Language Death: The Case For Lifetime Language Maintenance for EFL Teachers

Language Death: The Case For Lifetime Language Maintenance for EFL Teachers

Posted on August 1, 2013by profesorbaker

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You can “lose” your language. After you learn a language, you must maintain your ability to use a language. Without maintenance, a learned language will wither away and die. Let there be no doubt about that.

Language death is a constant threat to English Language Teachers in Chile. In fact, if you are a non-native teacher of English as a Foreign Language, anywhere in the world, you must actively practice your language if you want to maintain your language proficiency.

Language Death

Communicative competence, or better said, competency in a foreign language that one has learned, is not something that remains forever after you achieve a successful score on the First Certificate in English (FCE) examination, or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), or the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).

To put this very simply: A successful test result is a lifetime achievement, yes, but only a “snapshot” of a particular moment in your life. It does not reflect your current ability, capacity, or proficiency level.

Again, a language must be maintained. “Language death” is what happens when a language is not used, is misused, or is in disuse.

So let’s imagine you graduate from university with a successful Cambridge Advanced English (CAE) certificate. You are good for life, right? Your level of English has been validated for your entire career as an English Language Teacher, right?

Wrong.

If you begin to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to students in the 5th and 6th grade, trust me, you will not be using advanced English vocabulary or grammatical structures with those students. Your level of English will have to be adapted to the needs and linguistic stage of development of your students. We can agree on that.

Let’s go forward in time. It’s two years later. All you have been doing for the past two years is teaching 5th and 6th graders. How’s your English? Is it still CAE? Or has your ability decreased to the level of FCE?

Let’s repeat the process. It’s 5 years later now. All you have been doing is teaching English to 5th and 6th graders. How’s your English? Is it still FCE or has it dropped to PET?

Let’s repeat the process. It’s 10 years later. All you have been doing is teaching English to 5th and 6th graders. Are you still at the PET level? Or is KET now? Lets be honest and ask: Can you even still speak English?

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Language ability is a product of continuous maintenance. It is very real. Like any well-trained muscle it can be wonderful, a thing of beauty, something to be admired. However, like any muscle that is not regularly exercised, it can decline,decrease in size, atrophy, decay, wither away, and die.

Now, I have to ask you for your judgement. Is it enough to simply require teachers of English as a foreign language to successfully complete a language qualification such as FCE, CAE, CPE, TOEFL, IELTS, TOEIC, etc?

I think it is obvious that high standards for English Language Teachers language competency must go beyond achieving a successful score on a one time exam, taken once in a lifetime. Language ability is not valid for life.

Teachers must be required to recertify their language competency at regular time intervals, at least every two years.
Without such a policy, language death will nullify whatever benefits are gained by requiring university English pedagogy training programs to train future teachers to a high level.

Language Death is the Elephant in the room.

This is a critical issue that must be addressed at the same time that universal standards for graduates of English pedagogy training programs are addressed. Failure to do so will be evidenced by an unexplainable lack of progress in student achievement.

The question will be: What happened? Why are all these highly qualified, linguistically competent teachers not able to have a positive impact on the learning of English?

The answer of course will be a simple one: It’s because there is no mechanism in place, no policy for continuous professional development that requires teachers to demonstrate linguistic competency on a regular basis.

Language Death is caused by the inability of teachers to maintain their language competency over the entire course of their career as a teacher. Language competency, or knowing the English language well enough to speak, read, write and understand spoken English, is not a permanent condition.

To prevent language death, and the negative consequences of this phenomenon, teachers of English as a foreign Language should be tested by the Ministry of Education, or some other governmental examining body, every 2 years, as a minimum.

Failure to pass such a test should result in disqualification to teach.

Chile may be experiencing a severe shortage of trained, qualified EFL teachers, but before we knowingly allow teachers who can not even speak English, to teach English, we should simply stop teaching English.

We can always find something more productive to occupy the students’ time…

#Teaching or #Learning: Which Is More Important?

#Teaching or #Learning: Which Is More Important?

Posted on July 31, 2013by profesorbaker

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“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~ Maya Angelou

What is it that language teachers need to know and do to be effective classroom practitioners and language teaching professionals? I ask the reader to be the judge on a question that concerns us all: “Teaching or Learning, which one is more important?”

What is an Effective Teacher?

First of all, I know there are many answers to this question. To be fair, here is my answer: An effective teacher is someone who has learned that learning is more important than teaching. That’s my thesis, so let me elaborate on that. You need to know what I base my judgement on, so you can agree or disagree with me in the end, OK?

In my early years of English Language Teaching (ELT), I taught many great lessons. I taught well, there was no doubt about it. One look at the whiteboard would be enough to verify what I’m saying. Usually, it looked like this:

Topic: Present Perfect
Aim: By the end of the lesson, students will accurately produce the target structure in free conversation with a partner.
Meaning: Things done at an indefinite time in the past
Form:
Affirmative: have /has + past participle
Negative: have / has + not + past participle
Question: Have / Has + Subject + past participle
Use: to talk about experiences in the past

…but my students didn’t learn.

I had taught a great lesson, been well prepared, engaged the students at every point in the lesson, every twist and turn, from presentation to practice to production (classic PPP methodology).

…but my students didn’t learn.

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So, naturally, I thought to myself: “My job is to teach. If I teach, but the students don’t learn, it is not my fault, is it? I did my job. I’m the teacher. I teach. The student is the learner, and is therefore responsible for learning.”

That way of thinking worked for a while.

The students’ failure to learn was not my fault. I had done what I was supposed to do, namely, teach. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Right?

Wrong. A thirsty horse is always going to find water, even in the driest desert in the world, the Atacama, in northern Chile. When the horse gets to water, if you are the rider, you must ensure that the horse drinks water, or you both will die somewhere in the desert. Both horse and rider, neither can live without the other.

A teacher (like me), who is teaching great lessons, but the students are not learning, is no better off than the rider of a horse that does not drink water in the desert.

At least, that’s how I felt.

So I began to observe students. Closely, ridiculously close. I began to notice the students who had not done homework. To be honest, there were a lot of them. In fact, so many that I realised that students don’t do homework.

So, I stopped assigning homework. As a result, classes were not bogged down spending time doing last night’s unfinished homework. To compensate, I increased the amount of meaningful “information gap” type activities in class.

It’s easy. Use it to consolidate any grammatical structure, in a communicative fashion. Make the students pay attention to one another by having them report to another student (or the whole class) what they found out.

As a matter of fact, when you stop to think about all the useful things students know, that can be shared with one another in class, you have enough free, ready-to-use resources to use from now until the day you retire from teaching.

I’m serious. The students bring tons of resources with them into the classroom everyday. I began to exploit this, effectively allowing me to eliminate the homework that nobody was doing anyway.

Yet I wasn’t content. So I kept observing students. I had the feeling that happy students were the ones who seemed to be learning more than the rest. So, what made students happy in class?

The happiest moment seemed to be when I stopped talking, and the students could begin to talk with one another. Quite simply, students like to talk. To be honest, they like to talk so much that often they talk when I am talking.

So I began to talk less. The students didn’t notice, and they kept right on talking. So, I stopped talking altogether.

The students didn’t notice. They kept right on talking. So, I started walking around listening in on the conversations. I smiled a lot, nodded my head often, showed surprise or sadness, amazement or incredulity if it was appropriate.

Hmmm. How to harness this quality of my students? They want to talk, and I want them to talk. This is a match made in heaven. What had been keeping them from talking all this time?

Anyway, I made a deal with the students. Quite simply, they could talk as much as they wanted to, as long as they did the work I was supposed to make them do.

The students couldn’t believe it, at first. But a sweet deal like this one they were not going to let get away. This was too good to pass up. Unrestricted talking, as long as they did the work in the coursebook. If they had any problems, they could ask each other for help.

If nobody had a clue, as a final resort, they could ask me. After all, I was the teacher, wasn’t I? Of course I was…

Obviously, there are days when we have to write, days when we have to listen, and days when we have to read. But for the grammar stuff, well, that’s another matter entirely. For me, grammar means Student Talking Time (STT).

Has this STT been effective? Does it help students to learn English?

Yes. Let me repeat that: yes. It does. My students are learning, as evidenced by their ability to use grammar appropriately in speaking and writing.

So now I have this strange, reversed world (flipped classroom) where students learn, but I don’t teach. I used to teach, but students did not learn.

Now you must be the judge. Which is more important: teaching or learning?

What is your conclusion? Which is more important: learning or teaching?

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Valid For Life: Should All English Language Teachers ReCertify Every Year? 2 Years?? Never???

Valid For Life: Should All English Language Teachers ReCertify Every Year? 2 Years?? Never???

Posted on July 30, 2013by profesorbaker

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Firstly, yes, let me be clear: Native and Non-Native Teachers of English are included. That’s what I mean by “all” – everybody, everyone who is a Teacher of English in a Second or Foreign Language context.

So, here’s the Million Dollar Question: Recertify? Yes or No.

Yes. OK, how often? Never, every 5 years, 2 years, once in an English teacher’s lifetime???

Can we really trust teachers to maintain their language proficiency…forever? So you see, this is a really interesting question.

So, yes, again, I am talking about all teachers of English. What?

You: Isn’t the First Certificate of English (FCE) valid for life? Once you pass it, you have it forever?

Me: Yes, that’s correct. When you “google” the search phrase, “FCE valid for life“, you get two hundred and fifteen thousand (215.000) results lightning fast. Here’s one from a reliable source, the Pearson Longman itests.com website:

Quote: What are the benefits of taking the FCE exam?

FCE is ideal for people who want to use English for study or work.

Thousands of employers and academic institutions all over the world recognise FCE as a qualification in English at an upper-intermediate level.

FCE exams are a good way to improve your practical English skills.

FCE focuses on communication in real-life through reading, writing, listening and speaking, helping you to use English in everyday situations more confidently.

FCE is also a good start to gaining qualifications in more advanced exams like CAE and CPE.

Once you have earned your certificate it is valid for life – so there’s no need to take the FCE again. (End of quote)

Comparison with other exams

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This is quite simple and straightforward. The IELTS exam and the TOEFL exam are only valid for 2 years. After 2 years is up, you have to take the test again.

Quote: For how long is an IELTS test score valid?
IELTS scores have a recommended two year validity period. (Source: IELTS)

Quote: “TOEFL scores are valid for two years after the test date and there is no limit to the number of times you can take the test…” (Source: ETS TOEFL iBT® Test Scores )

Anything Else? Yes.

United States Military: Linguist Career Field
Quote: Defense Language Proficiency Test5 (DLPT)
Question: If an older DLPT is replaced by a DLPT5, are old DLT scores still valid?
Answer: Scores are valid as long as they were in the past, typically one year.

The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) is the premier training institution within the Department of Defense (DoD) for culturally based foreign language education. DLIFLC is a world renowned school for foreign language and can provide training in 24 languages. At any given time there are 3,500 students attending the Institute, taught by more than 1,700 professional instructors from over 50 countries around the world. Knowledge of foreign languages and cultures is an essential key for mission success overseas. Many Soldiers are asked to take part in this accelerated program to read, write, listen, and speak foreign languages and receive an education in a foreign culture.

What Every Teacher of English Should Know

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POSTED ON JULY 29, 2013

by profesorbaker

Teaching & Learning English in Chile: What Every Teacher Should Know 

($0.99 cents! Price sooooo low you can’t say no!)

4-Books-In-One: Breaakdown==> $0.25 per book!

A quarter a book. That’s right. $0.25. Since when has a quarter brought so much reading pleasure…

Everybody ===> Get this book now before the opportunity is gone away at midnight like Cinderella  trying to get away before reality sets in!

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***** 5-star price===> $0.99 cents! Less than one dollar for 4 Books Bundled into One big Book! Price soooooo low you can’t say no! 373 pages, active hypertext links to all 4 books and all 40 chaptersin the book. 4 GR8 Books bundled into one for an awesome collection:

1. The Mother Tongue
2. Educational Leadership
3. The Chilean National English Test
4. Connectivism for EFL Teachers

Teaching & Learning English in Chile:
What Every Teacher Should Know
Authored by Thomas Jerome Baker

This book is not only for English teachers, but all teachers, at all stages of their careers, from beginner to seasoned veteran. Teacher professional development is an always evolving, never-ending process. It concerns all teachers, at all stages of their careers.

This book covers four critical areas that are most often left to chance by English Language Teachers worldwide:
1. Teacher leadership development,
2. Dealing effectively with standardised tests,
3. The use, misuse and abuse of the students’ first language, the “Mother Tongue”, and
4. Connectivism, or self-initiated, connected learning in the digital age.

I like to call Connectivism, “Constructivism on Steroids” due to its exponential capacity to bring people and knowledge together.

I sincerely believe there are 4 things every teacher of English, worldwide, should know:

1. The Mother Tongue
2. Educational Leadership
3. The National English Test
4. Connectivism

I therefore set out in this book to bring these four topics together, in a coherent, non-sequential fashion. The “Mother Tongue” responds to research and practical experience that says teaching English, in English, is how we get our best results.

“Educational Leadership” fills a gap by raising our awareness of our individual leadership potential, while the “National English Test” is how we are currently defining the quality of our teaching on a collective, national level.

Finally, “Connectivism”, as a theory of learning for a digital age, gives a view of what the future holds up as a promising way forward in ELT pedagogy.

I am sure your teaching practice will be positively affected & enriched by the reading of this book. I hope you enjoy the journey of discovery that lies before you….

To write and publish such a book as this one, there is an army of people who play a role. In self-publishing, however, there is an army of one.

I am that “army of one”. I felt a need to bring together four topics which are rarely spoken of in ELT in any consistent or exploratory manner, though by no means taboo topics: 1) The Mother Tongue, 2) Leadership, 3) The National English Test, and 4) Connectivism.

My hope, obviously, is that this book will make a contribution to fill the existing gap betwwen theory and practice. In reflection, dialogue, and ultimately, in our practice, we seek to find the secrets of becoming the best possible teacher we can be.

Self-publishing, as we can see by my example, is a valid way for teachers to ask questions, raise issues, explore profoundly, consistently, and durably, to inform the knowledge and practice of other teachers.

It is with this in mind that I encourage other like-minded teachers to self-publish, as I have done, and in anticipation of your future efforts, rejoice in your contribution to the development of our knowledge about what works best in English Language Teaching.

If you have read and enjoyed any of my books, please take the time to write a Customer Review. Your 5 star reviews are greatly appreciated!

Thank you, dear reader(s), in advance, for your time, your support and your generosity…

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