Debate - Luz and Ana - Final Session

For our final session, it was wonderful to have the whole class together - but it was a little shocking to learn that this would be the size of class we might expect to have in a secondary classroom!

Qualities of a Good teacher

Our first debate topic was on the qualities of a good teacher.  First we talked about our own experience of great teachers.  I’ve been fortunate to have quite a few excellent teachers who have inspired me in different ways. The best of all was Mr. Jones, my English Literature teacher when I did my GCSEs and A-Levels (3º and 4º ESO and Bachillerato).  He was a natural teacher; he delighted in anything to do with English Literature and showed us the validity of literature in all aspects of life.  He brought Chaucer to life by reading it to us in Original Pronunciation, he showed us that everything you need to know about life is there in Shakespeare and how even everyday farm tools can be beautiful through Seamus Heaney.  He also cared for the students and was Senior Teacher responsible for children with disabilities and learning difficulties, long before attention to diversity was a thing.  In our A-Levels he treated us like adults and I remember distinctly in my penultimate year, there was a position at the school for Deputy Director and we asked him if he was going to apply. He looked at us and said “I became a teacher to teach - not to be an administrator, I love what I do and wouldn’t change it for the world”  

For me, he encapsulated all the qualities needed for a good teacher - passionate (about his subject and teaching), kind, respectful, engaging and a communicator par excellence. He took a genuine interest in our welfare and treated us as equals in our A-Level year. I was thinking about him and his discipline style recently. As he treated us with such respect, he had very few problems with behaviour in class, even when there were difficult students present.  Too often, teachers resort to overly authoritarian methods or worse, belittle students to get them to behave; this in turn can foment bad behaviour and even bullying among the students.  An article in TES this month suggests that overly aggressive teaching and discipline gives “tacit consent that aggression is the way to get what you want in school.”   As we head off to our placement in schools, we would do well to bear this in mind even when we are confronted with extremely difficult cases.  

Use of Mother Tongue

I suppose on this issue I have quite a unique experience given that, when I came to Spain, I hardly spoke any Spanish (enough to ask for a coffee but certainly not to explain the Present Perfect!)  So, for the first year or so I had no choice but to use English only in the class. One problem I came up against was grading my language, out of nervousness or simply without realising, I’d drop back into my Ulster accent or use expressions wholly unknown and confusing to my students (‘wee’ meaning small or little - as in a wee exam, my wee brother - caused particular confusion!).  With time, I got better at grading my language and I think it’s a important skill for any teacher to have, regardless of being native or not.  For a group of PMAR students, for example, simple, straightforward language gives them a confidence boost and a feeling that they understand the language rather than having the feeling that the teacher has to drop back in to the mother tongue.  

As I learnt more Spanish, I found that I used it more and more in the classroom - hardly ever with teenagers or high levels, but more with very young learners and very low-level adults.  I’ve come to realise however, partly because of the debate session, that I was misguided in that respect.  With the young learners, using Spanish meant I got them to sit down and be quiet, but I missed a valuable opportunity to get them to do just that AND expose them to more English.  With low-level adult learners, they got too comfortable with me explaining the grammar or vocabulary in Spanish so that when I tried to tell them NOT to translate so much they found it very difficult to do so - which was partly my fault!  Sometimes, I’ve had to explain quickly an activity in Spanish if a class hasn’t understood it, but I’ve come to realise that if it’s too difficult for them to understand the instructions in English, it’s likely the activity will be too difficult too.  

There are still some incidences when I might use Spanish in the classroom. As Luz pointed out, contrasting idioms can be a useful activity.  Idioms are my favourite thing to teach, and I love seeing the similarities and differences between idioms in different languages.  One swallow doesn’t make a spring in English, but it doesn’t make a summer in French.  You pull a leg in English but pull hair in Spanish etc.  Pointing out others contrasts in the L1 and L2 can be useful too, for things like false friends, singular/plural nouns, countable/uncountable nouns, double negatives, use of passives etc. not grammar translations per se, but more the idea of noticing the differences.  I also sometimes think that certain pieces of vocabulary are easier to translate on the spot if it saves a lengthy explanation or requires lots of examples, such as ‘in spite of’ or ‘although’ - but it depends on the aim of the lesson - if the aim of the lesson is teaching those sorts of linkers, then an explanation is more appropriate, but if it comes up at a certain moment, not related to the topic at hand, it might be useful to translate and move on. Sometimes, while preparing a speaking activity, if we don't have access to dictionaries, I would also let them ask for a word or two to help them prepare.  

Looking to the future, I want to go back to the mindset that I had when I first started - of not using Spanish in class unless absolutely necessary.  Having seen the size of the classes we are up against, any opportunity for exposure to the language should be taken for the benefit of the students.   

Technology

Technology is a boon and a bane for teachers.  On the one hand, it opens up all sorts of possibilities, especially in language learning and means that the content is limitless. Students can have access to material outside the classroom, and methodologies such as the flipped classroom and others can be implemented. Young people nowadays are born with a gadget in their hand, and we can use this as a way of getting them engaged.  We as teachers, however, must be conscious that this is a double-edged sword. We must tread the line between engaging them with technology while being mindful of making sure our own ways of engagement don’t perpetuate addiction. For my generation, the day when the TV was wheeled in the classroom for a video was like Christmas come early!  ‘Digital Natives’, however, need to be shown that there is a world beyond the screens as well.  The best fun I’ve had with some classes has been while doing decidedly ‘analogue’ activities such as back-to-the-board or Alibi.  One group of 2º ESO age students would have played Alibi every day if I’d let them, and my older teenagers in FCE were crying with laughter while playing it. Young people today are so saturated with technology that sometimes the most innovative things for them are the ‘ungoogleable questions’ - puzzles, lateral thinking riddles, memory games etc.    

It is clear that technology is transforming education, but as the article by Richard Stanner suggests, quite how it is transforming depends on how we use it - if we still present in the same way on the IWB, get the students to do the same gap-fill and multiple choice activities on their computers or tablets, we are not really transforming education at all.  If we still go through the same motions but in a different format, it is not innovative in the slightest.  

Technology in assessment can be truly transformative, but as Stanner points out, if the teacher is doing a screen capture of comments on a writing paper, the source of the feedback is still the teacher, so nothing has really changed. We should be encouraging more self-reflection and correction, collaborative learning and peer review. We as teachers need to prepare our students for the world.  This is complicated however by the fact that we aren’t really sure what this world is going to be like!  What is clear is that while we don’t need to show them how to use the gadgets, the onus is on us to show them how to use them effectively and educate them about Internet security, plagiarism, netiquette etc.  For this reason, digital competencies are so important in the curriculum.  

The SAMR model succinctly explains to what extent technology can transform education.

Substitution or plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose - here there is really no qualitative change in how the activities are being done, it’s simply a case of printing out or using the computer in place of the traditional methods.  Sadly, this is too often the case.  

Augmentation - here we could include lots of timesaving tools and the greatest benefit is probably less printing!  It would include things like online quizzes or questionnaires, which mean immediate formative assessment feedback and cut down valuable time and effort on the part of the teacher and student.  

Modification - here is where a computer becomes indispensable, it involves the types of activities that could simply not be done without a computer, but it’s probably still a ‘classic’ classroom activity, e.g. a writing becomes a podcast or using Google Docs to comment on each others writing.  Promoting collaborations and moving away from teacher centred methods is key here.  

Redefinition - here we are moving into realms previously unknown and students start to take control of their own work.  A prime example here is the audio interview that Luz played to us of students who had gone to interview tourists in Vigo or instead of writing a recipe, students could make a video on how to make the recipe themselves.  

Homework

Our final debate topic was homework, I think we all agreed here that some form of homework is important as part of the learning process - however, it’s important not to go overboard.  Collaboration between teachers is important.  As Emma pointed out - in the UK most schools have (or had) a homework timetable where teachers know which day they can set homework on - it worked well and meant that no student was snowed under by too much work at a time. From what I’ve seen of the methodologies so far, I’m most keen to try out the ‘flipped classroom’ - I think that homework should be time devoted to the purely mechanical aspects of language learning or to long reading texts and writings - meaning that class time can be devoted almost entirely to speaking and dealing with any doubts the students might have. Contrary to the video that we saw on ‘el experimento sobre horarios laborales’, instead of children being exhausted and overwhelmed by homework the should come to class fresh and ready to learn, or even engaged by their homework if at all possible.

As this is the last blog, it’s time to sign off.  I’ll take this opportunity to thank Luz and Ana for their time and dedication in doing the classes with us and in sharing their experience and insight with us.  It’s been an unforgettable experience and we all have our ‘mochilas bien cargadas’ and ready to face the next phase!  Thank you again.