A few weeks ago, a group of teachers and I celebrated the 25th anniversary of Breaking Rules at the Japanese TESOL Affiliate meeting. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I knew very few of the 90 people who came to the meal and celebration. Only two of my former students were there which means that there is a whole group of teachers who I have not taught or met who have heard of the book or read it.

To highlight the idea of breaking rules, iTDi, a group I teach on line courses with, asked me to write some comments about the idea on one of their blogs.  I wrote up the twenty rules which I am attaching to this message. iTDi got more comments about these rules than most of the other items they posted and I am told that many people twitted about it. But I have still to learn how to make use of twitter.

So I hope the attached rules give you some ideas to consider that you have not considered before. If not, then they are not at all worthwhile.

Enjoy, enjoy.xx-rules-for-student-centered-learning

Reading lessons

Every few weeks The Guardian Weekly prints lesson plans, most recently written by Janet hardy-Gould. They are meant to be model lessons. The steps in the plans are similar to those in most textbooks published in the last few years. Here is a summary of a plan in the October 8^th, 2012 issue. As you read the steps, write in your notebook which steps you think focus on reading, which as you can see below is the focus of the lesson.

Focus: reading, question formation

Time: 50 minutes

Topic: Galapagos Islands lose shy superstar (lower intermediate) In fact the reading level is 9.5 and the Flesch reading ease is 55% which means that it is not very clear—100% would be totally clear. A reading level of 9.5 means that a native speaker of English in the middle of the 9^th year of school would be able to read the passage without difficulty. In fact, many students in the US in the 9^th grade—the last year of middle school—are not reading at the 9^th grade level and so could not comprehend the passage. To say it is lower intermediate is inaccurate.

Step 1. Show students photo of Lonesome George—a giant tortoise and explain to students that he was famous. Ask questions like “What information might be in the article? Information about his home, reason for fame, etc.? 4 minutes

Step 2 Write up these question words on the board: Where, Who, What, Why, When, How, How much, How many? As a class think of an example question to ask and in pairs prepare questions. Note the questions on the board. 10 minutes

Step 3 Focus on key vocabulary—write words and definitions and students complete sentences such as

a. If you —— something, you stay away from it.

Avoid, fail, unique

8 minutes

Step 4 Give out copies of the article and students look for the answers to the questions they wrote. 10 minutes

Step 5 Write up the following adjectives on the board and have students check meanings and discuss which adjectives apply to George. Have them underline sections of the text that justify their ideas.

A [ ] friendly

B [ ] solitary, etc.

8 minutes

Step 6 Write up the following questions. Students make notes about their ideas. Monitor. In groups discuss answers.

Do you know of other endangered species or subspecies that may die out? Etc. 10 minutes

Of the 6 steps, I think that maybe half of step 4 in which the students are supposed to read to answer the questions they wrote is devoted to reading. So out of a 50 minute lesson supposedly focused on reading, students actually read 5 minutes out of 50 minutes! This type of lesson is very, very common. I wonder why. To master any skill we need to practice the skill. Talking about music, reading reviews of recitals can be stimulating but to improve our ability to play the piano we have to play the piano not read reviews and talk about what we are doing or not doing.

If students read only five minutes how can they possibly improve their reading? What other skill can we improve with only 5 minutes a day of practice? NONE!

During the other 45 minutes if we were to record what the students said and wrote we would find a minimum of one error and in most cases 3 errors in every utterance and sentence! So we are asking students to continue to speak incorrect English and teaching them nothing. If they can do the tasks we set they do not need to be in an ESOL class. But in fact they cannot do the tasks correctly.

DO NOT BELIEVE ME. Follow the steps with a text you are using, record what students say and look at what they write and see how many statements they say or write are correct!

Then, have the students read the passage silently a few times, looking up words they do not know in a bilingual dictionary but not writing the meanings in their first language. Then, in pairs have them read silently as many words as they can, pause to think about the meaning, say what they have read while looking at a fellow student. Then have the person who read the sense group as well as the person who was listening write what they think the words are. After a paragraph, they can compare their written versions of the text with the original. Have them circle differences and write OK above the differences that are acceptable and NOT OK above those that are not.

Here is a line many know and variations that are OK and are NOT OK.

Once upon a time, there were three bears. They lived in a forest.

A long time ago, three bears lived in a forest. OK

Once a time, there three bears. They live forest. NOT OK

One a time, were three bear. They in forest. NOT OK

One time, three bear live forest. NOT OK

Read/think/ speak/listen/write/edit is a series of steps that if used regularly will enable students to develop not only their reading skills but their listening, speaking and writing skills. The steps also integrate vocabulary and grammar, which the steps listed in The Weekly Guardian do not.

But again, do not believe me, try the alternative I suggest and remember that to learn to play a tune we have to practice over and over not talk about what we are doing, read reviews of other piano players, read biographies of composers and write letters to friends about our love of music. To master a piece on the piano or to master a text we have to process the material over and over and over and over.

Not only are the steps I suggest going to lead to language mastery but they are easier to have students do and take far less time planning. The more extensive the plan the less when we teach we focus on what students are actually doing because we want them to do the steps we planned. Looking at what they say and write will reveal much more about what language we need to practice than doing the types of activities advocated in The Weekly Guardian.

All the bet.

John

I just returned from the Japanese Association of Language Teachers Conference. JALT is the TESOL affiliate in Japan. Though on line learning and blogs are not new–John and Marian saw the potential years ago when they started this Peace Corps Blog–I saw some developments that I found exciting that I want to share with you.

1. Duane Kindt has been doing classroom research for many years. He analyzes transcripts from his classes which as you know is quite unusual but is one of the best ways to understand teaching and improve learning. But the focus of his presentation was on Point of View camcorders. The drivers put a video camera on their forehead so that when we view the race we can see the track from the driver’s perspective. Duane had some of his students put POT camcorders on their foreheads. He and they could then see what they were looking at at various points in the lesson. The audio on these devices is apparently very, very good so students and teachers can hear what is said as well as wee what they are looking at. Check out some of duane’s work on the internet–most engating.

2. One John Eyles discussed on line language learning via the internet. Nothing new. Many language schools provide some on line lessons to supplement regular live classes. And some companies have contracts to provide classes via the internet.  But John’s vision is much, much broader. There are many countries with hundreds of thousands of learners who need to develop their English skills. The countries do not have enough money to build new schools and pay hundreds of teachers. So they are beginning to turn to people like John who has suggestions for reaching thousands in villages that are very isolated and very poor. Check out John on the internet. Very, very large vision he has.

3. One of the companies that provides on line lessons that has been around a few  years and so has a track record is DYNED started by Lance Knowles. He has developed a way to track the progress of students and thus for students to see their growth in language use. It is worth checking out Lance and his company.

4. During the conference, a start up company called iTDi organized an event to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of my book, Breaking Rules. Half a dozen of those who teach on line courses for teacher preparation did Pecha Kucha presentations on the theme of Breaking Rules. In addition to celebrating the 25th anniversary of the publication, the event was organized to inform people that in November I will be teaching an on line live course called Breaking Rules on line. I will be doing a webinar and a blog session with iTDi staff before the course starts. When you check the iTDi website you will see a wide range of courses that are available and many blogs with others who believe that teachers working together produces more powerful learning than so called experts telling others what to do. The people I cited who are doing on line language learning also are into the community based language learning idea.

I hope to hear some of your voices live during my webinar or the live blog I will be doing with iTDi staff and in my course as well.

Enjoy, enjoy.

John

When I visit classrooms I sometimes see teachers hand out pieces of paper that they have prepared for their students. When I visit the same class a few days later I often ask a few students to show me the handouts they had gotten during my last visit. In some classes, students have folders they store the handouts in. But in many classes the students no longer have the handouts.

When I started teaching in Nigeria 50 years ago, we did not have copy machines. We had a mineograph machine but paper was very expensive and it took time to type up the information on a stencil. And in elementary schools there were no such machines. Each student had a notebook and each student wrote what the teacher had written on the board or what the teacher said. They treasured their notebooks since they contained their own writing, corrected by the teacher.

I am attaching some reflections from me and others on the pros and cons of handouts and other teacher prepared materials in contrast to student prepared materials.

Enjoy,

John

PS I will be doing a live on line seminar on the 20th of October sponsored by iTDi. You can find details if you type in iTDI in your search engine. Then click Breaking Rules on the site.

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When I was president of International Pacific College in New Zealand, one of my responsibilities was to make remarks at our annual opening and graduation ceremonies. We held these events at a restored movie theater in the center of town which seated around 1,000. I saw these ceremonies as an opportunity to spread the word about our philosophy of education. Because the college was started by a Japanese foundation, some in the community were curious about our educational goals. They were familiar with what went on with universities in NZ since many of them had attended them.

I am attaching remarks I made at our opening ceremony in 2005.

Enjoy.

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There are a number of recent books on how our unconscious minds rule our behavior. One recent one is Subliminal:How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behaviour by Leonard Mlodinow. Pantheon/Allen Lane. Of course since Freud raised our awareness of the unconscious, this idea is not new to most of us.

One of the themes of Breaking Rules was the power of the unconscious on our teaching. There is no way to plan the hundreds of communications we make in a class so most of them we do out of consciousness. This is why I have been advocating recording and transcribing short excepts–a few minutes is more than enough–of our lessons.

Observing is used in many areas.  After an increase in food related illnesses in a couple of restaurants, the health inspectors visited the places where a very large number of patrons got sick. The staff who washed the dishes and silverware and knives said they were very thorough. When one of the inspectors observed the kitchen staff, they noticed that though they washed the blades of the knives 2 or 3 times and rinsed them with very, very hot water, they failed to wash the handles. The number of bacteria that are on the blades is very small since there are few bacteria on the fresh vegetables they cut. Most of the bacteria are on the hands of those who do the food preparation. The inspectors ordered the staff to wash the knife handles as well as blades and lo and behold the number of people who got sick diminished.

Mistakes in hospitals are decreased through observation also. In many hospitals, the number of pills that patients take are too few or too many. When nurses who were counting doses were video taped, they noticed that during their counting they were often interrupted by visitors. “Excuse me, what room is John Fanselow in?” So from saying “one, two,” they nurses went to saying ‘Room 405′ ” and so of  course lost track of their pill counting. The nurses made signs which they put on the counter when they were counting dosages: PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB; I WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTION AFTER I FINISH COUNTING THE PILLS.  The number of mistakes decreased by around 90% immediately.

During the 50 years I have urged teachers to record and transcribe, around 95% have resisted. But once they record and transcribe, 100% say it is the most beneficial activity they have done to understand their teaching. One recently said “Observing is dangerous, but not observing is more dangerous and in fact a tragedy in our field.”

I am attaching a transcript written by a teacher with 20 years of experience who had never before recorded even one minute of his class. When he read it the first time with his colleagues, they did not notice anything in particular. They all thought that it was fine. But when I suggested they re-read it a few times and compare the sections and see how one leads or does not lead to another and compare what the teacher says with what the students say, they made a number of discoveries.

I am attaching a list of questions that they asked as they discussed the transcript after the 3rd reading. So if you do not notice anything that increases you understanding of your own teaching, try looking at the transcript to respond to the questions.

Enjoy.

John

The questions (pdf)

Transcript (pdf)

If you have read any of my messages you know that two of my themes are those in the title of this post.

I was thrilled to see in the January 30th 2012 issue of The New Yorker that both of these were dealt with.

One article was by Jonah Lebrer called “Annals of Ideas Groupthink The science of team effort”. He shows that brainstorming is the least effective way of creating new ideas in spite of the fact that it is commonly believe that it is a great way to create new ideas–question everything you do in your teaching!

The other article is about prisons in the US by Adam Gopnik–”The scandal of America’s teeming prisons”. He points out how the crime rate in the US was decreased not by large sweeping reforms but by small incremental changes. He hopes that prison reform will happen in the same way.

Both of these articles represent a third theme of all of my work–read in areas unrelated to teaching and learning to get ideas  about teaching and learning.

A few years ago, at a TESOL conference in Japan that was devoted to understanding our teaching, out of 250 or so presentations, only 5 dealt with looking an transcripts or recordings. I mentioned to a number of my former students in Japan that I wished more would discuss what we do rather this or that study. Last year, a number of those who heard my comment had a panel at the same conference. I am attaching a printed version of what they discussed at the panel.

The idea of analyzing video clips is not of course new. In sports, it has been done for decades. And more and more who want to understand medical practice are using video clips as well. Atul Gawande writes about the use of video in health care in the August 13th/20th issue of The New Yorker. He also compares the way staff at Cheesecake Factory restaurants are prepared with the way health workers are prepared. One of my themes in Breaking Rules was to observe non-teaching settings and take ways people learn in them and try them in our classrooms.

Enjoy.

John

jalt2011-049

If you have read any of my messages you know that two of my themes are those in the title of this post.

I was thrilled to see in the January 30th 2012 issue of The New Yorker that both of these were dealt with.

One article was by Jonah Lebrer called Annals of Ideas Groupthink The science of team effort. He shows that brainstorming is the least effective way of creating new ideas in spite of the fact that it is commonly believe that it is a great way to create new ideas–question everything you do in your teaching!

The other article is about prisons in the US by Adam Gopnik–The scandal of America’s teeming prisons. He points out how the crime rate in the US was decreased not by large sweeping reforms but by small incremental changes. He hopes that prison reform will happen in the same way.

Both of these articles represent a third theme of all of my work–read in areas unrelated to teaching and learning to get ideas  about teaching and learning.

Fellow explorers

A few days ago I participated in a discussion with teachers on the internet. The goal was to interact with questions from participants and my responses but there was a technical difficulty so participants typed in questions for me to respond to.  If you want to view both what I said and others who participated, here is the site: http://itdi.pro/webinar.html

Enjoy, enjoy.

John