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- Andrew Lian
- Western Illinois University
- USA
- AP-Lian@wiu.edu – http://andrewlian.com
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- The President of a university wanted language classes taught as follows:
- A “Master Teacher” would teach the “content” of an language lesson to
150 students “in one class”
- The students could then practice using that “content” with graduate
assistants and tutors
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- Some/many university administrators world-wide believe/hope that
language-learning is based on
- arbitrarily-presented “information” and “information-passing” and that
this information can be taken and
- practiced somehow – you give knowledge and then practice knowledge
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- that language-learning for genuine communication
- has no simple, set and known “content” to be transmitted in a
pre-determined sequence or
- that functioning in a language is an intensely personal complex task of
meaning-construction and text-production resulting from interaction
involving learners’ personal histories in contact with contextual
settings or
- that functioning in a language makes us encounter an array of often
unpredicted and unpredictable constraints
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- L2 learning is strongly context-dependent even at the beginning stages
- AND
- Although it may appear otherwise, the same also applies to science and
other apparently information-based areas
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- teaching science is constructed on a highly elaborated logical
sequence/order which
- so far at least, does not appear to exist (or has not yet been
identified) in L2 learning
- L2 sequencing (in all of its complexity) still appears somewhat
arbitrary AND
- does not take account of the crucial non-linguistic features of
communicative behavior
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- Where do we go next with our story?
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- Let’s set aside the misunderstandings of administrators an others and
let our imaginations take us for a little ride
- In the face of powerful (i.e. from people who have power)
misunderstandings, let’s look at this issue as an opportunity rather
than as a cause of unhappiness or indignation
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- set aside conventional wisdom
- and the accompanying dominant theoretical models
- and imagine a world with no administrative constraints
- where change is welcomed and
- experimentation encouraged
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- We can make things better for everyone!
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- Move the field of language-learning forward
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- A class does not mean very much.
- It is not an educational unit – there are too many variables to it apart
from size e.g.
- Content, activity, outcomes etc. there is no homogeneity across
disciplines
- It is not a financial unit –
costs and expenses can come from many places, sizes vary and costs per
student
- At best, a class is only a way of talking about resources
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- We are asking the wrong question
- Maybe, instead of thinking in terms of how big a class we should be
teaching
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- Which may be something like:
- How do we take a “bucket of money” of fixed size and
- Use it to best effect to achieve better or more efficient performance
outcomes
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- But… – research does not HAVE to be fundamental research (although it
could be). There is nothing wrong with “action research”
- and
- As thoughtful teachers each of us can be a researcher
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- An Asian university I know decided to take up the challenge of “150
students per class” and has done the following
- Increased its class size from its standard 50 students (!@##$$!!) to 100 students
- Limited the field of study to reading comprehension
- These decisions are both very sensible
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- The number of persons interacting with the teacher in reading
comprehension activities was about 5 to 7 students
- This amounts to 5% - 7% - a very low participation rate
- This absolute number was about the same as in a standard class of 50
(i.e. 10% - 14% participation), no real change
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- that the participation rate in BOTH classes was actually quite low and
- needs to be improved
- even though people do learn by observing and listening
- however, in a very active class, there will be “dead” times for students
– concentration levels can vary enormously
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- to have an infrastructure (IT-based is one possibility) where reading
exercises could be provided with immediate feedback or assistance
- for EACH person or for
- for small groups of persons?
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- this structure is developed then it can be used in at least three
contexts:
- Private study contexts (with online human help)
- Supervised classroom contexts (you can have a class of 150 students all
in the same room) (teacher is there to help)
- Supervised but distributed classroom contexts (with online human help)
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- You have saved at least one face-to-face class thus
- Reducing costs but, more importantly
- Also increasing the effectiveness of the learning experience
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- Reading, together with listening, is an intensely personal
meaning-construction activity
- If individuals are to modify their internal comprehension systems then
they need work and they need feedback
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- That if you are doing a CALL program, you cannot be inactive
- You are either doing it or not doing it
- And this is better than yawning your way through a standard class
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- Is that once a good CALL program has been created it can last for many
years and help many generations of students
- Good teaching does not go up in hot air
- It may even be possible to set up a database of teachers explaining
problems relating to specific texts that students can turn to for help
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- The range of programs available to support language-learning is also
growing
- We have increasingly better programs in listening and reading
- And we have emerging programs in speaking and writing
- All need improvement of course
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- Actually have to be better than face-to-face programs?
- Well… No…
- If there is no significant difference between classroom-based work and
computer-based work, then it is good enough to remove these activities
from the classroom and reserve precious class time for other activities
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- Increase time on task and
- Improve participation rates
- And potentially lead to learning efficiencies and cost efficiencies
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- Do we not need to harness the goodwill of students?
- Many of our students just “don’t want to learn English (especially) or
Chinese or French or…”
- Well yes of course… BUT
- Sometimes that is not possible – life does not always let us do what we
want
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- As we do in much of education, we can create sets of compulsions and
monitoring mechanisms
- But won’t that increase the amount of work we have to do?
- New options are available: we can lighten this significantly (remove
it?) with advanced/automatic software monitoring – e.g Tell Me More or
ExTemplate
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- We do these things together and
- Share infrastructures
- Not just hardware and software but
- Research and development too
- Then there are genuine economies of scale
- These lower the demands on our “bucket of money” by reducing the number
of classes or increasing class size
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- My suggestions do not make great cost cuts in the short term. Now…
- So far, I have chosen to speak principally of the impact of technology,
BUT
- Many of you will have guessed by now that proper implementation will
have an impact on other sectors of our work e.g. it may require
different ways of categorizing and hiring teaching staff
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- We ought to have a two-tiered pay/work structure (Research-teaching +
teaching only)
- With more people with specialised training to teach in a way which is
- Supervised, educated and monitored by the researcher-teachers (maybe TAs
& GAs but they would not be in sole charge of courses)
- Teaching programs created by the researcher-teachers and taught jointly
with them
- We might also have different assessment systems which move students
faster in/out of the system
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- This changes the functions, roles and values of people in the language
teaching industry, not to mention job prospects
- BUT
- It does also enable the potential development of new pedagogic models
for language-learning
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- with its special issues, it is important
- To have a properly Asian and original perspective on
- Language learning theory and
- CALL
- Thus, potentially, shedding a totally new and original light on both of
these at world level
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- These are truly exciting times for language-learning and teaching in
Asia
- They offer wonderful opportunities for world class research
- No one owns learning and no one owns research – Asia too has a right to
it
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- Can we simply treble the number of students we currently teach by
simply trebling class sizes?
- NO!
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- Is it possible to imagine that we will be able to treble the number of
students we currently teach at about the same cost?
- This is uncertain
- 3 x anything is a huge increase
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- If it is going to happen at all, then it needs to be done
- In a thoughtful way
- As part of a long-term planning process which is likely to
- Take time
- Need to be negotiated intellectually rather than imposed
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- Will require methodological change…
- Growth of Quality Assurance mechanisms
- Growth in shared infrastructures, shared resources and intellectual
effort leading to
- Economies of scale
- Salary redistribution through the creation of different categories of
university staff
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- Changes in management processes for university staff with
- Possibly a significant change in the shape of our profession
- Perhaps greater (prestige-driven) competition for certain kinds of jobs
- Significant growth in our research effort to inform all of the above
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- Yes we can!
- Maybe only 5% - 30%
- But that still requires real investment in research, infrastructure and
maintenance
- Even if we cannot save real money, we can improve quality by improving
access, participation, time on task and moving students through the
system faster
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- I renew my call J for an
Asian CALL consortium supported by governments to develop
properly-rewarded, research-based high-level methodological frameworks
for CALL in Asia together with a common IT infrastructure and delivery
framework which will yield some results no matter what (even if the main
project fails) [pict]
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- I urge AsiaCALL and its membership to take the leadership in this
matter
- The time is right
- We need to move forward now
- The future really IS today!
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- Then there will be a chance to move fully toward the achievement of
- Improvements in efficiency, even “classes of 150 students”
- In the meantime there is much that can be done already both to relieve slightly
the financial burden and to kindle the process of intellectual change
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- New demands on the profession require new and intelligent solutions
- You cannot simply take what is there and change it in some simplistic
arbitrary way
- The teaching of “a class of 150 students” can, at best, only happen
through a combination of well thought-out measures to create a win-win
scenario
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- The real question that I have been raising has very little to do with
the financial hopes of beleaguered administrators – although it may
ultimately be helpful to them
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- As it always has been
- Teaching and learning practices together with their administrative
structures are
- the product of the (explicit or implicit) intellectual frameworks
(including management) which conceived them
- No solution is possible without working on those frameworks
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- And I look forward to working with you in this very exciting endeavour
- Thank you!
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