The World is My Oyster

For #TESL0100

Or at least, for the immediate future, Winnipeg and the Manitoba Interlake region are my "oyster"! This is essentially what I was told by a professional colleague when she commented that I would soon be done my TESL training and I replied, "Yes, but then what?"

During the various components of my pursuit of this training, I have researched employment opportunities, met with course administrators and toured their facilities, experienced language teaching in a university setting, and discussed volunteering experiences with my classmates. The result is that I have become aware of the many contexts, both paid and unpaid, in which I will be able to share my newly acquired skills. However, before I launch myself upon the world, or even the above mentioned region, I thought it would be a useful exercise to complete the self-rating list of "Characteristics of a Successful Language Teacher" as suggested by Brown & Lee (2015). As well, I will look at one of the characteristics that I need to improve on and discuss how I can continue to develop that skill or quality.

The following table shows the characteristics adapted from Brown & Lee (2015), but I have compressed the suggested rating scale to three levels that are meaningful to me. Bear in mind that I have very limited experience as a language teacher, so some of my answers come from other teaching experiences in math and science. Also consider that a rating of 3 is not an indication that I consider myself to have attained perfection in that characteristic, but rather that relative to some of the other characteristics, I do not need to focus on them, but that I should continue to maintain them as I gain experience.

Characteristics of a Successful Language Teacher Rating: 3 = I do this consistently; 2 = I am developing in a positive way; 1 = I need to do a lot of work
Description	Rating
Background Knowledge
Understands organizational, pragmatic, and socio-cultural systems of the English language	2
Comprehensively grasps basic principles of language learning and teaching	3
Has fluent competence in speaking, writing, listening to , and reading English	3
Knows through experience what it is like to learn a foreign language	3
Understands the close connection between language and culture	3
Keeps up with the field through regular reading, collaboration with others, and conference /workshop attendance	2
Pedagogical Skills
Has a comprehensive, informed approach to language teaching	2
Efficiently designs and executes lesson plans	2
Understands and appropriately uses a variety of techniques	3
Monitors lessons as they unfold and makes effective mid-lesson alterations	2
Effectively perceives students’ linguistic and personal needs, along with their various styles, preferences, strengths and weaknesses	1
Gives optimal feedback to students	2
Stimulates interaction, cooperation and teamwork in the classroom	3
Uses appropriate principles of classroom management	2
Uses effective, clear presentation skills	2
Creatively adapts textbook material and other audio, visual, and technological aids	3
Innovatively creates brand-new materials when needed	3
Uses authentic, washback-giving techniques to assess students	1
Interpersonal Skills
Is aware of cross-cultural differences and is sensitive to student’s cultural traditions	2
Enjoys people; shows enthusiasm, warmth, rapport, and appropriate humor	3
Values the opinions and abilities of students	3
Is Patient in working with students of lesser ability	3
Offers challenges to students of exceptionally high ability	1
Cooperates harmoniously and candidly with colleagues, including seeking opportunities to share thoughts, ideas, and techniques	3
Personal Qualities
Is well organized, conscientious in meeting commitments, and dependable	3
Is flexible when things go awry	2
Engages in regular self-reflection on teaching practices and strives to learn from those reflective processes	1
Maintains an inquisitive mind in trying out new ways of teaching	3
Sets short-term and long-term goals for continued professional growth	2
Maintains and exemplifies high ethical and moral standards	3

It's obvious that I have plenty of work to do in my continuing development as a language teacher. However, I am going to look at the two characteristics that I gave myself a low rating for under the heading of Pedagogical Skills, since I believe the root cause of my need for further work is the same for both. These are "Effectively perceives students’ linguistic and personal needs, along with their various styles, preferences, strengths and weaknesses" and "Uses authentic, washback-giving techniques to assess students". As I mentioned, most of my teaching experience is in math and sciences, at the college level, and for the most part, those classes are presented in a lecture style and assessment is in the form of tests and lab reports. Assessment criteria are well-defined,  results are either right or wrong, and feedback is in the form of a percent correct translated to a letter grade. There is some opportunity to give additional feedback through comments on a test paper or report, but there isn't much time to discuss the details with individuals. Adult students are expected to take the initiative in asking for clarification, and some do, but most rush off to the next class. Therefore, I don't have much experience in perceiving students' personal styles and preferences.Teaching language classes to smaller groups, either in a community or college setting, will give me greater opportunity to tune in to my students, and to really tailor my teaching to their personal styles and needs.

I am also still working my mind around the concept of "washback". Brown & Lee (2015) says that it includes the effects of assessment on teaching and learning prior to the assessment. I suppose the review I did with my students prior to a final exam, and the exam-taking strategies I gave them would be a kind of washback effect of a summative assessment. However, there was not much formative assessment, other than machine-graded homework and my ability to occasionally use the results of that to re-teach some material if a majority of students were having some difficulty with a particular concept. So for the most part, I have little experience with washback, and I will need to pay careful attention to including opportunities for its positive effects in my teaching and assessment.

Resources: 

Brown, H.D. & Lee, H., (2015), Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, 4^th ed., Pearson Education Inc., White Plains, NY, pp. 497, 546 - 547 

Breaking Down Grammar

For #TESL0100

In Unit 3, we were asked to discuss a grammar point that would be challenging to explain. For me, one point would be how do we know whether to begin questions with either a form of 'do' or 'be. This came to my attention because I am similarly struggling with the correct ways to ask questions in my study of French grammar.

At first, I thought of the difference being in whether the question was about an action in general or something more specific. (e.g.: Do you go there often? Are you going there tomorrow? Are you going now?)

I noticed that the forms are similar, as far a word order: do/be subject verb adverb/object? However, with do the infinitive of the verb is used and with be we use the present participle of the verb. To make it a negative, a contraction is used: don't, doesn't, aren't, isn't

The meaning for both forms is to ask a direct question, and I couldn't distinguish why there is a difference in  auxiliary verbs.

I was looking at the tense of the verbs. For instance in the above example, do is used for a recurring action, while be is used for future and present. However, for a different verb, this didn't seem to  hold: (e.g. Do you want ice cream all year? Do you want ice cream for your party next week? Do you want some ice cream? but Are you singing in the school choir? Are/do you sing next week? Are you singing in the shower?) Again, looking only at the tense of the main verb. 

I couldn't see a pattern for when one or the other is used, except that it 'sounds right'!

However, after I posted my dilemma for discussion with my classmates, I received some clarification. The key is the tense of the main verb, but the distinction is between progressive tenses (present, past or future) and simple tenses. For progressive tenses, we use "to be" (Are you singing, will you be singing, were you singing?) but for simple tenses, we use forms of  "to do" (do you sing, did you sing?) or the auxiliary "will" (will you sing?)

These aren't all the possibilities, as there are other auxiliaries such as "would" and "could" and "can" that make the question more suggestive, but that is another line of enquiry. 

I believe I have gained some more understanding of the issue, but sometimes I think I understand French grammar better than I do English!

Resources:

Galetcaia, T. (2018, Oct. 22) Questions and Comments About Unit 3 Readings [reply to post] Message posted to  https://universityofmanitoba.desire2learn.com/d2l/le/310890/discussions/threads/557609/View

Share and Share Alike

For #TESL0100

The old idiom, "share and share alike" came to mind as I was reading about Creative Commons licenses.  The idiom means "having or taking equal portions" but the use of the "Share Alike" condition for a Creative Commons license has a somewhat different meaning. It means you are giving permission for others to use your work as they see fit, subject to any other conditions you might add, as long as they also share it under the same conditions. That means they can't publish anything based on your work with either more or fewer restrictions. It also means that if you are using someone else's work under this condition, you must include the same Creative Commons license. To omit any license would imply full copyright, which is more restrictive than the original "Share Alike" condition.

So why would anyone want to use this or any of the other Creative Commons licenses (non-derivative, non-commercial, share alike, attribution, public domain) on their work? Why would you essentially give away your work? To me, the more appropriate question is why wouldn't  you share your work? Teachers work very hard to prepare materials and figure out how best to use them to benefit the students in our classes. But at best, all this work will benefit a few dozen people each year. If we collaborate with the colleagues at our own institution, then we can add a few dozen more. However, if we upload our activities or lesson plans to Tutela, or other educational sharing sites, or put them on our blogs, if we join in the exchange of ideas during the #CdnELTchat, then we can potentially benefit many more learners and teachers. So our hard work counts a little more.

The other side of the coin is that we have already explored some of this sharing by others during our "PLN" quests. We've already benefited from lessons shared on Tutela and from replies to our tweets. I have often found just the idea or resource I need from something shared on Twitter before I even asked for it.

Maybe someday, we think, we'll author a really great textbook our resource book based on all those lesson, and sell enough to retire. Having previously shared them is not going to prevent that. In fact, it might give you a ready-made audience who'll buy that book, just to have all your great ideas in one place! So here's my final question:

What's in your license?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Resources:

share and share alike. (n.d.) Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. (2015). Retrieved November 9 2018 from https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/share+and+share+alike

Licencing Types (n.d.) Creative Commons Retrieved November 9, 2018 from https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-types-examples/.

Uncertainty in Assessment: Measure to Change

For #TESL0100

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle holds that you cannot simultaneously measure both the position and the velocity of something, at least for very small particles. In other words, you can't measure one parameter without changing the other one. In the realm of quantum physics, this is very significant.

So how does this relate to language assessment? Assessment is measuring a student's performance in a language task. Sometimes, assessment means a test, and in some types of ESL instruction, tests are necessary. Students who are learning English for the purpose of further study, or to get a job credential, will have to take tests. Students who want to get into an ESL program will likely have to take a placement test. And usually, when someone is going to take a test, they will practice or study beforehand. Thus the test, or the preparation for the test, will cause some change in the student's ability and also in their emotional engagement with the language, whether positive or negative. The act of preparing for a test may not produce the most desirable change in the student, especially if the student does not do as well as they had hoped, or doesn't get any feedback other than a grade.

However, I have learned that there are many ways other than tests to assess a student's performance in language tasks. Additionally, many of these assessments methods have the purpose of producing positive change in the student. Suiting the assessment to the task, and to the student, makes it part of the learning process, rather than just a measurement of achievement. Assessment that provides action-oriented feedback doesn't just tell the student how well they performed the task. This type of assessment and feedback relates the the student's goals, encourages reflection, gives information about the learning process, encourages back-and-forth dialogue between teacher and student, and motivates for continued improvement. There are many tools teacher can use to give this type of feedback, but the point is to give students information they can use to move forward in their learning. This is the kind of change an assessment should cause.



Resources:

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (2018), Uncertainty Principle, [webpage], retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/uncertainty-principle .

Williams, S. (2015) REALIZE 2015 Forum: Action Oriented Feedback, [video], My English Online, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDbkhsNfmK4 .

The Dilemma of Languaculture

For #TESL0100

In the discussion of the "Languaculture Principle" in Brown & Lee (2015, Ch. 4), the first guideline for incorporating languaculture into L2 classrooms encourages, "emphasizing that no culture is 'better' than another, but that cross-cultural understanding is an important factor of learning a language." Another guideline urges, "Screen your techniques for material that may be culturally offensive." To me there is a conflict between these two. This may be valid if one is teaching English in a country other than one's own. It is also appropriate if one is teaching children. And there is cause for being sensitive to people who have come to Canada as refugees and who may have experienced trauma - one should take care when discussing sensitive topics. However, if I am teaching adults who have come to Canada, either to become citizens or to learn the language and culture for the purpose of study, I don't think I should have to try to sanitize or avoid aspects of my culture because someone else might get offended.

Yes, be sensitive, let students know they can express their opinions and disagreements on an issue, and certainly be prepare to deal with some high feelings. The #ELTChat community refers to this as teaching the PARSNIPS.

I've come across the reference to PARSNIPS while participating in #LINCchat and #CdnEltchat a few times. At first I understood it to mean topics that nobody likes to talk about or that are sensitive or taboo in the classroom. When I looked it up, I found this Blog post by Brave Learning blogger Wiktor K where he defines PARSNIPS as an acronym for Politics, Alcohol, Religion, Sex, Narcotics, -isms and Pork. He discusses some of the ideas that came out of a #ELTchat session in 2010, as well as linking to a summary and the full transcript of the chat. He also links to another blog and an article in The Guardian on the subject, both worth a look. They are all skewed to a discussion of different stakeholders' attitudes towards these subjects on their exclusion in coursebooks and the resulting blandness of the books, but they touch on some ways that teachers are using to get around this problem when needed. 

Since many coursebooks for ELT are published in the US, the conflict between the "left-wing political correctness" and the "right-wing religious fundamentalism"  leave us with little to talk about beyond the weather. (Thornbury, 2010)

Refernces:

Brown, H.D. & Lee, H., (2015), Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, 4^th ed., Pearson Education Inc., White Plains, NY, pp. 82 - 83. 

Thornbury, S. (2010) T is for Taboo,  [blog], An A -Z of ELT retrieved fromhttps://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/t-is-for-taboo/