For some time now I have had a few posts by Autono Blogger marked as unread in my bloglines account. The posts are well thought out and incredibly interesting. I’m finally getting off my butt and writing something after Scott beat me to the punch. As is so often the case I mark posts that I want to comment on, either at the blog or here, and then never get around to it. So here goes.

Really, before I continue, I must say if you are not subscribed to Autono Blogger you are missing out on some great posts: Why take Attendance?, Schools not Places for Learning (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) [these are short but will stimulate thought], and No Test, Please!.
Schools not Places for Learning
A series of short posts that definitely resonate with me.

Yet institutions insist on numerical evaluations. Not only that, but I suspect that the combination of the emphasis on “teaching for tests” and the requirement for numeric evaluations has resulted in a serious downgrading of the importance or value of actual learning, by which I mean acquisition of knowledge and understanding. The result: a disproportionate emphasis on attendance as a “measure” of “learning”

I could not possibly agree more with this statement. (read my I hate grades post from last year). I talk to my students about why I think the TOEIC & TOEFL test are not true measures of English ability and that studying for those tests willnot likely result in better communicative competence. However at the same time I have to balance that with the reality of life in Korea. The TOEIC test is important for getting jobs. Many jobs have minimum score requirements to even get an interview. This can clearly explain the large number of business people who have little oral communicative competence but can read relatively well and get by with business correspondence.

Why the passive voice, I wonder? Who is doing the “deeming”? What I’m putting to students is the suggestion that they are learning English from a native speaker in order to learn how to use it (an idea that seems oddly novel). That being the case it makes sense a) for evaluation purposes and b) for their own satisfaction or sense of accomplishment, to have a) some kind of linguistic target and b) a means to show me and themselves that they have achieved their target. I am trying to get as far away as I can from the sense of a “test” which is primarily for the purposes of other people (i.e. not the learners themselves)

This is why I spend a large portion of my class time teaching learner autonomy (search this site for more results) and also working on goals. Some students get it, but sadly too many merely go through the motions in my classes and tell me what they think I want to hear.

Possibly one way round this is by involving students in decisions concerning their testing and their learning, and course objectives. However, my own feeble attempts at this lead me to think that something else is additionally needed. Some kind of consciousness-raising.

I feel your pain. My attempts at this have also have feeble results. I am ready to try a new approach, but haven’t yet figured out the best way. In my experience most students, in Korea, do not know what they want out of a course let alone how to suggest appropriate assessment.

Why Take Attendance
Autono Blogger asked his students two questions:

1. Why is attendance taken in university classes in Japan?
2. And how do you feel about having your attendance taken each class?

These are great questions and I would like them answered about university in Korea as well. I can’t remember ever having attendance taken when I was in University in Canada and that included two years of Japanese - so I don’t think that because it is a language class has any relevance here.

I am required to take attendance and am required to give a grade for attendance. If students miss more than 7 classes out of 28 or is 30 then they have an automatic fail. I have set up my attendance to be 1 absence =1% and 2 lates = one absence it’s silly but I have to do it. Now I would think that if students don’t come, then clearly they won’t be available for projects impromptu assessments and will just fail that way. So why do universities require us to hold our students hands by taking attendance? Read Autono Bloggers post for a solution that I would love to use, but probably will not be able to due to institutional constraints. I am all in favor of “can do” assessment but unfortunately I am required to provide numbers and curve the grades. Which leads us right into—>

No test, Please!

This is the post that Scott also wrote about.

Isn’t it odd that in a class where I only recently chose a textbook, classes were more fun and interactive when I had NO textbook than they are now. Why should that be?

Been there done that, but in the end I think that a textbook is a necessary thing as it provides a framework for the course. It shows continuity to the teacher and the the student. Additionally it allows the student to easily preview and review material covered in the class. A textbook is also a necessity for a very busy or overworked teacher (or sick) as it is easier to plan lessons. However as Scott says:

More often than not, however, I find myself abdicating my responsibility to the students for the seductive convenience of a prepackaed lesson.

it is clearly quite easy to become lazy and unmotivated in lesson planning when there is an easy out. This is the same reason so many people, myself included, do not stick to exercise or diet regimes - it’s easier to fail. Scott further wonders how different the classroom environment would be if English were an elective rather than a compulsory subject. I can safely say it wouldn’t be much different. I taught at a university with elective courses. The students tend to be more motivated, but in the end they want to be assessed with numbers so that they can have proof of improvement. The beauty of that program was that the students were all levelled so there was no need to teached mixed ability classes. Also speaking classes only had 12 students, writing had 24, and discussion classes had a maximum of 8 but usually 4-6.

And let’s not mince words, bored teachers lead to bored students. If I waste any precious classroom time having the students go through the motions of completing perfunctory tasks, they will pick up on it.

Absolutely. That is why I try, not always successfully, to make my classes as interesting and exciting as possible. I have grammar in my class but only short bits and then slowly scaffold my activities away from focus on form to focus on meaning/communication. By preparing your own supplemental materials it is possible to turn almost any textbook into a fun class where students become actively engaged and do not even notice that they are learning. In the end most of my assessment is similar to what I do in classes. For my final exam students come to my office in groups of 3 and have a conversation based on topics we covered in Strategies for Success. The students are assessed on the content of their discussion and how well they have thought about the questions I have given them. When they finish talking I give them some brief feedback.
update
Changed the title of this entry from Autonoblogger to Schools not for learning (Autonoblogger).