Class Sept. 27th, 2011

I'm glad that there is a template available to us, as far as lesson plans are concerned, in this anthology. Just another useful purpose for this exceptional resource. That having been said, I suppose it might be expected that I say that I'm glad with how the author explained a little day-to-day lesson plan. Too often we get caught up in what particular teachers want from the plans and we worry about whether we're following a specific set of instructions to perfection in our crafting of the plans. It's refreshing to not have to worry about conforming to a particular teacher's format and only worrying about where we might place data in our own, specialized version.

As I said, this is just another neat usage of this resource. I've never really been able to say too much about these little articles, so I'll leave it there. Just happy to see a plan that doesn't ask for particulars, and instead focuses on what we're putting into the plan, not how.

Class Sept. 22nd, 2011

Personally, I like the idea of a project-centric content-based approach to language learning. I agree with the book that creating agreed upon projects (with influence from both the students and the teacher, i.e., the semistructured approach) could have incredible impact on class motivation and understanding. The method for creating an impactful project in the book seems like a really great way to set up any classroom activity; it is insightfully in-depth for a framework and I think, given enough effort, it could be fully employed for a very effective lesson.

I feel that, when I get into my classroom, I will definitely be using projects to drive home the importance of certain works of literature. In fact, I can't think of a better way to make the pieces that I will introduce more applicable to my students than to figure out, with them, just how to make them applicable. I'm in sort of different situation than most in the class as I won't necessarily be teaching bilingual classes full-time, so I've been looking at these methods and approaches and trying to decide how each might fit into any and every particular job I will have in the school, and I really like the project-centered idea for certain language classes and my English lit classes. Regardless, I've got several varied approaches to get under my belt, and I'm quite happy to add this one.

Class Sept. 20th, 2011

Task-Based Teaching is a fine idea, sure, and one worth a few implementations in the classroom to continue with a eclectic approach to teaching. It definitely has merit; when learners are invested in everything that goes into their education in a classroom then they're bound to get something more out of that educational opportunity than if someone were just lecturing from the front of the class. Indeed, I think it's a fine idea that could really help students with their grasp of any language. Putting them in familiar groups so that they can work together to achieve better fluency is an even more fantastic idea. The only problem I have is that this success depends entirely on how much a student puts into the project (or what-have-you) before, during, and after its completion.

I'm not saying that this is a complete failure of the Task-Based approach, but it's certainly a sizable hiccup. The whole process depends on learners to get out of it everything and more than they put into it, and I think this is placing too much emphasis on the assumed intrinsically motivating nature of several tasks (micro- or macro-) involved in this particular approach. Students have a lot going on. They have several classes each year that demand their complete and full attention, which basically means that their attention is inevitably divided between the necessities and the simplicities. The necessities become dangerous when not attended to, and some students see that in the form of tests and rote memorization, while tasks they might figure that they can just, "pick up on the fly." I say this because this was me in high school, as well as all of my friends, and then even the people I wasn't friends with. My indifference to the other population only clouds my data with obscurity, but I'm pretty sure that's the main principle on which an American school runs. Also, one has to take into account whether a student might want to do work or not. One bad apple might corrupt the task-based experience for an entire group.

I'm not saying that this is a terrible way to look at teaching. I'm just saying that there's no way to make an ideal condition in which it will work always- the basic underlying problem with method, and the one bane of our teaching that we keep coming back to. Certainly this approach has several applications in a progressive and successful classroom. But we needn't get carried away with thoughts of its effectiveness until we've tried it for ourselves, in our own individual classrooms.

Class Sept. 15th, 2011

Context. Context, context, CoNtExT, CONTEXT! I think Mr. Bax said the word in about every imaginable way, in about every imaginable location, in about ever imaginable context. Did this detract from my reading? Yes. Honestly the man annoyed me more than a slow-drip faucet into an empty tin pot. Until his conclusion, where he finally made the friggin point that he'd been attempting throughout the article. We get it, CLT (and other such non-contextualized- read: methodological- approaches) do not work everywhere even though theorists and stick-in-the-mud educators want them to. We all knew that. But the emphasis on a specific methodology at the expense of taking context into consideration is detrimental to the professional and the profession; even more importantly, it is detrimental to student learning. See, I just said it without having to rail away for 9 pages. "The dominance of methodology has made attention to context secondary and haphazard." (pg. 285, I paraphrased) Had he begun with this, provided evidence, and then supplied his Context Approach, I wouldn't be so angry. But there you have it.

All that having been said, I agree with him. I wouldn't have a drink with him or ever let him babysit my kids, but I agree. As he quotes one person in the article, the quest for methodological perfection (i.e., one prominent, perfect method for teaching) is ended and dead, with little-to-no progress having been made. It doesn't work. Each teaching experience is as unique as the learning experiences that they provide; they must be formatted for individual years, classes, units, etc. The only way to reach every student is to understand exactly how to reach them, not by cookie-cutting their individuality. And, I would argue, this requires a special kind of teacher. You know, a good one.

As Bax states, good teachers have been doing this since they took the lead in their first class. Teaching isn't just about packaging information to be shipped out and processed by robotic minds. There's more to all of this than that. A teacher must connect with his/her students, must understand the students. They've as much stake in the education as the educator does, and to do them the service that they deserve, the teacher must find a way to bridge the academic with reality. The social context of these young people is everything to them; friends, family, fun, these are all as important to them as actual learning- sometimes more important, who can say? Simply deeming them 30 (or so) like-minded, like-thinking individuals defeats the grand mission even before it is undertaken. So yes, context is everything. Methods shouldn't be considered biblical or how-to guides. Methods should be treated as reference guides and helping hands. Anyone who doesn't consider this important to their approach to teaching isn't going to be nearly as effective as the one who does take the controversial eclectic approach; not eclectic in the sense that many methods make for success, but eclectic in the idea that it takes several paths to reach even a single mind. When dealing with many minds, it only behooves one to use every resource available. The teacher owes that to the student, at the very least.

Extra Blog: Images of Brazilian Teachers

My group and I discussed the meat and potatoes of this article at length already, but I'll go through it again with my own voice and see if I can't discover something new about it or myself. The article was about taking a timed snapshot of teachers in Brazil after Freire's idea of critical pedagogy was made nationally required for every teacher. The picture that was provided was far different than anyone expected. The study looked at 40 teachers of various academic levels who all, in some fashion, worked in the teaching of English as Brazilians teaching this language rather than some native speaker. The unexpected image of this snapshot was that hardly any of these teachers were familiar with critical pedagogy; I say this in past tense because this study was conducted in 1999, two years after the national implementation of critical pedagogy as a requirement in '97.

The crazy thing about this (beyond the fact that Freire's a Brazilian and the idea of critical pedagogy is progressive and, consequently, one would think it would be emphasized in his home country) is that not only were these educators unfamiliar with critical pedagogy, but most hadn't even heard of it! Of the 40 who were interviewed and tested, only 2 had a realistic idea of the workings of critical pedagogy, while another minority (albeit a larger one that the 2 that knew what was going on) understood the theory incorrectly. That's like Brazil hosting the World Cup and going down in the first round to Moonanites; it just shouldn't be the case. My group and I discussed the potential reasons for this; we felt that because the critical pedagogy theory was only implemented on a nationally required stage 2 years before the study that several of these teachers were not trained in this idea. We also assumed, whether for better or worse, that the teachers that had absolutely no idea were the older teachers while the younger teachers were a little more familiar. The youngest were the 2 with the working knowledge of the theory. We had no evidence of this as the study didn't specify ages (which we thought it would be helpful if it did), but it just seemed to be a logical step.

What we know: As of 1999, Brazil had a long way to go before becoming the progressive ideal of education that their own theorist, Paulo Freire, imagined. I'd like to see a study done today asking these very questions, albeit with some more information about those being featured in the study, to get a better idea of the impact of critical pedagogy on Brazilian education. As far as the prompt questions are concerned, this doesn't implicate critical pedagogy all that critically; it simply speaks to a time when the norm was a changing entity.

Class Sept. 6th, 2011

Teaching is a constantly progressing ideal, I think. The first chapter of Kuma discussed this idea, I think, and I won’t get into exactly what was said because it’s about what we do with the text and not about simply recognizing its reality, but I’d like to investigate this thought further. An ideal is supposed to be something somewhat set in stone, the culmination of a concept or action that results in what was required of perfection. To describe an ideal as constantly progressing automatically decries its nature because only imperfect things require progress- the journey towards perfection is what transforms a theory into a suggestion, and then once its destination is achieved it can be considered ideal. Taking the definition at its most extreme lends this possibility.

Teaching, though, is an abstract concept. Surely there is something fundamentally sound about the process, and experts in education do exist, but teaching as a term and an expression is in itself, abstract. I feel that the abstract nature of what can/should/will be considered teaching is what allows it the potential to become more than that which one finds in a lexicon; what allows it to become something more outside the normal conceptions. It can be considered a progressing ideal because of its importance. Only important things are considered for the creation of thought-out ideals, and the ideal changes overtime as importance is lent to different areas than before thought. Thus we see education as necessarily dynamic.

I guess what I’m trying to get at with this post is that I see how and why new theories of effective education come about, die, and then progress again. I buy into at least one aspect of every theory of teaching that Kuma lays out in the first chapter, but I also recognize that even these are limited. It’s only a matter of time before another theory rears its head and we all move on to that for answers as of yet unreceived.