Improving your teaching

Having the possibility to receive feedback on one’s teaching from different perspectives seems to me a wonderful way to improve one’s professional practice.  The model presented in chapter 13 seems very helpful since it provides teachers with opportunities to reflect on their practices by obtaining information from different sources (the observer, the students, him/herself, the video).  The information brought by each of these sources is invaluable for the reflective teacher since it allows him to understand his teaching as it is perceived by all those involved/interested in the classroom.

I was particularly interested in the way getting information from students (even though this was not discussed extensively in the chapter) can help us understand how the type of discourse we use in the classroom, the way we address our students, the way we give instructions, the learning opportunities that we acknowledge (or not) affect our pedagogy and the students’ learning process.  I have found that the distance between our pedagogical purposes and attitudes and how these are perceived by the students is too big.

Getting a better understanding of how our attitudes, activities, explanations, methods and classroom management strategies are interpreted by students can totally help us improve these and be more effective teachers. And who else can give us first-hand information on these if not the students.  Of course, one must be aware that the students, as direct participants in the classroom, may be biased in providing this feedback, but once we are aware of this, and also once we have set the right atmosphere for this to take place, this can give profound insights on how to improve our teaching.

Also, conferencing with observer colleagues can help gain an equally but differently informed view of the things we do in the classroom, but a reflective teacher, who may not have always access to this kind of feedback, will find it very valuable to videotape his/her classes. It is hard to know how much you can gain from this unless you do it. The first thing one will feel is probably embarrassment. But once one has overcome that stage and gets used to observe him/herself in the video, one will become aware of the ideologies one brings into the class and the decisions made. This is a critical way to approach your own teaching that could prove very successful to become a better teacher. 

Assessment and the washback effect

I will use this blog entry to discuss briefly one phenomenon in classroom evaluation practices that, even though is not explicitly mentioned in chapters 33, 34, 35, poses great challenges to language teachers in practically all educational settings: the washback effect.

The washback effect refers to the extent to which different forms of assessment (normally but not exclusively testing) affect processes of learning and teaching.  The simplest forms of the washback effect can be seen in students’ attitudes towards evaluation processes when they focus their efforts to ‘learn’ those things that they believe are going to be assessed by the teacher, or in the way teachers tailor their teaching to provide students with tools to do well in assessment procedures.

Probably one of the most easily recognizable and more detrimental forms of the washback effect can be seen in educational settings where standardized, universal testing is mandatory. Teachers, due to accountability and transparency issues (the need to demonstrate to educational authorities that students are actually learning according to institutionalized standards), adapt their teaching practices and curricula to respond to the challenges posed by these evaluations, even if they have nothing to do with the students’ realities. In these cases, actual learning blurs away and becomes learning to take tests, leaving aside the transformational nature of education. This way, we see how some teachers, in a desperate attempt to respond to these impositions, end up using their class time to ‘train’ students to succeed in these tests.

However, in cases where assessment is more contextually-centered and considers learners’ potential and necessities, there can be positive washback effects. If the goals of the learning units are sensible enough to respond to the learners’ needs, if students are aware of the nature of the learning goals and the relevance of these to their own life, having students practice the skills necessary to perform well in traditional and non-traditional forms of assessment can have positive effects in students’ learning.

In my opinion, two concepts are central to transform the negative effects of assessment into positive ones. The first one is the students’ awareness of the reasons why and how different forms of assessment are used in the classroom, and what and whose purposes it serves. The second is the nature of the tools of assessment. This is to say, whether these evaluation practices has been designed as a possibility for learning that is aligned with the learning outcomes of the class rather than as a gate-keeping process. 

Critical Language Awareness

One of the aspects that called my attention most from the reading was the exercise on doublespeak on page 167. Kume cites Lutz to say that doublespeak is ‘language that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant appear attractive or at least tolerable.’ The reason why this sparked my interest is because one of the fields that I’m interested in is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA is a branch of studies in discourse analysis that looks at the way language is used as a tool of power for social, political and economic control. In my experience learning about CDA and doing my undergrad thesis using this approach, I always thought this was a great way to teach students about how the language works and how there are certain strategic choices language users make to promote or hide social representations. My first impression was that it was better-suited for first language learning since it seemed to be a very complex approach for second language teaching.

However, I found and tried ways to address this issue in the L2 classroom by using two simple grammatical concepts that are normally addressed from a LA perspective: these are the difference between the use of the passive and active voice and the processes that influence the word-choice decision-making progress. Just a couple of examples of how I’ve used this in the classroom (with not much success though):

Active voice: Protestors halt port causing shipping companies to lose millions.

Passive voice: Protestors tent encampment has been evacuated. Two protestors are injured.

Basically, what we can do here with students is to discuss why they think the active or passive voice is used. Here we see, how the subject-agent distinction is problematized by the use of the passive voice. In the first example, it is very clear that it was the protestors who stopped operations and the port. Then we can see how a consequence is included right after to make it clear to the audience that the protestors have brought a problem to something that is considered very important for a society: its economy. In the second example, the subject-agent distinction of the sentence is unclear. We know what the grammatical subject of the sentence is, but we do not know who the agent of the action is. Additionally, we also have access to the consequence of the evacuation, but the agent of the action is ambiguous again and leaves room for speculation.

After discussing this, one then moves to introduce the grammatical aspect of it, explaining what morphosyntactic processes are embedded in the forming of the sentence, and how these choices affect the way the message is received by the audience. In my experience, this approach helps students understand the distinction more easily by increasing the saliency of the difference between the two forms. 

Developing learner autonomy

Learner Autonomy

In page 135, Kumaravadivelu states what to me are two indispensable aspects in the development of learner autonomy: the learners’ awareness of learning strategies, and (b) the teachers’ effectiveness of learner training.

Making students aware of the number of learning strategies that are available to them, of their own learning styles, of how these strategies have to combined for particular settings and of how strategies can change and be personalized as they move forward in the learning process depends on a number of factors that need to be looked at closely and that I will only mention here. Among these factors are the student’s previous home and school education, the type of learner he/she, student’s intrinsic/extrinsic motivation in learning the language, the student’s cultural background, and numerous socio-affective factors that influence the student’s involvement in his/her learning process, and many others.

Of course, it seems naive to believe that an individual teacher will be able to get to know all these factors in such a manner that he/she is able to offer each particular student what they require to learn and become willing to use a number of learning strategies which would eventually lead to different levels of autonomy. However, it is my belief that it is possible for the teacher to collaboratively find these strategies by engaging the students in the learning process. This is obviously no easy task. And I believe that one way to do this is by explicitly teaching learning strategies by pointing out their benefits and by modeling them in class session. I consider myself an advocate of this model and am willing to ‘neglect’ the teaching of content in order to make sure that students understand the importance of autonomous learning and mastery of learning strategies. I am convinced (this is something I would like to study through a comparative study by teaching two classes, one of them being a control group) that making students aware of the instructional goals as well as the ways strategies can be used to reach those goals is a much more effective way not only to obtain better pedagogical results, but to educate learner’s who will have more control over their language education and that will become lifelong learners.   

The biggest challenge in this, at least this what I can derive from my own experience, is to develop the rapport necessary for each student to open up and start looking at learning as an internal process rather than as something you get by someone else teaching in a class. This is probably the first step in transforming students’ minds and having them become willing to take over their own learning process. Put this way, this sounds simple enough but it is not, since it involves constant modeling, discussion, reflection and expertise.  This leads to the second aspect mentioned by Kumaravadivelu: the teachers’ effectiveness of learner training.

In my opinion, making teachers aware of the importance of these matters and, more importantly, having them become effective strategy ‘coaches’ is even harder than developing student’s autonomy. And here I’m taking about of teacher as a social force, not teachers at a particular school. I mean teachers across a country or in the case of the US, a state. Even if we sometimes go crazy with students because they don’t seem to care, because they want to be spoon-fed and not worry about how, why and what they learn, I have been able to meet teachers who work wonders on the most reluctant/indifferent/absent/uninterested/isolated students. No matter what their age is, I’m convinced that a person is always willing to learn if they realize we have something (interesting) to teach them (this is a quote from a Depeche Mode song). Of course, I reckon the idealism in this statement, but to me a teacher is (or should be) the eternal optimistic. Unfortunately, this seems to be the exception, not the rule. And this is to me the biggest challenge: to convince teachers as a whole that teaching is not only transferring knowledge, to make aware of the importance of the student’s agency and ability to control their own learning. This involves loosing what most teachers believe to be their source of authority: the belief that they are the proprietors of knowledge.

Transforming classroom practices require this paradigm shift, which is in itself a educational revolution. It requires changes at all levels in the educational system as well as a close examination of the type of education future teachers receive in college. It involves teaching becoming autonomous themselves so they are able to recognize the value of autonomy for learning. Probably, this requires a whole new generation of teachers to take place so we need to look carefully at how this autonomy is promoted amongst future teachers. 

On writing and standardized testing

Of all the readings, the one that called my attention most was the one by Ferris. It is to my a well-thought, easily understandable piece that resorts to practical issues that can be taken into the classroom and that explains how these activities respond to the research that has been done on the teaching and learning on writing. I have found it very useful both as a consultant at the Writing Program here at ISU and as learner of EFL learner myself.

I found it very easy to relate to this article given the experience I have had working closely with standards and the professional development of teachers of English as a Foreign Language. One of the things that has puzzled me throughout my career has been the distance that exists between what the research on the field of EFL writing (and in general) and the policies made by government institutions. It seems to me that it is a (as we say in Spanish) ‘diálogo de sordos’. This idiomatic expression (which can be offensive to some, for which I apologize but dare to include for the purpose of clarity) basically means that the dialogue is between two people that can’t hear. On the one hand, research shows us that the learning of writing (or any other skill in a second language) takes place under conditions that are totally different to those present at most educational contexts. On the other hand, policy-makers seem to blatantly ignore this fact and continue pushing teachers and students towards failure.  This seems to be the case of standardized testing here in the US (and probably everywhere).

In order to understand this one must look at the bigger picture and consider all the stakeholders involved in the decision-making processes. I will not discuss this further but my whole point is that it is probably necessary that the academia should start thinking about the ways to make their voices heard at the government level. It is my deep belief that whatever research or study scholars do should have as its ultimate and central goal the improvement of society, or at least, a very small portion of it. This is particularly true of education. I see no point in conducting studies will be stock in a library and will be read by new students year after year, without any pragmatic implication for those outside academic communities.

I do understand however that this is no easy task. Having their voice heard by policy-makers can be a nightmare for anyone. But, if scholars do not commit to social change, who will do? The answer to that is simple: companies. And companies will very rarely try to bring benefit to someone but themselves. Behind standardized testing and benchmarks are the biggest multinationals in the world and it is working pretty well for them. I guess what I’m saying here is that there’s a need to think of something like ‘scholar activism’. In Ferris article we see the gap between academia and the processes of standardized testing. Her suggestions on the teaching of writing are very interesting, but unfortunately very difficult to implement in k-12 settings due to the constraints imposed by all the stakeholders in the educational system. In other words, if the trajectory of our best research studies, of our best ideas on the teaching of ESL/EFL writing don’t reach the policy-making level I believe we are throwing our effort in (to continue with the Spanish idioms) ‘saco roto’ (which basically means to store your thing in a bottomless bag).

P.S.This is probably way out of line for our discussion, I recognize that.

Application project

For my application paper I would like to do a book/lit review (haven't decided yet) on the teaching of English as an International Language. In particular, I would lilke to look at two things:

1. What has been written on the nature of EIL, what it looks like, what it sounds like, whether there are descriptive studies on the shapes English takes in countries in the outer circle.
2. The ways different varieties of English are visible in teacher development/education programs particularly in the case of Non Native English Teachers (NNET'S) interact.

Lesson and curriculum planning

Lesson and curriculum planning              

I found both chapters very informative. I liked chapter 3 in the sense that it presents a very brief overview of the reasons why one should plan, a couple of models for lesson planning and some practical information on the steps to plan a lesson. It is always good to go over these topics and remind ourselves of the different aspects that should play a role in our planning. From my experience, I have learned that even though all these steps seem to be pretty obvious, the success of one’s class is very dependent on how aware and systematic one becomes when applying these strategies. It provides the teacher, and the students, with structure and a felt sense of what the class’ purpose and routines are. It also helps everyone keep track of their learning and teaching process and gives all a sense of direction.

In this section, my attention was particularly drawn to the ways lessons can be evaluated. However, I would have liked to find more information on this. To me, this is probably one of the most critical aspects of lesson planning. Many teachers think their job is done once the lesson has been ‘delivered’. Evaluating our classes and lesson plans is the only way to improve them. Whether this evaluation takes the form of a mental, individual process or a written form depends on the administrative environment and/or the teacher’s  personality. However, it is important that this evaluation actually takes place and that the information derived from it be used in future lesson planning and shared with other teachers. This is a form of professional development that is simple, accessible and probably one of the most valuable tools in becoming a better teacher.

Chapter 7 also gives us a good overview on the models of curriculum design that have been more prevalent in the last decades.  All three models play a role in today’s curriculum planning and I don’t believe they are exclusive in any manner. However, even though the proposal made by the author seems very comprehensive and well-thought, I still see some gaps that need to be filled.  Mainly, I see it is still problematic to determine what role the policy dimension needs to play in curriculum design. This is, how one can bring together the policy and the pragmatic dimensions without disregarding the other. Government agencies are generally the ones responsible for determining what is ‘desirable to achieve’. This is based on decisions made by ‘society’, or at least those elected by society to rule their destiny, but many times these expectations are not aligned with the pragmatic dimension, this is, the reality of the schools where the policy is implemented.  The author proposes the participants to solve this issue, to reconcile both levels. Unfortunately, this is not a clear-cut task. There are many stakeholders interacting with these participants, and with those in charge of the policy dimension, whose interests are many times totally different. This is one issue that needs to be studied, and that is crucial in developing curricula that is achievable, but that yet helps move the society forward. 

Content-Based and Sheltered Instruction

After reading both chapters on content-based and sheltered instruction I could not help but thinking of the work I did in the Colombian Ministry of Education and the National Bilingual Program (NBP). In short, the National Bilingual Program is an initiative by the Colombian government to improve the quality of English Language Teaching in public schools around the country. This initiative has brought about a significant growth on the interest of all stakeholders in the field of English teaching. One of the unexpected consequences of the NBP is an the spread of what I think are unnecessary initiatives in an EFL context such as the Colombian one.

This is not the place to comment about the NBP, but one thing that caught my attention was to see the difference between implementing a content-based approach in ESL and EFL settings. In countries like the US, it is very clear that a Content-Based approach can be very helpful if implemented mindfully. Young learners at schools do students do have an immediate and mediate need to become proficient in the use of academic English: they need to be able to cope with the demands of content areas in the short term, and of course they need to learn English for the needs imposed by the English-speaking environment around them. However, in places like Colombia, where there are no immediate needs for students to become proficient in the foreign language, I consider that there is no reason to implement such an approach. Unfortunately, some schools are starting to implement bilingual programs in the initial grades of primary school. That is, core classes such science, social science and math are being taught mainly in English. I’m very dubious that the positive effects of such an endeavor outweigh the negative ones.  

It is very clear that the intention of these schools is to provide English teaching that is taught around concepts that have a trajectory beyond the language classroom. I understand the rationale of this. However, in order to successfully implement content-based teaching, one needs to have a strong teaching team that is skilled in the foreign language as well as in the content areas. This is very hard to find in the US, not to mention in Colombia.I believe that such schools, which still face enormous challenges in terms of providing quality education in the native language and in these core classes,  should concentrate its efforts in: a)improving the quality of these core classes in the native language, b) try to improve the quality of language teaching through other means (e.g. providing professional development opportunities to EFL teachers).

Balance between form and function

“A task is an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective”

The definition provided by Skehan (p.3) seems to provide a lot of room for discussion. Or not. That is, it is too vague to enlighten the planning of specific activities, but it still helps teachers understand what kind of activities are not tasks. Also, it is clear by this definition that language is viewed from a functional-pragmatic perspective and not as system of rules that can be learned as more formal perspectives on languages do.

Considering this, it is hard not to think of Task-Based Language Teaching as a strand of Communicative Language Teaching that has come to understand the importance of explicitly addressing form in language learning processes. In order to use such an approach, one needs to understand the way language and society interact and how they are intrinsically connected. A functional perspective on language should not disregard the importance forms play in shaping the attainment of communicative objectives and the way cultures help shape the forms of the language. It is a two-way relationship. However, I believe that, in spite of the introduction of a Focus-on-Form component in Task-Based Language Teaching, there are a number of questions that need to be addressed in order to avoid the traps offered by the purest forms of CLT (how to create authentic communicative situations, how to make sure that learners can profit from quality input/intake in their interlanguage, how to respond to those students who privilege knowledge over communication, etc., how to make sure that fluency, accuracy and complexity of speech are all taken care of in the classroom, etc.).

I believe Task-Based Language Teaching addresses some of these issues. Activities as the ones described in chapter 9 do provide alternatives to bring genuine activities that require a lot of involvement on the part of the students in the classroom as well as in the ‘real world’. However, I do believe that aspects such as quality of input, intake, functional interaction (interaction that is useful for language learning purposes) and cultural issues still need to be studies in this approach. The authors of chapter 9 acknowledge this problem and I do believe that the research-oriented approaches to task presented by Skehan (psycholinguistic, sociocultural, cognitive and focused tasks) do provide us, teachers with a range of possibilities to go into our classroom, implement them and deepen the research on these issues. I believe that no final word can be reached, but I think that doing some action research with our student communities can help us understand what works best for us as teachers and for our student populations. 

No estaba muerto, andaba de parranda

To believe that the success of educational processes relies mainly in the methodology used by teachers is quite a naive view. In the articles by Hu and Bax this week we see that this view has affected the teaching of English in many different contexts. As Hu points outs in his article: ‘(there is) a host of constraints on the adoption of CLT in the Chinese context which includes, among other things, lack of necessary resources, big class size, limited instructional time, teachers' lack of

language proficiency and sociolinguistic competence, examination pressure, and cultural factors’ p. 94. These constraints however are not exclusively problematic for the implementation of CLT in China, they affect any learning environment in any field of study. As well as they affect the implementation of CLT, they could affect any other method. Also, the factors listed by the author are numerous and of diverse character and, in most of the cases they go beyond the power of the English teacher.

Bearing in mind the complexity of the settings where English is learned as Foreign or Second Language, I believe it is somehow necessary not to worry too much about the effectiveness of the different methods posed by theorists throughout the history of SLA and teaching. It is my belief that we are aiming at the wrong targets when validating or declaring the ‘death’ of one given method. It is to me a commonplace to say ‘this method is better than the other’, ‘how is it possible that people still use this method?’. Methods are there, and they are for us to use when we consider they suit our teaching scenarios. Even though many believe that those methods used in the past are no longer in use, they have permeated current practices and make part of the inventory of possibilities teacher resort to in their daily practices. Methods are different ways to look at how languages are learned and taught, and they are in line with one or another theory of language and/or education. 

For this reason, I find it very problematic to see the rigorousness and validity of statements like ‘In other words the message which CLT gives to teachers is this: The Communicative Approach is the way to do it, no matter where you are, no matter what the context’ p. 281. Whose assumptions are these? Is Bax quoting an author, a manual, a textbook? Where does he get this from? I am sure many teachers adopt this position, mainly because the lack of professionalism (for whatever reasons, neglect, lack of opportunities) and excessive naivety, but this is a very flawed argument to use to claim that CLT is death or that it should die.  Of course, Bax’s proposal on adopting an approach that is much more context sensitive is in place. I do agree with him when calls for the formulation of teacher education programs that help them develop the skills to identify and incorporate peculiarities of the specific contexts they teach at into their curricula and classroom practices.

Language, learning and teaching theories have a lot to offer to us when improving the quality of our teaching, but as long as learners do not have access to books, quality resources, caring and professional teachers, they will continue to face huge challenges.

Critical Pedagoy in ELT: Images of Brazilian Teachers of English

The main point of the article by Pagliarini and De Assis is that the overwhelming majority  of the Brazilian English teachers they interviewed in their study were not familiar with critical pedagogy in ELT. The authors used basically two data collection methods: interviews and       commentary on passage analysis. Form this data, the researchers were able to determine that all but two of the forty teachers they interviewed did not know much about critical pedagogy in ELT and, consequently, that this approach was not being enacted in their classrooms.

This, the authors believe, is particularly problematic since in 1997 the Brazilian government introduced the National Curriculum Parameter, which is based on critical pedagogical assumptions. However, it needs to be said that the article was published in 1999, which implies that very likely the study was carried out sometime around 1998 or even before. Clearly, the researchers ignored this fact, and didn’t include any information on how the new curriculum was being socialized within the educational community. Also, information on the character of the teacher degree programs at universities in Brazil could have enlightened the study in terms of the causes of this absence of critical perspective on teacher’s pedagogies.

Additionally, the teachers are troubled by the fact that the origin of critical pedagogy can be traced back to Paulo Freire, a Brazilian himself. They call attention to the fact that critical pedagogies in ELT are arriving to Brazil, via the literature of experts in the ‘inner countries’. That is to say, critical pedagogy, a contribution of a Brazilian to pedagogy around the world, has become an imported theory of learning for Brazilians. It is not very hard to see the irony in that.

Instead of conducting studies where the teachers lack of expertise and outdated methods become evident, one would like to see studies on the ways universitites are educating pre-service teachers. University professors clearly enjoy a more ready access to the latest trends in theories in the world, but above that, are more capable of transforming theories, such as the critical pedagogy put forward by Paulo Freire, into to transformational practices aimed at social transformation. Beyond the question of how is it possible that these teachers were ignorant about critical pedagogy, one would like to see how experts and universities in Brazil failed at developing a critical pedagogy for the teaching of languages based on the postulates of Freire.

CLT and learning opportunities

What I like the most about both readings is that they bring down to earth the theoretical principles that structure these two proposals. In both readings it is very easy to point out some of the main advantages and disadvantages each of the models face.

 The article on Communicative Language Teaching is a very good sample of how many teachers conduct their classes with a communicative orientation. The authors do a very good job in relating the different activities and stages in the class to the principles of CLT. As teachers, reading this from a critical perspective can help us understand some of the benefits and flaws of CLT as they are enacted in the classroom. Clearly, focusing in communication instead of focusing on more formal aspects of the language is probably the greatest virtue of this approach. However, it is very clear that the teacher they observed fell into some of the flaws of CLT, just as probably many teachers still do. Things like the authenticity of the types of communicative exchanges held in the classroom, the relevance of the topics discussed in class activities to every single student, the total disregard for explicit teaching of linguistic structures are potential flaws of the implementation of the CLT model, particularly in the case of teachers who are unaware of such pitfalls, and who do not draw on other theories or their own expertise to tweak their teaching strategies.

On the other hand, chapter 3 presents us with practical ways on how to incorporate Kumavaradivelu’s proposal in the classroom. The way I see it, this proposal is permeated by many of the principles of the CLT model, but incorporates much more socially-engaging and meaningful activities than the ones presented in the article by Larsen-Freeman. Particularly, if we consider what constitutes communicative activities, according to advocates of CLT: information gap, choice, and feedback. It is very easy to notice that these tenets are included in Kumavaradivlu’s approach, but they are enacted at a mucho more socially-situated level. It seems very much as an update of CLT to me. Additionally, the whole center of argumentation of the chapter ‘Maximizing learning opportunities’ is also a principle used by many teachers who adopt (and adapt) communicative strategies to teaching. However, this model is not void of flaws either. In particular, the activities proposed are clearly suitable for ESL purposes where exposure to the native language is easily found outside the classroom. The sample activities proposed by Kuma as macrostrategies do not take into consideration EFL contexts where such resources and opportunities are not available. One may argue that these activities can be somehow 'adapted to EFL context but doing so would require, in certain contexts, the teacher to arrange for a big amount of logistics and procedural stuff, which could make socially-engaging activities like these much more difficult to implemment. 

A letter to Dr. Pennycook

Dear Dr. Pennycook,

My name is Juanito de Los Palotes and I’m a teacher of English in XXXXX, province of XXXXX. I’m a very enthusiastic professional about the teaching of English and I teach at the primary and secondary school levels.

The place I live in is very isolated, and I have very few resources to work with, but my students are very interested in learning about new language and cultures, so I try to do my best to help them in this endeavor. Despite the fact that in the place where I live it is very difficult to buy any instructional materials or to access the most updated research on the teaching of languages, I try to keep in touch with some of the professors at the nearby University of XXXXX, located in Cercadenada, the capital of my province, who provide me with copies of your articles and books. I really admire the work you do and your view on the teaching of English. I believe learning a language is much more than mastering a code and I’m convinced that critical perspectives on language teaching are the only way to promote our students’ awareness and engagement in social change.

However, the reason I’m writing to you is that I’ve been facing a lot of frustration lately. I’ve tried to incorporate a critical perspective on the teaching of English to my students and I believe I have done so with moderate success. Even though I have found this to be a very big challenge, and the fact that doing so has put me through a personal struggle in order to abandon dominant discourses in my own view of language and learning, I believe I have succeeded – at least partially – in helping my students become aware and engaged in processes of social changes in my community. I have been able to bring into the classroom issues related to the ways English has come to be a dominant language in the world as well as the consequences of this phenomenon in our country and even in our village. Through this many of my pupils have learned about the history of our country, how it has been continually oppressed by outside forces and the consequences of this oppression. Many of my students have become interested in these topics, but I have to say I have been facing lots of difficulties in this approach.

For example, one of my students in 11^th grade has decided that she no longer wants to learn English.  She argues that learning English is no longer relevant for her. She says that she doesn’t want to perpetuate the dominance of this language. She even stated that she didn’t understand why she had to learn English, the language of the oppressors, to fight their oppression. She told me she considered this to be a paradox. She believes that she should concentrate all her efforts in transforming the harsh realities of our community and that to do so, her native language was more than enough. This, of course, is a big issue, since all my students need to take an English test at the end of the year, and my job is very much contingent on the performance of my students in this exam. She does come to my class, but refuses to do any tasks.  To my luck, this has been the case of only one student.

However, there is another big concern which is the main reason of my letter. Despite the paramount importance of your proposal, I have found almost none references to how this pedagogy can benefit the actual learning of the language. Clearly, my students have become aware of the power of language, but unfortunately, this has served me little in having them learn the language itself. I’m not saying we shouldn’t adopt the pedagogy you propose, I’m just saying I would love to find ways of how we, teachers, can help our students to learn English as much as about English. I hope you understand this is also my responsibility.  I understand that I need to figure this out for my own community of learners and should draw on my own expertise, but any kind of help would be much appreciated. I’m sure your experience can help me and many more teachers comprehend this a little bit more. Throughout my career I have had very few success experiences in terms of my students becoming fluent English speakers and I would like that to change.

Finally, I just want to thank you for taking the time to read this and I really do hope you can answer me back or have one of your assistants do so. I have received an offer from the principal of my school to become a social science teacher and, as much as I would like to do that (in part because of you eye-opening articles), I am sure I can find ways to balance my classes in a way that they are socially-engaging pedagogy as well as a language learning experience.

Sincerely yours,

Juan Pérez.

Problematizing the notion of postmethod

 I understand ‘postmethod pedagogy’ as a way to methodize postmodernist, critical perspectives on language teaching.  And I think there is nothing wrong about this. I will not go into detail on this statement (since it would take me forever and I’d rather leave that amount of work for one of our papers/projects), but I will discuss some of the issues that I believe are problematic in Kumaravadivelu’s argumentation.

Kumaravadivelu asserts that principled pragmatism and plausibility are different from eclecticism in that the former provide space for teacher autonomy (amongst other things) (p. 33). Kumaravadivelu takes for granted that teachers using an eclectic approach do so merely by selecting different techniques from distinct methods as they see fit their teaching practice and their students’ needs, pretty much like putting up a lego tower.  From this assumption he states that this practice must be abandoned. However, I prefer to give more credit to teachers and believe that such eclecticism involves informed decision-making processes and the implementation of teacher’s self-developed strategies as well as techniques and procedures derived from existing methods. Hence, the difference between informed eclecticism, plausibility and principled pragmatism becomes inexistent.

As much as I am in favor of critical perspective in language teaching (and in pretty much everything in life), it seems to me that the dismissal of methods is rather an ‘expert’ concern than a teacher’s one. It looks like it is theorists who placed more faith on methods than anyone else and therefore were clearly the ones more disappointed by their repetitive failures. Teachers seem to be much more at ease with the fact that no method works for all types of students and have learned to deal with that. In their everyday classrooms teachers draw techniques and strategies from different methods and their creativity and expertise. Apparently, what theorists have been discussing on the inefficiency of methods for the past 15 years, teachers have known long ago.

How is it possible to disregard enlightened eclecticism on the basis that ‘it offers no criteria according to which we can determine which is the best theory, nor does it provide any principles by which to include or exclude features which form part of existing theories or practices. The choice is left to the individual’s intuitive judgment and is, therefore, too broad and too vague to be satisfactory as a theory in its own right’? (Stern as cited by Kumaravadivelu, p. 31) Am I the only one feeling that postmethods advocates are criticizing this eclecticism precisely for its lack of a method?

When one tries to envision the enactment of the macrostrategies proposed by Kumaravadivelu, one pictures a teacher who constantly makes decisions on the different types of activities to be implemented, depending on the unique conditions of his/her students. This enactment may very well take the form of a number of techniques and activities that best suit the students needs and personalities, regardless of what the teacher’s theoretical incline may be. This makes me wonder, isn’t this informed eclecticism after all? 

The postmethod era

I’ve found the two readings very informative. Celce-Murcia’s article meets the function of providing teachers with a review of the basics of the distinct methods that have been present in the studies of second/foreign language learning .  Kumaravadivelu on the other hand focuses in how the TESOL field of study has evolved over the last twenty years.

I will concentrate on Kumaravadivelu’s article and will pose a few questions:

1.  Kumaravadivelu does a very good job in pointing out the difference between methods and practices. This dichotomy presents with a very important question on how teachers actually enact methods in their classrooms. Even though the author does quote some studies on how methods take place in the classroom, I have a lot of doubts in terms on how the results from the studies can be generalized to all teachers in all contexts globally. Coming up to general conclusions on the effectiveness of methods and the ways they are implemented seems a very risky enterprise, particularly if we embrace the differences between local contexts and teachers’ background and teaching styles.
2.  Kumaravadivelu discusses what a postmethod pedagogy could look like, and how it should rely on the teacher’s ability to determine what side of the pendulums they should lean towards.  However, I wonder if this not what many teachers have been doing for a long time, even when the method era was in vogue.
3.  As I read Kumaravadivelu proposal of a Macrostrategic Framework, I couldn’t help but thinking, isn’t this a method in its own? Wouldn’t the enacting of the ten macrostrategies proposed by Kumaravadivelu require some kind of procedural order and implemmentation?
4.  Kumaravadivelu cites Norton (2000) when he says: ‘it is only by understanding the histories and lived experiences of language learners that the language teacher can create conditions that will facilitate social interaction both in the classroom and in the wider community, and help learners claim the right to speak’. I wonder how feasible it is only to know (not to say understand) the histories and lived experiences of language learners.  Furthermore, is this really the only way to create such conditions?
5.  I believe evolution on the study of language and theories of learning as well as our inherent human and scientific desire to find generalizable principles have played an important role in the constant uprising of ELT methods. Of course, economic and political agendas have also partaken in this. As of now, as a consequence of the way social sciences have been moving towards the critical side of the pendulum, we are now witnessing how these critical perspectives on language teaching. However, isn’t it possible that radically critical perspectives of the method era as the ones presented in article may lead us into an atomization and relativism of the field where teachers are responsible of figuring out the specific peculiarities of each learning environment? Isn’t this too much of a burden, particularly with the political and economic contexts where teachers have to develop their profession?

Anthology: Chapter 1 & 2

‘Eclecticism is not an option here, since the different conceptions of  teaching represent fundamentally different representations of what teaching is and how teachers should approach their work’ p. 25 (Richards, J. in Richards, J. & Renandya, W). This idea was by far what called my attention most in the readings.  I have the feeling that I am not the only one that was shocked by this statement. It seems to me that it is today’s common knowledge that teaching must be eclectic in the sense that it needs to respond to the ever-increasing diversity of the ESL/EFL student population. Also, developments in the last century in language teaching have provided us with a huge number of methods and techniques that are necessarily wrong. Today we see how some experts neglect of most of the methods used in the past for language teaching and learning, but it is my belief that their major problem was the monolithic perspective on language learning and their lack of comprehensive.  Now that we have moved forward the ‘unique method perspective’ we have come to understand that learning is an individual process and that therefore it can’t be looked although a one-fits-all approach.

For these reasons,  I certainly see no reason why theory-philosophy conceptions cannot serve as the framework for the uprising of science-research conceptions that, in turn, may be materialized into methods and skills applicable in the classroom. To me this a straightforward way to understand teaching as governed by an understanding of the world. I reckon however, that this is not necessarily true. Some teachers like to think of themselves as being positioned in one of the three conceptions presented by Richards. What I don’t understand is the reason Richards asserts there is no room for adopting an eclectic approach. I am sure there is much to this than what I can think of right now. I hope we can find some answers to this in our class.

English Language Learners

Diaz-Rico, L. & Weed, K. (2010) The crosscultural, language, and academic development handbook. A complete K-12 reference guide. Chapter 8 Jenkins, J. (2009). Who speaks English today? (p. 15-24). World Englishes. Farr, M. et al. (2010). Ethnolinguistic diversity in language and literacy education.

  

From my perspective, the issues brought up by Diaz Rico, L. & Weed Jenkins and Farr, Seloni and Song need to be approached from different perspectives.

Diaz Rico & Weed ad Farr. et al. discuss the ELL population in the US. Clearly, they provide a clear picture on the challenges and benefits brought by the different waves of immigration throughout the history of the US. It is very unfortunate that nowadays students from culturally diverse backgrounds are still struggling to find an education that responds to their needs and that maximizes their cultural and linguistic richness. Efforts must be made by educational authorities in order to develop the capacity required to equip schools and educate teachers so the educational system can stand up to this challenge. However, this cannot be done without a paradigm shift in the way society sees immigrants. Throughout history, immigrants have been seen by host countries as a work force to help boost the economy. Immigrants have been seen as desirable in times when the local workforce is not enough to cope with the demands of production and trade, or in times of excessive wealth when natives have decided that certain jobs should be done by outsiders in need of income.

From this perspective, the legacy of these immigrants as well as their heritage has been deemed as undesirable, to say the least. It has been this perspective what has prevented immigrants to be treated as legitimate members of the society, as subject of duties but also of rights. It is for this reason that education is not designed to provide quality solutions to the challenges posed by immigration. As Farr, et al. put it (8), it is possible to have a common language but not desirable to have an only language.  Only if we come to understand that efforts should be made in order to take advantage of the benefits and potential of multiculturalism, if we become willing to learn the lessons the peoples of the world have to teach us, can we transform our educational practices to respond to such phenomena. A multicultural society ruled by monocultural policies and practices is a social time bomb.

On the other hand, Jenkins problematizes the notion of the circles as put by Kachru and other authors over the last thirty years. In this respect, I find it necessary to say that even though I consider important to uncover all the layers in terms like EFL, ESL, ENL, and to further our knowledge on the different features of the English learning environments around the world,  I do believe that is necessary to keep this macro-distinctions.  Coming from a country that could arguably called from the outer circle, it is clear that the needs, motivation, resources, etc. of those who learn EFL are very different from those in the ESL circle (or outer). I do not agree with Jenkins when she quotes Graddol to assert that some countries in the outer circle are transitioning into the expanding circle. At least, in the case of Latin America (she mentions Costa Rica and Argentina), this is by no means true. It is not possible to equate the complexities of ESL scenarios with those places where political, cultural and economic decisions have brought about policies to foster the learning of foreign languages. This statement by Graddol is made based on number of people studying English and educational policies and history has proved that ESL settings are brought up by much traumatic happenings such as colonization or political disrupt.