TESOL 2014 – Mousetraps for Language Teaching

Being a so called TESOLer is having an opportunity to be part of a dynamic community of professionals.  Therefore, it is always a rewarding experience to attend (and present at!) a TESOL Conference, and this year couldn’t have been different. I knew in advance that I would have a chance to attend presentations with Diane Larsen-Freeman, Douglas Brown and Penny Ur, among others. In fact, there were so many different presentations with interesting titles and renowned presenters that it was hard to choose what to attend.

However, having read, studied and used as reference Dr Douglas Brown’s books for so many years, it would be inevitable not to share his presentation here. His My “top ten” list of mousetraps presentation revolves around the “mousetraps” which work very well in our profession.

He started his presentation by asking the audience to think about the mousetraps – “principles, methods and the kind of foundation stones” - we have been engaged in during our professional lives. Dr Brown made us stop to think about the kind of methodology we rely on in our teaching when we plan our classes. After a brief review of his “Ten Commandments” (from 1990), the presenter stated that, at the time, he simply pictured everything relatively unified in some kind of Strategic Investment Mousetrap, meaning that we teachers would get our students to invest in the language we were teaching. 

Then he wondered whether or not we were right to do so at the time, however, what really mattered was that we were on the right track. From then on, Dr. Brown stated that many things have changed, for there have been lots of research for the past twenty-four years, and that there are now better mousetraps, showing the audience how our profession has progressed in many positive ways. However, before starting to talk about those “top ten” mousetraps, he made a point of telling us that things have evolved, becoming simpler, but not that the twelve principles from his well-known book Teaching by Principles (1993, 2000, 2007) don’t work anymore, for they are still great principles; it’s just that researchers have improved on them. 

That being said, the presenter made it clear that those changes encompass all the connections that researchers in the field have been making with learners, for they revolve around what makes students successful and what makes them interested in learning, not forgetting about all the global implications of teaching English worldwide.  Based on that, he compared the traditional mousetraps to the better mousetraps for language learning.  

Traditional Mousetraps	Better Mousetraps
# 10 Behavioral vs. Cognitive          Competence vs. Performance          Innate (acquired) vs. Learners	Dynamic Systems Theory Emergentism (This term is used to say that language learning is like any other learning, for it emerges from the human being like other skills emerge.)
# 9 Transfer       Interference       Overgeneralization	Embodied Cognition (According to Brown, cognition is part of a whole picture: body, mind and world connections. He states that it’s like “opening up and capturing the concept of transfer, interference and overgeneralization in a much more holistic and refreshing way for teachers”.)
# 8 Focal vs. Peripheral Attention       Controlled vs. Automatic Processing	Form-focused Instruction (FFI): Noticing (The idea here is to get sts to work with the pieces of language they learn and put them together with a whole form with all the communicative efforts. Students need to notice the language in order to be successful at using it.)
# 7 Strategy-based Instruction (SBI)        Awareness -> Action        Autonomy	Self-regulation, Scaffolding Mediation, ZPD (This mousetrap is about having teachers mediate the learning process that learners are going through in the classroom and how they can work within sts’ zone of development to keep them progressing along with awareness and action.)
# 6 Intrinsic Motivation       Meaningful (vs. Rote) Learning       Autonomy	Investment Imagined Community (This principle is important to remind teachers that the perception learners have is more important than the reality they face. As teachers, we need to help learners square their imagination to their own reality; to the community they will be using the language with.)
# 5 Personality & Cognitive Styles       Anxiety, Risk-taking, Empathy       Self-esteem	Communities of Practice Self-efficacy (According to this principle, nowadays, teachers shouldn’t look at learners as individuals who are striving to overcome their anxiety and self-esteem, but as communities of learners. We should see our classrooms as communities of practice and the future of the language in those communities of practice.)
# 4 Community Competence       Willingness to Communicate (WTC)	Interaction,  Collaboration Communities of Practice (Once again, Dr Brown states that researchers’ theories and methodologies are showing that learners shouldn’t be seen as individuals working alone in the world, but people relating to other people, within communities. It’s all about the social nature of language.)
# 3  Intercultural Competence        Cross-cultural Analysis        Social Distance, Optimal Distance	Languageculture (With the global use of English, in this mousetrap, the presenter says that the concept of crossing-cultures is changing and that the term Languaculture is being used, for it captures the notion that language and culture are intertwined.)
# 2 Language Ego        Inhibition	Identity (This is an extremely important principle, for the whole notion of identity is related to the way people talk, and that is something we can’t change. There are few things you can do to improve the way people talk, because the way they talk is the way they are.)
# 1 Empowerment       Self-actualization	Agency (This is the concept which Dr Brown believes wraps it all up, for it reminds us that, in his own words, “our mission with our students is to help them to be agents, using the language, internalizing the language, making choices of their own, and not think of themselves as second class citizens”.)

Before his closing remarks, Dr Brown mentioned he hopes that, in a couple of years, there will be no distinction between non-native English speakers and native English speakers, for this distinction is something from the past. He also added that non-native English speaker teachers who have learned English as their second (or third) language are the most wonderful teachers that one can have, for we are agents; we have identified ourselves in the English language.

The presenter ended his presentation with a quote from Gandhi which says that we “must be the change we want to see”. Douglas Brown thinks that we are becoming even more humane in the process of being English teachers. He is also encouraged by what has been happening in the last four decades and the directions that our profession is turning to and the methodology that has been embracing the different identities of our learners. For all of us there, he left the challenge of taking those principles and making them work in our classrooms.

As for me, I left his presentation not only feeling blessed for having the opportunity to attend it, but also with the feeling that one of my favorite authors, who has inspired me as a professional for more than twenty years, has shown that I have also been on the right track by researching and trying to adapt the mousetraps to my own teaching.


*H. Douglas Brown & Heekyeong Lee are launching the fourth edition of Teaching by Principles, in early 2015.  

TESOL 2014 and Being a Leader

This was the first time I attended a TESOL and I was amazed at how big and how well-organized it is. It was great to see so many teachers from all over the world learning, sharing, motivating and being motivated. There was a huge variety of topics for the presentations, with options for everybody’s interests. I chose to attend those related to Teacher Development and Leadership not only because of my present position at Thomas, but also because I believe we teachers are always searching for professional development opportunities and we are all leaders.

There was one particular presentation I enjoyed a lot and would like to share with you: “Leadership Skills and Styles Affecting Leaders” by Dr. Sufian Abu-Rmaileh, from the United Arab Emirates University.

He started by defining Leadership:

“The act of identifying important goals and then motivating and enabling others to devote themselves and all necessary resources to its achievement. It includes summoning one’s self and others to learn and adapt to the new situation represented by the goal” (NYSBR 2003, p. 3)

“Much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do” (De Pree 1989, p.148)

So, who is a leader?

Astin and Astin (2000) define a leader as anyone who has a formal position and who holds the role of bringing about change in the society in which they live and work.

De Pree (1990) says that one of the major tasks of a leader is to expand and unleash the talents and skills of the different people in the organization.

These definitions made me think of how much we teachers match them. Every semester we face different challenges to which we have to adapt and learn how to deal with. We are in charge of groups of students who need our constant guidance, model, assistance and motivation. More than teaching English, we teach them how to respect and help their peers, how to accept different opinions, how to overcome their difficulties. 

Good leaders help their team achieve their goal, which should be in accordance with the institution’s/organization’s. I particularly like De Pree’s  saying about the role of a leader. A good teacher/leader should be able to expand and unleash the talents and skills of the different people s/he leads.

There are different leadership styles and we can adopt different styles according to our and others’ necessities and in different moments of our life. Dr. Abu-Rmaileh talked about the six leadership styles listed below.

1.       Directive Leader:

Allows little or no negotiations

Keeps tight control without delegating

Is not flexible or open to new ideas

2.       Visionary Leader:

Has clear standards and feedback

Explains the logic behind procedures

Inspires people to a higher purpose for their work

3.       Affliliative Leader:

Creates harmony and affective/emotional bonding

Avoids confrontation with others

Provides little explanation on direction or rationale behind tasks

4.       Democratic/Participative Leader:

Collaboration and team concurrence

High on trust, respect and commitment

Motivates his/her team by empowering them to direct themselves

5.       Pacesetting Leader:

Sets high standards for performance

Obsesses about doing things better, faster, quicker

The pursuit of excellence is overwhelming

6.       Coaching Leader:

Helps team members to discover their own strengths and weaknesses

Guides people to find and create their own career development

Links goals, personal and career, with those of the organization

Leadership Matrix

	How it Builds Resonance	Impact On Climate	When Appropriate	Competency requirements
Visionary	Moves people towards shared dreams	Most strongly positive	When changes require a new vision, or, when clear direction is needed	Self-Awareness, Self-Confidence, Empathy, Transparency, Visionary Leadership, Change Catalyst
Coaching	Connects what a person wants with organisational goals	Highly positive	To help an employee improve performance by building long term capabilities	Self-Awareness, Empathy, Developing Others
Affiliative	Creates harmony by connecting people to each other	Positive	To heal rifts in a team, motivate during stressful times, or strengthen connections	Empathy, Teamwork & Collaboration, Conflict management, Building Bonds
Democratic	Values peoples input and get commitment through participation	Positive	To build buy in or consensus, or to get valuable input from employees	Empathy, Teamwork & Collaboration, Influence
Pacesetting	Meets challenging and exciting goals	Is often Highly Negative  - because it is generally poorly executed	To get high quality results from a motivated and competent team	Self-Awareness, Empathy, Self Control, Achievement Drive, Transparency, Initiative, Adaptability, Teamwork & Collaboration
Commanding	Soothes fears by giving clear direction in an emergency	Can be Highly Negative – because so often misused	In a crisis, to kick start a turnaround, or with a problem employee	Self-Awareness, Self-Control, Empathy, Achievement drive, Initiative

http://www. maetrix.com.au/leadership_styles.asp

I’m sure you have recognized yourself at different moments of your professional life in many of the characteristics listed above. These characteristics are just a few among many others for each style. We can select some and put them together to come up with our idea of an effective leader. Dr. Abu-Rmaileh presented effective leaders as being:

-          Visionary

• -          Trustworthy, fair and honest
• -          Role Models and Mentors – “Effective leaders demonstrate courage in difficult situations, and provide a model of moral leadership for other to emulate” (NYSBR, 2003, p. 2)
• -          Visible
• -          Dedicated – Effective leaders are dedicated to the institution which they serve. They have commitment and loyalty to the constituents and to the institution.
• -          Good Communicators

The implications of good leadership are many. Good leadership in the classroom leads to a calm end of semester, not necessarily an easy one, but surely one in which we have a sense of accomplishment. Some of the implications Dr. Abu-Rmaileh talked about and I believe are appropriate for a classroom environment were:

• -          Achievement drive: high level of effort, high levels of ambition, energy and initiative
• -          Honesty and integrity: a trustworthy environment
• -          Self-confidence: belief in one’s self, ideas and ability
• -          Emotional maturity: well-adjusted groups

The presentation made me reflect on the kind of leader I am and the kind of leader I want to be, my personal characteristics that influence on my leadership style, and the aspects I need to work on in order to be a better leader. I hope it helps you see yourselves as leaders too and realize the importance of being a good leader.

TESOL 2014 - Professional Development for Novice Teachers

As a teacher trainer and a researcher in teacher development, when attending the TESOL Conference in Portland last week, I gave preference to the sessions related to this field. Some of them focused on the trainer’s role and how initiatives towards teachers should be conducted. Others focused on the teachers’ role in engaging in professional development. All of them were truly interesting and added new insights to my knowledge on the topic.  However, one specific talk called my attention, for , besides being related to novice teachers, the ones I’m closer to at our institution, it addressed the teachers’  and the trainers’ perspectives.

The talk conducted by Dr. Liz England, from Shenandoah University in Virginia, revolved around an experience she had gone through when organizing and delivering a sixteen-hour orientation program for novice professionals as English Teaching Assistants – ETAs -  at the start of their programs. The group of novice teachers had just gotten their BAs in different fields and most did not have any background in TESOL.  This group of seventy-five professionals accepted the challenge of going to Malaysia to work with groups of kids and teens in primary and secondary schools. 

The first aspect pointed out by Dr. England was related to the beliefs the group of professionals had in the beginning of the training program and, afterwards, how they changed their points of view in such a short period of time. First of all, the group was made up of Americans; therefore, they believed that because of being native speakers, they would face fewer challenges than non-native EFL teachers. Second, they thought that lesson planning wouldn’t be important since they had many activities and nice ideas in mind. And third, they bet they wouldn’t have problems concerning classroom management, for they were nice, young, and cool teachers.

As Dr. England went on describing the instant training program she had been required to deliver and all the challenges she had faced, I started thinking about how I myself sometimes feel when I wish I had a magic formula to give novice teachers to make them feel ready and confident to teach any groups.

For us, teachers and teacher trainers, it’s meaningless to point out all the reasons why a sixteen-hour course will never be enough to prepare a teacher to face the numerous different situations a classroom presents, but, as Dr. England mentioned, if we trainers have little time to help inexperienced teachers, we must make the most it.

After the sixteen-hour orientation program, a survey was conducted to verify how helpful the training was and in what ways it could be improved.  Having already faced the first difficulties in teaching, most of the ETAs pointed out that what they could benefit the most from in the training was related to lesson planning and classroom management, for these were the most challenging aspects of their new experience.

By getting this feedback, I could confirm the idea that despite where novice teachers come from and the particularities of the English language programs they are involved in, the target issues in teacher training are pretty much the same. Thus, I felt really pleased to acknowledge that the training and development opportunities the Casa Thomas Jefferson has offered to novice teachers are in sync with the most updated research conducted in the field of language teaching and training. Also, I reviewed my own passion for the field I’ve chosen to dedicate myself to, and own proud of being part of such a wonderful team of teachers and teacher developers.

TESOL 2014 Educational Snapshots

I could be here focusing on the interesting ideas that I learned from presenters in the TESOL Conference 2014, but by having the snapshots, quick notes I took during some sessions, you  might come across interesting references, links and people that will inspire you. 

Some topics that caught my attention:

Many Intersections Sessions that I attended focused on Mobile Learning. It is noticeable that though we all work in different contexts, the challenges are very similar, lack of infrastructure, difficulties with bandwidth in an ipad rollout program. Teacher training is also in the agenda of every Institution who wants to have a successful program. In my notes, I added some apps and resources that were mentioned. One thing that I missed was more presentations on learning outcomes with a more intensive use of mobile devices. Any qualitative and quantitative differences in the results of students who have been using smartphones/tablets and the ones who are not?

Marsha Chan, in her presentation on how to help students improve their oral communication skills, suggested using Youtube Playlists to help students find relevant content for further practice. At the end of my notes, you can find Marsha´s notes with all the links she mentioned. 

Nick Robinson´s advice and thoughts on the future of ELT publishing really got me hooked. Many interesting points about possibilities for self-publishing and concrete examples already in the market. I had the pleasure to meet Andy Boon (thanks to Nicky Hockly!), one of the authors in a self-publishing/independent project. We were immediately hooked to the story and downloaded the multi-pathways stories available in Kindle. You can learn more about those great interactive stories at http://atama-ii.com . Learn more about Nick Robinson´s ideas at http://www.eltjam.com/  and https://twitter.com/nmkrobinson 

Another excellent presentation that got me with an irresistible thirst for more was one on gamification by Josh Wilson, who focused on the game-like mentality for educators to prepare better, more engaging lessons. Josh´s presentation was much more focused on the strategies and mechanics that we can learn from a game designer mindset to make our students learn in a more enjoyable way, not in the aspects that many consider as the core of a gamified lesson, points and badges. Not at all. Josh consistently mentioned that these are just part of the sum. Here are some key concepts:

Design the experience

Quantify everything (score; progress)

give choices

External pressure

Constant feedback 

Design the context

Imagine your learners as players

In fact, this is an area that I´ve been consistently studying, and two resources that you might want to check, a Google Talk, Smart Gamification: Designing the Player Journey with expert Amy Jo Kim

Also, the book "The Gamification of Learning and Instruction" by Karl Kapp

Another presentation that was very useful, highly intense in terms of ed tech resources we can use in our classrooms was Lea Sobocan´s digital tools session. I´ve just checked her scoop it, which is a true gem: http://www.scoop.it/t/tech-gems-for-teachers 

I could go on and on with my highlights of TESOL 2014, but I´m sure you´ll find your own treasures by exploring my Evernote notes with some great presentations I had the chance to attend. I´d love to know what you found.

Crossposted at http://carlaarena.com/tesol-2014-snapshots

TESOL 2014 - Pronunciation with Obama

I have attended several Tesol Conferences along the years and, since one of my great interests is Phonetics and Phonology, I tend to participate in several presentations on the topic.  To tell you the truth, I have not been happy with what I have previously seen. Presenters have repeatedly used the same activities and strategies to help students overcome their difficulties – minimal pairs, rubber bands, tongue twisters, traditional songs, nursery rhymes, among others.

When I came across the title: Obama as pronunciation Teacher: Using Political Speeches for Suprasegmentals, I was really curious about how the presenter would use Obama’s speeches to teach pronunciation.

The presenter’s objective was to make clear how essential pauses, stress and intonation in sentences are to accurate pronunciation. Her point was to provide students with effective models to help them successfully use suprasegmentals when they use the English language. The presenter, Mary Rommey from the University of Connecticut, used Obama’s political speeches as examples.

She offered a six-month course at the University of Connecticut for candidates as Teaching Assistants for whom English was not  their native language. She conducted a pre test and a post test with these candidates. She videotaped them when they were talking about familiar topics related to their daily life before and after the course. The results were fascinating ! Students improved a lot regarding pause, rhythm, stress and intonation.

She started by asking students to mark the pauses on transcripts of Obama’s speeches. Then, they watched videos and checked their markings. She explained that he was a convincing speaker because of the pauses he makes. Then she worked with stress and later with intonation. When students received the transcript, they read the speech first, solved vocabulary doubts, and asked about content. She made sure the text was grammatically transparent and that the meaning was clear to all students. 

The presenter’s objective was to show that suprasegmental aspects influence communication and that the speaker has to be intelligible to communicate effectively.

Lúcia Santos

TESOL 2014 - How Wide is the World of Pronunciation?

With every year that passes, TESOL is acquiring a more egalitarian personality and is more dedicated to the recognition of the various purposes for English teaching, the broad spectrum of ownerships of the somewhat organically mutating language that we know as English, the ways in which this language unites many different collectives around the world. That’s a long sentence; in a way, it tries to convey the scope of the conference we attended and the direction it took. 

Among some of the teaching concerns being approached along refreshing new lines is pronunciation. With the acceptance of the nature of English as a multi-communicative connector, the influence of pronunciation is also shifting slightly in intent and interpretation. In previous conferences, I have attended several sessions dedicated to a focus on pronunciation as having a form of purifying influence on the production of English, creating exercises and games to attend to the oral exactness of the “th”, the shaping of vowel sounds, the oddly difficult combination of “orld” in “world”, etc. Attention to pronunciation more recently is not related to what, in the past, were common references like “standard American English”, “standard collegiate English”, etc. After all, what is “standard” in South Carolina is not necessarily standard in Oregon or Nevada, and the “college” in question might be in Sidney, Glasgow, London, New york, or somewhere in South Africa or India. 

Twenty speakers in different locations around the world might give surprisingly different renditions of the following sentence: “I hurt myself working on the hood of the car in the late half of the day.” What is definitely a priority concern is the intelligibility of the message, the immediacy of its power to communicate; this concept broadens the scope of how to regard pronunciation and its effective connection  – for better or for worse – to the result of an attempt at general communication.

One of the sessions I attended took me momentarily back to a bus tour that I took some years ago in Scotland.  I was sitting right behind the bus driver and happy to be receiver of many side comments he made during the trip; one of these remarks was offered to describe what a large number of laborers were doing on the road at almost dusk…the driver said they were walking/working on the road, and in my interpretation of the driver’s tone, neither activity was appropriate for that time of day. The problem was one involving accent; I couldn’t for the life of me determine (even upon further inquiry) whether those people were “walking” or “working”, because of the pronunciation of the vowel in the main verb….and no amount of repetition on the driver’s part shed any definitive light on the subject. I finally decided that those men just shouldn’t be on the road doing anything and would be better off at some nearby pub. End of subject. 

Fortunately, the subject of pronunciation has not ended, and this conference was an example of the variety of views that are developing with regard to the influence of pronunciation on communication and to how general is the acceptance that the “native English speaker” is not “the” norm, but - instead – just one of them.            

Katy Cox

TESOL 2014 Highlights

Participating in International conferences is an amazing opportunity to network and see what is going on in the world concerning education. This was my first time as a presenter but my second time as a TESOLER. And I can say this was a great chance of seeing how Casa Teachers are avant garde in so many areas! People stop us when they see we belong to the Casa and anxiously ask us when our presentation is going to be once they are used to attending them and always learning something new, creative and interesting! It's a pleasure to work in such a well recognized bi-national center!
Also, I am the incoming EFL -IS chair elect (2014/2015) of TESOL and this was a totally different experience and I have to confess I was kind of frightened. I didn't know what I was going to do... But I must say that keeping in touch with the EFL community from all over the world is rewarding and enriching.
All in all, sharing is of great relevance and I am sure I myself benefited a lot not only as a professional but also as a person; and my students will consequently profit from my experiences.

          by  Carol Barreto