The Scrivener Route Map

In Learning Teaching Scrivener provides what he calls a "route map".  This map is supposed to help teachers structure their day, from pre-lesson to post-activity.

Let's take a closer look:

1) Pre-class: Preparation time.  Take a look at the lesson and materials, get organized.

2) Lead-in/prepare for the activity:  once you've greeted the students as they come into class and everyone is sat down and settled, open up the class with an activity, discussion, or prompt that will introduce the lesson or theme of the day.

3) Set up activity: if the activity requires that students be put into groups, do so at this time.  If not, read instructions for the activity and make sure they are understood by everyone.

4) Run activity: depending on the nature of the activity and the methodology/teaching style for the lesson, supervise or instruct accordingly.

5) Close activity: End the activity with a brief summary of the lesson and address any issues that arose during the activity.  It is better not to open up the class for questions, because this is a less controlled way to review material that could lead to time wasted answering questions that are not relevant to the day's topic.

6) Post activity: End the class with an activity that is less rigorous than the main activity and relevant, too.





References: 

Scrivener, Jim. Learning teaching: a guidebook for English language teachers. 2nd ed. Oxford: Macmillan, 2005. Print.

Survey of Popular Methodologies

In the last post I mentioned a few methodologies that are popular in English as a Second Language instruction.  Here I will outline them so you have a better idea of what each actually means:

The Grammar-Translation Method: Reading, translating texts.  Grammar exercises.  Little attention to speaking and listening, as target language is rarely used in this type of classroom.

The Audio-ligual Method:  Students listen to model dialogs in order to form good speaking habits.  There is a lot of repitition and drilling.  One criticism is that there are few explanations provided by the teacher.

The Communicative Approach: Assumes that learners will learn best if they participate in meaningful communication.  The focus is on speaking and listening.

Total Physical Response: Most commonly applied to beginning and lower level classrooms.  Students listen to instructions from the teacher, respond by completing tasks, and speak once they are ready.

Community Language Learning:  Focuses on the students first language.  Students work in groups that are supervised by the teacher.  They speak English when they are able.  This allows them to speak about things they would otherwise not be able to discuss if only permitted to speak English.

The Natural Approach:  A collection of methods and techniques designed to make the language more easily accessible to the student.  The idea is for the student to a be able to pick up the language the way a child does her first language.

The Silent Way: Uses wallcharts for students to carefully create sentences. The teacher interacts with the students via the wall charts.  The idea is that students pay very close attention to what they say.

Principled Eclectism:  The piecing together of one's own methodology and technique to create a personal, flexible teaching style.



References:

Scrivener, Jim. Learning teaching: a guidebook for English language teachers. 2nd ed. Oxford: Macmillan, 2005. Print.

Approaches, Methods, and Techniques 1.0

There are multiple pedagogical approaches and to each approach at least one method and at least one technique.  The following approach is centered in collaborative learning.  The definition of education, itself, is changed.  The purpose shifts from the accumulation of knowledge, to the investigation and creation of meaning, surrounded by a sense of community and participation:


"Traditional pedagogical patterns have fixed goals and comparatively fixed routines.  CSCL demands and enables shift the focus of education from learning as knowledge acquisition to learning as building shared meaning, enculturation into social practices and participation in valued activities situated within a community of practice" (Wen et. al., p 138).


Indeed, this sounds very nice.  A community of learners participating in a variety of goals, learning to work together, playing roles that will be played again in the future, thinking creatively.  I have two criticisms of this.  First is the fact that it orbits around technological products in the classroom.  This makes it a less viable alternative for failing schools.  Second it is important to raise the limitations of such a classroom. Without technological tools to measure or assess the students, there is no quantifiable measure for student performance.  Further, students who are not kinesthetic learners, who are shy, who have difficultly socializing, may not benefit from such a curriculum.  Nonetheless, the philosophy of the approach yields much to the attentive reader.  While not all classes are engaged in collaborative learning at all times, they can
involve such projects throughout the semester, even when technological tools are not available.


The approach to education defined above comes from an article on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL).  The title of the article is "Supporting Teachers in Designing CSCL Activities: A Case Study of Principle-based Pedagogical Patterns in Networked Second Language Classrooms".  The authors write from an increasing popular socio-cultural framework that emphasize the human relationship to the socio-cultural context, or environment.


Rapid Collaborative Knowledge Improvement (RCKI) are the principles upon which their philosophy is based.  The idea is to use technology as a tool for knowledge construction by creating collaborative projects that use technologies.  Certainly, in the socio-cultural sense, technology is relevant as technologies are a major feature in our lives.  Technology is very much a part of our culture.  Using technology as a medium for learning is, perhaps, an important skill students need to develop for the future.  It seems to me this perspective is very future oriented, very forward thinking.



"The major reason might be that the field of language learning has long been dominated by the traditional cognitive perspective in which individual internalization of mental processes and the development of grammatical competence (Firth & Wagner, 2007) are too much emphasized. It runs counter to sociocultural perspectives underpinning CSCL studies. Collaborative learning has long been widely used in language learning, whereas the existing collaborative learning studies on language learning focus too much on language itself, but without sufficient consideration of its function as a tool for collective thinking for the pursuit of joint intellectual activity" (Wen et. al., p 139).


This method sets grammar as a secondary feature of instruction -- something that emerges from the dialog requisite for the project.  Though this may work as a learning methodology and though the techniques may yield favorable results, I wonder if the technological tools are necessary.  It could be novelty that affects outcomes, but I imagine that the true value in such a curriculum would be to prepare students for a future in which they will have to use technology to create, communicate and participate in society.

RCKI principles are as follows:

1) Spontaneous Participation: applied to responses in the form of "posts" and deals with the students liberty to ask questions and make comments.  This seems as much a software feature as it is a principle.  Implied in this is that the students' posts are seen by all and so they should monitor what they say.  This is true of classrooms as well.

2) Multi-modal expression: deals with permitting the student to respond in the manner of his or her choice.  If the student is capable of formulating a sentence, he or she may write or speak their response.  Others less advances can write or draw their response.

3) Volunteerism:  A task is divided into several sub-tasks.  The idea is that there is something to do for everyone.  If one prefers to write, he can write, if another prefers another task, he will perform that task, and so on.  This is designed to promote participation from all members of the group.

4) Democratizing knowledge: can be distilled down to "do not let a few participants dominate a project".  Everyone can contribute whatever it is they have to contribute.  This can also occur without technology and promoting everyone's involvement should always be encouraged in the classroom.

5) Epistemic Agency: unclear.

6) Idea Diversity: rather than merely focusing on language acquisition, focus also on creative capacity.

7) Improvable Ideas:  using language not only for the sake of proper speech, but to elaborate on ideas.

8) High Order Thinking: let students use collaboration to express high order thoughts.

9) Symmetric Knowledge Advancement: interaction among groups.

Notice that many of these principles are intuitive and not specific to the context promoted in the article (technology).


References:


Wen, Y., Looi, C.-K., & Chen, W. (2012). Supporting Teachers in Designing CSCL Activities: A Case Study of Principle-based 
Pedagogical Patterns in Networked Second Language Classrooms. Educational Technology & Society, 15 (2), 138–153.  

Approach and Method

I've been reading Learning Teaching, using the text to learn what to look for in the classroom.  There are points in the book that are simple, like, "be yourself" (Scriviner, 36) that actually helped me out in the classroom.  There are times that I feel myself begin to step into the teacher role, saying things I think a teacher should say.  After I read that line I caught myself and realized I was only talking because I was nervous.  The fact was, the kids were in the middle of writing something down.  I was reminded to stay vigilant of what is going on in the classroom. 

The book also recommends that a teacher know his or her method and approach.  Your method of a way of teaching and your approach is what you believe about teaching.  In essence, the call is for a teacher to have a philosophy about teaching.  I got to thinking about my own, in the light of my experience, within the boudaries of the limitations (listed in the previous entry), and find myself in a scenario where sacrifices must be made.  The reality of teaching is sometimes far different from the dreams and motivations that inspire me to teach.  This perspective, in a way, shapes my method, for I focus, perhaps more than other teachers, on keeping the lesson engaging.  I act, I make up songs, I let myself be laughed at, etc.  I try to enjoy myself.

My approach is that learning can be fun and exciting.  My belief is that learning is an experience and that it can be an enjoyable experience.

Constructing Methodology: Limitations

To construct a methodology for the school at which I teach, I will need to first consider the limitations on my instruction.

The limitations of my instruction are, generally speaking, as follows:

1) space: the space only has chairs, desks and a white board. The space is equiped with a CD player.

2) resources: the primary resource is the book that we use. The book is our curriculum.

3) time: the class is only one hour in some cases, two in others. The purpose of the schools is to graduate students from one level to the next, and so the teacher must go through the book at a certain pace. Per day, a one hour class must go through 2.5 pages. This is on pace for graduation at the end of the semester or year.

4) number of students: there are private, one student classes, and there are classes with two or more students.

Teaching ESL: Introduction

Second semester of the summer session has begun, which means that I will now write about "how to teach English as a second language". As I've confessed in previous entries, I do not think there is a special methodology that will work wonders. Education is not magic.

I am convinced that interest and commitment are fundamental to learning in general and second language acquisition, specifically. And so, there are two primary categories of students: those who are and those who are not motivated. Those who are have a reason to be motivated. These reasons range from need (in many cases, employment requires it) or interest (one wishes to live or study abroad or simply appreciates the language). Motivation is requires for second language acquistion because without practice one will not learn a language.

The teacher must assess the motivation, know the students reasons for learning. And for those who are there out of obligation, they will need motivating. And so the teacher must adapt his or her style accordingly.

The guidance a teacher provides must be structured and engaging. The guidance a teacher provides must take into consideration the students, his or her strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles. This, in turn, requires a special attention to the social dynamic that is teacher, student.

What comes with knowing the student is the concept of "funds of knowledge". The student comes into the classroom with an entire history that plays a part in shaping his or her perspective. She has cultivated certain strength and apprehended the world in unique ways. To this end, the smaller a classroom is, the most effective the instruction can be.

My experience in Brasil offers both cohort groups and individual classes. There are books for both groups, or a private student, if proficient, can elect for a "handout" class, which means that no book is used, but materials are provided by the teacher. In this case, there is a lot of opportunity to tailor lesson plans around the intersts of the student. This makes keeping the student engages a bit easier.

The challenge of keeping students engaged is greater the more students there are. Furthermore, the content of the book and the length of class place important restrictions on the learning and teaching process.

Being that language acquisition requires a great deal of practice and repetition, the classroom alone may not be enough for fluency or even passable communication. For this, I emphasize that interest in or need to speak the language is fundamental to second language acquisition.

The obvious answer to second language acquisition is "move to the country that speaks the language you want to learn, live with people from that country who do not speak your language, and supplement this emmersion with a class to provide structure for what you are learning in your environment. The fact is, fluency is demonstrated by that which can only be learning from contemporary dialog. What one learns from the books is function for communication, but books cannot house all the details that compose fluent speech.

Teaching

I've been looking long and hard for some trick that will make teaching extraordinarily effective. I already wrote that I don't believe there exists any such trick or methodology. I think that teaching and learning comes down to the following: showing up and caring. A teacher that cares about what he does seems to be the most effective of all.

A definition for effective teaching must be general, because of the wide range of teaching styles that are bound to crop up in a field of so many individuals, so many histories. The effectiveness of technique and tools is also impacted by the types of students subject to the technique or using the tools. In short, there are many dynamics at play, arguable too many, for any one technique or tool to work. There are no tricks. There is just showing up and caring.

When you care, you are motivated to observe. You are motivated to observe behavior, mood, what works. You are motivated to know your students. And when you are motivated to know your students, they are motivated to know, too. Not only are they motivated to know, but in the process of being known, much is revealed to them. They find a need to express themselves in another language. They feel the frustration of being inarticulate, of ideas and feeling and desires being mute. Guiding them through this terrain, through this experience, is as essential as guiding them through the material/subject matter.

This can be called "keeping them interested" but I think it is more than that. It is being vigilant of their learning experience and responding to it. Knowing them not just as people, but knowing them as students is essential. Not just what subjects they excel in, but how they handle the variety of experiences related to learning. You have to be able to encourage them when they most need it, and to with hold assistance when they may seem to need it.

Indeed, an art can be made of anything. Teaching is just another trade, some might say. And they wouldn't be wrong. But what one takes away from teaching is unique and it cannot be wrong. It is an experience, and so it is not subject to rules or qualifications.

That said, I enjoy the experience of teaching. I don't mind the problems as much as I mind the solutions, when it comes to teaching. So the experience is good. The experience makes me better, sets a standard for me.

My observations will not always be correct. In fact, they may be rarely correct. One will never know unless they set about the task and pay attention.