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THE CINEMA AS A LINK BETWEEN STUDENT WORLDS IN ELT DOUGLAS GOODWIN Universidad de Guanajuato My research on the impact of film in ELT has provided data that suggest that ELT students struggle with their identity within the classroom. This is possibly linked to the nature of the power relationships in which learners and teachers participate, as well as to the nature of the curriculum. Likewise the data suggest how the presence of film in class may play a role in aiding learners to establish what their identity is inside the classroom.

T

his paper analyzes the impact of film/cinema inside the English language-learning environment in EFL classrooms in the Language School in the University of Guanajuato

in central Mexico. The analysis is done through the use of a heuristic model that consists of two main spaces, which shall be named the 'Classroom‟ space and the „Cinematic‟ space.

The Classroom refers to that space governed by rules of behavior where participants, events, literature and data are located in or stem from the English language-learning environment at the University of Guanajuato in central Mexico. The Cinematic refers to that space governed by rules of behavior where participants, events, literature and data are situated or occur within confounds of the cinema in the local community of Guanajuato, outside of the language classrooms.

It is the contention of this paper that it is essential to distinguish between these two spaces and the characteristics of each in order to investigate and determine what the impact is when the two spaces are drawn, and in a sense, fused together. This occurs when film is incorporated into the language classroom space when employed as a pedagogic device. The following is a diagram to illustrate the two-space model: INSIDE

OUTSIDE

INSIDE

OUTSIDE

Figure 1: Heuristic model of spaces

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The shaded area in the diagram represents the newly formed 'third' space where the inside and outside spaces come together. It is that area where the two spaces intertwine and interplay with each other that I describe, and from which I shall illustrate my findings and conclusions regarding the subsequent impact they may or may not have on each other in terms of student identity.

SMALL CULTURES AND SPACES In general terms, Adrian Holliday (1999) defines „small cultures‟ as a group of two or more people who share characteristics in behavior, belief systems, or cultural backgrounds. It is this definition I have chosen to use as the basis for the identification of the spaces in my heuristic model. For in the English language classroom there are specific characteristics and aspects that all the members of the class are subjected to and that constitute the forming of a new „culture‟ within the classroom walls. In this new-formed culture, which I have dubbed as a „community‟ or „space‟, people come from different communities or spaces outside the language school to the classroom and form and participate within the confounds space of the classroom. The same can be said about the members of the local community of Guanajuato and the traits shared by them, and those shared by the members of the cinema-going community, establishing the existence of the spaces described in the heuristic model—the classroom, the cinema, and the local community of Guanajuato.

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS In this next section I present and discuss the literature relevant to the permeability of the spaces of the heuristic model as they come into contact with each other. My model describes the different spaces as separate, if not isolated entities; however, since this research is looking at what happens when the spaces are brought together in a setting such as that of an English language lesson via the use of film as a pedagogic device, it is necessary to consider a theoretical analysis of the potential permeability of the spaces (small cultures). When the spaces come together, do they repel each other? Or do they somehow fuse together to form a new „space‟? The following paragraphs provide some insight as to possible answers to the above-mentioned questions.

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CULTURAL HYBRIDITY In his book Cultural Globalization and Language Education, Kumaravadivelu (2008) discusses the concept of cultural hybridity. The term hybrid is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “the offspring of two animals or plants of different species, or varieties; a half-breed, cross-breed or mongrel” (1971:1354). The term hybridity was increasingly applied to the cultural field in the twentieth century, and Kumaravadivelu describes some of the ways this has been done. In the context of colonial studies, he cites Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (2000: 118) and their definition of hybridity as “the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization”. He credits Fernando Ortiz with coining the term „transculturation‟ in his description of the cultural hybridity that came as a result from the mixing and intermeshing of cultures in the history of Latin America. People from many different races and colors were initially thrown together and thus were forced to readjust themselves to life among numerous other cultures and people different from themselves. (2008: 121-122).

LIMINAL SPACE Homi Bhabha published The Location of Culture in 1994, and he referred to colonial encounters as incidents of the “production of hybridization” (1994: 112) He describes the phenomenon where cultures (spaces) collide and what is produced at the point of encounter is a “third culture” or a “third space”, where the colliding spaces in a sense come together and fuse or overlap, much like in the diagram seen in the abstract of this thesis. According to Bhabha, it is in this new space where members of each „original‟ space or culture “negotiate and translate all available resources in order to construct their own hybrid cultures and, consequently, reconstruct their own individual identities.” (in Kumaravadivelu 2008:124) This hybridity does not, however, serve as a pacifier for the tension or conflict created when cultures come into contact. It is more of a neutral, noncommittal space, described as “in-betweenness” or “border-crossing” where the previously mentioned negotiation takes place. More on border-crossings is discussed in the Methodology chapter (Chapter 3).

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CONTACT ZONES Mary Louise Pratt (1991:34) described the place “where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other” as contact zones. She claims that the contact zones are where the phenomenon of transculturation takes place. I use this concept to describe where the spaces in my research model come together—the Community, the Classroom and the Cinematic. The individual spaces are brought together sometimes by the sheer nature of an English language class that basically throws people from different cultures, communities of practice, discourse communities and spaces into a shared space and imposes upon them a common set of learning objectives and behaviors. The classroom thus becomes the contact zone where students and teachers are located in a space where all of the cultures and attitudes are criss-crossing and bouncing off the walls and around the room, eventually forming a new community of practice or small culture.

SMALL CULTURES Referring back to Adrian Holliday‟s description of small cultures, I have added the concept here due to the permeable nature of small cultures. It is common for individuals to be members of numerous small cultures at the same time. This phenomenon suggests that when cultures are brought together there is a sort of revolving door that exists at the point of contact; and through that door there is a constant two-way flow of cultural information that moves back-and-forth between the cultures (spaces), and this allows for people to form part of more than one culture at the same time.

SPHERES OF INTERCULTURALITY This concept is discussed by Claire Kramsch, who in different publications (1993, 1998, 2003) has emphasized the need for language learners to cross cultural borders.

However, according to Kramsch, for learners to be able to cross borders they should establish spheres of interculturality. These spheres represent a „third place‟ or a „third culture‟ which is located at the intersection between the colliding cultures. Along the same lines as Kramsch, a group of researchers (Lo Blanco, Liddicoat, and Crozet, eds. 1999) published Striving for the Third Place: International Competence Through Language Education, in which they describe the „third place‟ as a “meeting place between different

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forces, different cultures and different world views.” They argue that when two cultures or spaces come together it is not important to maintain one‟s own cultural frame, but rather one should seek an intermediary space between the two cultures—a third space.

In one way or another, the different concepts described in the above section on cultural hybridity fit the description of the spaces of my heuristic model. That is, the spaces, while in themselves exist as individual entities; also move around with their respective members. And as the members of each move from one place to another, the spaces they occupy often cross paths and collide with each other. I liken these collisions to what happens in the English classroom when students and teacher all come together in a single environment—the classroom—and they and their respective spaces (cultures) come face to face with each other, colliding and „grappling‟.

A primary theme of this paper is how a familiar activity such as watching a movie may play a role in the ELT classroom. Going to the cinema is a social event that is done outside of the classroom in the Cinematic space, under very different conditions and with very different intentions, attitudes and motivation. However, when film is present inside the ELT context—the Classroom space, where the intentions, attitudes and motivation for viewing are distinct, the participants seemingly attempt to make their classroom resemble the cinema, thus creating an atmosphere where they might simulate the aforementioned intentions, attitudes and motivation that they would normally have in the cinema context. In a sense, the participants are responding to the on-going negotiation that occurs in the points of contact where the two spaces come together when film is used for educational purposes; they are tapping into aspects of their lives from outside the ELT context—in this case, the Cinematic space they are members of. That is to say, they are bringing into the ELT context aspects of their experience, cultural background and knowledge. All of which may contribute to enriching the learning environment and, in particular, the language learning experience for them.

CONSTRAINING CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT In my experience as an ELT professional and during this research, I have discovered that there are phenomena that suggest that language class course syllabus is a

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constraining factor that limits students to studying and learning based almost entirely on what is found in their course books. Likewise, the pace of the English classes at the Language School is dictated by the sequence of units from the same books. Students and teachers are often pressured by approaching exam dates, which require a specific number of units to be covered by then.

The constraining nature of the classroom suggests that students are learning English in a very controlled and constrained environment that leaves very little, if any, room for them or teachers to make use of extra materials or previous experience and knowledge in their classes, unless those elements are somehow solicited from the course book activities. It is established (Scrivner 1994) that the ability for students to bring their personal experience and knowledge to the classroom enhances and enriches the classroom and creates an environment potentially more conducive to learning. However, based on the data collected it is apparent that ELT students in Guanajuato rarely have opportunities to contribute to the enrichment of their own learning environment due to the nature of the curricula in which they study.

HOW IS THE CINEMA PERCEIVED IN THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CONTEXT? Data analysis revealed information that provides more insight as to how film and cinema are perceived within the context of ELT when the Classroom and Cinematic spaces collide during the English language lesson. The research subjects that participate within the Classroom space (teachers and students) are also members of the local Community space, so they share characteristics with the above-mentioned description of the community of Guanajuato. However, the data suggest that the perception of film and cinema in the ELT environment includes traits that, while remaining similar to, distinguish it from the perception of film within the Cinematic space. ELT students in particular revealed that they seem to look at film with „different eyes‟ when they see it in a different context. They watch a film with different objectives. However there is evidence to suggest that aspects of their film viewing experience outside of the ELT environment find their way into the classroom as well, which is a product of the on-going „negotiation‟ that occurs at the points of contact—contact zones (Pratt 1991)—or in the „liminal‟ space (Bhabha 1994).

Instinctively, when film is present in the language classroom, the two spaces collide and the

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zones where they come into contact with each other serve as places of overlap, negotiation, and of interchange of characteristics. During this „interchange‟ is when language students mentally, but not always consciously, tap into their skills and knowledge as members of the Cinematic space, and those aspects immediately form part of a new fourth space where there is a combination or mixture of the characteristics from the Classroom and Cinematic spaces. This new mixture acts as a component which adds to the motivation and interest of the students because they have been able to temporarily include aspects of their social identities from outside the Classroom space.

THE ROLE OF FILM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING Film has an impact in the language learning classroom in diverse forms. Tasks based on film are perceived by students to be fun and a welcome deviation from the standard daily course book routine. The presence of film in class is associated with a leisure activity and therefore provokes a more relaxed atmosphere in class. Students, as the data suggest, also perceive film as a useful and helpful language learning aid. The students who indicated that film helped them with language learning, though, did not mention the same type of learning as intended by their teachers. Students enter the classroom with different ideas about what and how they learn, as well as how they expect to be taught.

When film is present in the ELT class, students are temporarily „transported‟ out of the classroom to a different time and place, either via the film narrative, or through the memory of their own cinema experiences. In a sense they are connecting their personal experience and knowledge as members of the local Community and Cinematic spaces with the Classroom space, albeit briefly. And this connection represents the students‟ being able to tap into their world outside the classroom; thus connecting them to their „normal‟ identity.

It is there at that union of two worlds (the contact zone) and the different identities that the learning environment becomes enhanced and enriched, and therefore more conducive to language learning.

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STUDENTS’ IDENTITY STRUGGLE Upon entering the classroom students seem to „forget‟ who they are (their roles outside the class) and „adopt‟ the role of English student. The inverted commas in the previous sentence suggest that the word „adopt‟ may not be appropriate, but rather perhaps the word „accept‟ should take its place. There is evidence to suggest that students (perhaps unconsciously) block out their personal life experience and background knowledge while inside the classroom. These people come to ELT class bringing with them life experience, ideas and backgrounds unique to their personal cultural belief systems and educations. However, it appears that when they enter the classroom, and assume (accept) the role of English student, they seemingly forget who they are and all of the previously mentioned life experience during the class. The „English student‟ that they become appears to be a more one-dimensional role which does not include the other facets of their lives. This is further emphasized by the constraining nature of the classroom and course mentioned above. They sit in the „student‟ chair and accept that the teacher is in control of the group and that the teacher will instruct them. In a sense they are changing the hat they wear upon entering the classroom, and when they finish class they change hats again to return to the person they „are‟ for the other 23 hours a day. The former suggests to me that there is an issue with students struggling with their social identity and with their concept and management of power relationships within the ELT classroom.

Teachers seem to be unaware of the „hat-changing‟. That is, possibly due to the course book syllabus and the aforementioned time constraints, teachers are busily working to keep pace for the upcoming examination. This limits, or even prevents, them from dedicating the necessary time and energy to learn sufficiently about the students‟ needs and personal backgrounds. If this is the case, then it would be inconceivable to expect teachers to notice students‟ apparent changed behavior within the classroom, especially if said behavior is the only behavior that teachers have ever witnessed from students.

Another possibility is that teachers do in fact notice the hat-changing, but consider it as natural normal behavior for students. Teachers might feel more comfortable with their role within the teacher-student power relationship and accept their more powerful position.

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Whatever the situation may be, it is evidence to suggest that there is an ongoing identity struggle inside the ELT classroom that I believe is directly influencing the nature of the language learning environment. Students make the decision to learn English before ever stepping into the ELT environment; they opt to learn while they are „being‟ who they normally are, and the decision to learn is based on what they think, feel and experience during their everyday lives. However, when they eventually do enter the ELT environment, and their roles change, they are learning language under a false pretense. That is, if they are ignoring who they really are while in the classroom, then what they are learning will be that much more difficult to apply to their lives outside of ELT.

CONCLUSION In reference to the findings regarding the on-going identity struggle and „hatchanging‟ I believe the implications are abundant. However, the area where I see more need for attention is in English language students‟ purposes for learning language.

Language learners come into the language classroom from their own very unique walks of life, previous experience, interpersonal relationships, and cultural backgrounds. So, one can assume that each of them has taken the decision to learn English for their own personal reasons, and they surely have their own particular learning goals. However, if the constraining nature of the Classroom space is limiting these students and their teachers to basically „learning‟ and „teaching‟, respectively, the English language, using almost exclusively what is contained in the course book syllabus, then it is assumed that the students‟ personal aspects mentioned above, in particular their individual reasons and goals for learning English, are not taken into consideration by the curricula and the teachers. If the prior is true, then the implication is that students and teachers have no idea whether they are achieving their intended learning/teacher objectives. And there is no way of assessing if they are doing so, because no one knows what to assess. The TESOL profession must take a long hard critical look inwards in an attempt to identify this type of challenges to learning and develop methodologies that encourage students to bring their experience into the classroom and use it consciously.

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REFERENCES Holliday, A. 1994. “Student culture and language education: an international perspective”. Language, Culture and Curriculum, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp.

125-143.

Holliday A. 1999 „Small cultures‟. Applied Linguistics 20/2: 237-264.

Kramsch, C. 1993. "Language Study as Border Study: Experiencing Difference.” European Journal of Education 28:3,349-58.

Kramsch, C. 1993. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kramsch, C. 1998. Language and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kramsch, C. 2003. Content and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008) Cultural Globalization and Language Learning. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Lam, W.S.E. 2000. “L2 literacy and the design of the self: a case study of a teenager writing on the internet.” TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 34, pp. 457482.

McKay, S.L. and Wong, S-L.C. 1996. “Multiple discourses, multiple identities: investment and agency in second-language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students.” Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 66, pp. 577-608.

Mitchell, R. and Myles, F. 2004. Second Language Learning Theories (2nd ed.). London: Arnold.

Norton, B. 2000. Identity and Language Learning. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Pavlenko, A. 1998. “Second language learning by adults: testimonies of bilingual writers.” Issues in Applied Linguistics, Vol. 9, pp. 3-19.

Pratt, M.L. (1991) “Arts of the Contact Zone”. Profession. 91: 33-40.

Scrivner, J. 1994. Learning Teaching. England: Heinemann.

Wise, J.M. 2000. “Home: Territory and Identity.” Cultural Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 295-310.

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THE USE OF CYBERSPACES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE ELVIA FRANCO GARCÍA FES-Acatlán UNAM

GABRIELA CORTÉS SÁNCHEZ UAM-A Cyberspace applications allow second or foreign language students to become multicultural learners. When they communicate by this means, they go beyond the geographical borders and share their knowledge and experiences, with which they develop their intercultural competence, which enables students to behave properly when they encounter people from a foreign culture. To acquire the intercultural competence, students have to achieve the monocultural, intercultural and transcultural levels. The monocultural and intercultural levels can be experienced inside the classroom. However, the transcultural level can be reached only when students interact with people from the target culture. The use of the cyberspaces brings about social interaction among people from different cultures, as well as the development of personal skills that promote the transcultural stage.

T

he cyberspace applications can prompt the interaction among people from all over the world, whose culture can differ from each other. The cyberspaces promote

different ways of global communication which enables the development of individual skills, as well as the development of intercultural competence. Intercultural competence allows students from a foreign language to behave properly when they interact with people from a foreign culture. The purpose of this study is to analyze the applications of the cyberspaces as well as the characteristics of the intercultural competence, and suggest some activities with which students will be able to learn about the foreign language culture.

THE CYBERSPACES The Internet has been used as an instrument to surf the cyberspaces. Because of its characteristics and efficiency in communication, the Internet has had a wide expansion all over the world. Moreover, the Internet is characterized for its speed and easy access to diverse types of information. The kind of communication that arises in the cyberspaces

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goes beyond the geographic limits of a community and creates groups of perceptive people who share knowledge and experiences when they get in touch.

Most researchers acknowledge the great value the Internet has to develop global and multicultural learning which serves as a catalyst for promoting and developing intercultural competence and critical thinking (Cummins, 1996).

There are some Internet tools that allow the construction of personal relationships.

Among them, we can find chat rooms, e-mail, e-mail lists, news groups, novelty bulletins, virtual conferences and forums throughout the Internet (Odasz, 1999, 2000).

Teleconferences and videoconferences also contribute to the interconnection of students in global conversations of all kinds. The use of cyberspaces introduces the users to diverse cultures, provides the opportunity to expand their personal relationships and creates a much more motivating environment within the classroom (Lasaga, 1994).

Likewise, for the purpose of eliminating stereotypes, the teacher should take advantage of telecommunication to analyze the cultural aspects in the foreign language class so that students can understand the similarities and learn from the differences among people from different cultures (Pinhey, 1998).

Before using the Internet as a tool for developing intercultural competence, the following aspects must be taken into account: a) teachers should receive the corresponding training; b) an adequate infrastructure should be provided; c) the technological and telecommunications capacity should be adequate; d) all students and teachers should have access to the Internet.

In order to successfully integrate the use of the Internet in the classroom, it is convenient to make certain changes, such as the transformation of teaching methods from teacher based learning to student based learning; from large groups to reduced groups; from a structured class to an exploratory class with open learning; from competitive work to cooperative work which includes solutions to assignments (Tate, 1998; Mann, 1998).

A series of abbreviations can help to excel communication in the cyberspaces (Crystal, 2001: 85-86).

The initials are used in written messages to cover different

situations in chat rooms or other areas. The following abbreviations are some of them:

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MEANING

afaik

as far as I know

asap

as soon as possible

bbfn

bye for now

bbl

be back later

brb

be right back

btw

by the way

cm

call me

dur?

do you remember?

f2f

face to face

The use of these abbreviations requires the development of the students’ communicative competence, which includes the knowledge and the ability to use the language in real communicative situations (Bygate, 1997: 3-9).

After analyzing the alternatives to create the cyberspace environment, we have found that they provide the social interaction among different cultures. These interactions bring about global communication and develop interpersonal abilities which promote transculturation, the most complete level of the intercultural competence.

THE INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE No doubt, most current foreign language class curricula include in their course objectives the development of intercultural competence since it allows students to behave properly when they interact with people from a foreign culture.

The intercultural competence is defined as an advanced competence which consists in the ability to behave in an adequate and flexible manner before events, attitudes and diverse behaviors of a foreign culture. Being adequate and flexible implies a consciousness about the differences between the mother culture and the foreign culture, as

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well as the abilities which are required to solve the errors that can be made in such divergences. The intercultural competence includes the students’ ability to assert their identity in the negotiation process of the intercultural exchange and, at the same time, to help the other participants assert their own identity (Meyer, 1996).

This competence is integrated by the monocultural, intercultural and transcultural levels. In the monocultural level the student has adequate patterns of conduct and of thinking for his native culture. However, such behaviors can be inadequate for situations that require intercultural thinking or attitudes. The student’s foreign culture perceptions are based on clichés, stereotypes and ethnocentrism. The problems that arise during the interaction with people from other cultures are solved in an adequate way among friends or within a group of people, but they are not solved in intercultural situations.

The intercultural level refers to the student’s ability to explain the differences within his social group and the foreign culture, since he can use the information that he has learned about the defining characteristics of diverse societies, or because he has developed the ability to ask about and understand some differences among cultures. His cultural knowledge is based on historical, sociological, psychological or economic information, so the student finds himself between his mother culture and the target culture, but he is not able to participate in intercultural activities yet.

The transcultural level is related to the student’s ability to evaluate the intercultural differences and solve whatever problem that may arise during the interaction through the international principles of cooperation and communication. Knowing the verbal patterns of the target culture allows the student to develop his own identity during the intercultural exchange. In this level the student has the ability to negotiate more complex meanings, which are found above his own culture and the foreign culture.

The student can deal with the monocultural and intercultural levels in the classroom.

However, the student will not be able to reach the transcultural level until he has the opportunity to develop interpersonal relations and interact with individuals from the second or foreign language culture.

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Being in the context of the Mexican culture, we should accept that it is not very common that this situation arises naturally in our classrooms, due to economic and geographic reasons. The globalizing tendencies of today’s world make it necessary for second or foreign language teachers to look for alternative ways in order to prepare their students to face real life situations in an era in which intercultural relations are predominating.

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR VIRTUAL MULTICULTURAL EXCHANGE Virtual exchange can take place through the use of correspondence with students from other countries. This type of exchange is very stimulating for students because of the combination of technology, rapidness in the communication and because, when writing, they can communicate with someone else in real life situations that are difficult to be created naturally in the classroom.

There are several sites where students can find many pages on the Internet for friendly correspondence and where they can have the opportunity to practice English, for example: http://its-online.com http://www.stolaf.edu/network/iecc http://owl.wsu.edu http://www.lsft.com.catalist.html http://enebro.cnice.mecd.es/~aherna19/Teachers'/teachers.htm In these addresses the students can register and find other sites in which it is possible to talk to people from other countries. In order to familiarize the students with these activities, it is recommendable to assign some of the following tasks:     

Have them download a list of monthly pen pals.

Get feedback from students that have had communication with foreigners.

Make them solve problems that require cultural exchange.

Write an introductory message to be published on a pen pal page.

Send some messages.

A good virtual exchange depends on several factors.  All the students should have access to an e-mail account or a chat room.  They should have someone who can help them throughout the exercise in the technological aspect.

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 Make each student keep in touch with at least two friends from another country via e-mail or chat so that if one of them is slow to respond or ends the correspondence the student will still have one foreigner with whom to keep on writing.  Match partners with similar ages and interests.  Carefully train the students and remind them that some people take longer to respond than others and prepare them for the cases when they do not receive a response.  Teach the students about the importance of learning about different cultures, as well as respecting such differences when they are writing people from foreign cultures.  Establish one or two programs to be carried out during the course. The programs should specify the content of the messages; for example, to describe a typical day of class or work in your country.  The exchange should last the entire course.

With virtual exchange tasks such as the Electronic pen pals activity below (Dudeney, 2000: 129), students will be able to practice their monocultural competence when they interact with members of the same culture and develop their intercultural and transcultural competence when they interact with foreigners.

ELECTRONIC PEN PALS FIND SOMEONE ...

1. …from the same country as you.

2. …from a country you’d like to visit.

3. …the same age and sex as you.

4. …with similar interests to you.

FIND SOMEONE WHO… 1. …wouldn’t like to hear from you.

2. …likes something you’ve never heard of.

3. …does something you’d like to do.

4. …likes a group you like.

FIND… 1. …an Internet word for “e-mail pen pal.”

2. …a spelling mistake you can correct.

3. …someone you definitely wouldn’t write to.

4. …two people you would love to write to.

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Diagram #1: Electronic Pen Pals (Dudeney, 2000: 129)

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Although the previous activity is recommended for intercultural exchange; students can fail at making friends because some of the messages might not be answered. Students should be warned that this might happen so that they are not disappointed in case their messages receive no response. However, the risk is worth taking because, besides getting the opportunity to practice the foreign language and know about its culture, the students will also be able to get new friends.

The following hints might help students to achieve a successful use of the cyberspaces.

1. Give the students enough time to write their messages since this requires an extraordinary effort. However, writing this kind of messages is much more motivating for them than any other writing activity that might be assigned to them.

2. If class time is short or the writing activity is long, the messages should be assigned for homework and reviewed at the beginning of the next class.

3. The teacher should remind the students that the message is not a writing exam.

Its purpose is for the students to develop their intercultural competence, so too much emphasis on correct grammar or syntax would be unnecessary because that would only inhibit their desire to communicate and lessen the authenticity of their interaction.

4. The messages should be divided in two parts: 1) a compulsory topic which the students would have to develop and 2) a free topic so that the students have the chance to express what they want.

5. The teacher should not insist on having the students use a very rigid format for writing their messages.

6. Teachers should keep in mind that the main objective of these activities is to promote the development of our students’ intercultural competence.

PROPOSAL TO DEVELOP THE INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE The analysis of the main tools that are used in surfing the cyberspaces as well as the intercultural competence characteristics were used as a base to propose two projects.

These projects will allow English students to establish relationships with people from other cultures. From this experience, students will be able to develop their intercultural sensibility and acquire a higher transcultural competence level, which will allow them to be more

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efficient in their intercultural relationships. When the tasks are finished, students should share their findings with the rest of the class.

Project No. 1: Virtual Exchange This project includes a virtual exchange with two programs, which can be covered throughout the course. It is suggested for intermediate students.

Program No. 1 Students briefly describe their physical characteristics and personality. The information that is included in this description should be similar to that found in a magazine for pen pals. Once it is finished, it should be sent.

Pairs are formed with students from different nationalities taking into account their individual preferences.

Students should make their first contact by writing about some celebration or a typical holiday their country. The students who receive the message must answer as soon as possible, giving the corresponding information about their own country.

After the first contact, the students should be encouraged to keep in touch with their pen pals at least once a week. The teacher can suggest the topics for their messages (for example: to indicate the lifestyle of children, adolescents and/or the elderly in their own country; to describe their houses and neighborhoods, as well as their daily activities or to talk about traditional food, among others). It is important that the students be guided during the development of certain topics, but not obliged to do something they are not interested in. Students will be able to write about any topic they choose as long as they do not forget to respect cultural differences and learn from them. This will help them to develop their transcultural competence.

Program No. 2 The first day of class, the students are asked to select a topic of world interest and one of national interest.

The tenth day of the month the students will send out the information that they have collected about their topics from the Internet or from local papers. The students should be

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prepared to answer questions about vocabulary or to give explanations when they are asked.

During the next ten days the students will use their material to compare the reception that the news or topics had in different countries as well as the importance that was given to them in their own country.

The students will later send and receive messages about the reactions to the topics, and they will have the opportunity to exchange points of view, ask questions and socialize.

Within this virtual exchange they will be able to include time capsules (Dudeney, 2000). Images, objects or scanned pamphlets from the participating students’ countries can be exchanged in these capsules.

Project #2: Short Story Interpretation The second project is an exchange for the interpretation of short stories. Although it can be planned for the course, the time could be extended if desired. This project is recommended for advanced students.

For this project the use of e-mail is suggested to discuss short stories with students from other countries. The purpose of this activity is to develop the participants’ intercultural comprehension and explain what they learn during the exchange. This activity can be carried out in chat rooms with forums or debates. For example, to participate in a debate the students can enter a chat room in Yahoo, Geocities or Messenger in which different topics are discussed. Each week an assignment can be given to the students. They enter a chat room in the language they are learning. In the chat rooms, the students can simultaneously be in touch with one person or with several people from all over the world.

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CONCLUSIONS Because of their characteristics the cyberspaces contribute to create multicultural spaces. Both, technology and the Internet, provide teachers and foreign language students with information, and vast opportunities for multicultural communication. Cyberspaces are a means of information exchange. Their greatest value is derived from the dialogues and intercultural exchanges in which students share their knowledge and experiences, while they increase their ability to use the target language in real life situations. Moreover, multicultural exchanges can also promote peace and world harmony.

One of the most useful characteristics of cyberspaces is that almost any person can explore them in many ways. We recommend to use them as a potential tool to allow our Mexican students to establish relationships with people from other cultures through e-mail, pen pal sites, chat rooms, video and teleconferencing, among others, to promote the development of their cultural awareness, and contribute to the acquisition of an intercultural and transcultural competence level with which they will learn to distinguish and respect multicultural differences and similarities.

REFERENCES Bygate, Martin. 1997. Speaking. Language Teaching: A Scheme for Teacher Education (sexta ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Crystal, David. 2001. Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cummins, Jim. 1996. “Multicultural Education and Technology: Promise and Pitfalls.” Multicultural Education. Vol. 3 No. 3.

Cummins, J. y Sayers, D. 1995. Brave New Schools: Challenging Cultural Illiteracy Through Global Learning Networks. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Dudeney, Gavin. 2000. The Internet and the Language Classroom. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lasaga, Antonio. 1994. “Collaboration and Technology.” http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/pubs/ A15/ lasaga.html.

Mann, 1998.January. “Technology in Education”. In PREL Briefing Paper.

Miller, Jennifer.

2000.

“Critical, Internet-Based Collaborative Inquiry on Multicultural Understanding.” http://easternct.edu.depts.edu/projects/inquiry.html.

Meyer, Meinert. 1991. “Developing Transcultural Competence: Case Studies of Advance Foreign Language Learners.” En Buttjes, D. y Byram, H. Mediating Languages and Cultures. USA: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Odasz, Frank 1999. “Collaborative Internet Tools.” En Learning and Leading with Technology. San Francisco: Jossery-Bass Publishers.

Pinhey, Laura. 1998. “Global Education: Internet Resources.” ERIC Digest. http://www.ed.gov/ databases/ERIC_Digest/ed417124.html.

Tate, 1998.June. “Collaborative Internet Learning” In ED-MEDIA/ED-TELECOM 98 World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia & World Conference on Educational Telecommunications.

Teeler, R. y Gray, P. 2001. Use the Internet in ELT. Malaysia: Longman.

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TEACHING SYNTHESIS THROUGH FICTION AND RELATED CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL MEDIA KAREN A. SANTIAGO Esperanza College of Eastern University The purpose of this university course is three-fold: to explore the world of fiction in English classes for either foreign or bilingual students; to expose students to a variety of related historical and cultural media; and to teach the process of synthesis in the production of reflection papers using all fiction and media sources. To achieve this, several novels are chosen which represent a variety of cultures and historical perspectives; in this case, Cuban, AfricanAmerican and Korean. The presenter will show how by researching the historical background needed to understand these novels, students become more aware of histories other than their own. Documentaries and PowerPoint are also used for a more visual learning experience. The presenter will discuss each novel used in this course, its literary and historical benefit, and media sources used to support and supplement each unit. The presenter will explain the research process, reading assignments, expanded listening and note-taking through documentaries and improvement of writing skills, including syntheses, by presenting a reflection paper for each unit with all sources properly documented. The presenter will discuss each topic, materials and methodology. Handouts will be provided. This type of course could be created to reflect any period of history and any culture depending on the fiction chosen to study.

WHAT IS SYNTHESIS?

A

ccording to Bloom’s Taxonomy, there are several levels of abstraction in educational settings. Starting with the most basic, these levels are: Knowledge, Comprehension

Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. These skills have been often represented in the form of a learning triangle, with the highest-level skills at the peak, thus building from concrete to abstract objectives. (Bloom 1956)

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The questions that we ask when assessing knowledge change depending on the level of abstraction of the course. The attached handout shows all of the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, descriptions of each and examples of question cues that stimulate different levels of knowledge for use in assessment. The course we are going to examine takes students in their second semester of their second year of college through each of these steps ending with synthesis, which is the desired level of outcome.

WHO ARE OUR STUDENTS? Our students are mostly non-traditional students who work fulltime are parents fulltime and study fulltime. They are from a variety of backgrounds: Hispanic 90%, including people from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Columbia, Cuba, and other countries; African-American 9%, most of whom have been educated in the public schools; and 1%.Asian and African (receiving formal education in an African nation.) About half of the student population has a high school education with the other half receiving their General Education Diploma, which they may have taken in either English or Spanish. At least 60% are second-language learners, with Spanish being their first language. Some have been in the language transition program in which they began their university studies in Spanish and did a transition to 100% English by their third semester.

In spite of this variety of backgrounds, these students have several things in common. One is that they lack previous knowledge in general, and have very little knowledge of history, and in particular, American history. They are Urbanites with usually lower than average incomes. Another commonality is that they do not know how to synthesize a variety of sources into one theme, citing properly from these supporting sources and documenting properly at the end.

THE LEVELS OF ABSTRACTION IN THIS PARTICULAR COURSE With all of this in mind, this English 220 course differs from the one taught on our main campus to mostly Anglo students who come from middle-class, suburban backgrounds and who were educated in quality schools. We achieve the same outcomes, but go about it in a different way that reflects our particular student body. It also takes students from the level of knowledge to the level of synthesis. The following will give a

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short summary of how the different requirements of the course fulfill this outcome based on Bloom’s levels of abstraction.

Knowledge: We have discovered that our student population does not have a good knowledge of history, whether it be world or of the United States. They need to learn facts, names, dates, and happenings that relate to the short fiction and novel they will be studying in each unit.

Comprehension: They are presented with information relating to historical events, cultural customs and patterns and political situations that they may not have experienced or learned about before. This is achieved through movies, documentaries, and special speakers.

Application: They need to understand this information before they can move on to apply this information to other parts of the unit they are studying and to the literature they are reading. This is achieved mainly through class discussion.

Analysis: They must then learn to analyze the information for patterns, general themes, and commonalities. At this point they have to decide on a general theme that they have recognized in the majority of sources and by way of a reflection paper, support this theme from the sources, which brings us to synthesis.

Synthesis:

The final step is synthesis of these ideas and information to be

presented in the form of a new creation, which in this case is a reflection paper. In this reflection paper each student decides on a theme that was prevalent in all of the materials viewed or read. Then this information must be pulled together into a wellorganized and supported paper with a clear thesis and proper citation. Students have to generalize from the facts learned, relate the knowledge from video, history and literature to a general theme, and draw conclusions that support the topic they have chosen for their reflection paper. They are required to cite from every source of information to support their topic and properly document on their Works Cited page (using the MLA style.)

LITERATURE USED IN THE COURSE In this course, four novels and 12 short stories make up the fiction requirements. The novels are: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho; Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia; The -3-

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Price of a Child by Lorene Cary; and Clay Walls by Ronyoung Kim. The Alchemist supports the theme of a Personal Journey; Dreaming in Cuban exposes students to recent history as well as themes related to communism, family relations, and adaptation of immigrants to life in the U.S.; The Price of a Child (a novel based on the true story of a slave who escaped to Philadelphia) takes students back to the origins of slavery in the U.S., the underground railroad, and civil rights; Clay Walls brings alive the story of Asian immigrants, and especially the story of a Korean family, the prejudices they faced and overcame and their experiences when they decided to return to Japanese-occupied Korea.

AN EXPANSION ON THE CUBAN UNIT We will examine only one of the three major units: the unit based on the novel, Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia (1992). Some of the handouts used in the course have been included for your reference.

The first step is to discover the historical background of the novel, including names, dates and events that a student would need to know to fully understand the book. A list of these items is given to each student to be researched and is then discussed in class. A copy of the list for Dreaming in Cuban has been included at the end of this paper.

The second step is the reading of four short stories written by Cuban-American authors. At this point various themes are beginning to emerge which are discussed in class.

Simultaneously, students view the movie “Libertad” (2000-2001), which is an independent film about life in Cuba. Being visual learners, this video gives the most impact to students who really don’t understand the politics of the past century or even of today. It helps them to understand why anyone would want to leave Cuba, risking their lives on small boats and inner tubes.

Throughout the third step, students are reading the novel Dreaming in Cuban, participating in class discussions of what they have read, and watching a variety of documentaries related to Cuba. Speakers can also be invited to share their experiences if possible. A complete list of these resources has been included at the end of this paper.

Students at this point are applying new information to the novel they are reading and

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recognizing parts of the novel as a repetition of themes identified through the audiovisuals and speakers. A handout showing the reading assignment has been included with this paper.

The final step is the writing of a reflection paper which incorporates all of the sources of information to support a theme or subject of their choosing. Some examples would be freedom, politics and the family, mother-daughter relationships, difficulties of leaving ones country and adapting to a new one. Students are expected to reflect on the theme, and support their reflection primarily through the novel, and then the short stories, audiovisuals and speakers. Proper organization and in-text citation are emphasized along with the Works Cited page at the end of the paper (MLA style).The other two units follow the same pattern as can be seen in the attached reading/assignment schedule.

In conclusion, by teaching students to work from the concrete facts and historical information to the abstraction needed for synthesis, they are better prepared to continue for their bachelor’s degrees in a variety of fields.

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REFERENCES Bloom, B.S. (Ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational Toronto: Longmans, Green.

Cary, Lorene.(1995) The Price of Child. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Coelho, Paulo. (1993) The Alchemist. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Garcia, Cristina. (1882) Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Random House Publishing Group.

Kim, Ronyoung. (1987) Clay Walls. Sag Harbor: The Permanent Press.

goals: Handbook I, cognitive domain. New York;

BLOOM’S TAXONOMY (BLOOM 1956) Knowledge Knowledge is defined as the remembering of previously learned material. This may involve the recall of a wide range of material, from specific facts to complete theories, but all that is required is the bringing to mind of the appropriate information.

Knowledge represents the lowest level of learning outcomes in the cognitive domain.

Examples of learning objectives at this level are: know common terms, know specific facts, know methods and procedures, know basic concepts, know principles.

Question Cues: list, define, tell, describe, identify, show, label, collect, examine, tabulate, quote, name, who, when, where, etc.

Comprehension Comprehension is defined as the ability to grasp the meaning of material. This may be shown by translating material from one form to another (words to numbers), by interpreting material (explaining or summarizing), and by estimating future trends (predicting consequences or effects). These learning outcomes go one step beyond the simple remembering of material, and represent the lowest level of understanding.

Examples of learning objectives at this level are: understand facts and principles, interpret verbal material, interpret charts and graphs, translate verbal material to mathematical formulae, estimate the future consequences implied in data, justify methods and procedures.

Question Cues: summarize, describe, interpret, contrast, predict, associate, distinguish, estimate, differentiate, discuss, extend.

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Application Application refers to the ability to use learned material in new and concrete situations. This may include the application of such things as rules, methods, concepts, principles, laws, and theories. Learning outcomes in this area require a higher level of understanding than those under comprehension.

Examples of learning objectives at this level are: apply concepts and principles to new situations, apply laws and theories to practical situations, solve mathematical problems, construct graphs and charts, and demonstrate the correct usage of a method or procedure.

Question cues: apply, demonstrate, calculate, complete, illustrate, show, solve, examine, modify, relate, change, classify, experiment, discover Analysis Analysis refers to the ability to break down material into its component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood. This may include the identification of parts, analysis of the relationship between parts, and recognition of the organizational principles involved. Learning outcomes here represent a higher intellectual level than comprehension and application because they require an understanding of both the content and the structural form of the material.

Examples of learning objectives at this level are: recognize unstated assumptions, recognizes logical fallacies in reasoning, distinguish between facts and inferences, evaluate the relevancy of data, analyse the organizational structure of a work (art, music, writing).

Question Cues: analyze, separate, order, explain connect, classify, arrange, divide, compare, select, explain, infer Synthesis Synthesis refers to the ability to put parts together to form a new whole. This may involve the production of a unique communication (theme or speech), a plan of operations (research proposal), or a set of abstract relations (scheme for classifying information).

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Learning outcomes in this area stress creative behaviors, with major emphasis on the formulation of new patterns or structure.

Examples of learning objectives at this level are: write a well organized theme, gives a well organized speech writes a creative short story (or poem or music), propose a plan for an experiment, integrate learning from different areas into a plan for solving a problem, formulates a new scheme for classifying objects (or events, or ideas).

Question Cues: combine, integrate, modify, rearrange, substitute, plan, create, design, invent, what if?, compose, formulate, prepare, generalize, rewrite Evaluation Evaluation is concerned with the ability to judge the value of material (statement, novel, poem, research report) for a given purpose. The judgments are to be based on definite criteria. These may be internal criteria (organization) or external criteria (relevance to the purpose) and the student may determine the criteria or be given them.

Learning outcomes in this area are highest in the cognitive hierarchy because they contain elements of all the other categories, plus conscious value judgments based on clearly defined criteria.

Examples of learning objectives at this level are: judge the logical consistency of written material, judge the adequacy with which conclusions are supported by data, judge the value of a work (art, music, writing) by the use of internal criteria, judge the value of a work (art, music, writing) by use of external standards of excellence.

Question cues: assess, decide, rank, grade, test, measure, decide, recommend, convince, select, judge, explain, discriminate, support, conclude, compare, summarize.

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SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Schedule is subject to change Videos or special guests will be used when available.

Pop quizzes are possible at any time on the required readings.

DATE

READING/ASSIGNMENT DUE FOR THIS

Over Summer Break

Read The Alchemist

7/30

Discussion of The Alchemist

8/6

8/13

IN-CLASS ACTIVITY

CLASS

WRITING DUE ON THIS CLASS DATE

Essay as assigned

PPT on Africa

Summer assigned

Essay

as

View the film Libertad

Personal Journey paper due by midnight August 5

Read the short stories in the handout and do the writing as Discussion of short stories Short story assignment due explained in the syllabus to be PPT on Cuba turned in class Discussion of Cuban Do the research on Cuban History History assignment due history-see handout Quiz

8/20

Read pages 1-102 in Dreaming Discussion of the Book Discuss the guidelines for in Cuban Speaker : Adalberto the reflection paper Hernandez Quiz

8/27

Read Dreaming in Cuban pages Discussion of the Book 105-193 Castro Biography

Discuss the guidelines for the reflection paper

Buena Vista Social Club 9/3

NO Class/Labor Day Holiday

9/10

Discussion of Themes in Read Dreaming in Cuban pages the book 105-193 View Missiles of October

9/17

Discussion of handouts View Power point

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REFLECTION PAPER DUE ON CUBA

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READING/ASSIGNMENT DUE FOR THIS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITY

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2007

WRITING DUE ON THIS CLASS DATE

View The Underground Railroad Read short fiction by African- Discussion of the short American Authors-see handouts stories 9/23

And do assignment

Discussion of History

Research on African-American View The Voyage of La history – see handout Amistad 10/8

No Class / Fall break

10/15

Read The Price of a Child

Final Discussion of the book

Pages 1-157

View Middle Passage 10/22

Read The Price of a Child

Discuss book/themes

Page 158 – End 10/29

Research history of Asians in Discussion of History America-See handout PPT on culture

11/5

11/12

Read Short stories by Asian- Discussion of Stories American Authors-see handouts Do assignment

View Hidden Korea

Read Clay Walls pages 3-93

Discussion of the Book View All American Girl

11/19

Read Clay Walls pages 94-130

Discussion of the Book View Days of Waiting

11/26

Read Clay Walls pages 131- Discussion of the Book 226 View A State of Mind

12/3

Read Clay Walls pages 227- Final Discussion of the 301 book

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REFLECTION PAPER DUE ON AFRICANAMERICAN LITERATURE Clarification requirements for Reflection Paper

of this

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READING/ASSIGNMENT DUE FOR THIS

12/10

WRITING DUE ON THIS CLASS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITY

CLASS

Discussion of themes the three units

2007

DATE

of REFLECTION PAPER DUE ON KOREANAMERICAN/ASIAN LITERATURE

RESEARCH ON CUBA AND CUBAN HISTORY For our next class, bring this sheet with you with definitions and/or information on the following: If it is the name of a person, describe how that person is related to Cuba’s history – what did he/she do? If a date, what happened on that date or in that year? If an organization, treaty, etc., explain what part it played in Cuban history.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

1492 Arawak Indians Father Felix Varela Ten Years’ War Jose Marti Spanish American War 1902 The Platt Amendment Liberal and Conservative Parties 1924-Machado Sumner Welles Carlos Manuel de Céspedes September 4, 1933 Fulgencio Batista 1934 “el Autentico” and “el Ortodoxo” 1940 1944

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

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1948 University of Havana (in the 1940’s) March 10. 1942 Fidel Castro The July 26 Movement U.S. Arms Embargo of 1958 January 1, 1959 1961 Bay of Pigs Cuban Missile Crisis 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act Alpha 66, Comandos L, Omega 7 Mariel Boatlift Radio Marti Socialism or Death July 13, 1994 Brothers to the Rescue Planes\ Roque

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LEXICAL BORROWING THROUGH GLOBALIZATION MARIA CLARA MONDEJAR-NICASIO, M.A. Fairleigh Dickinson University Union County College As the world comes together through globalization, the languages of the world are in the forefront of change and evolution. The situation leads to the rise of a new phenomenon called the global lexical borrowing. Overcoming linguistic and other constraints, the need to fill new lexical gaps brought about by the rapid exchange of ideas, technology and culture strongly proves to the dev elopement of a global lexicon shared by a single global speech community. Currently under investigated, this paper proves its challenge to leading scholars to study this phenomenon and re-focus traditional and obsolete assumptions. This paper strongly suggests the necessity for the collection of empirical data to trace and record various linguistic developments occurring all over the world.

G

lobalization is the new buzz word.

In linguistics, globalization is traditionally

focused on the political and economic dimensions based on historical events

particularly colonialism and imperialism. Noam Chomsky, refers to globalization as „old wine new bottle‟ (Casal, 2003) comparing globalization to colonization, a historical period when conquering nations established their presence on weaker nations. In a colonial system, monopolized control of one dominant nation over a weaker nation was primarily established to support the economy of the controlling nation. Globalization, on the other hand, has been traditionally defined as the westernization of weaker countries by spreading dominance in terms of politics, economics, technology, culture and language (Mufwene, 2003).

Globalization, interdependencies.

as

we

know

it

today,

relates

to

unmarked

regional

It involves various aspects of modern societies such as economics,

politics, technology and culture. It does not necessarily promote equality or balance of power nor does it recast the will of the „haves‟ on the „have-nots.‟ It is merely a means to focus worldwide resource allocation and efficiency. In economics, it is what is called the Principle of Comparative Advantage where one country can specialize and trade on one product while another country is better at specializing and trading on another product (Baumol & Blinder, 2006).

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Academic research on this topic has provided insignificant amount of investigation and empirical evidence to trace changes to languages brought about by modern day globalization.

Globalization in the field of linguistics is not directly associated with resources, wealth and power.

Instead, the relationship is based on the need to cope with

technological and cultural influences. Personal computers and the internet play a major role in the rapid inter-cultural exchanges widely accepted by different societies. In fact, an interesting phenomenon in linguistics has evolved through globalization.

Initially,

linguists looked into the effects of globalization based on the assumptions focusing on language dominance and endangerment; both are usually by-products of excessive borrowing. In the case of dominance, borrowing leads to the subordination of the native language under the source language which consequently becomes acceptable and assumes dominance over the native language.

In language endangerment, due to

conquest, military, political, economic, cultural or otherwise, the native language begin to lose its functionality within its speech community.

This paper presents discussion of this contemporary linguistic phenomenon.

It

proposes that through globalization a new linguistic phenomenon is evolving called the „global lexical borrowing‟ (GLB). In languages, globalization is the frequent contact of languages that causes the weaker language to be threatened by the powerful language (Laponce, 2004). With the same frequent contact and exchange, GLB allows room for choices, decisions and less room for dominance and endangerment. GLB is a result of the introduction of or, to a greater extent, exchange of new ideas. It fills a linguistic gap that leads to longer lasting effects because the act of borrowing is motivated by conceptual necessity to express a new idea and cultural acceptance. GLB is not imposed upon any one language or culture, rather, it is „an acquired taste,‟ so to speak, to enable a society to deal with new ideas or cultural influences. The phenomenon of borrowing does not involve a language system, instead it is limited to lexical items to fill lexical gaps in the receiving languages or cultures. This indicates that in GLB the relationship need not be interdependent nor have a relationship of domination nor share geographic boundaries.

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Why and how non-native words are borrowed into different native languages?

What motivation do the speakers of the receiving languages to borrow non-native words?

Are these motivations preempted by a sense of urgency, a process of linguistic change, degrees of inter-national and inter-cultural relationships, or a conscious choice by the speakers themselves?

WHAT IS BORROWING? When languages are in contact, different strategies are adapted to cope with the contact situation. From these strategies, contact phenomena come about such as transfer, interference,

borrowing,

codeswitching,

codemixing,

calquing,

etc.

Whichever

phenomenon an individual or speech community chooses to adopt, what is important is the contribution that the phenomenon brings to the verbal repertoire of the individual or to the speech community and the increased ability of the speakers to effectively articulate their communicative intentions (Heller, 1988).

Borrowing (or loanwords) involves adopting aspects of one language into another.

Borrowings are usually single nouns or frozen formulaic expressions (Heller, 1988) that seeps through another language in a slow fashion. New words acquired through globalization are borrowed fairly quickly but the features usually take time to form from language to language. Eventually, if and when the feature is finally adopted, there must be a persistent means of contact (Aitchison, 1996).

Borrowing used to be more complex and involved more usage events or different situations for the use of the new word (Kemmer, 1997).

A loanword is usually first

introduced by speakers of the receiving language who have some or fluent knowledge of the source language.

Often bilinguals, these speakers use the borrowed item while

speaking the borrowed language and pronouncing the borrowed item in the same way as the source language would pronounce it. As the borrowed item becomes more widely used within the speech community, who know little or nothing of the source language, the new word becomes conventionalized to the point that it becomes a borrowing or a loanword.

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WHAT IS LEXICAL BORROWING? It is not unusual for any language to experience change which is usually brought about by languages in contact. Historical evidence shows that languages have always borrowed from one another. It can affect the grammar components of the receiving language, but the lexicon is typically the most affected. For lexical borrowing to be complete and successful, the borrowed lexical item must be fully adapted to the receiving language‟ existing phonological and morphosyntactic structures. Lexical borrowing occurs when the receiving language use certain lexical items from a source language to fill a conceptual, linguistic or cultural gap that do not exist in the receiving language.

Motivations for lexical borrowing are usually based on (i) the notion of prestige (an individual or collective subjective desire to enrich one‟s language by incorporating linguistic components from another language believed to be more prestigious than his or its own), (ii) an objective need to express new ideas brought about by scientific and technological advancements, and (iii) cultural contact through travel, mass media, electronic communication, trends, and popular (“pop”) culture.

This paper proposes that lexical borrowing is the most powerful linguistic phenomenon that could lead to GLB. Combined with the subjective and objective motivations and the constant contact, lexical borrowing has proven to be the one tool that makes different languages and cultures cope with the fast changing world. Since GLB does not always require bilingual or multilingual speakers borrowing becomes easier. It does not also limit any regional or particular “sprachbund” [a „speech area‟ defined in some way by speech (Wardhaugh, 2002)] to maintain certain speech affinity. Lastly, physical distance and contact is of little required value. What are important are: the perceived notion of which language is more prestigious; that it meets the need of expressing new ideas; and that it points direction of influence from a particular cultural source.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK THAT EXPLAINS HOW BORROWING OCCURS For the purpose of this paper, Wei‟s model of the Unequal Morpheme Selection (Wei, 1996) can explain how lexical borrowing occurs. This model is composed of 4 levels namely: conceptual, lexical, functional and positional. The conceptual level is the -4-

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point when the speaker selects the semantic and pragmatic feature bundles. At the lemma level is where the content morphemes are activated in the mental lexicon. The formulator, at the functional level, acts as the assembler of the content and system morphemes to construct grammatical sentences. Finally, the articulator at the positional level realizes the morphological pattern thus producing the speech output. This model shows that content and early system morphemes are predicted to be borrowed first because they are activated early at the conceptual level to fill the lexical gaps. Note that some content morphemes like nouns and adjectives tend to be borrowed first because they are borrowed in the same form, thus processed in the same level.

TYPES OF BORROWING According to Haugen (Appel & Musken, 1987) there are three types of borrowing possibilities: loanword, loanblend, and loanshift. When words are borrowed as a whole, that is, both sound and meaning this type of borrowing is called morphemic importation without substation or loanwords (borrowing by adoption). Words like email, cholesterol and hotel are borrowed into many different languages with both the meaning and form.

Interestingly so, brand names of popular consumer products and food items are also commonly borrowed Band-Aid, McDonald’s, tacos, sushi, lasagna, lo mein, croissant, etc.

Morphemic substitution as well as importation or loanblend may also occur.

Borrowing in this case involves both morphemic and phonological transformation to fit the receiving language (borrowing by adaptation). For example, words in Spanish such as telefono, marcha, bola, azucar and in Tagalog such as telepono, martsa, bola, asukal are borrowed items from English form such as telephone, march, ball and sugar. These English lexical items were transformed to fit the Spanish and Tagalog phonemic structures.

Another instance of borrowing is the morphemic importation with substitution or loanshift. In this situation, only the meaning is imported, but the word representing the meaning comes from the receiving language. For example, the meaning of the word skyscraper remains but is transformed into Spanish as rascal-cielo

while preserving the

meaning from the source language but the surface level is in the receiving language.

Loanshift is, however, not within the scope of this research.

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focused on lexical borrowing that is happening in the global environment, the surface level output in the form of the borrowed lexical item is our concern.

CONSTRAINTS IN BORROWING Although borrowing could make a language richer it is important to note that not all words can be borrowed.

Constraints in borrowing exist when coherence of the

language is disturbed (Appel & Muysken, 1987). These constraints are paradigmatic coherence (tightness of organization of a given subcategory such as pronouns, determiners and demonstratives) and syntagmatic coherence (has something to do with the organization of a sentence for example, a verb is more crucial in the organization of a sentence than a noun, thus harder to borrow). For instance, it is be unacceptable for a Tagalog sentence to be structured as We kakain sa kusina (We will eat in the kitchen). The pronoun We cannot replace the inflection and word order that is apparent in Tagalog, Kakain kami sa kusina. At the same time kusina as a noun borrowed from Spanish, cucina, fits perfectly well in Tagalogâ€&#x;s linguistic structure.

However, once these constraints are overcome, borrowing becomes extreme and systematic and could lead to partial language attrition. Initial stages of attrition follow the same sequence. That is, the content morphemes that are borrowed first are also the same ones to be lost in the receiving languages where borrowing becomes more permanent and frequent. In Tagalog, nouns such as salumpuwet (chair) and aklat (book) are no longer used and have been replaced by borrowed Spanish words such as silla (silya) and libro (libro).

Overcoming constraints have shown indication of rapid movement towards GLB. The word text, a noun in English can become noun and verbs in Tagalog by simply adding the appropriate inflections. For example in present tense, I-text mo na lang ako (Send me a text [message]); past tense Ti-(n)ext niya ako (He/She sent me a text [message]); and future tense Ite-text na lang kita (I will send you a text [message]). In all the Tagalog examples, the word text is used as a verb.

Furthermore, text is adopted in Tagalog with no change. However, its use for different purposes was accommodated through the MLâ€&#x;s linguistic structure. The linguistic

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structures of neither source nor receiving languages were not disturbed and yet the borrowing of new lexical item continues to serve its functionality in both languages.

HOW DOES GLB OCCUR? According to the theory of the Law of Babel (Laponce, 2004), societies that are close and well integrated will lead to a system of one language system while societies that are lose and isolated will lead to a multi lingual system. In globalization, societies do not have to be well integrated nor isolated. GLB can occur even with or without any direct societal contacts and in societies that are neither physically or culturally close nor loose.

Unlike what the Law of Babel theorizes and as mentioned earlier, GLB is, by no means, an acquisition of a new language system. The native language may at best be subject to minimal modifications but not unification of languages or introduction of multi lingual systems.

What is significant to note is that in lexical borrowing, whether in traditional or global form, any borrowed item must fit the sentential frame of the Matrix Language (ML) or receiving language.

The theory behind this is based on the fact that all natural

language phenomena must be governed by one underlying principle, that is, that it must follow the linguistic structure of the ML. Anything that is introduced must match the sentential form and order of the receiving language. For purposes of demonstration, the English word taxi is borrowed in Japanese as takushi and Tagalog as taksi. Takushi was adapted to fit the Japaneseâ€&#x;s phonological structure of CVC (Consonant-VowelConsonant). Where as taksi is adapted to Tagalog with the –ks- combination to replace the letter x which is not part of its alphabet.

In GLB, the surface level morphemes usually come from the source language while the lexical structure comes from the receiving language.

The reason for this is clearly to

maintain the coherence in the receiving language, protecting itself from attrition. It also follows the natural order of morpheme acquisition (content and early system morphemes) based on the time of activation at the conceptual level as previously noted in the theoretical framework.

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GLB BY ADOPTION One source language can easily spread a new lexical item., for example Karoake, to different receiving languages. Karaoke, originally from Japan means kara (empty) oke (short for okesotura which means orchestra [note that this is also a borrowed item from English.

In this instance, the new lexical item is preserved from the original source

language where little or no attempt to phonetically substitute or morphologically change the borrowed item by any of the receiving languages. This type of borrowing undergoes an adoption process where in the new lexical item is borrowed to fill a lexical gap in the receiving languages with little or no change.

According to Thomason & Kaufman borrowing begins during the stage where there is casual contact between languages (Thomason and Kaufman, 1992). lexical borrowing occurs without widespread bilingualism.

At this point,

GLB is different from

borrowing because its speakers do not have to speak nor must have a minimum knowledge of the source language. Lexical items can globally spread simultaneously as part of a „pop‟ culture item, for instance. Clearly, the receiving languages are very well aware of the non-native source of the word and most often than not shows no attempt to change the word in form and meaning to adapt to the structures of the receiving languages. The acceptance and popularity of the new lexical item, despite coming from a non-native source, all the more make the phenomenon of borrowing, global.

BENEFITS OF GLB GLB through adoption brings about more benefits than merely filling a lexical gap in the receiving language. Lexical gaps normally occur to fulfill a need to express a new idea, usually from a foreign culture, and no equivalent native word can be used to identify the same item. While the receiving language benefits by enriching or adding into its vocabulary, the adoption of non-native words is usually associated with social benefits such as prestige in the individual or the group of speakers that use the new lexical item because it is often supposed that the borrowed item usually come from a more prestigious language or culture. At this point, any cross-linguistic influence (the influence of one language over another) is a minimal concern since the goal is to preserve the „foreignness‟

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or non-native sound to attain other perceived social benefits such as prestige, intellectualism, economic status and urbanization.

SOCIOLINGUISTIC MOTIVATIONS FOR GLB Sociolinguistic variables are reasonable motivations for GLB.

In fact, the

phenomenon of GLB makes it apparent that sociolinguistic variables are more powerful than linguistic constraints.

As shown in CVC order in Japanese and phonological

substitution in Tagalog of x to ks above and to ts to ch examples below, morphological and phonological constraints have already given in to accommodate GLB. At this point, the strongest motivations for GLB lie on sociolinguistic variables such as prestige, education, economics, religion, demographics, etc.

Usually, educated people tend to have more intuitive protective behavior towards linguistic changes (Wardhaugh, 1976). They usually fear that like in any established system, if left unchecked their language may lead to unstructured changes.

In GLB

however, sociolinguistic variables such as perceived social benefits have become more powerful than linguistics constraints. Particularly, the notion of being „hip‟ (an adjective used to describe someone who follows new or trendy styles, developments or fashion) also encourages the attitude of giving more social status symbol to the „foreignness‟ of the borrowed item.

For the young population of the receiving culture, the more foreign

sounding a new lexical item is the faster and wider the acceptance is. In fact, whether the change happens faster than the receiving language‟s ability to adopt to the change it is manifested that there is little or no attempt at all to make the borrowed item to at least follow its phonological linguistic structure.

The word chat which is used in online chat rooms is popularly used for internet and instant messaging communication. Although originally introduced in the middle of the 15th century English vocabulary a modification of its meaning in relation to technological advancements has given way to a more popular use of the lexical item. The new lexical item brings with it influences in the phonological structure of the receiving languages which opts to retain its new sound. In Tagalog for example, the phoneme ch is not native and is usually and traditionally borrowed to ts. Thus, chocolate (English), cha (Chinese) and

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chicharon (Spanish) were traditionally borrowed into Tagalog as tsokolate, tsaa, tsitsaron.

With the advent of GLB, chat is now simply chat in Tagalog.

GLB has already facilitated this change so that transformation to native sounding phonemes is no longer necessary, thus retaining the new/foreign phoneme is more effective, efficient and convenient. In Spanish, chat has been borrowed and adopted the conventional conjugation pattern as chateo

(1st

person/singular),

chateas

(2nd

person/singular), chatea (3rd person/singular), chateamos (1st person/plural), chatean (2nd person/plural), chatean (3rd person/plural).

GLB BY ADAPTATION Some words that come from a non-native source undergo morphological and phonological adaptation to map the characteristics of the receiving language to the degree that they may lose their original identity (Wallwork, 1985). Borrowing through adaptation is one of the more traditional and popular phenomenon in languages in contact. Lexical borrowing through adaptation becomes global when the new lexical item is borrowed concurrently in different receiving languages without consideration to any border or inter-national relationship restraints.

GLB by adaptation is different from the traditional notion of borrowing. The most distinct difference between the two forms of borrowing relates to the bi-lingual or multilingual ability of the speakers from the receiving language.

Knowledge of the source

language is not required by the speakers of the receiving language. The borrowed lexical item must only fill a lexical gap that will represent the new item.

Lexical items that represent new scientific findings and discoveries are not exempt from modifications. AIDS, an acronym for the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, is an interesting example. Since the discovery of the HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) that causes AIDS in the early 1980â€&#x;s, worldwide concern spread became an epidemic in itself. Although in the beginning the disease was only prevalent in specific geographic and target populations, different receiving languages adapted the AIDS acronym to conform to their individual existing linguistic structures. However, despite the adaptations that occurred in certain receiving languages, AIDS and HIV are also adopted in whole by

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Nonetheless, AIDS and HIV are now part of the global

lexicon.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS GLB fortunately escapes traditional problems related to borrowing such as interference and transfer. Interference is the product of the bilingual individualâ€&#x;s use of more than one language in everyday interaction (Romaine, 1989).

Since GLB does not

require any knowledge of the source language, it does not put the individual in a position to use preferential linguistic choices. What is interesting though is the potential issue of morphological interference.

Morphological interference occurs when speakers of one

language borrow words from another language and influence the morphology of the receiving language by introducing new derivational morphemes from the source language.

For example, athletic shoes that have become popularly known in the hip-hop culture have since been called sneakers. Among bilingual Tagalog/English speakers the word sneaker/s was introduced from English to sneaker/s in Tagalog. The plural marker in English adds –s at the end of the noun while in Tagalog, nouns become plural by changing the article ang (singular) to mga (plural). However, Tagalog also adopted the English plural marking of adding –s to the end of the noun.

Thus, a singular form of sneaker in Tagalog is ang

sneaker and a plural form will be constructed as mga sneakers.

Since GLB does not require bilingual speakers, the use of the borrowed item does not rely on the individual and its choice of languages. Rather the use of the borrowed term in the receiving speech community becomes very systematic, collective and spontaneous. Characteristic of GLB is the co-occurrence of the borrowing in different receiving speech communities at the same time. The basis for the rapid and simultaneous spread depends on complex justifications such as technological advancement, business/political need and cultural popularity where unlike in traditional borrowing, spread may be based on control, geographic boundaries or linguistic affinity.

Transfer is a term used mostly in second language acquisition where knowledge of previous language is transferred, negatively or positively, to the second language. In this case, the similarities or differences in these two languages may hinder or facilitate the

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learning of the second language. Again, as GLB does not require the acquisition of a second language, the borrowed item is isolated from the source language and is only borrowed for a specific purpose, often for the sake of convenience and effective communicative purposes.

COMMERCIALISM AND GLB As the economies of the world continue to aspire toward a global economy and as multi-national companies target the global market, many of the global lexical items come in the form of brand or company names. Google, Ebay, Microsoft, Sony Playstation, BMW, Starbucks, McDonalds, Toyota, and a whole of endless list of names have become part of many languages of the world. The borrowers are not particularly too concerned as to the source language or where the companies or brands originate as they are with the popularity and usefulness of the new items.

For example, when Apple launched its new consumer product, Ipod, the popular audio/video portable electronic player, it hit the international market faster than Apple could produce them. The adoption of the lexical item which is in the form of the brand name made the product extremely marketable and popular.

Thus, known as Ipod

worldwide, speakers from any language origin do not require knowledge nor fluency of the source language where Ipod was originally introduced.

AMERICANIZATION AND THE WORLD Where ever we stay in the pendulum of judgment on the most influential players in the GLB phenomenon, without mistake and hesitation, English as a source language has played an enormously big role. As an economic giant and political power, the United States had led the world in modern inventions and technological improvements.

The rest

of the world eagerly awaits its innovations, new ideas, developments, trends and fashion.

The United States on the other hand aggressively find a market and population to accept its ideas, values and products. For over 15 years now, the worldwide web has become a major part of the way we live. Through the internet, English has gained even more importance and influence to language (Reynolds, 2006). It has definitely given rise to the age of neologism, the period of coining new words and phrases to describe new ideas or

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reshape old ideas in a fresh but unusual way. More words are being coined since the introduction of the internet than ever before and since Shakespeare included 1,700 new words in his 24,000-word collection (Macintyre, 2006). Without a doubt, the worldwide web has given the English language more power than any invention since paper, only this time it spreads much faster and anywhere internet connection is available.

The global community has embraced this change with eagerness and acceptance.

Rather than fighting the strangeness of the new words, it has decided to make them casual, easy, systematic and hip.

Clearly, the mere sounds of the words like blog,

podcast, google, wi-fi, ipod, seem to fit no existing phonological structure yet they have become part of our daily lexicon. English words are often introduced with the possibility of assuming to belong to at least one part or more parts of speech. Google, for instance, is a proper noun (ex. Just type

in Google. ) referring to the name of the internet

search engine. However it can be inflected to show tense functioning as a verb (ex. I googled the word

and I was able to retrieve information.). Starbucks, a popular and

leading retailer of specialty coffee, can be used as a noun (ex.

Are you going to

Starbucks?) or used as an adjective (ex. I love Starbucks coffee!).

CONCLUSION The last few decades of the 20th century brought about many changes that seemed to either prepare or rush the world into the new millennium. These series of events served as springboards to the developments that we see now in the 21st century. Significantly, the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War changed the vision of world leaders, both politically and economically. From East to West, everyone is more convinced than ever of the advantages of a global system. Thus, the consensus led to a system that will work – one that is interdependent and global.

In addition, personal computers and the revolutionary arrival of the Internet play a major role in the rapid spread of popular (pop) culture. As the world became more “connected” it also became figuratively speaking, “smaller” and “closer.”

Physical

distance, geographic boundaries, and systemic (political, economic, social and cultural) differences did not matter as much as it used to. Even the differences in language systems

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were superseded by the attitudes of acceptance and willingness to borrow new lexical items if only it would facilitate and further speed up the spread of technology, knowledge and culture.

One must then pose the question on how the traditional notion of borrowing turned into GLB. There are a few premises that we must lay out prior to attempting to answer this question. First of all, it is important to emphasize that borrowing or loanwords still and will continue to exist as one of the phenomenon that takes place when languages are in contact. GLB is by no means a replacement or equal to borrowing. However, GLB could or must be at this point, be considered as another and or new phenomenon in the same field of the study of linguistics.

Since GLB does not require bi- or multi-lingualism neither does it necessarily involve political or economic domination nor population migration. Lastly and just as significantly, it does not require new educational systems or a systematic program of reeducation.

What is important to remember is that GLB is promoted through

interdependent societies. The relationship of interdependencies does not necessarily go on one or any directions. In fact, characteristic of this interdependencies are the abilities of these societies to exchange ideas and culture, scientific and technological advancements and political and economic relations in a way that is systematic and widespread. For the phenomenon of GLB to persist, it entails a great deal of transformation in terms of attitudinal acceptance for change. It must also foster a sense of solidarity and confidence within the society that does not promulgate the fear of language endangerment nor instability. Each language system must be confident enough to believe that perpetuating the „non-nativenessâ€&#x; of the new lexical item only further strengthens and reinforces the exclusivity of the receiving language.

The relationships that exist between globalization and GLB are complex and intricate at the same time. Complex due to its cause and effect relationship and intricate due to the fact that both must co-occur for the phenomenon to exist. The relationship is defined by a cause and effect because globalization leads to GLB and that GLB facilitates globalization. On the other hand, the co-occurrence of both globalization and GLB exists also lead to a situation of coincidence where the outcome is predictable

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(Seliger and Shohamy, 1999) i.e. the evolution of a global lexicon. New words introduced in the last 10-15 years are now shared by different languages that bear no linguistic relationships with one another, proving, that GLB is a phenomenon that has become prevalent and persistent.

This global culture has introduced new concepts and lexical items that allow the phenomenon of GLB to occur. The popularity and widespread practice of GLB should implore linguists to conduct research and present further empirical evidence to come up with predictions related to the study of languages in contact.

Ultimately, this paper

proposes the discussion on globalization not as a factor of language domination or endangerment but rather as a cause or a prerequisite to GLB. Controversial or not, the debate of this phenomenon, however late, must be brought into light. Furthermore, this paper challenges the experts in the field to explore the possibilities leading to a „global lexicon‟ that may evolve that will consist of lexical items borrowed from different languages and whose speakers will be known as the global speech community.

In conclusion, this paper has proven that GLB is a phenomenon brought about by globalization. Through the internet, mass media, cultural and economic exchanges, the phenomenon of GLB will continue to spread without necessarily endangering existing languages but perhaps improving the lexicon of native languages and at the same time creating a unique „global lexicon.‟

REFERENCES Aitchison, J. (1996). The Seeds of Speech Language Origin and Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Appel, R. & Muysken, P. (1987). Codeswitching and Code Mixing.

In Language Contact and Bilingualism. New York. Edward Arnold.

Appel, R. & Muysken, P. (1987). Language Contact and Language Change . In Language Contact and Bilingualism. New York. Edward Arnold.

Appel, R. & Muysken, P. (1987). Lexical Borrowing. In Language Contact and Bilingualism. New York. Edward Arnold.

Baker, Colin. (1992). Attitudes and Language. WBC Print Ltd. Great Britain.

Baumol, W. J. & Blinder A. S. 2006. Macroeconomics: Principles and Policy, [10th Ed.] Ohio. Thompson Southwestern.

Casal, M. (2003). Noam Chomsky at World Social Forum. Views on Globalization. January 5, 2006.

Crawford, James. (1992) Language Loyalty. The University of Chicago Press.

Jacobson, Rodolfo. (1990). Codeswitching as a Worldwide Phenomenon. Peter Lang Publishing. New York.

Language Study in the Age of Globalization: The College-level Experience. New York. Modern Language Association. January 5, 2006. http://www.mla.org/pdf/adfl_brochcollege.pdf Laponce, J. A. (2004). Minority Languages and Globalization. January 5, 2006. http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2004/Laponce.pdf Laponce, J. A. (1987). Languages and their Territories. University of Toronto Press.

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Macintyre, B. We‟re All Speaking Geek. The London Sunday Times. October 26, 2006. http://www.Languagemonitor.com/Global_English.html.

Most Widely Spoken Languages in the World. (2006) Information Please Database. Pearson Education, Inc. October 26, 2006. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0775272.html.

Mufwene, S. S. “Globalization and the Myth of Killer Languages: What‟s Really Going On?” Online posting. November 4-6, 2003. The 2nd Annual International Conference of the Graduiertenkolleg Postcolonial Studies. January 5, 2006. http://www.vwl.unimuenchen.de/postcolonialstudies/program/PoE.htm Myers-Scotton, C. (1993). Social Motivations for Code Switching: Evidence from Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Myers-Scotton, C. (2002). Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Myers-Scotton, C. (1990). Codeswitching in Africa: A Model of the Social Functions of Code Selection. In R. K. Herbert (Ed.), Language and Society in Africa. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press.

Nunberg, G. (2001). The Way We Talk Now: Commentaries On Language And Culture From NPR‟s “Fresh Air.” Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

O‟Grady, William, Archibald, John, Aronoff, Mark & Reese-Miller, Janie. (2001) Contemporary Linguistics. An Introduction. 4th Edition. Boston.

Bedford/St. Martins.

Parshall, G. “A „Glorious Mongrel.‟” U.S. News & World Report. September 25, 1995. October 26, 2006. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/950925/archive_032940.htm.

Poplack, S. (1988). Constrasting Patterns of Code-switching in two Communities. In Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Heller (Ed.). Mouton de Gruyter.

Reynolds, N. “Spread the Word English is Unstoppable.” The Globe and Mail. March 24, 2006.

October 26, 2006 http://www.languagemonitor.com/Global_English.html.

Romaine, S. (1995). The Bilingual Brain and the Bilingual Individual. In Bilingualism (2nd Edition). Blackwell Publications.

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Seliger, H. W. & Shohamy, E. (1999) Second Language Research Methods. Oxford University Press.

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Wallwork, J. F. (1970). Language and Linguistics: An Introduction to the Study of Language. London: Heinemann Educational Books.

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Wardhaugh, R. (1993). Investigating Language: Central Problems in Linguistics . Oxford: Blackwell.

Wardhaugh, R. (1976). The Contexts of Language. Massachusetts. Newbury House Publishers, Inc. Wei, L. (2002). The Bilingual Mental Lexicon and Speech Production in Brain and Language. Elsevier Science.

Wei. L. (2002). Unequal Election of Morphemes in Adult Second Language Acquisition in Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press.

West, F. (1975). The Way of Language: An Introduction. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. Williamson, R. C. (1991). Minority Languages and Bilingualism: Case Studies in the Maintenance and Shift. New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

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DRAWING IN THE ELT CLASSROOM MÓNICA CASTILLO Universidad Panamericana-Campus Aguascalientes It is important to highlight that class drawing has as many applications as teachers‟ creativity might permit and it is a useful tool to address not only different learning styles, but also preferred teaching methodology.

Furthermore, using drawings in the classroom, that is a rich source of language and humor, will also develop different learning skills and foster communicative competence.

However, drawing in the classroom might represent a real challenge for some teachers who consider that they do not have adequate „artistic skills‟.

So, the main objective of this paper is to have teachers realize they do not need to be expert drawers to perform this teaching technique successfully but nevertheless; they can really broaden and enhance students‟ learning experiences.

F

irst of all, I would like to point out that the title of this paper was thought to cover all kinds of drawings in the classroom, but blackboard or board drawing is doubtless the

most popular. As I did not want to limit drawing to the blackboard, I selected the aforementioned title in order to widen the options teachers have to draw in their lessons.

After clarifying this point, I would like to outline the main sections I will cover in my work.

In Part One, some aspects regarding class drawing importance in English language teaching will be highlighted.

I will present some examples of class drawing applications in Part Two. Part Three has to do with hints to keep in mind when drawing in class.

And to conclude my paper; I will remark some final considerations about class drawing.

1. IMPORTANCE When considering the important factors to include drawing in English Language Teaching (ELT), we can find they are endless. But, it may seem too pretentious to present a large list of these factors that can have repetitive considerations. So, what I did was to

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select two, that from my point of view, include main analysis to demonstrate class drawing importance. a) Different learning styles Generally speaking, we can define learning style as students‟ general response to learning. So, referring to Ellis quoting Keefe (2003), we have his definition: “…the characteristic cognitive, affective and psychological behaviours that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with and respond to the learning environment” Extensive research has come up with a number of different learning styles, such as: focusers/scanners, according to students‟ concentration on one feature or several at a time.

Serialists vs. Holists, considering learners‟ simple or complex hypothesis operation.

Regarding thinking process there can be impulsive v. reflective and divergent v. convergent thinkers. Also there are differences due to social structures and learning environment; field independence or field dependence. And, recent research has demonstrated that differences also lie in individuals‟ brain hemisphere domains. We can be left-brain dominated or right-brain dominated.

But, there are some other learning style approaches that, from my point of view, are closely related to class drawing: Reid‟s classification is: Visual learners.- as they like looking at wall displays and studying charts, they can be able to recall information by having visual stimuli such as drawings.

Auditory learners.- they enjoy dialogues and discussions so they will find drawings a motivating guide to participate in class.

Kinesthetic learners.- students of this kind learn best when they are active and use movement as a memory aid, drawing can indeed provide them with different dynamic activities.

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Tactile learning.- these learners might enjoy drawings more than the other three kinds, as they use drawing as memory aid and learn better if they are involved in working on projects.

Willing‟s classification is: Concrete learners.- they do not like routinized learning so they can contribute to drawing development in class with their imagination and spontaneity.

Analytical learners.- Although they prefer logical and didactic presentation, they might take advantage of class drawing to construct knowledge “by means of hypothetical and deductive reasoning” (Ellis:2000,507) Communicative learners.- students of this type will be at ease with drawing activities since they prefer social learning and communication above all.

Authority-oriented learners.- In spite of their reluctance to discover learning by themselves, they can take advantage of class drawing if the teacher sometimes plans structured activities that guide and direct these students.

It is also important to the teacher to be aware not only of students‟ learning preferences but also of his/her own favorite way of instruction. Class drawing can meet such leaning and teaching features if it is carefully planned for different applications. b) More students’ talking time In fact, one of teachers' main concerns is to have students produce the language.

But, we are not always aware of the amount of time we spend talking without giving students the opportunity to express themselves in the language. Teachers' claims could be that they have to give students instructions or they have to make explanations really clear to for students to understand. Therefore, students' talking time becomes reduced or not at all.

In contrast, in order to increase the time that students speak in English, we can support our instructions and explanations to students on class drawing. Additionally, when drawing in the classroom, teachers are constantly eliciting students' ideas, knowledge,

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experience and suggestions that can foster their imagination and creativity to produce the language.

2. APPLICATIONS Teachers are always looking for new ideas that can motivate students but that can benefit their learning at the same time. We spend time reading English language teaching books and/or magazines and we regularly attend different training courses or conferences in the search of innovative teaching methodology. We regularly enlarge the amount of hand outs and exercise copies for different language learning purposes and that hopefully will help our students practice the language. Sometimes we try complicated and sophisticated tasks that may not be suitable for our studentsâ€&#x; context, culture, age or preferences. In my teaching experience, I have found class drawing a very useful tool as you can use it in almost all kind of activities. Due to, this work page limitation, I only included few situations to use class drawings: a) Vocabulary Item Explanation When a student asks for the meaning of a word he does not know, we have to take advantage of all the teaching tools we have to convey meaning; such as, miming, giving examples, pointing to the object, drawing it on the board, and trying to leave translation into studentsâ€&#x; language, as a final resource b) Grammar Topic Presentations.

Although there are some language items that are difficult to represent with drawings, teachers can illustrate different grammar structures with; charts, tables, symbols, and very simple stick figure drawings. As seen in the previous section, students have different styles to learn, and there are varied visuals based on drawings that can help students not only learn but acquire the language. c) Dialogues We can convey different functions and conversational features by sketching the main personages with special characteristics, like facial expressions, some accessories such as hats, and symbols that best build up the dialogue.

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d) Oral and Writing Compositions This application is one of my favorite, yet the most difficult, as you have to represent a short story with drawings. The activity must be carefully planned and the story previously adapted for the class. Then in the classroom, the teacher has to draw pictures representing the story in sequences that should be no more than six. Each part of the story will be numbered to be presented one by one and to have students retell the story or/and then write it. While teacher is drawing, he has to elicit stretches of language, rather than isolated sentences, from students, so that, they really think they are creating the story. The students like this kind of activity because they feel they are able to produce the language and because the story should have a punch line ending. e) Songs There many different forms to take advantage of songs in class, especially because they are an enjoyable way to have students listen to natural language, yet we have to be careful when selecting this material. Song tasks in English lesson can vary from fill-in the blanks exercises to TOEFL like options. However, having students order the pictures representing a song according to the lyrics sequence is a creative alternative to deal with song practice. Students can also represent the song lyrics with their own drawings. Furthermore, this technique can be used not only for songs but for any other listening texts, such as dialogues, instructions, directions (students can draw a map), short stories, etc. f) Class Warm-Up or Wrap-Up A teaching session can reach its peak in any of these two phases. If a teacher starts the class with a well-planned activity, benefits will be “harvested” during the class.

Sketching, for example, an animal on the board to be described with different adjectives can motivate students to participate the whole class through.

And „the cherry on the cake‟, is doubtless the wrap-up activity if teachers close the class by highlighting he most important aspects of the class using drawings or charts to have students get a better understanding.

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3. HINTS Teachers have to bear in mind that performing drawing successfully in the class is a matter of practice rather than the innate artistic skill (Shaw & De Vet: 1980, 10).

So, the following are some recommendations for teachers when using drawing in their classes, especially board drawing: a) Chalk and Talk.

Teachers need to develop the habit of talking as there are drawing so their students get involved in the activity and can participate by asking questions rather than just sitting back, watching the teacher perform or laughing at his drawings. To encourage studentsâ€&#x; participation teachers can ask them questions to figure out what the teacher is drawing (Shaw & De Vet 1980:33) b) Objects The basis of any drawing skill is the ability to draw firm, bold lines. Board drawing should be clear and simple without unnecessary details. So, it does not include shading, half-tones, light and dark. Teachers have to first draw the big things, and then draw the little things. The core of board drawing is to show the meaning of the picture (Shaw & De Vet 1980:12). c) Stick figures People are basically represented with stick figures, hands and feet are omitted as they are difficult to draw and their absence does not really affect the picture.

There are many differences between men and women. The most crucial for drawing purposes are the hair and the skirt (Shaw & De Vet 1980:23). d) Faces In order to make the expressions clearer, faces have to be drawn in isolation from the rest of the body (Shaw & De Vet 1980:38) Teachers first have to draw a circle and imagine that the circle is divided into 3 equal parts. The eyes should be drawn where the first line would be, then the mouth where the second line is supposed to be and finally the nose goes in the middle (Sioban & Peyton)

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e) Eyes and Eyebrows When drawing faces, teachers have to consider the age of the person represented. Eyes are a definite feature to convey someoneâ€&#x;s age, so adultsâ€&#x; eyes must be drawn above the imaginary line aforementioned and if we want to make a person younger, eyes will be drawn lower that imaginary line. In addition, the size and the shape of they eyes give character to a person. Small eyes are for mean people, for criminals, for men and for children, but big eyes with long lashes belong to beautiful girls. To give the effect of extreme surprise teachers can draw round eyes, eventually with circles round them (Shaw & De Vet 1980:43) Eyebrows also represent another facial feature to express a personâ€&#x;s feelings, so they have to be drawn carefully. For instance, they are raised for surprised and in contrast coming down eyebrows indicate, anger, skepticism or deep thought that can be accentuated by little vertical lines between them (Shaw & De Vet 1980:45) f) Mouth When adding the mouth to the face, teachers do not have to worry about drawing the complete lips as they would not look very natural on board from a distance.

A raising curve indicates happiness and a falling curve is used for sadness (Shaw & De Vet 1980:41) g) Hair There are different uses of hair to give different characteristics to the face.

Housewives usually have curly hair in simple style, beautiful girls have nice and long hair and old ladies have their hair in a knot. Men do not have many choices. Little girls can be represented with their hair in pigtails or ponytails. h) Lines They can provide multiple options to emphasize especial characteristics, for instance, you can make people look older or tired. For tiredness, add a few lines from the inner corner of the eye to halfway down the cheek; vertical lines at the corner of the mouth can also be used. For age lines on the forehead that is where people most of their

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real wrinkles. For children we can use lines rather than circles to mean freckles and rosy cheeks (Shaw & De Vet 1980:57) i) People and objects If we want to draw a person with an object, the suggestion is to draw the person first and then the object. We have to also be aware of the size of a real person is supposed to have in relation to the object, so they can have the correct perspective.

Adding objects to human figure can make our drawings more comprehensible. j) Actions As I have pointed out, to represent people we have to use simple stick figures that are most of the time standing, However, teachers can illustrate some actions by changing the position of arms and legs, by leaning the body slightly and by adding objects to the pictures, like balls, rackets, cars, books, etc. Also we can have our stick figures direct their sight by highlighting the nose (Shaw & De Vet 1980:21) k) Symbols They are an important aid to add meaning to our drawings, so we can express different concepts; such as, intelligence, surprise, anger, motion, for example a flower pot can seem to be about to fall with some lines, and arrows to show direction, etc. l) Animals They are particularly difficult to draw, so it is suggested teachers must not try complete animal drawings, but only sketches or some animal features to represent them.

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CONCLUSIONS I really hope my work has met teachers‟ expectations and has given them the tools to perform it more confidently in their classes.

I just would like to present some final considerations: Blackboard drawing helps to make your lesson more interesting, as it is another visual teaching aid and change the pace of the lesson.

If teachers think they are not very skillful at artistic fields, they can still develop adequate drawing abilities with practice.

Drawings can not be perfect at once, and it is a way to demonstrate students that a skill can be acquired after some effort and practice, as language skills. Sometimes it is better if the drawing is a bit odd, the students will remember it better. And if students can not understand drawing teachers can ask them to use their imagination.

Above all: HAVE FUN!!!

REFERENCES Ellis Rod (2003) The Study of Second Language Acquisition. 472-508, OUP Shaw P. & De Vet T. (1980) Using Blackboard Drawing. pp.10-45, George Allen & Unwing LTD Sioban M. & Peyton V. (2007) ‘A teacher guide to blackboard drawing’ VSO Working Papers in Development

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TEACHERS´ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES ABOUT ASSESSMENT NARCISO ARAUJO-ALVINEDA & MARISOL NACUD Centro de Lenguas y Lingüística Aplicada Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas1 This paper reports a qualitative and quantitative research of what assessment methods EFL teachers used in a language center in the State University of Tamaulipas and their perceptions and concerns of the assessment methods available in their educational context. The data reveal that EFL teachers tend to use both formal tests and informal observations as the main methods to collect information about their students‟ learning.

However, teachers perceived self-, peer-assessment, and interviews as useful tools to obtain information on students learning. The findings show evidence that teachers are concerned about the validity and reliability of the tests used in the language center. Also, they expressed their need for more training in how to interpret different assessment frameworks.

T

here is plenty of research into EFL teaching practice at all educational levels in Mexico; however, very little is known about the EFL assessment practices used by English

teachers in Mexican state schools. Assessment plays an important role in the process of teaching and learning. Teachers spend a major part of their own time creating a variety of instruments, and observation procedures, and marking, recording and synthesizing results for both informal and formal reports as part of their daily teaching (Cheng et al 2004:360).

This study was prompted by the current situation with regard to the assessment procedures being practised by Mexican universities. On the one hand, there has been a tendency for a number of Mexican state universities to require students to pass an English proficiency examination, equivalent to 400-450 points on the TOEFL scale, in order to graduate. On the other hand, universities offer compulsory EFL courses with the purpose of enabling college students to be proficient in the language. Cheng et al (2004) claims that there is a need to investigate the assessment practices of teachers in EFL and ESL programmes but more specifically in EFL/ESL programmes at the tertiary level.

1- Address for correspondence: Narciso Araujo, Centro de Lenguas y Lingüística Aplicada, Centro Universitario Victoria, CP 87000 Cd. Victoria, Tamaulipas Mexico. Email: narauj@gmail.com

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The Center for Languages and Linguistics (CELLAP) is one of the language institutes at University of Tamaulipas. With regard to English instruction, CELLAP offers seven English courses which add up to seven hundred hours of language instruction, and preparation courses for TOEFL, PET and FCE tests. In recent years the number of students registered in CELLAP has increased from 116 students in 1992 to more than 2000 students in 2007. The present number of students currently studying in the CELLAP offers a significant research context to understand the purposes, methods and procedures that teachers from the Centre for Languages and Linguistics of the University of Tamaulipas (UAT) use in order to assess students in English courses. Furthermore, to find out teachers‟ perceptions and concerns regarding assessment practices in their educational context.

LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT It is worth mentioning that “assessment” in this study was used to refer to the judgments that teachers make about learners‟ accomplishments in the English language based on specific language standards or criteria as defined by Breen et al (1997).

Usually teachers are the ones who have the responsibility to make final judgments or verdicts on students learning by giving a final mark, which may have a positive or negative impact on a students‟ life. From the definitions above, it can be seen that assessment is a crucial part of the process of teaching and learning as it requires teachers to be directly involved in the observation of their learners‟ progress in order to make decisions on their students‟ achievement in relation to the expected learning outcomes (Rea-Dickins, 2004).

Shohamy (1992:11) emphasized that it is necessary to create a positive relationship between teaching, learning and assessment. She asserted that teachers can make classroom assessment “more effective, more creative, and more innovative”… by means of “integrating assessment with teaching, involving students and teachers in the assessment process, and using multiple assessment sources...’” She pointed out that tests and other types of assessment methods should be seen as instructional tools providing more detailed information to diagnose students‟ learning, and provide a fair assessment of their language achievement.

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ASSESSMENT METHODS Lynch (2001) pointed out that in the assessment process it is possible to use a range of quantitative and/or qualitative procedures in order to make final decisions about individuals. Croker (1999) and Hughes (2003) classified two kinds of assessment: summative and formative assessments. The former aims to provide final grades or quantify the product of learning or student knowledge. The teacher is usually in charge of the form, timing, and assessment criteria. Summative assessment usually involves tests, formal oral interviews and assignments which are carried out at the end of the term. The purpose of the latter is to diagnose students‟ problems, and to assess teaching effectiveness.

Formative assessment places emphasis on the process of students‟ learning. It combines qualitative and quantitative methods to collect information about students‟ knowledge. It involves teachers and students in the choice of the form, timing, and criteria of assessment.

Brown and Hudson (1998) reported the following language assessment methods and named them „alternatives in assessment‟ which can be used to collect data about the students‟ level of attainment. a. Selected response assessment which includes true-false statements, matching and multiple choice tests. b. Constructed-response assessments such as gap filling, short answers, and performance tests. c. Personal-response

including

portfolios,

conferences,

self-

and

peer-

assessment, journals, etc.

Studies in language assessment Studies in „classroom assessment‟ have also contributed to a better understanding of teachers‟ practices in language assessment and its relation to teaching. Evidence of this can be found in two special issues of the Language Testing Journal: Volume 17 “Assessment in Early Years Language Contexts” and Volume 18 “Understanding Teachers as Agents of Assessment”.

Also, the literature highlights a substantial number of studies on the impact of standardised testing in the classroom and its influence on teaching (see Wall and Alderson

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1993; Cheng et al, 2004; Watanabe, 1997; Alderson and Hamp Lyons, 1996; Sprat, 2005; Wall 2005) among others). Sprat (2005) analysed different studies regarding the impact of external tests in the classroom. She concluded that the results yielded from different studies indicated that the impact of external examinations seemed to operate in different ways in different situations, and that in some situations had no effect at all.

Nonetheless, on the subject of assessment practices in specific educational contexts, such as in Israel (Ferman, 2004) and in China (Cheng, 2004), teachers tended to use similar assessment methods to those included in external exams in order to coach students toward the external test.

Grierson‟s (1995) study explored the type and quality of classroom assessment carried out by teachers in secondary intensive centres in Australia (IECs). A study was carried out in different IECs, collecting data from a survey of twenty-six IECs English teachers, interviews with thirteen of these teachers. Grierson (1995) reported that the teachers‟ aim was to conduct appropriate and useful assessment and that they tended to use a variety of assessment methods. However, it was stated that the methods used by the teachers were informal and unsystematic. He also discovered that the teachers conducted assessment based on a limited view of communicative language ability, mainly focusing on the mechanics of their students‟ language use. Finally, he concluded that assessment was not planned or integrated in the curriculum due to teacher‟s lack of explicit and systematic procedures for classroom observations.

Cheng, Rogers, and Hu (2004) carried out a comparative study conducted in three educational contexts at the tertiary level. The main objective of the research was to find out the purposes, methods, and procedures of assessment of 98 ESL-teachers in Canada, 45 ESL/EFL-teachers in Hong Kong, and 124 EFL-teachers in Beijing.

Teachers were reported to use more instructor-made methods (particularly shortanswers and true and false items) to assess reading. Students‟ summaries were the most popular student method in the three contexts. For writing, teachers were likely to use short essays in the three contexts. Teachers in Canada tended to include more student conducted methods such as student journals, peer assessment and student portfolios. Almost half of the total number of participants in Hong Kong was reported to use „peer assessment‟ and

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„student portfolios‟ to assess writing as well. The results showed that teachers in Canada and Hong Kong used a wide variety of instructor-made and student conducted methods, particularly performance methods, to assess speaking and listening. Teachers in Hong Kong seemed to use „oral presentations‟ and „oral interviews‟ to evaluate speaking and listening. A particular finding of the Beijing study is that a great number of teachers were reported to use standardised tests to assess reading, writing, listening and speaking.

Cheng et al (2004) concluded that the type of courses in each institution, the participants‟ teaching experience, their knowledge of assessment methods, the students‟ needs in each context and the impact of standardised tests contributed to the differences in the results of the survey in the three institutions.

Assessment is an everyday classroom practice which is relevant to classroom instruction. Genesse et al (1996) in their book „Classroom-based Evaluation in Second Language Education’ raised a number of questions that teachers need to reflect on when planning assessment in their classroom. These questions are fundamental for this research, given that this study aims to answer the following questions: What assessment methods and procedures do CELLAP teachers use in their language classrooms? What are the teachers‟ perceptions of the usefulness of assessment methods available? What are the teachers‟ concerns regarding assessment practices in their educational context?

METHOD This study is partially qualitative because it includes interviews as one of the principal ways to collect data. Nevertheless, Lincoln and Guba (1998: 195) state that „… qualitative and quantitative methods may be used appropriately within any research paradigm‟. Therefore, this study included a mixed methodology, both qualitative and quantitative, as did some of the studies reviewed above.

The data collection procedures in the present study are based on questionnaires given to 21 CELLAP teachers and in-depth interviews with seven.

Quantitative and

qualitative data was elicited from a questionnaire adapted from Cheng et al‟s (2004)

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study. However, in order to better understand the assessment practices of the participants, semi-structured interviews were conducted by appointment with a number of participants.

RESULTS Purposes for assessment When participants were asked to rate the importance of the different reasons for assessment; the results showed that learners focussed assessment was considered the most important reason (to obtain information on students‟ progress (means=4.57), „to provide feedback‟ (means=4.38), „to diagnose students strengths and weaknesses‟ (means=4.33) and „to diagnose teachers‟ strengths and weaknesses in teaching‟ (means=3.80).

Methods of assessment The most frequent methods used for assessing reading were; teachers made tests including selected response questions such as multiple choice questions(means=4.23), truefalse statements (means=4.14), and matching items (means=3.90). Although teachers reported not to use personal response methods very frequently; teachers considered these methods to be very useful to assess students‟ reading skills in particular self-assessment (means=3.47); and summaries of what is read (means=3.28). Teachers also reported that reading standardized tests such as TOELF or PET are useful to assess students‟ reading skills.

Of all the methods listed to assess students‟ writing skills, most of the teachers reported „observation during the activities‟ (means=4.33), „short essay‟ (means=3.90) and „editing a piece of writing‟ (means=3.19) as being among the methods used the most.

However they reported that „observation during writing activities‟ (means= 4.42); „short essay‟ (mean=4.23); „multiple-choice items to identify grammatical errors‟ (means=4.09); and „editing a piece of writing‟ (means=4.00) were also useful methods for assessing students‟ writing abilities The methods used most frequently to assess listening skills: „teacher observation during speaking activities (means=4.42); „true-false items‟ (means=4.38); and multiplechoice questions after listening to a passage (means=3.95). Teachers also reported two

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personal response methods to be frequently used to assess their students for listening: oral interviews (means=3.23) and oral discussion with each student (means=3.28).

Out of the fourteen methods listed for assessing speaking, teachers reported using five of these methods most frequently. These included constructed response methods in teachers made tests: „give oral directions (means=3.19); „oral descriptions of events or objects‟ (means=3.57); teacher conducted assessment:

„observation during speaking

activities‟ (means=4.33); and „oral interviews‟ (means=3.71).

The methods which were ranked as most useful to assess students‟ speaking skills were those assessment methods created by teachers and in which students were involved directly, for example in teachers constructed response tests: „retell a story after listening to a passage‟ (means=4.33), and „provide a description of an event of object (means=3.90); in students‟ personal assessment conducted by a teacher the methods reported as being the most useful included: oral interviews (means=4.04), and „discussion with each student (means=3.47). „Observation during speaking activities‟ was reported to be the most useful method of all with a mean of 4.28.

Methods for providing feedback The results showed evidence that „verbal feedback‟, „written comments‟ and „test scores‟ are the most popular methods by which provide feedback to students during the course. However, the data obtained pointed out that „conference with student‟ and „test score‟ are the main methods to provide feedback to students at the end of the course.

Concerns with assessment The teachers‟ major concerns about assessment focused on three aspects. First, a number of teachers commented that time was one of their concerns. They commented: “I wish I had more time to include other type [s] of assessment not only tests.

The time I spend in assessment is according to the level I am teaching, but I find it difficult to spend lots of time in assessment at lower levels….”

The second concern expressed by seven teachers related to „content validity of the tests created by teachers at CELLAP: “Some tests have certain issues that weren’t seen in class, but my biggest concern is that most of them [refers to the tests] were made by people that doesn’t have

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the qualifications to make them [tests] and I really doubt about the fidelity and the quality of the tests.” Participant 7 “I think that creating our own exams was a good idea… but it was made in such a rush that many aspects were not considered… for examples some exams were above the level of learners … also it is necessary to make sure that what we are teaching is actually going to be tested, but if we are teaching something from the book and then something different is coming up in the tests is kind of difficult…”

Participant 6 A third concern regarding the assessment practices at CELLAP, related to the fairness of providing grades by using only one single assessment method.

“Nowadays, students’ grades only reflect results for periodical and end of the course tests… Teachers’ assessment during the course is not part of a student’s grade, which I believe is a little unfair.”

“I personally do not base the grade of my students in the final grade of the tests… I always look back in what my students have done during a period of time and I check their results of different class activities…and then I take a decision whether a student has learned or not…”

Three teachers explained that there was not enough time to use other types of assessment methods during the term and more training was needed in how to use other assessment methods.

“I don’t believe in peer or self assessment.. .because in my personal experience with my students I haven’t found a correct method to make my students self evaluate… I think that students do not have the elements to judge what is right or wrong…” Participant 6 “I do not use any kind of extra assessment in my classes… I have tried to include some peer correction but not very often… I would really like to have more clear ideas in how these different procedures of assessment are achieved…“ Participant 4

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS As stated before, this study aimed: d. To find out about assessment methods and procedures used by CELLAP teachers in their language classrooms. e. To clarify purposes of assessment. f. To investigate teachers‟ perceptions of assessment methods available.

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g. To identify teachers‟ concerns regarding assessment practices in their educational context.

Working with the prevailing limited resources, there are a number of conclusions that can be obtained from the results. As claimed in other studies, assessment is a vital component in the language classroom though it is difficult to understand. There is a need for congruency between instruction and assessment if student evaluation is to be meaningful and fair to students.

Particular assessment practices used by teachers are affected by their beliefs and attitudes towards assessment as found in Breen et al (1997) and Cheng et al‟s (2004) studies. The similarities in CELLAP teachers‟ responses reflected that views of the current educational context and their feelings towards the changes needed in their assessment procedures.

In relation to the purposes of assessment, teachers see assessment as a useful tool to monitor their students‟ language abilities and as a practical guide to identify their own strengths and weakness of their own teaching. This shows that teachers consider assessment as an important link between the practices of teaching and learning.

Second, the data illustrates that teachers‟ assessment practices are influenced by the school context. There is a clear preference for summative assessment over formative assessment due to the importance that the administration gives to tests. Their perceptions about tests and other assessment methods indicate that teachers are open to learning and experimenting with different methods such as self-assessment, peer-assessment to obtain information about students‟ learning.

Turning to the procedures used for feedback, the most frequent methods used were tests grades in conjunction with written feedback for essays and oral feedback after speaking tests. These practices are particularly influenced by the standardised tests procedures of external tests such as KET, PET and FCE. CELLAP teachers considered unsystematic „observations‟ as useful tools to decide on the progress of students‟ learning. Their use of unsystematic and informal observation as

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one of the main ways to assess students, lack validity, reliability and fairness when it comes to making informed decisions on individuals‟ attainment.

I hope that the data and the information collected from the questionnaires and interviews contribute to a better understanding of teachers‟ assessment practices at university level in Mexico, and help to clarify the importance that assessment plays in the processes of teaching and learning. In my opinion assessment as part of the teaching and learning process should be highlighted in future teaching professional development at CELLAP, to ensure that teachers are truly assessing what needs to be assessed.

REFERENCES Alderson, J. and Hamp – Lyons, L. 1996. “TOEFL preparation courses: a study of washback”. Language Testing. 13 (3) 280-297.

Breen, M.P., Barrat – Pugh C., Derewianka House, H. Hudson, C. Lumley, T. and Rohl M. 1997. Profiling ESL children: How teachers interpret and use national and state assessment frameworks. Australia: Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Brown, J. and Hudson, T. 1998. “The Alternative in Language Assessment”. TESOL Quartely. Vol. 32, 4. 653-675.

Cheng, L. 2004. “The Washback of a public examination change on teachers’ perceptions toward their classroom teaching” in Cheng, L., Watanabe, Y. and Curtis (Eds) A. 2004. Washback in Language Testing. London:Lawrence Publishers.

Cheng, L., Rogers, T., and Hu, H. ESL/EFL instructors’ classrooms assessment practices: purposes, methods, and procedures. Language Testing 2004 21 (3) 360-389.

Croker, R. 1999. “Fundamentals of on going assessment”. JALT Testing and Evaluation SIG Newsletter. PP 8-12.

Ferman, I. 2004. “The Washback of an EFL national oral matriculation test to teaching and learning” in Cheng, L., Watanabe, Y. and Curtis, A. 2004. Washback in Language Testing. London: Lawrence Publishers.

Genese, F. andd Upshur, J. 1996. Classroom – based evaluation in second language education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grierson, J. 1995. “Classroom – based assessment in intensive English Centres” in Brindley (Ed.) 1995. Language assessment in action.

Sydney: National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research. Macquarie University.

Hughes, A. 2003. Testing for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lincoln, Y. and Guba, E. 1998. Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Lyinch, B. 2001. “Rethinking assessment from a critical perspective”. Language Testing. 8 (4) 351 – 372.

Rea – Dickins, P. 2004. “Understand teachers as agents of assessment”. Language Testing. 21 (3) 249-258.

Shohamy, E. 1992. “New Modes of Assessment: The Connection Between Testing and Learning”. E. Shohamy & R. Walton ( Eds ). 1992 Language Assessment for Feedback: Testing and Other Strategies. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.

Spratt, M. 2005. “Washback and the classroom: the implication for teaching and learning of studies of washback from exams”. Language Testing Research 9(1):5-29.

Wall, D. 2005. The impact of High – Stakes Examinations on Classroom Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wall, D. and Alderson, J. 1993. “Examining washback: Sri Lanka impact study”. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 15, 212-226.

Watanabe, Y. 1997. The Washback Effects of the Japanese University entrance Examinations of English Classroom- Based Research. Unpublished Ph. D. Thesis. Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language. Lancaster University.

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ENGAGING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN SCAFFOLDED READING EXPERIENCES SOLANGE A. LOPES-MURPHY, PH.D. James Madison University Engaging language learners in the acquisition process is very often compromised by an array of factors. Among all, the learner’s motivation plays a central role in defining the level of language acquisition he/she will achieve. So how can teachers motivate students to learn? This is certainly a question with no straight answer. It is agreed that learners feel motivated when they experience success in the task they engage in.

Scaffolded reading is such an instructional strategy able to help language learners succeed in the reading task. The term “scaffold” suggests providing learners with a temporary support to allow them to accomplish a task that would be difficult or impossible without the support and help them become successful readers.

E

nsuring students’ academic success is a challenge all teachers have. The increasing number of students who come from homes where a language other than English is

spoken has made this challenge even more difficult for teachers. Language learners bring into the classrooms a wide array of experiences and levels of preparedness for their academic tasks (). This diversity of styles of learning and preparedness require a great deal of differentiated instruction so that all learners can be challenge and be given opportunities to learn at their own developmental levels ((Rothenberg & Fisher, 2007).

Teachers in the higher grades (e.g., sixth grade and up) are now faced with helping second language learners develop literacy skills which is a task most of them do not feel prepared for. Literacy development is a task elementary school teachers have been charged for the longest time.

Nevertheless, the explosion of English Language

Learners (ELLs) in PK-12 classrooms nationwide has demanded professionals to make changes in their instructional repertoire (Rothenberg & Fisher, 2007) to accommodate for the varying ability levels of incoming students.

This article focuses on strategies to facilitate the reading task for ELLs. It provides teachers with tools to help walk students from the various stages of the literacy development process and move these readers to higher levels of reading readiness and comprehension in the second language.

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PROFILE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS & IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CLASSROOM The profile of English Language Learners can not be easily sketched (Fitzgerald & Graves, 2004). An attempt to outline what constitutes the profile of this student body would be unreliable, to say the least. The wide array of backgrounds, experiences, values, practices, and beliefs represented by this group certainly poses a more pronounced challenge to those involved in the education of these learners. Their urge to function successfully in the target language is definitely one of them. How then can teachers ensure that learners develop sufficient literacy skills to experience academic success considering their varied cultural backgrounds?

To set a favorable learning stage for diverse students, it is important to consider these five very critical points: 1. The connection between language and culture, 2. The importance of climate and affective factors in learning, 3. The value of assessing learners’ prior knowledge and experiences, 4. The challenges of living between worlds, and 5. The struggles involved in reaching a better life.

It is crucial that teachers start by understanding the strong connection between language and culture. That is to say that one individual’s “cultural lenses” will shape his/her view and understanding of the world and determine how language will be used to express that view (Fitzgerald & Graves, 2004). Take for example how the concept of “right” or “wrong” changes across cultures. Some things that are considered “wrong” from one cultural perspective may be totally accepted under different social norms. That poses the question, what does “right” and “wrong” really mean?

Let’s take the concept of plagiarism, for instance. Not all cultural groups interpret plagiarism the same way it is viewed in the Western world. Some forms of plagiarism are totally accepted by several cultural groups. For these groups, the concept of individual property is a rather alien concept. It is, therefore beneficial for teachers to spend time

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assessing students’ perspective on plagiarism and making it absolutely clear how this concept is regarded in the American culture.

A second important consideration when working with linguistically and culturally diverse groups has to do with the climate and affective factors involved in the teacherstudent interaction. Students need to feel comfortable in the learning setting. They need to feel they are cared for, valued, and paid attention to. It is important that teachers express their interest in the learners and their cultural backgrounds as a way to meet students’ needs and allow them to achieve their goals (Fitzgerald & Graves, 2004). A positive, friendly, and warm attitude goes a long way in helping set a pleasant and lowrisk learning environment where individuals are not afraid of participating and making mistakes, and where learning is fun.

Assessing student background knowledge would be the third item in helping set a positive learning arena for ELLs. The level of prior knowledge a student possesses will determine the depth of understanding that student will eventually have in classroom activities and reading materials used for instruction.

Due to the wide variety of experiences these students bring into the classroom, it is recommended that teachers evaluate students’ prior experiences and knowledge on a given topic before exposing them to that topic (Fitzgerald & Graves, 2004). That is to say, before engaging students in the content-related discussion on constructs such as “freedom”, for instance, it is effective that teachers assess their understanding of “freedom”. Concept organizers are valuable in evaluating students’ understanding of concepts in a fun and collaborative way.

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Figure 1: Sample of a Spider Map

Extracted from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr1grorg.htm

The fourth item in the list of points teachers need to know about ELLs has to do with “living between worlds”. It is safe to say that a large number of second language learners live between worlds – the world of home and the world outside of home, specifically the world of school.

These worlds are characterized by differences in linguistic codes, behaviors, attitudes, expectations, values, dress code, mannerisms, language and vocabulary, among others (Freeman & Freeman, 2001). The lack of a bridge between the home and school cultures may be detrimental to these diverse groups who are already struggling to integrate in the new setting.

Activities that involve parents or that resemble those students engage in while at home are effective instructional strategies to help create a comfortable, low-risk, and familiar learning context for students.

The involvement of parents in school activities

enhances student engagement, performance, motivation, and consequently academic success (Bloland, 2006).

It also helps decrease a possible gap (e.g., communication,

expectations, rules, etc.) between home and school. What are some ways that teachers can plan on partnering with parents on classroom activities?

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In addition to the usual parent-teacher meetings organized by the school, teachers can create opportunities for parents to participate in school activities and thus help them gain more familiarity on what happens at the classroom level. For that purpose, teachers can select certain points in the curriculum parents may have the background to share with students and invite them to participate (Bloland, 2006). This strategy would help parents not to feel intimidated in becoming part of their child educational experience. Activities focusing on cultural traditions, cuisine, holidays and celebrations are certainly topics parents have a great deal of knowledge on.

We cannot deny that there are several logistical barriers that prevent parents from getting involved in schools.

Some of them may be time, money, child care,

communication problems, uncertainty, distance, transportation, to list just a few. When engaging parents in school activities, attention needs to be given on ways to minimize or remove those barriers to make it more likely for parents to be able to participate in planned school and/or classroom activities.

The fifth item on what teachers working with diverse groups show keep in mind is what some of their students went through to be in the U.S. (Fitzgerald & Graves, 2004).

There are individuals who have subjected themselves to some imaginable conditions in their search for a better life for their family and children. It is easy at times to neglect the many situations our students had to face in their journey to come to America. Let’s try to keep perspective of that in our teaching and interactions with our students!

SCAFFOLDED LITERACY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES The previous section delved into the climate and affective variables teachers ought to consider in their work with diverse student populations. This section will give attention to strategies directly connected to literacy development. The first point to be made is how the term “literacy” is defined in the context of this article. When referring to literacy skills, the author places higher emphasis on reading and writing abilities; nevertheless, listening and speaking, are also fundamental pieces in the literacy development process. The term “literate” therefore, refers to individuals who are able to function at different proficiency levels in the target language both orally and in writing.

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Becoming literate in a language starts by developing the ability to comprehend and respond to the received stimulus. Beginning learners are first introduced to languages through oral stimuli, that is, through listening and speaking. The development of primary orality is crucial in the development of reading and writing abilities.

Some simple strategies to facilitate comprehension of oral input for English Language Learners would include a slower speech pace and lots of scaffolding. Speaking slowly does not imply raising volume. That seems to be a misconception that has not been completely unveiled. There are obviously language learners with hearing difficulties who would benefit from a louder utterance, but it is certainly not a rule of thumb for all language learners.

Enunciating words clearly and allowing students to look at the

teachers’ lips while an explanation is being provided are simple ways a teacher can help a student better understand the message.

In addition to slower speech pace, scaffolding strategies are also extremely valuable in promoting second language acquisition.

Some examples of scaffolding

strategies are: 1. Using body language and facial expressions that are associated with the utterance, 2. Using visuals (e.g., pictures, graphs, drawings, visual representations of any kind) 3. Assigning more advanced students as buddies to those who need extra help, 4. Modeling before putting students on task, 5. Providing students with options to choose from, 6. Allowing students to work cooperatively in groups.

Scaffolding instruction for students involves progressive levels of student accountability and independence. The stages are represented in Table 1. The purpose is to provide learners with sufficient support so that they can progressively become independent readers.

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Table 1: Scaffolding Progression Table I DO

I DO

YOU DO

YOU DO

YOU WATCH

YOU HELP

I HELP

I WATCH

The chart below summarizes instructional strategies teachers can incorporate in classes to help students move from the “I do. You watch” to the “You do. I watch” stages.

Way of Assisting Readers Through their Zones of Proximal Development: Modes of Scalfolding

Extracted from http://www.myread.org/scaffolding.htm

When teachers reflect on their teaching practices and identify ways to accommodate for English Language Learners, they are already creating the needed environmental and affective climate that will help learners grow.

When teachers reflect on the content they teach and break it down into digestible pieces (Rothenberg & Fisher, 2007), not only ELLs, but all students will benefit from it and will more likely experience academic success.

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REFERENCES Bloland, D.D., (2006). Ready, Willing, and Able: Teaching English to Gifted, Talented, and Exceptionally Conscientious Adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Freeman, D., & Freeman, Y. (2001). Between Worlds. Access to Second Language Acquisition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Fitzgerald, J., & Graves, M.F. (2004). Scaffolding Reading Experiences for English-Language Learners. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc. Rothenberg, C., & Fisher, D. (2007). Teaching English Language Learners: A Differentiated Approach. New Jersey, NJ: Pearson.

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ACTION RESEARCH – MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM SONIA ACOSTA DOMÍNGUEZ & ANA GABRIELA GUAJARDO M.S. Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Facultad de Idiomas What is Action Research? Who can be an action researcher? Teachers should be interested in finding out what is really happening in their classroom. Experienced scientists are not the only ones that can do research. Classroom teachers, even if they don’t have training or experience in formal research, can carry out action research. Action Research is a very important part of Reflective Teaching. To be an effective teacher, it is not enough to be able to recognize what happens in the classroom. “Rather, it is imperative to understand the "why's," "how's," and "what if's" as well. This understanding comes through the consistent practice of reflective thinking.” (Johns, 2004) Reflective teaching entails an analysis of classroom events and circumstances.

T

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. ~John Cotton Dana he teaching profession is very rewarding, but a very demanding one. It demands that we continuously be up-dated, it demands that we produce immediate and observable

results of our students’ learning. How are we going to address these demands?

Our commitment as teachers, especially as language teachers, is to provide a learning environment where all of our students are able to thrive and develop to their full potential.

This paper intends to present a series of strategies that will enable teachers to analyze our teaching; focusing, not only on what may not be producing the desired results, but also on our successes.

We begin by presenting Wallaces’ (1984) model of Reflective Teaching for language teachers, as well as the description of some strategies that foster reflective thinking in the classroom.

Action research (AR) is the focus of this proposal, since it promotes “active reflection” of our teaching activities. What do we mean by active reflection? It entails not

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only analyzing and being aware of the positive features and shortcomings of our teaching, but also acting accordingly. That is, not taking for granted our strengths, and finding solutions for our weaknesses.

We have included several definitions of AR, as well as its main characteristics. An explanation of AR’s “cyclical nature” and steps to be followed during the process, are developed briefly.

REFLECTIVE TEACHING Although formal training is important, all teaching experiences should be considered as a part of a teacher’s development towards professional competence.

Wallace (1994) proposes a model for developing professional competence in formal training programs for language teachers. This model is called the “Reflective Model” and is divided into three stages: the pre-training stage, which according to Wallace “highlights the trainee and what they bring to the development process”, since it is considered that people who go into any training program, very rarely enter without preconceived notions regarding their profession.

In the second stage, not only are

“received knowledge” and “experiential knowledge” considered important elements in achieving professional development, practice and reflection are placed at the core of this stage. The third stage is professional competence.

Reflective thinking is a process that requires time to be acquired. Due to our busy lives, we find little time to reflect on past events; therefore we rarely stop to develop actions that will help solve some of the problems that arise in our daily lives. Teachers are no different, we go about our daily routines, and accept whatever comes our way, thinking that it is all part of our duties. We very rarely analyze what we are doing right, and only when we are faced with a situation that overwhelms us, do we feel the need to sit down and find out what is really happening in our classroom. Teachers should allow ourselves time to reflect on our practice, if we intend to reach our goals successfully.

There are several activities that promote reflective thinking in the classroom:

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 Reflective Journal  Written Self-Evaluation  Development of a Professional Portfolio  Action Research

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL A teaching journal, according to Richards and Lockhart (1994), is a teacher’s or a student teacher’s response to teaching events. Keeping a journal serves two purposes: 1) Events and ideas are recorded for the purpose of later reflection.

2) The process of writing itself helps trigger insights about teaching.

Richards and Lockhart (Ibid) suggest some reflection questions to guide journal entries:  Questions about your teaching: * Did you discover anything new about your teaching? * Which parts of the lesson were most/least successful?  Questions about the students: * Were the students challenged by the lesson? * What do you think the students really learned from the lesson?  Questions to ask yourself as a language teacher: * How am I developing as a language teacher? * What are my strengths and/or weaknesses as a language teacher?

WRITTEN SELF-EVALUATION This is a structured self analysis. It is used to encourage continuing reflection to promote an on-going, innovative approach to teaching.

The purpose of self-evaluation is to encourage individual professional growth in areas of interest to the teacher.

There are two levels of teacher self-

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evaluation:

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reflection on day-to-day classroom instruction and professional self-

evaluation. Teachers refine their skills through reflecting upon elements of their instruction.

DEVELOPMENT OF A PROFESSIONAL PORTFOLIO A professional portfolio allows teachers to keep a record of their growth and achievement over time. Scholastic (2007), an online journal, describes the purpose of a portfolio: “Portfolios allow us to become reflective about what it is we do. And they allow us to document the practices we'd like to preserve and even pass on to others.”

If we ask our students to select examples of their work over time to demonstrate how much they've learned, we must do the same.

Scholastic (Ibid) suggests what to include in portfolios: I. II.

III.

Background Information  Resume  background information on teacher and teaching context Teaching Artifacts and Reflections Documenting an Extended Teaching Activity  list of resources used in unit  two consecutive lesson plans  videotape of teaching  student work examples  evaluation of student work  reflective commentary by the teacher Professional Information  list of professional activities  letters of recommendation  formal evaluations

ACTION RESEARCH What is Action Research?

There are several definitions, Kurt Lewin is generally

credited as the person who coined the term “action research” (History of Action Research, 2007). He defined it as (1947): “… a three-step spiral process of (1) planning which involves reconnaissance; (2) taking actions; and (3) fact-finding about the results of the action.”

Another very pertinent definition is by Carl Glickman (1992): “Action Research in education is study conducted by colleagues in a school setting of the results of their activities to improve instruction.”

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Schön (1987) defines reflection as knowing-in-action.

The objective of a classroom action research project, according to Richards & Lockhart (1994): “…is an action plan designed to bring about change in some aspects of the teacher‟s class with subsequent monitoring of the effects of the innovation.”

Action research tends to be...

Cyclic -- similar steps tend to recur, in a similar sequence; Participative -- the clients and informants are involved as partners, or at least active participants, in the research process; Qualitative -- it deals more often with language than with numbers; and Reflective -- critical reflection upon the process and outcomes are important parts of each cycle.

Stephen Kemmis has developed a simple model of the cyclical nature of the typical action research process. (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988) Each cycle has four steps:  plan  act  observe  reflect

Observation phase: The issue of a problem is monitored and described. Useful data is recorded and kept.

Reflective phase: Observations are interpreted and shared so that the issue or problem can be better understood.

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Planning phase: Actions are proposed to address the issue or problem Action phase: The plan is implemented and the cycle Teacher research does no necessarily start with the setting of precise hypotheses.

As Kemmis and McTaggart (1981:18) point out in their first edition of The Action Research Planner: “You do not have to begin with a „problem‟. All you need is a general idea that something might be improved. Your general idea may stem from a promising new idea or the recognition that existing practice falls short of aspiration. In either case you must centre attention on:  What is happening now?  In what sense is this problematic?  What can I do about it?

Hopkins (1995) suggests some starting points for an Action Research project:  I would like to improve the…  Some people are unhappy about…  What can I do to change the situation?  I am perplexed by…  …is a source of irritation. What can I do about it?  I have an idea I would like to try out in my class.  How can the experience of…be applied to…?  Jus what do I do with respect to…?

STEPS IN THE ACTION RESEARCH PROCESS Mettetal (2003) mentions that Classroom Action Research (CAR) :…is a way for instructors to discover what works best in their own classroom situation, thus allowing informed decisions about teaching.”. Mettel continues to comment that the CAR process includes seven very easy steps and that teachers are able to complete some projects

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within a single semester, although more in-depth projects should allow more time for planning and data colleting.

The following are the steps that Mettetal (Ibid) describes: Step 1: Identify a question. A good question has three major qualities. First, the question is significant to your classroom situation; that is, you think that it might make a difference in student learning. Second, the research findings will lead to action, such as keeping or changing a teaching strategy. Third, the question should lead to a project that is feasible in terms of time, effort, and resources.

Step 2: Review the literature. You need background information on your question, but a brief review of secondary sources is adequate for these purposes. One good source of information is general books on teaching, often available through your teaching and learning center. Another excellent source is the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database, which indexes teaching-related publications of all types. You can search the database at http://ericir.syr.edu/. The information from these sources may help refine your question and choose your method of research.

Step 3: Plan a research strategy. There is no single best strategy for data collection. Depending on your research question, you might gather data about individual students or an entire class. You might describe a single situation (e.g. skills of entering students), look at the relationship between different types of data (e.g. student age and use of on-line office hours), or look for cause and effect relationships (e.g. the impact of homework assignments on test performance). Although a tightly controlled experimental design is usually impractical, you can use a quasiexperimental design such as comparing student outcomes from two sections of the same course.

Step 4: Collect data. This data could be quantitative (e.g. test scores, grades, survey results) or qualitative (e.g. dialogue from focus groups or class discussions). Start with data that you already have, such as assignments, exam scores, and teacher evaluations. If more information is needed, chose data that is fairly easy to collect and analyze. Angelo and Cross (1993) provide a comprehensive set of assessment tools, along with excellent advice on their use. In general, you should try to collect several different types of data to see whether results are consistent.

Step 5: Analyze data. The goal of data analysis is to look for patterns. Did your teaching strategy result in better student performance on exams compared to their pre-tests or to another group of students? Were their comments in class more in-depth? A simple grouping of comments by themes or a table of average test scores will reveal any major trends in

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the data. If statistical tests are desired, Bruning and Kintz (1997) offer a very user-friendly guide.

Step 6: Take action based on results. Your research findings should inform your teaching decisions. If the new strategy increases student learning, you would continue to use it in that teaching context. If it does not increase student learning, you might return to your old strategy, or continue to test new strategies. You might also consider the time and effort required for a new strategy—is a small learning increase worth the trouble?

Step 7: Share your findings. Teaching can be a solitary activity, with successes and failures rarely acknowledged to others. Sharing your CAR findings can provide an exciting forum for discussions on teaching. Results can be shared informally, through departmental or teaching center brown-bags, or more formally at teaching conferences. Many projects are suitable for inclusion in the ERIC database. (See the ERIC website for submission information.)

When choosing a question for a Classroom Action Research project one should consider the following criteria: It should be:  Significant - important to you and your students  Under your control - you can take action based on your findings.  Feasible – time, effort, resources.

In order to reflect on a teacher’s performance in the classroom, “professional action” should be recalled so it is available for reflection (Wallace, 1986). There are several procedures for recalling data for CAR, such as: field notes, audiotape recording, student diaries, interviews, videotape recorder, questionnaires, and of course, classroom observation.

Classroom observation involves sharing a teacher’s concerns with a colleague, which helps view a situation from a different perspective.

When inviting a colleague to

participate in observing a class, you should choose someone that you trust and that you feel comfortable working with. Before the actual observation, there should be a meeting where joint planning of the observation takes place. During this meeting there are several things that must be addressed, such as: the focus of the observation, the role of the observer (overt-covert), the way in which feed-back will be conducted, etc. It is always a good idea for teachers to reciprocate the favor.

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Conducting Action Research is not as rigorous, nor time consuming as formal scientific research; any teacher who is interested in improving the learning environment of the classroom, can successfully develop and implement an AR project.

CONCLUSIONS To teach is to learn twice. ~Joseph Joubert, PensĂŠes, 1842 Action Research should not be a solitary endeavor; it is a collaborative activity that benefits all involved. Steps that are taken towards improving ones teaching should include all the stakeholders in the teaching-learning process - students, colleagues and administrators. The findings of an Action Research project should be shared with all.

As we have said before, conducting an action research project is a task that does not entail the rigors of scientific research, since a teacher does not need special training to make it a part of a teaching routine. It is just necessary for teachers to get together in an effort to improve their teaching, and develop a plan that will address a particular situation in a classroom. The results are well worth the effort

REFERENCES

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

-William Butler Yeats

Hopkins, D. (1985). A Teacher's Guide to Classroom Research. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Pgs. 63-68 History of Action Research (date retrieved, April 20, 2007) http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=History+of+action+researchLewin+and+Collier&hl=es&um=1&oi=scholart Institute of Community Learning. Research Methodology (2005) http://www.instituteforcommunitylearning.org/research_action_intro5.htm Johns, C. (2004) Becoming a Reflective Practitioner. Chicago. Blackwell Publishing Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (1988) The Action Research Planner. 3er. Ed. Victoria: Deaking University Press.

Mettetal, G., ( 2003) Improving Teaching through Classroom Action Research . Essays on Teaching Excellence. Toward the Best in the Academy Vol. 14, No. 7, 2002-2003 http://academic.udayton.edu/FacDev/Newsletters/EssaysforTeachingExcellence/PODvol14/tevol14n7.html Richards, J.C. & Lockhart, C. (1994) Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. U.K. Cambridge Language Education.

Scholastic, on line journal (2007) The Professional Portfolio. http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4148 Wallace, M., (1994) Training Foreign Language Teachers: A Reflective Approach . UK. Cambridge University Press.

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IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS TO RENDER LITERARY MATERIAL FROM ENGLISH TO SPANISH CELIA TERESA BELLO ANGULO VILMA ESPERANZA PORTILLO CAMPOS MIZAEL GARDUĂ‘O BUENFIL1 Universidad de Quintana Roo Campus Cozumel The objective of the present research paper is to study how the cultural and language situations of a certain region of the United States affect the effectiveness and accuracy of translation into Spanish and if this type of translation can be performed without altering the meaning of the original text. The methodology used to prove this hypothesis consists of an analysis of the translation of an American short story, The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton, written by Mark Twain in 1878. A variety of resources used by the author of the story were studied, as well as, a considerable number of words and expressions that were made up by Twain to enrich the dialogues and descriptions, but which pose difficulties in rendering into the target language. Final comments drawn from the analysis and the probation of the hypothesis provide the strategies with witch the different language and cultural implications were translated by using the adaptation and the equivalence techniques. Key words: Analysis, cultural and language situations, literary material

A

ccording to Nida (1964), the cultural and language situations may cause severe complications to the translator when he/she is to translate from one language to

another. Taylor (1998) says that there are two contexts involved in the translation of literary material which consist of the author and his readers, and also the setting of the story with its characters and their roles. This kind of translations requires much care on the part of the translator to make sure that the historical and cultural background of the story is well understood. This is different from the generic detective story or thriller, whose settings make little difference to the narrative and whose characters seem interchangeable with countless others of the same genre.

Amongst the literary movements that imply

cultural and language situations there is the realism movement, which recorded episodes of the life as the way it was without idealization. Realists, often rely heavily on local colour, deliberately attempting to portray faithfully the customs, speech, dress, and living and working conditions of their chosen locale. Realists also stress characterization as a critical 1 celiabello@hotmail.com, vportillo@uqroo.mx, mgarduno@uqroo.mx

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(if not the critical) element of a literary work states Rieck (2006). exponents of this movement was Mark Twain.

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One of the greatest

He is considered the American

Shakespeare, due to his prolific work. He wrote with great eloquence and detail about the American life, the society, and the events of the time.

Twain was a writer that

travelled around the United States and the world. This helped him to be a great observer who enjoyed writing with humour vivid descriptions of places, people, landscapes, and situations. He used to create new words and phrases in his writing. He also made use of idiolects from different regions of the United States, such as Missouri, in the Mississippi area. Moving from the West to the East and on to Europe, living among boatmen, slaves, miners, journalists, and aristocrats, Twain heard the multiplicity of human voices that find their way into his work. Foreign languages, dialects, the politics of speech acts, technical jargons, and misunderstandings were represented in his works, contributing to the invention of new words and phrases. Amongst the idiolects that he used, the dialect from the Mississippi area is his most renown due to the success of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). In the Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rossannah Ethelton (1878), the language register and the style is from the upper class people, very rich in expressions and detailed descriptions. Due to this reasons, in this work the translator has to keep in the target language, the language register and the style as similar as the original, keeping the richness of the expressions and descriptions. Material to be translated is designed source text (ST) which after the intricate process that takes place in the mind of the translator is rendered into the target text (TT). Understanding is a prerequisite to translate; therefore the translator must be sufficiently familiar with the languages with which he/she is working to.

OBJECTIVE Since this work describes the translating process from English to Spanish of a short story Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rossannah Ethelton, some portions of the text were analyzed considering important tasks as part of the translator‘s work like to be acknowledged with the biography of the author and the possible influence of his personal life in the text. It was also necessary to do an investigation about the external factors of the time in which the story was written, the significance and the message of the story, and

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its associations with feelings and current world. An interpretation of the comments and sentiments of the readers, and the familiarization with the language e.g. cultural and language situations, that implies use of sociolect, dialect, jargon, etc. particularly of the region in which the story was set were key features for this paper, along with the selection of the translating strategies to render appropriately the difficulties found. According to Leonardi (2002), a text that implies unique cultural and language situations can be accurately translated by using equivalence techniques, by adapting it to a similar situation in the target text.

The present research paper has as a main objective:

To study how

the language and cultural situations of a certain region of the United States affect the effectiveness and accuracy of the translation of literary material into Mexican Spanish.

HYPOTHESIS That the use of equivalent techniques is essential for translation of literary material containing cultural and language situations is the hypothesis upon which the research project is based. An attempt will be made to demonstrate the validity of this premise by comparing the results obtained by rendering selected words, phrases or passages from the translations of The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rossannah Ethelton using both literal techniques and equivalent strategies. This being said is essential to qualify the use of the word equivalence, which in this context signifies a meaning oriented translation.

The strategies described by Vinay and Darbelnet or Nida are employed wherever literal translation fails to convey the perceived message of the source text.

Equivalence,

according to Webster (1994) is the state of being equivalent or equal. Equivalence as far as words are concerned suggests synonyms. Proponents of equivalence based-theory of translation usually define equivalence as the relationship between a source text and a target that allows the TT to be considered as a translation of the ST in the first place as Routledge, Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998) states.

Vinay and Darbelnet

(quoted by Kenny: 1998) sustain that equivalence is a process whereby the translator is able to replicate the same situation as in the original, whilst using completely different wording. According to the above authors it is essential for the translator to understand the ―situation‖ in the source language before looking for its equivalence in the target language.

Vinay and Darbelnet go on to state without hesitation that equivalence

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techniques are the ideal method when the translator has to deal with cultural and language situations, idioms, clichĂŠs, or onomatopoeia. The maintenance of equivalence between the source text and the target text according to Baker requires that the translator considers three main factors: the target audience, the purpose of the translation and the text type. These theories emphasize that the judgment of the translator is crucial when reference materials prove inadequate. They recognize the limitations of relying solely on linguistic techniques to produce a translation which truly conveys the message and intent of the source text. It would seem, however, that having a working definition of equivalence is basic to any theoretical approach to translation.

METHODOLOGY In order to reach the objective and prove the hypothesis, the methodology included the following steps: a. A bibliographic research to choose the text to work amongst the works of Twain. b. A comprehensive reading of the original text. c. A research on the internet, and bibliographic resources to place the play in time in order to know the main events that happened. d. A selection of the unknown words and expressions in the original text. e. A translation process applying the literal and the equivalence techniques. f. A research in dictionaries, thesaurus, the web and some language experts for the possible meanings of the unknown words in the target language. g. A morpho-syntactic analysis of the translation difficulties encountered, which helped to organize the paragraphs to sound as natural as possible in the target language and in which the translation team worked on punctuation, syntax, use of language and other nuances. h. After deciding on the final version of the paragraphs in the target language, the difficult terms were analyzed to find out what techniques were used to render them.

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In order to examine the research proposed by this project: whether or not equivalence is the appropriate approach for translating literary material containing cultural and language situations, a questionnaire was devised. This survey offers a series of difficult words or phrases taken from the English source text along with possible Spanish translations.

Ten individuals were then asked to select the most meaningful Spanish

translation in their respective contexts of the difficulties encountered in the source text.

Candidates were selected from the local Spanish and English speaking community, based on their educational level and experience in translating from English into Spanish. They are professional translators and interpreters. The findings present the techniques mostly used to render appropriately the difficulties found in literary texts containing cultural and language situations. The questionnaire was presented in the following format: Questionnaire Relating to Traslation Techniques (Bello, Portillo, Garduño: 2005).

DIRECTIONS:

Please choose the best option from words underlined in the following

Spanish sentences. Best option is intended to mean the word or words which seem to retain the meaning of the English text. Please indicate your choice by crossing out the most desirable option. translation.

If none of them satisfy you, please give a possible suggested

e.g. 1. – ―Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and elegant little

parlor, in a lovely blue silk dressing-gown, with cuffs and facings of crimson satin, elaborately quilted.‖ Alonso Fitz Clarence estaba sentado en su cómodo, abrigado y elegante saloncito, envuelto en un precioso batín (acolchado/apachonado) de seda azul, ricamente adornado con puños y cuello de satín rojo oscuro.

Subsequently, there was an analysis of the answers of the questionnaire based on the literal and the equivalent techniques.

ANALYSIS Analysis is defined by Webster as an examination of a complex, its elements, and their relations (1994). The analysis of the questionnaire consisted on identifying which techniques had the individuals taken as the most appropriate term to render the example given. As part of the analysis, a variety of resources used by the author of the story were studied, as the kind of idiolects that he used, the idioms and the reading of different texts to comprehend his works. Also, a considerable number of words and expressions were

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made up by Twain to enrich the dialogues and descriptions, but which pose difficulties in rendering them into the target language.

The purpose of the analysis performed in this

paper was to find out what techniques were the most recurrent during the translation process in order to prove the hypothesis. This short story represented a big challenge due to its language register and here are represented some of the most difficult paragraphs to work with. In an effort to analyze translation, prominent contemporary theorists have identified the techniques which they find most useful. Then in order to provide a method of translation which can guide students and practitioners of this art, procedures have been outlined and techniques have been defined and named. Vinay and Darbelnet (1977), state that translations are nearly always longer than an original script due precisely to the frequent need for expansion or amplification. The translation techniques outlined by them include borrowing, calque, literal translation, transposition, modulation, equivalence, and adaptation. The seven techniques described by Vinay and Darbelnet can be divided into two groups.

The first group consists of literal translation which includes literal as a

technique itself, borrowing, and calque, all of which are forms of direct translation. The second group consists of equivalence translation which includes transposition, modulation, equivalence, and adaptation; these represent what is called oblique or indirect approaches to translation. Literal translation, one of the three types of direct translation, can be further divided. Firstly, there is word-for-word translation, where each word is translated using the first definition of such word in a bilingual dictionary keeping the original word order.

Secondly, there is a slightly more flexible technique which is also

designated literal but which allows minimal adjustments of word order, along with some addition and omission of words as required by the target language grammar.

Borrowing, one of the three types of direct translation, takes place when the source language word or expression is taken directly into the target text without any change.

Calque, the third type of direct translation, is a special kind of borrowing.

Calque

involves the literal translation of a word or part of a word, thus creating a neologism, or new word, in the target language. Transposition is one of the four types of oblique translation and is usually defined as the changing of one part of speech for another without changing the sense.

Adaptation, another of the four types of oblique translation,

involves the change required to transmit meaning when a situation in the source culture

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does not exist in the target culture. Equivalence is often listed as one of the four types of indirect translation per Vinay and Darbelnet. However, further qualification is required because the word equivalence is also used in a broader sense to describe the entire act of translation or the product of a translation process.

Equivalence, as a strategy or

technique, comes into play when the translation unit is an idiomatic expression, a cliché, slang, a proverb or saying, or a specific cultural reference, and it becomes necessary for the translator to look for some equivalent concept in the target culture. modulation which is one of the four oblique types of translation.

There is

Modulation, as a

translation technique, involves changing the semantics and point of view of the source text.

Literary devices, such as simile and metaphor, are best translated by means of a modulation technique.

Paraphrasing is the polar opposite of literal word-for-word

translation. To paraphrase is defined as restatement of a text or passage giving the meaning in another form (Vinay and Darbelnet 1977).

On the other hand, López Guix

and Wilkinson (1999) suggest that in most cases literal technique is the appropriate starting point for a translation, turning to the various equivalence techniques only as needed, keeping the afore mentioned aims of translation firmly in mind. According to Darwish (1989:4), a shifting between literal technique and search for equivalence in the target language eventually becomes almost automatic.

1. A passage from the source text translated literally in the present paper is as follows: ―Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and elegant little parlor, in a lovely blue silk dressing-gown, with cuffs and facings of crimson satin, elaborately quilted.‖ Alonso Fitz Clarence estaba sentado en su cómodo, abrigado y elegante saloncito, envuelto en un precioso batín acolchado/apachonado de seda azul, ricamente adornado con puños y cuello de satín rojo oscuro.

This is an example of literal translation the rendering of this sentence because the Spanish version contains the same number of words.

As for the most appropriate

translation for the term given, ―acolchado‖ was preferred by the experts.

2. Borrowing was used on the following paragraph: ―Ah, I never have heard 'In the Sweet By-and-by' sung like that before!" — ¡Nunca antes había escuchado ‘In the Sweet By-and-By’ cantada de esa manera!

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In this example the borrowing technique is perfectly applied to the title of the song ‗In the Sweet By-and-by‘ which does not have a correspondent expression in Spanish because there is not a version in Spanish.

3. The use of the adaptation technique was applied in ― There was a feeble but frantic sound for some little time, as if wool-upped, disembodied spirits were exchanging kisses; then Rosannah said, ‗Excuse me just a moment, dear; I have an appointment, and am called to meet it.‘ Hubo un débil pero frenético sonido por un momento —como el de alguna prenda al ponerse/como la criolina de un vestido—, espíritus incorpóreos intercambiaban besos; entonces Rosannah dijo: —Discúlpame un momento, querido; tengo una cita y debo reunirme con ella.

The problem in this paragraph was the expression: ―…as if wool-upped‖, which was not found in the original language as an idiom, saying, or slang. Thus, to solve the problem the technique used was adaptation, and the chosen term was the first given option, which sounds more meaningful in the Spanish of this day and age.

4. Another case in which adaptation technique was used was: ―The mourners go about the streets with their umbrellas running streams from the end of every whalebone‖ Los dolientes salen a las calles con sus sombrillas, esparciendo chorros de agua por la punta de cada varilla/del esqueleto.

The problem to solve was: ―…every whalebone‖ this expression represents a cultural situation, due to the fact that in the 1800‘s the umbrellas where made of whalebone, whereas nowadays that is out of use because they are made out of metal.

The adaptation technique was used in order to translate this situation. Therefore, the first option was the more equivalent term.

5. In the following case, the transposition technique was used: ―A forlorn dog, with bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was pressing his quaking body against a windward wall for shelter and protection.‖ Un perro triste y abandonado, con la cabeza inclinada y la cola inservible/la cola entre las patas presionaba su escuálido cuerpo contra el muro de contención del viento en busca de refugio y protección.

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The example taken to be translated was: ―…tail withdrawn from service‖; and the technique used was transposition. The verb withdrawn from the ST was changed by an adjective in the TT. The first option was the more appropriate translation which expresses what the author really means.

6. The following is a very descriptive paragraph rich in vocabulary: ―Her dress and adornment were marked by that exquisite harmony that can come only of a fine natural taste perfected by culture. Her gown was of a simple magenta tulle, cut bias, traversed by three rows of light-blue flounces, with the selvage edges turned up with ashes-of-roses chenille; overdress of dark bay tarlatan with scarlet satin lambrequins; corn- colored polonaise, en zanier, looped with mother-of-pearl buttons and silver cord, and hauled aft and made fast by buff velvet lashings; basque of lavender reps, picked out with valenciennes; low neck, short sleeves; maroon velvet necktie edged with delicate pink silk; inside handkerchief of some simple three-ply ingrain fabric of a soft saffron tint; coral bracelets and locket-chain; coiffure of forget-me-nots and liliesof-the -valley massed around a noble calla.―

Su vestido y su exquisitez estaban

marcados por la sutil armonía que solo puede tenerse con el buen gusto natural perfeccionado por la cultura. Su vestido consistía en un tul de color magenta cortado en sesgo, adornado con tres capas de volantes color azul pálido, con rosas de cerezo bordadas con felpa en las orillas volteadas hacia arriba, adornado con muselina satinada de color escarlata. Un corsé azul lavanda, de escote bajo resaltado con encajes; mangas cortas, cuello de terciopelo marrón ribeteado con delicada seda rosa; dentro, un pañuelo de un material sencillo, de tres hilos,

de un suave color azafrán. Completaban el

atuendo, una polonesa de color amarillo, algo estrafalaria, con botonaduras de madreperla y cordones plateados, jalados y atados firmemente con gamuza aterciopelada, pulseras de coral, una cadena con guardapelo, un tocado de nomeolvides y lirios del valle agrupados alrededor de un noble alcatraz.

The translation problem was the detailed description of the dress. Therefore, to render this case the techniques used were expansion and equivalence. The first one was used because it was necessary to give more details in Spanish so that the readers could

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have a complete picture of the dress. The equivalence technique was used because there was a difference in structure.

7. Two problems arose in the following paragraph: "Plague take the weather! I don't see how you can have the heart to serve me so, Lon." —¡Al carajo con el clima!/¡al diablo con el clima! No sé como tienes corazón para bromearme/burlarte así Lon. The main expressions to translate in this paragraph were: ―plague take the weather‖ and ―… to serve me so‖; to solve these problems it was necessary to use adaptation because both expressions did not have corresponding meanings in the TT. As a consequence, the first options were the more convenient for both given cases.

8. This case is an example of the use of the equivalence technique: ―I float in a gorgeous cloud land, a boundless firmament of enchanted and bewildering ecstasy!"

¡Vivo

entre nubes de color rosa/ando en las nubes, en un firmamento de encanto infinito y éxtasis apabullante!

The problem in this paragraph was ―…float in a gorgeous cloud land‖, and the technique used to solve it was equivalence because vivo entre nubes de color de rosa is widely accepted than the second option 9. This particular case shows the employment of the adaptation technique: "So we be the happiest ones that that day's suit looks down upon in the whole broad expanse of the globe, why need we care? Call it the 1st of April, dear." Entonces seremos los más felices en ese día. Ese día será el día más sublime a lo largo y ancho del mundo entero/Ese día será el más significativo de toda mi vida; ¿por qué habría de importarnos?

Será el primero de abril, querida.

There was a complicated expression in this case which is the following: ―…that day‘s suit looks down upon in the whole …‖ the technique used to solve it was adaptation due that the first option does not express a total and natural sense to the reader.

10. "Indeed, I did. I made him the April fool! Si, de verdad. ¡Le hice una broma, inocente palomita!¡inocente angelito!

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The expression to translate in this example was: ―April fool‖, since this expression is an idiom, it has its correspondent expression in the TT which the most equivalent is the first option.

CONCLUSIONS The hypothesis upon which this paper is based states that equivalence methods are essential for the translation of a source text containing cultural and language situations into Spanish if the target text is to exhibit a similar meaning.

Participants who filled in the questionnaire

were requested to choose between a

literal rendering and a translation achieved by one of the various equivalence techniques.

Over all, research subjects opted for equivalence over literal translation eighty-three percent of the time. A range of seventy to one hundred percent was observed through out the exercise. The experience of working with a source text of established literary status as part of the present project was instructive as to the need to be ever vigilant for the subtleties and innuendos in literary material. It follows, therefore, that ordinary reference materials often fails to provide even a hint as to the cultural significance of such little phrases. Once there is an awareness of cultural and language situations, equivalence immediately comes into play. These findings appear to bear out the hypothesis of this endeavor, that it is essential to make use of equivalence techniques when translating source text containing American cultural and language situations into Mexican Spanish in order to maintain meaning in the product. It can be asserted further, that not only is the goal of accuracy sacrificed with adherence to a literal method of translation, but the vitality of the target text is certain to be diminished.

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REFERENCES Baker, Mona (1992) In Other Words: A Course on Translation. London and New York: Routledge.

Darwish, Ali. The Translation Process: A View of the Mind Accessed on-line on Oct 10, 2005. Available through Google at Translation Theories at http://www.surf.net.au Leonardi, Vanessa. Equivalence in Translation: Between Myth and Reality. Accessed on –line on April 5, 2005. Available through Google at Translation Journal at http://accurapid.com/journal.htm López Guix J. y Minett W. (1991) Manual de Traducción. España: Gedisa.

Meanings and origins of phrases. Accessed on line on April 7, 2005. Available through Google at http://www.phrases.org.uk Nida, Eugene (1964) Towards a Science of Translating. Leiden: E. JJ. Brills.

Nida, Eugene, and Taber (1969) The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E. JJ. Brill.

Nida, Eugene (1975) A Framework for the Analysis and Evaluation of Theories of Translation, in Translation Application and Research. Ed. Brislin R.W. New York: Gardner Press, 12-14.

Rieck, Simone. American Romanticism. Regionalism and local colour. Accessed on line on Nov. 11, 2005. Available through Google at http://coursesite.cl.uh.edu Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (2001) Ed. Mona Baker. London: Routledge.

Simon and Schuster’s International Dictionary: English-Spanish; Spanish-English. (1992) Ed. in chief, Tana de Gámez, New York: Simon & Schuster.

The loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton. Accessed on line on Feb. 2, 2005. Available through Google at The Making of America by the Cornell University http://cdl.library.cornell.edu The Oxford Spanish Dictionary (1996) New International Edition. Chief editors, Carol Styles Carvajal and Jane Horwood. Oxford University Press.

Vinay, Jean Paul, and Jean Darbelnet. (1958, and1977). Stylistique compareé du Français et de l´anglais. Paris: Didier.

Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English (1994) 3rd College ed., updated. Ed. in chief, Victoria Neufeldt, New York: Prentice Hall.

Wonham, Henry B.. Mark Twain: America's Regional Original. Accessed on line on Nov.21 2005. Available through Google at http://usinfo.state.gov

BIODATA Celia Bello currently works as a professional translator, and she is a partner of a Translation Agency. She has participated in research projects regarding translation. Celia holds a degree in ELT by (UQRoo) Universidad de Quintana Roo. Vilma Portillo Campos y Mizael Garduño Buenfil do research in Translation and ELT for CAIE (Cuerpo Académico de Innovación Educativa) Academy of Innovative Education at (UQRoo). They both hold a Master in Translation and Interpretation English-Spanish, Spanish-English by (UAG) Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara. They currently work as university professors and they also do professional translations and interpretations. Celia, Vilma and Mizael have participated in various congresses and their works have been published as articles and memoirs

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THE PILOTING OF CELE’S REVAMPED TEACHER TRAINING COURSE C. PATRICIA CÁNOVAS C. CELE/UNAM In this paper the process to design a new Teacher Training Course is presented – the background which motivated it, the stages it went through, and finally its piloting and ongoing evaluation.

T

he Language Center of the National Autonomous University of México (CELE/UNAM), has been offering a Teacher Training Course for language teachers since 1980. The

course has been continuously updated, but it was not until recently that major restructuring took place. The group of teachers involved in the course, approximately 30 from five different foreign languages (English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese) decided to revamp the course in order to fulfill the more recent expectations of participants. First, we started by doing a diagnosis of the current course. By means of questionnaires and interviews we asked for the opinion of the student-teachers at the time, former studentteachers, teacher-trainers (present and former), and employers from private and public institutions. Parallel to this, we researched to update the theoretical background; we searched the web to analyze different programs offered at national and international universities in order to have a wider range of comparison. Finally, we invited a well renowned specialist in curriculum design, Christian Puren, from the University of St. Etienne in France, to give us a five-week seminar in 2005, and a one-week seminar in 2006.

We arrived at several conclusions of which the most relevant are the following:

 Though there exist various B. A. and M. A. programs on language teaching, the need for a shorter course is still predominant, particularly for already working teachers in the metropolitan area who require to be certified.

 There is a need to create a homogeneous program to be taught by all languages (there had been a wide range of variations) so that graduates end up having a very similar profile upon graduation regardless of the language they teach.

 The connection between theory and practice needs to be more fully demonstrated.

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 More practice is required.  Autonomous learning has to be encouraged.  More emphasis on intercultural communication is badly needed.  More emphasis on the internet resources, and the pedagogical use of such resources is also required.

 According to employers, emphasis on teaching larger groups, and younger students needs is to be attended.

After long working hours, we designed the program which is being piloted this school year – 2007. See Appendices 1 & 2. We decided not to give preference to time over quality, therefore the length of two semesters was kept. In fact, the course ended up being even longer – it now lasts more than the 450 hours it used to last.

Major changes, if compared with the previous program, were made. Theory now stems from the student-teachers’ experience as learners and teachers. To be able to focus on their learning experience, a module to learn an unknown foreign language, was included. To emphasize autonomous learning, elective half-modules are now offered.

Instead of all modules being 24 hours long, now the compulsory modules are 24, or 12 (except for two mini-modules which are 6), and all the elective modules are 12 hours long. All modules are meant to be interrelated – teacher trainers are in constant communication among themselves. An internet group, which can only be accessed by members, has been opened in order to achieve this.

The language system (phonetic, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexis) is taught integratively, and in connection with their learning and teaching experience. The language abilities (speaking, listening, reading and writing) are also presented integrated – two per module.

Below are the main characteristics of the new modules: Pedagogical Theories functions as the axis which gives global coherence to the whole Teacher Training Program. It deals with knowledge presented practically in other modules, and incorporated here into one consistent theoretical module.

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The Learning of an Unknown Foreign Language is offered for student-teachers to reflect upon their own learning process. Practice and reflection on their learning process rather than theoretical psycholinguistic knowledge is emphasized. This year, Russian was the language to be learned. It is a 12 hour half-module.

Observation, Planning and Practice (OPP 1 & 2) now include practice from the very beginning. It didn’t use to be like that – the first semester was only observation and planning. Practical teaching techniques are thus experienced earlier. Feedback sessions are contemplated after their teaching practice.

The Teaching of Culture is a module where the importance of cultural competence is highlighted. Culture is intrinsic to language – one cannot not exist independent of the other. Different cultures may co-exist within one same language. Student-teachers must become aware of all this, and learn to deal with it in their classes.

Electronic Resources, a hands-on mini-module offered in the two semesters, is given in the multimedia lab. Student- teachers learn to use the library electronic resources, as well as many others which will help them do research, find complementary information, and practical teaching tips.

Action-Research and Personal Research Project is a very important new module which lasts for two semesters. The goal is for student-teachers to experience what actionresearch is like, and, through it, develop an ongoing personal research project that will encompass bits of knowledge from all modules which are relevant. This project, a formal one, is the main final product of the course.

Elective 12-hour modules are offered to promote autonomous learning. Studentteachers select three to be covered along the two semesters, according to their own needs and wants. Among the possibilities of elective modules are:

 Psycholinguistics

 Introduction to digital environments

 Sociolinguistics

 Introduction to self-access learning

 The teaching of larger groups

 Group Dynamics 2 (the first part is a compulsory mini-module)

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The first semester is now over, and from the questionnaires that student-teachers and teacher trainers answered, we can conclude, as expected, that the student-teachers’ and teacher trainers’ expectations were met in some of the modules, but not everything has worked as planned:

 In the Learning of an Unknown Foreign Language clear guidelines regarding the main goal of the module were not made explicit, so the student-teachers were more interested in actually learning Russian than in their own learning process. It was hard, then, to reflect upon their learning strategies after each Russian class.

They loved the experience, and would have liked to continue with their classes for a longer period of time.

 The two mini-modules, Group Dynamics and Internet Resources, were too short.

Most student-teachers complained about it. The main objective of Group Dynamics which is to integrate student-teachers of all languages was lost. These modules must be extended, and given intensively during the first week.

 For the teachers who used to focus on one single ability (though they obviously integrated the others), adapting their programs to give the same weight and time to two abilities during the same period of time, was tough. They had to decide what the most relevant and practical information was, and avoid expanding too much.

 For the same reasons, other teachers who were used to having 24-hour modules commented that the change to half-modules was a difficult one to deal with.

This December, when the second semester is over, and questionnaires analyzed, changes will be discussed among all teachers, and implemented in 2008. The process is on-going, and might never end. But this is what Teacher Education is about – continuous reflection, learning and updating, and so is curriculum development.

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REFERENCES Brumfit, C. J. (ed.) (1982). General English Syllabus Design: Curriculum and Syllabus Design for the General English Classroom. Oxford: Pergamon: British Council.

Cohen, A.D. (1998). Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. USA: Longman. Dickinson, L. (1993). Self-instruction in Language Learning. Fourth printing. Malta: Cambridge University Press.

Dudeney, G. (2000). The Internet and the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nunan, D. (1989). Syllabus Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nunan, D. (1992). The Learner-Centred Curriculum. Fifth printing. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press.

Puren, C. (1997). “Concepts et conceptualisation en didactique des languas: pour une epistemologie disciplinaire”. In Études de Linguistique Appliquée, n° 105, jan.-march 1997, pp. 111-125. Paris, Didier-Érudition.

Puren, C. (2003). « Perspectives actionnelles et perspectives culturelles en didactique des langues-cultures: vers une perspective co-actionnelleco-culturelle ». Synergies Brésil, revue de didactologie des langues-cultures, 4, Florianopolis (Brésil), Universidad Federal de Santa Catarina / Gerflint.

Puren, C. (2005). "Interculturalité et interdidacticité dans la relation enseignement-apprentissage en didactique des langues-cultures". ELA, 140.

Didier Érudition.

Puren, C. (2005). Notes in Spanish handed out during seminar in CELE/UNAM, July 2005.

Spindler, G. D. & Spindler, L. S. (eds.) (1994). Pathways to Cultural Awareness. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.

Wallace, M.J. (1998) Action Research for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wallace, M.J. (1993). Training Foreign Language Teachers. A reflective approach. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press.

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TABLE GAMES AND THEIR EFFECT ON LONG TERM MEMORY STORAGE MA. GUADALUPE SANTOS ESPINO1 Universidad de Guanajuato, Escuela de Idiomas

“Our brain is the best toy which has been created.

In it you can find all the secrets including happiness.”

Charles Chaplin This paper will give the reader basic information about what teachers may need in order to start gathering some ideas about incorporating table games in their present or future classes, in order to facilitate pupil’s learning in specific curriculum areas. Steps to introduce difficult vocabulary will be taken into consideration plus indicators of effective classroom teaching that we as teachers should also consider. Learning through games has proven to be spontaneous and natural; and the outcome of utilizing them should be rewarding for both teachers and students.

T

able games have been around for centuries. They have been used for various reasons, the main one being to enjoy some spare time that we may have on our

hands. In order for learners to grasp and understand difficult linguistic terminology we can teach it using pictures (visuals), drawings, realia, in context, by providing an explanation, miming or gesturing, and giving examples; almost all of the suggested strategies can be accomplished using table games, or plain games.

WHY USE GAMES? Rogers (2007) stated that many researchers have provided evidence for the role of play in promoting human development. The majority of university courses are limited to cognitive functions, when teachers include play it actively engages the entire person, thus adding holistic value to information acquisition. Rogers further states that an examination of the principles of play gives ground to a pedagogical approach in which students acquire not only knowledge and skills, but also the disposition to enjoy academic challenges (2007). Games are very useful in the context of the language classroom or in this case, the context of the BA in the Teaching of English, in the linguistics area. Games are commonly used just for entertainment and as a form of play, while in the case of the 1 santos@quijote.ugto.mx

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linguistics class they are geared to retrieve concepts which students have already been introduced to. Games can be competitive, challenging and why not – frustrating.

Games can also teach the participants to be cooperative, and they can also add an affective element which can affect a student in a positive or negative way. Diamond (2000) considers that being aware of the learner’s emotional well-being is not being uselessly subjective, for feelings have evolved as a part of our survival mechanism. We can use the emotional or affective domain to excite and motivate. Besides reviewing the linguistic topic, which is the aim of table games, they can also make a class very enjoyable (Keith, 1988; Poljarevic, 1992).

Games can provide a change and allow varying the rhythm or pace of the class.

They take the focus off the teacher and away from mere ‘learning’; they can add an element of interest and concentration from the student’s part. They can also offer an entertaining space for reinforcement and practice of the given topic. Finally, they are a means of relaxation and motivation. Table games allow recycling new familiar terms in a fun way, thereby promoting long term memory storage. The latest research has shown that the use of memory and puzzle games can help create new pathways in the brain, keeping the mind sharp, or at least more limber. http://www.freeverse.com/games/game/?id=6003 Accessed September 19, 2007.

LONG TERM MEMORY STORAGE OF TECHNICAL TERMS Researchers suggest that language students need to learn as many words as possible and as soon as possible (initial 2000 word target, with 10,000 words as an ideal longer-term target (Turtledove 1993). The area in which my students are involved in is Applied Linguistics, covering varied topics such as: Morphology, Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis, First and Second Language Acquisition, to mention a few. A topic is usually covered in a six hour session. Fortunately the goal in the linguistics class is less demanding concerning acquiring and understanding vocabulary. Students are required to learn and apply correctly the new technical terms of only one topic; therefore having to learn approximately 20 new terms or less.

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While learning, students have to ‘cross the bridge’ as pointed out by Turtledove (1993), the bridge being between the left side of the brain and the right side, between the analytical/critical side and the creative side.

An adapted list of criteria by Ellis and Sinclair (1989 cited by Sheehan 2004) for knowing words or recalling linguistic terminology should be taken into consideration:  To understand the word when it is written or spoken.  To recall it when you need it.  To use it with the correct meaning.  To use it in a grammatically correct way.  To pronounce it correctly.  To know which other words you can (and can not) use with it.  To spell it correctly.  To use it in the right situation.  To know if it has positive or negative connotations.  To know when (and when not) to use it.

Words should be recycled and revised as soon as possible after they are introduced, and what better way to do so than by playing with them.

GAMES ONLINE ‘GAMES FOR THE BRAIN’ Another option for ‘play’ is to include internet games; teachers can use them by either taking their students to the computer lab or suggesting that they enter the website to play. One of the many good sites I found is one that is maintained by Pfizer, and their main goal is to inform us about health issues and the workings of the brain. http://www.pfizer.com/brain/ (Annex 1) MES-English has free access to printable material to use in the classroom. However there are restrictions, such as that MES-English resources can not amount to greater than 50% of our curriculum or teaching materials. We may use photocopies or printouts for the purposes of distributing them to our students. http://www.mes-english.com/phonics.php Accessed September 19th, 2007. (Annex 2)

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SETTING THE ADEQUATE ENVIRONMENT Rogers (2007) provides a list which contributes to play: (a) familiar objects, activities, friends, and schemas; (b) minimal intrusion from authority figures; (c) physical safety and psychological warmth; and (d) freedom to choose within defined boundaries.

Finally, she adds that a friendly atmosphere requires trust of the environment and the people in it.

WHAT CAN GO WRONG? I have asked my students to create their own games and to present them in class as part of their evaluation. Grading a game can be difficult, however the teacher can come up with a format in order to evaluate the most relevant points s/he was looking for.

(Annex 3) Some disadvantages may be that while playing the teacher may lose control, students may not know how to play due to the lack of good instructions, and timing may get out of control. Believe it or not some students may get bored. In addition the teacher has to be totally convinced of its usefulness as a teaching tool, otherwise its intention may not work.

TEACHING IS A CHALLENGING TASK Nowadays, Mexico’s educational system is requesting teachers to change and leave the traditional classroom environment, [http://promep.sep.gob.mx/inge.htm, 2007] because it is not very good for motivating students to learn beyond what has been planned or expected in class. Very few learners are motivated by the mere desire to learn. Usually students have the desire to participate, so they can apply their abilities in solving problems, to be recognized, and to compete, and games can cater to these needs.

Games can also be a diagnostic tool. They give the teacher a chance to walk around while students are immersed in playing to see if they understood the objective, new technical terms, or the topic which was recently covered.

Teaching can be fun and is a constant learning experience and it is subject to be under constant development. However, it can also be a quite complex endeavor which involves many factors, one of them being the different learning styles that we are going to encounter in our classrooms, which may or may not trigger learning.

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“The value of an education… is not the learning of many facts, but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks”.

Einstein (1921)

CONCLUSION In my BA classes, the advantages my students had by producing their own table games were varied. They knew exactly whom they were producing them for and how these games would complement the specific subject being covered. The advantages of games were: they had the satisfaction of putting the learnt vocabulary into action by competing in a game. In addition, this type of activity helped learners identify what linguistic skills they should be using to retain new terminology, it was a motivating activity, it taught them to be autonomous in their own learning, by bringing out their creativity, it empowered them to reason and reflect on their performance and to take on the proper roles in their chosen profession.

Play gives added value to university education because it goes beyond knowledge and skills; it enables us to reach students’ intellect, creativity, and it encourages cooperation.

REFERENCES Diamond, D. N. (2000) A Teacher’s Exploration of Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works . Volume 24 No. 1. MEXTESOL Journal. México, Mextesol A.C. Keith, M. (1988). Laugh while learning another language: techniques that are functional and funny . English Teaching FORUM. 26 (2) p. 20.

Poljarevic, K. (1992). The more they Laugh, the better they Marc . English Teaching FORUM, 30, (3) p. 52-53.

Rogers, S. C. (2007) 31. Playful Teaching. p. 205-212. Teaching Excellence. At a Research – Centered University. USA: Pearson Custom Publishing.

Sheehan, A. (2004) MA KINGS ENS EOF WORDS. English Teaching FORUM. 42 (1) p. 4.

Turtledove, C. (1993) Crossing the Bridge with Theater Games. English Teaching FORUM. Volume 31 (2)

WEB ADDRESSES CONSULTED: Big Bang Brain Games (2007) http://www.freeverse.com/games/game/?id=6003 http://www.mes-english.com/phonics/silente.php http://www.pfizer.com/brain/ http://promep.sep.gob.mx/inge.htm , 2007.

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ANNEX 1 This site is sponsored by Pfizer http://www.pfizer.com/brain/ In This Section: Brain Bytes - What do you know about the mysteries of the mind? Test your knowledge about the body's most extraordinary organ with this fun game Brain Puzzle - Good with geography? Use your noodle to complete this map of the brain.

(Requires Flash) Neuron Run - Ever wonder what's going on in your brain when you're walking down the street or playing outside? Download this action-packed video game and find out.

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ANNEX 2 Consonant Blends Here you can find beginning consonants, ending consonants, flashcards, game cards and handouts. Very useful for the overworked and hurried teacher. http://www.mes-english.com/phonics/silente.php

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ANNEX 3 For LIN – 100 and LIN 200 students THINGS TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN DESIGNING YOUR TABLE GAME Student’s name: ________________________________  It should be attractive.  It should have a clear objective.  Instructions must be clear (make them simple); assure comprehension by asking peers if they understood, or explain the instructions in your own words.  You should include additional material that your classmates will need in order to play.  Consider adequate timing.  It should be appropriate to the level, consider the terminology that is being covered in the topic.  Practice your game prior to actually presenting it in class.  If necessary be prepared to give a short presentation.  Organizing and monitoring peers while playing.

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GETTING TO KNOW STANDARDIZED TESTS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE: CELE UNAM LANGUAGE TESTS, ELASH, TOEFL IBT FRANCES BOYD American Language Program, Columbia University

BARBARA BYER Departamento de Linguistica Aplicada, Centro de Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras, UNAM.

YLDA FARRE-RIGAU University of Puerto Rico (retired); College Board Puerto Rico and Latin America For some educators, the very phrase “standardized test” conjures up dispiriting images of students cutting class to cram for the test or teachers dumbing down curricula to teach to the test. In such scenarios, the desire for top scores on high-stakes standardized tests may seem to trump serious efforts to teach and learn. In English Language Teaching (ELT), standardized tests have been improved in recent years, yet they necessarily remain limited by our current notions of language proficiency, by the nature of testing itself, and, especially, by how language professionals choose to use the results. On balance, though, it is clear that some of these tests can perform useful functions and may even have a positive influence on English language education.

In this paper, based on a plenary panel, we profile three standardized tests that are very different in form and purpose: the CELE UNAM Language Exams [Foreign Language Center, National Autonomous University of Mexico], ELASH [English Language Assessment System for Hispanics] from the College Board, and TOEFL iBT [Test of English as a Foreign Language, Internet-based test] from Educational Testing Service. By definition, standardized tests specify where, when, how, and for how long test takers may respond to the tests; also, such tests must meet strict standards of reliability and validity in construction. Here, the purpose is to describe each of these three English-language exams (or sets of exams), to compare and contrast them, and to raise questions about the alignment between these standardized exams and the local educational goals of administrators, teachers, and students.

In the interests of full disclosure, we should state our involvement with the tests we write about. First and foremost, we are teachers with more than 80 years of combined ELT classroom experience. In addition, Barbara Byer ran the Evaluation and Certification Department at CELE UNAM for 14 years; Ylda Farre-Rigau is a consultant to the College Board Puerto Rico and Latin America; and Frances Boyd has collaborated with Educational Testing Service to produce TOEFL iBT preparation books.

CELE UNAM LANGUAGE EXAMS CELE has been designing and applying certification tests in foreign language since its establishment in 1966. These exams are created by UNAM for those enrolled in a wide variety of its own degree-granting programs. Serving approximately 16, 000 UNAM students annually, the proficiency and reading comprehension exams certify that students

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have successfully met graduation requirements in English (and/or in several foreign languages). The passing score is 60% on each version. Written, administered, and scored in-house, these exams are accepted by UNAM and its branch and affiliated campuses throughout the Republic. The scores are also accepted for certification purposes by several other Mexican universities.

The homepage for CELE UNAM Language Exams is http://ianua.cele.unam.mx.

Perceptions of the Test Imagine: You have finally finished your major and are making the last corrections on your thesis. There are a lot of people waiting for you to graduate: parents, boss, girl/boyfriend, the thesis advisor who is retiring. However, your school records indicate that you haven’t complied with your major’s language requirement. Unless you pass a CELE reading comprehension or proficiency exam, there will be no graduation.

Why does this happen? Many students perceive their language requirement as just one more administrative stumbling block on the long road to graduation. Others, with less confidence and preparation in a foreign language, fear the exam.

Unfortunately, there are also teachers who fear the exams, mostly because the tests are an external evaluation of their courses. On the other hand, there are teachers who ignore the fact that their students will have to take one of these exams during their university years. Consequently, they don’t prepare their students adequately in academic reading skills. Teachers also question the validity of basing something as important as graduation on the results of one test. This is a consideration that users of all high-stakes standardized exams have to deal with.

We all know that no test can reflect everything a student knows or is able to do in a language. Still, these certification exams are well-respected and widely seen as fair and authentic. It is interesting to note, for example, that examinees often comment positively about the quality and interest of the texts that appear on the exams.

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Purpose The UNAM language exams are designed to meet the needs of UNAM degree candidates in a wide variety of fields. Therefore, they must satisfy very specific criteria in terms of topics, level of difficulty, cost, ease and flexibility of application.

Each major or graduate program sets its own entrance and exit requirements, including those for language. The idea behind these language requirements is to ensure that students have the basic language skills in order to function in their academic and professional lives. Most graduates are expected to read a wide variety of technical texts in their fields with an acceptable degree of comprehension. A smaller number of departments also require that graduates have commensurate levels in listening, speaking, and writing.

Content and Approach To meet the needs of the various University departments, CELE creates two types of language exams: reading comprehension and proficiency. Last year, 14,500 students sat for reading comprehension exams, while 1,400 took proficiency exams. Each test is carefully tailored to the population it serves. Most of the reading comprehension exams, far and away the more common, are written for specific academic areas (art, biology, law, medicine, and so on), though some general interest exams are produced. Generally, they contain two authentic texts in the foreign language, up to a total of approximately 2000 words, plus multiple-choice or gap-filling questions. Texts are selected from specialized academic publications and textbooks, not materials published for the general public. Testing points can be main ideas or supporting arguments, author’s intent or conclusions, the purpose of an example, a relevant fact, recognition of the document’s original purpose, inferences using information from the text, and word meaning determined by context. Dictionaries are permitted, and directions are in Spanish. The number of items varies, but the test is no longer than 90 minutes.

In contrast, the proficiency exams typically measure all four language skills. For listening comprehension, candidates listen to an authentic video recording then respond to short-answer comprehension questions and multiple-choice grammar and lexis questions. To demonstrate speaking ability, candidates are interviewed. For writing, they are given a

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task that relates to their academic interests, for example, a description of a research project that they have recently completed or are planning to undertake.

The reading

comprehension portion is essentially the same as in the reading-comprehension only exams; however, dictionary use is not permitted. There are other differences, too. The proficiency tests are longer -- 2 ½ to 3 hours-- and all instructions are in the target language.

Moreover, these exams are designed to be at the upper-intermediate level, with each skill given equal weight in the final score.

Impact on Curriculum and Motivation To pass the reading comprehension exams, students need a general knowledge of English with, above all, experience reading authentic texts in their fields: biology, business, engineering, and so on. Students can develop an adequate level of reading by taking four-skills courses or, more indirectly, by taking content courses in their major, many of which use textbooks and other materials in English. Fluent reading can also be honed in optional separate-skills courses such as those offered at CELE. To pass the proficiency exams, students must demonstrate upper-intermediate levels of reading, as well as of listening, speaking, and writing.

Students who fail the CELE UNAM language certification exams often do so because they are overconfident and fail to read carefully, run out of time, or are not familiar enough with the test format. Of course, there are also those who simply do not have adequate knowledge of the language.

For reading comprehension courses, instructional test preparation, and exam practice, there are many resources available. CELE itself publishes course books and materials. It also offers online practice exams. In addition, other UNAM schools publish materials, as do commercial publishers [1].

ELASH First administered in 1999, the English Language Assessment System for Hispanics, or ELASH, is intended primarily as a placement test. It was created by the College Board Puerto Rico and Latin America to help institutions place Spanish-speaking students enrolled or planning to enroll in English classes in their own countries. Currently serving institutions in

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eight countries, ELASH I and ELASH II spread students over a wide range, from novice to advanced levels. Written and scored by the College Board but administered by each institution, these 100-120-minute exams are gaining in popularity in Latin America, the United States, and Puerto Rico.

The homepage for ELASH is: http://oprla.collegeboard.com/ptorico/latinam/program/elash.html.

Perceptions of the Test ELASH is seen as a useful institutional instrument with particular relevance for Spanish speakers intending to study English. All of the test items are in English, but the directions on the test and the Student Guide that describes the test are both in Spanish. The content of the exam is culturally sensitive. Moreover, the items take into account linguistic interference between Spanish and English. Test administrators can choose between ELASH I (novice to low-intermediate) and ELASH II (high-intermediate to advanced), depending on the English Language level of their population. Both versions are paper-and-pencil tests that can be given on dates chosen by each institution, making them convenient and affordable.

Purpose ELASH is designed to meet the needs of institutions that teach English to Spanish speakers as well as employers who want to measure English skills. Candidates for this exam may be in schools, in levels from sixth grade on to university, or they may be in the workplace. As a placement tool, ELASH I and II sort groups of students from very beginning through advanced levels of English.

ELASH score reports serve the institutions in several ways. To start, College Board provides an alphabetized list of individuals, each with English-language proficiency scores on a scale from 40-200. To help school and other officials interpret the scores, Proficiency Stages and Proficiency Descriptors are included. Beyond this, College Board provides a statistical analysis of each group of test takers: distribution of total test scores, distribution by content areas represented on the exam, mean scores on the Exposure to English Questionnaire, and mean scores by age and grade level, if applicable. In the near future, institutions will also be able to align ELASH scores with the descriptors of the Common European Framework for Languages.

Content and Approach ELASH measures listening and reading comprehension using content from a range of subjects. In a multiple-choice format, both ELASH I and II have three sections: listening

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and comprehension; language usage and “indirect” writing; vocabulary and reading comprehension. On each test, there are 135 items to be completed in 100 minutes.

In the listening section, students hear pieces of increasing length, from rejoinders to short conversations to short talks and extended discourse. Items test their understanding of main ideas and details. In the language usage and indirect writing section, test takers encounter increasingly complex grammatical and sentence structures. They also move from improving sentences to improving paragraphs. Finally, in the vocabulary and reading section, test takers figure out meaning from context in excerpts of increasing length and complexity.

In the construction of ELASH, great care is given to cultural sensitivity. Content in the reading sections covers issues in Latin America that are relevant to the test takers’ reality.

Moreover, the item writers and exam committee members are teachers who actually work in the different countries where the exams are used. They are, therefore, familiar with cultural differences and nuances of language.

Impact on Curriculum and Motivation The publishers do not recommend any specific test preparation. When ELASH is used for placement, the best preparation is simply to become familiar with the mechanics of a multiple choice test: item types, instructions, time limits, and answer sheet format. In those countries and institutions where ELASH has other uses, teaching to the test is never recommended. Again, the best preparation is familiarity with item types and general academic content. Each institution decides when to administer ELASH, how often, and for what institutional purpose. For more information, test takers can read the ELASH Student Guide, which is in Spanish.

Because ELASH focuses on listening, language usage, and reading comprehension, institutions may want to refine their placements or admissions criteria with additional speaking and writing assessments.

To link placement to the local curriculum, ELASH users can make good use of the score summaries regarding content area knowledge and exposure to English. The Proficiency Descriptors include additional information for classroom teachers. These “can

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do� statements describe what the students should be able to do within each specific language skill.

TOEFL IBT First administered in 1964, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, was created by Educational Testing Service to be used in the admissions process for international students applying to English-speaking colleges and universities. The TOEFL has been radically revamped and, beginning in 2006, the new communicative version has gradually become available in most countries, certainly throughout Mexico. Serving over 800, 000 international students annually, TOEFL iBT places students on a scale up to 120, where 80 is frequently set as the minimal score for admission. Written, administered, and scored under the auspices of Educational Testing Service, TOEFL iBT is a four-hour exam that students take online at approved testing centers.

The homepage for TOEFL iBT is www.ets.org/toefl or www.toefl.org.

Perceptions of the Test In its earlier versions, TOEFL was a test students could beat by cramming themselves full of rare grammatical points and arcane vocabulary. We occasionally had students at Columbia’s American Language Program with very high scores, say 600 or more, who could barely speak. In contrast, in the new Internet-based version, TOEFL tests not what you know but what you can do in English. Most teachers and test takers consider it a fairer and more authentic test.

Purpose TOEFL iBT is intended to measure ability to communicate in academic settings where English is the language of instruction. Inside the classroom, this includes the skills of understanding and taking notes on lectures; answering and posing questions; reading, discussing and writing on academic topics. Outside the classroom, communication includes requesting information from a librarian, negotiating housing issues, requesting appropriate medical care, and so on.

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Score reports give a composite score as well as performance descriptors by skill.

The test discriminates best at the upper-intermediate to low-advanced levels of proficiency; less usefully at the very lowest and highest ends.

Content and Approach The Internet-based TOEFL is a dynamic test of communicative competence and academic skills with integrated-skill tasks, note taking, a speaking section, and items requiring critical thinking in every section. In simulated lecture situations, test takers must show that they can learn as they go: for example, take notes on a 5-minute lecture on how baby birds learn their species’ song, and then use these notes to respond to comprehension, inference, and vocabulary items. Challenging integrated tasks ask students to read a short passage on the theory of team-building, for instance, listen to a businessperson give an example that disputes the theory, then summarize the gist of the arguments in writing. This task is challenging precisely because it effectively integrates reading and listening comprehension, critical thinking, and summary writing. In a short form, this simulates what university students often have to do.

Speaking tasks on the new TOEFL are particularly difficult as students have very short preparation (15-30 seconds) and response times (60 seconds or less) and face the awkwardness of talking to a computer. Moreover, some questions require students to answer big and potentially emotional items such as commenting on a person who influenced your life.

Impact on Curriculum and Motivation Revising the TOEFL was a calculated decision both to create a more up-to-date test and to stimulate positive washback in the field of ELT. By applying the latest research in the field, the test designers want to exercise their influence on English-language teachers and students to do the same. When the test improves, teaching to it may actually have some positive results.

For many institutions and programs involved in teaching English, keeping pace with the new test may require far-reaching change. The curriculum that helps students learn academic English as well as score well on the TOEFL is one that is organized thematically, with integrated skills and critical thinking at all proficiency levels. Already, ELT curricula in

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some places are evolving to offer students rich, content-based lessons on unfamiliar topics (or aspects of topics) and new points of view. For many native-speaking and non-nativespeaking teachers alike, there are also challenges. Learning how to evaluate speaking and writing with rubrics and to give developmental feedback is one challenge. Reimagining ourselves as co-learners on “a journey of discovery” with students is another [2].

Displaying curiosity and the confidence to learn from mistakes in order to inspire these qualities of mind in students may be still another. Perhaps the wise words of Sir Winston Churchill can encourage us in this period of adjustment to more communicative and integrated approaches to English-language teaching and learning. “Success,” he famously remarked, “is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”

For TOEFL preparation efforts also, the Internet-based test implies dramatic change. Instead of learning the tricks of the trade, it is now a rational choice to learn “the trade” itself: English. When academic English students learn language through thematic units incorporating integrated skills and critical thinking, they are gradually training their brains to succeed at university as well as on the TOEFL. Such academic skills include identifying main ideas and supporting details, making inferences, comparing and contrasting, paraphrasing, identifying rhetorical structure in reading and listening texts, and so on. For some students and teachers, both the language skills and content have a strong cultural component; thus, the learning is multi-layered and complex.

The test designers acknowledge a place for “instructional test preparation,” that is, thematic units that mimic the test items on TOEFL iBT. With such materials, students move step-by-step to improve their language and academic skills, while gradually developing awareness of these skills and honing test-taking strategies [3]. To help teachers, Educational Testing Service (ETS) offers training kits and online practice in scoring; for students and teachers, there are explanations and practice tests at the ETS web site as well as practice books available for purchase from many ELT publishers [4].

In addition, experienced teachers still see a place for short, focused test-prep classes for students who have already attained at least a high-intermediate level. One 30-year veteran remarks: “Test prep is like a sport.” She goes on to expand the sports analogy: “You need a mindset, a strategy to help you perform against your big opponent

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on that one day. Preparation should be intensive -- 4 to 6 hours a day-- just like the exam. It helps students with their mental state.� [5] Although cramming cannot develop communicative competence in English, in the run-up to the exam, a simulation of test performance conditions can help test takers show what they know on the test day. Such a course might consist of about 30 hours of work on practice exams (with English keyboard and microphone) spread out in 5 sessions, about a month before the test date.

CONCLUSION Standardized tests are ultimately a convenience: a quicker, cheaper alternative to more painstaking and personal measures of language proficiency. Still, as we have seen with the CELE UNAM Language Tests, ELASH and TOEFL iBT, standardized tests need not have a negative effect. In fact, they may complement teacher-led assessments and give students independent confirmation of their skills. Further, such tests have the potential advantages of eliminating some bias and of drawing us into a more public dialog about assessment. This conversation may include stakeholders as varied as academic departments, workplaces, non-profit agencies, and commercial publishers. The complexity of language assessment and the need for it on such a large scale help explain why it has spawned such an enormous industry. Among the myriad instruments that may also be of interest are US-published ACCUPLACER and The Michigan Test; and UK-published IELTS and Cambridge First Certificate. While the choice of standardized tests seems wide, the educational purpose is specific and often local: admission, placement, and/or certification.

Just how a standardized test aligns with one’s purpose and, further, how such a test influences the teaching and learning of English are issues that merit our professional attention.

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NOTES 1. For classroom-based reading comprehension courses , see these CELE materials: Alvarez, G. y Galicia, F., Manuel de Comprensión de Textos Médicos en Inglés, CELE, UNAM, 1996.

Martineck, L. y Tobío, C., Exámenes de Comprensión de Lectura en Inglés: Medicina, CELE, UNAM, 1995.

Tobío, C., Martineck, L. y Moguel, C., Exámenes de Comprensión de Lectura en Inglés: Contaduría y Administración, CELE, UNAM, 2003.

Tobío, Carmen, Exámenes de Comprensión de Lectura en Inglés, CELE, UNAM, 4ª ed. 2004.

DVD: Valdés, Jesús, In love with Shakespeare o cómo usar el diccionario de inglés.

For an online reading-comprehension course, go to http://ianua.cele.unam.mx/leeringles/ For online practice exams in reading comprehension, go to http://conorare.cele.unam.mx/complectauto. Then, click on “Examenes.”

2. Numrich, Carol. 2001. Theme-Based Instruction: Fieldwork in a Small Connecticut Town. In Understanding the Courses We Teach: Local Perspectives on English Language Teaching, edited by John Murphy and Patricia Byrd. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

3. Boyd, F. and C. Numrich, eds., NorthStar: Building Skills for the TOEFL iBT. In cooperation with Educational Testing Service. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education, 2006. Intermediate, high-intermediate, and advanced. Teaching manuals with detailed instruction in scoring speaking and writing with rubrics.

4. For teachers, Educational Testing Service (ETS) offers: Propell Workshop for TOEFL iBT. Teacher Workshop. www.ets.org/toefl/workshops.html.

For students and teachers, ETS also offers: TOEFL Practice Online, an official web site.

TOEFL Academic Speaking Test, practice tests for in-class or online use.

5. Interview with Janet Shanks, October 19, 2007, at the American Language Program, Columbia University.

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MEDIATING LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE THROUGH DRAMA; A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE JOHN R. HAUGHT Wright State University Drama techniques in the teaching and learning of second languages has a demonstrated history of success, but few practitioners have examined the underlying mechanisms of this approach. This paper argues that Sociocultural theory presents a powerful theoretical framework for understanding the unique mediational affordances presented by dramatic methods. Teaching and learning through drama demands that learner‟s co-construct meaning as they engage in modeling and imitation, instructional conversation, recursive learning, and a multimodal embodiment of understanding. Learners come to perform their new understandings as they engage in the target language from a variety of perspectives and contextual situations.

INTRODUCTION Second language learners do not simply „learn English‟, or „learn French‟, but rather learn a variety of locally situated language genres that enable them to enter into a specifically contextual discourse. They must perform themselves in order for others to recognize something of their identity and intentions. Discourse then, serves as a means of mediation between people involved in activity that is always situated within specific sociocultural and institutional contexts.

The cultural tools of social mediation do not determine how or what the social actors do with them, but rather provide affordances or constraints to mediation depending upon how they have been used historically. Understanding the social interactions between beings is more than understanding the tools available, or the goals and intentions of the actors, but rather examining the tensions between the mediational means and their contextualized use within specific activities (Wertsch, 1994). Therefore, it is the use of mediational means as they are employed in activity that provides us an opportunity to examine the processes involved in second language teaching and learning.

A drama approach to second language learning provides a number of highly unique mediational affordances which can be actively manipulated in a seemingly endless variety of ways. The capacity for artificially changing the context of the social situations -1-

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of scenes and interactions affords opportunities for the exploration of a number of different registers, genre, and voices. The context of scenes is altered when the actors are asked to assume different roles or place the scene in different locations or environments.

These artificial adjustments to sociocultural context within a dramatic scene both constrain what actors are expected or permitted to do and afford new opportunities for historically situated discourse genres and voice. Dramatic scenes embody the highly contextual nature of human discourse in a concrete and visceral way. Sociocultural theory and the work of Vygotsky and his followers provide a powerful tool for understanding the dynamics dramatic activity.

Vygotsky certainly recognized the dialogic nature of theater and drama and as a young teacher directed theater groups in his school in Gomel in Belarusia. He even wrote a paper on the psychology of the actor (Johnson, 2004). The process of engaging in dramatic activities gives us access to the same mediational tools that we use in everyday life. Interpreting a script or performing an improvisation is actively creating social history.

Vygotsky's construct of the ZPD serves as an excellent example to explain what takes place in a drama setting.

Activity theory posits that humans construct their understanding of the world not merely through the biological matter of their brain, but through interaction with the culture in which they live. Wagner (2002) argued that educational drama was the perfect medium for engaging learners in their Zone of Proximal Development. Wagner claimed that in role playing activities learners assumed not only the language, but the entire personae of others. She believed that this catapulted the learner into a developmental level above their actual one in a manner more completely engaging than language alone was capable of. Drama is a profoundly challenging social event. The participants must negotiate and arrive at a single vision of what the event is about. In drama activities participants often scaffold each other as they co-construct meaning and transform understanding.

Newman and Holzman (1993) argued that in Vygotsky's primary law of sociogenesis, in which he speaks of development leading learning; they believed that most people lose touch of the basic dialectical model from which Vygotsky is grounded. They

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spoke of how Vygotsky was concerned with imitation as one of the most developmentally important learning skills in very young children and reminded us of how he contrasted the mimicry of a parrot with the imitation of a child, drawing our attention to the fact that learning entails joint interaction within the ZPD. The child does not simply mimic like a parrot, but recognizes the goal directed action of the adult they are emulating. In later volumes they contended that imitation is learning only when it takes place as revolutionary activity within the ZPD (Newman & Holzman, 1996).

Drawing correlations between

Wittgenstein‟s „forms of life‟, they went on to claim that imitative learning within the ZPD or imitating revolutionary activity is actually the performing of life and culture itself.

The per-form-ance of life - the synthesis of Vygotsky in Wittgenstein - is required to sustain a developmental learning community. For it is only in performing-a human skill which for most of us is left to atrophy after early childhood - that we can be who and what we are not (a head taller than ourselves). Thus, the form of life in the ever-changing ZPDs that make up our community environment is filled with play - that is, it is performatory. We are, as our critics have observed with dismay, forever being who we are not. We are performing. (p.159)

It is interesting that Newman and Holzman refer to the performatory interactions within the ZPD as play. Vygotsky assigned great importance to the role of dramatic and imitative play in a child's development. He believed that while engaged in play the child was projecting him or herself into the future; not merely imitating adults, but adopting personae. He contended that the child was operating within their ZPD at all levels of their functioning and this was the beginning of the development of higher mental processes (Lantolf, 2000).

“In playing the child is always above his average level, above his

everyday behavior... in such a situation the child tries, as it were, to leap above the average level of his behavior” (Vygotsky, 1978).

Play provides the optimal context for young children to develop cognitive and social skills and provide a foundation for skills that will emerge in the future. Vygotsky argued that play is not totally free and unstructured activity but is bound within constraints and rules. It is in the recognition and motivation to abide by these rules that young children first developed the ability to regulate their behavior. “The influence of play on a child's development is enormous... it is a novel form of behavior liberating the child from constraints... the child begins to act in a cognitive, rather than an externally visual realm... the condition is reached in which the child begins to act independently of what he sees” (p.

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180). Thus the child is able to engage in imitation and dramatic play in which objects and cultural tools can be transformed in the imagination of the child enrolls can be assumed.

Play, imitation, and dramatic play in particular, can be viewed from a sociocultural perspective as a vital part of a child's mental development. We see a direct and reciprocal relation between activities in both the physical-social realm and the inner mental realm of the individuals‟ development.

Drama in the Second Language Classroom To meet the needs of the various University departments, CELE creates two types of language exams: reading comprehension and proficiency. Last year, 14,500 students sat for reading comprehension exams, while 1,400 took proficiency exams. Each test is carefully tailored to the population it serves. Most of the reading comprehension exams, far and away the more common, are written for specific academic areas (art, biology, law, medicine, and so on), though some general interest exams are produced. Generally, they contain two authentic texts in the foreign language, up to a total of approximately 2000 words, plus multiple-choice or gap-filling questions. Texts are selected from specialized academic publications and textbooks, not materials published for the general public. Testing points can be main ideas or supporting arguments, author‟s intent or conclusions, the purpose of an example, a relevant fact, recognition of the document‟s original purpose, inferences using information from the text, and word meaning determined by context. Dictionaries are permitted, and directions are in Spanish. The number of items varies, but the test is no longer than 90 minutes.

In contrast, the proficiency exams typically measure all four language skills. For listening comprehension, candidates listen to an authentic video recording then respond to short-answer comprehension questions and multiple-choice grammar and lexis questions. To demonstrate speaking ability, candidates are interviewed. For writing, they are given a task that relates to their academic interests, for example, a description of a research project that they have recently completed or are planning to undertake.

The reading

comprehension portion is essentially the same as in the reading-comprehension only exams; however, dictionary use is not permitted. There are other differences, too. The proficiency tests are longer -- 2 ½ to 3 hours-- and all instructions are in the target language.

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Moreover, these exams are designed to be at the upper-intermediate level, with each skill given equal weight in the final score.

The author has used dramatic scripts, theater games, improvisations and other drama techniques with various communities of language learners. Whether an EFL classroom with elementary Chinese students, adult ESL learners, or college age multinational ESL students, certain unique mediational affordances appear to be consistently in place: modeling and imitation, recursive learning, instructional conversations, and greater intercultural communication, all of which lead to an embodied performance of understanding.

Imitation of the researcherâ€&#x;s modeled speech and communication proved to be the most significant mediational affordances that arose from these studies. The modeling was both explicit, as when the researcher was speaking lines of text and script, and implicit, as when issues arose through the explanations and instructional conversations. Imitation was crucial to provide opportunities for transformation as the students appropriated the modeled communication and made it their own. This imitation is an extremely complex affair that arises from collaborative meaning making within the Zone of Proximal Development. Vygotsky (1987) argued that the imitative behaviors of the child was much more than simple mimicry, but was eventually internalized by the child as they learned the meaning and significance of their actions. In the authorâ€&#x;s experience, imitation served as the vehicle of negotiation of meaning as the students encountered various interpretations and perspectives in their dramatic explorations.

Quite often, in a typical classroom environment, the learner is expected to produce an exact copy of what the teacher or expert has modeled. Imitation within the ZPD views the learner as a communicative being with their own agency. The participants demonstrate that they have their own individual motives that then inform their actions. They are not mere repeaters of what the researchers modeled, but collaboratively make meaning together. This meaning is gradually internalized as they come to a greater understanding of the scenes or scripts and their implications. As they internalize these new meanings, they gradually move away from imitation to self-regulated behavior, demonstrating greater fluency in their speech, and growing more confident in their performances.

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Drawing upon Bakhtin‟s (1981) notion of heteroglossia, all speech contains echoes of other voices. No utterance is entirely unique, but contains cultural-historical properties of previous speakers and the new speaker is ventriloquating those voices. Simultaneously, the utterance is being „peopled‟ by the new speaker through the interactions involved in responsive dialogue. Therefore, the mediational tool of language both constrains dialogue and affords intersubjectivity. The act of imitation is ventriloquation of the teacher‟s modeled speech that is internalized and transformed as the student makes meaning of the phrases through interactive performance.

Recursion though Rehearsal A unique aspect of language learning through drama is the opportunities for recursion that it affords. Recursion, or the revisiting of ideas from multiple perspectives, is a natural outcome or by-product of the rehearsal process. As the learners made meaning and their understanding grew, they had a slightly different perspective with each subsequent reading.

Though recursion can be constructed in other settings, working with a dramatic script automatically encompasses recursive learning because the script must be revisited several times in rehearsal. However, other drama techniques also afford opportunities for recursion. When the students were asked to improvise a scene but play the characters differently, they were forced into another perspective or voice that perhaps they had not considered previously. This process enables the learner to realize a variety of possible voices in a visceral, participatory manner. They are creating their ZPD by necessity of viewing the situation through another‟s eyes and having to communicate from that perspective.

Much as imitation is more than mere mimicry, recursion entails more than simple repetition. As agentive participants directing how and what they will learn, the students look at the script or scenario with fresh eyes at each encounter. Rather than merely memorizing the lines of the script, the students were revisiting the ideas contained therein as they co-constructed meaning together. From an activity theoretical perspective, this entails the students pursuing their respective goals and arriving at new understandings through this purposeful interaction. The imitation is shaped and changed through these

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dynamic encounters in which the players react to each other and the learning environment.

The students‟ encounters entailed a cyclical pattern of internalization and externalization of understanding that Engstrom referred to as „expansive learning‟ (1987). Meaning changed with each recursive interaction.

Though the drama activities were largely marked by supportive laughter and collaboration, there were also instances of resistance and disagreement. It must be remembered that interactions within the ZPD are not always pleasant. There exist two opposing tendencies in social interaction: intersubjectivity, or the degree to which individuals are able to share a perspective, and alterity, the conflict that arises from the multivocality of our discourses (Wertsch, 1998). Argument can be constitutive of coconstruction of meaning and from an Activity Theoretical perspective the greatest innovations often arise from the conflicting interpenetrations between and from within activity systems.

Johnson (2004) claimed that SLA research should address the complex mechanisms that lead to the establishment of intersubjectivity. The disagreements, or alterity, that arose from our instructional conversations regarding both language and culture, were an essential part of the process of building intersubjectivity. As the participants debated issues they were engaged in collaborative meaning making and, even if they never came into agreement with each other, they shaped and influenced each others‟ understanding.

As stated above, the performative interactions between the participants gave rise to the cycle of internalization/externalization that result in expansive learning. Collaborative meaning making involves moving from alterity to increased intersubjectivity.

Drama has the unique ability to introduce alterity into the learning environment simply by changing the performance demands or expectations for the players. When the participants were expected to perform a scene from a different perspective or characterization, or to improvise a scene or situation without script, the nature of communication was altered in such a way that participants were forced to innovate and create. And, as argued above, altering one‟s perspective is part of the recursion process.

The altered intentionality of the performers necessitated making new meaning of the

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utterances, thus forcing another cycle of externalization / internalization and expansive learning.

Drama clearly offers a variety of mediational means and affordances to language learning which are unique to the medium. Opportunities for modeling and imitation, instructional conversation, and the process of recursive learning are inherent in structuring drama activities. Drama opens spaces in which the participants can create their ZPD and scaffold each other through language performance. Compound that with the cultural diversity of second language learners, the personal risks involved in performing and interacting in a communicative setting, and the alterity to discourse that arises from dramatic activity, and a truly unique and dynamic environment for learning and teaching has been created. Students are encouraged to take risks and become autonomous learners in an authentic setting.

REFERENCES Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination, four essays. Austin: University of Texas.

Engestrom, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developing research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.

Janks, H. (2000). Domination, access, diversity, and design: A synthesis for critical literacy education. Educational Review, 52(2), 175-187.

Johnson, M. (2004). A Philosophy of Second Language Acquisition. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Introducing sociocultural theory. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 1-26). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lantolf, J. P., & Pavlenko, A. (2001). (S)econd (L)anguage (A)ctivity theory: Understanding second language learners as people. In M. P. Breen (Ed.), Learner contributions to language learning: New directions in research (pp. 141-158). Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited.

Newman, F., & Holtzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary scientist. New York: Routledge.

Van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy, and authenticity . Essex, GB: Longman Group Limited.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wagner, B. J. (2002). Understanding drama-based education. In G. Brauer (Ed.), Body and language: Intercultural learning through drama (pp. 318). Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.

Wells, C. G. (1999). Dialogic inquiry : towards a sociocultural practice and theory of education . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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ELT IN ASIA: WHAT'S COMMON IN MEXICO? JUN LIU University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona, USA Asia has seen rapid economic development and an explosion in commercial, technological and cultural exchanges with the rest of the world in the past few decades. This has given rise to an even more pressing demand for English education and English enhancement for learners to be bilingual and/or multilingual world citizens. This everincreasing demand for English has drawn the commitment to English language teaching by Asian governments, school administrators, teachers and students, and by parents and society at large. Tremendous efforts and resources have been expended on revamping curricula, updating English syllabi, producing new English textbooks, developing skills-oriented examinations, and upgrading teachers' professional and communicative competences.

However, numerous challenges in the field English language teaching still prevail in Asia and beyond. By reviewing the changing perspectives of the profession over the last few decades, and by assessing the current practice of English language teaching in Asia, Liu, in this plenary speech, is going to invite the audience to reflect on the pertinent issues faced by ELT professionals in Mexico, and to speculate on the trend of English language education reform in the new horizons.

L

anguage is much more than a school subject. It is the stepping stone not only to global communication, but also to politic participation, economic success, education attainment,

and entertainment enjoyment, to name but a few. A domestic perspective on language pedagogy alone is insufficient to tackle holistically and effectively the burgeoning demands placed upon language professionals and learners in an ever-changing world.

Rather, a global vision of the impact of political, economic, educational, and entertainment changes on language teaching trends can help language professional and learners locate the right track towards building and integrating adequate language skills to achieve their goals accordingly. This paper provides a panorama of trends and challenges in language education over the past few years, from which Asian governments, school administrators, teachers, students, and parents can gain insights into language teaching and learning in the 21st century.

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Political Concern “[E]ducation is always a political undertaking� (Nieto, 2002, p.1) that is strongly associated with national and international security and transnational communication and cooperation. Not too surprisingly, second/foreign language learning cannot be shut away from political realities.

National Security In January 2006, U.S. President George Bush proposed the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI), which stresses the pressing need for Americans to learn foreign languages (e.g., Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Farsi) that are critical specifically for national security and business competitiveness (U.S. Department of State, 2006).

Regarding the issue of national security, undoubtedly, the 9/11 attacks and aftermath have had much impact on construing this initiative. According to Newsweek (Klaidman & Isikoff, 2003), the U.S. intelligence communityâ€&#x;s efforts to combat terrorism are badly thwarted owing to a dire shortage of competent Arabic translators to decode the messages intercepted from suspected terrorists. Thus, linguistically and culturally qualified professionals (e.g., translators, interpreters, second/foreign language teachers) are desperately needed nowadays to ensure global peace and safety.

International Communication and Collaboration The United Nations (See http://www.un.org/ for details regarding the organization.) is a leading international organization promoting global security and harmony.

Transnational and intergovernmental communication and collaboration are facilitated and achieved by using six official languages, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Additionally, the impact of disease spread and trade dispute on global security is no less threatening than the risk posed by terrorist attacks. While the World Health Organization (See http://www.who.int/ for details regarding the organization.) uses the same six official languages as the United Nations does to tackles disease problems, the World Trade Organization (See http://www.wto.org/ for details regarding the organization.) settles trade conflicts among countries by applying three official languages, English, French, and Spanish. English remains nevertheless by far the most used official language in global political gatherings and cooperation. In short, language serves as the avenue

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through which people mitigate disputes and enhance cooperation to safeguard global harmony and stability.

Economic Needs In his 2006 report titled “English Next” for the British Council, the prominent British linguist, David Graddol, argues that over the long haul, the future globalization of English may rely heavily upon Asia, India and China in particular. That is, rapid economic growth in China and India can be the major catalyst in promoting the English language to be used and learned worldwide. In the last few years, Asia, especially China and India, has attained impressive economic growth, as shown in Table 1, 2, and 3 below (Euromonitor, 2007). From Table 1, it can be seen that real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, which signals overall economic growth, in the Asia Pacific region remains high in 2006, suggesting that Asia's economic prospects look rather positive. Table 2 shows that real GDP growths in China and India expanded rapidly at an annual rate of 10.7% and 9.2% respectively in 2006.

Also, as shown in Table 3, in 2001, the leading four world

exporters were the U.S., Germany, Japan and France. However, in 2002 and 2003, China was the world‟s fourth largest exporter. Since 2004, China has become the third biggest exporter in the world, overtaking Japan and only after the U.S. and Germany. A close look at China‟s exports in 2006 indicates that it seems very likely that before long, China will overtake the U.S. and Germany as the world's largest export market.

Thus, these Asian countries have attracted considerable foreign direct investment, increased substantial global trade, and created numerous job opportunities. To achieve economic benefits globally, many Asian countries have made great efforts to equip their students‟ with English language skills as a tool for international communication. Similarly, native speakers of English are increasingly aware and cognizant of the importance of learning a second/foreign language associated with their economic success. Clearly, “as global English makes the transition from „foreign language‟ to basic skill, it seems to generate an even greater need for other languages” (Graddol, 2006, p.118). It implies that skilled multilingual graduates from non-English speaking backgrounds can outperform their monolingual English counterparts in the global job market (Graddol, 2006). For the time being, however, English remains as the language of global business.

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As the great Chinese military strategist Sunzi said, zi ji zhi bi bai zhan bai sheng (知己知彼百戰百勝), that is, when applied in the economic field, it implies that know yourself and know your competitor, and you will win on the business battle field all the time. For example, “[s]econd language learning is often second culture learning” (Brown, 1987, p.128). Lack of understanding of the values, beliefs, lifestyles, or social norms of the target language community and culture makes trust and rapport among economic partners less likely. Without mutual trust and rapport, interpersonal and international cooperation, communication, and peace cannot be evolved.

Hence, second/foreign

language is a must-have skill to be built in the business world for the 21st century.

Table 1 Real GDP Growth by World Region, 2004 – 2007

ANNUAL % CHANGE 2004

2005

2006

2007(F)

World

4.0

3.4

4.0

3.6

Asia Pacific

5.4

5.3

5.8

5.7

Australasia

3.8

2.7

2.6

2.6

Eastern Europe

6.6

5.4

6.5

6.0

Latin America

5.8

4.3

5.2

4.6

Middle East & Africa

4.8

4.9

4.8

5.0

North America

3.9

3.2

3.2

2.2

Western Europe

2.4

1.8

2.9

2.6

Note. f = forecast. From Euromonitor (2007), statistics retrieved August 28, 2007, from Euromonitor Global Market Information Database.

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Table 2 Real GDP Growth by Selected Countries, 2004 – 2007

ANNUAL % CHANGE 2004

2005

2006

2007(F)

Asia Pacific China

10.1

10.4

10.7

10.0

India

7.8

9.2

9.2

8.4

Vietnam

7.8

8.4

8.2

8.0

Singapore

8.8

6.6

7.9

5.5

Hong Kong, China

8.6

7.5

6.8

5.5

Malaysia

7.2

5.2

5.9

5.5

Indonesia

5.0

5.7

5.5

6.0

South Korea

4.7

4.2

5.0

4.4

Taiwan

6.1

4.0

4.6

4.2

Japan

2.7

1.9

2.2

2.3

U.S.A

3.9

3.2

3.3

2.2

Canada

3.3

2.9

2.7

2.4

Germany

1.2

0.9

2.7

1.8

United Kingdom

3.3

1.9

2.7

2.9

France

2.0

1.2

2.0

2.0

Others

Note. f = forecast. From Euromonitor (2007), statistics retrieved August 28, 2007, from Euromonitor Global Market Information Database.

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Table 3 Leading World Exporters, 2001-2006

VALUE (US$ MILLION) 2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

Germany

571,357

615,446

751,679

911,582

977,881

1’125,830

U.S.A

729,100

693,103

724,771

818,520

907,158

1’038,270

China

266,098

325,596

438,228

593,326

761,953

969,380

(6)

(4)

(4)

(3)

(3)

(3)

Japan

403,496

416,726

471,817

565,675

594,905

649,931

France

297,135

311,872

365,517

426,853

444,104

487,290

(World rank)

2006

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Knowledge Acquisition This is not an era in which only the teacher shoulders the responsibility for language learners‟ learning. Technology advances change the world. The Internet may help save time, effort, money, and space, though care should be taken when attempting to use information on the Internet. For example, students can access the Internet whenever and wherever they want as long as computer facilities and Internet connections are affordable and can function well. Thus, to update scientific, technological, and economic knowledge, to name but a few, second/foreign language learners can take advantage of the information on the Internet to increase both their language ability and content knowledge in class and after class. Thus, online educational resources for teachers and students should be supported by the government and schools.

Languages open the door to diverse knowledge. To date, English remains to be the world‟s most-used language in the Web, and Chinese being the second, as can be seen from Figure 1 and Tables 4 below. There are about 366 millions of English speaking Internet users, representing over one-fourth (29.7%) of all the global Internet users. Yet,

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the number of Chinese speaking Internet users has increased substantially (469.6%) over the past few years (2000-2007), which is about three times of the number of English speaking counterparts. Statistics regarding global Internet usage and users are presented in Figure 2 and Table 5. Asia alone accounts for more than one third (37.2%) of the worldâ€&#x;s total number of internet users.

Of these Asian internet users, over one third

(37.1%) are from China (see Table 6). Meanwhile, Table 6 shows that over 60% of population in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan has Internet access, suggesting that the extremely high levels of Internet penetration may yield great potential in acquiring knowledge across disciplines.

Figure 1 Top Ten Languages Used in the Internet

Note.

From Internet World Stats http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm

(2007a),

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retrieved

August

30,

2007,

from

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Table 4 Top Ten Languages Used in the Web (Number of Internet Users by Language) TOP TEN LANGUAGES

% OF ALL INTERNET USERS

INTERNET USERS

BY LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE GROWTH IN INTERNET (%) (2000 – 2007)

English

31.2

365,893,996

157.7

Chinese

15.7

184,001,513

469.6

Spanish

8.7

101,539,204

311.4

Japanese

7.4

86,300,000

83.3

French

5.0

59,207,849

385.4

German

5.0

58,981,592

112.9

Portuguese

4.0

47,326,760

524.7

Korean

2.9

34,120,000

79.2

Italian

2.7

31,481,928

138.5

Arabic

2.5

28,782,300

940.5

Top ten languages

85.0

997,635,142

203.7

Rest of world languages

15.0

175,474,783

440.3

100.0

1,173’109,925

225.0

World total

Note. The statistics cited herein regarding Top Ten Languages Used in the Web were updated for June 30, 2007.

From Internet World Stats (2007a), retrieved August 30, 2007, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm

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Figure 2 World Internet Users

Note.

From Internet World http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Stats

(2007b),

retrieved

August

30,

2007,

from

Table 5 World Internet Usage and Population Statistics POPULATION (2007 EST.)

POPULATION % OF WORLD

3,712,527,624

56.5

436,758,162

37.2

Europe

809,624,686

12.3

321,853,477

27.4

North America

334,538,018

5.1

232,655,287

19.8

Latin American/Caribbean

556,606,627

8.5

109,961,609

9.4

Africa

933,448,292

14.2

33,545,600

2.9

Middle East

193,452,727

2.9

19,539,300

1.7

34,468,443

0.5

18,796,490

1.6

6,574,666,417

100.0

1,173,109,925

100.0

WORLD REGIONS Asia

Oceania/Australia World total

INTERNET USAGE (LATEST DATA)

USAGE % OF WORLD

Note. The statistics cited herein regarding World Internet Usage and Population Statistics are final for June 30, 2007.

From Internet World Stats (2007b), retrieved August 30, 2007, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

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Table 6 Internet Usage and Population by Selected Asian Countries ASIA

POPULATION (2007 EST.)

INTERNET USERS (LATEST DATA)

PENETRATION (% POPULATION)

USERS IN (%)

China

1,317,431,495

162,000,000

12.3

37.1

Japan

128,646,345

86,300,000

67.1

19.8

1,129,667,528

42,000,000

3.7

9.6

51,300,989

34,120,000

66.5

7.8

Indonesia

224,481,720

20,000,000

8.9

4.6

Vietnam

85,031,436

16,511,849

19.4

3.8

Taiwan

23,001,442

14,500,000

63.0

3.3

Philippines

87,236,532

14,000,000

16.0

3.2

Malaysia

28,294,120

13,528,200

47.8

3.1

Pakistan

167,806,831

12,000,000

7.2

2.7

Thailand

67,249,456

8,420,000

12.5

1.9

Hong Kong

7,150,254

4,878,713

68.2

1.1

Singapore

3,654,103

2,421,800

66.3

0.6

India South Korea

Note. The statistics cited herein regarding Internet Usage and Population by Selected Asian Countries were updated for June 30, 2007. From Internet World Stats (2007c), retrieved August 30, 2007, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm

E-tutoring Services Furthermore, thanks to innovative technologies and Internet access, e-tutoring services that use foreign tutors to provide struggling learners alternative avenues for learning at an affordable cost are growing, especially in India (Das & Paulson, 2005; Zablit, 2006). Das and Paulson (2005), for instance, reported that an American tutoree can receive unlimited hours of e-tutoring assistance with homework in various school subjects from Indiaâ€&#x;s e-tutors by simply paying one hundred U.S. dollars per month. By contrast, U.S.-based online tutors charge an average of forty U.S. dollars per hour for

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academic assistance. American tutors‟ hourly fee for face-to-face tutoring can be much more costly than that for online tutoring. Low cost e-tutoring services attract many U.S. students to call e-tutors sitting in India to help with schoolwork.

One 2005 estimate

suggests that there are approximately 20,000 U.S. students seeking academic help from Indian e-tutors, and the e-tutoring market is anticipated to be increased with the help of advanced technology and strong demands by U.S. educational institutions (Zablit, 2006).

Despite the fact that some people question if Indian tutors‟ input would lead to American students‟ possible fossilization of a foreign accent, realistically, money matters, especially for financially limited individuals and families. Not only can e-tutoring services provide learners with support, but they yield workers profitable job opportunities. Yet, in order to promote the global e-tutoring market, especially in the U.S., tutors are expected to be linguistically and culturally proficient. Oftentimes, a good command of the English language is a prerequisite to enter the global workplace.

Learner differences and needs Additionally, Graddol (2006) proposes the „World English Project‟, a plan to convince different countries to recognize the significance of English in global communication and to implement English instruction in schools in order to derive advantages from their language learning.

He predicts that if the project works

satisfactorily, there could be over two billion additional people studying and using English in a decade because English to date has been widely introduced at primary or even preschool level across the globe (Ibid), especially in Asian countries. For example, by 2002, there were over 121 million pupils enrolled in Chinese primary schools (Ministry of Education of the People‟s Republic of China [MOEPRC], 2003). In 2004, the number of primary school students in the East Asia and the Pacific region is roughly 206 million (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2006). If English becomes a mandatory course for all primary school pupils, there is a strong likelihood that Asia serves as a key determinant of the future of English. Consequently, the extensive spread of English to young learners will facilitate the growth of English as an indispensable medium of instruction and communication; hence, success within the academic realm tends to depend above all greatly on the level of English fluency (Graddol, 2006). Graddol further argues that

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language skills alone cannot guarantee English teaching professionals a promising future in the occupational arena. Rather, it is the integration of language skills and additional skills valued in other disciplines (e.g., business, technology, science) that helps shape a competent English teacher.

Thus, while English teaching professionals contemplate the steps for locating their place in the 21st century, it is essential that they think ahead what the future of English is, who their potential students are, and what their students‟ future academic or career concerns relevant to the English language are. Teaching materials and methodologies should be modified according to learner age and needs. Furthermore, native English speakers are not a panacea for English teaching. Rather, “[i]n today‟s complex and globalizing world, well-trained, multilingual and culturally sophisticated teachers are needed to teach learners of English. ... It is time for those involved in the ELT profession to resist the employment of untrained native speaker teachers” (as cited in Graddol, 2006, p.121). While the aforementioned speech seems encouraging for the future of non-native English speaking professionals, it is by no means facile to modify potential English learners‟ and/or their parents‟ preferences for white native speakers. Some Thai English learners, for example, privilege Caucasian native speakers without enquiring much of a teacher‟s professional qualifications in English education (“The Dark Side,” 2002). Ironically enough, some learners give priority to “native looking” over qualified English teaching background (Ibid). Such a phenomenon of the superiority of white native speakers, however, is not uncommon in many Asian countries.

Therefore, both native and non-native English-

speaking teachers must keep abreast of the current development and practice regarding second/foreign language teaching in mind. Well designed and planned teacher training programs can be an aid to knowledge and skill of the language sphere, through which English teachers, either natives or non-natives, can effectively meet the needs of different learners.

Studying abroad International students may promote economic prosperity in the host country.

According to the Open Doors reports released by the Institute of International Education (IIE) (2006a), international students spent approximately $13.5 billion dollars during the

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2005-2006 academic year in the U.S. on academic and living expenditures. Of these international students studying in the U.S., more than half (58%) are Asian students (IIE, 2006a).

Specifically, over 40 percent (41.9%) of international students enrolled in

2005/06 are from India (13.5%), China (11.1%), Korea (10.4%), and Japan (6.9%), the first to fourth leading countries of origin for international students (see Table 7).

Furthermore, Table 7 shows that the number of students from the Republic of Korea and Taiwan increase largely at around 10% and 8%, respectively, in academic year 2005/06, reflecting their continued interest in studying in an English-speaking country like the U.S. Additionally, interestingly enough, the tendency in education actually reflects the importance of economic needs discussed earlier. For example, as can be seen in Table 8, despite an overall preference for European schools, American students have started showing considerable interest in studying abroad in some Asian countries in academic year 2004/05, leading to a 34.9% and 52.7% rise in students enrolled in Chinese and Indian schools, respectively. Not only can American students horn their foreign language skills but also they can enrich their knowledge of the host countryâ€&#x;s economic culture, thus being linguistically and culturally well-prepared for the job market (IIE, 2006b). Moreover, Table 9 and 10 show that business and management is the most popular field of study for international students in the U.S. in 2005/06 (17.9%) and the second popular field of study for U.S. study abroad students in 2004/05 (17.5%). Obviously, the educational development is significantly associated with economic goals.

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Table 7 International Students in the U.S.: Leading Places of Origin, 2004/05 & 2005/06 2005/06 RANK

PLACE OF ORIGIN

2004/05

2005/06

2005/06 % OF STUDENTS

2005/06 % CHANGE

1

India

80,466

76,503

13.5

-4.9

2

China

62,523

62,582

11.1

0.1

3

Korea, Republic of

53,358

58,847

10.4

10.3

4

Japan

42,215

38,712

6.9

-8.3

5

Canada

28,140

28,202

5.0

0.2

6

Taiwan

25,914

27,876

4.9

7.6

7

Mexico

13,063

13,931

2.5

6.6

8

Turkey

12,474

11,622

2.1

-6.8

9

Germany

8,640

8,829

1.6

2.2

10

Thailand

8,637

8,765

1.6

1.5

Note.

From Institute of International Education (2006c), retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=89191

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Table 8 Leading Destinations of U.S. Study Abroad, 2003/04 & 2004/05 2004/05 RANK

DESTINATION

2003/04

2004/05

2004/05 % OF ALL ABROAD

2004/05 % CHANGE

1

United Kingdom

32,237

32,071

15.6

-0.5

2

Italy

21,922

24,858

12.1

13.4

3

Spain

20,080

20,806

10.1

3.6

4

France

13,718

15,374

7.5

12.1

5

Australia

11,418

10,813

5.2

-5.3

6

Mexico

9,293

9,244

4.5

-0.5

7

Germany

5,985

6,557

3.2

9.6

8

China

4,737

6,389

3.1

34.9

9

Ireland

5,198

5,083

2.5

-2.2

10

Costa Rica

4,510

4,887

2.4

8.4

11

Japan

3,707

4,100

2.0

10.6

20

India

1,157

1,767

0.9

52.7

Note.

From Institute of International Education (2006d), retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=89212

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Table 9 International Students in the U.S.: Leading Fields of Study, 2004/05 & 2005/06 FIELD OF STUDY CHANGE

2004/05

2005/06

2005/06 (%)

%

100,079

100,881

17.9

0.8

Engineering

92,952

88,460

15.7

-4.8

Other*

59,700

59,404

10.5

-0.5

Physical & life sciences

49,499

50,168

8.9

1.4

Social sciences

46,085

46,132

8.2

0.1

Mathematics & computer sciences

50,747

45,518

8.1

-10.3

Business & management

Note. * “Other” mainly includes Liberal/General Studies, Communications & Journalism, Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies, and Law. From Institute of International Education (2006e), retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/file_depot/0-10000000/0-10000/3390/folder/50084/Open+Doors+2006_FastFacts.pdf

Table 10 U.S. Study Abroad Students: Leading Fields of Study, 2003/04 & 2004/05 FIELD OF STUDY CHANGE

2003/04

2004/05

2004/05 (%)

%

Social sciences

43,258

46,552

22.6

7.6

Business & management

33,473

36,047

17.5

7.7

Humanities

25,401

27,396

13.3

7.9

Other*

15,010

16,067

7.8

7.0

Fine or applied arts

14,493

15,655

7.6

8.0

Foreign languages

14,340

15,449

7.5

7.7

Note. * “Other” mainly includes Liberal/General Studies, Communications & Journalism, Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies, and Law. From Institute of International Education (2006e), retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/file_depot/0-10000000/0-10000/3390/folder/50084/Open+Doors+2006_FastFacts.pdf

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TOURISM DEMAND Tourism can boost economic growth and create employment opportunities (World Tourism Organization [UNWTO], 2007a).

Based on an analysis regarding the

relationship between tourism and the world economy by the UNWTO (n.d.a), international tourism receipts accounted in 2003 for roughly 6% of global exports of goods of services.

Additionally, the UNWTO (n.d.b) forecasts that yearly international travel will rise to approximately 1.6 billion arrivals by 2020. Of these global arrivals in 2020, the number of intraregional travelers will reach 1.2 billion, amounting to three-fourths of the total tourist arrivals in 2020 (UNWTO, n.d.b). In June 2007, the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer reported that Asia and the Pacific (+9%) has the highest growth of international tourist arrivals among the world regions during the period from January to April in 2007, suggesting that Asia‟s economic strength facilitates its tourism development (UNWTO, 2007b).

Over the past few years, global tourism has been growing (see Figure 3 below).

Yet, based on the data derived from the World Tourism Organization, Graddol (2006) concludes that “[t]here were around 763 million international travelers in 2004, but nearly three-quarters [74%] of visits involved visitors from a non-English-speaking country travelling to a non-English-speaking destination” (p.29). In other words, the majority of tourists will be “intraregional”. For example, Asians who speak different languages (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, May, Vietnamese) will take trips more frequently in Asia and the Pacific than in other regions. Thus, teaching and learning English as a lingua franca is a potential solution that many countries have adopted over the past few years. The question that whether other languages will take over English as a lingua franca in the world has yet to be answered.

However, obviously, language

proficiency in general, English fluency in particular, is one of the key criteria for effective communication with tourists in the world. Thus, the tendency in tourism is closely related to economic factors and language teaching trends.

Now that tourism demand can generate rich business and employment opportunities for language professionals worldwide, it is significant to know exactly what the potential tourism destinations are and who the possible tourism spenders are, so as to

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set clear-cut and attainable goals appropriate to language learners. Table 11, 12, and 13 list the world‟s leading tourism destinations and spenders. Table 11 shows that France, Spain, and the U.S. are the three largest tourism destinations in the world. In 2006, France has the largest number of tourist arrivals, followed by Spain. Despite third in arrivals, the U.S. is the top destination for tourists in terms of tourism receipts. Germany, nevertheless, is the world‟s biggest spender on international tourism (see Table 12). The major challenge hosts and tourists face is that barely can either of them have a good command of various languages (e.g., French, Spanish, English, German). Similarly, China, the most visited country in the Asia-Pacific region (see Table 13), needs to tackle different tourists‟ linguistic problems, such as providing multilingual tour guides for the 2008 Olympics, so as to take advantage of the benefits of global tourism. Since Asia is an increasingly promising market for global tourism, English language teaching can be a realistic and efficient approach to complying with the requirements of the tourists across the world, especially in multilingual Asia.

Figure 3 UNWTO's Tourism 2020 Vision

Note.

From World Tourism http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html

Organization

(n.d.b),

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retrieved

September

1,

2007,

from

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Table 11 World’s Top Tourism Destinations, 2004-2006 2006 RANK

COUNTRY OF DESTINATION

2004

2005

2006*

International tourist arrivals (million) World

761

802

842

1

France

75.1

75.9

79.1

2

Spain

52.4

55.9

58.5

3

United States

46.1

49.2

51.1

4

China

41.8

46.8

49.6

5

Italy

37.1

36.5

41.1

633

678

735

International tourism receipts (US$ billion) World 1

United States

74.5

81.8

85.7

2

Spain

45.2

48.0

51.1

3

France

45.3

44.0

46.3

4

Italy

35.7

35.4

38.1

5

China

25.7

29.3

33.9

Note. * = provisional figure or data from World Tourism Organization (2007b, June), UNWTO world tourism barometer [Electronic version], 5(2), pp. 8-9.

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Table 12 World’s Top Tourism Spenders, 2004-2006

US $ BILLION

2006 RANK

COUNTRY 2004 World

2005

2006*

633

678

735

1

Germany

71.6

74.4

74.8

2

United States

65.8

69.0

72.0

3

United Kingdom

56.5

59.6

62.6

4

France

28.8

30.5

31.2

5

Japan

38.2

27.3

26.9

6

China

19.1

21.8

24.3

7

Italy

20.5

22.4

23.1

8

Canada

15.9

18.4

20.8

9

Russian Federation

15.7

17.8

18.8

10

Korea, Republic of

12.4

15.4

18.2

Note. * = provisional figure or data from World Tourism Organization (2007b, June), UNWTO world tourism barometer [Electronic version], 5(2), p. 11.

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Table 13 Top Tourism Destinations in Asia and the Pacific Region, 2004-2006 2006 RANK

DESTINATION

2004

2005

2006*

International tourist arrivals (million) 1

China

41.8

46.8

49.6

2

Malaysia

15.7

16.4

17.5

3

Hong Kong (China)

13.7

14.8

15.8

4

Thailand

11.7

11.6

13.9

5

Macao (China)

8.3

9.0

10.7

International tourism receipts (US$ billion) 1

China

25.7

29.3

33.9

2

Australia

15.2

16.9

17.8

3

Thailand

10.0

9.6

12.4

4

Hong Kong (China)

9.0

10.3

11.6

5

Malaysia

8.2

8.5

9.6

Note. * = provisional figure or data from World Tourism Organization (2007b, June), UNWTO world tourism barometer [Electronic version], 5(2), pp. 8-9.

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CONCLUSION Language teaching trends cannot be determined simply based on a microenvironmental factors, like teachers, students, or schools. Macro-environmental factors like political, economic, educational or entertainment variables may significantly shape the language policies, materials, and methodologies as well.

For instance, the political

reactions to a shortage of translators in the 9/11 event lead to Americanâ€&#x;s growing need for learning of Arabic to safeguard national security. Politically driven organizations, such as the United Nations, often implicitly but probably intentionally prioritize the importance of world languages through the official languages they use (e.g., English, French) in intergovernmental communication and collaboration.

Thus, political concerns urge the

reform in language education, or precisely, mainly in English education.

Certainly,

economic and tourism development is unlikely without global security and peace. Further, domestic or global economic trends orient students toward their linguistic world, and linguistic selections will largely determine an individualâ€&#x;s economic fate. For example, the rapid and ongoing economic growth in China and India help generate numerous Internet users, e-tutors, and international students abroad, whose technological, linguistic, and cultural learning in turn accelerate economic development. Hence, English and Chinese can serve as a window to economic, educational, and technological success.

Stable and

healthy economic climate then promotes the quality of life, resulting in tourism demands, and touristsâ€&#x; expenditure may contribute to overall socio-economic well-being (e.g., job creation) worldwide. To date, English remains one of the favorite lingua franca used by global travelers.

English teaching trends are largely affected by political, economic, educational, and entertainment factors discussed earlier, which however are intertwined and mixed depending on different learners and learning contexts. The prevalence of English may temporarily solve the political conflicts stemming from language barriers. However, in the long run, the English language alone is inadequate to answer the global needs.

Rather, English should be integrated with content knowledge and specialized skills, such as business and technology. This does not imply that basic English training can be neglected. Specialty in the fields other than foreign/second languages may be trained in

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an intensive period and attain the desired outcome shortly. English nevertheless may take a learner at least years to be good at. English teachers should help students build a solid foundation regarding language skills, thus making knowledge or skills across discipline less laborious.

English teachers should equip themselves with specialized skills across disciplines other than the language skills.

Yet, oftentimes, the majority of English teachers lack

specialized skills other than the English language.

Similarly, those who are good at

specialized skills are usually not proficient in English. If luckily, a person with a good command of both English and specialized skills is available, often, s/he would seek as high wages as possible in other fields. How to recruit and retain qualified English teachers is an issue yet to be resolved.

English for specific purposes (e.g., business English, technical English, academic English, military English) can be an effective shortcut to meet critical needs. For example, English teachers and military officers can collaborate with each other, sharing mutual specialty and providing military-based knowledge and skills both in learners‟ first and second/foreign languages. First language can cognitively help English learners acquire content knowledge more efficiently. It is not necessary to be eradicated.

English learners need to conjure up a global picture of the future of English and their career or academic concerns on their own. Meanwhile, linguistic skills apart, learners need to learn to appreciate and respect second/foreign culture and people.

Last but not least, content-based instruction, teacher collaboration (e.g., the natives and non-natives, language teachers and content teachers), and multi-disciplinary training for both teachers and learners are needed. In other words, “[k]ids need to learn how to leap across disciplines because that is how breakthroughs now come about.

It‟s

interdisciplinary combinations – design and technology, mathematics and art – that produce YouTube and MySpace [or Google]” (as cited in Wallis and Steptoe, 2006, p.

52).

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AFTERTHOUGHTS I would like to return to the topic: Whatâ€&#x;s common in Mexico? The English fever in Asia coupled with the economic growth and high demand of communicatively competent users of English through Asia has thrown light to the situation in Mexico. In spite of many differences in teaching English in these two regions, there are shared challenges, opportunities, and strategies. Between China and Mexico, for instance, we have the same issue of dense population, and we have the same challenges of training highly qualified English teachers who will help learners build high-level communicative competence. The crucial point is how to work with the government to realize the importance of educational investment and how to invest in teacher development and curricula innovation. It is the overall curricula including teaching objectives, teaching materials, teaching methods, and testing and assessment that will make impact of the quality of English education.

Our

language teachers are contributing to the overall educational reform through our associations and organizations, and we shall first of all change our mindsets and think outside the box. We are creating the future of English education, and we are dedicated to making it happen.

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REFERENCES Brown, H. D. (1987). Principles of language learning and teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Das, A., & Paulson, A. (2005, May 23). Need a tutor? Call India. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved August 31, 2007, from Global NewsBank database.

The dark side of English language education in Thailand. (2002, October 8-14). Bangkok Post: Learning Post. Retrieved August 28, 2007, from http://www.bangkokpost.com/education/site2002/cvoc0802.htm Euromonitor. (2007). Statistics retrieved August 28, 2007, from Euromonitor Global Market Information Database.

Graddol, D. (2006). English next [Electronic version]. London: British Council.

Institute of International Education (2006a, November 13). New enrollment of foreign students in the U.S. climbs in 2005/06. Retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=89251 Institute of International Education (2006b, November 13). U.S. students abroad top 200,000, increase by 8 percent. Retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=89252 Institute of International Education (2006c). Open doors 2006: Report on international educational exchange, leading 20 places of origin, 2004/05 & 2005/06. Retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=89191 Institute of International Education. (2006d). Open doors 2006: Report on international educational exchange, leading 20 destinations of U.S. study abroad, 2003/04 & 2004/05. Retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=89212 Institute of International Education. (2006e). Open doors 2006 fast facts. Retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/file_depot/0-10000000/010000/3390/folder/50084/Open+Doors+2006_FastFacts.pdf Internet World Stats. (2007a). Internet world users by language.

Retrieved August 30, 2007, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm Internet World Stats. (2007b). World Internet users and population stats. Retrieved August 30, 2007, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm Internet World Stats. (2007c). Internet usage in Asia. Retrieved August 30, 2007, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm Klaidman, D., & Isikoff, M. (2003, October 27). Lost in translation. Newsweek, 142(17), 26.

Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. (2003, February 27). Survey and analysis of education statistics in 2002. Retrieved August 31, 2007, from http://www.moe.edu.cn/english/planning_s.htm Nieto, S. (2002). Language, culture, and Teaching. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc..

UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2006). Teachers and educational quality: Monitoring global needs for 2015 [Electronic version]. Montreal: Author.

U.S. Department of State. (2006, January 5). National security language initiative. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/58733.htm Wallis, C., & Steptoe, S. (2006, December 18). How to bring our schools out of the 20th century. Time, 168(25), 50-56.

World Tourism Organization. (2007a, June 29). Strong world tourism growth in 2007. Retrieved September 1, 2007, from http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html World Tourism Organization. (2007b, June). UNWTO world tourism barometer [Electronic version], 5(2), 1-17. Madrid: Author.

World Tourism Organization. (n.d.a). Tourism and the world economy. Retrieved September 1, 2007, from http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html World Tourism Organization. (n.d.b). Tourism 2020 vision. Retrieved September 1, 2007, from http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html Zablit, J. (2006, October, 12). Having trouble with homework? Call India. Agence France-Presse. Retrieved August 31, 2007, from Global NewsBank database.

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A PROFESSIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON TEACHER EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT FRANK FARMER Universidad de Quintana Roo Unidad Cozumel Cozumel, Quintana Roo, México This paper takes a specifically professional approach to issues which need to be resolved in both pre-service and in-service education for language teachers. The type of professionalism which guides the analysis presented is represented in the UK by the practice of architecture and medicine. In the literature on English language teaching (ELT), professionalism is generally thought to be a good thing and is variously thought to prepare student teachers for what they will have to do as teachers, or to be competent academics. Inservice education is thought to be beneficial when it leads to personal and teaching skill development, particularly through reflective practice. This paper discusses positive and negative aspects of both in-service and pre-service teacher education.

Key words: Professionalism, ELT, initial education, development.

S

ince Alan Maley’s open letter to the ‘profession’ (Maley 1992), English language teachers have been under pressure to get qualifications and to improve their

performance as teachers and academics. However, it is often unclear what qualifications will be acceptable to legitimize practice as teachers and/or academics. Once qualified, teachers are encouraged to participate in continuing professional development, but it is not always clear what the effect is supposed to be on teaching.

Many of the issues raised by Maley (1992) are still valid. Starting with ambiguities in the definition of professionalism, he goes on to review the wide range of apparently acceptable qualifications, the organizations that represent employers and teachers, and the process of professionalization. He concludes that it is unrealistic to expect that English language teachers will ever become full professionals in the sense that lawyers and medical practitioners are professional, but that is nevertheless desirable to aim at this kind of professionalism.

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VIEWS OF PROFESSIONALISM Goode (1969) makes a list of the requirements for professionalism under the general headings of Professional knowledge and the Service ideal, and includes extended descriptions of all the usually accepted requirements of knowledge, skills and attitudes as well as the professional organizations needed to define and enforce standards. Goode holds that these are ‘generating traits’; that is, if a group of workers acquires these characteristics, it becomes professional. The causal link in this view is not proven, and it may be the case that professional approaches to the delivery of expert services in fact generate the observable attributes of professionalism.

Dingwall and Fenn (1987) examine professionalism in this light and show how professionalism may work as a socio economic system for the accountable delivery of expert services. The fundamental problem with expert services is that at first glance the expert holds all the cards. They claim to have the knowledge skills and attitudes to solve the client’s problem, but the client has no way of knowing whether the service could have been better, or just as good but cheaper, or whether undesirable outcomes could have been avoided. The client is vulnerable because of the difficult nature of the problems that are brought before professional advisers and the practical, emotional and financial consequences of failure to solve them. Each client’s problem is unique, and there is no book or web page that the client can consult to challenge professional advice. Dingwall and Fenn (1987: 61) point out that ‘the judgment of the professional stabilizes the unpredictable into a basis sufficiently reliable for human action’. That is their job.

These professional activities are controlled by society in two main ways. The most fundamental is the law suit for negligence or incompetence. Because professionals have to diagnose clients’ problems as well as framing them in a way that makes them soluble, they cannot resort to ‘small print’ to limit their responsibility. The problem with a law suit is that it only applies after something has gone wrong, and in any case needs the testimony of the professional peers of the accused expert to give evidence. Society’s second defense, then, is some kind of official recognition of the qualifications required for practice. But this too has problems. Charlatans can be well-meaning as well as fraudulent, and the claims of any group of workers to be the only people able to solve difficult problems need to be

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examined very closely. Monopoly of practice can only be granted reluctantly and provisionally, and not to protect practitioners but to protect vulnerable clients.

This view proposes a strong position for professional bodies. A professional body is needed to make the argument in the first place for monopoly of practice to protect a vulnerable public. It is needed to act as gatekeeper so that only competent persons enter the profession, and to act as policeman against members who fail to uphold the standards of the profession. Competent members cannot be protected by the professional body if it does not cooperate fully in the discipline of incompetent members. Failure to do so would result in the loss of monopoly of practice. The Architects Registration Board (undated), for instance, gives its mission statement as ‘protecting the consumer and safeguarding the reputation of architects’. Contrary to popular belief, there is no conflict of interest in serving this dual function.

Professionalization as a process has been described in two very different ways by Wilensky (1964) and Abbott (1991). Wilensky, examining evidence from a range of professions, sees it as a bottom up process in which practitioners sharing appropriate skills, knowledge and attitudes establish their competence in the eyes of the public, start a university level training programme, and finally apply for full professional status and monopoly of practice. Abbott cites evidence from the development of the medical profession in the USA to suggest that the whole apparatus of professional organization and education resulted from the imposition of mandatory regulation by the government as a top down process. However these opposing views come closer together if we accept that at the beginning of the process Abbott describes the distinction between real medical doctors and quacks was already clear, so that government would be negligent in not acting quickly to protect the public.

PROFESSIONALISM IN ELT The issue, as has been shown, is not the protection of ‘qualified’ practitioners from losing their jobs to the unqualified, but rather the protection of vulnerable clients. The first question then is, are our clients practically, emotionally and financially vulnerable?

Perhaps a case can be made for all three, as the consequences of failure to learn English

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do indeed have an impact in all of these in many parts of the world. The second question is more difficult. Who are the ‘qualified’ ELT practitioners and can they show that only they can do the job? One way of thinking about this may be to consider different routes towards qualified ELT practitioner status and to see where the locus of control in gatekeeper and police functions may lie.

One route towards qualified practitioner status may be through a mix of native speaker language skills, personal commitment, and in service training and development.

People enter ELT for all sorts of reasons, but that does not automatically imply a lack of commitment. An example may be an educated native speaker, with a period of on the job training followed by something more formal like ICELT or DELTA. Although there may well be benefits to the practitioner in getting a qualification, it is not clear that clients benefit.

After all, the practitioner entered without relevant qualifications, so that is presumably true of others in the organization too. The employing institution is in this case acting as both gatekeeper and policeman, and the criteria applied are not those of a professional organization.

Entry through academic qualifications is no better, in professional terms. Academics are supposed to be able to review the literature and contribute to it. But these skills have little to do with professional practice, and again the gatekeeper and policeman is the employing institution.

These gatekeeper and policing activities are not necessarily misplaced in institutions that value teachers’ craft knowledge and skills. The teaching and learning of languages does in fact proceed, with some degree of success. Arguably, it is through the dedication of practicing teachers engaging in their own craft development that the teaching of languages comes closest to being a truly professional activity. However, teachers need to be able to plan their work so that it fits into a working day, and carry out activities that make sense to them both instinctively and in accordance with their preferred reading, which is not the same thing as meeting learners’ needs.

Ur (1997) distinguishes between professional and lay discourse about language learning, between ELT professionals and amateurs, between teaching professionalism and technical expertise, and between professional teaching and academic work. These -4-

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concepts expand on the issues raised by Maley (1992), and help to define what teachers themselves may believe about their own professionalism.

The ELT profession is not as underdeveloped as this analysis may suggest. There is a great deal of valuable material in the literature, and a professional focus may be one way of putting order into the information to facilitate the clarification of professionalism in ELT. In the following sections of this paper we will look at descriptions of the teaching service, entry credentials, continuing professional development and accountability.

DESCRIBING THE PROFESSIONAL TEACHING SERVICE Authors are generally cautious about prescribing a teaching service. Members of the profession hold different beliefs about the nature of language, how it is learned and how learning can be supported, and the research literature neither proves nor disproves these beliefs. Nevertheless there are learning support actions that seem sensible and which a failure to act upon may be interpreted as negligent, in a professional sense. Brown (1986) is concerned to find that in the communicative classroom there is often an emphasis on social aspects of the learner environment at the expense of the learner support she considers to be the teacher’s professional duty. Amongst the activities she finds lacking are diagnostic tests to discover learners’ strengths and weaknesses, grading of materials and tasks for cognitive as well as linguistic difficulty, and knowledge of the syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology and orthography of English as well as mastery of the use of the language. These are areas of knowledge skills and attitudes which, she suggests, distinguish teaching English from the teaching of mathematics by an English speaker.

Yates and Muchisky (2003), nearly twenty years after Brown’s (1986) paper, find similar deficiencies in the conceptualization of teacher education and the lack of a clear idea of the disciplinary knowledge required for language teaching. For Yates and Muchisky, there must be some basis for reflective practice grounded in knowledge about language, its structure, how it is learnt and the options available for teaching.

A useful catalogue of ELT services is given in TESOL (2000). TESOL’s approach is firmly rooted in business management techniques. Their catalogue of services is intended to focus on specifying what the service provider will do. However, from a professional

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viewpoint, the service provider is required to do everything necessary to meet the client’s needs and Farmer (2006: 137-139) presents a modified version of TESOL’s list services for professional purposes.

This catalogue is prescriptive. It gives a check list, not a menu, of things that need to be attended to in a professional teaching service. It may be observed that in Farmer’s analysis, the area of ELT with most services is Assessment and Learner Gains, with 14 services identified. Instruction is in second place with only 7 services, and just ahead of Staffing, Professional Development and Staff Evaluation with 6 services. From a professional viewpoint, services concerned with diagnosis and evaluation of learners assume a much greater importance than is normally accorded them

ENTRY CREDENTIALS In ELT, there are different views of what pre-service education should be like. For Gabrielatos (2001, 2002) and Eayers (1997) initial education is principally a tool for regulating the profession, restricting entry to suitably qualified people. Widdowson (1992) questions the qualifications of ELT teacher trainers and the assumption that native speakers make the best teachers. He points out that knowing about learning English may be may be more useful to learners than knowing the language, and draws attention to both grammar and pragmatics as underdeveloped communicative resources. His observations by implication question the validity of internationally respected courses of teacher preparation such as ICELT. Regulation is also an issue for Pennington (1992) who notes that a doctorate is necessary to be taken seriously in the academic community while Brumfit and Coleman (1995) hope that by forming a professional organization professional standards may be imposed and maintained in teaching.

It has been shown in this paper that the issue in professional education is not so much recognizing the academic achievements or the practical experience of practitioners, but rather the protection of vulnerable clients. Pennington (1989) suggests a list of competences appropriate for courses leading to teacher qualification organized into attitudes, knowledge and skills mirroring the typical content of teacher training manuals

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such as Gower, Phillips and Walters (1995). Pre-service education, from a professional standpoint, needs to prepare the practitioner with the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to protect the student client, and the syllabus is not decided by the self appointed experts, but by what the courts hold an expert advisor should have done. Farmer (2006: 148-149) addresses the knowledge and skills needed to carry out the teaching service described above in a professional context, and finds that evaluation and diagnostic skills predominate, followed by administration and management of the learning process, with actual instruction being only one item out of seven.

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT In-service education for teachers in general is problematic in both form and content.

Eldridge (2005) notes that in-service training can be and often is used as a directive tool by managers or to implement curriculum changes. He argues that the goal should be ‘the development of autonomous, fully engaged, skilled professionals’ which is clearly in conflict with managerial approaches. For Nixon et al. (2001) professional development as a teacher should be part of academic life in any discipline. ELT professionals in academic institutions may be relatively advanced in this compared to colleagues in other disciplines.

Friedman and Phillips (2004) suggest divorcing continuing professional development from issues of evaluation and accountability so that practitioners can concentrate on the refinement and improvement of professional practice through reflective approaches. But for Gabrielatos (2002) ‘reflective practice can only lead to development when it is informed and principled’.

Professional development is clearly an area that suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity. Appropriate reflective practice seems to be desirable, and is a strong characteristic of professional action (Schön 1983). However, appropriate professional reflection may be caused by professional accountability rather than a desire to be a better professional. The requirement is not that the learner’s problems are attended in an exceptional way, but rather that they are dealt with in a reasonable way by someone with appropriate knowledge skills and attitudes. In-service education, then, may seek to maintain rather than improve professionalism.

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Knowledge needs to be updated, but research does not generally proceed by revolutions but rather by clarifying and explaining matters that were previously less clear but nevertheless sufficiently well understood for professional action. In-service education will therefore rarely be required to communicate significant changes in the professional’s knowledge base. Skills too are relatively stable as part of a professional’s equipment. It may be that while skill improvement is a valid personal goal, it may not be a necessary professional one assuming that initial pre-service education has set a skill threshold.

Attitudes, however, are perhaps more volatile. A teacher could not argue in court that some aspect of attention to the learner was not their job, on the grounds that they had not been educated to do it. The judge would then wish to know why they did not know the job had to be done or how to do it, whose job it was, and which document sets out that division of responsibility. A professional approach assumes that the whole service is the professional’s business, including the administration, record keeping and all the less exciting aspects, as well as the challenging and difficult parts of the job. Attitudes in this context correspond to Pratte’s (1981) ‘dispositional knowledge’ that is, the willingness to do what the expert professional sees has to be done, rather than adherence to any agreed schedule of work. Typically, continuing professional development in architecture in the UK is of this kind, and the attitudes necessary are generated as a response to legal actions where some aspect of normal practice has been found to be negligent by the courts.

ACCOUNTABILITY For many practitioners, the practice of ELT is largely about handling classroom groups, while being aware of learning objectives. The professional service offered to the public is the one teachers are educated to provide through training manuals (see for instance Gower, Phillips and Walters 1995), master’s degrees which may contain no skills based work at all (Kelly undated) and accredited programmes such as ICELT and DELTA from Cambridge ESOL. However, Brindley (1997) notes that assessment skills may not be sufficiently covered in any of these programmes. Gabrielatos (2002) is concerned that unqualified teachers may be responsible for attending groups of students who are paying

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for receiving expert services but in fact are financing teaching practice so that their teacher can become a better teacher in the future.

The model of professionalism developed in this paper suggests that it is not primarily the profession that decides what the service should be, but rather the courts, after the event. The exact definition of an acceptable expert service has less to do with what is known about ELT or the teacher’s beliefs than the court’s perception of appropriate action. Professionals in other disciplines are guided in these matters by their codes of ethics or professional practice, the meaning of which is settled through court cases. There has been a general reluctance by the courts so far to hear cases of alleged negligence in education, but in principle there is no reason to suppose that they will continue to be excluded (Jung and Robertson 2006). A proposal for a code of practice to guide practitioners seems to be required urgently. Dickey (2006) takes a legalistic approach and discusses a code based on the American Association of University Professors’ document. However, many of the provisions seem difficult to interpret and the document is rather long. Farmer (2006: 133) proposes a simpler and more client centred code based on the General Medical Council’s model, with 14 items. The first six deal with the professional’s treatment of their client. Items 7-11 control the personal competence and ethics of the practitioner, while items 12-13 control damage that may be inflicted on the client by the practitioner or their colleagues and item 14 obliges the practitioner to maximize the use of their colleagues’ knowledge and skills for the client’s benefit.

Some of these provisions will be difficult and challenging, some will be relatively simple and yet others may involve actions not spelt out in the code, such as when and how to consult parents, for example, in the case of young learners. It is local compliance with the principles implied in the code that makes professional practice necessarily local and culture sensitive.

Kizuka (2006) is critical of attempts to impose professionalism on English teachers in Japan, and feels that the overall effect may be to reduce real professionalism. In particular, she is concerned at an official over-reliance on TOEFL or TOEIC scores as an indicator of teaching skills, which is not the purpose of these exams. Combined with an

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initial teacher education that has only five weeks of teaching practice and a syllabus that does not include reflective practice, she thinks learners will not be suitably supported.

Clandfield and Kerr (2005) use a dictionary definition of professionalism to start exploring the implications for ELT. They question the assumption that professionalism is always desirable by pointing out that it may disguise attempts to control and limit people in certain occupations such as teaching, thus perhaps reducing their real professionalism as exercised through independence of action.

A qualified practitioner is one who can deliver the services clients need to the standards given in the code of conduct as interpreted by the courts. There is no reason to hold a professional accountable to anyone other than their client, leaving them free to deliver the service using all their skills and knowledge to facilitate desirable outcomes and limit or eliminate undesirable ones. This is a much more demanding brief than any that employing organizations may try to impose for audit or evaluation purposes, and should be welcomed by employers as well as clients. Such an approach would meet the objections to professionalism raised by Kizuka (2006) Clandfield and Kerr (2005).

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CONCLUSIONS 1.

The professionalism Maley thought was unattainable is in fact achievable with appropriate education and accountability systems.

2.

Professionalization is a bottom up process. Qualified practitioners are those who demonstrably provide a better service than those who have some other credential. It is the courts and not the experts which decide who the real experts are and assign responsibilities. What constitutes an acceptable service is therefore decided locally, by what seems reasonable to the courts and the expert witnesses they may call.

3.

Professional organisations are not accredited for the protection of qualified practitioners, but for the protection of a vulnerable public.

4.

Things that do not define professionalism: a.

having qualifications

b.

doing research

c. doing action research d. continuing professional development e. experience f. belonging to a professional organization

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REFERENCES Abbott, A. 1991. ‘The order of professionalization’ Work and Occupations 18 355-384.

Architects Registration Board undated. ‘Architect’s Code, Standards of Conduct and Practice’[available on-line] http://www.arb.org.uk/frame.html [last accessed 19/06/03].

Brindley, G.1997.

‘Assessment and the language teacher’ The Language Teacher Online [on-line] http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/titl/97/sep/brindley/html [last accessed 07/02/02] Brown, G. 1986. Grading and professionalism in ELT. In Meara, P. (Ed.) Spoken Language. Papers from the annual meeting of the British Association of Applied Linguistics, Edinburgh, Scotland 1985. 3-14 Brumfit, C. and H. Coleman 1995. Talking shop: professional standards in ELT. ELT Journal 49/2 176-184.

Clandfield, L. and P. Kerr 2005. How professional do you want to be? MED Magazine 29. [available on-line] http://www.macmillandictionary.com/MED-Magazine/april2005/29-Feature-Professional-print.htm [last accessed 27/06/07] Dickey, R. J. 2006. Assessing ethical standards for EFL teaching professionalism. Tesol Law Journal 1/1 6-23[on-line] http://www.tesollaw.com/Vol_1_2006 [last accessed 13/11/06] Dingwall, R. and P. Fenn 1987. ‘A respectable profession? Sociological and economic perspectives on the regulation of professional services’ International review of Law and Economics 7: 51-64.

Eayrs, M. 1997. ELT- a profession or just a rag bag? [available on-line] http://www.eayers.com/ELT/writings/texts/ELT_Prof.htm [last accessed 13/11/06] Eldridge, J. 2005. ‘Rendering unto Caesar: the ambivalent case of in-service teacher education.’ Iatefl Teacher Development SIG newsletter1/05 6-10 Farmer, F. 2006. Professionalism in ELT. México DF. Plaza y Valdés.

Friedman, A. and M. Phillips. 2004. Continuing professional development: developing a vision. Journal of Education and Work 17/3 361-376.

Gabrielatos, C. 2001. Shopping at the ELT supermarket: principled decisions and practices. [available on-line] http://www.gabrielatos.com/ELTSupermarket.htm [last accessed 13/11/06] Gabrielatos, C. 2002. Standards and development in ELT. ELT News 165. 11.

Goode, W. J. 1969. ‘The Theoretical Limits of Professionalization’ in Etzione A (Ed.) The Semi- Professions and their Organization. New York: The Free Press.

Gower, R., D. Phillips and S. Walters 1995. Teaching Practice Handbook. Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann Jung, J and P. Robertson 2006. Educational malpractice in TESOL. Tesol Law Journal 1/1 5-15[on-line] http://www.tesol-law.com/Vol_1_2006 [last accessed 13/11/06] Kelly, G. undated. Can the DELTA help you teach EAP? [on-line] http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/eapdeltapf_gerald.htm [last accessed 01/09/06] Kizuka, M. 2006. Professionalism in English language education in Japan. English Language Teacher Education and Development 9 55-62 Maley, A. 1992. An open letter to the ‘profession’. ELT Journal 46/1 96-99 Nixon, J., A. Marks, S. Rowland and M. Walker 2001. Towards a new academic professionalism: a manifesto of hope. British Journal of Sociology of Education 22/2 227-244.

Pennington, M. C. 1989. Directions for faculty evaluation in language education. Language, Culture and Curriculum 2/3 167-193.

Pennington, M. C. 1992. Second class or economy? The status of the English language teaching profession in tertiary education. Prospect, 7(3), 719. [available on-line] http://sunzi1.lib.hk/hkjo/view/10/1000026.pdf [last accessed 13/11/06] Pratte, R. 1981. ‘Analytic philosophy of education: a historical perspective.’ in Solis, J. (Ed.) Philosophy of Education since mid- century. New York.

Teachers College Press.

Schön, D. A. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Aldershot: Ashgate.

TESOL 2000. Program Standards for Adult Education ESOL Programs . Alexandria Va., TESOL. Widdowson, H.G. 1992. ELT and EL teachers. ELT Journal 46/4 333-339 Wilensky, H. 1964 ‘The professionalization of everyone?’ American Journal of Sociology 70 137-158.

Yates, R. and D. Muchisky. 2003. On reconceptualizing teacher education. TESOL Quarterly 37/1 135-147

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ESTABLISHING A MENTORING PROGRAMME FOR IN-SERVICE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS AT A MEXICAN LANGUAGE CENTRE ADRIANA RODRÍGUEZ WONG & REBECA HUERTA DE LA GARZA Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas Tamaulipas, Tamps, México In this article the authors explore mentoring in in-service contexts and suggest a process to be followed to introduce a mentoring programme in a language centre in a university in México. A literature review outlining mentoring contexts in education in general, and then specifically in the area of English language teaching, as well as some models of how mentoring works is included. Sherman et al.‟s (2000) framework is used to explain the procedures to be followed to implement mentoring programmes. The opinions, perspectives and experiences of English language teachers were researched as a basis to identify whether or not a mentoring programme would be suitable for the language centre, and, to propose the implementation of the scheme. A questionnaire and two semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data from the teachers. Sherman et al.‟s framework was adapted to make specific proposals for establishing an initial mentoring programme in the language centre.

A

mentoring programme can be seen as a pilot programme for in-service teachers‟

induction, support and development. The idea of helping teachers through a mentor-

mentee relationship is also related to raising awareness on teaching reflection, selfenquiry and critical thinking as vital components for continued professional growth and empowerment. Mentoring does not claim to solve all teaching problems, nor does it claim to satisfy every need. It is not the “new panacea” (Stephenson, 1997) but it does promise to be a support system for new teachers. The mentoring programme aims to improve the quality of support offered to newly qualified teachers, who are newcomers in a teaching institution, and teachers who are experiencing career transitions such as moving from language teacher to teacher trainer positions. Furthermore, mentoring promotes a culture of synergy within the institution. As a result, teachers can ease into their new roles; communication can be encouraged; and apathy towards sharing experiences can be reduced. This research explores the extent to which English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers sense a need for support and opportunities for professional development. The study also provides a basis for a proposal to implement a mentoring programme to support in-service EFL teachers in a language centre. The study took place in a language -1-

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centre in a state university in north-eastern Mexico. An initial SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis (White, 1991) was used in order to identify these issues.

The purpose of the SWOT was to help determine the suitability of implementing a mentoring program in the centre. The results encouraged us to carry out the study and to develop a proposal. Some of the main points identified in the initial SWOT analysis below were later used in the design of the questionnaire also used in the study.

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats): main points identified Weaknesses

Strengths  the institution is in a developmental process with different projects running  a group of teachers began their master degree programs, which motivated other teachers to adopt other continuous learning programs  most of the teachers are young and new in the profession; therefore, innovation and change are easier to digest, compared to older staff who may be more resistant to change

 no adequate induction period for mentoring to take place  no available department of teacher development/human resources for ongoing teacher support  lack of awareness and intervention styles when giving feedback in a postobservation meeting  a minority of teachers with teaching background

Opportunities  the use of a virtual portal for English language teachers to share teaching experiences  contact with different national and international universities which could support the start of a mentoring interest group

Threats  non-collaborative teachers

 foreign teacher visitors

 lack of time for mentoring activities

 the introduction of mentoring through an existing induction meeting: thus, induction could be extended and formalized as a programme

 lack of funding for the programme

 opportunities to use mentoring skills in the peer observation cycle already established

THE RESEARCH APPROACH The research was conducted by means of a survey. Questionnaires and semistructured interviews were used as research instruments. First, questionnaires were administered in order to identify teachers‟ experiences and opinions concerning different

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aspects related to mentoring. The questionnaire contained 14 items which included factual questions, yes/no questions, multiple choice questions, and open ended questions. It was divided into four sections: 1) personal information; 2) teaching at the language centre; 3) views on teacher development; and 4) open questions. The questionnaire was used to find out if any of the teachers were already playing mentor roles, and to identify prospective mentors, mentees and coordinators. Follow-up interviews with two groups of teachers, experienced and less experienced, were used to confirm and to further explore the data collected by the initial research method (the SWOT). The interview aimed to obtain additional information about the teachers‟ experience with peer and institutional support, and their ideas about building stronger support programmes in the institution. Two different kinds of interviews, with five questions each, were used; one for prospective mentors and one for potential mentees. These two groups were identified by means of their responses in the questionnaire. Some interview questions were tailored as a result of specific responses from the survey. To avoid misunderstandings, the language used in the research instruments was kept simple, that is to say, without any specific terminology related to mentoring. Some limitations were: 1) Lack of mentoring awareness in the institution, hence, the avoidance of mentoring terminology; 2) Time and approachability of the subjects (Overall, 13 teachers out of 35 completed the questionnaire in full and were available for the interview); 3) Because mentoring is still relatively new, there is little research on this issue in English language teaching with a focus on in-service contexts.

FINDINGS The findings resulting from the questionnaire and interviews were as follows:  1 male and 2 female teachers were recognized as mentors or prospective coordinators as well, while the other 10 were identified as mentees  Some teachers were interested in both ongoing support and induction.  All teachers have found a peer who has been an informal mentor (as educator, supporter, and role-model)  Other mentors‟ roles identified by the teachers: friend, observer, adviser and experienced teacher  Most teachers agree on the importance of activities which could be embarked upon in mentoring

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 Some teachers noted that mentoring activities could help them to develop professionally.  Teachers perceived the need to improve their skills as learners and educators.  Teachers felt that mutual support could improve job satisfaction.  Teachers mentioned some difficulties: how to teach; administrative processes and not having participated in an induction programme.

ISSUES AND DIFFICULTIES IN THE CONCEPT OF MENTORING A review of the literature reveals that there is no single conceptualization for the term „mentor‟ or for what mentoring is: It varies according to different contexts and needs.

Mentoring exists in a wide range of professions which involve situations working with people, for example, in business, nursing, and education. Hamilton (in Jayne 1995:41) describes mentoring as „a way of helping another to understand more fully‟, and also incorporates the idea of the mentor as a role model for the mentee. However, Watkins and Whalley (in Jayne 1995:42) disagree, stating that „mentoring is not being a model‟, but rather involves being a supervisor or counselor. A mentor can also be understood as „a facilitative partner in an evolving relationship focused on meeting the mentee goals and objectives‟ (Zachary 2000:161). From these various definitions a new construct of what a mentor has been developed: A mentor is an experienced facilitator who advises and supports another person (the mentee) in his/her development through reflection in his/her field. They work together but at the same time independently, focusing on learning aims.

The mentor-mentee relationship is a symbiotic relationship which takes place for a period of time. The activities carried out between a mentor and a mentee are the result of mentoring.

MENTORING AS A THIRD SPACE Mentoring can create a new space in an educational setting. The new space may already exist without having been recognized as such. A third space, as Edge (2005:1) points out, is „constructed by its participants/inhabitants. In other words, a third space is shared by two or more people with some sort of activity in common, for example, peer teaching, peer observation, etc.

These same people may have their own independent

spaces. Hanulla points out those third spaces are events, which simultaneously belong to

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both parties. Edge (2005:1) uses third spaces, not as a space, not as a place, but as a metaphor. According to Hanulla (2001:1), „A third space… creates opportunities which promote something different, new and previously unidentified. Mentoring interactions can be seen as a third space relationship, in which two teachers, each in their own space, despite working together, remain independent in a self-development process. The following diagram illustrates the idea of mentoring as a “third space” relationship. It shows how participants remain independent in a self-development process, in spite of working together.

As an approach, mentoring is collaborative and provides rich learning opportunities for the mentor as well as for the mentee. It is an approach which does not blame people for what they do not yet know, nor how they see the world. Rather, it attempts to understand what people do know, and how and why they see things as they do (Malderez, 2001).It is for this reason that Malderez believes mentoring can help develop individuals who have abilities to empathize with (and therefore understand) others. Moreover, mentoring helps newcomers to attain a sense of belonging, to an institution. Mentors and mentees learn about each other as well as from each other.

TYPES OF MENTOR There are two types of mentors. Informal mentors are colleagues who teachers turn to for advice and whose opinions are respected by others. In this sense, a mentor can be anyone who is helpful and gives supportive advice. Formal mentors are those with a specific mentoring responsibility, who work within an organised mentoring scheme (Malderez, 2001). Informal mentors were identified in the Mexican context of this study.

IN SERVICE MENTORING CONTEXTS In-service teaching offers a variety of contexts. A teacher taking on a new role and responsibilities can be supported by mentoring which provides “a structured, sustained process for supporting professional learners through significant career transitions” (DfES National Framework for Mentoring and Coaching 2004-2005:3). Such transitions occur, for example, when teachers are newly qualified and embarking on their first teaching post, or when they are new to a particular institution, or when they are progressing to a

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position of greater responsibility such as a teacher training or a management post.

Mentoring can be a way of helping new employees to learn about organisational culture (Bierema 1996 in Kerka 1998). Newly qualified teachers (NQTs) in particular need time and support to develop their practice and become stabilised as new staff (Carney and Hagger 1996), and a mentoring procedure can help. According to a study by Wall and Smith (1993) about mentoring in schools, mentoring for NQTs was highly valued, not only by the teachers themselves, but also by their mentors. The benefits for mentors working with NQTs are seen as: 1) opportunities for professional development; 2) reflection on, and enquiry into their own work; 3) learning about new teaching aspects from the NQTs; and 4) development of their professional skills. Therefore, for NQTs, mentors play an important role, because they support their understanding of the institutional processes and their self-development.

MENTORING AND INDUCTION IN ELT The period of induction in language teaching is critical for the professional development of teachers (Písová 1999). Induction can be understood as a process „which enables a newcomer to become a fully effective member of an organization as quickly and as easily as possible‟ (Trethowan and Smith in Coleman 1997:156). However, most institutions have an induction process, but few offer ongoing mentoring to their staff, despite the fact that the impact of mentoring may reinforce the induction process and become embedded into wider professional development. „The notion of a mentor is not limited to the induction period, but may be seen as an ongoing part of professional development‟ (Coleman 1997:160).

BUILDING A MENTORING PROGRAMME To develop a mentoring programme, according to Sherman et al. (2000:20-21), ten steps should be followed: 1.

Identifying mentoring goals. Each organization, according to Clutterbuck (2001), has to design a mentoring programme that fits its culture and answers the needs of its members. The starting point must be the statement of its goals so that its progress can be measured.

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Selecting mentors. There are two ways: 1. Formal  Application forms.  Letters of recommendation from coordinators, supervisors and peers.  A written statement describing why one wishes to become a mentor and the strengths and expertise one brings to mentoring.

2. Informal  Mentors volunteer.  Mentors are coordinators.

recommended

by

supervisors,

managers

or

 Mentors must have served as a mentee first.

Sherman et al. (2000:19) in their research identified specific skills and knowledge areas needed by competent mentors such as: Skill/ knowledge areas

Mentors…

Interpersonal

 Are amiable, patient, empathic, honest, self-confident and open.  Can pick up mentees‟ verbal and non-verbal cues.

Communication

 Recognize and understand different communication styles.  Are skilled in conflict resolution.

Listening

 Are active listeners.  Are experts in the areas in which mentees require assistance.

Content area

 Have a broad knowledge base in their field.  Keep up with current trends and latest research.  Are sensitive to mentees‟ individual learning styles.

Awareness of diversity

 Are comfortable with people of diverse backgrounds.  Can accept different points of view.  Have strong skills in observing and giving feedback.

Reflective supervision skills

 Engage in self-reflection.  Build on past experience to advise and assist mentees with their current dilemmas.

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Selecting mentees. Selecting mentees can also occur either in a formal or informal way (Sherman et al. 2000):  supervisors / managers may recommend new staff for mentoring to improve their instructional practices and familiarize themselves with the organization  programmes may use a self-selection process in which prospective candidates apply for a post  mentees may complete a needs assessment which will provide information to pair them with a suitable mentor.

4.

Matching mentors and mentees. Pairing mentors with mentees can be done in two ways: 1) allowing the mentee to choose her/his mentor or, 2) assigning one to them.

Other criteria are dependant, for example, on how many mentors are available for pairing. Sometimes, one mentor can work with multiple mentees. Besides the selection, Clutterbuck (2001:64-65) states some ground rules which should be considered. For example: “Do not assume that everyone wants to have a mentor”.

Perhaps they

need it, but it will not be imposed. “Accept that some people may have less need of a mentor at some points in their career than others”. “Sometimes a mentor is not the most appropriate form of help”.

1. The mentor-mentee relationship. A mentor-mentee‟s journey can be developed in stages within a cycle. Zachary proposes that „preparing, negotiating, enabling and closing‟ are the phases visited in every relationship (2000:50-53). Awareness of these stages is important for a successful journey because they are considered the signposts. Omitting one of the stages above can have a negative effect. ‘Preparing’ is the first stage. Both mentor and mentee prepare individually and in partnership. Exploring the ground, clarifying expectations and roles in the journey, discovering the process in the first meeting, they will set the tone of the path to follow in the journey. ‘Negotiating’ is essential.

Mentor and mentee will arrive at an agreement of time, goals, content and processes to follow while mentoring is taking place. Everything that emerged in the preparation stage may need to be established in a formal agreement. Zachary (2000) describes negotiating as „the detail -8-

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phase‟, due to the fact that some topics have to be talked about. It is likely that further issues can arise in the relationship such as confidentiality, limitations, and trust. It is here, she says, that the details are agreed on in order to know when and how things are going to be done. The third signpost in the journey is ‘enabling’. This takes longer because it is here where the relationship is implemented. It is in this stage that skills and qualities are put into practice to nurture learning and development. Reflections, and the key element of effective communication,

start

taking

place.

However,

there

may

be

disagreement at this stage because it is here that the mentor‟s roles and activities converge. There are some issues that have been experienced by mentors and mentees that affect the relationship (Carruthers 1993) For instance: 1) elitism: mentors‟ colleagues may feel jealous when not being selected to become mentors and when noting the professional recognition of the others. This situation can also occur with mentees; 2) mot being publicly recognized: when a mentor prevents the mentee‟s work from being seen and acclaimed; and 3) perceived professional threat: mentors can become jealous of gifted mentees. Finally, the last stage is „coming to closure’. Mentor and mentee take the opportunity to evaluate, acknowledge, appraise and celebrate achievement through the outcomes of their relationship.

5.

Establishing frequency and duration of the mentor-mentee relationship. The average duration of the formal relationship ranges from three to eighteen months.

Meetings usually last from 60 to 90 minutes (Clutterbuck, 2001).

6.

Providing professional development for mentors. It can occur through:

 Meetings

 Mentor newsletters

 Internet list servers and chat rooms

 Pairing experienced and new mentors

7.

Identifying mentoring content.

The content of mentoring will vary according to the

goals of the programme.

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Identifying mentoring activities. Some possible strategies are developmental portfolios, journals, and research projects.

9.

Assessing and evaluating mentoring. There are two types of evaluation for mentoring (Sherman et al. 2000:39): 1) an evaluation process for refining and improving mentoring and 2) an evaluation process to determine if mentoring is achieving its goals.

10. Financing a mentoring programme. Each individual programme needs to discern available resources.

PROPOSALS TO BUILD A MENTORING PROGRAMME The following framework, explained briefly, was created to suit the needs of the Mexican language centre referred to in this study.

1.

Raising awareness of mentoring Through a presentation, all the staff in the institution will be informed about mentoring and the results of this research.

2.

Goals and objectives.

These were created based on the research findings and the SWOT analysis.  To promote staff development.  To help staff assimilate their new jobs and become familiar with the institution, culture and procedures.  To develop an ongoing system of teacher support.  To address individual practitioner needs.  To promote team-work  To establish a network of support for teachers in their career transitions.  To strengthen teachers‟ skills.  To increase awareness of the importance of mentoring in other contexts.  To provide support for teachers in: lesson planning, classroom management, assessment and evaluation.  To provide spaces for professional development of experienced and less experienced teachers.

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Selecting mentors and mentees Based on the research findings, possible applicants for these posts were identified and they will be invited to apply. The selection criteria will be based on Sherman‟s et.al. framework.

4.

Training for mentors and mentees  Defining mentors‟ preparation The mentor preparation programme design and plan can be seen in Appendix-1.

Modifications to the mentor preparation programme can be made according to participants‟ and potential mentees‟ interests and needs, which will be based on feedback from the ongoing programme. This course should follow a co-operative mode in teaching and learning mentoring.  Defining mentees‟ preparation Mentees will go through an induction phase in order to learn about mentoring before being enrolled in a relationship.

5.

Matching mentors with mentees The match will be done through mentees‟ application forms or self-assessment.  Establishing the mentor-mentee relationship The relationship will go through four stages (preparing, negotiating, enabling, and coming to closure) of the mentoring journey  The role of the mentor According to the results found in the research, the roles that the teachers experienced from their colleagues, who were not mentors, were: role model, educator, and supporter.

Therefore these three roles are to be included. However, it should be mentioned that other roles were identified: the roles of guide, friend, information provider, and acculturator.

6.

Establishing frequency and duration The duration of the formal relationship should last one term, with an option to continue it in an informal manner. The suggested frequency of activities in the relationship should be 4 hours a week, with meetings lasting from 60 to 90 minutes. The work schedule is negotiable. The time schedule will be monitored to determine whether or not it is realistic, and whether the duration and frequency of the meetings requires modification as the mentoring programme develops.

7.

Providing professional development and ongoing support for mentors Some of the suggestions for support: meetings, mentor network/events, internet list-servers,

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a mentors‟ newsletter, e-blogs, mentor workshops 8.

Identifying mentoring activities In the investigation, teachers identified their needs, concerns, and difficulties. Based on the results, the suggested mentor and mentee activities are:  co- lesson planning  carrying out complete observation cycles (pre-meeting, observation, postmeeting)  modelling through team teaching  developing reflective portfolios on methodology, teacher roles and activities to use in class  writing reflective practice journals or sharing ideas in personal e-blogs  doing classroom research  sharing resources and developing materials  assessing and evaluating students (designing exams together)  informing about institutional procedures and administrative duties  appraising the mentee‟s work

9.

Assessing and evaluating mentoring The programme and the individuals will be monitored through observations, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and self-assessment checklists. The mentor and mentee evaluation will include portfolios and journals used by each pair when applicable.

10.

Financing mentoring programmes It is expected that the University, as the sponsor of the language centre, will provide half of the financial support while the other half will be covered by the centre with its own resources (student language course fees).

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CONCLUSIONS A number of limitations related to new, experienced and inexperienced teachers were encountered in the language centre. These limitations directed our attention on the need to carry out a study and elaborate a proposal, including a series of steps, for the implementation of a mentoring program. The contexts, in which mentoring works in ELT, are similar to those in mainstream education. In spite of the fact that there is little research available in the area of mentoring in ELT contexts, it is perceived that this study will help to support the view that mentoring is a valuable tool for new teachers who are in need of developmental assistance in their new workplace.

Understanding that „teaching is, and foremost, a helping profession‟ (Freeman 1990:103) we propose mentoring for Mexican in-service teachers as a support system where teachers help other teachers in their profession. As Clutterbuck (2001) states „everyone needs a mentor‟. Mentoring enhances the different ways in which staff is supported and inducted. In addition, it opens up opportunities for future teacher development.

REFERENCES Carruthers, J., (1993) The Principles and Practice of Mentoring. In Caldwell, B. J., and Carter, E.M.A., (1993) (eds) The Return of the Mentor. London: Falmer Press.

Coleman, M., (1997) Managing Induction and Mentoring. In Bush, T., and Middlewood, D., (eds) Managing People in Education. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Clutterbuck, D., (2001) Everyone needs a Mentor. London: CIPD. Edge,J.(2005) Third spaces. Paper presented at the Interrogating third spaces in language teaching, learning and use. Leicester, UK Freeman, D., (1998) Doing Teacher Research from Inquiry to Understanding. London: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

Hannula, M. ,(2001) Third space - a merry -go- round of opportunities. Kiasma magazine. Available at: http://www.kiasma.fi/index.php?id=169&FL=1&L=1 [accessed on January 2006] Jayne, E., (1995) Mentoring: A universal panacea for staff development. Journal of Teacher Development, 4/3 pag. 41-48 Malderez, A., (2001) Directions for Mentoring. Paper presented at the IATEFL/Leeds Trainer -Trainer conference, Leeds.

National Mentoring Network, National framework for mentoring and coaching 2004-2005 from the Department for Education and Skills in the UK, Available at: http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/teachingandlearning/socialandpastoral/peermentoring/ [accessed 27 June 2005] Písová, M., (1999) Novice teacher in the staffroom. The Teacher Trainer. Vol. 13, No.3 pag.3-7 Stephenson, J., (1997) (ed) Mentoring - the new panacea? Norfolk: Peter Francis Publishers.

White, R., Martin, M., Stimson, M., and Hodge, R., (1991) Management in English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zachary, L.J., (2000) The Mentor’s Guide. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass inc. publishers.

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Appendix 1 1stweek

Introduction to mentoring     



Trust building activities Goals and objectives of the mentoring programme Conceptualizing mentoring: core qualities and skills of an effective mentor Roles and responsibilities of mentors and mentees Needs analysis Reading assignments

2ndweek   

3rdweek

 Reflective practice:   

4thweek

5thweek 6thweek

7thweek

8thweek

Mentor-mentee relationship Beliefs about learning and teaching: experiential learning ELT and mentoring Reading and written assignments Professional learning cycle: teachers‟ ways of learning and learning styles Different ways of facilitating learning teaching and teacher development Strategies to enhance reflection Reading assignments

 Mentoring strategies                      

Interpersonal and Listening skills Intervention styles Giving advice Reading and written assignments The observation cycle Observation practice Reading assignments Observation difficulties Assessing teaching: Critical friends or Assessors?

Mentoring strategies review Reading and written assignments Lesson planning, self access centre planning Materials Assessment, evaluating and grading in the classroom Difficult issues on teaching Administrative duties Reading assignments Teaching appraisal Mentoring and professional development Future directions of mentoring Self-assessment Reading and written assignments

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THE IMPACT OF CONTRASTIVE GRAMMAR ON COLLEGE ESL WRITING BARBARA JEAN HALL Georgia Perimeter College Atlanta, Georgia, USA Knowledge of contrastive grammar (use of a contrastive language chart, language survey, and a contrastive essay about language) helps college-level students in ESL writing classes. L2 students in college ESL classes review grammatical information in a chart form of selected languages to help them contrast the grammar of their L1s with English. The author examines the following questions: 1) To what extent are students literate in their native languages? 2) To what extent do students understand contrastive grammar? 3) To what extent do students use their knowledge of contrastive grammar to make changes in their writing in English? The author reports the responses from interviews and student compositions using contrastive grammar as a basis for error analysis and error prediction.

I

n the 1980â€&#x;s in the United States, approximately one in ten school-age children was from a non-English speaking background.

Twenty years later, this number had

increased to one in seven, with the growth in the number of speakers from non-European speakers particularly striking. For example, the number of Asian Indian speakers was up by 165 percent, and the number of Vietnamese speakers up by 161 percent (McKay and Wong, 2000).

These demographic factors have impacted language teaching and

language learning not just in the United States, but all over the world where shifting populations have become the norm rather than the exception.

Located outside of the major metropolitan area of Atlanta, the Clarkston Campus of Georgia Perimeter College is similarly diverse as its surrounding community where 33% of Clarkstonâ€&#x;s 7,231 residents are foreign-born with 41% of the population speaking a language other than English at home. As these immigrant students enter the public schools and the nearby college, they must acquire English quickly and efficiently if they are to succeed. They must acquire enough English to participate in everyday social interactions with peers, teachers, employers, and they must acquire sufficient amounts of standard English to allow them to profit from subject-matter instruction and higher levels of schooling.

Teachers of English of these linguistically diverse groups of immigrant students face particular challenges.

Teachers must assess the skill levels of their students: speaking,

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Teachers must produce adequate instruction to move

students forward in those skill areas.

Teachers must have some familiarity with the

predominant second languages of their students in order to best serve understand their writing problems and best serve them. In addition, teachers must make students access their own L2 grammatical knowledge in order to move those students forward. Cummins (1979, 1981) was first to suggest that literacy abilities in the first language will transfer to the second language.

Cummins further argues that acquiring literacy skills in L1

facilitates this transfer of skills into the L2 (McKay and Wong, 2000). What follows here is a model of such a transfer of skills, reflecting the assumption that grammatical competence and knowledge of first language will help the second-language learner in editing and writing in the second language, English.

CURRICULUM, MATERIALS, AND TASKS In both high-intermediate and advanced grammar classes at the college-level and towards the end of the semester, a „consciousness-raising‟ exercise is introduced to get students to begin to think about the issue of language transfer – L1 onto L2 – and how it may impact their writing in English.

The first step to this „consciousness-raising‟ is by having students complete a Language Questionnaire (see Figure 1). This questionnaire is designed for the student to begin to examine what level of knowledge he/she has concerning some of the grammatical components of his/her L1, such as word order, the verb system, and the noun/article system. In this way, the students and the teacher can begin a dialogue about the common features of all languages and then about the specific features of some languages, but not all. Students will begin to vocalize examples: Says Trinh Nguyen from Vietnam: “We not change verb at all! We just say thing like „Yesterday I go my sister‟s house.” This way, the students can hear a variety of examples from different L2s.

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Figure 1 Adapted from Writing Workshop: A Manual for College ESL Writers

LANGUAGE QUESTIONNAIRE Take time to complete this language questionnaire. By analyzing the grammar of your own language, you will be able to recognize many of the areas of difficulty when you write in English.

1. What is your first language?

2. Do you write in your first language?

3. Have you studied the grammar of your first language?

4. Have you written essays in your first language?

5. Does writing in your first language go from left to right? Right to left? Top to bottom?

6. Does writing in your first language contain marks of punctuation like periods, commas, or semi-colons?

7. What is the basic sentence structure of your language? (SVO; SOV; VSO) 8. Do verbs in your language have endings that indicate time? How so?

9. Do nouns in your language show singularity or plurality? How so?

10. Does your language have a system of articles?

11. Does your language use prepositions?

12. Where are adjectives placed in sentences? Are they before or after nouns?

13. What features does your first language have that English does not have?

(Honorific pronouns? Diacritical marks? Tones?)

14. What areas of English grammar do you consider your weakest?

By Stephanie Coffin and Barbara Jean Hall (1998)

The next step is to review the contrastive language chart of English. This provides the basis of the contrast and serves to solidify the knowledge of how the grammar of English works (see Figure 2). Both the teacher and the students give examples to support the generalizations.

For example, when examining the Word Order descriptors of

“adjectives before nouns,” the teacher suggests: “the bright red flowers” and notes the

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order (article/adjective/noun + plural ending). Again, here the students should begin thinking of the contrast that their native language presents.

Figure 2 Adapted from Writing Workshop: A Manual for College ESL Writers

THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH WORD ORDER

WORD FORM

VERB SYSTEM

NOUNS PLURALS ARTICLES

PREDICTED ERRORS FOR NATIVE SPEAKERS

SVO rigid word order; adj. before nouns; right branching relative clauses

prefixes and suffixes (ex: ness, ist); inflections (ex: s, „s, ed)

extensive tense and aspect with auxiliary verbs and modals; with use of passive voice

count/noncount; indefinite

agreement; verb tense; spelling due to inconsistent patterns; sentence boundaries

and definite articles in complex system; plural nouns marked with “s”

Some features of the English language: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

SVO strict word order with few exceptions Complex verb tense system Complex system of articles Redundancy in plural/singular features Borrowings from other languages

By Stephanie Coffin and Barbara Jean Hall (1998)

As a guide and a tool for this contrast with some other popular second languages (based on the languages of the largest groups of L2 students in the Atlanta area), a contrastive language chart is presented. In the last five years in Clarkston, Georgia, foreign-born populations of Somalis and Ethiopians have increased, thus affecting the college ESL population at Georgia Perimeter College, Clarkston Campus. Also, many students from the Middle East have arrived as new-entry college students. Below is a modified descriptive chart of the three languages: Arabic, Amharic, and Somali (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3

LANGUAGE Arabic

Amharic

Somali

SYNTAX

WRITING

*Most VSO, some SVO *Words formed by 3consonant root *No “to be” form *No “a” or “an” *Use of def art “the” *SOV word order *Complex system of verbs; use of time frames broad *Plural nouns marked *No “a” or “an” *Use of def art “the”

1. Writing system R to L 2. Short vowel sounds represented by diacritical marks 3. No differentiation between upper and lower case letters 4. Punctuation more casual 1. Writing system L to R 2. Alphabet (syllabary) contains 33 characters 3. Vowels are not written 4.

Single colons used between words; double colons used between sentences *Both SOV and OSV 1. Writing system L to R *No passive verb forms 2.

First word of sentence *No “to be” forms capitalized; punctuation is same as *Def art “the” has masc and English feminine forms 3.

Written language has only *Nouns marked with eight existed since 1972 kinds of plurals

Now, the essay prompt for the contrastive grammar essay is presented to the class: In a well-organized and multi-paragraph essay, contrast the grammar of your native language with the grammar and structure of English. Select two or three salient points to contrast. You may want to discuss one of the following: the verb system, nouns and articles, sentence structure, word order, use of prepositions. Support your generalizations with specific examples from your native language. End your paper with a personal response about whether knowledge of the contrast helps you or not in your written English.

Students‟ responses to the topic demonstrate that they have a lot to say about the topic and also that they can see clearly the kinds of L1 grammatical transfer problems that many linguists analyze in books. Here‟s an excerpt from one student who writes about the differences between English and Chinese: “Every language in the world is beautiful, and different languages represent different cultures and beliefs. My native language is Mandarin, Chinese, and our

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writing system is different from English, and the way we write is from the top to the bottom instead of writing from the left to the right. Chinese have over a hundred thousand characters. Each character has its own definition, and we use the characters make up different words with different meanings. Our grammar is also different than English, such as the verbs and the third person singular.

I have been learning English for four years now. I have the most difficult time with the verbs. When I write an essay, I would usually think of the words in Chinese first, then I would transfer them into English. But in Chinese, we don‟t use verbs at all, such as we don‟t have past participles, or past tense, or future tense.

That is why I make many mistakes when I write an essay. For example, „Wo ming tian yao qu mai dong xi‟ (I am going shopping tomorrow). If this sentence translates into the English, it will mean, “I tomorrow go to shop.” As you can see now, in Chinese, everything is in the present.”

Another student contrasts the concept of plurality in Vietnamese and English: “In Vietnamese, there is no plural form. There is no „s‟ on nouns. It is very simple when I say things in Vietnamese: „I ate one pineapple, two orange, three apple, and four strawberry.‟ I do not have to worry about the plural form in English.

When I want to say something in the plural form in English, I have to be careful of the „s‟ or „es‟ forms, like „one pineapple, two oranges, three apples, or four strawberries.‟ This is always my biggest problem in writing English.”

We see in both of these examples how students have moved from first an awareness of the contrast to writing about it. Of course, oftentimes we have the student who is writing about a grammatical L1 transfer problem and demonstrating it by his/her own errors in the actual essay, as in this case of an Indian student: “I know there are big differences in my first language and my thread one.

Which is English, but what differences there are I can not tell by just thinking about it. I have to look at what I use to speak my first language and what do I do to use my language. I was able to see that Gujarati does not have three things that English has. These things are spelling, articles, and the “s‟es” after some words.

I think all Indians have problem with spilling because I do not think any languages in India has the use of American letters. We do not have the system of using A, B, or C‟s. We use different letters for all of our languages so my first language does not have any of the English letters either.”

I usually take about five or six of these meta-linguistic mistakes, like the “problem with spilling” and ask students to find the paradox in the statements.

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IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS The questions remains, then, “To what extent do ESL students use their knowledge of contrastive grammar to make changes in their writing in English?” In other words, how much – according to the students themselves – does this knowledge help? At the end of two semesters, students in two Advanced Grammar and Writing courses (Applied Grammar III) completed a five-question survey to provide feedback to this question. Here are the survey questions with a summary of the results:

RESULTS OF THE CONTRASTIVE Grammar Survey 1. At what level is your understanding of grammar in your native language?

31% Advanced 56% Intermediate 13% Beginning 2. At what level is your understanding of grammar in English?

19% Advanced 62% Intermediate 19% Beginning 3. When you write in English, what language do you think in?

44% English 6% Native Language 50% Both 4. What grammatical system differs THE MOST from the system in your native language?

50% The Verb System 19% Singular/Plurals 13% The Article System 13% Sentence Structure 6% Prepositions 5. To what extent does knowledge of “contrastive grammar” help you in your writing?

44% Helps me a little 44% Helps me a lot 12% Not much help at all It is the response to this last question, “to what extent,” which we must pay attention to, for 88% of the college ESL students surveyed commented that the knowledge of contrastive grammar either “helped a little” or “helped a lot” in their writing and editing of essays in English. We may conclude, then, that this approach to grammar teaching -this “consciousness-raising” of problematic L1 grammar items and their subsequent transfer to L2 writing – may serve as a useful tool for second-language writing teachers of English.

Certainly, more research and investigation is needed to examine in more detail the particular kinds of sentence-level errors that are reduced as students edit their essays while having the awareness of their L1 grammatical features that are problematic. In addition, we need more research in innovative methods of how we, as educators, can help students improve their abilities to edit.

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About the author: Barbara Jean Hall, an associate professor of ESL/English, teaches non-traditional students in a two-year college setting, teaching content-based ESL classes and academic ESL writing at Georgia Perimeter College in Atlanta, Georgia.

She has co-

authored Writing Workshop: A Manual for College ESL Writers, an applied grammar and writing textbook used at her college.

REFERENCES Atlas of Languages: The Origin and Development of Languages Throughout the World. (1996) London: Quarto Publishing.

Learner English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference And Other Problems. 2nd Ed. (2001) Ed. Michael Swan and Bernard Smith. Cambridge Handbooks For Language Teachers.

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. 2nd Ed . (2001) Bill Bryson. Harper Collins New Immigrants in the United States. (2000) Ed. Sandra Lee McKay and Sau-ling Cynthia Wong. Cambridge Language Teaching Library.

Second Language Writing in the Composition Classroom. (2006) Ed. Paul Matsuda, et. al. Bedford/St. Martins.

Writing Workshop: A Manual for College ESL Writers. (1998) Stephanie Coffin and Barbara J. Hall. McGraw Hill.

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TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVITIES USING COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION MG. BETTY RISCO RODRÍGUEZ Universidad Nacional del Santa Nuevo Chimbote, Perú Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students can work together using techniques and activities to maximize their own and each other's learning.

Cooperative learning, also called collaborative learning, occurs whenever students interact in pairs to share knowledge and experiences in the English classroom.

Cooperative learning is more than simply asking students to get in a group and work on an assignment together. It is also a formal instructional model with carefully designed techniques and activities that are suitable for work by teams.

Cooperative learning techniques and activities appear to promise positive effects on students, both with and without disability, as reflected in increased academic achievement and especially improved social attitudes and behavior.

L

et’s share my experience of using techniques and activities on Cooperative learning in my daily work with my university students. In order to implement cooperative learning

in my English classes I have to specify two types of instructional objectives before designing the lesson: An academic objective appropriate both for the students and the level of instruction, and a social skills objective detailing the interpersonal and small group skill I will emphasize during the lesson.

Every lesson has both academic objectives that define what students are to learn and social skills objectives needed to train students to cooperate effectively with each other.

Techniques and activities are an important part of my lesson in cooperative learning because they are tools that help me to encourage mutual helpfulness and the active participation of all group members.

Finally all techniques and activities in which students work together towards common goal, either interacting with a partner or completing educational projects are cooperative learning strategies.

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BODY OF PAPER Cooperative learning has been defined as “small group of learners working together as a team to solve a problem, complete a task, or accomplish a common goal”.

The cooperative learning model requires student cooperation and interdependence in its task, goal and reward structures.

Cooperative learning, like collaborative learning, entails small groups working on specific tasks. It seeks to overcome some of the weaknesses of traditional small group approaches by structuring activities carefully.

There are many models of cooperative learning. I started with the Spencer Kagan’s Structural approach (1992) but have adapted his ideas somewhat to make them more relevant to a university classroom. As we know in a classroom we have to pay attention to different areas especially when we are working in teams, such as: climatesetting, team formation, team building, cooperative skills development, lesson design and classroom management.

CLIMATE-SETTING The first step is to work on creating a class climate that encourages cooperation. I can offer some recommendations:  Communicate clear expectations to students about Cooperative Learning on the first day of class; inform your students that you plan to use cooperative learning, why you use it, what it means to them and what are the advantages of using it.  Introduce cooperative learning so that students can easily accomplish Tell students that cooperation makes learning fun and demonstrate it.  Put students into teams and have them do a simple cooperative activity. It could introduce general information about the course, cooperative learning or the content.  Create the learning environment with each student asking him/her to say his or her first name, then the names of all students who came before him, and then his/her first name again.

TEAM FORMATION There are many different ways of forming teams in a classroom. Teams might be selected, formed randomly or formed by the teacher. Most cooperative learning teachers can use the following steps:

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 Teams in cooperative learning classroom are formed by the teacher, rather than self- selected. Self-selected teams may be composed of groups of students who all have similar skills and are lacking the requisite skills to complete particular tasks or assignments.  Teams are heterogeneous on the basis of achievement, skills, gender, or experience. There are many classes in which teams should be heterogeneous by academic performance, but often, the type of heterogeneity you desire depends on your content.  Teams are stable (they change no more than twice during the cycle). It takes all of us time to get comfortable and efficient working with a new group of people. If you control teams frequently, students never have time to get to the “performing” stage of group development.

TEAMBUILDING Teambuilding may be defined as the process needed to create, maintain, and enrich the development of a group of people into a cohesive unit. There are exercises that you can use with teams, for example:  Team building exercises that have a component of fun or play are useful in allowing social cohesiveness to develop.  Teams need to develop roles and norms which are most needed to accomplish the task at hand and to assign roles to team members.  Effective interpersonal communication is vital to the smooth functioning of any task group.  Teams need to be able to process or reflect on how well they are working together.

COOPERATIVE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT Cooperative skill development is one of the concepts that distinguish cooperative learning from traditional group work. You can use a number of approaches for helping students develop the following skills:  You may choose to directly teaching cooperative skills. One approach is that of David and Roger Johnson and Karl Smith, who use a T-Chart to have students, brainstorm the non-verbal and verbal components of a particular social skill.  For some tasks, it is useful to assign roles and strategies to the students.  The structure of the task itself may foster certain skills or address certain team problems.

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LESSON DESIGN Designed Cooperative Learning lessons and assignments give students a specific task, such as solving a problem, creating a model, or comparing and contrasting. They also provide a set of instructions that describe how students should work together. There are considerations in developing lessons and assignments:  You might consider using or adapting a pre-existing structure or procedure like Jigsaw, Academic Controversy, Think-Pair-Share, or Formulate- Share-ListenCreate.  If you cannot find a pre-existing structure that you can use or adapt, create your own. Decide upon your academic and cooperative skills objectives.  It's not cooperative learning if the lesson design does not include the following five principles: Positive interdependence - The success of all in the team is linked through

goals,

materials, or rewards. Students are aware that “we sink or swim together.”

Individual accountability - At various points in the process, the teacher can verify that all students are contributing and learning. Often this is accomplished through individual public performance or required individual assignments as part of the team assignment.

Equal participation - The structure of the assignment should be such that all students have to participate, and that there are mechanisms to ensure that the participation is fairly equitable. You may try assigning roles, adding steps to the lesson that require input from all team members, or establishing turn-taking procedures.

Simultaneous interaction - At several points in the lesson, you should ensure that at least more than one student is actively engaged at a time. Adding a step where students work with a partner within the team doubles the amount of participation. Having all students write an individual response before engaging in a team discussion gets all simultaneously involved.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT A cooperative learning classroom means that your management strategies will be different.

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 Before teaching a class that relies heavily on cooperative learning, it’s often useful to assign homework or prepare a quiz to ensure preparation.  Planning ahead and preparing materials and agendas for your teams really pays off.  Frequently I specify the social skills needed to complete the assignment successfully.

Sometimes I simply remind students to make sure that everyone contributes.

SOME TECHNIQUES USED IN COOPERATIVE LEARNING 1. Numbered Heads Together: Teacher has students count off within groups, so that each student has a number: 1, 2, 3, or 4, the teacher asks a question. The group convenes and makes sure each of the four members knows the answer. The teacher calls a number, and students with that number raise their hands to respond.

2. Team Word-Webbing: Four or five students write simultaneously on a large piece of paper or on the board, providing main concepts, supporting elements, and bridges representing the relationship between ideas in a concept.

3. Jigsaw: Each student of a four-or five-member team becomes an “expert” on one topic by working with members from other teams assigned the same topic. (For example, topics for a section on geography might be location, landforms, regions, climate, and rivers.) Upon returning to their teams, students take turns teaching the group about their topics. Students are quizzed on all aspects of the topic. There are only individual grades, no team score.

4. Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD): Teacher presents lesson. The students in four- or five- member heterogeneous teams help each other to master material. Students take individual quizzes.

Students’ quiz scores are compared to their own past averages, and points are awarded based on the degree to which students can meet or exceed their own earlier performances. These points are then summed to form team scores, and teams that meet certain criteria earn certificates or other rewards. This system gives students equal opportunities to contribute maximum points to their teams.

5. Teams-Games- Tournament (TGT): The primary function of the team is to prepare its members to do well in the tournament. Students compete at tournament tables with two or three members of other teams of their own ability level. The winner at table earns the same number of points for his or her team.

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6. Group investigation Groups are formed according to common interest in a topic. Students plan, research, and divide learning assignment among members. Group members then summarize their findings and present their topic to the whole class.

7. Reading Quiz Clearly, this is one way to coerce students to read assigned material! Active learning depends upon students coming to class prepared. The reading quiz can also be used as an effective measure of student comprehension of the readings.

SOME ACTIVITIES THAT USE COOPERATIVE LEARNING 1. Think-Pair-Share It involves a three step cooperative structure. During the first step individuals think silently about a question given by the teacher. Individual pair up during the second step and exchange thoughts. In the third step, the pairs shared their responses with other pairs, other teams, or the entire group.

2. Three- Step Interview Each member of a team chooses another member to be a partner. During the first step individuals interview their partners by asking clarifying questions. During the second step partners switch the roles. For the final step, members share their partner’s response with the team.

3. Round Robin Brainstorming Class is divided into small groups (4 to 6) with one person appointed as the recorder. A question is posed with many answers and students are given time to think about answers. After the “think time, “members of the team share responses with one another round robin style. The recorder writes down the answers of the group members. The person next to the recorder starts and each person in the group in order gives an answer until time is called.

4. Three-minute review Teachers stop any time during a lecture or discussion and give teams three minutes to review what has been said, ask clarifying questions or answer questions.

5. Team Pair Students do problems first as a team, then with a partner, and finally on their own.

It is designed to motivate students to tackle and succeed at problems which initially are beyond their ability. It is based on a simple notion of mediated learning.

Students can do more things with help (mediation) than they can do alone. By allowing them to work on problems they could not do alone, first as a team and then with a partner, they progress to a point they can do alone that which at first they could do only with help.

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6. Circle the sage First the teacher rolls the class to see which students have a special knowledge to share. For example the teacher may ask who in the class was able to solve a difficult homework question, who had visited another country. Those students (the sages) stand and spread out in the room. The teacher then has the rest of the classmates each surround a sage, with no two members of the same team going to the same sage. The sage explains what they know while the classmates listen, ask questions, and take notes. All students then return to their teams. Each in turn, explains what they learned. Because each one has gone to a different sage, they compare notes. If there is disagreement, they stand up as a team.

7. Partners The class is divided into teams of four. Partners move to one side of the room. Half of each team is given an assignment to master to be able to teach the other half.

Partners work to learn and can consult with other partners working on the same material. Teams go back together with each set of partners teaching the other set.

Team reviews how well they learned and taught and how they might improve the process.

8. Response to a demonstration or other teacher centered activity The students are asked to write a paragraph that begins with: I was surprised that ... I learned that ... I wonder about ... This allows the students to reflect on what they actually got out of the teachers’ presentation. It also helps students realize that the activity was designed for more than just entertainment.

9. One Minute Papers Ask students to comment on the following questions. Give them one minute and time them. This activity focuses them on the content and can also provide feedback to you as a teacher.  What was the most important or useful thing you learned today?  What two important questions do you still have; what remains unclear?  What would you like to know more about?

You can use these one minute papers to begin the next day's discussion, to facilitate discussion within a group, or to provide you with feedback on where the student is in his or her understanding of the material.

Finally, dear colleagues I think that the experience that I have at the University where I work with my students using cooperative learning techniques and activities. They can also be applied to your students to make the learning process more effective.

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CONCLUSIONS Successful techniques and activities using cooperative learning in higher education implies that you have to select which of them you’ll need in your English classes.

Through cooperative learning techniques and activities, students can become real partners in the learning process. Since most consequential problems are solved via collaboration and finally we can say that students who learn to work together in an educational setting are better prepared to meet life’s obligations.

Through cooperative learning techniques and activities learners are also asked to do things in the EFL classroom that they are asked to do in real life.

REFERENCES Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991a). Active learning: cooperation in the college classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991b). Cooperative learning: increasing college faculty instructional productivity. Washington, DC: ASHE/ERIC Higher Education.

Kagan, S. (1992). Cooperative learning. San Juan Capristano, CA: Resources for Teachers, Inc. Kagan, S. and M. Kagan. 1994. "The Structural Approach: Six Keys to Cooperative Learning", in Sharan, ed. Handbook of Cooperative Learning Methods Goodsell, A., M. Maher and V. Tinto. 1992. Collaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education. University Park: The National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.

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DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION COURSE IN AN EFL CONTEXT BLANCA TAPIA HUERTA Centro de Lenguas y Lingüística Aplicada, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas Tamaulipas, Tamps, México A study of the difficulties in the design and implementation of an intercultural communication course was designed in the context of an Applied Linguistic BA with EFL students at the University of Tamaulipas. The questions that guided the study were: What difficulties are encountered in the design and implementation of an intercultural communication course in an EFL context? What things in the course were done particularly well? How well the reflective journals helped you reflect on the course material?

The article will describe the difficulties encountered and will explore the different tools, dynamics as well as the use of reflective journals, videos, anthology, and the experience with speakers from different cultures in the effectiveness of teaching an intercultural communication class.

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oday’s intercultural communication is global (Jandt, 2003). As a result, many intercultural communication courses have been designed over the last years in

different parts of the world (Fantini & Smith, 1997). The field of applied linguistics has experienced a similar trend. Now many undergraduate programs include intercultural communication courses that aim to assist students in the understanding of communication among people from diverse cultural backgrounds. The study of these courses has received considerable attention in the professional literature. However, most of recent research has been done focusing on students in multicultural environments; and not many studies have been conducted in context where students share the same cultural background and first language (Spanish). This article reports a qualitative study of the difficulties in the design and implementation of an intercultural communication course. Such course was designed as a part of an undergraduate program in Applied Linguistics of a Mexican state university.

The research questions that guided the study were: What difficulties are encountered in the design and implementation of an intercultural communication course with Mexican students? What things in the course were done particularly well? How well the reflective journals helped you reflect on the course material? 17 students took part in this study while they were undertaking an intercultural communication class in which English was both: the -1-

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means of instruction and a foreign language. Of special interest was the fact that they had never had close contact with people from other cultures. Data for the study were collected through weekly reflective journals and a questionnaire administered at the end of the semester. The presentation of preliminary results will center on the most salient difficulties encountered in the areas of course materials, teaching and assessment. The use of videos, reflective journals, a class anthology and dynamics involving speakers from different cultures will be emphasized.

TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES In this section some teaching and learning strategies will be discussed, such as: power point presentations, movies, reflective journals, anthology, cross cultural dialogues and speakers from other cultures.

Power point presentations with main points were delivered in every class. When students were asked about the things they like in the course they mentioned they had liked the power point presentations, and they referred to them as the slides. One of the difficulties with power point presentations was that students did not have time to copy everything at the same time the class was delivered. Because of this, one suggestion from the students was to place the presentations on blackboard. As a result, students were paying more attention on the topic discussed rather than on concentrating on copying everything from the slides. By having them on blackboard they could reach them anytime.

Another of the teaching strategies used in the study were movies. As Richards and Renandya (2002) suggest, instructors should lead learners to the recognition of the use of video as a beneficial tool for learning. An interesting link with instructional videos for intercultural relations was found, where the authors compiled videos with themes of culture and communication, including a brief summary of selected films and provocative questions to stimulate classroom discussion. A difficulty was finding the movies, some of them were available only by purchasing via Amazon with special deliver only in the Unites States, and others were not available at the video store, however, two movies from the movie store were found. For this reason only two movies were seen in class during the course. The first one is called “Stand and Deliver�. This movie is about expectations, prejudice and

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racism. Before watching the movie students were given the summary of the film in order to grasp the gist of the film. In the same way, students were given some discussion questions before watching some scenes of the films. They could take notes during of after watching the movie. Then students discussed their answers in groups, they said they like the activities in groups because they are excellent to share ideas. The second movie is named “Babel” which demonstrates the miscommunication that takes place when people speak in different languages and they are not able to understand each other. Moreover, the movie demonstrates some examples of nonverbal communication in four different countries, Unites States, Japan, Mexico and South Arabia. Only some specific scenes were shown in class. The movie was paused in order to give students the opportunity to interpret and discuss the nonverbal communication meaning and the difference in gestures in those countries. Students suggested that more videos about other cultures, documentaries and movies should be included in class because they cover several points by bringing to live the themes of culture and communication in an engaging, visual way.

Additionally, every week reflective journals were written by students and sent through blackboard or email. As Yinger and Clark (1981) mention, writing a journal is a powerful learning tool, for thought and reflection. The reflective journals were composed of five questions. These questions were reproduced each week. The questions were: 1.

What was the most important thing you learned during the class?

2.

What was something you already knew or had learned but it was reinforced?

3.

Write down a question you have concerning the topic discussed.

4.

What worked well for you in class?

5.

What didn’t work well for you in class?

An important point to mention here is that the reflective journal was an assignment

tool, but at the end I found out that it worked best as a teaching tool due to the students’ comments at the end of the semester. For instance, students mentioned that the reflective journal helped them a lot because it was a good way to review the topic seen in class; it helped them remember what it was discussed in class, it was a good idea because they were forced to reflect and in the future it was going to be easier to remember what they

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had learned, it was a useful tool to share their point of view, but overall it served as a study tool to help them retain information learned.

Another teaching tool was the anthology, where a collection of selected authors, articles and chapters related to intercultural communication were gathered. A variety of points of view towards culture, language, communication and society were included. The purpose of the anthology was to make students feel empathy for other cultures, to develop their ability to use and understand language in different ways through culture, and to understand how language is related and affected by culture. When students were asked if the anthology was useful during the semester most of them said that if was good because they read the chapters before class, they liked the diversity of topics, they said it provided them with interesting information to meet the expectations of the course, it helped them develop their reading skills, it was useful to have the material in only one reader pack, only one student complained that we rarely use it in class and that it was boring because he is a visual learner.

Students in class practiced cross cultural dialogues. These refer to short conversations between an American and a person from a different culture. Students were given pieces of those conversations and they performed in pairs in front of the class, after each conversation students were discussing

the cultural misunderstanding from each

conversation. In each dialogue speakers showed their values and attitudes in how they understood the world around them. They demonstrated their normal behavior that behavior could be totally inappropriate for a different culture and as a consequence the result is a shock or incomprehensive language in the culture. The dialogues were divided in three different topics: social settings, the workplace and the world of business. The dialogues showed that culture and cultural differences are real; they introduced some American cultural behavior and contrasted cultural norms in different cultures. Students enjoyed performing those dialogues in front of the class and they found the discussion after reading the dialogues very interesting. It was a very dynamic activity where students were learning by doing something. Every time students are involved they learn better, as the Confucian text states “tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; but directly involve me, and I’ll make it my own.”

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Speakers from different cultures came to class. These speakers were from Germany, Belgium, India, and France. The other speaker was a Mexican who used to live in Japan for a few years. Even thought Mexico is not a multicultural country, it happened that for some reason those people were around. The Indian lady and the German man married a Mexican. The person from Belgium was an exchange student, the man from France came to the French Alliance School to teach French for a few months and the man, who lived in Japan, came back to live in Mexico. The most interesting part was to give students the opportunity to interact with people from different countries for the firs time in their lives. Most of the students said that they had never seen people from different countries in the same place at once, and by that time no one in the class had been in a different country, but the USA. After that day students got more interested in traveling and so far, three had been on exchange programs for a few months, two in the USA and one in the UK, which was a very enriching experience. Apparently it is difficult to take the class to different countries physically, therefore cultures to the classroom were brought, and the guest speakers were part of that. The speakers came all at once; they sat in a forum table in front of the class, so each speaker had the opportunity to talk about their country for five minutes, and then students made some questions. Some of the students’ comments were: 

“What I love about the class was the visit of foreign persons and what impacted me was the way each one delivered their presentation”



“How each one thinks different and how they reflect it by their movements or facial expressions”



“Almost all speakers mention the three structures of culture: history, family and religion”



“I did not know that in Belgium French is spoken and I was fascinated with the explanation about the Indian culture. Moreover I had never seen people from different countries in the same place”



“I didn’t know much about different cultures except for what I had seen on discovery channel”



“The guest speakers made the class more fascinating”



“I enjoyed all the speakers but I liked how the Indian lady interacted with us by showing us pictures, the way they dress, and the music they listen to”



“I learned that every culture has a different way to perceive the world”

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

“People may not agree in several points but tolerance is the key to establish a good intercultural relationship and intercultural communication as well”



“I knew that there are differences between cultures in the world, and with the experiences shared in class I saw those differences really close, which I hadn’t done before”



“The difference of thoughts, even when referring to the same topic, was quite impressive”.

The only issue or difficulty by bringing speakers was that students complained that

there was not enough time for each speaker to talk and for students to make more questions, since one class is too little to know about five different countries. They suggest more classes should include speakers from different cultures. The good part of doing it this way all the speakers together is that students could grasp the idea and they could see and compare the difference between cultures from different parts of the world. The EFL context was the basis for making this experience even more fascinating to students, which in a multicultural context; the instructor could even organize activities in groups from the diverse nationalities, and in this Spanish background context with English as a foreign language was different. Some speakers spoke English and some of them Spanish.

ASSESSMENT In this section assessment will be discussed. As mention before assessment is an important part of the course to motivate students, to give them feedback, to give a grade for future employers, to diagnosis learning, and evaluation of teaching. Five assignments were asked to students: reflective journal, discussion questions on blackboard, mid semester exam, and team presentation.

The reflective journal, at the beginning of the course, was designed as an assessment tool, but at the end of the course, it worked best as a teaching tool. This is why it has been discussed earlier in the teaching and learning strategies section, because of this it would not be discuss in this section.

Two discussion questions were posted on blackboard during the semester.

Discussion questions were used to give an opportunity to the students to share their different points of view and to confirm they were reading and understanding the topics seen in class.

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A mid semester exam was designed in order to evaluate some of the basic intercultural communication concepts. It was divided in five sections. The first section included a world map, so students needed to recognize the location of some countries on the map. Countries such as: Russia, United States, Mexico, China, Iran, Japan, Israel, Turkey, Mongolia, and India. I found this activity useful, because sadly during class not many students were familiar with the location of countries, as a consequence they were encourage to learn the location of countries and they were excited and very interested in the geography of the world, and as a result in the different cultures around the world. The second section of the exam was composed by six short answer questions basically asking students to define some of the basic intercultural communication concepts. The third section was a matching exercise describing concepts related to the six basic religions in the world: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, The forth section of the test was a true false exercise and the last part of the test was a short essay describing how their own cultural and social identities affect them and their communication behavior, deciding in how their own cultural, social and personal beliefs, values and norms were affecting the way students communicate with others, at the same time including course concepts. Some students found the test very long and complained about it, but at the end it helped them reflect their cultural knowledge of other cultures and they discovered how they could affect their own communication behavior.

In addition, students were evaluated by a team presentation. The project was designed to investigate cultures. Students were assigned to groups of four to five people based on the culture each group preferred to study. They were asked to read information about their culture of interest, interview members of that culture if possible. Each group gave a presentation that included a discussion of the cultural components, stories about the investigation of the culture, and conclusions that the group had drawn regarding how the make-up of that culture influences their communication. Students came up with interesting presentations, since they come from a homogenous culture; in order to bring a culture to the class they brought power point presentations with pictures demonstrating some of the cultural issues in other places. Most of the students enjoyed the presentations, for some of the it was the first time to realize that people in other countries may eat different, dress different, have different religious, so it was an interesting point, because most of the -7-

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students belong to the same context, where English was a foreign language and at the same time the means of instruction, and their native language is Spanish, and most of them have not been outside of Mexico.

Another evaluation tool was the final paper. Students were given an opportunity to examine and to explore how their own cultural and social identities affect them. They decided how their own cultural, social, and personal beliefs, values and norms, affect the way they communicate with others. This was an opportunity for students to reflect on the course concepts including their own point of view.

CONCLUSIONS Many intercultural communication courses have been designed all around the world.

But designing a course for a group of Mexican students with almost the same background, and with students who have never been out of Mexico, it was a big challenge.

Things that worked well for the students and who help to bring culture to the ESL context class was: power point presentation with visuals, and above all speakers from different countries, same as use of videos and reflective journals.

Some of the difficulties were solved during the course due the information from every week reflective journals, such as the suggestion from students to paste the power point presentations on blackboard. Another difficulty was the fact that not enough video materials were available, but that can be solved with the administration’s support. Finally, to bring speakers from other cultures is not always easy in a country such as Mexico; although it was one of the classes students enjoyed the most.

In conclusion, at the end of the course students learned how to be tolerant to other cultures, because at the beginning they were criticizing and complaining about some of the traditions and customs other people did around the world.

Overall students need to get involve in different aspects of culture to feel empathy for other cultures and to learn to be tolerant towards cultures different from their own. This can be done by creating a variety of as many teaching, learning and assessments tools in the intercultural communication course in an EFL context.

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REFERENCES Fantini, A., & Smith, E. (1997). A survey of intercultural communication courses. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 21(1),125-148.

Jandt, F. (2003). Intercultural Communication an introduction. Discourse and Society, Vol 14 (3) 382 Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. (2001). Seven Languages for transformation. How the way we talk can change they way we work. San Francisco: JosseyBass Richard, J., & Renandya, W. (2001). Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press Storti, C. (1994). Cross-Cultural Dialogues 74 Brief Encounters with Cultural Difference. Boston: Intercultural Press The E-Journal of Intercultural Relations, Spring 1998, Vol. 1(2) Yinger, R., & Clark, C. (1981). Reflective Journal Writing: Theory and Practice. ERIC web portal ED208411

BASIC TEXTBOOK FOR THE COURSE Samovar, L., & Porter, R. (2001). Communication between Cultures. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning

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ADDICTIVE CHANTS AND SKITS FOR WORKSITE ESP BRUNO KAMPS American English Institute, University of Oregon Immigrant workers have little time and energy to learn the workplace English they need. This demonstration shows how rhythmic chants are used to help workers learn workplace English in an engaging manner. Although this pilot program was conducted with Mexican construction workers, this method of language training can be adapted to any ESP environment. Through video clips, the demonstration begins by showing the difficulties workers have communicating in a hypothetical but targeted situation before training with chants. Step by step, the presenter demonstrates how to teach the necessary expressions for that situation using drills and skits. The Some video footage shows the newly learned expressions acted out by the workers in full-length dialogues, meant to mimic the real-world environment.

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he number of immigrant construction workers in the U.S. is growing at a high rate, and Hispanic workers are experiencing a disproportionately high number of workplace

injuries and fatalities (National COSH, 2005). Two construction companies who have provided ESP training to their Hispanic workers reported fewer injuries, as well as improved employee relations and greater client satisfaction (OSHA, 2004, 2005). This suggests that targeted English training for Hispanic and other immigrant workers helps them integrate smoothly and prosper in their English-speaking environment.

As I am

currently providing English training to Mexican construction workers at a local construction company, I have seen the long hours the workers put in and understand firsthand the need to provide engaging and easily attainable English training to these workers who have little free time and energy to study. Their initial enthusiasm with rhythmic chants gave me the idea of combining ESP training with catchy chants, providing needed repetition without an overt focus on potentially boring structure and grammar.

The word “repetition� may bring back memories of the Audio-lingual Method (ALM), which was of pattern drills based on the psychological theory that advocated habit-forming models of learning, developed in the 1940s as a quick way to teach spoken language to the armed forces (Brown, 2001). Pattern drilling was in fact one of the main activities of the ALM, which was eventually replaced by Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), a more authentic and communicative form of language learning. Although

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CLT gives much more importance to meaning than to form, repetition and drilling are still deemed appropriate when used sparingly (2001). But authentic dialogue chants, focused on content and catchy rhythms, have replaced the memorized and meaningless drills of the ALM. Rhythmic chants were first introduced in the ESL classroom by Carolyn Graham in the form of Jazz Chants (1978). They were a novel way of teaching American English pronunciation and expressions as they occurred in situational contexts. Graham has also collaborated with the authors of Side by Side English textbook series (Molinsky, S., Bliss, B., 2001) on the chants (called Raps) that accompany each chapter. Both publications have greatly inspired the development of my own chants. I personally enjoyed using Side by Side’s catchy “Raps” to supplement my general ESL classes at the University of Oregon, as did my students, but realized that the topics of the chants were too general to directly address the needs of the Hispanic construction workers I was teaching. Thus, came the idea to write complete dialogue chants based on the English that the construction workers needed on the jobsite. I conducted a needs analysis by observing the workers’ communication while they worked, and by directly asking them, their foremen, and their employers what kind of English they needed to learn. Though I have subsequently written several chants addressing the workers communication needs, I present in this paper the full teaching progression for the most recent one, called “Do You Have Any Carhartts (a brand of work pants)?” (Appendix A). I prepared a lesson on this topic based on the foremen’s information that the workers were about to buy new Carhartt work pants and needed to learn and practice the necessary vocabulary and expressions. As this demonstration is mostly about the rhythmic chants I use in my classes with construction workers, I include two more chants (Appendices B and C).

METHOD Participants The participants in this pilot lesson were a group of five Mexican construction workers in a small construction company in Oregon, USA. The workers had been living in the US between eight months and five years. Their English language ability ranged from low beginning to low intermediate. I had given the workers two to three 90-minute English

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training sessions per week for 20 weeks prior to the following pilot lesson, demonstrated in this presentation.

Procedure I began the pilot lesson by video taping the workers doing a simple role play attempting to buy pants. Short clips of this video footage are shown to the members of the audience, giving them an idea of the workers’ abilities and weaknesses. I then briefly lead the audience through the following substitution drills and skits to illustrate how I familiarize the workers with the new vocabulary and expressions.

I acted the clerk’s part in the initial role play, expecting to confuse the students (participants) with possibly difficult vocabulary in one of the following two scenarios, thus illustrating to the participants that they had something to learn.

DO YOU HAVE ANY CARHARTTS? (T = trainer; P = participant; Ps = participants) T told Ps they would each pretend to be in a store to buy Carhartt work pants.

Initial Role Play Scenario 1: P: “Hi, I’m looking for Carhartts.”

T: “What size do you wear?”

P: “???”

If the P managed to give his size, the role play went on as follows: Scenario 2: P: “Hi, I’m looking for Carhartts.”

T: “What size do you wear?”

P: “A thirty-two.”

T: “What's your inseam?"

P: “???”

Whether the P had difficulty or not, I told them “Not bad, but let me teach you how to do it really well.”

The following are the various expressions I teach the

participants, and how I would proceed in an ideal situation. I outline step by step how the lesson actually proceeded in the conclusion and discussion section of this paper.

Substitution drills and skits: 1. “Do you have any (brand name)?”

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T introduces with “I’m looking for (Levis)” or “Do you have any (Levis)?”

Ps repeat example in unison, then substitute other brand names at T’s suggestion: “Wranglers, Carhartts, Nautica, etc...”

“Do you have any (Wranglers)?”

The T answers with, “Yes, we do.” or “No, we don’t.” to get Ps familiar with the response.

Ps are then encouraged to do the same with each other.

2. “They’re over on aisle 3. Right this way!”

T shows picture of supermarket aisles, or draws on board; Ps ask T, one at a time, Do you have any (Carrharts)?”

T answers, with gestures, “They’re over on aisle 3. Right this way!”

Ps then do this exercise in pairs, or in a row.

3. "I wear a 32 by 30" T draws pants on board and shows “waist” and "inseam.” T has Ps give their complete size when asked, “What size do you wear?”

Ps then prompt each other for these short skits.

4. Plural: "Here, try these (pants, boots) on." "Do they fit you?"

T prompts with above clothing items; Ps answer with “Yes, they do.” or “No, they don’t.”

T then prompts each P with “these pants, these boots, etc,” and the P asks does the same skit with his neighbor.

More advanced Ps can do this in pairs without prompting from T. 5. Singular: "Here, try this (hat, shirt) on." "Does it fit you?"

T prompts with above sentence; Ss answer with “Yes, it does.” or “No, it doesn’t.”

T then prompts each P with “this hat, this shirt, etc,” and the P asks does the same skit with his neighbor.

More advanced Ps can do this in pairs without prompting from T. 6. “What’s the damage?”

T introduces with, “How much does it cost?” and “How much do they cost?” T then presents the idiomatic expression, “What’s the damage?”

T gives a price ($5.75); Ss act out skit saying, “What’s the damage?” “Five seventy-five.”

Ps then stand in a line and ask each the next person down.

7. “Cash or charge?”

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The T shows cash and a credit card, then prompts the question from P by saying, “I’ll take it.”

Do You Have Any Carhartts?

After all the participants had a chance to practice the various role play expressions, we used the chant to review the vocabulary and expressions in a fun, rhythmic fashion, providing necessary repetition without boring the participants. Here, I followed fairly closely Carolyn Graham’s method of practicing a chant (1978).

1. I spoke each line of the chant (even if it included two sentences) using normal speed and intonation, one at a time, and had participants repeat them after me. I repeated sentences with which participants had trouble.

2. I performed the entire chant rhythmically, while clapping, while the participants listened.

3. I performed each line again rhythmically, and had participants repeat them after me. If they had difficulty with a line, we repeated it.

4. The next time we all performed the whole chant together, rhythmically while clapping. We again repeated sections the participants had trouble with.

5. I now divided the class into two sections and they practiced asking and answering, with myself participating in both sections.

6. I finally had the two sections switch roles and do the chant again in two parts. This time I participated also, but much more quietly than before, to see if they could perform the chant on their own.

After finishing the teaching and chant sequence, I had the participants come up in pairs and do the initial role play a second time to see if there was any improvement in language usage. At this point, I show the audience some video footage of the participants acting out the second role play in pairs.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Initial Role Play The participants had a better grasp of pant size than I thought, and would often answer both the waist and inseam together when asked, “What size do you wear?”, giving such answers as, “32 by 30.” This unfortunately spoiled my “inseam” question. In the end I told them they had done a pretty good job, but I was going to teach them how to do it better.

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1. “Do you have any (brand name)?”

In the actual training session I taught “I’d like a (shirt, hat, etc...)” and “I’d like some (pants, shoes, etc...)” which involved too many variables and eventually confused the participants. The question “Do you have any...?” worked out well because I did not have to deal with singular and plural, only the clothing article followed by an s, which the participants could grasp quickly. I unfortunately did not have the participants ask each other the question, which would have prompted the practice of response “Yes, we do.” or “No, we don’t.”

2. “They’re over on aisle 3. Right this way!”

Participants responded well to the drill, “Do you have any (jeans, boots, etc.)?” with “They’re over on aisle (3)” Then someone asked, “Do you have any ice-cream?”, which introduced uncountable nouns. This confused the participants because of the answer, “It’s over on aisle (3).” I saw that an explanation would take too long and brought the subject back to clothing, thinking that some day we should do an entire lesson on countable nouns and uncountable nouns.

3. "I wear a 34 by 30" As it proved easier and more natural for the participants to give their waist and inseam sizes together when asked, “What size do you wear?”, the separate question, “What’s your inseam?” was not practiced. The biggest difficulty was for the participants to correctly pronounce number endings.

4. Plural: "Here, try these (pants, boots) on." "Do they fit you?"

This activity worked well while I gave the prompts because I could choose the plural nouns. As soon as the participants started giving the prompts themselves, they sometimes used singular nouns with plural pronouns, as in, “Here, try these shirt on.” I then decided to teach both expressions separately, but could tell it was confusing for the less advanced learners. Using flash cards with clear items of clothing would certainly have been more successful.

5. Singular: "Here, try this (hat, shirt) on." "Does it fit you?"

The singular prompt was more immediately successful than the plural prompt because by now most of the participants grasped the difference, but it was still a

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challenge for the less advanced participants to tell the difference between the two. I found myself needing to write several examples on the board to make the concept clearer, and show the difference in spelling between “this” and “these.” Even so, participants had a difficult time running through the entire skit; “Here, try this shirt on.” “Does it fit you?” “Yes, it does.”

This indicated a need to teach the parts separately before asking the

participants to put them together.

6. “What’s the damage?” (An idiomatic expression that means “How much does this cost?”)

The participants caught on fairly quickly to the difference between “How much does it cost?” and “How much do they cost?” As the participants had difficulty understanding the word “damage,” I eventually gave it to them in Spanish. They enjoyed learning and trying to use “What’s the damage?”

7. “Cash or charge?”

I did not drill this expression, as most participants seemed to know it. However, a useful skit to use in the future might look like this: T: “I’ll take it!”

P: “Cash or charge?”

T: “Cash. What’s the damage?”

P: “Thirty-four ninety-nine.”

T: “Here’s forty bucks.”

P: “Here’s your change.”

Roles could then be reversed.

Do You Have Any Carhartts?

The participants all perked up when the chant was introduced. Everyone repeated enthusiastically from the first reading to the final performance by each section. Some parts seemed more difficult to learn and pronounce rapidly. One step in Carolyn Graham’s performance sequence had not been done, where the participants perform one part of the two-part dialogue, and the trainer the other part. Had this been done, the final chant by the two participant sections and final participants role plays may have been smoother.

What was rewarding to see, however, was that while repeating some of the more challenging sections of the chant, the participants enjoyed them so much they wouldn’t stop repeating them!

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Second Role Play As with the initial role play, I played the part of the clerk with two of the participants. They were able to respond correctly to prompts such as, “What’s your waist size?”, “What’s your inseam?” and “Do they fit you?” When they had to do the initiating, however, they would often revert back to expressions they knew, such as “I’m looking for Carhartts” instead of “Do you have any Carhartts?” Or “How much are they?” instead of “What’s the damage?” One of the more advanced participants used “What’s the damage?” correctly, while another one said, “How’s the damage?”, obviously combining two expressions. One participant asked, “What’s the damage?” before saying he wanted to buy the article, showing the need to teach the expression in the proper context.

When participants performed the final role play in pairs, the situation grew worse.

Most said, “I’m looking for...” instead of “Do you have any...? Only two participants thought of asking if the pants fit, and one of them confused the singular and plural, asking “Does they fit?” Ironically, when participants in the role plays made errors or forgot to ask certain questions, other workers in the audience would yell out the correct expression.

In conclusion, when comparing the first and last role plays, it became obvious that some expressions had been at least partially learned by the participants, but that more repetition and recycling was necessary. Two hours is simply not enough time to ingest some much new material. The fact that the training session was being video taped may have also intimidated the participants, who seemed to better remember and yell out the new expressions when not on camera. The highlight of the lesson was the chant, where all of the workers participated actively. In one instance, a previously learned chant was called up, igniting a spontaneous, enthusiastic whole-group chant. Seeing such lowering of inhibitions when chants are used makes me think indeed that more weight should be given to this creative form of language teaching.

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ANUPI

2007

REFERENCES Brown, D.H. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy, second edition. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Graham, C. (1978). Jazz chants: Rhythms of American English for students of English as a second language. New York: Oxford University Press.

Molinsky, S.J., Bliss, B., Graham, C., Bliss, P.S. (2001). Side by side activity workbook, third edition. New York: Prentice Hall Regents National COSH. (2005). Immigrant workers at risk: The urgent need for improved workplace safety and health policies and programs. Retrieved on 7/3/2006 from http://www.coshnetwork.org/immigrant_worker_resources.htm. AFL-CIO. OSHA. (2004).

Success with Hispanic Outreach.

Torcon, Inc. Retrieved on 10/15/06 from http://www.osha.gov/dcsp/success_stories/hispanic/torcon.html OSHA. (2005). Success with Hispanic outreach. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Expansion. Retrieved on 10/15/06 from http://www.osha.gov/dcsp/success_stories/hispanic/dallas_airport.html

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APPENDIX A: DO YOU HAVE ANY CARHARTTS?   Hi! Can I help you?

A. B. A.

 Do you have any

 wear

I

A.

I

A.

B. How A.

  Carhartts? Do you have any

 Yes, we  Over on aisle  What size do you

B.

B.

2007

 do.  five.  wear?

.  Right this  What size do you

 a thirty-four.

 thirty-

A

 What's your

 inseam? What

 think  Here, try  Do they 

 thirty.  these on.  fit you? 

it’s

Yes, they  much do they

 Thirty-four  Cash or

 Carhartts?

do.  cost?  ninety-nine.  charge?  bucks.

 length do you

 Thirty-four by

 four.  wear?  thirty.

 Do they 

 fit you? 

 What’s the

 damage?

 Thirty-four  Cash or

B.

 Here’s forty

 Here’s forty

Bruno Kamps

(Inspired by Carolyn Graham, Steven J. Molinsky and Bill Bliss)

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 way.  wear?

 ninety-nine.  charge?  bucks.

ANUPI

A. B. I A.

APPENDIX B: WHAT’S GOING ON?    What’s going on here?

What are you guys

 up to?

 Sorry?  didn’t catch what you

 I said what are you guys  You’re making a lot of  Oh!

B.

 We’re putting in A. B.

It's a

A. How B.

A.

 (clap)  said. I

 didn’t catch what you

 said.

 up to?  noise! You’re

 What are you guys  making a lot of

 doing?  noise!

 Sorry about  Sorry about  helicals and

 What's a

 helical?

 heavy metal

 pipe

 Oh, I  long is it going to

 Hang on just a  Let me call and ask my  It'll take about a  Oh,  I need a drink! Maybe

Bruno Kamps

2007

 that!  that!  fixing a  What's a

 that supports a

 see!  take? How

 (clap)  long is it going to

  sec.

Let me call and ask my   boss... (clap)   week. Just one more   really? (clap) I   two or three!

(Inspired by Carolyn Graham, Steven J. Molinsky and Bill Bliss)

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 foundation.  helical?  foundation.  (clap)  take?  boss.  (clap)  week.  think  (clap)

ANUPI

2007

APPENDIX C: WHAT DID YOU DO YESTERDAY?  were you

 yesterday?

 What did you

 do?

I

 Yesterday?  lifted a

 (clap)  house and

 Yesterday?  broke some

 (clap)  concrete.

You

 lifted a

 house and

 broke some

 concrete?

 Yes, I

 did!

 Yes, I

 did!

  What are you doing now?

A. Where B.

A.

B. A.

And

 what are you doing

 now?

B.

I’m

 drinking a

 beer and

 smoking a

 cigar.

 beer? and  beer! and

 smoking a  smoking a

 cigar???  cigar!

A.

 You’re drinking a  He’s drinking a  I’m just

B. A.

 You’re pulling my  What are you

 kidding. I’m

 pulling your

 leg? So what

 leg!

 are you

 doing?

 digging

 hole!

 doing?

B.

 Actually,

 (Clap) I’m

Bruno Kamps

(Inspired by Carolyn Graham, Steven J. Molinsky and Bill Bliss)

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