(c) Sunshine on the Road, via Flickr

When I was younger, it wasn’t all that unusual to see a small kids struggling to get around on his or her big brother’s bike.  It always looked a bit strange.  It was undoubtedly both somewhat dangerous and tiring, and the kid would have always been better served by having a bike of the right size.  Obviously, not every family could afford it.  And if you travel a lot in developing countries, you will still regularly be confronted with such a sight.

Now ask yourself this…  If you decided to learn a new language and went to evening school to enrol in a course would you find the following conversation between yourself and the enrolment clerk odd?

“Hello, I’ve decided I’d like to learn Chinese.”
” That’s great!  How old are you?”
“Er… Forty-two.  Why?”
“Excellent.  We’ll put you in a Level 6 Course”
“But I’m a beginner!”
“At 42 you should be in Level 6.”
“Er…”

If you don’t find the above odd, then stop reading now – this article is not for you.  For the rest of you, ask yourself the following:  Why do we do that with foreign languages in schools? Continue reading »

(c) Wesley Fryer, via Flickr

So, I’m sitting in a train on my way to the airport to catch a flight to Istanbul. The ISTEK ELT Conference is taking place there this weekend. I’ve been looking forward to going for several weeks, but now I’m angry. The train’s on time, and I haven’t forgotten my passport, but travelling by train gives me time to make plans or brood (depending on whether the planning is finished or not). No, the reason I’m fuming mad is because of my colleagues.

Let’s go back a few days… On the last day of term the conversation in the staff room turned quite naturally to the holidays. The activities varied from doing nothing to moving house to going away somewhere – all quite normal, until I said I was going on a training course and then attending a conference in Istanbul. Actually, the reaction didn’t surprise me too much. Some people were surprised that I was going given that I was not being sponsored, others couldn’t see the point (without even asking what the conference was focused on), and a sizeable group stated flatly that they would never do such a thing in the holidays. Even the professional conference attender on the staff wasn’t prepared to give up time during his holidays for such an event. No-one expressed any interest in getting feedback after I returned, though many wanted a report from a colleague who was going to Mallorca. As I said, I wasn’t particularly surprised by this, and I got on with more important things in my life. Until this train journey. No planning to do. Time to brood… Continue reading »

(c) Gary Hayes, via Flickr

If you’re a Twitter user and you’re looking for great, thought-provoking ideas on education then a good place to start is @spedteacher.  His blog, Education On The Plate is a must-read for anyone looking for stimulating input on the subject of education.  I saw through Twitter that he’d blogged on the subject of running schools like a business – something which I feel has great advantages.  One thing that Deven did was to identify that this is not only controversial, it is also not simple.  Teachers are almost naturally resistant to the factory model for a school, recognising that students are individuals in their formative years and have differing needs and skills.  I’ve even heard a teacher use Pink Floyd’s, The Wall as an example of how school can be too focused on creating drones.  Sadly when it comes to this piece of music, I can’t forgive the band for the first line – We don’t need no education.  Countless kids know this line without understanding or even having heard the rest of the piece. Continue reading »

(c) daveknapik, Flickr

This is a favourite subject of mine.  There are lots of slogans in this world that deal with change management – “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the mantra of the cautious.  ”if you aren’t moving forwards, you’re going backwards” is innovator’s cry.  If you get to the point where you start hearing “stop flogging a dead horse” then it’s probably time to stop wondering which slogan holds more truth and to start doing something about your situation.

The trouble is, that’s when the real work starts.  Of course, you can delay the moment by setting up a work group, or issuing a draft proposal and asking for comments , but the day is going to come when you have to make the change.  It’s at that point you realise that your opponents (and whatever you believe, you do have them!) are well-armed and thoroughly trained in putting a brake on your campaign to conquer the brave new world at your doorstep.

The first weapon of choice for such people is, “what if…” and believe me, this is a potent enemy of the innovator.  It’s supporters proclaim the need for a thorough understanding of the new concept, including any possible issues that just might crop up somewhere along the line.  The what if game is, of course, a variation on the four-year-olds’ favourite game – “Why?”  A well-practised kid can bring otherwise stable parent close to a nervous breakdown with seven repetitions of this simple question.  The problem is that the parent’s final sanction, “because I say so,” doesn’t usually work in the adult world and even more rarely in a teachers’ staff meeting.

I watched a very skilled headmaster blow the what if tactic out of the water.  Having allowed the discussion to continue for a while, he asked the meeting, “Is anyone here actually against implementing the new system?”  This is playing hard ball.  Few professional delayers want to openly show dissension, they prefer to use “concern” as their motive.  No-one was prepared to oppose the idea outright.  The headmaster wrapped up the discussion.  ”Good, then we’ll phase in the new system starting on the 1st of next month and deal with any issues as they arise.”

In the same way that expecting to get all the kids in your class up to the pass standard is usually counter-productive, continuing the negotiations until everyone in a department agrees is a recipe for never changing anything.

What it really comes down to is, how much do you want the change you are advocating?  If it’s important to you, then unanimity, consensus and diplomacy are your enemies.  Harmonious staff rooms exist only in Utopia and the sooner you accept that the better.  Smoothing out arguments and negotiating is playing into the hands of your adversaries.  Before you know it, your plans are so watered down, they are rendered almost useless.  Failure is pre-programmed.

It all comes down to what sort of institution you want to work in.  You can accept the status quo and let the professional objectors have their comfortable life, of you can rattle a few cages and maybe reduce your own personal frustration levels.  And maybe, just maybe, a few of your colleagues will thank you for your efforts somewhere down the line.

You know the old joke…  I saw a light at the end of the tunnel – but it was just some bastard with a torch, bringing me more work. I feel a bit like that when it comes to trade fairs.  You see all these wonderful new ideas, but implementing them is going to cost you time and money.  And the most important of those two is not the money, it’s the time.

Either the money is available or it’s not and mostly the question is quickly resolved, but time is often ignored.  Just think of this.  You see a DVD with interactive animations that could be useful for a subject you teach.  It doesn’t cost much so you buy it immediately.  And now the clock’s ticking.  You have to look through the contents, work out how to integrate it, and then adapt your lesson materials.  OK, maybe you will save yourself time later, or maybe it’s a simple improvement in the quality of your teaching, but all of this has taken time.  Add in the time that your colleagues use when they decide to adopt your ideas and the end result is a lot of man hours.

And then you go to a trade fair like BETT at Olympia in London and maybe you come away with a dozen ideas.  At that point you need to start serious planning about how you are going to introduce all these wonderful new things to your teaching.  That’s the guy with the torch at the end of your tunnel! Continue reading »

(c) YellowDog, via Flickr

I read a blog post yesterday challenging TEFL teachers to choose between two possible scenarios for teaching the same material.  The interesting thing is that the sequence that appealed to me most was not the one that I would use with my current English class.  A healthy discussion about the pros and cons of the two approaches has developed (and is developing as I write this).  Now Jason Renshaw, the author of the post, is a skilled teacher and published author so it’s fair to say he knows what he’s talking about, but in posting a comment on his article my thoughts went off at a tangent.

Now I’m going to take a risk and suggest you read the article and the comments before you continue reading here… (Please come back!)

OK, back with me?  Let me carry on. Continue reading »