level tests

I’m preparing a theme-based English camp. Using the feedback from the students, teachers and staff of last year’s camp, I am tweaking, changing and hopefully improving the syllabus for the new one.

What I’ve got is one week, repeated three times. There’s lots of room for reflection and adjustment as we go along. There are no returning students, so I can recycle some of the topics.

I have three main themes: sending a letter at the post office; international travel at an airport; and working and serving in an international restaurant. Each theme lasts a day; I learned last year that it’s a mistake to plan anything inflexible for Monday and Friday. Friday is only half a day, and we use it for wrap-up activities like a Golden Bell team trivia game and making and signing memory books for each other.

Monday feels like a waste of time. The students come and get settled in their rooms. There is an opening ceremony and they take a tour of the campus. (The campus tour is going to be really important this year as I implement Ratna’s Amazing Race activity later in the week.) Then they have lunch and come back to the auditorium for “Level Tests”.

“Before the test” Photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @Senicko, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

This is what level tests looked like last year:
Students sit in our auditorium and we give them a reading comprehension test. The test has three parts: a really easy part that asks factual questions about the reading (along the lines of “What color is the ball?” a. red b. blue c. black), a mid-level part that has a slightly more complex passage and long-answer comprehension questions (mostly factual), and a higher-level part that has part of a news article and comprehension questions that inference and expressing an opinion. This test takes about 20 minutes for the students to either complete it or give up.

“Listening” Photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @sandymillin, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

It has two huge problems, though: the students cheat off each other because they feel it’s a high-risk situation and I am not an expert test-maker and honestly have no idea how to tell if this test is assessing what I hope it is assessing (i.e. reading comprehension, not test-taking skills).

The second part of the level test, going on at the same time, is an interview with one of the teachers. One by one, 90 students go to the back of the auditorium where teachers are waiting with lists of questions progressing from basic, formulaic questions to questions that involve long sentences, more complicated grammar and more of the students’ own opinions. Each 11-year-old kid gets about three minutes to demonstrate their verbal abilities (or clam up and cry).

“Emotions” Photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @dfogarty, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

There are a few problems with this system. First of all, we misfire more than I would expect to. We don’t have the time to have two teachers interviewing each kid and discussing their level afterwords, so it’s nearly impossible to make sure everyone’s idea of “high” “medium” or “beginner” are the same. I give them criteria, but I can’t directly supervise. Second of all, it’s bloody boring tedious. Thirdly, it is stressful for the students.

I’m not even convinced that it’s all that necessary. On the one hand, it’s pretty difficult to teach a class with both beginners and advanced students, but on the other hand it’s just four days and they’re mixed some of that time anyway, and the two hours of stressful level-testing can probably be better used.

So I have some questions for the blogging world:

1. Do you do level tests? Why or why not?
2. If you do level tests, how do you do them?
3. Would you be willing to share ideas with me – what can I do differently?

 

(P.S.: Giant thanks to #ELTpics. I’m a first time user, but I’ll be back!)

How I (almost) won an argument using corpus linguistics

I’m taking a class called “Morphology and Syntax.” It’s currently the third week of the class and it has been interesting. In the first week, I got into an interesting debate with another student.

The argument was about the usefulness of an intrusion test to determine phrasal boundaries (1). He argued that a test to see where an adverb can be placed within the sentence to determine the boundaries of a phrase is not completely reliable because, while incorrect according to a prescriptive grammar, some discourse strategies allow intrusion in a phrasal verb (2). In principle, I agree with him. I feel strongly that how people actually use language *should supersede any prescriptive grammar. The question then becomes How do people actually use the language? and this is where corpus linguistics comes in.

The examples my classmate used are below:

(A) The cat will eat its, I suspect, lamb chops …
(B) John rang, almost certainly, up his accountant.
(C) John rang, almost certainly his accountant up.

I left (A) alone in the debate that followed.

Then I turned to COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and discovered after an hour of messing around that I had absolutely no idea how to do what I wanted to do. So I did what any rational tweep would do and turned to our friendly neighborhood #TESOLgeek and #corpusexpert, @muranava.

This led to some more research on commands to use in a corpus, but also led to an answer to my question:

Most commonly, a direct object is inserted between ‘rang’ and ‘up’. 9 and 10 look strange. Judging by the context (“her laughter rang shrill up and down the river”) the phrasal verb is not involved for 10. 9 is a mystery: “I rang turn up on the field phone.”

Next I searched for adverbs:

This image shows that adverbs appear before ‘rang up’. This was not surprising. Next I checked to see if people ever use adverbs within the phrasal verb:

Unsurprisingly, I came up empty.

Of course there are problems with my informal research: COCA is limited to American English for one thing, while the phrasal verb ‘rang up’ is perhaps not very common in American English (compared to ‘called up’ with 549 entries, ‘rang up’ has only 46). Incidentally, I did the same research for ‘called up’ and discovered that ‘called back up’ has a couple entries.

A second consideration is that COCA’s results, while across a variety of genres, are nevertheless limited. My classmate suggested that a search of a non-dialect-specific corpus might give better results. Ah, if only the BNC were free! The random 50 entries for ‘rang _ up’ in BNC all insert direct objects and I cannot do a more advanced search from the “simple search” page.

In the end, my classmate conceded that his specific example might not have been the best one, but his point still held that intrusion tests are not sufficient to determine phrasal boundaries – and I agreed.

The argument ended when the professor chimed in to say that wherever this sort of interruption might occur within a phrasal verb, one is also likely to find disfluency features like throat-clearing or false starts. His post made it clear that he personally finds the intrusion plausible.

Now the more I think about it, the more I realize that I was being a bit of a prescriptivist myself. I was trying to use a descriptive resource to prove my prescriptive point. It didn’t work quite the way I hoped it would, but I learned a few things!

From this interesting experience I learned a lot about the power and limitations of corpus linguistics. I see the value in having access to how people actually use English as an alternative to the prescriptive approach (how we *should use it). I also see the limitations since corpora are not exactly a cross-section of English use yet.

I also started to learn how to search a corpus (two, in fact. Thanks to Mura for getting me started!). These are tools I want to use more often.

 

Have you ever used corpora? How do you use them?
Feedback of all kinds is appreciated. 

 

 

Notes on terminology and/ or grammar:
(1) A bit more about phrases and intrusion tests:
Phrases include, for example, noun phrases (“the big red dog”), prepositional phrases (“through the garden”), etc. In order to determine where the boundaries of a phrase are, there are tests. The intrusion test says that an adverb (for instance) can only be inserted at the boundaries of a phrase.
So in the sentence, “The big red dog ran through the garden,” we can say
“Quickly the big red dog ran through the garden”
and “The big red dog quickly ran through the garden”
and “The big red dog ran quickly through the garden”
and “The big red dog ran through the garden quickly.”
But we can’t say “*The quickly big red dog ran through the garden”
or “*The big red dog ran through quickly the garden.”
This shows that “the big red dog” and “through the garden” are phrases.

(2) Verbs often stand alone, except phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs, like “rang up,” “called up,” “tried out” are verbs that are inseparable from their particles.
The only thing that can be inserted between the verb and particle is a noun phrase containing the direct object, so “rang the doctor up” or “called the speedy taxi driver up” or “tried the new piano out” are all okay.
On the other hand, “*rang quickly the doctor up” and “*called spontaneously the speedy taxi driver up” and “*tried yesterday the new piano out” – not so much. Thus the intrusion test once again shows that these verbs are phrases.

 

happy new year from livinglearning

It’s that time of year again – an old year ending and a new year beginning. Time for cataloging what I have been learning. Time for divulging plans for the coming year. What? I’m two months late? No, my friends. I’m right on time. Happy new year!

This year has been a year for getting involved, and with the exception of this blog I mostly just let it happen, trusting in the yes.
Everything that follows is new to last year. Before that, I was trudging along without really thinking about what I was doing professionally. My life has changed a lot.

1) This blog was born last March as lizzieserene and eventually renamed itself livinglearning. The first post was about labels and identity. I’m not sure how I feel about it now, but there it is. Writing this blog, I discovered that there are things I feel strongly about and things that I want to learn. I have been learning confidence and trust in my own voice.
(I have two favorite posts and neither are very ELT-related but they’re both important to me: the Laughing Diary and Things I Learned from my Father)

2) #KELTchat was also born around this time a year ago and is the reason I have an active Twitter account under my own name. I made it to the second official chat and I was hooked.  Twitter is an amazing forum for professional development and I am humbled and honored to be part of a wonderful community there. Words are insufficient to express the gratitude I feel for the friendships that have developed online and off as a result of the Twitter community. I have been learning to accept these gifts.

3) Through #KELTchat, and with four amazing people, I participated in my first presentation. It was a novel experience for me, and one I learned a lot from. I’ve also attended presentations given by other #KELTchatters and I’m continually amazed by how much we all learn from each other. I have been learning about successful lessons, observation, feedback and assessment. I have been learning more about teaching pronunciation – a fascinating topic – than I ever thought to ask. I have been learning about Korea, testing, “authentic” materials. And I have been learning that everyone has something to offer and every experience is valuable.

4) This carries over into Reflective Practice. Every lesson that is shared, whether or not the lesson objectives were met, has something to offer. Every observation can stimulate thought and learning. We are stronger together. Through/ from/ with others, I am learning how to observe, how to focus, how to ask questions, and how to clarify my thoughts.

5) All these things have made a difference in my classroom as well. Growing confidence in my uncertainty has changed the way I speak to my students. I no longer need to be an expert. Reflection has changed how I manage my teachers and plan my lessons. I have been learning the value of feedback going both ways, and also the limitations. #KELTchats and -chatters have given me new ideas to try in class and new ways to reflect. I have been learning to be a thinking teacher.

This March 1st begins my 34th year. (As a leap year baby, I take the prerogative of making up my own holidays so I’ll always have something to celebrate.)

Looking forward:

This coming year I plan to finish my MA. I have two more classes (currently enrolled in both) and a thesis to write.

I want to practice reflecting on my learning as well as on my teaching.

I hope to improve my Korean skills and contribute to my community by translating the stories in the Teseum next door, completing the Rosetta Stone program, and stepping out of my shell to practice.

I hope to design a complete program for my school (and for myself).

I also want to open up and share more – through papers or presentations, maybe – of what I think and what I do. Maybe I can contribute to the ELT world in some way.

This is my last year in Korea. With luck one year from now will see me in Ireland (to start) and then LOOK OUT WORLD!

*** I write this post in deep gratitude to the people who have walked into my life just in time as well as the ones who have always been there. You are my role models, my inspiration, my help, my nudgers and my shakers. You are my cheerleaders, my questioners, my connectors. But most of all, you are my friends. ***

Meeting students’ ever-changing, never-ending needs

The more I teach, the more I learn. Right now I seem to be learning (in the only way that I know how) that students have no idea what they really want.

This month I was assigned to teach a Business English conversation course to university students. The course is three weeks long and intensive: the students study TOEIC listening and reading for three hours and Business English for three hours. They live on campus and use English all day long. Week two ends tomorrow.

The other teacher and I got together before the program began in order to make a preliminary schedule. We decided to plan lessons as we went along, since we knew nothing about the students. We chose a business English book from a stack of options and decided to limit the content to one module per week. We added a group project for every Friday that the students could spend the week preparing.

Then the students arrived and everything changed.
We used the first hour of each class to give a needs assessment.

And thank god we did.

The initial placement interview did not give us an accurate picture of their abilities, but that was not the worst of it: As it turned out, only some of them were interested in business English. Others had been told that the conversation part would focus on TOEIC speaking. Most of them said they wanted homework and a final test at the end of the program, things we were not anticipating.

Our meeting that night focused on how to meet those needs. We re-made the schedule so that we devoted an hour to TOEIC speaking and an hour to BE, adjusting on the spot as necessary.

The first week went smoothly. The students responded well to the book and the added test prep. We kept it pretty easy for them. They loved the first group project. On Friday, we asked for feedback from all the students and were surprised by some of the responses. They told us that they wanted more TOEIC speaking and less book work. They said they don’t want homework. They said they wanted free conversation.

We went back to the drawing board again to meet those needs. We kept the book, knowing they would complain about having to buy it if we didn’t use it. We focused more on TOEIC speaking. We added conversation topics. We added an office hour every day to meet the needs of the students who were still not satisfied. We agreed to go over the feedback with the students to clarify those needs.

The next week was a disaster. The students who did not want homework suddenly wanted individualized and specific feedback on their half-a$$ed assignments from last week. This led to mini-lessons focusing on pronunciation, taking more time away from the book. Meanwhile, the students who’d wanted to study TOEIC more decided it was too hard and the book was more fun. The students who’d wanted conversation sat in silence. And I scrambled to create or borrow materials to help them find their voices.

To make matters worse, students from the other teacher’s class began appearing in my office hour to complain about him. Their complaints appeared to be legitimate (He’s not prepared for the class. He’s not giving any feedback on the homework. He’s not explaining why the information he gives about the test is different from what they’ve heard from previous teachers), but they didn’t want me to tell him.

Tomorrow we will ask the students for feedback again, even though they have been giving it informally every day. Perhaps we are gluttons for punishment. On the other hand, I really believe that I am here to teach the students, not the book. I can do that a lot better with their feedback, in whatever form. Then again, am I giving them too much freedom? Should they really be allowed to change their minds infinitely? What would you do?

Why make a good class better?

“We got an assignment to take a good class and make it better. That’s stupid. Why not take a bad class and make it better?”

I’ve been thinking about this statement a lot since I heard it. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason the assignment wasn’t “take a bad class and make it better” is that whoever was giving the assignment assumed the teachers already do that. In this post I want to respond to the first part: why make a good class better?

Digging right in, then…
What is a ‘good class’?

I have to say, I don’t really know what a good class is.
Maybe it’s one where the time flies,  I’m engaged in the material and I leave feeling excited to use the things I’ve learned right away (I know: I’m the teacher and that’s sort of a selfish definition).
Maybe a good class is one in which the students are actively participating, I’m “in the zone”, the students leave tired from all the challenging but useful practice and they say thank you (don’t laugh – it could happen).
Maybe it’s one where the students are concentrating and interested and willing and I’m able to complete the lesson plan for once (an unfulfilled dream).
When I was a kindergarten teacher, sometimes a good class was one where the kids left the classroom speaking English to each other (not even necessarily things we’d learned that day) or singing or repeating a phrase that had captured them, but other times a good class was simply one in which no one cried.
My point is that whatever a “good class” is, it’s a personal evaluation based on feelings and observations.

Reflection

Suppose, at any rate, that I have something I evaluate as a good class. This is where reflection comes in (and why it might be useful to either record your class or be observed by another teacher). Why was it good? What specific things happened that caused me to evaluate the class as good? I might come up with a variety of responses. Then I have to ask a new question: why did those things happen? One goal of these questions is to arrive at the things that are within my control.

Take, for example, my kindergarten class in which no one cried. The things that I could control were the activities (songs, stories, movements, repetition, review) and to some extent the atmosphere (smiles, laughs, energy, calm). Suppose I learned from the reflection that no one cried because the material was not new and unfamiliar and I was in a good mood that day. I might decide that next time I will notice the way I balance new and familiar material and pay more attention to how my own mood affects the atmosphere of the class.

An Answer

Reflection, I think, is not about improvement so much as awareness. Knowing why a class is good in the first place can lead to greater awareness of myself as a teacher and my students’ learning. This awareness can affect the way I plan my lessons and interact with my students. It may even reduce the number of “bad classes” and the need to make them better.

So far I’ve answered “Why reflect on a good class?” but what about the original question: “Why make a good class better?” I’m afraid I can only answer for myself:

Because I can.

“Like a icebreaking”

This is a record of a conversation I had tonight with my friend, and what I learned from it, and the thoughts that sprang up.

Anne ~ are you sleeping now?
Can I ask you something?
When you are free, please tell me.

I am free now.

Someone wrote down this to me on facebook~
But I can not know that exactly
can you help me ~ ? 

Sure.

“Monday back to school for me thinking of you much love”
(Curious emoticon)

This took me about five minutes to sort out, mostly spent on deciding how to present the information manageably to him. He’s my friend, so I gave it to him straight* – broken into four chunks: Monday/ back to school for me/ thinking of you/ much love. I typed each chunk and reworded it to make sure he understood.

My friend was able to understand the comment after that and said that the explanation was very helpful, “like a icebreaking”. I guess that is what I did for him: break up the text into manageable chunks and put in the punctuation that the original writer left out.

The things that struck me were the authenticity of the situation, the importance of chunking (and the fact that no one ever taught it to my friend), and the role of punctuation in informal writing.

Authenticity:

We spend a lot of time talking about authentic texts and how to “bring the world” to our students, if I might borrow the phrase. If I were to bring the above message into the classroom to have my students use for chunking and determining the meaning (and deciding how to respond), it would be an exercise for them, no matter how authentic it was for my friend. Authenticity comes in those teaching moments like the one I just had – where the student brings the “text” – a living (present) situation (or moment). How then do I recreate this in the classroom?

Chunking:

Chunking is important for understanding meaning. Perhaps there are other ways I could have explained, but chunking models something my friend can do for himself next time. What surprises me is that he has been studying English most of his life, has lived overseas, has a lot of English L1 friends, and no one ever taught him this. Then again, how often have I brought this into my own classroom? This is something I will try to teach explicitly in the future.

Punctuation:

When people write informally – in tweets, on Facebook, in notes and chats to friends – we tend to write the way we would speak (well, I do at least). I think speech contains punctuation. When writing lacks punctuation where it would be necessary in speech (as in the message my friend received), there could be several reasons. One might be to convey speed and breathlessness, as if to say “I’m writing this to you in a hurry.” Or perhaps the writer thought it would be more dramatic without punctuation. Or perhaps the writer was being lazy. Whatever the reason, it is clear that the writer was not keeping his audience in mind. An interesting question (for me) is To what extent is punctuation in informal writing necessary for comprehension of the text by the L2 English user?

The end of the story:

My friend and I decided it was a very sweet and positive message that was left on his Facebook page. There was just one question left – in my friend’s words: “but problem is I do not know who he is!”

Notes: 
*If he were a student, I would have made him try to break it into chunks and guess at the meanings first. Note to self: present this authentic** text as an exercise to a class.
**Counter-arguments on my opinion of “authenticity” are of course welcome.

I am grateful for my friend’s question, the teaching moment, and the chance to share my thoughts on it here. I am interested in your thoughts as well! Thanks for stopping by and reading.

Open for business

Welcome to Gyeongju English Village. We are now open for business.

I have been teaching the same tired camp, every summer and every winter, year after year after year. The next one begins Monday. I do not feel any joy at all. I feel bored. I don’t want to do another airport role play. I don’t want to make another set of restaurants with artificial ingredients making artificial food using artificial language. I don’t want to “motivate” another group of kids to love what I want them to love.

I’m stagnant. I’m stuck. And it has raised some questions for me:

What does it mean to teach “English”? What do I want to teach? and How can I instill some energy into this tired camp with its tired head teacher and tired role plays and tired target language?

I don’t really have answers to these questions, but I want to share some thoughts (and perhaps more questions).

 

What does it mean to teach “English”? is a question I had never thought of before. It seems like “teaching English” really means teaching a lot of other things. There are the ubiquitous four skills: reading, writing, speaking, listening. Even within those, what does it mean to teach one? I know what you’re asking: Didn’t Anne take a TESOL class? Did she learn anything in it? Maybe I failed to learn these things, but that isn’t the point.

I know how to teach writing skills and reading skills. I know how to teach pronunciation and grammar. I know how to teach about genres and audiences. I even know how to teach some cultural differences. But I don’t know what it means to teach “English” – especially “speaking”. And more importantly, I don’t know how to make my students learn any of these things. (In my experience, my students learn what they want to learn – through English, if I can swing it.)

 

What do I want to teach? I was having real trouble with this question until I realized it was the wrong one. The question assumes it is all about me, whereas of course it is not. I want to teach students, humans. I want to teach anyone who wants to learn. And I want to teach them what they want to learn. And if they can learn some English in the process, that’s awesome. And if what they learn is something totally unexpected, that’s awesome too. If life was perfect, if education was perfect, if people were perfect, I would have my wish.

But that is not what I have. I have a class full of kids who are grouped together based on how well they “speak English” and who are in class against their will. They have come to “improve their English ability”. They don’t know what they want to learn. They have never thought about it. They have never been asked before. But on Monday I will ask them: who are you? and what do you love?

 

How can I instill some energy into this tired camp with its tired head teacher and tired role plays and tired target language? I saved my most immediate problem for last and I still don’t have much of an answer. I need to set some goals. I need to challenge myself to read, teach, reflect and write.

This is the beginning. This is the end. Will they leave as they arrived?

 

How do you rejuvenate your classes when you get stuck in a rut, especially if there is a schedule you must follow and activities you must do? Although I have to say, I’m feeling awfully rebellious…

(Who wrote the schedule? you ask. Pardon me while I hang my head in shame. I took the lazy way. I did not fight against expectations. I am not proud of myself. I don’t know how much it can be changed now, though.)

Adventures of the #RovingReporter – part 2

Months beyond the promised update, the adventures of the roving reporter continue.

In case you missed part 1, you can see the post and pictures here. A brief summary: at the tail end of last fall, I decided to try my hand at a bike ride from Daegu to Busan to see my friend John Pfordresher give his first presentation at Busan’s KOTESOL workshop. The ride was 203 kilometers long and took about 20 hours, largely due to my state of (lack of) fitness, unexpected mountains, rain, heavy backpack and poor preparation. It might be argued that the only reason I made it at all is pure stubbornness . The presentation was well worth the ride and the roving reporter wisely decided to leave the bicycle and take the train home.

A week later, on Saturday night, I took the train back again to get my bike. That’s how I found myself in the same room of the same motel where I ended my journey the week before.

Same classy motel, same classy room, same classy bed

 

Day 1: Just because you can….

From the previous trip, I learned a few important things: lose the heavy backpack, break the journey into two days, and prepare for the unexpected. I found my bike again where I had parked it. I knew the first 90kms would be relatively easy. Nevertheless, there was a long way to go.

This is where i took the trail. I have 203 kilometers in front of me and two days to do it.

The first part of the ride had been in the dark the week before. It turned out to be the most beautiful part. It was sunny and the river shone.

The sun shining on the Nakdong River in Busan, South Korea.

 

I met a rider on the bridge at Miryang, at a trail station, the first person I spoke to the whole trip.

Where are you going?
To Daegu.
Today? It’s far.
No, tomorrow. I’ll stay in a motel tonight.
You’re going all the way on that??
YES… (through gritted teeth - I was defensive of my bike. After all, it had gotten me to Busan the week before without any problem. It was a good bike.)

I let him cycle on his way to Yangsan and didn’t bother to tell him it was in the opposite direction.

The bridge to Miryang, one of many crossings of the river.

Korea is full of these tiny little villages hidden away in the mountains. They are mainly farming villages, that grow different crops depending on the time of year. This place was just finishing harvesting their cabbage in preparation for making kimchi. The farmers were putting up plastic enclosures over the fields. I wonder what they will grow this winter?

Korean countryside

There it is: the end of the first 90 kilometers. I got lost twice – once for nearly an hour – and around 5pm found myself staring at the trail station that marked the beginning of the difficult stuff. There were 110kms of difficult riding in front of me and I had a choice: I could ride a few more hours and put some of them behind me or I could stop there and find a motel.

… but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep …

You probably already guessed what I did. I rode on until 1opm. I climbed two of the mountains in the dark. And, because the world can be ironic and painfully funny, it started to rain. Finally a lone motel appeared and the owner had a shed for bicycles to keep them out of the rain and a warm room waiting for me. When I logged onto the internet, I realized I was lucky: my rain was snow in Daegu. I slept well.

Day 2: …doesn’t mean you should.

My motel in the morning light – the trail has been rain-washed and I’m ready for the next part of the adventure.

Not far from the motel was the next trail station. I had breakfast there and prepared myself: I had two mountains to go (plus one more that I had forgotten about) and wanted to get to Daegu before dark.

This wier is beside a trail station and is at the bottom of one of the two remaining mountains.

The first of the two mountains was behind a Buddhist temple. I rode up and over, my early morning energy at its peak. The view was stunning.

Looking down on MuShimSa from the top of the mountain

This was followed by the mountain I had forgotten, a small one that was fun to ride with the energy I had. And then I saw a sign that is true anodyne for tired eyes: Dalseong gun – I was entering wider Daegu; I was almost back.

Dalseonggun – the edge of wider Daegu.

Through fields and over hills I traveled with new energy, following signs for Dodong Sawon. Suddenly there it was, at the bottom of the last mountain. There was a dog in the yard and not a human in sight. I was grateful to know that I would be home before dark. It was getting cold.

Dodong Sawon – a Confucian academy

 

Arresting beauty

Finally as the sun set behind me and the moon rose before me, I saw the sight I was waiting for: the ARC. This is where Nakdong meets Geumho and where my day ended.

An apology:

And so my bicycle came to a stop at Keimyung University in western Daegu while my body rested. Then on a warm, sunny afternoon three weeks later, the time was right. I went back for it to try to get it to the starting place in eastern Daegu and complete the adventure.

Keimyung stays beautiful long after all the leaves have fallen all over the city.

Within an hour, my whole body was in so much pain I had to get off the bike and park it. Defeated. And there it stayed for another three weeks while I went to a doctor.

I squished a nerve – ouch!

Under no circumstances, the doctor said, should you put pressure on the palm of your hand. He eyed me sternly. Don’t even think about doing anything remotely like this:

“Yes, that is what you should not do. Now let that be a lesson to you.”

So I apologize to readers of the Adventures for making you wait so long for the return journey. I come back to you defeated by the trail and by my own body. The bicycle made it home in the back of a car and the adventures of the #rovingreporter have come to an end.

What an adventure!

 

In response to “18 Things About Korean Students (part 1)”

After reading @michaelegriffin ‘s post “18 Things About Korean Students (part 1)” on his blog ELT Rants, Reviews, and Reflections, I had two responses. First of all, it felt incomplete. Not just was it only 9 of the 18, but not a single one of them seemed to tell a whole story. The second response tagged along from the first – after each point I read, I found myself saying, “…and yet…” and being unable to finish the sentence. I’m not saying that he is wrong. I think I agree with his points so far. I feel uncomfortable about the generalizations, but I realize one cannot write a post of this sort without them. I think what I am responding to is the mismatches with my own experiences and so in this post, I want to respectfully attempt to align the original with my own experiences.

 

My thoughts:

Caveat 1: I recommend reading Mike’s post first, if you have not already done so, or refreshing your memory even if you have

Caveat 2: The thing about making broad generalizations is that they might feel incomplete or even wrong to people who have had a different set of experiences

 

1. School is a big deal.

Yeah. It is. It really is. Students spend hours and hours there. I agree that this is something someone living outside of Korea and teaching Korean students needs to know. And yet….

This is only part of the picture. High school students spend legendary numbers of hours in school, especially if they are in university-track schools. I think more to the point is that (I generalize, but) Korean people seem to believe that the only way to learn something is through studying it in a class, with as many materials and gadgets as possible.

 

2. Expectations are high for teachers.

Traditionally this is true. In some ways it is still true. However, I think that the respect given to teachers is no longer commensurate with the responsibility required of them. Students seem to expect teachers to spend hours preparing for each class and to prepare specifically for their class and they seem to expect teachers to spend extra time with them and go out of their way to help them. Then they don’t turn up to class, don’t hand in their homework, sleep through the day, and try to argue you into a B for the course. That said, I whole-heartedly agree with the tip about defining expectations from the outset and I’d like to add that it is equally important to define what the teacher expects and does not expect from the students.

 

3. Hard work is valued (differently).

Yeah…. and yet… Korea is a bit of an enigma with this one. There are many aspects of daily life that seem to indicate that quality is not valued over speed – construction being one prime example. In business, many people spend a lot of long hours at work, but some of them also say that the majority of that time is not spent doing work. Their bosses tend to give them urgent projects an hour before closing time. On the other hand, the definition of “hard work” might be quite different between our cultures.

 

4. Busywork is almost expected

Yeah… and yet… often my students, especially teenaged students, but sometimes university students as well, ask me to justify the worksheets I give them. They seem to want to know there is a purpose for what they are doing. I will not get started on “fun”. #curmudgeony

 

5. Plagiarism is different

I smell a rant. Plagiarism is different. I think this might (also?) be because students are taught to regurgitate and not taught to analyse or synthesize. I have heard that it is respectful to repeat the ideas of the professor and experts (yes, even without citation) and that obviously the student’s ideas are not his or her own. I do not have a citation of my own for this information, so take it lightly.

 

6. Tests are a big deal

Yeah…. and yet… many many many students, teachers, parents wish they weren’t. I wish they would wish louder. Great point about assessment = test!

7. English is a big deal

Yeah… and yet… “English” for many people does not mean acquisition. I’m still not sure what it means.

 

8. “Native Speakerism” is alive and well in Korea

Yeah… and yet… over the years I have had fewer and fewer students claim their goal is to sound like native speakers. I have also had the surprising pleasure of being allowed to recommend so-called non-native speakers to positions at my school (one from Yemen and one from Uzbekistan). They were the most popular teachers in that program. This is likely an exception to the norm but I hope it will become a more prevalent exception.

 

9. This is a big deal

Yeah… and yet… well, the “and yet” has been dealt with in the tip.

 

 

I guess it is a difficult topic and I am still not really satisfied even with my additions to bring the points closer to my own experience. I wait in keen anticipation for 10-18 and applaud Mr. Griffin for being able to in some way quantify why education in Korea is so weird.

Making some new rules

 A few thoughts on RULES tonight:

What makes a “good” rule?

I began thinking about rules a few weeks ago while I was watching the film Matilda (based on the Roald Dahl book).

Miss Trunchbull is famous for saying, “If you are having fun, you are not learning.” Her class rules look very similar to the picture on the left. I asked my students about these rules. Unanimously, they claimed to dislike the rules. There are too many. They all start with “No”. They are not fair. This is the feedback I received from my students on these rules.

Then again rules came up in The Giver by Lois Lowry, where Jonas receives a list of rules for his new job.

1.) Go immediately at the end of school hours each day to the Annex entrance behind the House of the Old and present yourself to the attendant.
 2.) Go immediately to your dwelling at the conclusion of Training Hours each day.
 3.) From this moment you are exempt to the rules governing rudeness. You may ask any question of any citizen and you will receive answers.
 4.) Do not discuss your training with any members of the community, including parents and Elders.
 5.) From this moment you are prohibited from dream-telling.
 6.) Except for illness and injury unrelated to your training, do not apply for medication.
 7.) You are not permitted to apply for release.
 8.) You may lie.

These rules prompted a lot of discussion because Jonas lives in a world full of rules and some of these rules seem to contradict the rules he normally has to live by. Lying, for example, is forbidden. Rudeness requires an apology. Dream-telling is a normal part of every day. Medication is a right, as is applying for release. Can rules be different for different people who live together in the same society? Or, in our case, in the same classroom? What happens when people are following different rules?

And now I’m in taking the Breaking Rules webinar with Professor John Fanselow. I have been reflecting on the rules I subconsciously follow in my own classes …

Lately I have let my students make the rules for the class. I did this because I learned that it would make them more amenable to following rules and accepting consequences. In theory, they would even remind each other of the rules and enforce them themselves and I could keep my hands nice and sparkly clean.

Let the kids do all the dirty work.

Clearly I was expecting magic. What actually happened brought me back to reality. First of all, they made lists as long as the one in the picture and every rule started with “No”. No running. No Korean speaking. No eating. No drinking. No chewing gum. No sleeping. No fighting. No arguing. No cheating. Don’t be rude. The list went on and on. What could I do?

I started by recasting the rules in a positive light – “No running” became “Walk” and “No Korean speaking” because “Speak English”. Some of the rules were way less clear that way, though. “Do your own work” had to be explained, and “Agree with everyone” was impossible. “Don’t be rude” got changed to the equally vague “Be respectful”.

Then I asked them to justify the rules. If they couldn’t, we threw it out. What we ended up with was a list of rules that everyone agreed on and mostly understood. We never did have time to talk about consequences.

The students did not police each other. Since consequences were not clear, even to me, students did not always find them fair. One day I tried asking a student what his consequence should be. He became so frustrated that he yelled at me “Just tell me.” He didn’t want choice. This was my wake-up call.

Something is not right!

New classes start again soon, and I am going to break my rule of learner autonomy in rule-making. I’m going to make the rules for them. I’m going to make specific rules and clear consequences. I will make only one concession: they can make changes if they can successfully explain the reasons for their changes.

Here is the list I have so far. What would you change? What would you add?

1. Speak English in class. However, seeking clarification and planning projects need not be done entirely in English.

2. Keep the classroom clean. Please clear off your desk and put all garbage in the bin before you leave the classroom. Push in your chair and clean around your desk.

3. Complete all homework on time in the manner requested (electronically, on paper, etc). 

4. Attend all scheduled classes. If you cannot attend a class, please let me know by email or text message before the class begins.

 

Update (January 7, 2013): Today is the first day of an elementary school English camp (252 hours of English in three weeks – that’ll larn ‘em).
Making the rules did not turn out quite the way I had planned (nothing ever does), but here’s what we ended up with:

This class is very low level and ranging in age from 8 to 11. We started with the school’s pre-made rules poster. Then I asked them, one by one, whether they wanted to follow each rule. One of the girls was pretty insistent on “be quiet” but was literally shouted down by the “be noisy” camp (with whom I tend to agree anyway). That’s the rule I’m most uncomfortable with, to tell the truth. I can’t imagine enforcing it. By the end of the class, we had to add “Don’t try to kill your classmates” but otherwise, the rest of the rules held. I suspect by the end of the week there will be new rules about throwing things and staying up all night.