Are you Happy With Your Role in the Classroom? Would you Dare to Change it?

By Flor de María Vila

         Nowadays, there is a great deal of talk about the required qualities English teachers should have in order to facilitate their students to achieve their main goal: learn English. However, this ideal profile with a number of competencies is thought to match with any reality whether this is the one observed in a developed country or the one found in a developing country. If we had to narrow down the perspective, we may also have to think of the context, that is society, the educational model, or even the school where we teach. In this sense, we are also expected to adopt different roles which are definitely necessary while conducting a lesson.

             I remember the first training sessions I attended and find myself a little overwhelmed by all those functions described in famous books. It was very challenging, though.

          Let´s take a look at the following roles (1). Make a mental check and think carefully before giving an answer. Don´t rush!

       We actually do a lot, don´t we? Apparently, we should be satisfied with what we have done so far. However, I feel there comes a point when one feels that even though one masters the roles mentioned above, something is still missing.

          Is that all we can do? Isn´t there anything else that should be done?

          We are not just a sort of eternal operators in the teaching process in which we follow the book or the innovations proposed by experts, are we? Once we start gaining some experience, we should try to turn into leaders. I do not necessarily mean extrovert leaders. We could also develop into introverted leaders if we prefer not to be in the spotlight. I got inspired by Susan Cain (2) who claims that in many cases introverted people are better leaders.

         Isn´t becoming a leader an interesting role? It may sound so common and at the same time threatening. Probably, we feel contented enough and we just do not want to leave our comfort zone. Obviously, we may feel afraid of many things. Probably, the most common fear is TO FAIL. It´s natural, we are humans. Nobody wants to feel embarrassed. However, I would like to challenge you and assume the following role:  a leader in a very specific area. 

STEP 1: Choose one these options of roles, but keep it as a secret. Choose the one the fits your talent and/or your interest the most:

Role A

Specialist in curriculum, lesson plan, objectives and so on. All teachers have to implement content standards, write lesson plans or fill in any other document which would in a way inform the authorities of the institution if we are keeping the standard and appraise them of the progress we are making. If we must do this, why not becoming a specialist and help others.

Role B

Learner: Become that teacher who is always willing to look for new strategies to teach listening for instance. (3) Grow into an insatiable tracker and exchange information with your colleagues to find the best approach for your students. 

I´m sure that once you begin, your eagerness will become contagious.

Role C

Resource provider: There is always a teacher who knows which web sites, instructional materials, readings, or other resources that can be used to help students with any difficulties can be encountered. Another one I have found is that who knows the latest online games, or other technological tools to enhance our teaching. For instance, Kahoot or electronic roulettes to choose the first speaker in a class presentation. What about you? Choose only one and believe me, you will feel fantastic sharing what you know with your colleagues and your lessons will become the best!

Role D

Promoter of change: Are you the teacher who does not always feel content with the results? Why don´t you try posing questions to generate an analysis of student learning? You can start by asking yourself and trying to find answers with any searcher on the web or read a book about it. If you are committed to continuous improvement, this is your role. Just go one step ahead: share this concern with your colleagues and propose alternatives to solve any issue. It may be a good idea to propose changes and together with your colleagues or on your own talk to your coordinator or any member of the staff that could hear you and be open to make changes. Substantial changes need support and authorities will definitely welcome them because that will improve the standards.

STEP 2: Take any opportunity to offer your help to colleagues. Some aid is always welcome and nobody is judging, so you won´t fail. Keep track of the results and you may have the chance to assist again.

STEP 3: Get together with other colleagues that have the same interests and you could become a team: one specialized in anything that you choose. Sometimes it is easier and much more fun to work with other people.

STEP 4: Explore other options such as becoming an innovator or a researcher. For that, you may need to read the following articles:

https://languageteachingblogger.blogspot.com/2017/11/is-it-really-vital-for-teacher-to.html

https://languageteachingblogger.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-teacher-as-researcher-dream-or.html

          As I mentioned before, adopting the role of a leader is not that difficult. If your main concern is the possibility of failing, keep it secret first. Little by little start sharing what you know with people who need to know what you know. Help them and you won´t fail. 

Are there any other roles I haven´t mentioned? Have you tried them?

Share your experience with us! 

References

(1) The TKT course (2011) Spratt, M., Pulverness,A., & Williams,M. Cambridge University Press

(2) Susan Cain  https://youtu.be/c0KYU2j0TM4

(3) How to teach listening. https://languageteachingblogger.blogspot.com/2018/07/listening-skill-difficult-to-teach.html

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

M.A. in Cognition, Learning and Development from PUCP, B.A. in Education with a major in English Teaching. Ms. Vila is currently Teacher trainer, Pedagogic Consultant and Member of the Research Team at Centro de Idiomas de la Universidad del Pacífico. She is Academic Director of International Contacts (test training & foreign applications advisory) and relationship manager for American universities´ MBA admissions officers with International Contacts. She is official Examiner for several University of Cambridge tests, freelance consultant with Universidad ESAN, experienced speaker on diverse English teaching issues for prestigious institutions, and senior international examinations trainer (GMAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS)

The Teacher as a Researcher: a Dream or a Nightmare?

By Flor de María Vila

In the process of trying to diversify my lessons, I found myself trying different formulae to teach. Even though many changes went quite well, I felt that something was missing. I mean, sometimes I felt that what worked very well with a group didn´t turn out equally satisfactory with another.  Then a new journey began and after many trials I came to the conclusion that if we pursue a real transformation, we need to go deeper to find the real reason why something works or why it does not.  In order to do that we need to start one of the most amazing trips: research.

Can any teacher do research in his classes?

          Absolutely! In fact, we may say that it should be considered as part of any teacher´s development.

Is it difficult to do?

          I wouldn´t say it is the easiest exercise, because nothing worthwhile ever is. However, I can promise it is manageable.

          In the following lines, I will share some secrets to begin. After that, you will need to ponder what you have done and what you will eventually do.

#1. Select a minor hindrance in your lessons or anything that prevents you from feeling absolutely satisfied with your classes.

          It is more probable that you will be motivated to get under way if what you are planning to do is likely to help you with your lessons and not that just become another “load.” We teachers are already pretty busy, aren´t we? But it is really important to begin, no matter how. So, on the first day, select that issue that bugs you or something you feel could be improved.

#2. Make a diagnose of the current situation. You cannot “cure the illness” unless you identify the symptoms, can you?

          It´s necessary to try to pinpoint what the problem is, why a lesson went wrong or why it didn´t work with a certain group of students.

Make a list of the activities you organized and recollect the objective you had for each one. Were they achieved? Why or why not? Share this situation and ask your colleagues what they think or if they have ever been in a similar situation.

Next time you carry out a similar exercise, for instance, a listening practice, record yourself using your mobile phone. You can either only tape your voice or have a video made. Sometimes, we do not become aware of the problem until we listen to or watch ourselves in action.

You can even ask your students why they have difficulty with a certain exercise, for example. They may give you important information.

Last but not least, surf the web and type for instance “problems with listening skills.” You will find thousands of articles that could give you a better idea of what could be happening.

          It is crucial to gather information from different sources before attempting another way of teaching. You may also like to read this article: https://languageteachingblogger.blogspot.com/2018/07/listening-skill-difficult-to-teach.html

#3. Do not panic! Now you have a lot of information, so you are ready to prepare a plan of action.

          Believe it or not, this is manageable. You can start with the simplest plan you can think up. I would suggest connecting one of the ideas your students gave you, one of the teaching experiences your partners shared with you and one of the solutions described by the authors you read.

          Prepare a simple plan which should have the following characteristics: Activity, its objective, and a sample of evidence that will show that your venture is working. Make sure this evidence is visible so that you can monitor and keep a record.

#4. Evaluate and plan again.

          Assessing yourself is not that difficult if you have a clear objective. It is simple: If the goal was achieved, then your plan worked well. If it wasn’t, you need to reflect and plan considering another solution. Go back to #3 or #2 if you feel you need to gather more information to propose something new.

From my experience, I could say that the hardest thing is to commence. When I began, I felt I didn´t need more work (probably you don´t either). Nevertheless, when I realized that my job started to flow and that my students could improve their skills faster, I just let myself be carried away by each issue I needed to fix or improve.  

So today begin with the easiest step: #1

Do not try to do more today, or you will be feel overloaded.

Tomorrow, you can hack # 2 and then go on from there.

Feel free to share your experience or ideas.

References:

Action Research for Language teachers by Michael J Wallace

https://es.scribd.com/doc/172811222/139627763-Action-Research-for-Language-Teacher-Michael-j-Wallace

Action Research in Language Learning by Mohammad Ali Nasrollahia, Pamela Krish , Noorizah MohdNoorc

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042812026523

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

M.A. in Cognition, Learning and Development from PUCP, B.A. in Education with a major in English Teaching. Ms. Vila is currently Teacher trainer, Pedagogic Consultant and Member of the Research Team at Centro de Idiomas de la Universidad del Pacífico. She is Academic Director of International Contacts (test training & foreign applications advisory) and relationship manager for American universities´ MBA admissions officers with International Contacts. She is official Examiner for several University of Cambridge tests, freelance consultant with Universidad ESAN, experienced speaker on diverse English teaching issues for prestigious institutions, and senior international examinations trainer (GMAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS).

The Myths About Teaching Listening

By Flor de María Vila A.

One of the most difficult skills to improve is listening. This is true for both the teacher and the students. For the former, it is necessary to find a way to guide students to achieve their objective and, for the latter, they need to find a plan that suits their needs.  Definitely, everybody has tried to facilitate the task in class; however, so many times it has met with failure.

 “Why is it so difficult to teach listening comprehension? How can we teach it if that´s kind of a “personal” action? Why my students find it so hard to develop this skill?” These are some of the questions I have frequently heard from some of my colleagues. Here are some ideas that could help you to go through this journey.

First of all, we need to stop believing some myths that have been living with us for a long time, probably many years.

MYTH # 1

Listening is a task performed on your own. This is usually thought considering just the act of hearing. It is true; nobody can do that task for you. However, listening is not only hearing; this notion does not reveal the magic of the work involved. Did I say “work?” Yes! You understood well. Work implies a process and that´s the main subject matter here.

Many times we overlook several important facts. We hold the idea that we should provide a lot of material to practise. That´s good! Still, we usually provide a lot of links, exercises and so on to hear. But students are already able to hear without our help!

When listening, two types of processing take place: Top Down and Bottom Up.

Top-down processing happens when we use background information to predict the meaning of the language we are going to listen to or read. That means, that all our experience with the world, all our knowledge and, in this case, our prior knowledge of English and our own language are also used to hypothesize and infer. Metaphorically speaking, we use our “Spanish brain and its background data” to interpret what we listen to in English. Most of us take this processing into account when we have our students predict, do brainstorming, or give us the gist and specific information. Nevertheless, we fail to notice that when listening naturally our students will use any resources available, that is what they know in Spanish. They use their Spanish schemata to understand, to listen in English. This reality  takes us to instances in which students misinterpret one word for another.

For example: Real sentence: “We’re not gonna take it” from one of Twisted Sisters´s songs. People learnt the song as “Huevos con aceite.” Take a look at this video. https://youtu.be/35PocLHx534

If you need more examples, just take a look at this: https://youtu.be/_6DD1CU8ltE

Even though this may be hilarious, this is not so much when we, as teachers, do not consider this a fact.

We need to understand what problems arise when students do a listening comprehension exercise. Transferring their Spanish schemata without considering the differences between the two languages is one. We should help students become aware of the similarities as well as of the differences.

Bottom-up Processing: It happens when someone tries to understand language by looking at individual meanings or grammatical characteristics of the most basic unit of the text (e.g. sounds) and moves from this to trying to understand the whole text. We use our linguistic knowledge and ability to process acoustic signals, which we first decode into phonemes, then words, phrases, and finally sentences.

Unfortunately, bottom-up processing is hardly taken into consideration when “teaching” or working on the development of listening skills. We scarcely work with listening sub-skills. How frequently do we propose exercises that enable students to recognize and understand connected speech, word boundaries, weak forms, contractions and so on? For instance, have you ever taught how “of” is pronounced? Have you done that in different contexts? Check this and you will see if your answer is right:

https://youtu.be/2l0GuRgRIKw

We are so preoccupied about providing the “new vocabulary” that we forget these sub-skills. Again, we need to evaluate what happens (process) when a person tries to understand what they hear, that is, when they try to “listen.” Do you think they just “hear”?

MYTH #2

Listening is a receptive skill, but that does not mean it is passive. When we consider listening a process, we are aware that it involves work and that implies a productive activity. Many times we see ourselves presenting the exercise, giving the instructions and playing the audio until it is over. If we always do that, it will disgracefully be called a passive exercise.

Do brainstorming, for example, before the listening exercise, but do not stop there. It is necessary to help students find the connection of that information with the one they are about to listen to by creating a gap. To do so, make them produce hypotheses of what might happen for instance. Create the need for listening. While listening, students should be asked to show that they are in fact listening. Have them respond to the listening exercise by doing, drawing, choosing from a list, matching, following a route etc. Stop the audio and ask questions about it; you do not have to wait until the audio is over to have them “produce.” A listening exercise must not look like a test in which we want to know who has the right answer, right?

We need to monitor what is happening.

Is there another myth about teaching listening?

Share your expertise with us!

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

M.A. in Cognition, Learning and Development from PUCP, B.A. in Education with a major in English Teaching. Ms. Vila is currently Teacher trainer, Pedagogic Consultant and Member of the Research Team at Centro de Idiomas de la Universidad del Pacífico. She is Academic Director of International Contacts (test training & foreign applications advisory) and relationship manager for American universities´ MBA admissions officers with International Contacts. She is official Examiner for several University of Cambridge tests, freelance consultant with Universidad ESAN, experienced speaker on diverse English teaching issues for prestigious institutions, and senior international examinations trainer (GMAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS).