Author: lizziepinard

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Materials Development – What is it that makes learning materials better than good?

This subject is uppermost on my mind at the moment, as the final lesson of my materials development module will be this Friday. Next Friday, we will be doing “Dragon’s Den” presentations, where we have to speak persuasively for 12 minutes justifying and “selling” the materials we have been designing for the module assessment. Hopefully our materials will be principled, workable, suited to the chosen context and we will show evidence of the application of theory to practice – with a splash of creativity thrown in!

The materials I designed are aimed at upper intermediate students studying at private language schools in the U.K. It’s been an interesting and rewarding experience developing them from random sparks of ideas into a coherent 6-8 hour unit. I do like the idea of the module assessment being something which is not only practical and will be useful in the long run but also generates learning rather than simply testing it. The group has had 3hrs a week of input for the module this semester, in which we’ve systematically worked through different aspects of materials design from picking out theories of language, learning, acquisition and teaching,  principles in existing materials and identifying what theories and principles we believe in, to evaluating and adapting materials for a particular context, and looking at things like visual impact, clarity of instructions, how to integrate effective systems and skills development into materials, as well as issues such as how to develop intercultural competence. I expect I’ve probably left something out, but I’m sure you get the general idea.

Anyway, my question for anybody out there who happens to find this page is this:

What, in your opinion, separates the wheat from the chaff as far as materials are concerned?

What principles/theories etc influence your materials writing or teaching the most? 

And finally, How important do you think enjoyment is to language learning and why?

I shall post my presentation/powerpoint on here after I’ve delivered it, which will provide a good idea of my own views, but meanwhile what about all of yours? I’d be very interested to hear.

Feel free to answer as few or as many of the questions as you like – any and all responses are welcome!

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Delta Module 1 Wall Chart for Revision

In just over a month’s time, I will be amongst those lucky teachers who will be spending 3hrs frantically writing, full speed, trying to package all the information just exactly how the examiners want it. Yep, the Delta Module 1 exam is getting nearer.

So far, my revision has consisted of creating this handy tool:

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Delta Module 1 Wall Chart

I can’t take credit for the phonemic chart, that of course belongs to Adrian Underhill. The map of the Delta exam, however, is miiiine. I have done absurd amounts of reading for my M.A. modules, so between that and the Delta Module 1 input I had last semester, which was nicely reinforced by the Delta Module 2 and 3 input in the same time period, so I am hoping that the key to this exam will be packaging the information the way the examiners want it. And so the wall chart was born. It is a synthesis of all the exam technique tips we discovered in the input sessions and through doing practice tasks, as well as the multiple examiners reports we received.

If nothing else, it was a good excuse to get the coloured pens out! Hopefully, though, having it stare at me for the next month will help on exam day. Time will tell!

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Summary of 20th February 2013’s #Eltchat Discussion on Materials Evaluation

The topic this week was:

Materials evaluation: What would be your top tips for effectively evaluating materials for language teaching? What do you look for? What do you avoid? What influences your decisions in using or not using a given material?

When we evaluate materials, we inevitably ask lots of questions. Turns out discussion of materials evaluation generates a great quantity of questions too. Here is the summary I have cobbled together from a particularly challenging transcript:

(NB: I have filled in the missing letters from all tweets containing abbreviations, just to make reading easier!)

@Marisa_C helpfully defined materials for us: “Materials = coursebook, supplementary, own design, downloads, anything” and everybody jumped in with criteria they consider important. Further criteria arose throughout the discussion, but for convenience and clarity, they are all gathered together here:

Needs to provide good mix of skills and be interactive. Lots of heads-up activities. (@MarjorieRosenbe)

Also important is clear structure and engaging topics. (@MarjorieRosenbe)

Level should be appropriate. (@MarjorieRosenbe)

Materials able to be connected to students’ intrerests/background/culture..? (@TomTesol)

We usually look at  whether suited to specific learning situation  + offer valid methodology in relation to course aims. (@AlexandraKouk)

I think materials need to allow us to communicate well with students – that creates rapport. (@MarjorieRosenbe)

For me, the point of a book is to help me present new input to ss — I have to do the rest (communicative stuff) (@TomTesol)

For me, an important criterion is how memorable is the topic/.content going to be so that language can stay ‘glued’ to it. (@Marisa_C)

How does the material lend itself or be adapted) to natural,meaningful,relevant communication? (@CotterHUE)

I don’t think a book should tell you what, but rather present a selection of things to choose from. (@teflgeek)

F=fun R=rapport I=ideology N=needs D=design. …Sorry missed the E=education (as in principles of) (@Marisa_C)

When I look at a page of material I see if I would be interested myself – then I decide. And I ask sts what they think too. (@MarjorieRosenbe)

I like materials which show you something interesting about the world and help learn/practise language/skills (@robertmclarty)

Systematically:  Does it fit age, level, syllabus criteria… (@teflgeek)

I also feel materials need to appeal to variety of learner types…Learner types can be sensory perception (VAK) but also global-analytic cognitive processing types. (@MarjorieRosenbe)

Another issue to consider with mats is that subject matter might interest you, but does it interest sts? (@pjgallantary)

Assess supplementary audio: is it an EIL approach with non-natives holding conversations? Or native English speakers? (@CotterHUE)

Done and dusted? I think not. Materials evaluation is a complex business.

I posed the question “how do you identify the criteria and which are more/less important also?” and @pjgallantary supplied a useful answer: “course books are where we all start – knowing how they work helps us understand what to look for in materials”  Of course, being able to evaluate effectively isn’t the whole story – there are institutional constraints to take into consideration too. @Shaunwilden reminded us that course books  “are establishment enforced more often than a choice by teacher and students” and @teflgeek told us about a group evaluation process in which nobody agreed, and the resolution? “There were three of us and the DoS got the casting vote”.  Meanwhile, @TomTesol reminded us that materials evaluation is not just about selection prior to the beginning of a course but a continuing process involving “constantly reviewing, getting students’ and faculty feedback…”

The discussion meandered naturally into the question of materials adaptation, which is a common follow-on to evaluation and identification of shortcomings. Why do we adapt the all-singing, all-dancing glorious multi-colour materials on the market these days?

The following reasons emerged:

Books written for a specific demographic with set format from publisher…which doesn’t match your students (@CotterHUE)

Problems with delivery but mostly missing keys and audioscripts which meant I had to copy them for students (@MarjorieRosenbe)

Other reason was that book on ICT was really outdated. Or book for BEC prep didn’t deal with exam (@MarjorieRosenbe)

Main issue with coursebooks is their homogeneity – T needs to be able to make relevant to own students (@pjgallantary)

Ultimately NO book is ever going to be right for your class because it wasn’t designed specifically for your class. (@teflgeek)

The point in the book is that you may HAVE to use it in which case try to salvage what you can & improve (@Marisa_C)

I constantly adapt and update materials based on surprises, feedback, etc. design new materials too. Assessment important (@CotterHUE)

And how do we go about it?

To lessonize: first, look at relevance of content  i.e. what u want it for –  to teach language point, vocab., skills etc (@AlexandraKouk)

As to developing own materials, As ever we must start from sts needs -WHY are we using this text, this video, etc, then HOW (@pjgallantary)

I create materials for PEO using articles – lots of things you can do – vocab, discussion, grammar etc. (@MarjorieRosenbe)

I adapt to suit the SKILLS I want them to develop (@TomTesol)

As Marisa implied, if you can’t figure out a way to adapt materials so the inpurt will stick, your evaluation is finished: They stink. (@TomTesol)

The question of the role of the Teacher’s Book within the evaluation process, and ultimately teaching, was touched on a few times throughout the discussion and opinons were varied:

Never really use the teachers book, except for answers. Looking at teachers book means I’m unresponsive to the class.(@CotterHUE)

Depends. Came across word I didn’t know in ESP book, now have printed teachers notes.(@MarjorieRosenbe)

Most are now online and often very long. 120 pages or so of pdfs to print out.But lots of info. (@Marjorie Rosenbe)

Teacher’s Book Important to most ‘non-natives’ I’ve worked with. (@TomTesol)

Or inexperienced ‘natives’. Or experienced ‘natives’ looking for new ideas or something to bounce off maybe. (@LizziePinard)

For me not very [important] but if I am choosing for a group of teachers it is something I look at closely. (@Shaunwilden)

Well, depending on the market and availability of training – sometimes that’s all a Teacher can get – a good Teacher’s guide. (@Marisa_C)

A few curveballs were thrown near the end – broadening the scope of “materials” but there wasn’t enough time to go into this in any depth as the hour was fast drawing to a close and next thing we knew everyone was being invited to contribute their final five minute words of wisdom. This is what emerged amongst fielding of curveballs:

Constant assessment of materials, be it website, publisher, etc. What works with your style and students? What doesnt work? (@CotterHUE)

I think to evaluate effectively you need more awareness of your own beliefs/principles etc and good awareness of context etc (@LizziePinard)

Test drive stuff before landing yourself with a CB for a year of pain! Use good placement to match students to level especially important first (@oyajimbo)

Finally, here are the links that were thrown up throughout the discussion:

Very old blog post on choosing a CB or materials (@Marisa_C)

Here’s more recent research with v. useful checklist on p.6 (@AlexandraKouk)

Subject matter might interest you but does it interest sts? Wrote about that (@CotterHUE)

A useful research paper  (@AlexandraKouk)

Another useful research paper (@AlexandraKouk)

Have a look here and add sth if you can – been collecting interesting texts/topics for developing lessons. (@Marisa_C)

Pecha Kucha with mnemonic for evaluation (@Marisa_C)

This is a MATERIALS mnemonic from Tanner and Green (back in the day) (borrowed) (@TomTesol)

Phew! That finally brings me to the end of this summary. Thanks all for a great discussion. And, if you have any criteria you want to add to the list, anything you want to add, agree, or indeed disagree with, feel free to do so in the comments section. Nobody will object to the discussion continuing, I am sure!

Thank you to all who participated. 🙂

Postscript:

If you want an overview of all the literature out there on materials development and have access/can wangle access to journal articles, @HeatherBu2011 recommends the following:

“State-of-the-Art Article: Materials development for language learning and teaching” by Brian Tomlinson in Language Teaching (2012), 45.2, 143–179.

And here is an article I found on evaluating E-textbooks, which may lend itself to interesting comparisons with what we’ve discussed today…

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Summary of #Eltchat 6/2/2013 “How can we help colleagues new to edtech without doing all the work for them?”

Greetings all – after another long absence from the blogosphere! – and welcome to my summary for the #Eltchat discussion that took place in our little corner of the Twitterverse on the 6th February 2013 at 9p.m.! (For more information about #Eltchat and how to participate, please click here.)

We all came together to discuss, aptly enough, edtech (or technology used for educational purposes) and, more specifically, how to help colleagues who are new to it without being, as @ciocas put it, “the girl who can’t say no”, and doing it all for them. (You know who you are, you motherly and fatherly types who can’t resist swooping to the rescue like knights in shining techy armour!)

In order to best figure out how to help colleagues become more autonomous with edtech, it was important understand why they are reluctant. Here are the varied and insightful reasons that were suggested:

Fear (related to the technology itself or, indeed, the scary evangelical users of it!):

– a key problem with getting new Ts on board the Tech Wagon is basically fear – they’re afraid of something going wrong in class. (@pjgallantary)

– I think the trouble with encouraging edtech to newbies can be OVERenthusiasm-coming across as a bit obsessed doesn’t get people on side! (@lauraahaha)

Time and the easy way out:

– For some Ts I think it’s a time issue, but others would rather me give them fish than teach them how to fish! (@cioccas)

– I think both colleagues and trainees can smell out a mother type who will always come to the rescue. (@Marisa_C)

Obscurity of purpose:

– It’s tricky with real technophobes-but I think the major obstacle is the “why” not the “how” – teachers need to see the benefits first. (@designerlessons)

Not enough presence in Initial Teacher Training:

– My CELTA course in 2008 had zero tech – I’ve always been a techie, and twitter inspired me more. (@Sandymillin)

– My course has a multimedia module but it’s an M.A. My  CELTA only taught a bit about the IWB iirc (@LizziePinard) [Disclaimer: my CELTA course may have had more, but the IWB is the only bit I can remember, so based on that I assume that tech wasn’t a major feature or I would remember more about it! And this was in 2009-2010 so it may be different now, of course.]

Context/Experience:

I suppose it also depends on work experience – i’ve yet to work in a tech’d up school (IWB etc). So have forgotten how to use IWB… (@LizziePinard)

Having thus considered the “why”, we were ready to tackle the “how” [Disclaimer: with ideas flying around at high speed, of course the “why” and the “how” was not quite so separated in the transcript, I just thought it would be a convenient way of organising things here!]

Here are the suggestions that were generated:

– My 1st thought is get them to watch things & then come to you with questions.  Easier to make one screencast than explain 20 times.(@ljp2010)

– More effective to do hands on training rather than just show and tell. (@Shaunwilden)

– Make a deal – ” I have time for two half hour tutorials – record me; take notes; etc but then you’re on your own”: be firm. (@Marisa_C)

– Perhaps get some peer teaching happening? (ljp2012)

– Is there a list of very basic literacies that we could make with links and all lead Ts there? (@Marisa_C)

– We have found also that a printed guide of some basics helps at start – we are used to online stuff doesn’t mean OK with new people (Marisa_C)

– I use things, then people ask me about them. When a few people have asked, I do a seminar. (@Sandymillin)

– Also wrote introductory blogposts for students that I can point teachers too as well, like http://t.co/EDdT6RIx for Quizlet. (@Sandymillin)

– I do a short session after our Monday lunchtime meeting. One task, or website per week … It isn’t always a new site- just a new way to use something sometimes (@SueAnnan)

– Best idea I have ever had though was to ask each one to undertake to research & PRESENT a tool – works wonders. (@Marisa_C)

– I actually think fewer sites the better – really get to know them (@Shaunwilden)

– I think a webquest that you create or a guide like the ones we made for facebook twitter & nings might be a good idea (@Marisa_C)

Then, of course, it was also important to consider a few principles for teaching teachers to use technology with their learners and, indeed, for using it ourselves:

– Teachers who are new to tech also need to focus on the pedagogical outcomes – is it useful, or is it tech for tech’s sake? (@lauraahaha)

– I think using #edtech always has to emphasise the WHY – for teachers as much as for students…eg.WHY should you bother investing time learning to use a tool? is the time invested worth the return?

– Tech MUST have clear pedagogical reason, not just because it’s brand shiny new (@pjgallantary)

–  Important to be able to teach without any tech? Never know where in the world teachers will end up (@idc74)

– There’s plenty of here-today-gone-tomorrow tech – in which case, best to be a discerning techie (@designerlessons)

– My 1st rule for tech use: can student access it? eg some smartphone app: if st doesn’t have smartphone, he/she is disadvantaged (pjgallantary)

–  I think in ITT, have to ensure trainees not dependent on tech to teach (@LizziePinard)

– Tech is ubiquitous and as useful as the teacher’s imagination allows it to be. Just so long as that objective is always clear (@designerlessons)

– Ts should always remember that the 1st bit of tech they have is pen and paper – new tech is a bonus…. (@Shaunwilden)

–  Ts should think “why” not just “what” for tech tools. (@LizziePinard)

– As somebody or other said about course books, tech tools make great slaves but terrible masters – something to that effect! (@LizziePinard)

“Where’s your back up plan?” should be written on every classroom computer. (@designerlessons)

The next question to be considered was: “So, which tech tool would you introduce first? which do you think is best/most important to start with?”

– Quizlet/Edmodo good – little effort required for lots of return, student engagement, and educational benefits too. (@Sandymillin)

– pen and paper – plan HOW you’re going to use tech first, and Why! (@pjgallantary)

– I find it best to work with what they [teachers] want to do with Ss, then show them tool to wrk with. (@cioccas)

– Microsoft Word. I was amazed at the teachers who didn’t know how to use it efficiently 🙂 (@SueAnnan)

– I’ve been pretty successful in pushing everyone in the department to use Moodle, and it has shown some very positive results (@MajorieRosenbe)

There’s a limit to how much can be covered in a hour, but we certainly attempted to push that! Nevertheless, time, as is its wont, finally ran out. So to conclude this summary, here is a list of all the useful links that were thrown up in the course of the discussion:

– For using Edmodo, @Sandymillin’s blogpost and @Naomishema’s blogpost

– Useful techy blogs:

@Grahamstanley’s blog

Russell Stannard’s website

Nik Peachey’s blog

– For using MS Word effectively

– A demo of blended learning by @pjgallantary

– A list of basic computer skills by @ljp2010

– @Sandymillin’s summary of an ELTchat discussion on webtools, full of useful links.

– Using Technology in ELL Instruction | ColorΓ­n Colorado | (suggested by @yya2)

– Introductory blogposts for students that I can point teachers too as well, like http://t.co/EDdT6RIx for Quizlet (@sandymillin)

– My ‘a little and often”  post for edetch on courses (and staffrooms I guess) (@Marisa_C)

– the aPLaNet (Autonomous ‘Personal Learning Networks’ for Language Teachers) Self-Access Piloting Website – example of a web quest (shared by @Marisa_C)

Thanks to all contributors and to anybody who reads this, I hope you find this summary useful.  And: ** If you have any more ideas to add, useful websites/tools to share etc, please add them in the comments section!!** 🙂

 

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The DELTA/M.A. treadmill! An update…

It would seem that I have not written a post since the 30th June this year! WordPress has gone and changed everything around since I was last here – I can’t say I’m desperately impressed with the changes but there we are – and I feel rather a stranger to the blogosphere.

In my last post, I described my euphoria in gaining a place on a DELTA/M.A. course at Leeds Met University, that I had discovered through picking up a leaflet at IATEFL. Since the 17th September, I’ve had a full time place on this DELTA treadmill and every last shred of energy has gone in to producing mountains of work to meet the flood of deadlines that was unleashed upon us from the get go!

Today I have finally emerged from the DELTA bubble. I haven’t quite finished it BUT I am, at last, getting off the treadmill momentarily and drawing breath. So, I thought I would share my thoughts on my experience so far…

1. DELTA is hard.

2. DELTA is hard.

3. DELTA is hard.

4. DELTA is hard.

Ok, ok, ok…I’ll get serious now…

1. If you sign up for a DELTA, do yourself a favour: do a ton of reading before the course starts. Take it from me, it *really* helps. Also, learn the phonemic alphabet. (I recommend Sound Foundations by Adrian Underhill or if you aren’t a reader – in which case God help you on the DELTA – this presentation of his on youtube is a winner! )

2. When your tutors tell you how to structure an L.S.A. (Language Systems Assignment/Language Skills Assignment, assessment for DELTA module 2), listen to them… Don’t try and be a clever Maverick. You will just have to redraft the essay to make it as you should have written it in the first place! (Ahem…)

3. The P.D.A. (Personal Development Assignment, another part of the assessment for Module 2) is “only” a pass/fail document. Do not be fooled by this into thinking that it is not important/can be put on the back burner: It is, in fact, key to your development as a teacher. The more you put into it, the more you will get out and the more you will improve between LSAs.

4. The E.P. (Experimental Practice) is part of the P.D.A. and equally important: If you follow the process fully, it trains you in the research – experimentation – evaluation cycle that is necessary for the P.D.A. Of course, in the P.D.A. you don’t need to produce an essay or Delta lesson plan, but the process of reading up on things, trying them out and reflecting on how it went is one that should be repeated as many times as possible throughout the course – and theoretically beyond too.

5. When preparing an L.S.A., don’t procrastinate. Do the reading, draft the essay, draft the lesson plan. Then go back and use any remaining time to hone. You will need it.

– If you do the Leeds Met course, make use of the drafting process: Between them, the tutors probably have nearing a century of experience to your (in my case) 2.5. They are willing to take your draft and liberally cover it with comments (feedback) on what is needed to bring it up to standard, *if* you submit it. Conclusion: don’t be a fool, submit it!

– If you do your DELTA anywhere else, make sure you find out what the procedure is, what help is available to you and make use of it!

6. Keep up with all the deadlines. *Including* those relating to Module 3, which it may be tempting to back burn in favour of working on your LSAs. They may seem like utter bastards but they are there to help you not end up with the worlds supply of work breaking over you in a big wave in the last week of the course. Even if you keep them, there is still *plenty* to be getting on with, don’t worry… (Where I’m at now…)

7. Make sure you *really* WANT to do the DELTA before you start doing it. You are going to live, eat, breathe, sleep it for 2-3 months (depending on the length of the course at your centre).  This may be soul-destroying if you are only doing it because it vaguely seemed a good idea at the time.

8. If, at interview, your tutor tells you that you need to hit the ground running, take it seriously. They aren’t saying it to scare you/amuse you, it’s just the truth. If you don’t, you risk eating dust for the whole course.

9. Don’t put all of your energy into the LSA essays and leave your lesson plan till the last minute. It takes longer than you might like to think to fill that bad boy in to meet Cambridge requirements! Also, the more thought you put into your lesson plan, the easier it is to “perform” the class under pressure.

10. Write the LSA essay before you write your lesson plan. Funnelling your essay into your lesson plan is a lot easier than extrapolating an essay from that half-baked idea for a lesson you had on the bus yesterday. Hell, the half-baked idea may fit in somewhere and become fully cooked, but you might also decide, by the time you’ve finished your similarly half-baked essay based on it, that it’s actually lousy – better to decide that in the process of writing a decent essay.

11. Be concise. I’m not. We all know that. But it helps to be, given Cambridge want the whole world in each 2500 word LSA essay and the whole world many, many times over in the Module 3 extended 4500 word essay.

12. Read Sandy Millin’s post on doing the distance DELTA for a proper survival guide to the DELTA!

I’m exhausted, I have to a practice presentation tomorrow (for the M.A. component of the course, based on the essay for DELTA module 3) but I’m still alive! I also have a pass and two merits to my name for the LSA lessons and a pass, a distinction and an as yet undefined borderline merit/distinction essay for the essay components. I have learnt one hell of a lot on this course  and despite the gruelling nature of the programme have really enjoyed it too. Naturally there have been times when I have wanted to throw in the towel – this I believe is part of the process, it would be pretty abnormal to sail the whole way through the DELTA! It’s just not designed that way! – and I regularly curse Cambridge, but nevertheless it’s been challenging and rewarding. Well worth the struggle.

If you are thinking about doing the DELTA, make sure it’s the right choice for you, and if it is, best of luck with it! Make sure you find a centre with supportive, experienced tutors (you would hope this applies to all DELTA centres, but who knows?! Best enquire in advance as to what support systems are in place – tutorials? feedback? etc) – it makes a big difference.

I may do a more serious post about the DELTA sometime in the future, but for now I just wanted to pop my head round the blogosphere door and say hi to everyone in the virtual staffroom before disappearing back under the next wave of work that’s about to break over me…

Farewell till next time I come up for air! 🙂

(Update: more serious posts can now be found in Delta tips and an overview of my Delta experience at Leeds Met)

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#ELTchat: the loss of eltchat.com – Plan B [a repost]

#ELTchat: the loss of eltchat.com – Plan B [a repost]

I’ve been an #ELTchatter for over a year – not long but long enough to know it’s worth its weight in gold and we need to keep it going!  So,  this is a re-post of an original post from Marisa Constatinides at: #ELTchat: the loss of eltchat.com – Plan B  Here it is:

#ELTchat: the loss of eltchat.com – Plan B

For the last – well, almost two years now, since September 15 2010, #ELTchat has kept us on our toes and forged hundreds of professional and personal relationships amongst its followers who turn up on Twitter every Wednesday to talk about topics they have suggested and voted on – a community of peers which was created by a small group of colleagues – which grew and grew some more and became something that counts as an important part of our continuous professional development.
Like many great ideas, it didn’t hit just one person but several.
And that is how #ELTchat was created.    
The website to keep up the communication of its members, a base and repository of our ideas was one of the first things we all thought of creating – the wiki came later.

Andy Chaplin was keen to join the moderation team and help with podcasts and technical stuff; he was quick to buy eltchat.com and announced the good news to us after the fact.
A few months later, right after TESOL France 2011,  he suddenly disappeared – some say for reasons of health.
We never found out for sure.

We never received a single word of response to our emails.
eltchat.com was and still is registered in his name.

And yesterday we lost it

On August 8 the domain expired and we have no way of taking over unless it goes up for sale again; it was very sad that Andy Chaplin did not find it appropriate to renew.
The news is really upsetting.
The work we have put in on this website cannot be told in a few simple words – but it has been a labour of love and we have got so much out of it that we have never regretted one single moment
We are pretty upset at the behaviour of this individual – disappointment is one big understatement.
But we trust that our community of #ELTchatters, our PLN for short, will again gather round the new domain which we have purchased – eltchat.org

It will take us a few days to put the website back on its feet
And all will be as it was before – all the posts in place all your thoughts and comments, all the polls and great summaries which got us on the shortlist of the ELTon Awards nominations
We will be back with a vengeance
We are not just a website – we did not get on the ELTon awards shortlist as just another website!!!

We are a great community of teachers and we have a Plan B!

See you all in September!!!
Marisa Constantinides – Shaun Wilden
P.S. We would greatly appreciate it if any of you belonging to this great community of teachers,  teacher educators, bloggers, #ELTchat followers,  reposted this on your blog
If you decide to do this, please add your name to the post … AT: #ELTchat: the loss of eltchat.com – Plan B
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In Print!!

I’ve been storing this up for a week because I have not had a moment spare to access my WordPress in between trying to keep up with work, preparation for my M.A., training for my 20 mile running race in September, sorting out accommodation in Leeds for my M.A… phew!

I have been published! In print!! Well, I have known about it for longer than a week but it was a week ago that I received the journal of the English Teachers Association of Switzerland (ETAS) with my book review inside. VERY exciting!

Now I just need to catch up with the #eltchat summaries I’ve promised to do…and edit the remaining IATEFL conference notes that I STILL haven’t yet published on here…

Juggle juggle juggle…

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IATEFL 2012: Carol Read on “Creative Teaching, Creative Learning”

Carol Read: Creative Teaching, Creative Learning. (Tuesday 20th March 2012, IATEFL Glasgow)

To be creative is to get on a roll with an idea. You experience “flow” or the positive harnessing of emotions in pursuit of a goal or outcome. It is with this thought that Carol Read opened her extremely creative session on creative teaching and learning.

Carol went on to discuss the necessity of a frame work in order to create. A framework, she said, is energising and liberating: without one, we become lethargic and uninspired. She supported this with a quote from David Ogilvy, “Give me the freedom of a tight brief”. Not only do we need motivation and inspiration, both of which are typically associated with creativity, but also disciplined thinking, attention to detail and effort, which may come to mind less readily in connection with the concept.

As a word, creativity has both positive and negative connotations. In the negative sense, it may seem clever but sneaky. For example, filling in expense claim forms to obtain the maximum return. While on a positive note, we think of energy and enthusiasm, thinking outside the box.

But how do people define creativity? Carol negotiated this minefield next.

The dictionary definitions, she told us, are ok but not very helpful. Take for example Macmillan’s free online dictionary:

Creativity: the ability to create new ideas or things using your imagination.

Creative: involving a lot of imagination and new ideas; someone who is creative has a lot of imagination and new ideas.

Having put forward that the dictionary did not hold the answers we were seeking, Carol shared a few quotes about creativity with us:

“Creativity is an act that produces surprise” – Jerome Bruner

“Creativity is adventurous thinking” – F Bartlett.

“Creativity is a state of mind in which all our intelligences are working together”

“Creativity is a cluster of skills which we use to come up with something new and valid” – Chaz Pugliese.

Creativity, then, is newness, excitement, something valued in its context. We all know what it is but it is difficult to describe. Carol suggested that it’s not what it is that’s important but where. That is, the interaction between creative person, social context, field or domain.

A talk on creativity would not be complete without taking a creative twist to the telling of it, or so Carol believed, and as a consequence of this, we were treated to “Princess Crystal Creative”, based on Babette Cole’s well known spoof fairytale, Princess Smartypants. In Carol’s version, the princess questioned the princes with a series of questions on creativity and each prince got one question further than the last, until finally a prince was able to answer all of the questions…

1. What’s the difference between creativity, imagination and innovation?

  • Imagination: pretending, supposing, playing…
  • creativity: generation of new questions, products, ideas; underpinned by imagination.
  • innovation: taking creativity and applying it to the real world.

These are like layers of an onion. Imagination at the centre, followed by creativity, followed by innovation.

2. What’s the difference between big C and little c creativity?

  • Big C creativity: This encompasses large ideas, paintings etc that change the world and peoples’ lives.
  • Little c creativity: This is about personal effectiveness in our daily lives, the creative decisions that we make all the time. For example us delegates negotiating the conference.

In terms of teaching and learning, Big C creativity is something a student produces that is significant to their progress, which gains validation from those around i.e. teacher and peers. Little c creativity, on the other hand, is everything that is going on between us, as teachers, and the learners, and how it is constructing relevance. It is how children use little language to communicate what they want to say.

3. What is “creative teaching” and how does it differ from “teaching for creativity”?

  • Creative teaching: effective teaching, using techniques to get things across creatively, thus engaging learners.
  • Teaching for creativity: This is about learner empowerment, equipping learners with the skills they need to be creative themselves. The outcome or objective of a lesson that teaches for creativity is a creative product from the learners.

4. What is creative learning?

Creative learning is when learners are allowed to use imagination and experience in pursuit of learning. It’s when learners are allowed to exercise choice – both in the process and in the product. It’s when learners are involved in pedagogic decisions and in shaping the syllabus. Creative learning requires critical reflection and evaluation, learners learn to evaluate themselves, the materials and their teachers. Thus, this type of learning is a close cousin of learner autonomy, in the way that it develops metacognition and meta-skills.

5. What teaching approaches and strategies promote creativity?

Carol suggested that the following would see us on the right path:

  • develop motivation and engagement
  • provide a stimulus, framework and purpose
  • build up self-esteem: security, identity, belonging, purpose, confidence.
  • adopt an inclusive approach
  • model creativity in the way you teach: be “an effective surprise”
  • offer choice and foster ownership
  • give personal relevance
  • consider the role of questions: use open questions as well as closed; allow “think time” before students respond; value students’ questions too.
  • make connections, explore and play with ideas: connect home life and school life, use different media. This opens up synapses in our brain and makes it open to possibilities.
  • use “possibility thinking” e.g. “what if….” question.
  • keep options open, withhold judgement, alllow brainstorming with “what”, “why”, “when” and “how” questions.
  • reflect critically.

6. What are barriers to creativity?

As important to be aware of as the strategies that we can use to promote it, and in essence the opposites of all the items in question five! Carol warned us against the following:

  • Too much spoon-feeding/scaffolding/help
  • “Telling” vs experiential learning
  • deep end discovery without structure or guidance, where students are thrown in with no rooting: if they don’t know where they are going, how are they going to get there?
  • routinization: plodding through x units of a book per lesson, to the exclusion of all else
  • undervaluing students’ knowledge
  • fear of risk-taking
  • over-crowded curriculum: 50% knowledge and 50% creative application would be preferable
  • lack of space, leading to no time for creativity
  • institutional and parental attitudes
  • exam systems, internal or external

Finally, Carol concluded with a quote by Tim Smit:

“Every good teacher is a catalyst of creativity, a liberator. Every bad teacher creates cages.”

(To find out more about Carol Read and see some fantastic teaching ideas, visit her blog or her website for a wealth of information about teaching young learners as well as talks she has done and books/articles etc that she has had published.)

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IATEFL 2012 Opening Plenary: Adrian Underhill on “Mess and Progress”

IATEFL 2012 Opening Plenary: Adrian Underhill

Mess and Progress

On Tuesday 20th March 2012, Adrian Underhill opened the main conference with his plenary speech on Mess and Progress, putting forward the case for engaging systemic thinking and leaving behind heroic leadership.

What is the difference between difficulty and mess? Underhill suggested that the differences lie in the scale and uncertainty:

A difficulty is fairly clear cut and definable. It can be explained and labelled. It is probably solvable with current thinking. We may know what the answer will look like. A mess, on the other hand, is extensive, knows no boundaries, is uncertain and ambiguous. There is no single correct view of it. It resists change. Everything is interconnected so it is hard to know where to start or what the concern really is. There is no tidy fix within current thinking.

Underhill went on to contrast traditional and systemic thinking: The traditional view entails ‘things’ being considered as primary and relationships as secondary. Conversely, systems thinking ranks relationships as primary and things as secondary. Systemic thinking has developed over the past 50 years to make full patterns clearer, to see connections and relationships rather than isolated entities in a bid to see how to bring about effective change.

He explained that there is a tension between controlling and connecting. Our default preference is control however, while control may work with difficulty, it cannot work with mess.

Having established this premise, Underhill went on to discuss traditional leadership and its deficiencies.

New leadership is closer to teaching than traditional leadership. It is time for everyone to take responsibility for their influence. Until recently, the tendency has been towards hierarchical set-ups, also known as heroic leadership. This is changing, though that may not be apparent in the media. This change is obligatory because hierarchical leadership is not smart enough to handle today’s complexity, where you need intelligence dispersed throughout the system not just at the top.

Today’s leaders must

  • make decisions based on incomplete data
  • accept that cause and effect are disconnected, which makes it hard to learn from experience: there are layers of outcomes, we do not know what is due to what.)
  • face unintended consequences: each solution has an impact beyond what is expected.
  • serve people not themselves: people demand this, something that is also seen in the classrooms of today.
  • have self-knowledge and personal maturity

Heroic leadership cannot cope with all of this. Underhill shared a quote from Wheatley that summarises this: “The great thing is to realise that leaders’ work is essentially very different from the past”. (This, then, is presumably why leadership has had to develop accordingly.)

Underhill then moved on to considering post-heroic leadership:

In this model of leadership, instead of looking at a person, we look at activity. Then leadership can come from anywhere in the system e.g. teachers and parents as well as the head teacher. Perhaps there has been a paradigm shift from influencing the community to follow a leader’s vision to influencing the community to face its problems.

Will things fall apart with less hierarchical control? No, because values, meaning and purpose hold things together. When people are aligned to their purpose, when the gap between values and behaviour closes, what people experience is a stream of ease. A leader’s job is to help purpose and values line up. Peoples’ commitment can be developed by aligning with their values. This typifies a healthy organisation. If we engage systems thinking, then we do not damage one thing while trying to develop another: dynamic connectivity. This sort of connectivity cannot come from heroic leadership.

Systems thinking, i.e. thinking outside of the box, is not currently the norm. Underhill quoted Amanda Sinclair on this issue as follows: “we don’t discuss alternatives to heroic leadership because male heroic leadership archetype is so deeply embedded in our psyche that it has become invisible.”

Underhill continued by expanding on learning at organisational and individual level:

He suggested that there is much intelligence in schools but that it is not flowing. It is not allowing relationships to be created that would enable things to be done as fully as they could be. What is needed is, essentially, acupuncture (!), because disconnected humans do not yield human capital.

On the other hand, in a learning organisation, where the intelligence is flowing, the learning of all its members is facilitated and continuously developed. Individual learning can be wasted unless harnessed at organisational level. A company that does a lot of training is, however, not necessarily a smart organisation, as training can still result in an organisation full of smart individuals who are not connected, which does not make a smart organisation. Learning is a leaderly activity: leaders can lead through their learning. Systemic thinking requires slow learning, which is an attitude and outlook that allow different ways of knowing.

Underhill concluded that it is exhausting to maintain the pretence that messes are difficulties. We need to develop a new learning mantra. We need to see what is going on, as well as the impacts and results and the distractions interrupting the sight. Then we need to do something different, prod the system and find out a bit more about how it works. This can be done by doing what we do not usually do and refraining from blindly doing what we would usually do OR by doing what we usually do but watching it more carefully. Finally we need to learn from it and gain insights which should be taken and tested in what we do next. All of this is the key to thinking systemically.

In addition, you need to know your point of view but check out all the other points of view in the room too, as a matter of course. You need to thus depend on diversity. You need to give up on certainty, be uncertain and give up trying to be right. You need to look for unintended consequences. Look sideways at any simple action and you can float outside the box. You need to bother less about control and focus on connecting with others instead. It’s more interesting! You need to start conversations and see the whole school as an adventure park for learning. Hassle is part of learning: make plans but do not expect them to work out.

Adrian Underhill closed by reminding us that it is fun, inspiring and urgent to explore and that doing something different is an important method of enquiry, which should be fun. After a rousing rendition of reflective practice blues, he encouraged us to try out something different every day.

My reflections:

The world is a chaotic place, so systemic thinking seems, to me, to be a logical means of progression. Furthermore, such an approach is empowering to the individual. We are all capable of contributing through nurturing an enquiring mind and engaging with the diversity that all of our views and ideas embody.

I think the world of #eltchat and blogging is a fine example of systemic thinking, connectivity and expanding on learning. We lead each other forwards by sharing our own ideas and reflecting on those of our PLN, which in turn influence our own. The ELT world progresses, develops, and we are all part of that process. The intelligence is undoubtedly flowing and we all benefit from it as we try new things, inspired by what we read and discuss.

The challenge is to replicate this systemic thinking in our workplaces, embrace the mess and derive progress from it!

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The journey of a thousand miles… (a thank-you to Cactus and to #ELTChat!)

…or how inter-related everything is!

Today I received an email from Cactus informing me that my conference scholarship report has finally been published on their website. On re-reading it, I was able to re-live the excitement of IATEFL 2012 and also reflect on what consequences my attendance has so far yielded…

– In my conference pack, there was a leaflet promoting an M.A. course with integrated DELTA. Yesterday I had an interview and was offered a place on this course. I would not have known about the course had I not attended the conference. I am very excited about embarking on this course and feel sure I will grow hugely as a teacher and, indeed, individual, as I negotiate my way through it.

– At the conference, I attended a pre-conference event, that of the Teacher Development SIG. I volunteered to write a report of it and this has been published in a recent TD SIG newsletter. Had I not attended the conference, this would of course not have been possible.

– I also bought Jim Scrivener’s latest book, “Classroom Management Techniques” during my week at IATEFL 2012. I subsequently reviewed this book for The English Teachers Association of Switzerland Journal, invited by Vicky of my PLN (@Vickyloras). Had I not attended the conference, I would not have known about this new book or acquired it so would not have been able to review it. A review of a new book is of greater interest than a review of a book that has been kicking around for years, so this was perhaps instrumental to my work being included in the journal.

– At the conference, I met Jim Scrivener in a post-conference talk and joined in the discussion on Demand High ELT. Subsequently, I proposed this topic for #EltChat and wrote the summary for it, which has been published on Jim and Adrian’s website. Becoming involved in Jim and Adrian’s project has been a source of great excitement for me.

So, all of these exciting things became possible due to my being able to attend IATEFL’s annual conference this year. My attendance was enabled by winning the scholarship from Cactus, for which I am immensely grateful. And finally, I would not have known about these scholarships were it not for #eltchat!! An exciting journey was begun when I signed up for twitter and happened on the #eltchat tag. So many opportunities have been opened up to me as a result and I have met many people who now form part of my PLN, from whom I learn on a regular basis.

Thank you #Eltchat and Cactus for the immeasurable impact they have had on my career to date.

I wonder where the next thousand steps will take me…