:Daniel’s Teaching Blogfolio

The Award Nomination Committee is asking for nominations from the faculty for the program’s teaching award. While I think it’s great to be recognized for the hard work that one does, particularly by one’s peers, I see a small flaw.

There are 24 potential candidates from Foundation English and the truth of the matter is that I don’t know the majority of them well enough to nominate them for anything. Take a look at the sought-after characteristics:

A. Significant contributions to teaching

B. Innovative classroom techniques and classroom materials

C. Availability to students

D. Ability to inspire students and motivate them to learn

How does one measure A? Is it the number of contact hours per week? What makes teaching significant?

I think the answer is D, however without observing the teacher, how would I know if D applies to a given nominee? For that matter, it’s necessary to observe someone in the classroom in order to address B. Of all my colleagues, I’ve only seen one in the classroom with her students and that was only one time toward the end of the class. As for C; we all keep office hours and the common complaint is that students rarely/never take advantage of them so wouldn’t it be better to evaluate the teacher’s attitude toward availability? Better still, their approachability?

Perhaps I’m over analyzing the process…I’m prone to that sort of thing, I know. Again, I’m reluctant to nominate anyone when I know so little about them in this way. That being said, I was on the verge of nominating one colleague who is passionate (to a fault) about helping his students, eager to improve his technique and easily accessible to his peers. However, I stopped short because a technical glitch with the online submission form gave me time to reconsider in light of this person’s perpetual conflict with authority.

So what’s the solution? I guess I’ll refrain from nominating anyone, look at the candidates once they’re presented and then I’ll…probably repeat this post except I’ll remark that I don’t feel good about voting for any of them for the same reasons that I couldn’t bring myself to nominate any of them. I wonder if I’ll feel more informed next time this whole thing rolls around next year?

Comments Off

Recently EFL Geek asked me why I continue to put up duplicate posts here and at the blogs.ie version of my blogfolio. Since it’s a bit of a long explanation, I’ll just post it here. 

The spam was getting out of control at the old blogfolio which gave me the impression that no one was minding the store. The version of WP used at the blogs.ie address is old and I saw no signs of an upgrade coming. I think my frustration is apparent. 

Edublogs.org looked like a good alternative. It’s free. The version of WP is current. It’s free. There appears to be good support available, and finally, it’s free. I thought that I would move over here in the Fall of 2006 when a new semester begins. That seemed like a good time to do it. 

Then a commenter showed up on the original blogfolio representing himself as some one in charge of the hosting service. He said that a spam fix similar to the one that the host was using at blogsome.com would be on its way. I haven’t heard from the guy since, but the spam has subsided. A primary motivation for moving has been addressed. 

As I continued to experiment with both sites, I realized that my edublogs.org site doesn’t allow me to tweak the HTML as finely as the blogs.ie site does. While I’m not a web-design whiz, I’ve found it useful to adjust the original template from time to time. I inquired about this but James, edublog.org’s founder, hasn’t gotten back to me on the issue. So, while I like certain things about the latest version of WP here at edublogs, I also prefer the access to the code of my template at the blogs.ie site. Another motivator has been neutralized. 

Now I don’t know what I’ll do. Until I figure it out, I’ll be duplicating posts on both sites…except this one, which I think I’ll just link at the other place. 

One more thing…this version seems to be where the comments come so I’ll need to give that serious consideration.

Comments Off

In keeping with the portfolio aspect of this blog, I’ve added a video of my students and one of their projects. You can find it under Presentations on the right side of the screen.

Foundation One English students were required to research an object from everyday life and explain what contributions different fields of engineering make to its production. Part of this project is putting together a poster and explaining its content to their peers in an exhibition.

Technical Notes:
The  video is formatted to be smaller than 5 MBs so I can host it from my free Geocities account. Consequently, it’s very low res.

I used XP’s movie maker.

I used about 2 minutes of a song by Rush without permission. (I’m ready to take it down when ordered. )

That’s pretty much it.
Enjoy.

6 Comments

Today begins the last week of regular classes before finals begin. I’ve started conducting the second San Diego Quick Assessment with my two groups. You can read here and here about what I’ve been doing with the SDQA during this semester.

As I’ve written before, the SDQA is not meant for EFL students so its validity is highly questionable. That being said, we really need a reading level assessment on these students when they come in so we can give them some direction instead of just shoving some books at them and telling them to get started reading. Since we don’t have one, this one will have to do.

So far, it seems that the majority of students have not moved up a grade level on the SDQA. There have been some who have but not many. I don’t think that this group of students will yield the best information because as I’ve noted earlier, I’ve not been with them reliably and I haven’t applied a consistent reading enrichment scheme. In the fall, it will be different. I’ll be a lead teacher and I can be more consistent in promoting reading and following up on it.

Another thing that I’ve gotten back recently in terms of student feedback has been the questionnaire that I put in Moodle. Several students (apparently from Section A) have filled it in and their response has been favorable toward an entire period devoted to reading silently. Of course, they struggle with staying alert and they suggested that I should be doing more but for the most part, the feedback was favorable. In the fall, I’m planning on doing it again. This time while students are reading, I’ll try to split my time between reading (they suggested that I read anything-not only Russian) and roaming around. It really bothered some of them that I stayed at my desk…which is a bit funny when you consider that I let them move all around the room and read reclining, sitting and crouching under desks, whatever felt comfortable to them. Then again, I’m the teacher and different standards apply.

Comments Off

Not long ago, Emily asked me, “What made you decide to start a blogfolio in the first place?”

My teaching portfolio was largely an attempt to fill some work hours in a professionally meaningful manner. In my previous job, it wasn’t uncommon for some teachers to go for long periods of time without any teaching duties. This was my situation when I came across an advertisement for a teaching position with an American university in this country which requested that applicants submit a portfolio. I’d known about portfolios for a long time but this was first time that I’d actually seen one requested. Thinking that I might have been witnessing a new trend in the region and needing something purposeful to do with my time at the office, I put together an e-portfolio.

To be honest, the e-portfolio proved not to be all that useful. No one looked at it but me. I rarely looked at it. The reflection that I engaged in to compile it turned out to be mainly a one-off. It filled my time and I improved upon some technical savvy I had, but it really didn’t do all that much for me as an EFL teacher.

Then I started exploring blogs. A friend of mine who teaches mathematics in the US was blogging and some of my colleagues were experimenting with blogs in the classroom, so my curiosity was peaked. I started out with Blogger and as I was mucking about it occurred to me that the journal was what would make my portfolio useful. I converted my e-portfolio into a blogfolio and began to write reflectively.

The more I became involved in blog culture, I realized that the true utility of the blog was the reader comments. I needed an audience for my reflections. I needed fellow teacher-bloggers to give me their input so that I could reflect upon what they said and see if I could learn anything from them.

Originally, the e-portfolio was a way to fill my time preparing for a request from a potential employer that never came. The beginning of my blogfolio was an experiment. Now, reflective blogging is becoming a habit. I wish that more people would read and comment but I understand that most people are simply readers.

The time may come when I retire the blogfolio, but then again it may not.

3 Comments

This is the week that our students give their presentations about the contributions of different types of engineers to specific products that we encounter in everyday life. It’s easy to see where our mutual loyalties lie this week.

Section A asked me if I was planning on being in the class for their presentations. They sounded like they wanted me to come so I said yes. Section B did not ask and I did not go. I figured they could do their presentations for me during our only class today. They did but not with much enthusiasm. Basically, I’ve connected with Section A much better than I have with Section B. The reasons are fairly easy to see.

Section A is the top. This means that they generally have a better level of language, which means greater ease of communication. Additionally, the majority of the class is motivated, even if they are not particularly (self-) disciplined. Finally, I’m assigned to them 10 hours per week. Even though I have no input to their grades, this frequency of contact makes me better than a “substitute teacher”.

Conversely, Section B sees me so rarely that I’m more like a “substitute” than a “real” teacher. Furthermore, the majority of the class is not nearly so motivated as Section A and may be even less (self-) disciplined as a group than Section A. Section B also seems to have more students with markedly lower abilities even though Section B is one from the top. In other words, the difference in abilities from Section A to Section B is unexpectedly large.

I felt much more compelled to be present during the regular class time for Section A’s presentations than I did for Section B’s. In fact, I didn’t go to B’s presentations during their scheduled time but rather used our class time for the students to do them again for me.

I think that had I been their lead teacher, shouldering the majority of their instructional hours I would have managed to bond with them much better, even though so many of them lack motivation and maturity.

I’ll be glad to have my own class again in the Fall.

Comments Off

Taking a quick look at two bits of news coverage regarding the Senate’s promoting some kind of “official” status for the English language in the US, I can’t help but feel that there’s no story here.

Apparently the terms in question are “national” versus “common/unifying” with regards to the English langauge. I’m curious as to why any statement has to be made about it at all. Is it because that the “path to citizenship” provided by this legislation has a language requirement? That’s not made clear in either article.

Look, it’s not such a complicated issue: there is no need for an official status given to any language. All the business of citizenship should continue to be conducted in English until such a time that the population of non-English speaking people is too great for this to be done. In other words, we should let “market forces” come into play here. If people wish to become citizens, then they’ll learn the language needed to do so. No government is obligated to accomodate non-citizens by providing native language support in the applicant’s quest for citizenshhip.

I once tutored an elderly couple from Ukraine for their citizenship test. They had the questions transliterated into Ukrainian and memorized. I don’t know if they ever got their citizenship, but I wouldn’t begrudge them if they did. They did what they could to do what it took to do things legally and I hope they were rewarded for it.

2 Comments

I think I’m going to give up on my article about the blogfolio. 

I was planning on writing it up and either submitting it to the conference proceedings for TESOL Arabia this year or submitting it elsewhere for publication. Now I’m just so sick of trying to make the pathetic thing readable that I’ve just about decided to pack it in. 

I don’t know why it’s such a difficult topic to write about. The presentation seemed to go well enough although I didn’t get much feedback about it. As I try to organize the article, it just becomes a muddle. Whenever I read it back to myself, it comes across as boring. I find myself asking “So?” If I can’t stay interested in it, I don’t think that I can expect others to either. 

Logically, if I can’t bring myself to bore people (or myself) with an article about the blogfolio, you would think that I wouldn’t propose to do it again at TESOL in the US. However, the proposal is perfunctory. I promised myself that I would submit a proposal and so I’m keeping that promise. It’s a question of self-discipline: I said I would do a thing so I should do it. 

Unfortunately, the deadline for TESOL proposals comes hot on the heels of the conference and (in my opinion) there isn’t adequate time to come up with an idea for the next year. You almost have to be working on multiple ideas at once…and I suppose many folks do. 

Anyway, for the time-being I’m pretty much done writing about the blogfolio. Keeping one is fine but I don’t think there’s enough of interest (mine or others) to warrant writing about it.

2 Comments

I was reading an article in one of professional publications (I can’t remember which one and I’m not up to walking over to the library to find out) and this is the question I came up with: Am I teaching students or am I providing a service to clients? The author was casting EFL in the mold of a service provided to clients and invoking some TESOL document as a guide. The article itself is not as important as trying to come to some kind of answer to my question. 

At first I balked at the idea that I’m a service provider to a client. It felt wrong. However the more I thought about it I came to the conclusion that this is a legitimate paradigm for some learners. For example, EFL students who are trying to get an IELTS score required by their employer could come under a professional-client paradigm. Workers at Samsung who get English lessons from the company would also fall into this group. EFL learners in a bridge-program for an institution of higher learning that uses English as the language of instruction would not come under the professional-client model. 

The difference between these situations is that the client-learner has immediate professional goals and requirements driving their language learning, while the student-learner has immediate educational/academic goals driving their language learning. Client-learners are looking at immediate compensation (hiring, retention, promotion, compliance with employer requirements) for their language learning whereas student-learners are looking at a long-term pay off for their efforts which will come when they’ve attained the education they seek and follow the career path they choose.

6 Comments

I got this one over at the CELT and I think it was intended to go on this blog so I’m going to post it here and then reply:

Name: Tom
Daniel
Your thoughts are interesting particularly your frustration with the lack of response to your blog. If the bloggers don’t come to you, go forth and multiply – reach out and be in their face. Get a bloggers club and invite, ask friends to comment and once people see that there is a response, then they are more likely to respond.
Ask yourself, despite all the efforts you putting into this blog, do you really care if anyone responds. Any Tom Dick or Harry could – it is the fact that you are thinking aloud and getting it out that matters. You know in your heart that you are trying to connect that in itself is enough.

Yes, in order to be read one has to be out there reading and commenting and I’ve been making more time for that. I’ve had some folks passing through and commenting so the utility of this blog as a sounding board with other professionals is coming along, albeit slowly.

I would disagree that it’s enough to try to connect. Recently someone else made a similar comment: that whether or not his blog is read by anyone else doesn’t matter to him. If I’m not writing to be read then why bother with a blog? If it’s about typing on a computer, I can do that and save to my hard drive. If it’s merely about writing for my own sake then why not have all of my posts categorized as “private” and not visible at all? No, people who get blogs want to be read by others at some level. If we didn’t then we wouldn’t be on something called the WORLD wide web. I’d like my posts to be read. I’d like to be engaged in some thought provoking exchanges that could lead to some imporvements in my teaching. If people don’t read and comment then whether or not I continue to blog will come down to whether or not I think it’s worth my time.

5 Comments

I got my evaluation back yesterday.

My students asked me today if I got a good evaluation and I could only respond “I guess so.” I got all of the tick marks in the right places so that’s good. The hand-written notes didn’t reflect anything negative about the lesson or my execution of it, so that was good. Yet, I got no usable input. Nothing in the notes pointed to what I could do better in the future. No indication of what I could work on. No praise for anything done well. This is…not good. Maybe it’s even bad.

It’s possible that my coordinator may read this and so I want to be clear: I know the man has a busy schedule. It’s unimaginable that he could observe all of his teachers and then provide any kind of detailed feedback that we could use. I don’t wish to indicate that he’s not doing his job. It’s just unfortunate that the most a teacher can expect from his evaluation is to be determined to be performing well enough as not to warrant further observation…until the next semester.

Comments Off

Comments Off

How can you be an educator and not be drawn to an article with a title like that?

The whole thing appears on MSN where you can read it. I’ll only be reproducing bits of it here in order to share some specific, if incoherent, thoughts. Let’s begin:

The concern over quality education in the college sector has grown, due to the popular notion that a two-year degree is the new equivalent of a high school diploma.

That is, if you want greater job opportunities and earning potential, plan on getting a four-year degree or better

. Add to that the continuing trend of outsourcing high-tech jobs from the United States to other countries and the issue is immediately compounded.

I think this is the point where folks like Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller (gurus and life coaches) would step in an attempt to debunk the myth that a college degree equals earning potential. I’ll simply raise and eyebrow and question this popular misconception quietly.

After declaring that the research indicates that US graduates in the field of engineering are under qualified and over-valued, the writer tells us that one expert believes the US continues to lead the world in teaching innovation. How does that jive with this?

Perhaps the most prominent and vocal critic of U.S. universities is Derek Bok, former and returning president of Harvard. He followed up the 2005 publication of his book Our Underachieving Colleges with an article published in the Boston Globe that charts the gaps in American higher learning. Bok’s main point: Faculties tend to ignore research on how much students are learning in college, and how the instructors might help them learn more.

What we have here is a difference of opinion. After all, what are those innovating teachers doing if they’re not atttempting to assess what students are learning and trying to help them learn?

Now look at this:

So what are U.S. colleges doing right? According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the United States still spends more money on education than any other country.

…and apparently getting less bang for our buck, right? What drives me nuts about this statement is that spending is equated with good. As the article points out, the Chinese and the Indians are producing more qualified graduates than the US in certain fields yet they’re doing it at a lower cost. Sure it’s nice that we spend so much on our students but I think it’s a bit of unmerited optimism to say that we’re doing something right in this.

Comments Off

I was just visiting Standford’s Center for Teaching and Learning, skimming their back issues of a quarterly newsletter called Speaking of Teaching and found this article from 1996. It’s about teaching portfolios…not blogfolios mind you. Anyway, something that jumped out at me was a box that listed “The Products of Good Teaching”.

Listed in the box are:

student test scores, lab workbooks, creative work and fieldwork reports
records of students who go on to major, do honors work, or do graduate work in the field
documentary evidence of the effects of teaching on students’ career choices

Let’s look at these a minute. Are the items of the first list truly reflective of my work as the teacher or of their work as the student? I suppose that the answer is a bit of both, but I would personally want to point at these things and talk about how they reflect the students’ hard work, diligence and self-discipline.

The next list doesn’t quite apply to ES/FL I think. It’s hard to imagine that there will be many students over the course of career who choose to become English language teachers regardless of my positive influence. That being said, it would be possible to point to students who completed their engineering studies (in English) with distinction, but again how much of their success can I take credit for?

The last list again doesn’t quite apply. I suppose a close corollary would be testimonials of students about the nature of my teaching style and classroom environment. To that end, I have in my possession a letter of recommendation written by a student who was also a sort of superintendent for my host country’s ministry of education. I think having such a letter written by an educator is particularly gratifying because the positive comments mean potentially more than “I like Daniel. He’s a nice person.” which is what so many student evaluations tend to say at their core.

Comments Off

See it here.

Comments Off