Sunday, September 25, 2011

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. 

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

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).

Monday, September 19, 2011

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. 

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

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.

Monday, September 12, 2011

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. 

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

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 11th 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 PĂ©rez.


Sunday, September 4, 2011

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?