Critical incident

Teachers need to be adaptable

Last year I moved back to my hometown and I got a job at a secondary school in September.  I was going to stand in for a teacher who was on maternity leave.  The school was state-run but the students were grouped according to level, which was a great advantage, since both teachers and students work much better in homogeneous classes than in mixed-ability ones.  I had to teach five hours a week, from Tuesday to Friday.  My group was made up of 25 students aged 15 and 16 who were at elementary level.  The working atmosphere was pleasant; there were no behavior problems so I felt immediately at ease.

 The problem began when I started teaching.  I had spent nine years working at a bilingual school in Buenos Aires, where the language level was high and English was taught through content. I had to face the challenge of working at a new institution with different goals and levels.  What I needed was to adapt to the new working situation.  Mohanna, Chambers and Wall (2008) define the “all-round flexible teacher” as follows: “[t]his teacher can use lots of different skills effectively, can teach both peers and juniors, and is very aware of the way that the whole environment affects both teachers and learners” (p. 23).

There were many differences between my teaching experience and the role to fulfill at the new school.  To begin with, I was used to carrying my lessons in English the whole time, as my former Coordinator insisted on using the target language; besides, it was not necessary to use the native language as the students understood me perfectly well.  In this new setting, in contrast, my students struggled to understand what I was saying, they complained that I spoke too fast and reminded me all time that they were at elementary level.  What I found difficult was to change my speaking habits.  I found it impossible to bring myself to use Spanish in the classroom.  I talked to a former colleague who advised me to be more flexible and to use caretaker speech or our native language if it was necessary.  After a year, I have managed to simplify my English so that students do not panic, although some of my students still complain that I speak very fast.  The rest have adapted to it.

Another aspect I also found difficult was to lower my expectations.  After working so many years with fluent “bilingual” students, I found it hard to deal with speaking production problems.  My students were willing to work, their comprehension was good, but their spoken production, in my opinion, was poor.  I talked to the Head of Studies, who reminded me that I was teaching the lowest level.  Then I realized they just needed more time and practice, and that I needed to set achievable goals- my standards were too high.  Therefore, I tried to include more pair-work activities, role-plays and other speaking activities to help them improve their speaking skills.

As Mohanna, Chambers  and Wall (2008) pointed out:

Good teachers recognize that learners differ. We all come to learning with different experiences and pre-existing expertise, different levels of motivation and preferred ways of learning. Learners also have an understanding of what teaching and learning is, based on previous instructional experiences and hence they have expectations of their teacher. This will colour how they enter into and respond in a new learning situation. The skill of being a great teacher is in knowing how to respond to learners in ways that effectively address the differences between them and to be able to facilitate learning in a variety of ways that also takes into account differences in subject matter and setting ( p. 1)

I considered that I was an experienced teacher, but I had worked for years at the same school; therefore my experience was relevant up to a point.  Being a good teacher involves not only teaching experience but also the ability to adapt to different students and institutions.  I needed to be more aware of my working environment and more flexible so as to be successful in a new teaching context.  

 References

Mohanna K. , Chambers,  R. & Wall, D.  (2008). Your teaching Style, a practical guide to understanding, developing and improving. Radcliff Publishing. Retrieved October 2011 from http://www.radcliffe- oxford.com/books/samplechapter/8587/03-YourTeaching-Ch3-4059768rdz.pdf

Discourse Communities

Swales’ Discourse Community

The aim of this paper is to provide evidence to support Swales’ (1990) view of a discourse community.  According to Swales, a Discourse Community (DC) is defined as a group of people whose “members develop and use systems of speech and writing and are sometimes quite specific to that community´s needs and goals” (as cited in Ferris and Hedgcock, 1998, p. 5).  Discourse communities have common characteristics. Their members have common aims and exchange information and knowledge through participatory mechanisms. They also use specific terminology and adhere to a specific genre.

Kelly-Kleese (2011) contends that a community college can be considered a discourse community since it meets the criteria outlined by Swales (1990):

Its members have, over time, developed a common discourse that involves shared knowledge, common purposes, common relationships, similar attitudes and values, shared understandings about how to communicate their knowledge and achieve their shared purposes, and a flow of discourse that has a particular structure and style (p. 1).

Similarly, Hoffman Kipp, Artiles and Lopez-Torres (2003) support Swales’ (1990) definition of a discourse community and focus on the importance of participatory mechanisms and common goals, as “[t]eachers interact with colleagues in goal-directed activities that require communication and the exchange of ideas [which are] "distributed" through sign systems and artifacts that are embedded in the social activity of the school community” (p. 3).

The communities mentioned above illustrate Swales’ definition of a discourse community, since the writers constitute examples of members of different discourse communities that not only communicate and share knowledge through a writing system but also have common goals and a common and specific discourse.

References.

Ferris, D. & Hedgcock, J. S. (1998). Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process and Practice. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Mahwah: NJ

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved October 2011, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NQM/is_3_42/ai_108442653

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s Choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved October 2011, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HCZ/is_1_29/ai_77481463

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Book Critique

A good guide to develop and improve your writing skills

Refining Composition Skills Rhetoric and Grammar makes a valuable contribution to students who need either to develop or polish their composition skills in order to succeed in the academic world.   According to Smalley, Ruetten and Kozyrev (2000), “[t]he primary audience is the academically oriented [English Second Language] ESL student; however, the text can also be useful in developmental writing courses for native speakers who would benefit from more guidance in writing compositions” (p. xv).

The book is divided into three units: The Paragraph, The Essay and Grammar Review-, which are in turn divided into chapters.  Each chapter layout is the same, and this makes the book well-balanced and organized.  The style is simple and easy to follow.   A reading activity at the beginning of each chapter triggers discussions and essay topics; but these texts also serve another purpose:  “[t]he reading passages [also] function as examples (. . .) of professional writing” (Smalley, Ruetten and Kozyrev, 2000, p xvi).  That is, they may stand as models to follow.

The first unit is devoted to introducing fundamental concepts connected to the writing process and writing techniques, such as pre-writing, drafting and editing. The authors suggest that this section of the book is suitable for inexperienced writers. This section is carefully graded, and it takes students smoothly from the stage of planning to the one of writing different types of paragraphs. 

More advanced students will probably profit from the contents of Unit 2, which introduces the essay as a genre. Once again, the activities are sequenced according to degree of difficulty. The first chapter introduces the essay and its component parts (i.e. Introduction, thesis statement, developmental paragraphs, and conclusion) and provides useful practice. Then, it goes on to present different types of essays, such as comparison and contrast and argumentative essays, among others.  Various samples, ample practice as well as techniques to achieve coherence are available in this section.

 The last unit - Grammar Review- includes information about grammar patterns and offers traditional practice.  Its aim is “[t]o further encourage revision and focus on accuracy-” (Smalley, Ruetten and Kozyrev, 2000, p. xvi).  The final section comprises appendices which may prove useful.  An interesting one is Appendix II, Using Others’ Ideas- which explores quoting sources and paraphrasing.  Appendix IV complements the former as it focuses on punctuation rules in bibliographic entries and quotations. However, the examples are very few. The authors should have included sample texts with quotations of different types within the units to serve as models, since academic students will probably need to acknowledge sources and therefore may need training in this area. 

 With appropriate supplementation, Refining Composition Skills Rhetoric and Grammar may serve as a core book for many a writing course.  It can be an important resource for both college and academic students, and it may prove invaluable for those who are confronted with essay writing for the first time. 

References

Smalley, R. L., Ruetten, M. K. & Kozyrev, J. R. (2000). Refining Composition Skills Rhetoric and Grammar (5^th ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Journal Entry. Critical Incidents

Critical Incidents: An essential tool for Trainee Teachers

According to Kennedy and Wyrick (1995), a Critical Incident (CI) is a method of reflective practice.  Critical Incidents include unusual situations teachers may encounter during their practice, and can be sources of reflection and learning.  The importance of using critical incidents at Teacher Training College (TTC) is asserted by  Fernández González, Elórtegui Escartín and Medina Pérez (2003), who claim that future teachers need to analyze critical incidents and think of possible solutions so that they can gain experience  to deal with unusual situations in  their future practice.

At TTC, students gain extensive knowledge about the subject they will teach, but, is this sufficient? It may not, as teachers encounter unexpected critical situations in the classroom.  Therefore, this aspect should also be taken into account when training future teachers.  How can this be done? As trainees have little or no working experience, they would profit from the use of critical incidents at college.  Fernández González, Elórtegui Escartín and Medina Pérez (2003) propose using critical incidents as case studies and illustrate how this was done at TTC for secondary school for Natural Science teachers. Students were given different critical incidents to read and discuss.  The results show that in solving those problems students were engaged in effective reflexive practice, and thus the activity provided the students with background knowledge, resources and experience for their future teaching profession.

Teachers usually feel at a loss when encountering problems in the classroom.  It is for this reason that the use of critical incidents at college can be a powerful resource to prepare future teachers to tackle unexpected problems when they graduate and start working in the classroom. Moreover, critical incidents are part of teacher development in general, and introducing them at college may encourage teachers to write them in order to share their experiences in the classroom with other teachers or teachers-to-be. 

References

Fernández González, J., Elórtegui Escartín, N., & Medina Pérez, M. (2003). Los incidentes críticos en la formación y perfeccionamiento del profesorado de secundaria de Ciencias de la Naturaleza. Revista Universitaria de Formación del profesorado, 17 (1), 101-112. Universidad de Zaragoza. Zaragoza, España. Retrieved October 2011 from http://redalyc.uaemex.mx

Kennedy, R. L. & Wyruck, A. M. (1995). Teaching as reflective practice. Tennesee. The University of Tennessee.