Testing and Assessment

Brown chapter 23 and 24 provided great examples of what is important while designing a test.  In my ENG 346 course, we went over validity and reliability in depth.  These, along with practicality are all factors test makers must consider. It is of paramount importance for tests to be as valid as possible, accurately measure what it's intended to, while being reliable.  These facets should be set in stone. When we come to types of test, this is where one can see some variation.  I felt that the most important note to draw from these readings is that there are many different tests for many different purposes. It is the teachers job to discern what types of tests to give and when.  As the book states, norm referenced tests may be more appropriate due to efficiency and costs and better measures of validity/reliability, while criterion referenced tests may be more focused on washback and authenticity.

Another part of the reading I found interesting was the ethical issues of testing and the critical lens.  I couldn't help but think of the biased tests we covered in our ENG 346 class.  The ISAT for example didn't give appeal to the needs of deaf or ESL children.  Second language learners would just take the test, knowing that they were going to do terrible.  As the book mentions, many tests have their certain biases.  In my opinion, the biggest qualm with testing Brown mentioned was when he stated, "Tests promote the notion that answers to real-world problems have unambiguous right and wrong answers with no shade of gray." (463)  The real world does not operate on these same principles.  I feel the book did a nice follow up with explaining how the best way to go about testing is through multiple measures of testing or formative evaluations.  These processes mimic the real world in a sense that nothing is completely right and wrong. 

Curriculum Design and Lesson Planning

     Brown's chapter 9 through 11 was a great way to show all of the work that goes into forming a teaching environment.  Over the past few chapters, we have learned various approaches to teaching, but these chapters focused on applying these strategies to individualized lesson plans.

     

     When Brown talked about lesson plans, the only thing that remained in my head was the lesson plans I had been slaving over the past weeks for my C&I courses.  I would definitely agree with Brown when he states, "Those lessons, from the point of view of your own and students' time management, are practical, tangible units of effort that serve to provide a rhythm to a course of study." (164)  Lesson plans help give a concrete plan of what I want out of students, while providing a rough outline of how to sequence my lesson.  With lesson plans, a teacher must plan his/her objectives, rather than just hoping that he/she covers some valuable information without a lesson plan.  Lesson plans promote a structured lesson that is very efficient.

In regards to Brown's chapter 9 on curriculum, I felt that the most important part could be stated in one of Brown's quotes.  Brown said,  "It's important to place every class period against the backdrop of the course in which it is embedded and within the context of preceding and subsequent lessons." (161)  While reading many of Brown's chapters, you may develop great approaches towards teaching, or various strategies to meet learners needs, but it is important to place these concepts against the backdrop.  While many of us will have control of a classroom, we must keep in mind that, despite the lesson plans we come up with and the strategies we use,  we may be subject to higher authorities that provide certain curricula or standards to follow.  Various state standards may propose several objectives, while districts may have varying goals for students. In many high school cases, departments may stress certain goals or objectives.  It is important to keep all of these goals, standards, and objectives in mind when proposing your lesson plans.  Teachers must have an open-minded perspective to their own lesson plans, allowing them to be flexible to meet students varying needs.  

Integrating Contexts and Language Skills

A common question in both Kumaravidevelu and Brown's readings were how to go about teaching the four language skills:  Reading, listening, speaking, writing.  Each of these skills is used in every day communication, whether it is producing, or receiving language. Since these skills are so commonplace in natural language, both Brown and Kumar agree that each of these entities should not be separated as it is often attempted in society.  No classroom teaches strictly writing, or strictly reading.  Most classrooms focus on one item in particular, while still mildly incorporating the others.  Kumar and Brown argue that that language teaching must be inclusive to all language skills.  By incorporating all equally, learners are getting a richer experience, having more than one medium to express themselves.  I find this true in my language learning experience.  In my first lessons of German, my professor stressed writing more than listening and speaking.  While this gave me a lot of practice dealing with grammatical features, it did not help me in a larger sense of communication.  I didn't realize how poor my listening comprehension and speaking were until I had a new teacher.  Under the new teacher, I was getting lessons with a sense of balance in regards to language skills.  The activities had more discussion which helped with listening and speaking, while other activities allowed me to maintain my ability to write German.

Just as Kumar and Brown argue the need for all inclusive language skills in the classroom, Kumar argues the need for integrating contexts into the classroom.  Kumar feels that various types of context are needed to fully understand language.  Learners must understand the varying context to become better communicators. Kumar categorizes these contexts into linguistic, extralinguistic, situational, and extrasituational.  While reading, I was the most intrigued by the extrasituational contexts.  I found the cultural aspect very important in developing a fuller understanding of language.  A speaker can have near-perfect linguistic capability, but in order to fit into society, a speaker must have an understanding of the culture around him/her.  Cultural values vary, and it is important to address them.

Teaching Reading and Writing

     Upon reading Brown's Chapters 20 and 21, I was surprised at the number of strategies and approaches that were listed.  Brown took two acts that I viewed as fairly simple and brought about a whole new perspective to each of them.  After reading Brown's various principles and characteristics on reading and writing, I was able to find some that benefitted me in my language learning experience, along with others that I wish my teacher would have used more.
     One concept I liked a lot was the idea of extensive reading.  In my German courses, this was almost always used as a means of homework or preparation.  This is largely due to the length of the text.  I really like this way to go about reading because it promotes a sense of autonomy.  When I was given readings to look over, I had to take it upon myself to find the meaning of the text.  Sure, the text was within the confines of my language ability, but the mere fact of having to look up vocabulary myself, while deciphering the meaning of the passage as a whole, helped me develop better German.  Not only was I learning the German cultural aspects of the reading, but I was also developing a better grasp on grammatical and lexical items.
     Another principle that I really enjoyed was the use of intrinsic motivation when reading and writing. Brown states that it is wise to have readings about  "real life" encounters or something that can interest students.  I would somewhat agree that real life encounters are interesting, but I grew tired of reading about grocery stores, talking to a waiter.  I feel that for language learners, it is beneficial to have entertaining reading and writing assignments.  Rather than write about what types of German immigrants came to America, I would much rather write about a vacation I went on, or the plot of a movie that I saw.   I feel it is very important to gauge the student's interest.  By doing so, a teacher can promote motivation in students, so they get more out of their reading and writing.  When I volunteered at a community center to help kids with their reading, I helped a little Spanish speaking boy.  I found that he read better, while improving his English when he was reading books he enjoyed, rather than books that were assigned to him by others.
    Lastly, I thought that a journal was a great way to go about encouraging better writing.  I never had the privilege of using a journal in a foreign language classroom, but I see it as a great way to not only monitor the progress of students in the class, but also as a way for students to practice writing that actually applies to them.  Journals allow students to write about topics that are of interest to them, rather than topics which may be more familiar.  Teachers can look at these entries to determine how the students writing has improved, while looking at the content the student is mentioning.
     All of these readings brought about all new aspects of reading and writing that I did not take into consideration.  it was nice seeing techniques that I never saw.  Effective or not, perhaps I could attempt use these methods in the future.

Backlashes against CLT

     Two of this week's readings focused very heavily on the shortcomings of Communicative Learning Teaching(CLT) and how it is received in the world. Before these readings, I had a relatively positive view of CLT, thinking that it seemed very useful in the classroom.  Last week, when we discussed China attempting to rid schools of CLT, I figured that this was largely due to some ill-informed political move.  After reading the provided article by Guangwei Hu, I was able to see the counter-cultural argument that he brought forth, and how Chinese schools were not wrong for sticking to traditional methods.  Along with Hu's article, Stephen Bax provided a contextual argument that build upon the notion that CLT is becoming a "universal method" that needs to be dethroned.  Together, these articles showed that while innovative methods may be very educationally rewarding for learners, they are only effective in certain contexts.  This idea can relate back to many concepts that we have previously discussed.

     

     Hu links the backlash against CLT to Chinese Culture.  This culture exists on a societal level, as well as an educational level.  Educationally, Chinese schools followed very Confucian ideas, believing that students and teachers were on separate levels.  This largely contrasts with CLT, believing that student interaction is key.  The teacher-centered classroom is a dominant factor in Chinese classrooms.  Some people may criticize these teacher centered methods, but often fail to look at the cultural aspect.  In the conclusion of Hu's article, Hu states that it wold be counterproductive to restructure the Chinese educational system around CLT.  He brings up the idea of an autonomous approach vs. an idealogical approach. (Hu, 102)  By adopting the autonomous attitude, one is assuming superiority of effective pedagogy over all other realms.  It is the ideological attitude that allows one to have a better sociocultural understanding of the educational world around them.  By realizing that different approaches work in different environments, a teacher can teach his/her students more effectively. This last idea relates largely to contexts, which was the focal point of Bax's article.

     Bax's article gave me a much better insight on the Hu reading, highlighting the idea that proper approaches to teaching are contextual.  As I mentioned before, prior to reading Hu's article, I didn't know why CLT would be rejected in some schools.  Perhaps you could say I was under the assumption that CLT was a somewhat superior method, given its ability to promote "real life" language. Bax addresses this opinion I had, along with the opinion of many other educators.  Bax explained the notion that CLT was considered the "best method."  If I have learned anything from this course so far, it is that no one true method exists, nor does one sole approach, unless that approach would be a skeptical, multi-perspectival view that is apt to change to certain situations.  The overarching idea that I drew from Bax's article is that different approaches work at varying levels, given the environment.  Whether it's "learning needs, wants, styles, and strategies" (Bax, 285) or sociocultural factors that are heavily rooted in ideology, a teacher must be flexible and adaptable to whatever learning environment he or she enters.    Certain methods may seem like a perfect fix for one situation, and be counterproductive in another.  In order for a teacher to effectively reach their students, he/she must grasp this concept and be able to look at the educational sphere through a multicontextual lens.

Brown, Chapter 3: Interpretations

     Brown introduces chapter three very appropriately when he builds off the notion from chapter two, in which methods were finite structures.  He built off the idea that methods were very rigid and systematic, not applying to varying student needs.  David Nunan felt that methods could be very limiting, and the best way to go about teaching a second language was through an "eclectic blend of tasks, each tailored for a specified group of learners studying for particular purposes in geographic, social, and political contexts. (Brown, 41) It is ideal that all the diverse needs of each student are addressed, by taking on a number of approaches that Brown has described.

   Brown addresses a number of approaches varying from learner centered instruction to content based instruction.  While reading these approaches, I saw the many values that each brought into the classroom.  Many approaches touched on the aforementioned idea of diversity, whether it applied to the individual sphere of the classroom (learner center instruction) or anchored in the greater sphere of society. (whole language education)  I felt that another way of facilitating the sense of a multi-perspectival could be through the varying group approaches such as interactive or cooperative group learning.

    In particular, I was very drawn to the section on content based instruction.  Being a student who is only getting his endorsement in TESOL, with a Major in History/ Secondary Education, I felt that this could relate very closely to my educational path towards becoming an educator.  While there were many ways of incorporating content into language teaching,  teaching a sheltered form or even the sustained-content language teaching of content based instruction seemed the most interesting.  I imagined teaching a history or geography lesson, while implementing language learning strategies.

    I feel that Brown closed this chapter quite nicely, with addressing the dynamic nature of the classroom.  While all the approaches throughout the chapter seemed very beneficial to learners, no one approach should not be adopted.  This reminded me of the similar mindset towards methods.  Just like with methods, a teacher must keep in mind that theoretical stances are always changing and student needs are all different. There are different approaches for different circumstances.

Kumar: Chapters 1 & 2

     Kumar begins his Beyond Methods book with a very interesting take on the role of teachers in and outside of the classroom.  He delves into David Hansen's idea of teaching being considered a "vocation" as opposed to a career or profession.  Before reading this chapter, I always looked at occupations on a scale from job to career; a job being very low on the scale, and a career being at the top, having meaning and purpose.  After seeing Hansen's take on the matter, I was open to this new idea of a teacher being one who serves his/her students.  Initially, the vocational term did not seem as gratifying as a career or profession, but after reading I began to realize the role teachers would play in their community.  

    Kumar addresses the role of teachers in three categories:  Passive technicians, reflective practitioners, and transformative intellectuals.  These roles seem to develop through the former to the latter. They vary greatly in teacher interaction, but differ most in regards to critical thinking.  Kumar described passive technicians as "implementers of education." While they may have access to a large base of knowledge provided by experts in the field, they are restricted heavily on an autonomous level.  They are also very limited on the level of student interaction.  When reading about passive technicians, I felt that this philosophy of teaching was very rigid and stagnant.   While experts were coming up with educational material, students had very limited access to other ideas.  They were only given material of the experts.  This inhibited newer ideas and a sense of critical thinking.  I believe that the subsequent description of the reflective practitioner improved on the lack of critical thinking.

    Teachers seen as a reflective practitioner did develop a better sense of critical thinking, only in a sense of an introspective level.  Teachers were able to question tradition and long lasting beliefs.  They were able to thinking critically on theories given by experts in their field. The main drawback however goes back to the the idea of critical thinking.  The emphasis of the critical thinking lies solely on the teacher, rather than the classroom.  The classroom may have improved in a sense of challenging old, traditional ideas of passive technicians, but was still lacking in the realm of helping students achieve critical thinking.

    The transformative intellectual encompasses many aspects of the previously mentioned roles and improves on them.  A transformative intellectual brings about historical, social, and political problems and attempts to deal with these communities int he classroom.  I felt that this philosophy was especially important given the multicultural element of the classroom and real world.  Different cultures are bound to give varying perspectives to injustices in the world. Calling upon these injustices, while looking at ways to address these problems encourages both students and teachers alike to think critically, in an attempt to "work towards a more humane life" Without this critical outlook, students and teachers would have a poorer sense of community, and fall into the prior roles of tradition, as portrayed by the passive technician.

   

Thoughts on Brown: Chapter 1 & 2

     Chapter 1 of Teaching by Principles was an enthusiastic introduction to the world of TESOL.  Being very new to the field of TESOL, I thought that the text did a great job of portraying situations that may happen in the classroom.  One quote that stood out was, "How do I plan a lesson?"  A teacher must be expected to act appropriately to meet the needs of his/her students.  Chapter 1 addresses this issue through an observation of an English teacher and fifteen students in Seoul, Korea.

    The basis of the teacher's lesson was to teach the concept of would rather.  She went about this by having the student list English movies and ultimately ask each other which movies they would rather see.  While reading the observation, it seemed that the students were not truly learning the concept of "would rather", but rather the task of saying would rather.  This was largely due to the teacher's formulaic approach to teaching her students. Rather than explain the grammatical backing of the phrase, she simply just told the students to repeat the phrase "would you rather see ___ or ___" and had the students plug in previously mentioned movie titles.  This task seems relatively easy for a student, but only because of memorization.  The student just inserts whatever movie he just named into the recently memorized would rather phrase.  This may be temporarily efficient to a student who wants to learn the simple phrase, but due to the lack of grammatical instruction, any verbs associated with that phrase that are irregular will do the child a disservice.  In my opinion, the students were not learning the most out of the particular phrase.  Perhaps the teacher may have chose the wrong method of teaching this topic.  This is now where chapter 2 comes into play.

     Chapter two largely talks about the various methods of teaching.  The book states that methods are, "overall plans for systematic presentation of language based upon a selected approach."(Brown, 14)  The best part of this chapter was the large varieties of methods, along with their strengths and weaknesses. There was often differences of teacher involvement, Silent Way being a method with very little teacher interaction. I particularly related to Suggestopedia, because of my high school spanish classes.  We assumed the roles (and names) as native speakers as the book mentioned. (Brown, 27)

Overall, I feel that adopting one particular method would be inadvisable.  While reading about the various methods, I thought of my own language experience.  Many of the methods listed, looked like they would be effective on my learning styles, while others seemed absolutely frustrating.  I feel that it is important to keep that mindset when teaching students.  All students have different needs, and there is no "one method fits all" solution.  Perhaps it is recommended to try a variety of methods to see which one works with your students the best.