Week 6 - Large Classes: An Endangered Species?

When I imagine a large class, the first picture that comes to my mind's eye is that of the 19thC. classroom, either big or small, but all desks screwed down onto the floor facing the black chalkboard; and all learners doing the same thing at the same time following the teacher's steps. The more demand of workforce at the factories, the more need of skilled people. So, schools came into the scene to favour that social need.

No doubt, technology has changed since those days; and no doubt, technology makes culture change, and culture makes people change. People do not communicate as they used to in the 19C, or many do not even need to go to work as they used to because work can be done ubiquitously. So, why do we still see at school many students doing the same thing and following the teacher's steps?

Although, a 21st C classroom might look unchanged for some people because desks still face a board, either wooden or digital; and classes follow the teacher's steps towards a single product; nowadays classrooms are adopting new educational tecnologies in an attempt not to become extinct. Classrooms are slowly becoming networked with other faraway classrooms, with distance audiences that work cooperatively and collaborativelly in this new globalised world.

We can see that large classes will continue to exist because new educational technologies are paving the way for that. However, these large classes are very different from those in the last century. It is not a question of size then, but a question of manner that will guarante their survival. Schools need to adopt and adapt to the change before they and not the large classes become obsolete.

Week 5 - Change of Paradigm

Constructivist and social constructivist approaches to teaching and learning imply accepting there are other ways to teach and learn.

The behaviourist model, most of us in Argentina have been educated in, has helped some and mistreated others. No doubt, ideas from behaviourism proved to be useful and, thus, are still alive today, such as lesson units and learning objectives. However, with more humanistic and social approaches in recent decades, new things came up and soon proved to be as effective or more than the ones accepted as the norm.

New insights from neuroscience, psychology, and linguistics broadened the horizon of educators. However, many years of behaviourism have resulted in strong beliefs among thousands of teachers and politicians whose educational beliefs reflect the old paradigm.

Therefore, it is not simple enough by starting to use this or another approach; or strategies alternative to what has been used for years. It is a new paradigm that has to build upon another, looking at the bright sides and the dark sides of both.

Change is starting to occur in Argentina from novice teachers, who encouraged by the possibilities of ICT, are starting to work more collaboratively. Language learning is designed in sequences of communicative, problem-solving tasks, which offer different levels of complexity to match the cognitive development of the students.

Cheers,
Gonzalo :-)

Week 4 - Reading and Writing with My Students

Reading and Writing with My Students is the name of my Reading and Writing Workshop for EFL teachers.

When I was told, at my first job interview, that I had to teach Reading and Writing to a group of teenagers, I thought I would never do it. My students were all boys at an all-boy school. Therefore, keeping those kids at their desks reading in English and writing both fiction and non-fiction seemed impossible to me.

It was then that I, desperately, started to look for help. And it wss then that I came across with Nancy Atwell's IN THE MIDDLE. I learned a lot about reading and writing myself; and I learned a lot about teaching reading and writing. The problem was that Nancy's ideas seemed to work well among native speakers, so I had to adapt Nancy's ideas before adopting them.

As time went by, I did; and my reading and writing workshops, in time, changed the way I saw teaching EFL! So, even though Ms Atwell never heard about this, she was a lot of inspiration to me.

Meet Nancy Atwell


Cheers,
Gonzalo :-)

Week 3- What Do We Say When We Speak

When the time of teaching techniques to develop language skills comes, I always ask my students these two questions:

- What do we say when we speak?
- What do we say when we write?

And every year, the answer seems to be the same: How "what do we say"?
And then, we start dealing with how to teach listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Many student-teachers create wonderful teaching sequences, on sound theoretical backgrounds, and I ask them "what will the learners listen to their classmates for?" or "what are they going to watch the video for?", or "how will you make your learners say something?"

Many students answer, "to practise listening or speaking". So many do realise that the linguistic purpose in the teaching sequence is important because we are teachers of a language. However, many others also recognise that when learners speak, they do so because they want to be heard, so a non-linguistic purpose in the task is essential.

A teacher's aim could be to help student develop listening, but the student's aim will definitely be to speak their minds.

Watch this video, learners are speaking!



Cheers,
Gonzalo :-)

Week 2- Thinking of possibilities

While visiting your blogs, I started to wonder about the different realities in which we can be working as teachers of EFL.

I, actually, wondered how you guys in Egypt are teaching; or, what levels students have after graduating from their secondary schools in Ecuador; or what kind of teaching appraoches you are using in India.

I don't know if this is the right place to ask all this; or whether I should be writing about something else here. But I guess this is a unique opportunity to learn about others' teaching practices and, in time, create a community of practice. That sounds great to me!

Actually, I've started a community page on Facebook, called Celebrate Learning , to share ideas of how EFL teachers are using technology in their classes.

You know, I am a bit of a dreamer, like John Lennon used to sing, but this possibility is starting to fancy me a lot.

Cheers,
Gonzalo :-)