher is a coach, a coach that guides their protege through the various stages of learning a language.

A number of years ago (during my own first TEFL certificate), I read a very powerful essay comparing learning to play football to learning a language, “The 5 Step Performance Based Model of Oral Proficiency” by Rebecca Valet. I recently pulled it out of a box and dusted it off. Even more relevant today,  as I see so much of the “teaching English” realm being ruled by schools and businesses that espouse study methods and approaches that take short cuts and rule by teacher fiat not student proficiency and practice.

Let’s use the metaphor of football and look more closely to see what it says to us about teaching and learning a language. I’ll use some examples using EnglishCentral, the video based site I’m presently helping to build.

How to Become a Great Football Player (or language learner)

Stage 1: Watching

In this stage, there is the dream of fluency. The player watches others and sorts out things in their head. They become motivated and try to figure out the language for themselves. They learn very basic terminology through observation and self study (like a learner would the necessary  vocabulary and grammatical structures to start off). Touchdown, kick off, tackle etc… These and the more tacit features of playing the game are learned through the silent period of intake and simply watching. Key, key, key here is that the student is motivated to spend the time and mental effort to make progress. Without the motivation – the dream and end of success in mind – this stage will show little progress and instead a false sense of progress might develop based on false measures. A second key is comprehensible input. The student should just watch the real game – not play tapes with confusing explanations, not highlight reels with actions out of context. Keep it authentic and simple.

{Students watch videos on EnglishCentral}

Stage 2: Learn The Rules

Without knowing the rules, the football player has no bases or convention to organize observation. In this stage, the player begins playing but in broken practice. The coach explains the rules and corrects players that make errors, as they happen. Rules are explained and corrective feedback is given students on the spot. The game is learned “in situ” – while happening.

{Students begin recording and imitating native speaker speech. Students click on each word and learn definitions. Students use videoclip lists to see how the same words are used differently by speakers}

Stage 3: Skill Practice

Football players will never develop properly if they only practice the game with interruption. (stage 2). They need to focus on many of the skills and master them. These skills will enable them to be complete players. Practice focuses on key skills and the coach gets students to practice them over and over, ad nauseum. This prepares the students for game performance and also ingrains and habituates the skills. They become unconscious so come play day, they are automatic and instant.

{Students on EnglishCentral learn at the correct level. Vocabulary is studied in context and developed as speech is recorded. Corrective feedback of speech is given}

Stage 4: Simulated Performance

Here we have practice games, uninterrupted scrimmages. Students test themselves against friends and peers (so it is controlled in some sense). But there is a focus on getting ready for game day, the real test, so practice is without a lot of support or direct coaching. Everything is “live” and done as a whole. Only afterwards, does the coaching staff debrief the players and offer correction and advice for improvement.

{Students record whole videos in real time and practice, trying to “be” that speaker}

Stage 5: Game Day

The players are all ready. They take to the field and perform. They learn on their own accord, what they need to work on, what they can do well. They do well or they fail. They are in the “real” world and either succeed or fail. In all cases, they return to work on skills, to scrimmage, to practice. There is no perfection for the athlete, just a constant battle to keep up. During the season of many games, there is less practice and focus on skills needed – reality suffices. But once not in the regular season, it is back to the basics again.

{Students stop learning on EnglishCentral and get out there in the real world, speaking English with real people through skype or on the street, by email}

Remember – in football or language, it’s a game of inches. So says Al Pacino in his classic speech!

Bests Posts 2010-2011

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I’d like to share as the year comes to a close – My best “Teaching Advice” blog posts. Also, my best “Practical Teaching Posts”.

[Next - I'll outline the Best posts about "Language". ]

Note: all posts link to the EFL Classroom 2.0 blog which is now public. If not a member – join us!

Also invaluable - 

The #1 in ELT Series of posts and my ebook – The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Teacher. .  Supporters will also benefit from the“I”m a Newbie Teacher” group - a complete directory of great resources!

 

Best Teaching Advice Posts:

1. Lessons For Teachers from “The King’s Speech”

2. Faking It.

3. Making what you do “Stick”.

4. In Praise of Slowness

5. Teaching Is ……

6. Using Video – The Coming Revolution

7. Surviving As A Teacher

8. Follow Your Nose

9. Giving Students Room to do their own thing.

10. Stepping Back to Jump Ahead

11. What Makes A Classroom Fit To Live In?

12. The 5 Enemies

13, Chopping Wood – A metaphor for teaching

14.25 Ways of being a good teacher

15. The 7 sensational sins of good teachers  AND  Deadly Sins

16. In Praise of Praise

17.My Teaching Village advice posts.

18. The Future of Learning

__________________________________

“Practical” Teaching Posts

1. Classroom decorating ideas

2. Song Lyric Sheets

3. Teaching with a blank piece of paper

4. Authentic Materials

5. Going to Pieces

6. Making a Doodle Video

7. Using Flashcards

8. Drawing Resources

9. 2 Way Tasks

10. Blank Dialogue Videos

11. Making Storybooks

12.PPT Games Series

13. Poetry in the Classroom

14. Kinetic Typography videos

15. Using Silent Video and Using Video

Going to Pieces

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Most enthusiastic language teachers “Go To Pieces”, meaning they literally use material that is in pieces and compels students to practice and communicate. At its heart, “pieces” is a way of teaching that puts communication at the core of language teaching and learning.

Think about it. “Pieces” as an approach or frame, stretches over a wide swath of materials, methods and delivery practices. The blank dialogue is front and center. But you also have jigsaw type activities. Gap fills are basically whole texts in parts (some parts missing). Retelling is basically putting the pieces of a story back together again. Same with sequence or ordering activities. I could go on and on – there are so many activities which the teacher deconstructs and asks the students to reconstruct – to put the pieces back together again….

I want to highlight one such activity. Yesterday, still after 8 months, unpacking my boxes of books and writings, came across this poem, one of a series I made at the time. From one newspaper, I made a collage, a poem.

This would be a simple but wonderfully creative and student centered activity. Give students any disposable text (flyers, magazines, newspapers, brochures) and let them be creative. Then present to the class or share in some form.

Go to pieces is a great philosophy for a language teacher. Why I’ve told many of my student teachers over the years that a pair of scissors is the best friend, most important tool in their kit.

Maybe during this activity, you can play this great tune – “Pick up the pieces”. 80s funk at its best.