Thinking about teaching efl in the 21st century

Isabela Villas BoasCasa Thomas Jefferson

THINKING ABOUT TEACHING EFL

IN THE 21ST CENTURY

BEFORE WE MOVE ON... A few disclaimers:- This is not a talk that I removed from my “shelf of talks”;-This is not the definitive guide to 21st Century learning and teaching;- I am not an expert who will fill your “empty heads” with my encyclopedic knowledge;- There are many, many ways to discuss this topic; mine is just one way, my way...

English in the 21st Century

Learning in the 21st Century

Teaching in the 21st Century

WHOSE ENGLISH?

(David Crystal, 1997)Crystal, D. (1997). English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

More people use English today than have used any other language in the history of the world.

Kachru’s three circles (1986)

Inner circle

Outer circle

Expanding circle

Kachru, B.B. (1986). The alchemy of English: The spread, functions and models of non-native English. Oxford: Pergamon.

WHAT ENGLISH?

Local x global English (Mc Kay)

McKay, S. (2002). Teaching English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Linguistic and cultural forms expressed through ELF are likely to be hybrid, dynamic and continuously adapting to local needs, global influences, and the demands of communicating across cultures.

Baker, Will. The cultures of English as a lingua franca. TESOL Quarterly, 43 (4), December 2009 , 567-592(26).

– Can non-native varieties by accepted as “standard”?

– How much grammatical variation is possible?– Can non-native but intelligible pronunciation be

accepted as standard?– What about pragmatic and discourse variation?– Is a “common core” possible?– Has the pluricentricity of English been reflected in

ELT materials and international tests?– Shouldn’t native speakers also learn how to use

EIL?

Clyne and Sharifian (2008). English as an Internatinal Language:Challenges and Possibilities. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics.28.1-28.16. DOI: 10.2104/aral/0828.

Of course, in one sense the problem goes away if you re-construe the goals of instruction as being those that are defined by the learner and driven by the learner’s needs, rather than being predetermined by the curriculum designer or the coursebook writer. If you take an ESP approach, for example, and, start off by identifying the kinds of contexts the learner is going to operate in, with whom and for what purposes, using what kinds of texts and registers, at what degree of intelligibility, in combination with what other languages, and employing what kinds of skills and strategies, you don’t have to label the goals as EFL, ESL, ESP, ELF or EIL – or anything! Leave the labelling to the sociolinguists.

Thornbury, Scott (2011). E is for ELF. An A-Z of ELT. Web. April 3, 2011.

Every classroom activity, every material already has the potential to become part of an ELF pedagogy. What teachers need to do is look at those elements critically, asking important questions such as,

“What variation might there be to this form/utterance/interaction/habit?”“How can I better present such variation to my students?”“If we change the context of this particular interaction, what else will need to change?”“Who are the participants in this interaction? What do we know about them? How does this kind of information help us make decisions about what and how to say what we have to say?”“How do I as a teacher and person respond to difference and variation? How do my views of the above impact my teaching?”“What is the context in which my students are likely to use language? Can I emphasize those while also introducing other scenarios/varieties of language/vocabulary items/cultural orientations?”

ELF as a Function

Friedrich, 2011 - http://nnest.blog.com/author/isabela.villasboas/

LEARNING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni75vIE4vdk&feature=relmfu

TEDxNYED - Will Richardson 03/05/2011

Students nowadays do not need to wait for a curriculum to teach them what they want to learn.

Does that mean they don’t need teachers?

NO! They need teachers to teach them the content and skills they will need in the future!

- problem-solving- critical thinking- working collaboratively- thinking creatively

Human society has experienced three profound social, economic, and cultural transformations—the agrarian revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and now the electronic revolution.

Cookson Jr., Peter W. What would Socrates Say? Educational Leadership, 67 (1), pp 8-14.

WHAT WOULD SOCRATESSAY?

We need to be on the right side of history if we are to survive and thrive. If we harness them correctly, we can blend the best of our traditional intellectual linear culture—Socrates' wisdom of the 5th century BCE—with the current digital culture, creating a new learning and intellectual environment consistent with the cognitive and expressive demands of the 21st century.

Peter W. Cookson Jr.

Technology makespeople dumber

Technology solves all the problems

We must overhaul and redesign the current school system. (…) Mass education belongs in the era of massive armies, massive industrial complexes, and massive attempts at social control. (…)If we stop thinking of schools as buildings and start thinking of learning as occurring in many different places, we will free ourselves from the conventional education model that still dominates our thinking.

Technical fixes to our outdated educational system are likely to be inadequate. We need to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

The 21st century mind will need to successfully manage the complexity and diversity of our world by becoming more fluid, more flexible, more focused on reality, and radically more innovative. Four elements of the 21st century mind could be the basis of a new approach to education.

- Critical reflection- Empirical reasoning- Collective intelligence- Metacognition

Five minds for the future:

-Disciplined- Synthesizing- Creative

- Respectful- Ethical

http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/teaching/TC106-607.html

Neuroscience: some findings on how the brain learns

• The two brains work together.• Learning is the formation of new

synapses and new dendrite branches.

• Learning is effortful; we have to strengthen the neural network for retention.

• 83% of sensory communication is seen, not heard

• Learning another language gives you a better brain.

• The brain does not separate emotion from cognition.

Janet Zadina, 2011.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/09/09/five-characteristics-of-an-effective-21st-century-educator/2/?

Anticipates the future• Ensures that the

preparation of today’s children is always focused on preparing them for the world(s) in which they will live and work—not the current world in which the teachers have to navigate and dwell

Five characteristics of an effective 21st Century educator

• Fosters peer relationships:- Students may have 500 Facebook

friends, but do they know how to be a friend?

- Technology can foster isolation; therefore interpersonal relationship skills must be taught in our classrooms so that our students can go on to be effective in the workplace and fulfilled in their lives


• Can teach and assess all levels of learners:

– 21st-century educators must be ‘Situational Leaders.’ They must assess where each and every student they teach is at relative to ‘Learning Ability’ and ‘Commitment to Learning.’ They must work to bring all students up to a level where pedagogical learning is replaced by andragogy or an adult learning style, where students have a say in their own learning.


• Is able to assess effective vs. non-effective technology:

– The effective 21st-century teacher will need to be adept in judging the educative and non-educative use of technologies made available to them and to their students at school and at home. The potential downside of technologies is their potential for non-productive use—wasting time and resources. The upside though, is significant if used properly.”


What Tech Tools Should Be Required Knowledge for Teachers? By Mary Beth Hertz8/3/11

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/technology-skills-required-knowledge-mary-beth-hertz

http://www.edutopia.org/user/200

It’s not about the tools. Tools come and go, but being able to see the forest for the trees is a life-long skill.

There are a few essential things that teachers should know:

• compose and check email and know how to attach files to an email • know that there are more choices than Google for searching the Internet • be able to locate resources on the Internet and be able to evaluate sites for accuracy and relevance • know how to navigate, find, save and open files and applications on a computer of any OS.

BUT IT GOES BEYOND THAT…

if you want to be part of an extended learning network or community, you have to be findable. And you have to participate in some way. The people I learn from on a day-to-day basis are Googleable. They’re findable, they have a presence, they’re participating, they’re transparent. That’s what makes them a part of my learning network. If you’re not out there—if you’re not transparent or findable in that way—I can’t learn with you. (Richardson, 2010)

http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2010/10/12/01richardson.h04.html?intc=bs&sms_ss=delicious&at_xt=4cb70612312f6b0e,0

• Is a lifelong learner:

– Flexible, willing to accept and embrace change, willing to make mistakes;

– Willing to learn from colleagues and students;– Able to pose open-ended questions to students

without having to know one exact answer;


• Is a lifelong learner: (my additions)

– Curious about subject-matter – in our case, English;– Interested in students’world: what they listen to,

watch, wear, talk about, use, etc;– Connected;– Engaged in various types of professional

development opportunities;– Able to reflect on how he/she teaches.


“It’s not the doing that

matters; it’s the thinking about

the doing.”

John Dewey