Language requirement: Seat time or fluency?

Pat Bassett, head of the National Association of Independent Schools, has been writing a series of blog posts about the concepts of 21st century skills.  This month he looked at the concept of communication, which is one of particular interest to world language teachers.  This excerpt seems to be particularly compelling and a much more in line with my own thoughts about language learning than some of the other opinions out there about the benefits of being able to communicate in more than one language.

[...] sadly, spoken fluency is not yet the outcome of foreign language instruction in the American educational system (while fluency in English is the outcome of instruction in all of the 32 countries I’ve visited and spoken in over my years at NAIS), it soon will be in the independent school of the future. How do I know this? Because I learned from the president of Stanford on that panel we served on that Stanford’s new expectation of it students is to demand spoken “fluency” in order to test out of the foreign language requirement: almost no one (who is not already a native speaker of a language other than English) passes it — and enrollments in upper level foreign language courses beyond the proficiency requirement are growing at Stanford.

I join Bassett in his lamenting the lack of spoken fluency as an outcome (or even a stated aspiration) in our schools.  Opportunities for secondary schools to look to university instruction and policy as an inspiration for emulation is rare.  But the concept of required spoken fluency is an interesting one.  I wouldn't want to institute some sort of standardized testing at my school (or any school), but perhaps a shift in philosophy about what is required.  Currently we require two years of the same language.  Why?  Why not require a conversation? Or a simulation?  We have challenging grammar heavy courses with no clear goal (that the students understand) or purpose or desired outcome.  Some students will continue on to the third year and beyond, but many will not, and will leave the program with a bitter taste for learning a language.

An Activity for Thinking About World Language Programs

On our curriculum day the other week our middle school and high school language departments had a rare joint meeting. It was such a fun chance to spend time with the educators across campus while thinking about our shared purpose and how do we move forward.



This was our plan:
Homework: Read the attached article. Or click HERE to read it online. 
Pay special attention to the author's point #5:
(excerpted here:)


5. The world is much more open, and events abroad affect the lives of Americans more than ever before. This makes it essential that the educational experience breed cosmopolitanism — that students have international experiences, and classes in the social sciences draw on examples from around the world. It seems logical, too, that more in the way of language study be expected of students. I am not so sure.

English’s emergence as the global language, along with the rapid progress in machine translation and the fragmentation of languages spoken around the world, make it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile. While there is no gainsaying the insights that come from mastering a language, it will over time become less essential in doing business in Asia, treating patients in Africa or helping resolve conflicts in the Middle East.

In Meeting: 
This article presents a particular world view.  Whether you agree with this or not,  (and there are certainly criticisms to this position) the reality is that the world is changing quickly as are assumptions and perceptions about language study.   We suspect that most of us see it as more valuable than this author. 


Our essential question for the next 90 minutes is:
What are the things that our 6-12 language program needs to do in order to be as relevant as possible in the development and lives of our students? How do we want to define language learning for our students?


Here are our tasks:  
1. (15 minutes)
What are the essential elements of our language program?
What do we want our students to be able to do/ know / understand when they leave our program?
2. (30 minutes) 
Eliminate the current reality of our language program.  Start from the ground up and redesign the ideal 6-12 vision. There are NO barriers.  What should it look like?  What would the "requirements" be?  What would characterize our classes?  Would there be classes?
3. (10 minutes) 
In your group, design a presentation (3 minutes)  of your new program to present to the board of trustees of Punahou School.  Compel them to okay the change from the current reality to your vision.
4. Presentations and questions 


This plan was sent to teachers prior to the meeting and the results were really exciting.  Some folks came to the discussion with a detailed proposal to eliminate the middle school world language program as it is (5 different languages) and replace it with a multi-lingulal world cultures program in which all of the students would participate.  Ideas about de-tracking, increasing emphasis on spoken communication and cross-cultural understanding emerged.  Another recurring theme in the groups presentations was the essential role of travel and in-country living plays (or has played) in language acquisition. Teachers wondered together about the role of technology can play in facilitating cross-cultural exchanges and relationships.


It was a great day of thinking and wondering and imagining big.  Now we have to figure out what things that we dreamed about make sense, and then just figure out how to get there.  That should be as easy (but as much fun!) as Jet Skiing across the ocean.

Some Readings on Cognitive Science (for 2/13/12)

Meltzoff, A. N., Kuhl, P. K., Movellan, J., & Sejnowski, T. J. (2009). Foundations for a new science of learning. Science, 325(5938), 284-288. doi:10.1126/science.1175626

This article discusses the connection between learning theory, psychology and machine learning.  The take away highlights (particularly for a language teacher) are about the importance of social interaction in learning.  It cites many studies that pertain to early childhood development, but there are interesting and important things that apply to all age groups.  For example, children who are simple exposed to sounds in a foreign language via TV or radio learn much less than children who interact with humans in the language.  Researchers are developing robots that can interact in more social ways, and reported findings of an interactive robot increasing learning when compared to tv.  (seems like that is what we are seeing with iOS apps for kids and language).  The authors talk about three traits of human learning: imitation, shared attention and empathy and social emotions.  It would be interesting to examine language course based on those three elements.  

Hoadley, C., & Van Haneghan, J. P. .(2012) The learning sciences: Where they came from and what it means for instructional designers. In. Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. [Note: online preprint]

This book chapter gives a brief historical background of learning theory from behaviorism to cognitivism and into more recently developed theories such as those in the realm of communities of practice and anchored instruction.  This is a really helpful resource to use when looking at theory as it applies to instructional design and learning science.  This sums up the sources that support the notion of deep, enduring and transferable and meaningful learning.

Winn, W. (2004). Cognitive perspectives in psychology. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 79-112). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. [From AECT, free access for members]

This chapter explored the current reality of cognitive science as it relates to learning.  Winn groups these new developments into four categories: systems theoretical frameworks, biological frameworks, approaches based on cognitive neuroscience, and neural networks.   Then there is an extensive historical background.  Woah.  Wondering about chunking, embeddeness, embodiment or adaption?  It is all there.

Also, the introduction provides a sharp criticism of constructivism as having the dangerous potential to value anything that is student produced as inherently of intellectual value.  It makes me think of crappy projects that my students turn in but fit into a decent grade based on the rubric—not sure I agree with the critique, but interesting to read. 

The final section "Cognitive Theory and Educational Technology" is hugely useful for understanding the basis of the field of educational technology and also why some things appear to be "stuck" or harder to make changes.  It describes the legacy of behaviorism in instructional design and the weakness that is born out of the need for specificity given the multitude of combinations and compounding variables in this line of work.  It is hard to generalize anything!  It is a good summary to use as a reference when thinking about methodologies as it points out many of the real-life complications in instructional design. 

Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don't students like school? Because the mind is not designed for thinking. American Educator, 33(1), 4-13.

This magazine article is written for teachers and administrators.  It presents some learning about cognitive science from the perspective that thinking is hard, and people will avoid doing it.  This statement sets the stage for an explanation about what are the optimal conditions for encouraging, rewarding and fostering thinking in our students.  The author emphasizes an understanding of prior knowledge, the value of success and variety, as things to keep in mind when hoping to craft an environment in which students learn, and like it. 

 Willingham, D. T. (2009). Three problems in the marriage of neuroscience and education. Cortex, 45(4), 544-545. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2008.05.009

This article begins by emphasizing the differenced between natural sciences (biology, neuroscience, etc. . . ) and artificial sciences (economics, education etc. . . ).  As he describes, artificial sciences are driven by goals, whereas natural sciences seek to explain or describe a given phenomenon. Their ability to inform each other is limited. 

A summary of his thoughts:

Any marriage will be more successful when each partner has realistic expectations of the other. Educators should expect that neuroscience (1) will not be prescriptive; (2) will re- main silent on educational goals that are incompatible neuroscientific analysis (e.g., aesthetic training), and will omit levels of analysis beyond the individual, and; (3) neuroscience will prove helpful on targeted questions at a more- fine grained level of analysis such as how people read, learn, and attend, but these data will only be useful in the context of well-developed behavioral theory.

Riener, C., & Willingham, D. (2010). The myth of learning styles. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 42(5), 32-35. doi: 10.1080/00091383.2010.503139

This article describes the lack of evidence for the success of instructional design based on learning styles.  The authors do support the notion that people will have difference preferences for how they learn, but it goes on to say that there is no evidence to suggest that catering to these preferences improves learning.  The article also includes an interesting discussion about why this myth has persisted.  First, it feels good; it values all people and their different strengths—who could argue against that?  Also, it has been impacted by confirmation bias and is now considered common knowledge.  The bottom line is that knowing your students, and understanding their prior knowledge and interests can help them learn, but there is not scientific basis for learning styles and differentiation on their behalf as helping learning.  It feels funny to read this and feel a little defensive—I so want to support each student that I almost find myself wanting to suppress this article.  But then at the end they offer Mindset, by Carol Dweck as a reference, and I am back to wanting to pass it out.  We don't need to use fuzzy science to encourage supporting our students as individuals—there is plenty of real science to support and justify those desires. 

Semester 2 goals (Spring 2012)

Having busy days and nights is what keeps me going.  My work is fun and diverse and some days I toggle between all of the different things too quickly to do my best job keeping track of what is essential.  So on the dawn of our second semester at school (my online course and PhD student second semesters already started, but better late than never) I am going to post some goals so I can remind myself of what is important every day. This is not exhaustive, of course-- just some things to focus on. Family is number one, and my students next; after that the order is less meaningful.



1) Family

• Don't look at my phone around my daughter unless it is looking at something with her
• Pack good lunches
• Appreciate my awesome husband

2) Being a Face-to-Face Teacher

• Be clear about expectations 
• Hold students accountable to the goals they or I set for them
• Give meaningful feedback about their work every cycle
• Be a caring but motivating teacher of second semester seniors

3) Being an online teacher

• See being a face-to face teacher and 
• Commit to meeting with each student for a half hour individual conference each week
• Be in touch with their families and home schools with good news at least every month

4) Being a Department Chair

• Update the department meeting agendas and dates for the semester prior to the first meeting 
• Support initiatives of individual teachers or sub departments by making connections with resources around school 
• Develop an annual report question that fosters discussion and thought around our curricular review
• Visit classrooms every cycle and write reflections to the teachers

5) Being a Summer School Director

• Find the best people to teach in the open positions and make all candidates feel good about the process of hiring
• Support new and wonderful staff as they transition into the school 
• Communicate clearly with other areas of the Academy and the school as the summer approaches
• Communicate well with families and students about their summer experience

6) Being a PhD student

• Complete the readings for the evening they are assigned (and at least gather the optional readings into Mendely, if not read them) 
• Keep my reading journal on this blog (search for the tag ETEC750D) 
• Continue connecting with scholars in my areas of interest
• Narrow down a dissertation topic (or range of possible questions) 
• Learn from my amazing classmates
• Submit one paper for publication or a conference

That's all, I guess.

(image from http://mikevial.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/plate-spinning.jpg)

Meaningful Assessment (Annual Report Part 2)

This year the first prompts for our annual reports were written by department heads and specific to the work that departments are doing with respect to our curricular review. The European Language Department chose to invite teachers to look at assessment.  

As we continue our curricular review process next year, we will be focusing on assessment. We’ll use your responses as a starting point for our discussion at the beginning of the school year.  Please respond to one of the questions below:
1. Describe a specific assessment you use that you think successfully differentiates between those students who deeply understand from those who do not.
2. Describe one formative and one summative assessment you use and explain how you use them to guide student learning in your classes.

I am going to respond to number one.  Last fall students in Spanish 5 were responsible for keeping up on the news in a particular region of the Spanish speaking world.  Every day class began with one or two students giving presentations about a few recent news stories from their region.  The learning objectives of the on-going project were both for students to have a better understanding of world events and global diversity, and also for them to work to make meaning out of real Spanish communications (reading and/or listening skills).  We had an agreement that they would use sources in Spanish.  But I am sure that a number of students found and read news in English and then translated their presentations-- it was simple to tell who those students were because of vocabulary issues.

The students who were developing deep understanding of the realities in these countries were able to communicate the stories in their own voices (typical Spanish 5 linguistic complexity) but stretched themselves and the classes just enough with new terms.  They were telling the story in their own voices, meaningfully. This was a result, I think, of their efforts to make meaning out of the sometimes challenging newspaper Spanish.  This task challenged and expanded their sense of the world (learning objective one) and their linguistic capabilities (learning objective 2)

As in all things, there was a spectrum of performance, and at the opposite end were the students who likely read the news in English. Their struggle to make meaning was to turn their understanding, in English, into Spanish words.  That is a totally different challenge than making meaning out of Spanish text.  And the fact that they had not enjoyed the meaning-making in Spanish was evident in their presentations.  They tended to use vocabulary and diction that was not as accessible to the group, both because of an over-reliance on translators and a lack of confidence in their own Spanish: "Just because I don't get what I am saying doesn't mean that my more able classmates and teachers don't."

The second part of this assessment each day was the questions that followed.  (I went through a number of permutations about how to encourage questions--prizes for the best each day, tallying them over the course of a week, etc. . . that challenge is another issue entirely.) In this element of the presentations, the rest of the students in the class gave me a sense of how well they understood the material which further reflected the presenter's understanding.  No questions often meant that it was over everyone's head, and the presenter had not had a good enough grasp of the topic to make it accessible to their peers. Whereas lots of questions usually meant that the presenter had engaged more deeply, thus engaging their peers.  I was interested to see the "cool factor" of the individual students fade away in this element of the class.  Students were not easy on the "cool" kids when they did a poor job on these presentations and a culture began to emerge where doing excellent work became the new cool.

I think this particular assessment worked well in my class because of three structural elements:

1. It was ongoing:  students presented every couple of weeks and had the opportunity for to redeem themselves in case of unsatisfactory work.  Also, if they couldn't go on a given day (due to sports, life conflicts or work-load in other classes), they could trade with other students. 
2. Students were accountable to their classmates, not just me.
3. Students chose the content of the presentations:  Some students often presented about sports or celebrities in their countries, and others delved into more complex political realities.  

Last Minute Changes

I teach two sections of the same class and for better of for worse, I often make adjustments to my lesson plan for the second class based on what didn't go as I hoped in the first.  Yesterday, the first day back from Thanksgiving,  we were starting a new unit.  The first thing we did was to talk about what the date was and then draw a calendar on the board so that kids could get a good look at the time they have between now and the final exams in January.  This is a great warm up for kids because the have a good handle on days of the week and numbers and thing like "Navidad" can be explained by singing a few seconds of "Feliz Navidad".  I was reminded of the value of spending some time on this time management activity when a student said, earnestly, "We have exams after break?"  Then the sophomores or juniors had a quick chance (in English) to talk about exam period, conference day, all the ins and outs of this time of year.  It is a good opportunity for the upperclassmen to demonstrate leadership in the classroom.

Then we were looking at some new vocabulary about things we like to do for fun.  Coming back from break is a great opportunity to talk about this.  So we talked about "Mi restaurante favorito es. . . " and "Mi película favorita es. . . "  Then with that understanding the could catch on to the drawings of the place vocabulary (restaurante, café, cine, etc. . .).   But in my first group,  they were a little flat at this point; too much going from kid to kid and teacher directed repetition.  By the time we were doing some activities as a class I found myself cold calling a kid who wasn't paying attention just to "catch" him.  (I apologized to him after class-- felt terrible.)

So for the second class I tried to get them out of their seats more, duh.  After doing the calendar warm-up, I had them break into groups and draw the different places on the board.  Then as a class we talked about each one, with some prompts

• ¿Qué haces en un resturante?  Yo como. 
• ¿Qué es tu restaurante favorito? In and Out es mi resturante favorito. etc. . .

When they all had a chance to say something in this structured setting (I think all of them?) we turned it into a game.  We broke the class into 4 groups and then I described a situation (all in Spanish, of course) and they had to send a runner to the "place" that was drawn on the board where the situation was taking place and the first team to slap the "place" got a point.  It was a way better way of engaging with the material and they got practice listening for key words or cognates that would give them a sense of meaning.

Guess I will try this in my first class today.

Online Translator Discussion

The following are some of my reflections after a department meeting about this topic.

As a language teachers, we have always found some satisfaction in the fact that electronic translators are imperfect. Our thinking around these tools has always been that they make terrible mistakes and if students use them to translate their own work, we will know because the result is often mumbo jumbo.

We started the meeting by watching this short video on Google Translate:

 
We also brought up Jibbigo in our conversations. This is a tool that does voice to voice translation on iPhones and is pretty remarkable.

Basically, things are changing. As translators get more and more sophisticated, students are able to produce more accurate work with the aid of these tools. While teachers can still detect their use by knowing a student's level and writing style, there is less and less mumbo jumbo. Don't get me wrong, they are still not perfect-- as a colleague pointed out in our meeting, language is interesting because of the baggage that words have. She used the example of vacation in English and vacances in French. The words translate, but they mean such a different thing to the people who speak them.

So the conversation could go two ways:

1) How can we continue to communicate the ineffectiveness of these tools and work to "catch" our students using them inappropriately?

or

2) How can we use the increasing sophistication of these tools to closely examine what we believe is essential to the work we do?

They are connected questions, but the latter seems much more compelling. There were lots of interesting comments on the topic and the conversation was thought provoking. We talked about why kids turn to these tools: the structure of assignments, the different motivation levels in students, and the mounting pressure for perfection in all realms of their lives. One colleague spoke eloquently about literacy in general and how different levels of reading and writing ability in the first language impact work in the second language.

We also talked about how, perhaps, this discussion is analogous to the ones that happened in math departments at the dawn of hand held calculators calculators.  Perhaps not a perfect analogy, but it is interesting.

Our take away seemed to be that we would like to produce a document, a philosophy (including "rules"?) about these tools to facilitate our conversations with students. (In the early hours of the morning I imagined a short PSA video. . . we'll see if that comes to be.)

The central themes would be that our classes are about helping students fine tune their ability to communicate that which is meaningful to them in linguistically and culturally appropriate terms. There are many tools to support this learning, (textbooks, dictionaries, on-line translators, friends, etc. . .) but our main concern is not the content that resides in these tools, but, rather, the content that is honestly generated by the hearts and minds of our students.

It can't be "JUST BORING"

Last week I had the pleasure of seeing Sir Ken Robinson speak to the Schools of the Future Conference here in Honolulu. His talk was engaging, funny and thought provoking, per usual. One of my favorite moments came after his formal presentation when he was answering some questions.

He told a story of his daughter who struggled with French in high school. In a meeting with the teacher Ken and his wife were told that their daughter was acting bored and checked-out in class. Ken the suggested to the teacher that, perhaps. . . maybe. . . the class was boring. Of course the teacher went on the defensive and suggested that he would have to agree that there are some elements of learning a foreign language that are "just boring", but essential. (Verb conjugations, various rules of grammar, spelling etc. . . the list could go on and on.)

He responded (or so the story went), "Well, no, I guess we don't agree on that. I don't think that anything has to be boring. If you think school French has to be boring, maybe you should consider another profession." He went on, "Imagine if you, a French teacher, devoted to teaching French, think that something in your class is boring, how would the students feel who might not even be convinced yet that they like French?" Poor teacher, but what a great message for language teachers all over the world.

That is a great story for language teachers to think about. We often say things like: "You just have to memorize this." Or "just learn this." How positively unhelpful to our kids. It is our duty to find meaning and relevance in EVERYTHING that we do, not just the easy and "fun" stuff.

Here is a recent animation of another of Sir Ken's talks. (I showed this to my classes this week):

An ongoing discussion: Sharing and Learning

We are engaged in discussions at our school about how to best share what we do well in our school to both elevate the level teaching and learning at our own school and also provide a public service to schools in the state and beyond. We would like to create an forum for a illuminating great teaching and practice so that others may see it.

It is kind of like just opening the doors on the classrooms for others to see and this is not, as our head of school points out, a new idea-- there are schools all over the country trying to do this work. Still, this quest towards transparency creates a tension with teachers' tendency towards (and love of) autonomy. Some of the comments in an exploratory discussion today demonstrated this tension.

First there is the classic fear of letting anyone in (literally or figuratively) to your classroom. There are some departments that do a great job fostering an environment where sharing practice is the norm, and many more where this is a work in progress. How can this initiative be presented in a way that doesn't elicit fear from those who fall into this category?

Another teacher suggested a big chunk of time (weeks) that we could carve out of the school year to address this. A neat idea, but it goes against the notion of on-going and embedded on the job learning and improvement. We hope to share accessible, easily digestible and searchable information that can help teachers do their work better.

The discussion then turned to the ease with which younger people (I would say more connected) share the goings on of their lives, and that perhaps this shift to sharing just feels hard to this group (with an average age closer to fifty than thirty, as one administrator pointed out). Couldn't agree more! The simple idea of a social network and leveraging the connections that you have and sorting information based on how those that you trust feel about it is hardly new to those of us engaged at any level in an on-line presence (twitter, Facebook, Ning, etc. . . ). (as pointed out by @dkiang)

Then came the notion that the most valuable stream of information might come from the kids. One teacher suggested that if she could access information from students about what was working for them (or not) in their classes, she would spend the time to read that. I see lots of that kind of data from former and current students who I am friends with on Facebook
(which I know people have a variety of opinions about). And while it sometimes informs my practice, I get much better data from directed and pointed questions of my current students, who I survey often about my classes.

In any event, I am energized by these types of questions on a Monday morning in early October. No conclusions here, just sorting out some ideas. Any thoughts?

Teaching "Culture" in the Foreign Language Classroom

(from question #1 of my annual report this year)
Question #1:
Please look over the list of your departmental goals (above). Choosing from goals 1, 2 or 3:
2. understand and appreciate the cultures, people and societies of the language(s) they study.

• discuss one goal which in your experience is particularly challenging or hard to achieve, and what makes it so.

This goal, to foster an understanding and appreciation of the the cultures, peoples and societies of the the Spanish language is one that has always daunted me as a Spanish teacher.

I know that universal understanding and tolerance of all cultures (or even just Spanish speaking ones) is a big task for any Spanish class. I know and am confident in my ability to teach kids how to speak and write Spanish. But I find myself feeling like I don't have the background to teach about ALL of the people and cultures. I can talk for hours about the people of Spain, or Costa Rica and Nicaragua, but since I have not spent much time in other Spanish speaking countries, I feel like I can't do as good a job speaking about about the people of those places. But, of course that is just goofy-- because, of course, it is not supposed to be about ME.

One thing I did a few times, which I wish I had done more often was have a round table table homework assignment when we decided to look at a new country (as it came up in the textbook). The homework would be: Find out something interesting or noteworthy about [insert country name/region]. A couple of times I just gave the kids 3 minutes in class to look something up with their laptops. Then we would go around the room and everyone would share. Some kids came up with interesting things, but others just read some bullet points off wikipedia. The depth of their contribution was pretty much directly related to their internet searching literacy. The vast majority of the things that kids share are things that I had not known previously.

I can learn just as much as the students can about these people and places. And with the resources out there I need to work to increase my comfort level in exposing to them that I have so much to learn too. (I worked on this a great deal as a nervous Biology teacher, but for some reason it is harder for me in Spanish classes.)

I think that I missed some opportunities to do more with this in my Spanish 5 class. We had an ongoing collaborative project with a group of students in Malaga, Spain in which we all posted to a common blog. We could have done much more with this than we did but as it was we learned a lot about Spanish culture (as it is NOW-- which was cool).

So in conclusion, a willingness to create more student centered inquiry in language classes to teach culture is something I wish I had spent more time creating space for throughout this year. It seems that this may be a challenge across our department. We teach what we know, and we are reticent to allow space in our courses for students to explore things we don't know which for me anyway, are many.