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?

Outcome Thinking and the Development of Foreign Language Education

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

Inspired by the notion of education as an investment in human capital, a variety of more or less invasive and consequential reform initiatives have been developed and implemented in many countries in recent years. However, from a research perspective it remains to be seen if the continuing global trend to elevate intensive monitoring and meticulous evaluation of learning outcomes to the status of an educational imperative will turn out to be beneficial to foreign language instruction in secondary schools. What do you personally think about these developments? I am interested to hear your views on this. What are your personal reactions to the contemporary trend to coat instruction with more and more layers of testing and evaluation?

Treacherous Quicksand: Quality Measurement in Foreign Language Education

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

While working on a new publication, I came across the following statement by H.G. Widdowson (1990: 1): “The effectiveness of teaching cannot be equated with its rational accountability.” This made me think again about what good quality management and quality assurance in foreign language learning and teaching – including the (fuzzy) concept of accountability – is all about. To my mind, it is essential to avoid simplistic equations between standardized tests / test scores and teacher / foreign language teaching quality on the one hand, and between individual test results and the outcome of foreign language and intercultural learning on the other. Equations like these are grossly inadequate to address the complex challenge of improving the quality of learning and teaching in foreign language classrooms. Instead of encouraging practitioners to take a fresh look at their teaching (stimulating, for instance, in-service training), I think they rather contribute to fixing the status quo (and a teaching to the test mentality), i.e. to ensuring stagnation.

Foreign language education in the 21st century is more than skills-based instruction (which does not make it easier at all; see my personal view of foreign language education in Germany on this blog). It embraces language (including literature) and culture as a whole, and it is this educational whole which matters. It cannot be captured by standardized (especially discrete-point) testing.

Accountability? “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.“ (William Shakespeare). This leaves many questions open to discussion. What do you personally think about all this?

Widdowson, Henry G. (1990). Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

‘Lean Production’ in Foreign Language Education: Are We on the Right Track?

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

Almost 25 years ago, A.P.R. Howatt (1984: 274) described the interrelation of foreign language education and socioeconomic development in the mid-twentieth century in the following way: “Though economic factors facilitate investment in educational development, they do not motivate it, or determine which direction it will take.”

The overall situation has changed dramatically since then. In the new International Handbook of English Language Teaching, Michael Breen (2007: 1071-1072) points out that “[…] governments have mobilized standards of achievement and competencies in education, systems for the accountability of educators, and the new positivism of evidence-based practices. Such measures have been put in place on the basis of two unproven assumptions: that whatever teachers achieved before is no longer adequate and that the bureaucratic surveillance of teachers’ work will improve their students’ performance. More overt consequences […] have been the ‘re-skilling’ of highly experienced teachers into managers and an escalating exodus from the profession. The reason most often given by teachers for their decision to leave is the intensification of workloads entailed in regular testing of students and related accounting and reporting processes. More covertly, assessing a teacher’s worth primarily in relation to national benchmarks of the outcomes of learning include the displacement of teachers’ broader educational aims and the complex interpersonal process of enabling learning to occur.”

It cannot be emphasized enough that the foreign language classroom is not an assembly line on which intercultural communicative competence is fabricated in a rapid ‘plan-do-check’-way (at the least cost). It really is 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, leaving very little room for internal change agents to develop what might be called a holistic learning culture (aimed at sustained individual development) in the classroom.  

Howatt, A.P.R. (1984), A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Michael Breen (2007), “Appropriating Uncertainty: ELT Professional Development in the New Century.” In: Cummins, Jim & Davison, Chris (2007). International Handbook of English Language Teaching. Part II. New York: Springer, 1067-1084.