For our final session, it was wonderful to have the
whole class together - but it was a little shocking to learn that this would be
the size of class we might expect to have in a secondary classroom!
Qualities of a Good teacher
Our first debate topic was on the qualities of a
good teacher. First we talked about our own experience of great teachers.
I’ve been fortunate to have quite a few excellent teachers who have
inspired me in different ways. The best of all was Mr. Jones, my English
Literature teacher when I did my GCSEs and A-Levels (3º and 4º
ESO and Bachillerato). He was a natural teacher; he delighted in anything
to do with English Literature and showed us the validity of literature in all
aspects of life. He brought Chaucer to life by reading it to us in
Original Pronunciation, he showed us that everything you need to know about
life is there in Shakespeare and how even everyday farm tools can be beautiful
through Seamus Heaney. He also cared for the students and was Senior
Teacher responsible for children with disabilities and learning difficulties,
long before attention to diversity was a thing. In our A-Levels he
treated us like adults and I remember distinctly in my penultimate year, there
was a position at the school for Deputy Director and we asked him if he was
going to apply. He looked at us and said “I became a teacher to teach - not to
be an administrator, I love what I do and wouldn’t change it for the world”
For me, he encapsulated all the qualities needed for a good teacher - passionate (about his subject and teaching), kind, respectful, engaging and a communicator par excellence. He took a genuine interest in our welfare and treated us as equals in our A-Level year. I was thinking about him and his discipline style recently. As he treated us with such respect, he had very few problems with behaviour in class, even when there were difficult students present. Too often, teachers resort to overly authoritarian methods or worse, belittle students to get them to behave; this in turn can foment bad behaviour and even bullying among the students. An article in TES this month suggests that overly aggressive teaching and discipline gives “tacit consent that aggression is the way to get what you want in school.” As we head off to our placement in schools, we would do well to bear this in mind even when we are confronted with extremely difficult cases.
Use of Mother
Tongue
I suppose on this issue I have quite a unique
experience given that, when I came to Spain, I hardly spoke any Spanish (enough
to ask for a coffee but certainly not to explain the Present Perfect!) So,
for the first year or so I had no choice but to use English only in the class.
One problem I came up against was grading my language, out of nervousness or
simply without realising, I’d drop back into my Ulster accent or use
expressions wholly unknown and confusing to my students (‘wee’ meaning small or
little - as in a wee exam, my wee brother - caused particular confusion!). With
time, I got better at grading my language and I think it’s a important skill
for any teacher to have, regardless of being native or not. For a group
of PMAR students, for example, simple, straightforward language gives them a
confidence boost and a feeling that they understand the language rather than
having the feeling that the teacher has to drop back in to the mother tongue.
As I learnt more Spanish, I found that I used it more and more in the classroom - hardly ever with teenagers or high levels, but more with very young learners and very low-level adults. I’ve come to realise however, partly because of the debate session, that I was misguided in that respect. With the young learners, using Spanish meant I got them to sit down and be quiet, but I missed a valuable opportunity to get them to do just that AND expose them to more English. With low-level adult learners, they got too comfortable with me explaining the grammar or vocabulary in Spanish so that when I tried to tell them NOT to translate so much they found it very difficult to do so - which was partly my fault! Sometimes, I’ve had to explain quickly an activity in Spanish if a class hasn’t understood it, but I’ve come to realise that if it’s too difficult for them to understand the instructions in English, it’s likely the activity will be too difficult too.
There are still some incidences when I might use Spanish in the classroom. As Luz pointed out, contrasting idioms can be a useful activity. Idioms are my favourite thing to teach, and I love seeing the similarities and differences between idioms in different languages. One swallow doesn’t make a spring in English, but it doesn’t make a summer in French. You pull a leg in English but pull hair in Spanish etc. Pointing out others contrasts in the L1 and L2 can be useful too, for things like false friends, singular/plural nouns, countable/uncountable nouns, double negatives, use of passives etc. not grammar translations per se, but more the idea of noticing the differences. I also sometimes think that certain pieces of vocabulary are easier to translate on the spot if it saves a lengthy explanation or requires lots of examples, such as ‘in spite of’ or ‘although’ - but it depends on the aim of the lesson - if the aim of the lesson is teaching those sorts of linkers, then an explanation is more appropriate, but if it comes up at a certain moment, not related to the topic at hand, it might be useful to translate and move on. Sometimes, while preparing a speaking activity, if we don't have access to dictionaries, I would also let them ask for a word or two to help them prepare.
Looking to the future, I want to go back to the
mindset that I had when I first started - of not using Spanish in class unless
absolutely necessary. Having seen the size of the classes we are up
against, any opportunity for exposure to the language should be taken for the
benefit of the students.
Technology
Technology is a boon and a bane for teachers. On
the one hand, it opens up all sorts of possibilities, especially in language
learning and means that the content is limitless. Students can have access to
material outside the classroom, and methodologies such as the flipped classroom
and others can be implemented. Young people nowadays are born with a gadget in
their hand, and we can use this as a way of getting them engaged. We as
teachers, however, must be conscious that this is a double-edged sword. We must
tread the line between engaging them with technology while being mindful of
making sure our own ways of engagement don’t perpetuate addiction. For my
generation, the day when the TV was wheeled in the classroom for a video was
like Christmas come early! ‘Digital Natives’, however, need to be shown
that there is a world beyond the screens as well. The best fun I’ve had
with some classes has been while doing decidedly ‘analogue’ activities such as
back-to-the-board or Alibi. One group of 2º ESO age students would have
played Alibi every day if I’d let them, and my older teenagers in FCE were
crying with laughter while playing it. Young people today are so saturated with
technology that sometimes the most innovative things for them are the ‘ungoogleable
questions’ - puzzles, lateral thinking riddles, memory games etc.
It is clear that technology is transforming education, but as the article by Richard Stanner suggests, quite how it is transforming depends on how we use it - if we still present in the same way on the IWB, get the students to do the same gap-fill and multiple choice activities on their computers or tablets, we are not really transforming education at all. If we still go through the same motions but in a different format, it is not innovative in the slightest.
Technology in assessment can be truly
transformative, but as Stanner points out, if the teacher is doing a screen
capture of comments on a writing paper, the source of the feedback is still the
teacher, so nothing has really changed. We should be encouraging more
self-reflection and correction, collaborative learning and peer review. We as teachers
need to prepare our students for the world. This is complicated however
by the fact that we aren’t really sure what this world is going to be like! What
is clear is that while we don’t need to show them how to use the gadgets, the
onus is on us to show them how to use them effectively and educate them about Internet
security, plagiarism, netiquette etc. For this reason, digital
competencies are so important in the curriculum.
The SAMR model succinctly explains to what extent technology can transform education.
Substitution or plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose - here there is really no qualitative change in how the activities are being done, it’s simply a case of printing out or using the computer in place of the traditional methods. Sadly, this is too often the case.
Augmentation - here we could include lots of timesaving tools and the greatest benefit is probably less printing! It would include things like online quizzes or questionnaires, which mean immediate formative assessment feedback and cut down valuable time and effort on the part of the teacher and student.
Modification - here is where a computer becomes indispensable, it involves the types of activities that could simply not be done without a computer, but it’s probably still a ‘classic’ classroom activity, e.g. a writing becomes a podcast or using Google Docs to comment on each others writing. Promoting collaborations and moving away from teacher centred methods is key here.
Redefinition - here we are moving into realms previously unknown and students start to take control of their own work. A prime example here is the audio interview that Luz played to us of students who had gone to interview tourists in Vigo or instead of writing a recipe, students could make a video on how to make the recipe themselves.
Homework
Our final debate topic was homework, I think we all
agreed here that some form of homework is important as part of the learning
process - however, it’s important not to go overboard. Collaboration
between teachers is important. As Emma pointed out - in the UK most
schools have (or had) a homework timetable where teachers know which day they
can set homework on - it worked well and meant that no student was snowed under
by too much work at a time. From what I’ve seen of the methodologies so far, I’m
most keen to try out the ‘flipped classroom’ - I think that homework should be
time devoted to the purely mechanical aspects of language learning or to long
reading texts and writings - meaning that class time can be devoted almost
entirely to speaking and dealing with any doubts the students might have.
Contrary to the video that we saw on ‘el experimento sobre horarios laborales’,
instead of children being exhausted and overwhelmed by homework the should come
to class fresh and ready to learn, or even engaged by their homework if at all
possible.
As this is the last blog, it’s time to sign
off. I’ll take this opportunity to
thank Luz and Ana for their time and dedication in doing the classes with us
and in sharing their experience and insight with us. It’s been an unforgettable experience and we all have our ‘mochilas
bien cargadas’ and ready to face the next phase! Thank you again.
