In Kirsten Holt’s IATEFL 2016 talk, (yes, 2016 – yes, this post has sat as a draft in my posts box for rather a while now! Better late than never…) she makes reference to the Eaquals Framework and its companion the e-grid. I was immediately curious so thought I would try the e-grid, which generates your ‘professional profile’. The profile produced is not saved on their website, it just creates a soft copy for you to keep on your computer.

After completing fields for name and address, and employer name and address, the next step was language proficiency:

You pick your level starting from 1.1 (studying the target language at tertiary level, achieved B1 proficiency in the target language) up to 3.2 (see picture above) My questions:

• I have a degree in the target language, two actually, but I don’t have proven proficiency at C2 level as I have never done a proficiency test.
• What is this “natural command” that differentiates between 3.1 and 3.2? How is it measured?
• “has native speaker competence” = 3.2 but all levels below that focus on language proficiency only for people who have learned the language in such a way that certification and examination has been part of it i.e. not people who have grown up speaking it as their mother tongue. So there are 6 levels you can pick but if you are a “native speaker”(definitions and implications of which term are another can of worms) you are automatically assigned the highest level, level 6, aka 3.2…  Are all “native speakers” equally proficient? “Proficiency” can be defined as a high degree of skill or expertise. Do all “native speakers” have that to a uniform level – in this case 3.2? (NB later in the self-assessment language awareness is dealt with separately.)

My next ?? moment came in the teaching experience question:

I have no idea how many hours I have taught. Also:

• What does it mean by documented?
• What would happen for the teacher who meets the 3.2 criteria but happens never to have taught at C2 level? Or does lack of C2 level stop mattering after 4000 hours of experience?
• What happens if you have between 2400 and 4000 hours of teaching experience including classes at C2 level?
• What if your 2400 – 4000 hours of experience all happen to be in the same place?

I actually did keep a record of the hours I taught and to which class in my first year of teaching. Unfortunately, I have no idea where that document is. It was several computers ago and seems to have got lost in the mists of time… I probably don’t have squillions though, given I only started 7 years ago, spent one of those years doing my Delta and M.A. full-time so only taught once a week during the Delta and some part-time work later in my M.A., worked part-time between October 2015 and March 2016 and though full-time now, have a relatively small number of contact hours per week with my groups. (What do you do the rest of the time, I hear you ask? Well, there is also cover, Writing Advisory Service sessions and at certain points, megatons of marking – 2000 – 3000 word essays rather than 250 word essays… and – woohoo! – CPD!) Then, I’ve taught C1 but not C2. Am I a 2.2? A 3.1? Is x hours of teaching the same level of experience regardless of what development has taken place alongside them? In other words is it quantity over quality?

Once you’ve finished doing the self-assessment, you can export the results as a PDF, bearing in mind it will not be saved on the website itself. You can also export the results in e-grid format, which you could later re-upload to the website and edit. So, having used the E-grid, it was time to look at the framework itself. On the website, the main aims are set out as follows:

to help practising teachers to assess and reflect on their own language teaching competences, and set their own goals for further development

 

to help managers to identify training needs and plan professional development programmes for practising teachers

to encourage teachers to continue their professional development on their own and with the support of their institutions

to help document the design of public training courses for practising teachers

 

to serve as a tool for evaluating and accrediting teacher training courses.

There is then a link to the framework, a 42 page document, which you can download and peruse at your leisure. The framework divides teacher development into 3 phases, and assumes that teachers can be in different phases of development for different skill areas. The phases don’t map to seniority of position. There are five main areas each with different sub-sections. Each of these key areas is broken down into “knowledge of” and “skills”, so theory and practice. I am assuming that the 1.1 – 3.2 in the e-grid relate to the three developmental stages in this framework, although on the E-grid webpage, it says descriptors cover six developmental stages.

Have you used this framework to help you develop? Have you used it to help other teachers develop? How did you do it? Please share your ideas with me and others by using the comments box below – you are also very welcome to use it for answering any of the questions I have raised in this post or just any related thoughts! I will share my ideas for using it in a later post. Meanwhile, don’t forget to have a look at Kirstin’s ideas as disseminated at IATEFL 2016.