Dr. Canagarajah provided me with a wonderful introduction to my own presentation, Challenging Assumptions: Tools for TESOL Teacher Education. The topic of assumptions, their sources, and their effects on choices in the classroom, in teamwork, and in our world in general has intrigued me for many years, and is the subject of both my masters and doctoral research.

I immigrated to Israel in the late 1970s. Israel is a country of new immigrants, and as such, I encountered others who had immigrated from a myriad of places, all of whom carried with them diverse assumptions about the way the world should work. My own assumptions influenced my work as an English teacher and head of department. I found myself expecially challenged by in trying to understand the 15 teachers on the faculty who came from at least six different countries and were trained with different methodologies and held different beliefs about teaching and learning language.

I hope that this intercultural sensitivity, developed as part of the necessity of understanding my colleagues, will allow me to continue to question and challenge my own assumptions! 

When working on technology-based language learning courses (or courses in any subject, for that matter), I often find myself wrestling with a conflict between my deep belief in constructivism and the need to develop closed learning objects which provide immediate right/wrong, computer-generated feedback to students on questions they answer and activities they do. As a constructivist, I believe that we create meaning along our learning journeys, and the knowledge we possess, while having commonalities, is quite different and unique for each of us. I would hope learners reach a stage where they can generate their own language based upon what they’ve learned. But, of course, when individuals generate language, infinite possibilities exist, a conundrum for closed-ended, teacher-independent components of courses.

On the other hand, the scaffolding necessary to reach that creation of meaning may be similar for all, and this is perhaps the place where closed-ended multimedia experiences fill a niche. Even here, however, it’s worth keeping in mind that there are different ways of approaching the writing of questions.

I came across a wonderful article by Leslie Owen Wilson who defines an interesting taxonomy of Newer Views of Learning – Types of Questions. In some ways, Wilson’s question types parallel Bloom’s Taxonomy, but she focuses on the actual question types rather than the more abstract, difficult to grasp area of objectives. By following her list of question types – factual, convergent, divergent, evaluative and combination – it is possible to reach more deeply into levels of learning.

For example, let’s say I’m focusing on the language function of giving/receiving directions. The learner sees a map on the screen. I could ask a multiple choice factual question like – I’m going to the store. I’m at the post office. What should I do? The responses could include – a. Go straight. b. Turn right. c. Turn left.

But I could then move from that factual level to an evaluative level. For example: I have to buy food. I’m at the post office. Which is the best question for me to ask? a. Where’s the store? b. How do I get to the supermarket? c. Should I go straight?

True, I haven’t asked the learner to do a task-based performance activity which would, perhaps, display a deeper level of knowledge, but at least I’ve gone beyond that factual level, forcing the learner into areas of more complex thinking.

Food for thought…

A little over a year ago, I gave a presentation at the University of Seattle in Seattle, Washington on the topic of future trends in ELT. I entitled it: Blurred Boundaries: The Future of English Language Learning and Teaching. When I spoke of blurred boundaries, I was referring to boundaries between learner and teacher, learning and teaching, and life and learning. In retrospect, I’m glad I used the term, although little did I anticipate how blurred the boundaries would actually become over the last year.

The lecture I gave was for EFL/ESL instructors at the university, and basically related to the future of ELT as applied to an institutional setting. I touched briefly on Web 2.0 technologies, reviewing the use of wikis, blogs and podcasts. I had no idea, however, that social networking platforms such as Facebook and Second Life would have such an amazing snowball effect on both life and learning over the past year, and that the boundaries would blur even further.

Web 2.0, Social Networking Platforms and ELT

Speck (1996) suggests that when “goals and objectives are considered realistic and relevant to the learner’s personal and professional needs,” learners display greater commitment to learning. How true – we are motivated to learn what we need to know and what can help us in our lives. This principle has underpinned the reasons for language learning through the ages; people have learned languages for many reasons–to understand religion, to read great literature, to successfully integrate into new societies and, more recently, to communicate with others on a global scale. The use of Web 2.0 technologies extends the need to a new, virtual world. For people to develop a presence on social networking platforms, knowledge of English becomes an enabler.

Courses and products that leverage this tidal wave of interconnectedness of people by providing learners with the skills necessary to develop their online presence will be fulfilling objectives that take into account realistic and relevant uses of language. A new text-type has been born, that of the social networking profile, and a new jargon, the language of online interaction, must be presented.

Reinventing our Identities as Teachers 

So yes, 2008 will bring with it an even further blurring of the boundaries and a need for yet, once again, a reframing of our identities as teachers.  Social networking platforms may prove to be the great leveler of the 21st century. We will have to cope with the flattening of status in the world; if presidential candidates and plain folks are equal on Facebook and Youtube, then we as teachers must certainly be willing to expose who we are to our students. I have no doubt that, just as in the past, we will recreate ourselves to meet these new challenges.

Assessing Blended Learning

Ok. So you’ve integrated diverse tools for blended learning into your course. Your students are writing blogs, interacting through wikis, using online courseware managed by a learning management system, and downloading podcasts to their MP3 players; all this is in addition to face-to-face meetings. And your assessment consists of a paper test in class. Right? Well, maybe, but maybe not.

The past ten years have seen the embracing of many different aspects of assessment in schools and workplaces, particularly in EFL and ESL English courses. The use of authentic assessment including performance tasks and project work have opened up a plethora of opportunities to truly assess more diverse aspects of learning than the paper and pencil test is capable of doing. Assessment has become, as it should always have been, an integral part of curriculum design. In fact, Grant Wiggins (1998 ) in his seminal book, Educative Assessment, suggests that assessment is, in essence, “visually indistinguishable from what takes place during good instruction”. (p.3)

Principles of Assessment

If we can agree on several principles about assessment, we will see that by planning assessment as part of curriculum design, we are actually informing that design, and in so doing, building the right mosaic for our blend.

• The purpose of assessment is to inform learning and teaching, as well as to audit learning.
• It’s possible to assess only a sampling of what was taught.
• Components of assessment should be reflective of components of teaching and learning.
• In English Language Teaching (ELT), assessment should reflect the big picture objectives for which the language is being taught (e.g., to engage in conversation, to read academic articles, to collaborate with others at work).

Designing Your Assessment

So in a nutshell, embed in your assessment both the big picture objectives for your course and the online and offline formats and tools you are planning to use. If your most basic objectives are communicative, use a communicative or quasi-communicative task as part of your assessment. If your objectives are more academic and reading-based, then include academic reading as part of your assessment. If your course components include blogs and wikis, use them in your assessment.

But most important of all, plan your assessment as you are planning your course design. In this way, assessment will begin to inform your curriculum and you will be able to implement the constant spiral design of teaching, learning, assessment.

What is blended learning? 

What is blended learning and how do we decide what the right blend is for our course design? Masie (2002) suggests that blended learning, in general, is a mix of two or more different methods of teaching, and he suggests that we, as a species, are blended learners by nature. In an ELT teacher development session I gave in Budapest several years ago, participants named over 30 different methods that they used including frontal teaching, collaborative project work, pair work, storytelling, use of audio CDs, use of computer software, Internet-based activities and class discussions.

Blended Learning and ELT 

So if blended learning isn’t new, what’s all the hype? And how does it relate to ELT? First of all, ELT is often cited as the “beta-site” of best practice in blended learning. English as a foreign language holds a unique place. English is a container; we can put whatever content we want into it when we teach. We have the freedom to choose the topics and themes we want to focus on. Learning English demands practice and production of various skills and the use of diverse strategies.

So when we begin designing a course, we have to solve a three-dimensional planning puzzle: which topics and themes are we going to use to teach which language skills, functions and structures, and which delivery channels are the most appropriate to use for them?

Choosing Appropriate Delivery Channels 

Good pedagogy should inform our choice of appropriate delivery channels. When teaching writing, for example, we know that at all levels, provision of feedback is paramount. If, for example, we are designing an online, self-access course, where learners are given computer feedback but there are no teachers available, it is very difficult to teach anything but the most rudimentary of writing skills. On the other hand, we know that learners need ample listening practice, so why not plan to use podcasts that could easily be downloaded to MP3 players? Social interaction is one important reason for learning a language. Face-to-face interaction in the classroom allows learners to take advantage of secondary cues such as gestures and lip patterns, in addition to allowing for natural negotiation of meaning. While the computer does enable audio chats, these aspects of social interaction are lost.

Bend That Blend!

We have an abundance of tools in our pedagogical toolbox today. Choosing the right tool for specific skills and strategies, while keeping in mind the audience for whom we are designing our course, will enable us to bend the blend successfully, creating the perfect mosaic for learning.

So you want to design a product for teaching English. Where do you begin? Read on to find ten top tips for the novice ELT instructional designer.

1. Identify your audience. Who are the learners? Is the product for a particular age group? Is it for an audience from a specific cultural background or country? Define your audience as clearly as possible before you start.
2. Clarify the mode of instruction. Is the product self-access or is there a teacher involved? Is it a blended course or does it use only one mode of instruction?Is it face-to-face or is it distance learning? In short, determine how the product is to be used.
3. Decide on the course components. Does your product include a course book? What accompanies the course book? Is there a workbook, a teacher’s guide or an accompanying CD or website? Is your product technology-based? What technological components will be part of the product?
4. Think about the delivery platform/s. Are you developing a print product or an online course? Are there multiple delivery platforms? If so, what are they? Establish how the content is to be divided across platforms.
5. Determine the length of the course. How many hours of learning do you want your course to cover? Does it follow a school year or a school semester? Is is a consumer product? If you are developing a print-based course, how many pages do you want your book to have? This will help you to decide upon the quantity of material you will need.
6. Choose the level of the course. Are the targeted learners beginners, intermediate learners or advanced learners? Does your course follow a prescribed curriculum? Will you need your course to correlate to a public standard such as TESOL’s ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students or the Common European Framework of Reference?
7. Clarify the pedagogical approach you want to use. Do you intend to follow a specific approach to language learning? Will you incorporate principles from different approaches? Will your product be primarily inductive or deductive in nature? Answering these questions will assist you in developing the pedagogical rationale for your product.
8. Plan well before developing. Whatever the mode of instruction and whatever the delivery platform, the more you invest in the planning phase of your course, the better the development phase will go.
9. Materials development is a team effort. Remember that you will be working with others and that each of you brings different basic assumptions with you into your teamwork. If your product is for a commercial publisher or client, there are many factors to be taken into account. While the pedagogy should inform all other aspects of the project, it is not the only aspect. There are marketing and budgetary considerations, and there are graphic, engineering and production constraints.
10. Be analytically creative. Sounds like a contradiction in terms? Not really. The content of your materials has to be both attractive to learners and meet their learning needs. So while you have to be creative, you also have to make sure that your materials have really covered your instructional objectives.

Overwhelmed? Don’t be. The world of innovative instructional design is an exciting ride. Jump on!