Critical Issues: Professional Development

Hubbard’s 2006 article entitled “Critical Issues: Professional Development” discusses the need for teachers to develop and to keep up to date with technology. According to Hubbard, proficiency in CALL includes two steps: “(a) building foundational competencies and (b) updating, upgrading, and adapting that foundation based on changes in technology, language teaching approach, and current teaching context. (278)”

The first part of the article focuses on professional development. Hubbard mentions that there are not any “fieldwide standards” for language teachers and that for many of the teacher preparation programs do not require the teachers to have any computer knowledge. He continues by saying that it is usual TESOL that creates the standards in the field but at the time that the article was written, those standards where not out and they did not come out until January 2009. Today, they exist but I cannot seem to access them without having to pay for them, click here to see the product detail. Hubbard also mentions that the ISTE has laid out some technology standards for K-12 known as the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) initiative.

The article also discusses individual objectives and quotes Pettis’ (2002) observation where “commitment to professional development must be ongoing and personal” and Hubbard mentions his own framework that he created with Levy in 2006 that has two assumptions: “(a) what one needs to know and be able to do depends on the role one is assuming at any given time, and (b) roles may be defined to a large degree by the expressed, or perceived, expectations of those affected by the individual.”

Hubbard discusses the different learning processes for reaching professional development objectives and choosing among them. He mentions that different combinations of formal training, situated learning, project-based learning, mentoring, and collaborative learning are all important for an individual’s professional development trajectory. In addition, he brings up the different resources and strategies for CALL professional development such as individual courses, workshops, organizations, interest groups, websites, and other reading materials.

As teachers, I believe that we should continually work on improving our methods. Reading parts of this article made me think about my professors here at Indiana University and their involvement with technology. For example, I have a French teacher (from France), in his 60s, who has just started using PowerPoint. I enjoy watching him teach and seeing his evolution over the past few semesters that I have had him as a teacher. In the very beginning, his presentations were very basic with just text and then sometime later he learned how to add pictures. Unfortunately, he still has not figured out how to put the presentation in full screen mode nor does he add any sort of design to them but he has recently started adding color to the text. Even today, he adapted more to the technology in Oncourse and assigned us to discuss an article using the forums. The only problem was that the students could not access the forums but that is not the point. The point is that he is making the effort to adapt to technology, even if he does not have a complete grasp of it. He even made to me saying that the University ‘does not teach him how to use these things’ (which goes against what Hubbard said, “teachers have an individual responsibility for the maintenance and growth of their own CALL proficiency”(280)).

Anglais Facile

Try number 2

After working on my evaluation for 3 hours (when I was 99% finished), my mouse fell to the ground while I was typing and caused me to exit Word without saving, I lost it all. My advice is that you save you files often so you won't have to go through what I went through!

Software/Website Title: Anglais Facile (Easy English)

Website URL: http://www.anglaisfacile.com

Grade/Age Level: French Teenagers (Adults could use the information as a review)

Language & Content: Target Language is English, the website is in French.

I have decided to do a website evaluation about a website called Anglais Facile (Easy English). I figured that I would evaluate this site because it will help me understand what types of support and materials that are out there for students learning English in France and if I will ever teach English again, it will be in France as a foreign language for the students.

Anglais Facile is a website that any French speaker can find when searching for an English learning language website on Google. If you type "apprendre l'anglais (learn English)" in Google, this will be the first website on the results page. I wonder how many visitors the site has a day, I bet there are a lot! I even know a few French friends that personally use this site to revise their English.

This is a website created for the French, by the French. The main purpose of it is to serve as an addition to French Teenagers' English classes and it is presented in a very similar method to the French way of language teaching. The materials on the website are for students that are going to take the BAC (a test that is required to pass high school where one of the subjects is English) and a lot of the information presented on the site is close to the Grammar-Translation method. This can be seen throughout the site, such as the "Countdown until the BAC" or the font that reminds me of the fonts and icons that usually adolescents use, it is needless to say that it does not appear to be the most professional looking website. Anglais Facile could also be used by adults that are looking for a simple review of their English classes that they had during middle school or high school. This website is not for advanced learners nor is it for people trying to learn English in order to participate in the global market.

The content found on Anglais Facile is presented in a method very similar to English teachers' methods in French classrooms because the Guide de travail (study guide) was supposedly created by an English teacher. One strength of the website is the fact that there is a lot of information provided, there are a lot of links to other useful sites such as links to American or English radio stations.

Anglais Facile is interesting to the target audience because of the importance that English has in France and almost every French student takes English as their first foreign language. In addition, a good knowledge of English is often required when students attempt to enter programs or universities after high school and look for employment.

A positive aspect of Anglais Facile is the fact that the website is completely free and that the learner is not bombarded with ads. One of the drawbacks to the site is its out-of-date appearance and its not-so-clear navigation. If the learner knows what he or she would like to learn, they do not have too much difficulty finding the information but if the learner is more interested in following the study guide and follow his or her progress, this can be a little more difficult.

Anglais Facile has a lot of strengths and a lot of areas that certainly need improvement when it comes to the content offered to the learners. For example, French learning is very much based on grammar and on the understanding of written language than on spoken language and the creation of language and this can easily be seen it the site. The site does make an attempt to provide listening exercises but, in my opinion, unfortunately serve more as a phonetics exercise than a listening exercise because the pages include the script of the dialogue. One way to improve the effectiveness of their listening exercises would be to remove the written dialogue and put it on another page. If you would like an example of their audio exercises, take a look at this example: http://www.anglaisfacile.com/exercices/exercice-anglais-1/exercice-anglais-669.php

One of the sites main strengths is the large amount of quizzes and tests (multiple choice) that can be found throughout the site that provide for instant feedback to the learner. In general, these things are good for learning but in my opinion, I don't think that they are effective as they could be. For example, anyone can create a quiz or a test and sometimes the creators might not have the proper tools (pedagogical or linguistic) to create something useful. In addition, the quizzes do not have much variation nor do they require much reflection on behalf of the learner. Also, they could easily be boring to the learning.

Another way to improve the site would be to culture (British, American, Canadian, Australian, etc.) but there does not seem to be very much. It is incredible to think that this site is just full of information and ways of how to understand English better but hardly mentions culture.

Direct translation, in my opinion, is not the best way of learning a language. There are quite a few examples on the site where the student will see something written first in French, then English as seen in the lesson http://www.anglaisfacile.com/exercices/exercice-anglais-2/exercice-anglais-8902.php One way to improve this lesson would be to remove the French and but notes to the learner elsewhere on the page.

I believe that this site is the way that it is because of how education is set up in France and would drastically change if the Education Nationale were to change its goals and theories for foreign language learning. Anglais Facile follows the progression suggested by the French Ministry of Education, http://www.primlangues.education.fr/php/textes_officiels.php

Text and take authenticity in the EFL classroom

Guariento and Morley's paper entitled Text and task authenticity in the EFL classroom argues that in order to acheive authentic responses in students, there might be a need to sacrifice the authenticity of texts by using more simplified texts, especially at lower levels.

It is without doubt that authentic texts are good tools at bringing the target language closer to the learner but it is not completely sure when and how they should be used. Authentic texts way over the students capabilities may not always have the learner respond in the best ways and this could frustrate and/or demotivate him or her. In order to have a positive effect on the learner, Guariento and Morley quoted Widdowson's 1978 argument where the text has to "engage the learner's interest and impress him as being in some way relevant to his concerns."

The article also discusses the importance of tasks and the authors indentify their four broad schools of thought regarding task authenticity. The first school of thought is the authenticity through a genuine purpose where more is placed on meaning and communication that resemble closer to real world activities than on activities such as grammar exercises. I recently wrote a test where students had to write an ad for a French dating website and another where they had to write an ad in order to find a roommate. The second school of thought is authenticity through real world targets where the use of language avoids language that one would never say. Authenticity through classroom interaction is the third school of thought and what the authors note as the most crucial type of authenticity, authenticity through engagement is the fourth school of thought. As the authors stated, "while all four may not form a coherent whole, teachers can, in appropriate cirumstances, devise learning situations in which the four can operate in conjunction."

Finally, the article discusses compromising task authenticity when dealing with lower level students or with younger learners where the authors state that "very simple pedagogic tasks used with low-level students can still be described as authentic." As for written materials in my classroom, the authors of the book that I use Chez nous have certainly simplified the authenticity of texts. For example, one can find an article taken from a French newspaper but parts of the article have been edited out or even translated. When I taught English to elementary school kids, almost everything I presented to the students had been simplified.

As I said in an earlier post, I hardly change the way that I speak when I am teaching a class (and I have beginning French learners). Although I am not a native speaker of French, I do my best to have my students interact with the culture and doing my best to imitate a French native is the best I can do. I do this a lot more than I did in previous courses because I know that most of my students are already seasoned language learners (most of them speak Spanish fluently). I have certainly noticed that they have a high tolerance for non-simplified authentic texts and really enjoy the contact with the culture, I would like for them to get the most out of their experiences in my class. I know that this might one day result in a student's frustration but if the student is taught what to look for in exercises and how to manage a word that he or she does not understand, I do not think that there will be any frustration. After all, as the authors Guariento and Morley stated in their article, "partial comprehension of text is no longer considered to be necessarily problematic, since this is something which occurs in real life."

I can see a correspondance between this article and Wallis' article How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century through their statement "bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world." To better survive in our global economy, it is helpful to use authentic texts. I am always searching for materials that were created by Francophones so that my students will be well prepared for when (if they ever) go to a French speaking country. I believe that using these authentic materials brings valuable culture aspects along with language to the learner.