How actively can students learn in a large class?

Here in the US, we are fortunate in having small classes in most language programs. A class of 25-30 is usually considered very large. In non-language classes, though, the class size can be much larger. Lecture classes for first year university students can have 100-200 students. The challenge in all large classes is how to design content and delivery so that they appeal to different people. Students may have more or less prior knowledge (a big part of learning). They probably have multiple learning styles. They may be more or less tired.

Breaking a large group into smaller ones is one way to cope. Even in a large lecture, students can work in pairs or groups of four to answer a specific question or perform a specific task. You can give them a signal to use when their group is ready, such as a colored card to hold up.

Colored cards can help create a sense of interaction in general in a large group. Give each person 2-3 cards of different colors (for example, 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 blue). Answers to questions can be coded by color - if you agree, hold up the red card. Disagree, the blue card. Or, answer a - use the red card; answer b - the blue card; etc. Learners are more actively participating, and the teacher can see trends in the large group.

There is a more high-tech option that is increasingly used in the US: electronic response devices. These small hand-held devices use wireless technology to send a signal to the teacher's computer, in much the same way as the colored cards. One advantage of the electronic option is that software compiles the answers and can create charts to show how many people chose a, b, c. If the devices are checked out to specific students, the teacher can track how well each student understood, as well.

Both the cards and the response devices help the teacher with one very important question that is often difficult to answer in a large class: Do they understand?

More ideas about coping with large classes are coming...
--Deborah

Expectations changing

Having worked with technology in education for over 20 years now, I am intrigued by the change in the baseline - what teachers already know (or don't know) about technology when they participate in technology workshops for teachers, such as when they join our annual Tech Seminar at Oregon State University. We used to start by talking about the parts of a computer - monitor, keyboard, disk drive. We had upgraded from Vic20s to Apple IIes, so we actually had disk drives rather than cassette tapes for storage.

As time went on, mouse training was added to the mix. Next, the exciting new element was getting teachers signed up for email. SchMOOze University, a MOO (Multi-user dimension, object-oriented) which operated in text mode, was a great way for students to interact with each other online. Internet sites used Gopher to present information, and it was in no way easy. Teachers were excited about using the word-processor to prepare their own handouts - after all, you could edit easily.

When Mosaic opened up the World Wide Web to ordinary people, there were a lot more options for teachers. Our Tech Seminars still were helping people sign up for email accounts, but a lot more time was spent in looking at different web possibilities. The early online quizzes were far from examples of good pedagogy, but students liked them because they were online. Teachers were excited about having students use the word-processor so that students would edit their own work.

With faster Internet connections available all over the world have come more audio and video options. Personal exposure online has exploded, too, with personal blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, and other ways of sharing oneself online. Teachers come to the workshops with email and Web experience, almost always knowing how to use a word-processor and often familiar with presentation software like PowerPoint.

I've always been impressed by the many ways that teachers adopt and adapt technology to their purposes. As more teachers know how to use online resources, they come up with more and better ways to take advantage of what is available (mostly for free). It's even better when teachers can then share their work online with others.

I've got high hopes for this year's Tech Seminar. All 20 of the Mexican teachers who will be participating in two weeks have email addresses already. I'm busily revising plans, adding more materials development options. We'll see where we end up.

Communication

At the ELI, we'll be working with three groups of teachers/teacher educators this summer: 20 Pakistanis, 20 Mexicans, and 6 Tunisians. The Pakistanis, Mexicans and 2 of the 6 Tunisians teach English as a foreign language. We all share many concerns, notably building enthusiasm in our students for a language course. For teachers outside an English speaking country, it's so much harder to give students the sense that it really could be useful to communicate in English. Students at the ELI are forced to negotiate in English most of the time, so they see the point of making their immediate lives easier by better communication in English.

I'm very curious to see the overlaps and the differences in English teaching assumptions among the three groups. They're working with much larger classes, much smaller budgets, and in the case of the Mexicans and Pakistanis in particular, some students who barely want to be in school, much less learning English. I hope that the connections they make with each other will also provide a way to link their students. Having real people to talk to and a real reason to use English - as their only common language - profoundly changes attitudes toward language learning.

I'm of the television language learning generation: we got a couple of hours of French a week in elementary school. It didn't do much. Later students have had a more communicative approach to language learning, but we all know how much high school Spanish is actually usable in Mexico. If students could get a couple of hours chatting with French or Spanish speakers or fellow language learners in another country, imagine how attitudes could change. It's much harder to create scary images of 'them' when you know one of 'them' personally.

--Deborah

Culture notes

People have questioned whether "culture" exists in any kind of national sense. When we know that someone is from the United States, what do we really know about that individual? What does knowing that someone is from Mexico or Tunisia or Pakistan tell us about that person (besides perhaps giving us a start in guessing about the language/s that person might speak)? There are plenty of websites designed for tourism that praise the varied and exotic cultures in different countries. I wonder how fairly these represent the reality of the actual residents. I rarely recognize places I've lived when I read tourist advertising.

On the other hand, we do have access to a much broader range of information sources from around the world, thanks to the Internet. Automated translations may confuse as much as they help, but it is still possible to see what is making news around the world. More importantly, we now have ways to be in contact with individuals in places where we may never physically go. The English language mailing list, TESL-L, links 10,000 people in over 40 countries. Reading about the insights and problems of our fellow language teachers helps us see similarities, such as a concern with student motivation and lack of money; and differences, such as class size and type of government control. It gives me the feeling that we have an English language teacher culture that goes across nations. I wonder how many other professions get the same feeling from their professional lists. (Perhaps it's just that English teachers are all a little bit crazy...)

Bakhtin talks about how everyone speaks many different dialects, depending on the situation. The language we use with loved ones is not the same as the language we use with strangers. Perhaps the culture we wear varies the same way - we take on different cultures depending on the context. Teacher, parent-of-teenager, in-group, stranger - these are all different roles we can take on as individuals. Perhaps roles link us to others in the same way that our national cultures do. Maybe they link us more.

--Deborah

The Internet as a "tool"

Educators often talk about technology as "just a tool" that can be used in different ways by teachers and students. It's often said that computers won't replace teachers, but teachers who know how to use computers will replace those who don't. My view is that the personal computer changed teaching somewhat - it made some things, like grading, easier. It let developers create a series of lessons that students could use on their own. Many of these lessons helped people learn habits, like multiplication. The more interesting lessons, though, were ones that captured the imagination. With sound and video, software like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and other simulations helped create language learning environments, not workbooks.

Maybe those were and are "just tools" in the hands of the skilled teacher. When we talk about the Internet, though, I think we have something fundamentally different. Computer programs let students interact with a machine in new and different ways. The Internet lets people interact with people in new and different ways. In my view, the Internet is "just a tool" like the printing press was "just a tool." Yes, it's a tool, but it opens new connections and possibiities. Language teaching is fundamentally different now that teachers can have instant access to real-life text, images, sound, and video.

As more teachers start to use the Internet, more ideas will emerge. Perhaps we'll find better ways to communicate, which will help us all understand each other. I certainly hope we find something more than just better ways to sell things.

Different perspectives

Each person brings a different perspective to a task. We talk a lot about cultural perspectives, but what does that really mean? If you take 10 people from the same country, how similar to each other are they going to be? It seems that being 18 years old creates more of a similarity than being from the same country.
--Deborah

Going global

Technology is here - but the hold it will have on us and on our education systems is yet to be determined. As technology-using teachers, we can help shape the direction if we stay knowledgeable and share ideas. The real changes will come as the children who grew up with computers become educators themselves. They will take things for granted about the use of technology, just as many of us take television for granted (though maybe not how to program a VCR).

Computers and the Internet are still new enough in education that the early adopters have a strong voice. It won't last long, so we need to be sure we stay informed and active.