Neoliberalism and Global Citizenship Education

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

The four-day international Munich conference on global citizenship education and (foreign) language learning in the digital age ended today (cf. my previous post). In retrospect, it was well worth attending: very professionally organized, brilliant speakers, and inspiring, thought-provoking plenaries and talks.

Most talks and presentations I went to addressed contemporary issues and emerging challenges related to global citizenship education and language learning from a humanistic (or ‘philanthropic’) perspective. A humanistic concept of global citizenship is rooted in the supposition that there is a certain commonality among us, as we are all human, and that the notion of global citizenship education transcends the geopolitical borders of the nation-state, especially or even more so perhaps in the age of the internet, i.e. in virtual space. In the context of my talk on neoliberalism in (foreign) language education in Germany, I referred to this conceptualization as a romanticized, early 21st century interpretation of enlightenment. How appropriate, how realistic is this view?

As I see it, looking at global citizenship education in this way largely disregards that (foreign) language education in schools – and this is the context I wish to focus on here– is no longer seen in its educational context only. From the late twentieth century onwards, (foreign) language education has been coopted into other, political and socio-economic agendas and it is now conceived of by those who hold and control the political and economic power as a strategic instrument primarily (as well as a valuable commodity), which is declared indispensable for responding to (or even overcoming) real or imagined threats. The underlying narrative centers on the idea that educational ‘failure’ (whatever is meant by that und whoever claims the authority to define it) is detrimental to a country’s economic strength, competitiveness, wealth, and ‘well-being’. All this has culminated in the paradoxical, post-PISA logic of regulated deregulation (through standards-based instruction, testing of competencies and skills, monitoring measures, etc.).

In consequence, (foreign) language teachers are no longer viewed as (foreign) language educators primarly, but as political agents enacting neoliberal educational policies (which are, in essence, informed by a radical market orientation). I think it is high time to problematize how the humanistic (and as such utopian, idealistic, all too academic) approach to global citizenship is increasingly being turned into and misused as neoliberal propaganda. What about the ethics and moral implications of a neoliberal, radically market-driven, largely utilitarian approach to global citizenship education? In view of current, neoliberal regimes of educational governance world-wide and their reductive conceptualization and instrumentaliziation of education as performance training for international competitiveness and employability (the ‘can do’-perspective), how realistic is it to assume that (foreign) language learning in schools can be more than or different from producing useful multilinguals (in their role as consumers, employees, etc.) for the global economy? Language-sensitive global citizenship education, is this an educational (pedagogical) or a capitalist imperative (i.e. a global business model)?

 

 

 

Out Now: “Creativity in the English Language Classroom” (Maley & Peachey 2015)

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

In his foreword to this brand-new British Council publication entitled “Creativity in the Language Classroom” (Maley & Peachey 2015), Chris Kennedy argues that creativity is a concept that is in danger of being “hijacked by public bodies and private institutions which employ them as convenient but opaque policy pegs on which practitioners, including educators, are expected to hang their approaches and behaviours” (2015: 3). Correspondingly, Alan Maley views creativity “as an endangered species in the current model of education, which is increasingly subject to institutional, curricular and assessment constraints”. The publication is now available online. I was kindly invited to contribute a chapter on fostering and building upon oral creativity in the EFL classroom. For a free download of this book, please click on the image below (also available in print form).

I have been interested in creativity and improvisation to foster oral proficiency in EFL classrooms in Germany for roundabout 20 years. When I started thinking about task-driven instructional designs which offer learners more room to talk and to express their own ideas in the target language in the mid-1990s, mainstream educational philosophy and policies in Germany were only just beginning to change,  from so-called input- to standards- and competency-based, measurable outcome-orientation. The backwash effects of such reforms are still unclear.

Common sense tells us that ‘weighing the cow does not make it fatter’. I think there is a pressing need to reassess assessment and the current obsession with efficiency and measurable outcome in foreign language education. What effects and side-effects does it have on teaching and learning English as a foreign language in secondary schools? (see also the current discussion on The Steve Brown Blog).

This is one remarkable finding of a (non-representative) pilot study with 697 EFL teachers carried out in the German state of Hesse: “After nearly a decade of [..] nationwide standards-based assessment in Germany, researchers and teachers alike are still struggling with the task of implementing educational standards and system-monitoring in schools. […] The majority of teachers neither consider the test results useful in improving classroom learning nor the potential impact on school development.” (Skejic, Neumann & Mangal 2015).

References:

Kurtz, Jürgen (2015). “Fostering and building upon oral creativity in the EFL classroom”. In: Maley, Alan & Peachey, Nik (eds.). Creativity in the English Language Classroom, London: British Council, 73-83.

Skejic, M.; Neumann, D. & Mangal, H. (2015): Vergleichsarbeiten im Fach Englisch. Einschätzungen von hessischen Lehrkräften. Zeitschrift für Fremdsprachenforschung [in print]. [non-representative pilot study carried out in the German Federal State of Hesse; n = 697 EFL teachers]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10th Annual Conference of BAAL LLT SIG 2014

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

The 10th Annual Conference of BAALSIG LLT 2014 (The British Association for Applied Linguistics, Special Interest Group: Language Learning and Teaching) will be held on July 3-4, 2014, hosted by The School of Education, University of Leeds, UK. The conference theme is: “Recognizing Complexity in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching”. Confirmed plenary speakers are:

Adrian Holliday, Canterbury Christ Church University
Sarah Mercer, Karl-Franzen University Graz, Austria
Pauline Foster, St Mary’s University College Twickenham

For more detailed information, please click here.

It is a great honor and pleasure for me to be invited to give a talk on the complexity of balancing structure and improvisation in everyday classroom interaction. This is my abstract:

Structure and Improvisation in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching

Imagination, creativity, and flexibility are of great importance in today’s knowledge age and economy. Thus, it is crucial to develop and strengthen these capacities in schools. Current education reforms, however, place primary emphasis on the ability to perform to fine-graded standards of competency and skill. Imagination, creativity, and flexibility are chiefly viewed from this perspective. Moreover, creativity is typically conceived of as an individual process or product, not as a collaborative or complex collective endeavor. Little attention is given to improvisation (spontaneous creativity in performance) and to the spontaneous und functional use of accumulated competencies and skills in everyday social interaction (so-called ‘little-c’ creativity). Generally speaking, current reform initiatives focus much more on accelerating measurable progress in certain subject areas of competency and skill than on fostering mental agility, communicative flexibility, resourceful spontaneity, social adaptability, and a commitment to lifelong learning across the curriculum.

Looking at recent education reforms in the U.S., the American education psychologist David Berliner (2012) cautions against placing too many expectations on standards-based reforms, on thinning down school curricula, and ultimately, on conceiving of education in terms of measurable outcome primarily. In his view, elevating competency-based instruction and the demonstration of knowledge and skills in systematic performance tests to an educational imperative may eventually have some undesirable ramifications. In sum, he refers to them as ‘creaticide by design’.

In order to prevent education in schools from being suffocated and, ultimately, from being pathologized by standards-based instruction and grading, it is necessary to place stronger emphasis on developing a culture of creativity, spontaneity, and originality in the classroom, establishing a learning atmosphere which is conducive to both enthusing and empowering students to think and act on their feet and, if necessary and appropriate, out of the box.

Based on more than ten years of qualitative classroom research, I would like to problematize improvisation from a foreign language learning and teaching perspective and examine its potential for flexible instruction.

References
Berliner, David (2012). Narrowing Curriculum, Assessments, and Conceptions of What It Means to Be Smart in the US Schools: Creaticide by Design. In: Don Ambrose & Robert J. Sternberg (Eds). How Dogmatic Beliefs Harm Creativity and Higher-Level Thinking. New York: Routledge, 79-93.

Kurtz, Jürgen (2011). Breaking Through the Communicative Cocoon: Improvisation in Secondary School Foreign Language Classrooms. In: R. Keith Sawyer (Ed.). Structure and Improvisation in Creative Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press, 133-161.

EmMeth 2012 – A Quick Look Back

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany

I have just returned from a small, ‘intimate’ two-day conference for PhD-students and Post-Docs held at the University of Jena in Germany (February 24-25, 2012). The focus of the conference, which was extraordinarily well organized by the Jena team around my esteemed colleague, Prof. Hermann Funk, was on discussing and choosing appropriate (not only empirical) research methods in the field of German as a second or foreign language (broadly conceived).

The event was framed by two keynotes. I was generously invited to deliver the first one. In my talk, I problematized textbook use in school contexts (and how little we actually know about all this), as well as the future of the textbook and textbook research in second or foreign language school education. I argued that marketing slogans such as ‘dead-tree textbooks are a thing of the past’  (Apple computers) are premature,  but that we are definitely faced with new opportunities and challenges in all areas of FL/SL textbook research (i.e. in researching textbook use, in evaluating existing textbooks, and in devoloping new language learning media and materials for the classroom of the future). New challenges for textbook research are, for instance,  transmediality,  media hybridity, and integrative diversification (of underlying methodology, print and digital materials, etc.), to name just a few.

The second keynote speech, delivered by Michael H. Long (University of Maryland) on the final day of the conference, was clearly a highlight. Based on his own research on classroom interaction and error correction, on implicit as well as explicit learning, Mike argued convincingly for ‘matched studies’ (i.e. studies on one particular issue conducted both in laboratory and in naturalistic environments). I agree that combined studies such as these can potentially enhance the (external/ecological) validity of research findings, making it easier for practitioners to translate these findings into actual day-by-day classroom practice.

In between the keynotes, there was plenty of time to discuss all aspects of relevance to FL/SL research and methodology, in workshops and seminars, during the poster sessions and in hallway exchanges. Personally, I learned a lot about MaxQDA (a very interesting software package for text analytical research, both quantitative and qualitative), and I was also able to update my knowledge about transcription systems, language archiving and text analysis, and related software like ELAN (MPI Nijmegen), EXMARaLDA (Hamburg University), FOLKER (IDS Mannheim), and Praat  (University of Amsterdam).

So, all in all, the EmMeth 2012 was well worth a visit. The next conference will be held in Vienna, Austria in 2013.

Elevating Increased Monitoring and Testing to an Educational Imperative – Does this really make sense?

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

On Monday this week I gave a talk to a small group of teacher advisors on the pros and cons of integrated skills development in EFL classroom environments near the city of Berlin. The focus was on developing oral skills in primary and secondary schools, more specifically, on fundamental issues related to the transition from primary to secondary EFL classrooms. In this context, I voiced my concerns about the current trend to think about (efficient?) foreign language education in terms of competence- and standards-based measurable outcome in Germany, arguing that this approach is difficult to bring in line with traditional conceptualizations of Bildung (foreign language education as a time-consuming process of self-formation; in the age of globalization, mobility and migration, cultural diversity and hybridity, etc.). This was followed by a lively discussion.  Since we did not have enough time to discuss all this in detail, especially the potential problems associated with conceiving of oral target language proficiency in terms of neatly defined, measurable sub-skills (or so-called competences and levels of oral competence), especially perhaps with regard to primary schools, I would like to add the following:

In my view, improving foreign language education in everyday classroom practice is complex and subject to the interplay of a wide spectrum of interacting factors. By importing and adapting reform strategies and measures that are largely based on values, goals and concepts which (arguably) have been proven successful in business, commerce, finance and industry, complexity may appear to be manageable. However, the price to be paid for injecting market pressure into secondary (primary?) school education, for turning foreign language classrooms into arenas of competition for the best test results, for coating instruction with more and more layers of assessment, for reducing educational ‘quality’ to a limited number of measurable performance indicators, and for conceiving of output or outcome as the linchpin of quality development, may be hefty and unacceptable. In many countries, concerns are continuing to grow that standards- and test-driven compliance pressures on teachers are likely to rise, and that, in consequence, foreign language classroom instruction may increasingly and largely be condensed, redesigned and repackaged toward improving isolated skills performance in standardized tests (see, for instance, Böttcher, Bos, Döbert & Holtappels 2008; Kurtz 2005, O’Day 2008).

Today I stumbled upon two highly interesting, and perhaps, highly controversial  articles (mentioned/written) in the New York Times that I would like to share with you. Please click here and there. :-)

References

Böttcher, Wolfgang; Bos, Wilfried; Döbert, Hans & Holtappels, Heinz Günter (eds.) (2008). Bildungsmonitoring und Bildungscontrolling in nationaler und internationaler Perspektive. Münster: Waxmann. [Education Monitoring and Control – Viewed from an international perspective; my translation].

Kurtz, Jürgen (2005). „Bildungsstandards als Instrumente der Qualitätsentwicklung im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Towards a Checklist Approach to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching? In: Bausch, Karl-Richard; Burwitz-Melzer; Eva; Königs, Frank G.; Krumm, Hans-Jürgen (eds.). Bildungsstandards auf dem Prüfstand. Arbeitspapiere der 25. Frühjahrskonferenz zur Erforschung des Fremdsprachenunterrichts. Tübingen: Narr, 159-167.

O’Day, Jennifer (2008). “Standards-based reform: promises, pitfalls, and potential lessons from the U.S.” In: Böttcher, Wolfgang; Bos, Wilfried; Döbert, Hans & Holtappels, Heinz Günter (eds.). Bildungsmonitoring und Bildungscontrollingt in nationaler und internationaler Perspektive. Münster: Waxmann, 107-157.

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?

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).

New Common Core State Standards Released

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

From The  New York Times Online, Wednesday, June 2, 2010: “The nation’s governors and state school chiefs released on Wednesday a new set of academic standards, their final recommendations for what students should master in English and math as they move from the primary grades through high school graduation. The standards, which took a year to write, have been tweaked and refined in recent weeks in response to some of the 10,000 comments the public sent in after a draft was released in March. – The standards were made public at a news conference on Wednesday in Atlanta.”

Space to Language: Being Intercultural in a Breathless World

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

On this blog, I have frequently criticized current trends to coat instruction with more and more layers of evaluation, forcing teachers to increasingly think in test intervals and to squeeze foreign language learning and teaching (including intercultural education) through the bottleneck of assessment schedules (see also Kurtz 2008). The following aphorism summarizes my position on this issue: ‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.’ (taken from Patton 2002: 12).

In a talk delivered at UC Irvine in March 2009, Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow, voices similar concerns. Examining many of the prevailing attitudes and metaphors of language teaching, she argues that commodifying frameworks and managerial approaches to quality enhancement distract and impede us in the pursuit of what language teaching and learning could be.

Her presentation titled “Space to Language: Being Intercultural in a Breathless World” is available here.

Kurtz, Jürgen (2008). “Life Skills-Based Education in Secondary School Foreign Language Classrooms – Cornerstone of a Challenging Vision.” In: Doff, Sabine; Hüllen, Werner & Klippel, Friederike (eds.) Visions of Languages in Education. München: Langenscheidt ELT, 87-100.

Patton, Michael Quinn (2002). Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

“Visions of Languages in Education”

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

New publication: Doff, Sabine; Hüllen, Werner & Klippel, Friederike (Eds.) (2008). Visions of Languages in Education – Visionen der Bildung durch Sprachen. Berlin, München, Wien, Zürich, New York: Langenscheidt ELT. [MAFF = Münchener Arbeiten zur Fremdsprachen-Forschung; edited by Friederike Klippel, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany]

Public discussion of school education in Germany has been dominated by a move towards purely functional goals. The obligation to compare learning outcomes between schools, regions or even countries may, in many respects, be helpful, but it narrows the teaching in schools. This is particularly true for foreign language teaching. As a consequence, general goals of Bildung, self-formation and the acquisition of cultural knowledge are neglected or even by-passed intentionally.

Therefore, the authors of this volume thought it imperative to redefine the educational goals of teaching English, French, Spanish, Russian, and other languages in schools at the beginning of the 21st century and to ask:

• Why do we teach foreign languages in schools to everybody and what are the aims of doing this?
• What exactly is the contribution of language teaching to the formation of character and the acquisition of cultural knowledge?
• In what way does language teaching support other areas of school education?
• What are the past, present and future visions of foreign language teaching?

Contributors:

a) Visions for Europe / Visionen für Europa

Werner Hüllen: Karl Magers Vision einer Bürgerschule mit Unterricht in den neu-europäischen Sprachen

Herbert Christ: Didaktik der Mehrsprachigkeit: Die Vision eines Sprachen und Schulfächer übergreifenden Lernens

Daniel Coste: Plurilingual Education, Identity, Citizenship

Michael Byram: Education for International Citizenship: Language Teaching and Education for Citizenship – In Europe and beyond

b) Visions for Learners – Learners’ Visions / Lern(er)-Visionen

Katrin Gut-Sembill: Visionen – Ein Antrieb zum Fremdsprachenlernen

Jürgen Kurtz: Life Skills-based Education in Secondary School Foreign Language Classrooms – Cornerstone of a Challenging Vision

Barbara Schmenk: Visions of Autonomy as a Core Concept in Language Education

Helmut Sauer: Von der Lernerorientierung zur Lehrerorientierung: Die Lehrkraft als Schlüssel zu “Bildung durch Sprachen”

c) Visions and Context in Historical Perspective / Geschichtliche Fundamente

Frans Wilhelm: Goals in Dutch Foreign Language Teaching: A Historical Perspective, 1500-2000

Daniel Tröhler: Zwischen Ideologie und Institution: Die Etablierung der modernen Fremdsprachen im Gymnasium Preußens und Zürichs

Christiane Ostermeier: Französisch statt Latein: Der Reformplan Julius Ostendorfs (1823-1877)

Sabine Doff: Was von Visionen übrig bleibt: Frauen, die neusprachliche Reformbewegung und ihr Echo in den Lehrplänen des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts

d) Visions in and beyond the Curriculum / Curriculare Visionen

Stefan Kipf: Schule im Umbruch – Perspektiven für den altsprachlichen Unterricht

Erik Kwakernaak: Fremdsprachenunterricht in den Niederlanden: Ein Fach ohne Identität?

Henry Widdowson / Barbara Seidlhofer: Visions and Delusions: Language Proficiency and Educational Failure

Claire Kramsch / Michael Chad Wellmon: From Bildung durch Sprache to Language Ecology: The Uses of Symbolic Competence