I’m away from my workplace so I beg you all to forgive me if I'm not as fast as I should be attending to my blog! I will catch up with those who have written me already soon, promise! You see, I am attending a ‘training the trainer’ course to prepare teachers for a new role in the Integral Reform project for Middle School education levels, an initiative of the National Association of Universities and Institutions in Higher Education in Mexico. The new reform promotes the development of programs focusing on competences. In today’s plenaries, the buzz word was ‘competences’. People had mixed feelings whenever they referred to the term: uncertainty, doubt, a bit of experience (from a few who have had), teachers will not easily accept the change, what competences to teach, a lot of work for teachers, etc. I personally expressed that the English program of the university where I work is based on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages, written by the Council of Europe member countries. But at the moment, I still feel that it is an ‘intent to interpret’ the CEFR because I am not sure until we see results, that we have done it right. In Mexico, 'competences' has become the vogue word in education and a lot of educational institutions from the basic levels to higher education are now focusing on study programs based on competences. But because many of these educations are still in the process of developing this approach to teaching and learning, there are still no studies and reports, published of it’s success or failure.
I am very much concerned with this new approach to teaching and learning as I personally believe that we need our learners to show mastery of the language by showing evidences of his or her ability to use the language instead of just learning the structures and vocabulary. What concerns me a lot are two things: training and preparing the teachers for the implementation of the competence-based approach to teaching that will be carried out starting January of 2009 in our university, and even more on the evaluation process. Hence, when I was invited to participate in this event, I was so excited at this opportunity of being able to listen to the experts and others like us in our university, who are trying to work on developing competences in our learners. I think that it would be interesting that while I share what I’m learning during this four day training course, you can also share your ideas about learning through the achievement of competences if you have been doing this already in your context, or what you think about it.
Comments
giganick
Japan is a nation much accused of sacrificing competence for form. High school students memorise vocabulary on the train, teachers talk about THE 1900 words, pronunciation is tested by spotting the odd morpheme out in multiple choice, and intonation through counting the syllable that's stressed (something I can not do myself without speaking the word aloud in a sentence in a broad deep south US accent: if I do it in RP, I always stress the shwar). Grammar is tested by rearranging words in sentences, translation, choosing the appropriate form of a verb from context, or changing a sentence into another form (say, active to passive, two past sentences to the present perfect). Even reading comprehension is assessed by problems that can be grammatically decoded, such as "what does "it" refer to in sentence 17?" And though as a teacher, I often rephrase my students' speech, their textbooks, and myself (I like to put things another way, I try to expose them to variations, I've been rephrasing for years, this sentence has been little more than re-worded, it was re-worded by me, I re-worded it) but I don't think it's a skill that we overly rely on life - unless feigning attention or trying to blag our way out of an earlier commitment - and, as for restructuring a sliced sentence, never, except, when, in Star Wars, Yoda, I listen to, have I tried. In fcat, tkaen to an eterxme, mbyae eevn sepllnig can be siad to be oevr-vluaed.
In short, skills are practiced that do not reflect real life uses of language. Form has been valued over competence. Japanese teachers reflect heavily on this. There is a sense of shame embodied in the oft heard phrase "we study English for 10 years, but..." And presently, though junior highs and high schools want to reform, the need for these function-divorced skills to pass University tests drives students to cram schools.
On the other hand, when I worked at junior high schools, I could identify cram school students because of...
(wait for it)
... their competence.
And that makes me worry about the implementation of too much meaningful learning. As Ms Ocenna says, new systems have to be implemented with great care. Many of us native English teachers think we are solving years of bad teaching because we successfully get students who couldn't communicate to communicate. No, we're not. We're complementing years of different teaching styles. The students have learnt the grammar and the vocabulary; we're merely there first opportunity to produce. If we did all the lessons, would the students learn faster? How many teachers do I know that believe free conversation is the best way for everyone to learn? How many play a fifty minute game to teach ten words of vocabulary? How many have no syllabus and then set examinations that in meaning are close to what they taught but in language requirements are so alien that only the cram school students with the extra vocabulary and grammar practice can score well in them? And a question that makes me shudder at night is: "are we just cheaper than plane tickets?"
But there is a third hand. And it holds a big razor between thumb and forefinger. It cuts out games that waste time, allowing them only when the students are exhausted, perhaps on that first period after lunch on Thursday. It cuts short free conversation. It cuts down the number of students asked to repeat the same short conversation before the whole class. It cuts the amount of sentence rearranging, translation of context-divorced sentences, and anything that is designed purely because it is easier to test with multiple choice.
And it leaves us with the well-designed syllabus, meaningful tasks to develop communication competence, and clarid explanations.
Then, all we need is the perfect students.
Good luck!
high school teacher, Japan
eleanor_occena
Thanks h.s. teacher from Japan, I could not have described English classes better than you did!
Ellen
*Language ability is the capacity of language users to create and interpret discourse, either in responding to tasks on language tests or in non-test language use (Bachman, 1990:67)dada
Dear Ellen madam,
I work as an english teacher in India. I am reading your articles.they are really interesting and wonderful.I need some help from you.I teach english to engineers.I need some speaking activity to improve their speaking skills in english.I am sure your guidance will help my students.
Thank you in adavance.
Sandeep.
eleanor_occena
Hello Sandeep,
Nice of you to write. Engineering students are analytical people. The communicative approach will work well with them as they are able to see the purpose of using the language that you teach. Let me give you an example from a teacher colleague of mine who was teaching them the imperatives. Instead of the traditional coursebook examples of "Open the window, close your book, stand up , sit down, don't smoke" etc. lot, she asked them to tell her how to start the computer, using vocabulary relevant to them. So they used the words " turn on, click on, select, open, scroll, etc." Ask them to tell you how to use a software they like working with.
When my co-teacher worked with comparatives and superlatives, she took advantage of the competitive environment of computer sales at that time and asked them to bring to class samples of leaflets or adverts featuring the characteristics of a pc model, and in class, the students , working in pairs, had to compare models: which model runs faster, which has more gigabytes, which has the best features, the best price etc. So you pose a task telling them that if you had to buy a laptop, which one would you buy or recommend and ask them to compare two or three models.
Speaking activities, including the ones from your coursebook can be adapted to the context of Engineering students. Just bear in mind how the language you teach can be meaningful to them and then set a task that's real. Well known activities such as "Find someone who...." can be adapted with vocabulary such as: "has a laptop with an integrated webcam, uses the digital library, knows how to use Autocad very well, can design a webpage, etc."
'hope I have been of help.
warm regards!
Ellen