Month: May 2011

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Summary of #ELTchat discussion on “What makes a good Director of Studies (DoS)? What should DoS’s be doing (And indeed not doing) to promote a “good” ethos in a language centre?”

Welcome to my summary of the #ELTchat discussion that took place at 12.00 British time (18.00 Indonesian time!) on Wednesday 18th May 2011.

The topic for our discussion was, “What makes a good Director of Studies? What should DoS’s be doing (And indeed not doing) to promote a “good” ethos in a language centre?” As usual, opinions were aired and discussed at high speed (certainly too fast for my tweetdeck to handle without jamming once or twice!) and between us all, we came up with a blue print for that mythical beast, the “good” Director of Studies. Some tweeters even claimed actual sightings of this rare species, much to the wonder and envy of the majority! We also thoroughly investigated where it all goes wrong for DoS’s, leading to them becoming (or simply never getting beyond being!) your garden variety waste of space.

Before beginning this brain-gym process of synthesizing the transcript, I fed it all into Wordle (www.wordle.net) to see which words came up most frequently. This failed somewhat as it mainly consisted of tweeters’ handles that had been re-tweeted and, of course, the biggest word was #eltchat!! However, once these were removed, the highest frequency words along with “DoS” (Director of Studies) were “teachers”, “school”, “think” and “teaching”, followed closely by “support”, “training” and “skills” amongst others.

Wordle: DoS

So, on to the blueprint of the ideal DoS:

One of the difficulties in pinpointing what qualities and skills a DoS needs lies in the differences seen in the role’s duty framework, across different schools and centres. How can we map the ideal DoS if such a wide range of job descriptions can exist under this heading? The #eltchat had a jolly good go at it, nevertheless.

Firstly, quote of the discussion goes to pjgallantry, who sums it up thus: “A good DOS has: The ears of a bat, eagle eyes, a heart of gold, nerves of steel,the hide of a rhinoceros and the drinking capacity of a concrete elephant.” If there were a programme into which you could feed descriptions and get an image in return (so, a wordle that created images instead of word clouds!), I would really love to see what it would make of this! A gold-centred, steel-reinforced, bat-eared elephant. That would cause a stir in any school, language centre or university!

We could not agree, perhaps as a result of the issue of wide-ranging differences present in the job across different institutions, whether it was essential for a DoS to have taught before or to continue teaching while being a DoS. @Shaunwilden suggested that “it depends on the actual role – are they academic manager or administration manager” and @Adhockley mentioned having worked with good DoS’s and directors who were not teachers. Meanwhile, @Rilberni argued that it is fine for directors not to be teachers but that DoS’s should be, as they have curriculum responsibilities. A lot of us agreed that past experience in the classroom is key for the necessary “insight into the core activity” (@Rilberni)

@Cerirhiannon postulated that a DoS should lead by example and this should include teaching, especially the less popular classes, but @Adhockley was not convinced that they need to teach in order to be a good model professional. Some tweeters suggested that the size of the school has a role to play in all this, as the role of DoS in a large school is more managerial than developmental, while in a small school, a DoS needs to be able to switch between a larger number of “hats”, as @Marisa_C put it. Either way, be it in a smaller school, or a larger one, DoS’s are faced with the unenviable task of managing TEFL’rs, which @pjgallantry likened to “herding drunken cats”!

There were some qualities that were unanimously agreed upon as essential, regardless of role specifics. We believe that a DoS should be a motivator, able to encourage all teachers. Simply put, a DoS must be someone that inspires. In addition to this, a DoS should want to keep up with the fast-changing world of ELT and support their teachers to do the same. We tweeters may be a little biased but we also believe DoS’s should know about Twitter and other free resources available to be used by teachers, that can aid their development. As JoshSRound puts it, it is his responsibility, to “understand what is ‘latest’ in ELT, then try to feed back in to teaching and learning; Twitter helps!” @Cherrymp reminded us that, “ELT is such a diverse and dynamic field, so a DoS should make use of all the available means to catch up with it” as well.

Teacher development should be a high priority. DoS’s should facilitate this development (run workshops, send teachers to conferences and have them feed back to the rest of the staff etc) and motivate the staff to make full use of any such opportunities that arise. @Stephchbeach71 describes this nicely: “A good DoS encourages teachers to develop, by creating an atmosphere of trust and inspiration, and does not go on a power trip!”

Another important element of the “good” DoS skill set is that of communication. This skill must also be well-honed, both spoken and written, and the importance of really listening must not be underestimated. As @Hartle put it, “a DOS must be thick-skinned but sensitive, good with email, and an excellent communicator.” A DoS should also look for solutions rather than problems, not take things personally and a ready smile is also thought to help!

So where does it all go wrong? This can be looked at from two broad angles, which our opinions spread between: Extrinsic factors and intrinsic factors.

Firstly, then, a look at some extrinsic factors: DoS are inevitably to be found in “the middle of the teacher/manager sandwich” (@mk_elt), dealing with conflicting pressures from above and below. In fact, conflict was a recurring theme when it came to extrinsic factors. As @Gkknight put forward, a DoS has to assure academic values while adhering to corporate strategy. Meanwhile @Barbsaka reminded us of the necessity for a DoS to “serve as a buffer or a bridge between management, teachers and parents” and JoshSRound pointed out the often clashing business and pedagogical interests that must be balanced. This is quite a “juggling act”, as @LizziePinard described it!

Moving on to intrinsic factors: It was widely agreed that a DoS who takes the role in a bid to escape being in the classroom was unlikely to make that step to becoming a “good” DoS. A motivation such as career progress might also be at odds with what was described by @yearinthelifeof as a “move diagonally” rather than an upwards move. Yet, being a DoS is one of the few routes of progression open to a TEFL’er. Things could also get tricky if the DoS just isn’t a “people person”, as @yitzha_sarwono pointed out, because this would make them rather difficult to work with! Similarly, the DoS’s described by @teacher_prix, who had “management skills but no teaching knowledge or awareness” might flounder in a smaller school where flexibility and ability to wear many hats are key to the role but thrive in a larger school where the emphasis of the role lies in business and management rather than including strong elements of pedagogy and teacher development. On the other hand, a DoS like @teflerinha, who “loved helping people develop but ultimately didn’t enjoy paperwork and middle management stuff”, might find it hard to be successful in a purely business and management-oriented DoS role at a larger school.

We thought it interesting that in contrast to our high expectations and hopes for a DoS, most people “fall” into the role or get “promoted above their competence” and training prior to taking on the role is thin on the ground. We also feel that the big increase in responsibilities, duties and pressures represented by the role is not reflected in the salary increase commanded by it. As is the usual story in the world of EFL, a lot is demanded but the financial reward is small: According to @Marisa_C, a lot of the lack of motivation in teachers is the direct result of low pay and lack of recognition. I imagine the same lack of motivation may make itself felt in DoS’s as well.

Now, we have gone through the qualities of a good DoS, explored the myriad of problems that can face a DoS, making it difficult for them to be a good DoS, and acknowledged the paucity of the financial gain associated with the role. The next question is, given the difficulties and poor financial reward, why would anybody be a DoS?! Well, @Marisa_C pointed out that “being DoS gives you the power to make changes that you can’t as a teacher.” This allows you to influence strategies regarding the development of the school and its teachers. @Sandymillin sees it as a natural development in the path that will hopefully lead her to having her own school. @timjulian60 loves the stimulation and variety that being a DoS offers. @Chucksandy claims to have “learned more from being a DOS than at any other point in life really: about teaching, change, people, curriculum” and according to @Vickysaumell, “working with the teachers and improving learning is a great experience”. So it’s not all doom and gloom!!

Finally, some recommendations for DoS’s, or those thinking of becoming DoS’s: Marisa_C encouraged involvement with the LTA (Local Teachers Association) and @Barbsaka spoke of a DoS who invited the local JALT (IATEFL/TESOL) to meet at their school, making it easy for teachers to attend. @Cherrymp thinks it is important to think beyond professional development issues and encourage teachers to bond by organising social events, which @Sandymillin exemplified by citing weekend trips away organised by her school, in which both native and non-native speakers take part. @JoshSRound spoke in favour of DELTM training, that is available for those interested in DoS-ing, but this is only applicable in the U.K. @Sandymillin also points out that usually a DoS undertakes this training after being in the role for about a year. Perhaps this anomaly might explain some of the difficulties faced by a DoS: they must learn by doing, so there are bound to be teething difficulties. The trick must be to minimise the time needed to pass through these, and develop the necessary skills to successfully carry out the DoS role, using whatever means are available to do this.

In conclusion, then, being a good DoS requires a varied skill set and is not easy, nor well paid. The demands of the role vary greatly across institutions. This is often related to size, with the business and management aspect heavily emphasised in larger institutions while pedagogy and teacher development are equally important elements in smaller centres. Despite this, the role of DoS can be very rewarding and allow one to change the face of ELT where one works. And of course, If herding drunken cats comes naturally to you, then being a good DoS might be just up your street!

Thank you all for a stimulating discussion!

LINKS:

@adhockley directed us to this blog post: http://bit.ly/iSqrMc about ELT management and motivation.

(Updated 27.04.14: Here is a link to some links about DoS-ing that I’ve curated in response to the large number of searches related to DoS-ing that bring people to my blog!)

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30 Goals Challenge, Goal 4: Leave it behind.

Do you remember when you were at primary school and, when you got to school in the morning, your teacher was always there in the classroom waiting for you? I don’t know about you, but there was a time when this simple fact of life made me believe that teachers lived in classrooms. This is quite strange, because my mum was a teacher and she, of course, did not have to live in her classroom! Anyway, the point of all this is, teachers do not live in classrooms. There is more to a teacher’s life than verb plus infinitive versus verb plus gerund or the square root of sixteen. Ok, before you offer me a first class degree in “stating the bleeding obvious” from the university of “No S***, Sherlock”, I will try to expand upon this…

Teachers, as we are all too painfully aware, are as flawed as everybody else. We can oversleep, get stressed and get fed up, with the best of them! However, once we are inside the classroom, our students expect us to perform as though our lives were limited to the scope of those four walls (except with all the knowledge gained from without, naturally!!). And why not? Students (or their parents) are paying for the privilege of spending one, one and a half or two hours in a room with us, and the learning of which they expect to partake. Besides, who knows, maybe some of the younger ones believe, as I did for a while in my infant years, that your whole life purpose is to be their teacher in that classroom with them for whatever length of time their lesson is!

It is funny how so far the timing of my acknowledging each of these goals seems to coincide with a real life example with which to connect them. In this case, the challenge to “leave it behind” was put to me in spades on Friday. During my two-hour break between classes, I received a skype-call to tell me that my grandfather had passed away in the early hours of Friday morning. He was based in England, I am in Indonesia. Thus, as well as taking on board the news that I am never going to see him again, I was, and still am, also faced with the question of what to do regarding the funeral. Despite such world-changing (for me and others who knew him) news, life goes on, and most persistently at that. After completing that skype call and then skyping a friend, because I did not quite know what else to do, I had approximately half an hour before I was due back in the classroom.

So there we are, the scene was set for goal number four, and no mistake. And what did I learn? That you can’t make life go away, but you can bring things in and out of focus, if you really try. I think this is the trick to keeping life from interfering with classroom time. By focussing extra hard on your students, you can increase the amount of space they take up in your mind, thereby decreasing the amount of space available for other distractions. I have noticed this before though, when faced with more minor stresses and annoyances.

For me it works like this: At the beginning of the class, I make myself notice the colours of my students’ clothing, their hairstyles, what kind of pens or pencils they are using, what type of shoes they are wearing, and I make small talk about some of it. I remind myself how lucky I am to be in the classroom with this group of people. Doing this drags my mind away from whatever is bothering me and helps refocus it on my students, letting them fill the space in my brain that was previously chewing over what the boss said, or the reports that still need writing before tomorrow, or as in the case of last Friday evening, that my grandfather has passed away.

Inside the classroom, the students are the most important thing. When life outside the classroom is being particularly bothersome, it has a habit of trying to detract from that, which means we need to make extra effort to maintain the level of focus that in ordinary circumstances is natural.

Of course, outside the classroom, it is essential to learn to deal with whatever issues are plaguing us, rather than keeping them suppressed indefinitely. One such stress management skill I have been developing over the last couple of months is yoga. I do twenty minutes sometime before I go to work and twenty minutes after work, before I go to bed. As a teacher, you spend a lot of time focussing on the wants and needs of your students, colleagues and the management. I find that yoga helps me take the time I need for me, making it easier for the rest of the time when everybody else has to take priority.

In conclusion, then, we teachers are only human but we need to learn some crafty tricks, to give us the super powers we need to keep our lives from invading our classrooms in a negative way. We also need to develop stress management skills that work for us outside of the classroom, as this can minimise the effort needed to contain the stress when the time comes to start teaching.

Now, I do believe it is time for some yoga…

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30 Goals Challenge, Goal 3: What do you believe about learning?

“Make a bullet list of what you believe regarding how you and others learn.”

1.) Learning is forever.

We don’t stop learning, from the day we are born until the day we die. As teachers, we are only a small element of this, but an important one nonetheless. Everybody remembers teachers from their school-days and beyond, for good or bad reasons. (I can remember the total cow of a teacher we had at primary school for our extension English classes. We used to wish we were bad at English so that we would not have to have that session with her!! The class was after break time and we would sit outside near the classroom, talking gloomily to one another and dreading the bell going. Conversely, I can remember, with great fondness, any number of inspirational teachers and tutors that I have had the joy of being taught by!) As teachers, this is worth remembering!!

2) Learning is power.

Learning empowers us, because through it we build up a tool kit that enables us to deal more effectively with what we encounter on the path of our life. As teachers, we should guide our students as they build up their tool kits in their own individual ways.

3) Learning is fun! (Except when it happens via cruel experiences!! 😉 )

Other than the above, learning is a satisfying way of interacting with the world around us and questioning these interactions, in order to increase our understanding. As teachers, we should encourage students to engage in these interactions and help them maximise what they gain from them.

4) Learning is alive.

There is no limit to how much we can learn. Knowledge and understanding are dynamic, there is always a new direction to be taken and explored, new things to be discovered. As teachers, we need to be dynamic too and stay open to continual learning, so that we can keep up with our students!

5) Learning is infinite ways of skinning a cat!
(Poor sod that it is… :-p)

There are so many ways in which people can, and do, learn. As teachers, we need to be aware of this and remain open to trying new ways of doing things as well as continually adapting and experimenting with the ways already familiar to us.

6) Learning is a buzz!

Hopefully everyone is familiar with the head-rush of achievement, satisfaction and pride that goes with learning. The “Eureka!” moment when you see something in a new light, the “I *can* do it!” when you master something you have been struggling with. As teachers, we should be creating an environment that opens up the opportunity to experience such moments to our students on a regular basis.

7) Learning is adaptation.

A bit like the car whose gear stick you learn to handle just *so*, in order to get it into second gear, learning is about recognising what works for you so that you can maximise your potential. As teachers, we need to help our students recognise how they learn, not only focus on what they learn.

8) Learning is a big question mark …?

Learning is seeing the world as a series of questions to explore rather than a series of answers to accept. Children are inquisitive by nature: as teachers we should nurture that inquisitiveness, so that, as the children who pass through our hands grow into teenagers and adults, their minds retain that ability to question the world around them, throwing new light on to it in the process.

9) Learning is a journey.

Sometimes we travel alone (inevitably getting our butts kicked by experience along the way!), sometimes we have a guide. This guide can be, for example, a parent, a friend or a teacher. As teachers, we need to be the sort of person that we ourselves would not mind sharing a journey with! If we are the sort of guide that we would avoid like the plague, then chances are, our students also will not want us in the car with them as they journey along a particular section of their road of life…

10) Learning is sharing.

Learning is sharing knowledge, opportunities, journeys, as well as a myriad of other things. Learning happens in interaction with other people and other things on our planet, a continual process of giving out and taking in. As teachers, we need to be empathic, able to share our students’ highs of achievement and lows of confusion and struggling. We need to learn from our students as well as share our knowledge with them. Remember the old adage, “when one teaches, two learn”…

“Think about how being part of online professional development has redefined the way you learn.”

I have only recently discovered the world of online professional development. Somebody recommended I use Twitter as a professional tool. Until that moment, I had avoided Twitter like the plague! (And still cringe at the thought of having it full of “friends” who tell me every time they brush their teeth, scratch their elbow and other such minutiae!) However, I have been absolutely blown away by what it has opened up to me in the few weeks that I have had it. I’ve read blogs, participated in discussions via #eltchat, interacted with other teachers world-wide, watched presentations, attempted to participate in a webinar (thwarted by my net connection!) and through it all opened up worlds of information for my brain to play with. This 30 Goals challenge is another result of signing up for Twitter. Through Twitter, I found @Vickylora’s blog, with some of her reflections on these goals in it, which inspired me to have a go myself. All this interaction with people and their thoughts has given me massive food for thought and broadened my contact with the world of EFL. I no longer feel stuck in a vacuum, cut off from everything outside of this little city where I will be for only a few weeks more.

Prior to discovering Twitter, and the wealth of sites it has led me to, my interactions were limited to my methodology books (which I have read and re-read, bringing new reflections to them each time) and English Teaching Professional magazine, for which I have a digital subscription. So being part of online professional development has redefined the way I learn because it has no less than opened up a whole new world of resources and people for me and my restless mind to interact with.

Isn’t learning fantastic?!

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Summary of #ELT Chat Discussion on “How to avoid death by course book: suggestions and advice for teachers stuck in a very regimented teaching situation.”

Course books. Manna from Heaven or spawn of the Devil? Well, during the #eltchat discussion at 12.00pm on Wednesday 11 June 2011, we managed to firmly establish, via a “fast and furious” (as described by @hartle) debate, that I could barely keep up with (!!), that the answer is, in fact, neither of the above.

Welcome to my summary of the #eltchat discussion topic that took second place in this week’s poll. [This is my first #eltchat summary and the topic was my first #eltchat topic nomination. {As you might have guessed, I’m new to this Twitter game!} Today, the 11th June 2011, is also the first time–on attempt number 3!–that I have managed to successfully participate fully in an #eltchat discussion. “Hat trick” and “Red Letter Day” spring to mind!!]

The topic of coursebooks–and how to avoid death by them–inspires strong feelings amongst ELT teachers and tonight was no exception to this. I will attempt to summarise, as best I can, the opinions and suggestions put forward. I will also avoid giving too much word count to that overly-voiciferous @LizziePinard, as we can all agree her situation with regards to course books is beyond repair and the only real solution for her is to continue to do her best for the remaining weeks before she moves on… (;-) ) I will, however, indulge myself by adding an extra section at the end of this post, in which I will reflect on the topic. I will also make it clear when this begins so that those who wish only to read the summary of the discussion may stop reading!

Ok, let’s start on a happy note! When are course books a good thing?

@rilberni suggested that course books can be useful for teachers with a heavy schedule who “don’t have time to create all from scratch from every class”, which was seconded by @shaunwilden who put forward his “36hrs a week” teaching days as an example while @barbsaka mentioned experienced teachers of her acquaintance who prefer course books so they don’t waste creative time on recreating basics. Course books can also be a Godsend for new teachers as they need to find their feet and learn so much, said @rilberni and @hartle added that the same is true of teachers books, which have taught her a lot over the years. Meanwhile, @bcnpaul1 sang the noble course book’s praises as a doorstop! Finally, a substantial number of tweets also came in support of @rilberni who reckoned “when you’re having a bad day, ‘let’s do the listening exercise on page 33’ is bliss”. (And let’s face it, who of us has not at one point or another in our teaching career been quite relieved to let the book take over the class for a spell! ;-))

So, if we can agree that course books are a reasonable invention, that can come in pretty useful, where does it all go wrong? The general consensus was that the problem does not lie with the course book itself. As seen above, it is a useful tool. It would seem that the problem often lies with the management. @SimonGreenall told us that many teachers in state schools are obliged to use course books because they ‘interpret’ the English curriculum. Whereas, in private language schools, of course, money becomes the reason behind the obligation. As @gknightbkk said, the book is expensive so there is always pressure on teachers to cover the whole thing at the expense of extending it.

@Chucksandy went as far as to say that the problem goes beyond use or non-use of course books, it’s “schools not knowing what they are doing, hiring teachers who don’t know what they are doing”, backed up by @harrisonmike who believes that management trust a course book more than their teachers because there is a lack of understanding of pedagogy. Meanwhile, in developing countries we also have parents who expect course books to be used, while dogme is considered to be very strange, as @yitzha_sarwono pointed out.

The final problematic element, when it comes to our friend the course book, is time. @Barbsaka rightly points out that often the course book is a good book but there is too little time to cover everything required (never mind delve into the wealth of learning that could be found beyond it!). @Marisa_C summed this up most succinctly by saying,”the excessive amount of material to ‘be got through’ chews into teachers’ creativity.”

Right, so thus far, we have determined that course books can be great but that limited teaching time and unimaginative management-enforced constraints can turn an otherwise sane, law-abiding teacher of English into a murderous mass of frustration! Now to the meat of the discussion: How can we prevent death-by-course book taking over in the classroom? How can we win the fight against becoming book-slaves? I was positively heartened by the buzz of ideas that was flowing in response to this question.

Here are #eltchat tweeters’ top tips for avoiding “Death by Coursebook”. I am including peoples’ twitter handles alongside their suggestions, so that you can contact them if you want to further discuss any of their ideas with them.

In no particular order, then…

1) Try to do at least one ‘books closed’ part of every lesson, e.g. have students brainstorm vocabulary and elicit example sentences before letting them look in the book. (@sandymillin)

2) Using a course book doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t!!) mean you have to do absolutely everything in it. Try to prioritise. Think about what your students really need from the pages in question. If they don’t need, for example, the vocabulary, then skip it. Try assigning chunks of it for homework and then pinning up the answer keys on the wall in class for the students to self-correct. Explain to students why covering everything is not necessary, and give them answers keys for self-study. (@Shaunwilden, @sandymillin, @barbsaka, @janetbianchini, @brad5patterson)

3) If you are selective, as described in number 2, this frees up some time, in which you can supplement with more relevant material. (@worldteacher)

4) Use the course book as a springboard to discussion and learner-centred work rather than be enslaved to it. (@hartle)

5) Try teaching the content with books closed. This way you can cover the same ground but in a more fun way. You can open the course books afterwards in order to review. (@barbsaka)

6) Use learning circles, where groups of students are working on different activities and then after 15 minutes they change activities. (NikkiFortova)

7) Use the course book like a good cook uses a recipe book. (@Chucksandy summed this up beautifully: “Good cooks know what can be left out of or put into a recipe, or added as a side dish. Good teachers using course books know the same thing.”) Or, as @OUPELTglobal put it, the course book should be used like a map with the route and pace being set by the students and the teacher.

8) Use the book as a framework but allow space for investigation and negotiation so that unnecessary stuff can disappear.(@emmy_c)

9) Don’t follow the book blindly, you know your students better than the book does! (@NikkiFortova)

10) Encourage new teachers to learn how to spring away from the book rather than using it slavishly. (@hartle)

11) Adapt course book topics to suit your students, so that you don’t end up with students like @Cintastella’s 76 year old dad, who is learning English with a course book that talks about teenage pop groups!

12) Give students a list of the topics, grammar and skills to be covered in the course book at the beginning of the course and have them identify the parts they find interesting and the parts they need. Keep returning to this to reaffirm. Also let students choose which grammar exercises to do during the course, first explaining what each one is for, so that you guide them to do what will be useful for them (@bcnpaul1, @cerirhiannon)

13) Look on publisher websites, there you can find lots of activities and games, for free! (@barbsaka)

14) Encourage students to keep a grammar diary, where they write sentences about themselves, using the target grammar from the course book. (@brad patterson)

15) Have the students open the book, look at it briefly, then close it again. Ask them what they saw, what they can remember, whether they can re-tell any of it. (@brad5patterson)

16) Stimulate student interest by encouraging discussion about the topic titles in the course book at the start of the course. Ask the students what projects might be good fun to do that could be related to course book themes. Ask the students to identify images or texts that appeal to them.(@harrisonmike, @kenwilsonlondon, @Chucksandy, @cerirhiannon)

17) If you are doing revision, let the students work at their own pace through the activities and come to you to check answers. Have extra tasks for the faster students. This is a way to avoid always teaching lock-step i.e. always at the same speed. (@sandymillin)

18) Localise the course book content: make links with the student’s world, their home town, their friends and family. Adapt the work, language analysis and further discussions to reflect this. Try using reader response codes instead of comprehension questions and taking the grammar points and/or vocabulary from the required pages to teach in a more personalised way. When working with vocabulary, have students extend the set according to their personal context and related needs. (@sandymillin)(@cerirhiannon, @hartle)

19) Set a homework task of planning how to teach the next part of the book. This way, the students have learnt it and thought about it, and you can do something else to use the language in class. Or give students a course book treasure hunt, so that they feel they have looked at the whole book even if they haven’t studied it in detail. (@bcnpaul1, @naomishema)

20) Variety is the spice of life: Try to keep the students moving, even if you have to use a course book. For example, use running dictations, different groupings for different activities, presentations etc Or, turn a reading activity into a listening activity, using dictogloss* (@worldteacher, @theteacherjames)

I think you will agree with me when I say this is a useful battery of tips to draw on for the teacher who starts to feel stifled by their centre’s requirements. Of course, when it comes down to it, teachers can only respond to the demands of the context they are in. As @ShaunWilden put it, “creativity is fostered by the micro-climate of an institution – not always self-generated.” So, perhaps, we also need to think about ways to address these contexts. For example, @Marisa_C indicates that very often it’s the parents who need educating about the role of course books in language learning. This requires knowledgeable and strong leadership from the language centre. @Hartle, meanwhile, would like to see DoS’s investing more in training teachers on how to use course books effectively.

There are, however, some things teachers *can* do, as well as drawing on ideas such as those listed in the twenty tips above. @Shaunwilden suggests that teachers should learn to recognize activity aims. Sometimes exercises 1, 2 and 3 are merely repeating the same thing in a different guise. @Rilberni recommends that new teachers learn the ropes and develop the confidence to throw out the teacher’s book. While @janetbianchini made the very good point that, yes, it is time-consuming to make your own materials all the time but they are good for re-using later and sharing with other teachers. (Wouldn’t it be lovely if this were common practice? A bunch of teachers being creative and sharing the fruits of their creativity with each other as well as their students, minimising the need for dependence on course books…)

To conclude this summary, let’s take a brief look at the future of course books, as predicted by the tweeters of #eltchat. @hartle believes that the future of course books is to adapt to 21st century learning. That is, to provide information outside of class and promote language usage inside the classroom. A “choose your fate” style course book was touted as a possibility and apparently, according to @hartle, the new digital materials/blended courses are supposed to be set up to offer something along those lines! We will just have to wait and see what effect this will have on the classrooms of the future… Whatever the future of course books is, it would be as well to remember what @yearinthelifeof pointed out to us: “The course book is the scientific element of language teaching. It’s up to us to humanize it.”

Thank you all for a stimulating discussion!

Now, here are the multitude of interesting links that were thrown up in the course of the discussion:

http://bit.ly/cHC5pi
A Global archive of topical e-lessons. Popular with @hartle’s students who access them independently too.

http://bit.ly/9okG5d
@kenwilsonlondon’s webinar for @MacmillanELT, on adapting the course book. This is recommended by @theteacherjames.

http://bit.ly/bExj4V
@Marisa_C’s slide presentation that offers a great selection of ideas for adapting your course book.

http://oxford.ly/mtPunw
@OUPELTGlobal wants us to remember the all-important issue of motivating language learners.

http://tinyurl.com/4njb32e
@Cybraryman1 shares his Curriculum Writing page

http://bit.ly/lEwejQ
@ddeubel’s slide presentation on adapting course book material.

http://bit.ly/afYQ2
@marisa_c illustrates death by course book–for a 6 year old!

http://bit.ly/f6FeXc
@ddeubel shared this essay by Jack C Richards about the role of course books in language learning.

*dictogloss
– For those unfamiliar with dictogloss, here is English Raven’s detailed and useful blog about it.
http://bit.ly/lvRxTa

CLOSE OF SUMMARY
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As promised at the beginning, here are my reflections on the issue:

As the proposer of this discussion topic, I can assure everybody that the aim was not to suggest a course book bad/dogme good polarity. (I’ll leave that for the dogme experts!!) I believe the reality is far from that simple.

My current-but-not-for-much-longer-thank-God situation is one in which the length of the course is at odds with the volume and density of the course book. We have a new programme, but unfortunately it does not address the issues that plagued the old one. We have gone from using one eight-unit course book per course (too much!) to using one eight-unit course book for two courses. However, the units have also been trebled in length (So, still WAY too much!) Meanwhile, not only do the poor old elementary students still have to cover eight units in one course but the units have also been pumped up with an increased volume of material…

This, coupled with student obligation to purchase the franchise-made course book (money spinner!) and the management’s emphasis on using the book (the whole book and nothing but the book, so help you God!) makes for a very constrained position for a teacher.

Things happen in the outside world (for example the Royal Wedding) that I can not bring into the classroom, however rich in language and learning potential they may be and however popular it would be with the students, due to time constraints and course demands. This is the case EVEN IF the material were fitted around the grammar points under discussion in the book.

Students are expected to learn the vocabulary for the book topic and the grammar, as related to that topic, with the aim of passing a gap-fill and interview test at the end of the course, in order to get their certificate. (See my blog entry on “Re-evaluating value” for my views on such test-driven teaching and learning!)

So, the course book has become my enemy. I thoroughly resent it! Even though, in different, more liberal circumstances, I would, in fact, happily use one. I’m not against course books per se, at all; I’m not that extreme. What I’m against is the complete lack of teacher autonomy. *I*, the teacher, have to defer to a flipping book ALL the time! (I mean seriously, who knows my students better, me or a wodge of paper?) Much as I love books, I don’t want to be enslaved to one.

In an ideal world, I’d like to have the autonomy to pick and choose, when it comes to course books. I’d like access to a variety of such resources, that I could dip into and mix with a generous helping of authentic materials, a pound of student-centredness, and liberally sprinkle the whole with my own creativity and awareness of what my students want and need. Of course, I would happily do all this within the general framework/syllabus laid out by a centre’s course structures.

I’d also like to have the autonomy to discard the books altogether for a session or two when something real-world happens (such as the Royal Wedding) that I could exploit in the classroom. I’d like time to do projects on areas of student interest, and mine them for all the valuable language and skills work they’d yield. I’d like the students’ focus to shift from getting a particular percentage, deemed to be successful, in a gap-fill test at the end of a course to the actual learning and usage of the language throughout the course. Let them aim to use it more effectively by the end than they could at the beginning, for whatever purpose they intended, rather than for x %.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, I must continue to do battle with the ludicrous course content: course length ratio. However, thanks to my fellow tweeting teachers, I now have some extra ideas at my disposal that will hopefully give me the edge I need to win this ridiculous battle!

(And, as @barbsaka said: when I finally get free of the course book, watch out world!)

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Goal 2: Re-evaluate Value

I’ll start by quoting the terms of Goal Number 2…

“Short-term- Change the way you assess one assignment or project and try to assess in a way that doesn’t add a numerical value but has the student seek value in the progress made, the learning achieved, or the work put into it. For the teachers on holiday, like in Argentina, just reflect on how you will change the assessment process of a project. Alternatively, think about a way to help students re-evaluate how they value themselves. Is it only through a number?

Long-term- In what ways can we help our students re-evaluate the way they value themselves? What changes to assessment can we make to have students reflect more on the learning journey instead of being programmed to place value only on the score?”

Now, before I launch into interpretation (of the goal), narration (of my attempt) and reflection (of both), first let me give a little background on my current working situation, so as to put all the above into context.

I work at a little language centre, that is part of a large franchise, in a minor city. I will refer to my school as LC (Language Centre!). LC is very entrenched in traditional methods of disseminating and testing knowledge, despite the supposed modern and communicative aims of the franchise as a whole (which seem to be belied by the materials they provide to attain these!). LC is very resistant to change. Staff at LC don’t get a lot of exposure to the teaching world outside of LC, as training and professional development do not seem to be a high priority. The general structure of courses at LC is this: Student buys course book and pays for tuition. Student attends sixteen two-hour meetings. Only twelve of these are used for studying. Of the remaining four, one is used for watching a movie, one is used for handing out certificates or progress reports and two are used for testing. There is one written test and one oral test. The written test consists of several pages of grammar/listening/reading exercises (gap fill etc) and the spoken test is an interview where the student is asked questions about the content of the course book or a presentation.

So, back to discussing Goal two, then. “Change the way you assess” moving the emphasis away from the score. I tend to think that if a student can do more in English at the end of the lesson than he or she could at the beginning of the lesson, then that is progress, regardless of the score he or she might attain on any one assignment or test. I think one of the problems with testing is that students all have different speeds at which they become able to recognise, manipulate and eventually internalise a piece of language. If a student is tested too soon in this process, and the score is low, the student may become demotivated and not persevere; deciding instead that this area of language, whatever it may be, is too difficult for them. Of course, we need to “test” students regularly to see what they have and haven’t understood. There are plenty of ways to achieve this without individual scores being given. Team games for vocabulary and structure testing, for example. Even concept checking for understanding is part of tracking students’ progress in a lesson or over a course of lessons. We, as teachers, need to build up a bank of these methods of assessing progress and understanding without fixating the students’ minds on scores and the success or failure element that naturally attaches to these.

Yesterday, one of my classes (a group of young teenagers) was due for their speaking tests, this cycle of classes being nearly at an end. Traditionally, in this programme, students’ speaking is tested by the teacher taking a student aside and asking them a list of questions (photocopied from a book of these tests) about course book content. The students get very worked up, anxious, about these tests and the scores they will get from them. I decided to take a different approach yesterday. Although I didn’t consciously link it to this goal, subconsciously, I’m sure, my reflection on it will have had something to do with my decision! I turned the traditional individual interview into a team game show. First I divided the students up into teams. Then I had each team look through the course book and between them come up with four questions from each unit. Once they had completed this, the students, in their teams, took turns to ask and answer questions and score points for their team. It seems “succeeding” or “failing” as a team is a lot less daunting and difficult for them to handle than individually. The end result was: They had a bit of fun, they reviewed the work we’ve done this cycle and I got to see them handling both sides of the conversation, questions as well as answers. The best thing was, none of them asked about scores at the end of the lesson! They all left, instead, with a sense of achievement at preparing and participating in a game show and having done a lot more speaking, both in preparation and during the quiz, than they would have done if I’d used the more traditional method as generally prescribed.

Why the ” ” marks around succeeding and failing, in the above paragraph? Because these two less-than-useful polar opposites were not relevant to this activity but are lodged in the students’ minds alongside “speaking test” and “final test”. The students achieved something with the language that they would not have been able to at the beginning of the course of lessons, showing an ability to use a range of the vocabulary and grammar structures (they made questions about both without being prompted! I wanted them to have autonomy in making the questions so I didn’t enforce any parameters) that we have met in the duration of the course. I consider that to be a great achievement on their part, even if it isn’t an achievement out of 100.

Traditional school exams are very score-driven, success and failure cut and dried. For teachers to prepare students for these exams, they inevitably have to score students work according to the parameters laid out by these exams, in order to train the students to face these exams. I wonder when we will see a trend away from exams being the purpose of learning rather than learning itself. Perhaps if we can begin to put students and learning at the centre rather than exams and final tests, students will stop worrying about succeeding or failing and be able to focus on the value of learning itself rather than the value of their scores. In terms of ELT, it would be nice if the goal of learning language was using that language, exploring it and the culture around it, and using it to connect with the world at large rather than getting x out of 20 or x % in a test at the end of the course.

In conclusion, then, I feel that re-evaluating value is something that a teacher needs to keep doing, in order to avoid becoming entrenched in the score-driven success vs failure ideology that currently dominates testing and assessment. Hopefully this will lead to a more learning-focussed rather than exam-focussed way of teaching, which for ELT would put using and exploring the language above being able to get 10/10 on a gap-fill grammar exercise. Perhaps this should be Goal 2.2!!

Thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing your comments. Knowledge can’t exist in a vacuum AND neither can teachers!! 🙂

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The 30 Goals Challenge, Goal 1: Be a Beam

I’ve been lucky enough to benefit from a sun’s worth of beams since becoming a teeny part of the big, wide world of EFL. From my CELTA tutors to my colleagues, to all the wonderful students I’ve had the privilege of working with, to all the lovely people I’ve interacted with via Twitter in the short time since I discovered that wonderful tool. Indeed, it’s Twitter that has led me to the 30 Goals Challenge, via Vickylora’s blog entry on Goal 9, which led me to the website of Shelley Terrell, whose brainchild it is.

Sharing is, I think, one of the most important aspects of teaching: Knowledge in a vacuum is useless. But knowledge is not the only thing we share, either with our colleagues or with our students.

What else do we share and why is it important?

Perhaps, as teachers, one of the most important things we need to share, with both colleagues and students alike, is our love of learning. (If we don’t love to learn, perhaps we shouldn’t be teachers!)

For the students, we can create, or nurture, in them the desire to face the world around us with inquisitive, open minds and hearts. If the desire is there, everything else will follow. How do we do this? By making our classrooms an environment that challenges strengths but supports weaknesses. A place where students are encouraged to think about how they can solve problems not if they can. Somewhere where it’s ok for students to be themselves: to share their ideas, their backgrounds, their cultures, their dreams, their hopes, their fears, their achievements and indeed their mistakes. A place where knowledge isn’t painful, where mistakes aren’t an embarrassment. Where their world and their acquisition of knowledge isn’t confined to textbooks but instead opened up beyond the four walls of the classroom, welcoming all the riches that the world has to offer. It sounds a tall order for a teacher!! But in reality, it’s as simple as treating the students as people rather than vessels to be filled with tenses and vocabulary. Responding to their frequently-changing needs, by adapting your plans to what happens in your classroom, instead of blindly forcing them into a rigid framework. Believing in your students and helping them believe in themselves. Letting your classroom be a place where students have the confidence to speak up, to share, to make mistakes and to learn, and enjoy the process. And not being afraid to have fun with them!

For colleagues, sharing our love of learning comes through sharing ideas, experiences and theories, as well as support, smiles and cups of tea. Imagine how many ideas we’d have to play with if everybody was sharing their ideas regularly. Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine: just look at Twitter! What a world of ideas has been opened up to us. I’ve tried to share this with my colleagues, none of whom use Twitter in this way, yet, and I  hope they will give it a go.

Let’s keep sharing and supporting each other as we share. And let’s do the same with our students: share more than just knowledge with them. Share the love of knowledge, the importance of being listened to, the security of being supported and encouraged in pursuit of dreams, the joy of being part of a group where every voice counts. And let the English flow.

Thank you for reading, if you got this far, and I hope you will visit again as I fill these pages with more entries, on the 30 goals and any other element of learning, teaching and EFL that I want to explore and share.