:Daniel’s Teaching Blogfolio

I’m heading out tonight.

I’ll be reflectively blogging about teaching sometime after August 8th.

Cheers.

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Just two days away from the start of my vacation and the call for proposals arrives in my e-mail this morning. Since I won’t be thinking much about it for the next seven weeks, I suppose I could mull over a possible proposal for the next two days. Fortunately I’ve got until November to submit.

Today I’m thinking about a workshop on using the San Diego Quick Assessment in an ELT environment. Since the tool wasn’t conceived for English language learners, I’ll have to come up with a justification for the application. Whether or not others agree, I think that ELT’s need an easy and FREE assessment device that we can use to quickly estimate our student’s reading level in English in order to help us guide the development of their reading skills.

In my workshop, I would explain what the SDQA is, why I chose it and how it works. The rest of the time participants would listen to student examples and score them, then discuss the results.

I’ll be experimenting with the SDQA more in the Fall and may find that I don’t want to pursue this any further but for now, that’s the direction I’m heading for this conference.

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Charles poses this question, which I’ll paraphrase:

Which is better for learning: measured response (at a distance) in one’s own blog or direct comments on the post itself?

Ultimately what Charles (and most folks I think) is after are thoughtful responses. I think that the subtext to this question is: Which response is a more thoughtful-one: one that is reflected upon and written out in one’s own blog or one that is dashed off immediately through the comment function of the blog where the post is? When unpacked in this way, it’s easy to see what the answer ought to be.

I think that there is no real dichotomy here. The avenue by which a comment travels to its audience has no affect on the quality of the comment. A well thought-out comment can arrive either through a separate post on a different blog or the comments utility of the original blog. The same is true of a poorly-thought-out comment. That being said, it probably is observable that easy and immediate access to the comment function on the blog facilitates less-than-thoughtful responses to posts. So be it. That’s why we moderate. This probably is an issue for those bloggers who get many, many comments. It’s not an issue for my blogs…or for most bloggers I would venture to guess.

Charles also posts this question:

“What would the blogging community be like if the majority of bloggers moved to a “measured discourse” mode of commenting on the ideas in other blogs? Would we learn more? Would we become better, more thoughtful bloggers? Or not?”

By “measured discourse” Charles means two things. First, a thought-full discourse-meaning that the bloggers reflect upon what they’ve read and then write a response that meaningfully adds to the discourse. Second, a discourse that takes place in the context of individual posts at bloggers’ own blogs and NOT through the comment utility. I don’t have an answer.

Does anyone have any ideas?

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I’ve been in a sort of dialogue with Charles on the issue of having comments enabled or disabled on one’s blog. His post on the question makes for a good read. I approached it with the assumption that I should come away either convince or unconvinced, but now I see that I don’t have to be either.

While the blog medium was developed in order to facilitate a type of social interaction between reader and writer, that does not mean that people will and or must use it as such. There are plenty of hammers in the world and yet some of us will choose a can of yellow cling peaches, the heel of a shoe or a brick for the job if it is closer at hand.  People are relatively free to administer their blogs as they see fit. The only problem is when a blogger has a particular purpose for blogging and fails to achieve that purpose, and then the problem is really only his own.

What I’ve come to appreciate about Charles’ blog (as well as some others) is the clear purpose which appears to be behind it. He says that his blog is about his learning and it’s clear that the way he administers it without enabling comments serves his purpose in a satisfactory manner. I think that makes it (in some manner) a good blog. After having read his post on the matter, I’m not in agreement with all of his points nor do I have to be. And since Charles has kindly added my blogfolio to his blogroll AND comments are enabled here, we can have a type of social interaction if we want to.

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We’ve been seeing lots of potential colleagues in the hallway these last few days of the academic year. People are being interviewed for positions this fall. A couple of days ago, a colleague who was part of a panel interview with one of the recent candidates commented upon how well the candidate had answered the following question. “How would you teach critical thinking?” 

This got me to thinking about what my response to that question would be. Honestly, I don’t know what would come out of my mouth in an interview situation but here’s my own answer to that question. 

I wouldn’t teach critical thinking. I don’t believe it needs to be taught because I think people do it naturally. They may not do it about all things all the time, but I believe that all people do think critically about some things some times. 

As educators, we want our students not to become critical thinkers but rather to become better at thinking critically. This can be done by modeling critical thinking ourselves, encouraging students to think critically and by rewarding students for taking up the challenge regardless of what we may think of their outcomes. 

How do I model critical thinking in my classroom? I’m not sure that I can answer that at this time. 

How do I encourage it? I encourage critical thinking by asking students to explain why they believe / say a particular thing is true, worthy, correct etc. Sometimes I challenge their suppositions about particular subjects. I also try to create an atmosphere in the classroom/community that is safe for questioning me about my suppositions. 

How do I reward critical thinking? I do this primarily (exclusively?) through verbal praise. If it’s necessary, then I admit shortcomings in my reasoning when a student “catches me out” before the class. 

Since my critical thinking skills are certainly in process and in need of improvement, I’m sure that my methods for modeling, encouraging and rewarding are also in need of improvement. 

I’m not sure how that answer would fly in an interview, but for the moment, these are my thoughts on the matter.

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Actually, I mean to say that someone is reading the CELT…sort of. Thanks to Technorati (I guess) Charles Nelson found his way to Midway 7 of the CELT and saw my editorial comment about how bloggers with blogs (like his) which do not enable readers to post comments seem to be missing the whole point of the medium. Here is the comment that he left at the CELT homepage:

“This is the blogger ”who seem[s] to be missing the point.” I’m not against comments; it’s just that I don’t have time to respond to them, and somehow, I would feel obligated to, at least to some extent. But I would be interested in your writing more at length on the necessity, or at least the value, of allowing comments directly on the blog, and perhaps why responding to other blogs “at a distance” on our own blogs (especially with the capability of RSS) is not satisfactory. Cordially, Charles”

So, the invitation is to write about:

a) the necessity and/or the value of enabling comments on the blog itself and b) why responding on one’s own blog is not satisfactory

A) Enabling readers to comment on the blog itself is NOT necessary. I didn’t mean to imply that it is. Neither is it valuable to a given blogger if the blogger doesn’t think that it is. I don’t say that to be evasive. A blog is a personal space and if the blogger doesn’t see a value in allowing readers to comment directly upon his own blog, I don’t feel any compulsion to convince him otherwise.

HOWEVER, the very design of blogs indicates that direct reader commentary is desirable at some level to some segment of the blog writing/reading populace. (Personally, my experience has been that this is the majority of the blogging community, but I accept that my experiences are limited.) Conventional web pages did a perfectly good job of publishing text. With the advent of HTML writing/editing software, updating a web page became much easier than it was during the days of writing code and using FTP to upload the documents. Yet, at some point netizens not only wanted an easier way to publish/update web pages, but also more interaction with their readers than conventional web pages were delivering, hence the blog was born. It’s my opinion that people who blog want people to read their writing. I base this opinion on their choice to use the medium which, as I’ve said already, is designed for reader commentary. So if one of the major purposes of the blog format is to provide more interaction between reader and author and a blogger disables the function of the blog which allows for this interaction, then it appears to me that the blogger is missing the point of the medium.

That being said, Charles obviously isn’t opposed to contact with his readers. If he were, then 1) he would not provide a legitimate e-mail address on his blog and 2) he wouldn’t have written the aforementioned comment. Also, I can see how some bloggers might want to put up a sort gate to ward off what might be seen as a waste of time. (I’m not suggesting that this is Charles’ position at all.) Think about it: not everyone who comments says something of interest or value. If a reader were required to go through the (miniscule) extra step of composing an actual e-mail instead of spewing his nonsense immediately at the end of the post, then the reader may not bother. Consequently, the blogger is spared reading and moderating that comment.

B) Responding to reader commentary (however it reaches the blogger) by way of one’s own blog can be satisfactory. I suppose that determination has to be made by the blogger and the commenter. I’m satisfied by responding to comments with a post (obviously). I’m not sure that I’m always satisfied to have my comments responded to in this manner since I don’t have an RSS aggregator. Then again, if I’m genuinely interested in someone’s response to my comments, I will check back from time to time or subscribe to an e-mail alert associated with that post.

So that’s my attempt at responding to Charles‘ comment, which was originally submitted through the comment feature of the CELT home URL, by way of a post on my blogfolio.

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I just added the most recent performance appraisal document to the blogfolio. The link is on the right under the Portfolio heading. Since the original document is too long, I’ve just posted the summative paragraph written by my coordinator.

I suppose the most useful thing I could do with that document is to do a bit of reflection upon it which means that I could blog a bit about it…and perhaps I will when I get the chance. I won’t be getting a chance soon. These are the final days of exams followed by the flurry of activity to depart on summer vacation. Blogging/reflecting is going to drop off quite a bit over the next couple of weeks…but maybe I’ll get some thoughts in before I go.

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Last night I was hosting a committee meeting for a family weekend retreat with the church. The committee is made up of members from South Africa, Australia, the US and India. In talking about some changes to the dates of our retreat, the man from India suggested that we “prepone” the date. At first, I assumed that he had merely misspoken. I figured that he had made an attempt to say “postpone” and had simply gotten his prefix wrong. When I “corrected” him, he insisted that he did in fact intend to say “prepone” which is a word that means to move an event forward. Easily deciphered so long as one isn’t an English language teacher whose grammar filter is nearly always on. As we discussed it a little further, I surmised that the word is probably in use in India and considered to be genuine English. This was confirmed this morning when I typed “prepone” into www.onelook.com. Take a look at Encarta’s definition and note the word’s origin.

Interesting? Do you think that you’ll take it on as part of your vocabulary?

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Here in the host country, it can be rather easy to make the mistake in thinking that what is touted as new here is also new in the West. This is because there is a Western veneer that comes with the machinery of modernization which is currently running at full-tilt. So, I will try not to speak of “value education” as something which is innovative in every place. That being said, value education is certainly being treated as a sort of new celebrity on the education scene here in the host country. At least that’s the impression that I got from a tabloid I saw today. 

Value education is…defined in the article as “a way to achieve the holistic development of an individual”. Not terribly helpful is it? Then again, wouldn’t you guess that the term means teaching people a worldview? After all, isn’t that what “values” express-an individual’s view of what is important/worthy/valuable in the world as well as what is not? So, the assumption under-lying the article is that Education has failed in the past and/or is failing in the present to impart (the desired) values to its pupils, therefore a concentrated effort has to be made to remedy this neglect. 

Nonesense. 

Here’s a quote that I have in the signature file of my institutional e-mails: 

“The notion of value-free education is a myth: every choice of teaching materials, every mode of instruction and every action by the teacher carries a set of values.” Angus M. Gunn 

Since values are implicit in education, the idea that someone(s) should say that it isn’t and ought to be is delusional in its conception and redundant in its expression. It’s like saying that the sky is not high, but it should be and then enlisting a group of engineers to come up with a way of making it so. 

Another presupposition of this short piece of writing is that Education and Business are leading the way towards the rectification of this situation. One life-long educationist is quoted to say, “If we can create teachers who actually understand value education and impart it to children it will bode well for the future.”  

The implications here are: 

A) teachers don’t understand  “value education” or to be more pointed-teachers don’t understand that Education is a tool for imparting a particular worldview/set of values 

B) teachers ought to be the ones educating children in terms of the values they should hold 

C) a good future is dependent upon teachers imparting values to their pupils. 

Have you gotten around to asking yourself which values should be promoted by teachers? (Don’t forget; there is no such thing as a value-free education, therefore the real question is “Which values are being promoted?”) A general manager for a regional company “and a distinguished Toastmaster” (I’ll spare you the obvious joke), says 

“…we should also be creating people who empathise and relate to others…”. 

Okay. I’ll imagine that no one opposes promoting empathy and move on to the rest of his statement. 

“We can lay the foundation for it in school and college.” 

Too late! Perhaps we can argue that school-agers are still in process, but college is far too late to do anything foundational regarding individual values…short of tearing out the foundation and starting over which is commonly referred to by psychologists as “brainwashing”! 

Now that we’ve heard from Education and Business, where are the parents? Remember them? The article affirms that they have a part to fulfill in value education. Take a look at the list provided by a parent training consultant: 

“Educators, parents, institutions, corporates, media, business, government and policy makers have a role to play in integrating values into the education system.” 

Personally, I don’t think it’s an accident that parents are mentioned after educators. Rather I think it’s an unconscious indicator of a tacit belief: Education (and its associates) is the proper arbiter of the worldview of a society and its members. This is in itself a value and it is one that I personally do not hold and have no intention of passing on to my children or my students.

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This morning’s session was more enjoyable than yesterday’s. This is in part due to the fact that refreshments were provided and thanks to ML’s indulgence of our questions. In fact, he was so indulgent that we pretty much side-tracked him from his lecture and ended up having a group discussion/Q and A which was very pleasant.

Originally he intended to talk about a) how radical the lexical approach can be and b) how it can and can not be used to inform teaching practice in the classroom. The conversation that actually took place did hit upon those ideas but not (I guess) in the detail that his lecture might have had he been able to give it. Not a problem really since.

In the conversation he did concede a point that I’ve made several times to folks who would listen: nearly every approach/method that’s been used has been effective to some degree. “Traditional” approaches, techniques, methods have all produced speakers of the target language. The truth of the matter is that we don’t (and can’t) empirically know that students learned because of or in spite of the method. Assuming that this is correct, it ought to make one question whether or not teaching a language in an institutional setting is a worthwhile endeavor.

Maybe I’ll ask ML his thoughts about that at lunch today…but probably not.

I’ve just finished lunch with ML. I tried very hard not to talk about ELT and language and I failed. Consequently, I did get to ask he views of the validity of ELT as a profession.  If I understood him correctly, his take on the question is that language teaching is valid if one doesn’t place too much weight upon the concept of teaching. When it comes to language learning, we (teachers) do not impart knowledge so much as we guide students through their learning process. Obviously, he is very much in line with the dominant theories (not necessarily practices) of our day; namely that teachers as authority figures are out-dated and teachers as facilitators/managers/guides/gurus are the future.

I’m content to let that go unchallenged in the context of language learning and teaching, however from a philosophical perspective, I simply disagree. I say that there is such a thing as Absolute Truth and/or Objective Reality which is/are necessary for the existence of Authority. I would also maintain that I am the authority in my classroom but I am not The Absolute Authority….but I think I digress.

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Does that name mean anything to you? It didn’t to me when I first saw the e-mail that the man was coming to do some professional development sessions with us during the two “study days” prior to the beginning of exams. It didn’t take long though for me to figure out that this is a person of some importance in the field of linguistics and ELT.

The session that I attended was his attempt to get his audience to start looking at language in a new way. Presupposing that we were all largely guided by the traditional belief that language is “lexicalized grammar” he attempted to get us to see language as “grammaticalized lexis”. I suppose this really means that instead of thinking of grammar first and training students to plug their vocabulary into the grammatical structures, we should be thinking of lexis (words and combinations of words) and then taking note of the grammatical structures in which they are found. While it was an interesting way to pass the time, I’ve not had that epiphany where I suddenly grasp how to improve my teaching by following this approach. Certainly there are some intuitively gratifying sentiments in this approach such as “forget explicitly teaching grammar” and “reading to students is good”, I don’t know how I’m going to let some of the other things I heard inform my classroom practice, but I feel like that if I continue to plumb this lexical approach, something good will come from it.

Lewis will be with us tomorrow for another session, so I hope that this one will give me something that I can practice in order to be able to use it in the classroom this coming fall.

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