Teaching Reading

Some thoughts on teaching reading from my own experience.

Give a variety of activities to make sure the students are engaged. Basic structure could be:

1. Pre-reading activities:

Including A discussion for engagement, Vocabulary that may be encountered, prediction activity, questions to look for

2. Reading activities:

Main idea, discussing the prediction, reading it and highlighting any hard words, exercises to practice skimming and scanning (google reading skills) such as sequencing, reordering, information race etc. Read for details and discuss/practice particular phrases.

3. Post reading activities:

Questions both 1. to confirm comprehension and 2. to promote discussion and HOT (High Order Thinking).

Fill in the blanks to demonstrate vocabulary comprehension.

Speaking activities with specific grammar points from the article i.e. POP Grammar.

There is a sequence that you could use.

Previously I used to mix suggestopedia techniques with conventional "skills based" techniques for my reading focus lessons. 

An example of what I used to do is:

1. Engagement and vocabulary introduction

2. Short discussion

3. Relaxation and a comfortable reading from me in a natural pace with good expression.

4. Second reading together with the students looking at the page.

5. Questioning to develop skimming and scanning skills

6. Highlighting hard words

7. Answering questions both Comprehension and opinion based

8. Group discussions

9. Moving into speaking activities or writing activities depending on the focus

Hope that can give you some ideas of what to do in your class! 

Education, Language and Learning a Language

Hi guys,

One of the points that I mentioned in the post 'How to get 100% success in teaching a foreign language' was that around 90% students spend 9-12 years studying a language but still can't speak it. They may be able to parrot some sentences out, but they aren't autonomous speakers of the target language.

This is because they are 'learning' not 'acquiring'. By 'learning' I mean 'learning about'.

One of Steven Krashen's main points in the 80s was also that there is a distinct separation between 'learning' and 'acquiring'. He called it 'The acquisition-learning distinction'.

Now although he wrote a book on this in 1981 (31 years ago) titled 'Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning' we still find that in most schools and language institutes in Indonesia today language is still learned but not acquired.

I feel there are three reasons for this:

1. The acquisition-learning distinction has not been socialized enough with potential and current teachers
2. It is easier to test that language has been 'learned' rather than acquired (it can be tested just like any other subject)
3. The text books which teachers are asked to teach from (and which are preparing for those tests) focus of course on learning rather than acquiring the language. 

There are also three reasons that those three reasons shouldn't hold us back on this:

1. It is easy to socialize the acquisition-learning distinction
2. The nation will get a far superior benefit from almost 100% of High School graduates being able to communicate autonomously in English rather than 10%. Besides that more students are going to do well in the final year 12 exam in they have been actually acquiring the language for 9-12 years rather than just studying it.
3. Teachers want to see their students successful. If the focus is changed to being able to autonomously communicate efficiently in the language rather than just get good test scores. I believe teachers will accept the challenge and any changes in the curriculum that supports it.

I want to make this post short and sweet because I believe this is essentially a simple point, a simple fact with simple and easy application. I hope to do more in the application of this point in the coming years, around Indonesia if God grants me that opportunity.

If students acquire English starting from their first year of primary education, they will do well in the TOEFL exams for entry into Universities because they will be competent in the language. The main things that are tested in the TOEFL exam are Reading Comprehension and Correct Vocabulary Selection (usually in the form of multiple choice questions). Grammar is tested but somebody with purely a conscious understanding of grammar will most likely do badly. The student with a subconscious understanding of what fits and what doesn't will do much better in questions relating to grammar. This has been proven in numerous studies and I have seen it also in my own personal experience with language students here.

Further more even if only a slight increase in TOEFL scores and fluency are found (worse case scenario) wouldn't it still be better that most students graduate with a communicative competency in English? a B1-B2 (European standard) competency alone opens ups many opportunities for the individual including but not limited to trade, education, employment, contacts, the global village, cultural perspectives and professional development. Essentially we would be giving millions of people a gift for life, the gift of another language.

So I hope this post has inspired you to spread the message of language acquisition which essentially means a campaign against 'language learning' as there is simple not time for both and our priorities should be clear.

Keep on sharing, shining and changing lives!

Kindest regards,

-Hugh

Lesson Plans. The good, the bad and the ugly!

Hi Guys,

Today I wanted to talk a little about lesson plans. Now for those senior teachers out there I know what you're thinking 'as if we don't know what a lesson plan is' and I agree, I had to think twice before posting on this topic.

The reason I ended up biting the bullet and writing about this is because surprisingly enough during my time training teachers I've had more than a few teachers come up to me and ask me 'What is the best way to make a lesson plan' I've also had them ask 'How do I write out a syllabus'. So that alone tells me it's worth talking about and posting up here.

So let's get into the nitty gritty. The reason I've entitled this post 'the good the bad and the ugly' is because in regards to lesson plans I've seen them all. For many teachers in Indonesian schools lesson plans are a cause of distress. I suspect that is because of a number of reasons:

1. The teachers are asked to give one years worth of lesson plans at the 'Raker' time, which would be a small book. I've seen some institutes give a day or two for 'fine tuning' a years worth of lesson plans. This is all easier said than done. How do you expect a teacher who has been assigned a different subject to last year or even a different level to 'fine tune' the last teachers lesson plans (that is to say if that last teacher made any at all)? How do you expect teachers to handle changes in the curriculum and/or program or be creative in the way they teach when they are asked to confirm exactly how they are going to teach the subject one year ahead of time? These are of course rhetorical questions. We can not ask this of teachers and should not.

2. Often teachers after a hard days teaching, socializing with parents and correcting work don't feel up to letting their creative juices flow out into making improving lesson plans and sometimes just don't make the time to do so. That is why we see 'RPP' (lesson plans) coming up as a popular download on the net. I sometimes wonder whether the teachers lessons look anything like what they've given their coordinator or dept head.

3. Quite often in schools here, there are no set coordinators or department heads. If there are they are usually assigned fairly heavy teaching or administrative duties. This means they often don't have time to properly check over teachers lesson plans, give feedback or do walkthroughs (lesson observations). They usually just request lesson plans are in by a certain date (if they are unreasonable they will ask for a years worth of lesson plans all at once) and then they file them, never to see the light of day again.

So you'd wonder why any teachers would want to hand their lesson plans in if that was the case.

That being said, I have worked at one school before where teachers were asked to put their lesson plans in only one day before, were given feedback on their plans, given training on how to make good lesson plans and were given their lesson plans back before they had to teach and they still didn't like writing lesson plans. So what's the deal?

I think most of the case it's a simple case of poor 'macro planning'. Basically if you don't know how to write up a great syllabus yet you aren't going to be able to make great lesson plans and to write a great syllabus you should have a strong underlying teaching methodology to follow. Think about 'How I want to teach my students?' before you even begin to put pen to paper.

Then and only then think about the curriculum, then the syllabus then the lesson plan.

So it goes like this:

Step 1. Methodology --> How I'm going to teach my students (how are they going to learn best)?

Step 2. Content (curriculum) --> What I'm going to teach my students (what should I expect from them) and how am I going to asses them?

Step 3. Timeline (syllabus) --> When am I going to teach the content my students and what is it going to align with in the rest of the curriculum i.e. other subject/programs?

Step 4. Details (lesson plan) --> Use the above information Step 1 for structure Step 2 for content and step 3 for position to make your lesson plan. It's just basically cut and paste and adding one or two things once you have a strong methodology to guide you. It is best to make a formula that repeats itself and takes care of all of the above. That way the structure is the same, you only have to change the content.

So basically if you're not happy with how you're going to teach your students (your method) change it before the year starts then choose a curriculum (if you can) or edit the curriculum that has been served to you by a 'higher power' (more likely) to suit your methodology. After that make sure every thing you want can be achieved (with plenty of time to spare) in the timeline and think of extra things you can integrate into your classroom (like excursions or daily activities to complement the curriculum). Finally make a basic format and formula for your lesson plans based on the above e.g. Lesson 1/5: Like this! Lesson 3/5 Like that! and Lesson 5/5 some kind of formative assessment. Walla! 50% of your lesson plan woes have gone out the window.

That being said though, there are many teachers out there that will look at the above and say 'what a lot of hard work!' and 'I'll have corrections to do, as it is I am taking work home!'. Well obviously this article isn't for them and they probably didn't read this far anyway (joking). But in the off chance that you are thinking that; which is more important, having the students know what mistakes they've made, or delivering such a shockingly good lesson that the students don't make so many mistakes?

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this write up on Lesson Plans, if it was all child's play for you maybe you can forward the link to some of your workmates that perhaps aren't so savvy yet?

Either way keep up the great work and let's change some lives!

Warm Regards,

-Hugh

P.S. I may post up a basic 'Engage Study and Activate' lesson plan format later, just for newer teachers of EFL to use as a reference. The reason for this is because we still have a lot of English Teachers who haven't any formal Education Qualifications (sometimes they can turn out to be the best teachers). I don't know when I'll post that up but I'll try and remember to do it soon. ^_^

How to break down the barriers to learning a new language!

Hi Guys,

What a beautiful Tuesday. Tonight I will go and teach some unfortunate kids in my neighborhood. Some of these kids have been through the wars (not literally). There is one guy let's call him Agung, he's only just entered High School. His house burnt down with all his school leaving certificates etc. So to enter High School he had to take the Junior High exam again through distance education here. Anyway now he's made it but is living in the orphanage so he can go to the school that accepted him. His parents are still without a home, probably living with family two hours away.

Why am I telling you about Agung? It's because today I want to talk about some of the things that can prevent somebody from learning a new language. We can call them "Affective Issues" and for a fairly well written and more detailed article you can visit: http://www.njcu.edu/cill/vol7/andres.html.

Affective Issues:

Okay so what are Affective Issues? Affective issue are issues that relate to the Affective Filter Hypothesis first put together by Stephen Krashen.

They consist of a number of elements the main ones however are in the article I linked to above and are what I'm going to discuss in relation to Agung. 1. Self-Esteem 2. Inhibition 3. Motivation and 4. Anxiety.

Now you may be surprised to hear that Agung and his friends at the orphanage so very little of these factors. They are actually probably the best students I've ever had in that regard. The moment I come in they are attentive and ready to learn, it is almost too hard to finish the class because they are just egging for more. Why? Why would it be that a bunch of children that have all been through some psychological trauma of some kind would be the easiest to teach? I'll tell you what I think - it's their appreciation for life and their love for learning. They don't take learning for granted anymore, they realize what it would be like without this blessing they have to now be able to study a language and for that they have the greatest filter beat - Motivation.

Motivation:

Motivation is the be all to end all in language learning (any learning for that matter) Sure Self-Esteem, Anxiety and Inhibition are strong factors but against a strong will to succeed and an appreciation for learning they don't have a leg to stand on.

Going back to how the brain works we can find that way back in 1885 we could already see evidence of this strong motivation factor. In 1885 Hermann Ebbinghaus did an experiment on memory retention and one of the things he found was that "...meaningful things are remembered for about ten times longer than random meaningless things" hmm "random meaningless things"? Sounds a bit like a foreign language doesn't it? Random meaningless sounds or random meaningless words are often how a second language learner sees the target language. Which I think is the greatest effect on motivation. If it is gobbledegook then why would we be motivated or have the self-esteem to think we can turn it into something meaningful that could be remembered?

Our part as teachers:

This is where the teacher comes in. If we can structure learning in such a way that it is immediately meaningful and makes sense as usable language then the students will react by committing it to memory. After they commit it to memory they will be motivated to come to the next class with less anxiety, more confidence and there learning inhibitors would have been removed by the great success of learning another language. What our students need is success in the classroom. If we can give them success even if it's with producing a list of commands independently and expressing themselves this way through their new command of the foreign language. This is more than enough to stamp out any affective filters right there and then. Giving a good start to language learning and getting them through the beginner level as quick as possible is the greatest gift we can give to a Foreign/Second Language Learner. As the beginner level for most language learners is the biggest hurdle, it is the time where they will either recognize gobbledegook as real language or they will run away from the whole process and shut out the [perceived] madness.

Child Vs Teen learners:

With young children it's easy. They have had little or no negative experience with another language so it is easy to convince them that anything is possible, including learning one or many foreign languages. With older students however ones that having been trying to force down the language to no avail at a tedious pace for many years, this is where our real challenge lies.

We can not expect older learners (SMP and SMA) to all have the same motivation as Agung and his friends especially if they see their parents doing well enough in life without the target language, why would they want to torture themselves any further with this mad gobbledegook language? That is why to deliver our claim of 100% success in teaching a foreign language. We need to find out which students have a strong affective filter (built up through years of failure in being able to speak) and fix the boat while it still floats. Show them that language learning is not what they think it to be, get back to the basics of the language and give them the success they deserve!

I hope that next week I will have time to do a write up on two techniques that have almost been forgotten and will be able to to instill the confidence needed for our students to propel themselves through the language learning process. We will look at a Brain-Based approach to language learning, based on the last 25years of studies in cognitive science. If you want to get an idea of the kind of language learning techniques we'll be talking about you can check out this video: Born to Learn: Class Reunion. Click on any of the other born to learn series after you're done to get more of an insight into the learning revolution. Also please discuss the videos or any information on this blog either through the comments section or at our facebook group "Change Lives Together!".

Until next time, peace out and let's Change some Lives!

Warm regards,

-Hugh