Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the Learning Revolution

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany

According to Sir Ken Robinson, “We have built our education systems on the model of fast food. This is something Jamie Oliver talked about the other day. You know there are two models of quality assurance in catering. One is fast food, where everything is standardized. The other are things like Zagat and Michelin restaurants, where everything is not standardized, they’re customized to local circumstances. And we have sold ourselves into a fast food model of education. And it’s impoverishing our spirit and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.” (subtitled in 50 languages)

In Germany and, from my perspective, in many other countries around the globe, SL/FL teachers are put under massive pressure to meet vague and – partially – unconvincing standards, and to conduct tests based on a questionable approach to foreign language education. What do you think about all this?

New Publication: Structure and Improvisation in Creative Teaching

by Jürgen Kurtz, Justus Liebig University (JLU) Giessen, Germany

This new book, edited by R. Keith Sawyer (Washington State University, St. Louis), takes a fresh look at one of the core issues in education and learning. Focusing on the predictability and unpredictability of learning (and teaching) processes in schools, it raises a number of fundamental questions concerning flexible and creative curriculum and instructional design in the 21st century, providing readers with the know-how as well as the ‘do-how’ necessary to create rich, meaningful, and encouraging learning environments in the age of outcome-orientation and testing. As Keith Sawyer points out on his blog:

“The key idea is that good teaching involves both structures and improvisation, both advance planning and adaptability. Expert teachers know how to use structures (lesson plans, activities, techniques to discipline unruly students) in an improvisational way that’s customized and targeted to each class and each student. This is what “creative teaching” really is: it’s not a flaky, New Age performance artist who mesmerizes the students. It’s an expert with a deep knowledge of the craft of teaching, and of the subject being taught, and an expert who can use that to orchestrate valuable learning activities among the students.”

The book comes at a time when education systems are under massive socio-economic and ideological pressure world-wide, and it would be fatal if all this resulted in what David C. Berliner calls creaticide in the foreword: “With a few notable exceptions, policies designed to improve schools have resulted in a diminution of those classroom activities that are more likely to promote higher levels of thought, problem solving, and creativity in academic areas. It is not that the research community can agree on how to produce higher-order thinking and creative responses among youth. Far from it! But there is remarkable agreement about how not to produce the outcomes we desire. And by constraining what teachers and students can do in classrooms we do just that” (2011: xv).

Chapter 7 of this book focuses on the significance of structure and improvisation in teaching English as a foreign language. Title: “Breaking through the Communicative Cocoon: Improvisation in Secondary School Foreign Language Classrooms.” (Kurtz, 2011: 133-161).

For further details, please click here.

Sir Ken Robinson on Changing Education Paradigms

by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

Two years ago, I wrote on this blog: “It is really heartbreaking to see how education is increasingly transformed into an economic enterprise by external stakeholders, how commercially exploitable competences and skills are turned into commodities, and how the principles of lean production are applied to schools …” (click here to continue). Yesterday I discovered the following thought-provoking video lecture on Youtube which I think fits in nicely with this ongoing discussion:

I also like this inspiring RSA animate which was adapted from Ken Robinson’s talk:

PS.: As I did two years ago, Ken Robinson speaks of a “mass-production mentality” which is outdated and  harmful to our children and youth (for more on this, click here).

The Eurydice Network

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

The face of EFL teacher education in Germany is changing dramatically at present, mainly because of recent developments in education politics, governance and administration in Europe. 

The Eurydice Network provides very interesting and useful information on and analyses of European education systems and policies. It consists of 35 national units based in all 31 countries participating in the EU’s Lifelong Learning programme (EU Member States, EEA countries and Turkey) and is coordinated and managed by the EU Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) in Brussels, which drafts its publications and databases. All Eurydice publications are available free of charge here

A Snapshot Taken at Bayswater Underground Station, London

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

On my way back to Germany last Sunday I took this photo of a poster I saw at Bayswater Underground Station in London:

I apologize for the poor quality of the snapshot. My train was coming and I didn’t want to miss it.

Issued by the TDA (“The Training and Development Agency for Schools is the national agency and recognised sector body responsible for the training and development of the school workforce”), the poster is part of an ongoing UK initiative to recruit teachers (not only foreign language teachers). – I haven’t seen anything like this in Germany, that’s why I put it online.

Following the link provided on the poster, I found this piece of information especially interesting and captivating:

“First class career with second class perceptions — Public rates teaching one of the worst professions for career progression, yet eight out of ten teachers see opportunities as some of the best in the UK.

Despite a sharp increase in the numbers of people entering the profession, teaching is still under-rated by the general public and final year students. New research by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) [...] shows that both groups under-estimate the salaries that teachers actually earn and the opportunities they have for career progression. The research is being published to launch a major recruitment drive in the run-up to three national Train to Teach recruitment events across the country. [...] When the general public was asked to rank professions by opportunities for career progression, teaching came towards the bottom (beating only journalism and careers in human resources). Two-thirds (66 per cent) of graduates interviewed thought teaching offered slow career progression and limited chances of promotion. Nothing could be further from the truth. [click here to read more].”

Money makes the world go round, but on the poster I also read that teaching is more than just a profession (i.e. a way to earn money). I couldn’t agree more, what do you think of all this?

Learning and Teaching English in German All-day Schools

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

The 2009 National GGT Conference took place at Karlsruhe University of Education between Wednesday, November 11 and Friday, November 13.  Focused on the further development of all-day schooling in Germany (“Ganztagsschulen – Motor der Schulreform”), it provided a great opportunity for researchers, headmasters and teachers, education policy makers and administrators to share concepts, strategies and personal experiences, and to discuss future directions (background information: the majority of schools in Germany are half-day schools). On Thursday, November 12 all of the several hundred participants were given the chance to visit various types of all-day schools in Karlsruhe and in the surrounding area and see them in action (including free public transport). In my view, the organizers accomplished a (logistic, etc.) masterpiece that day.

As a researcher interested in how theory and practice can be brought together more closely, this was definitely one of the highlights, something that should be taken into consideration for all future conferences focusing on school development and on the quality of education (including the teaching of English as a foreign or second language).

I was generously invited to conduct a 2 1/2 hour workshop on learning and teaching English as a foreign language in all-day schools in Germany (“Englischunterricht an Ganztagsschulen: Herausforderungen, Erfahrungen und Konzepte, Praxisbeispiele”). The central questions raised in this workshop were:  Does it make any difference to teach English as a foreign language in all-day schools (as compared to half-day schools)? What are the advantages and disadvantages, potentials and limits? Do we, perhaps, need specific approaches to learning in afternoon lessons, including specific designs of instruction? And, more specifically related to current SLA / EFL research: How is discovery, inductive, increasingly self-regulated grammar, vocabulary, culture etc. learning possible, if students are tired, disinterested, no longer capable or willing to learn between 1.30 and 4 pm?

A lively discussion arose. Whereas some participants argued that successful foreign language education and learning in all-day schools largely (but of course not only) depended on the organization of the school day, i.e. on ‘pedagogically’ convincing timetables (an optimal balance of lessons and breaks), others felt that more emphasis needed to be placed on learners and learning processes in afternoon lessons, especially on the development and implementation of specific, less linear instructional designs geared toward maintaining learners’ interest and motivation and toward keeping them on task and focused. For anyone interested in this topic, here is the presentation I came up with last Friday.

Since schooling is naturally understood in other countries as all-day schooling, it would be very interesting to hear your thoughts on this.

Children’s Literature in Language Education

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Karlsruhe

An international conference on “Children’s Literature in Language Education – from Picture Books to Young Adult Fiction” will be held at Hildesheim University, Germany from February 25-27, 2010.

Plenary speakers:
Stephen Krashen, Eva Burwitz-Melzer, Alan Maley & Andrew Wright

Strand 1: EFL extensive reading – reading for pleasure; teacher training with
non-canonical literature;
Strand 2: Pre-teens and teens: young adult novels, graded readers, non-fiction,
poems and graphic novels;
Strand 3: Young learners: picture books, poems and nursery rhymes; language acquisition with literary texts;
Strand 4: Storytelling and workshops

For further information, see the conference website (click here).

International CLIL Conference 2010

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

The International CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) Conference 2010 “In Pursuit of Excellence: Uncovering CLIL Quality by CLIL Practitioners – Evidencing CLIL Quality by CLIL Researchers” will be held September 30 to October 2 at the University of Eichstätt in Germany. For more information, including the call for contributions, see the webpages of the CLIL Consortium.

The Role of the Textbook in the EFL Classroom (3)

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

What do we really know about how textbooks are actually used in secondary school EFL classrooms around the globe today? Research indicates that EFL textbooks are used in many different ways, depending on a wide spectrum of factors. The teacher seems to be the most important factor. In a number of scholarly publications, including some introductory books to teaching English as a foreign language, different preferences or styles of textbook use are identified and described in more or less detail (see, for instance, Haß 2006), ranging from complete textbook-reliance to more selective approaches, from the eclectic use of many different instructional resources to the employment of self-made materials, especially in project-oriented or project-based sequences of instruction. In this context, textbook-bound teaching (i.e. progressing through the book page by page over the course of the school year) is often set in opposition to more flexible approaches to textbook use. The latter is often seen as the most adequate, convincing and appropriate.

The empirical basis is weak, however. This is regrettable, not only because it leaves us with a vague picture of actual textbook use (around the world, in different educational contexts). More fundamentally, identifying different styles of textbook use does not really tell us anything about how to use EFL materials and media most effectively and efficiently.

I am very interested in hearing what you think about this personally, and, more specifically, in how you make use of EFL materials and media in everyday classroom practice. On this blog, I have already referred to the many images and metaphors used by scholars to describe how textbooks and related materials and media should or should not be used in the EFL classroom (see: the role of the textbook in the EFL classroom, parts one und two).

Here are some very interesting and thought-provoking learner images for EFL textbooks documented in McGrath (2006):

“A coursebook is a pair of glasses (which help me to see what the teacher is talking about).“

“A textbook is a beggar (no one likes to approach it).“

“A textbook is an angry barking dog that frightens me in a language I don‘t understand.“

You can also find a lot of teacher images and metaphors for textbooks in McGrath (2006) as well, for instance:

„A textbook is like oil in cooking – a useful base ingredient.“

„Textbooks are like ladies‘ handbags because we can take what we need from them and ladies tend to take handbags wherever they go.“

„A textbook is the stone from which a sculpture will be made (needing bits chopped off, added on and occasionally a little crushing.“

Food for thought…

Haß, F. (Hrsg.) (2006). Fachdidaktik Englisch. Tradition, Innovation, Praxis. Stuttgart: Klett.

McGrath, I. (2006). Teachers‘ and learners‘ images for coursebooks. ELT Journal, 60 (2), 171-180.

Council of Europe: Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

The Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters has been developed as a follow up to the Council of Europe’s White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue : “Living together as Equals in Dignity”. It is a personal document which encourages users to think about and learn from the intercultural encounters that have made a strong impression or had a long-lasting effect on them. With its emphasis on the critical analysis of users’ intercultural experiences, it complements other Council of Europe Language Policy Division tools such as the European Language Portfolio .

This is a ‘must read’ for anyone interested in promoting intercultural communicative competence both inside and outside the school sector. For details klick a) and b).