My 3rd Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016

Taken from http://www.relacionesculturales.edu.mx/abla-2016/

My 3^rd Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016:

“English Proficiency and the Common European Framework”

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Post 287

          “English has grown so much in recent decades that it is commonly used among millions of people who did not learn it as their first language” (Escobar, 2016). And because of this amount of non-native speakers, the Common European Framework of Reference (commonly known as CEF) was born in November 2001 to deal with what learners were really able to do along their contrasting developmental phases. Still educative institutions, such as language centers or schools, have not been able to comprehend the real scope of what the CEF is meant in terms of learner language development. Is CEF still unclear for ELT professionals and for academic decision-makers?

          Escobar (2016), during the ABLA 2016 convention in Houston, posits the issue concerning the misinterpretation of the CEF by asking the following: “Is the concept of a ‘native speaker’ still useful in light of the transformations that English has experienced in its expansion?” Based on my experience with curriculum development and instructional design, publishers’ statements regarding their English language series in which a student can cover a book of theirs in 90-120 hrs of instruction is a teaching/learning fallacy. It has been roughly claimed by CEF standards developers that to move from one level to another, some 200 hrs of instruction are needed. And then what it is also misinterpreted by professionals is that A1 means someone who has never studied English in his/her life. But the fact that a good amount of student inter-language is needed to achieve an A1 CEF level.

          Based on the British Council (Wright, M., n.d.), an A1 – breakthrough or beginner can be described as someone who …

·    Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type,

·        Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has, and

·    Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

But, could an A1 really do this in less than 200 hrs of instructor-led work in class? And by paying attention to Desveaux (2016) in the Cambridge English Support Site (see chart below), it looks like a learner in a CEF Level A2 has already undergone a minimum of 180 hrs. But what about an A1? Did this learner manage to complete his/her learning, the one stated by the British Council, in just 20 hrs of class instruction? These numbers do need revision since we language teachers know that these hours become volatile and fallacious when we listen to our students trying to communicate in the target language.

Click picture to make it larger.

          Another issue that is nebulous when one is trying to “digest” it is whether online hours do count or not. When I asked Escobar during his talk at the ABLA 2016 convention, he insisted that these hours count as long as they are instructor-led. Basically, these hours on an online platform in a hybrid or blended learning format can be taken as part of the hours needed to complete a CEF level. As Dr. Glick (2016) also stated in his ABLA 2016 presentation while explaining this case study in a Mexican university, online/blended hours have a positive impact on language learning. And though all this sounds wonderful, do these online hours count when they are not “exactly” guided by the instructor and a platform is just used as an online workbook? And how much do these rather “unguided hours” impact language performance? Up to this point, this is unquantifiable! Perhaps as my curriculum partner, Luis Quesada (from CCCN in Costa Rica), suggests, we should divide these hours into two since he believes that these hours may have some positive impact in the development of student English interlanguage.

Federico Escobar, College Board, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA

          At this point of the discussion, I want to go back to one of the most striking ideas presented by Escobar in his talk, “How should we measure the effective use of English as a lingua franca?” (2016). Escobar is giving a different direction in the real understanding of language performance of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) since CEF descriptors only refer to what a learner is able to do in the various levels the scale has and not what native speakers are meant to do depending on their use of their first language. By bumping into this misinterpretation “lump,” CEF does not need to be re-defined but correctly understood. Descriptors are clear enough to have us comprehend that learners today are using English as a lingua franca due to their interactions with other non-native speakers of the target language. English is not being learned to talk to native speakers but to improve the learner’s chances of being employed. To sum up, CEF is not about native-like language use and performance, it is about, as Escobar (2016) explained in his talk, the interlanguage students develop along the many phases the CEF encases in its scale and how it is used to interact with other EFL speakers.

          Some other additional reflections Escobar’s talk triggered in my mind after the ABLA convention are connected to the way we run language programs in our binational centers. Courses cannot be created around publishers’ statements of their language series since they are not down to earth in the projection of hours needed to climb the CEF scale ladder. A student cannot move up in the CEF scale in 90 to 120 hours; more hours of instructor-led time are needed to develop a given level. As explained by Escobar (2016), this is the reason why the CEF now includes A1 and A1+, A2 and A2+, and so on, because in ELF learner language development cannot be encased in hours but on what students can do based on the CEF descriptors of language mastery. It is for this reason that the binational centers’ roles, as well as the one by any serious language school, is to educate their teachers to administrate this tool correctly and to not expect native-like language production from their students. Additionally, language centers need to instruct their learners that they are not meant to expect to speak like a native speaker when speaking but to anticipate some native-like production from time to time. Most of the time the what it is going to be witnessed by the instructor is the development and polishing of student ELF interlanguage.

          Finally, online work in blended or hybrid formats do count if these hours are truly guided by the instructor. Online work per se cannot be quantified as part of instructor-led hours spent by a sudent on the school platform, or language series platform. A platform is not supposed to be used by the teachers as an online workbook; it needs to be connected to the course continuum to become meaningful for the student (inter) language development.

References

Desveaux, S. (2016, August 5). Guided learning hours. Retrieved from Cambridge English Support Site: https://support.cambridgeenglish.org/hc/en-gb/articles/202838506-Guided-learning-hours

Escobar, F. (16-19 de August de 2016). English Proficiency and the Common European Framework. 21st Century Challenges ABLA 2016 Convention Program . Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico: Insituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales.

Glick, D. (2016, August 16-19). Maximizing Learning Outcomes through Blended Learning: What Research Shows. 21st Century Challenges ABLA 2016 Convention Program . Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico: Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales.

Wright, M. (n.d.). Our levels and the CEFR. Retrieved from British Council Portugal: https://www.britishcouncil.pt/en/our-levels-and-cefr

A 2nd Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016

Taken from http://www.relacionesculturales.edu.mx/abla-2016/

A 2^nd Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016:

“Maximizing Learning Outcomes through Blended Learning: What Research Shows”

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Post 286

          “English language acquisition around the world is increasingly being seen as a skill for personal as well as national development. English language skills are becoming increasingly more closely aligned with employability” (Glick, 2016). English has proven itself a means of instrumental motivation to find better jobs and opportunities in life in many Latin American countries. Seeing what it is happening in my home country, Costa Rica, I can see what Glick labels as the alignment with employability when referring to English language skills. But the problem is not the individual or national desire for people to be employed with a higher salary or with the provision of more perks for employees; the issue comes as to how make all these English learners become fluent in the target language.

Dr. Danny Glick, Edusoft Limited – ETS and University of California, Irvine’s Digital Learning Lab, California, USA

          At ABLA 2016, Dr. Glick, -based on his research case study carried out in a university in Northwestern Mexico-, claims that Edusoft’s English Discoveries can provide a way to maximize student learning in a language course. The experience that Dr. Glick describes is not that new to me since, as an English Discoveries Online (EDO) user and administrator in the cultural center I work for, I was able to witness some of his claims: the outperformance of learners using the virtual platform, the gap in favor of the blended model of language learning, and the cost effectiveness of blended courses when compared to entirely F2F-taught courses. In spite of Dr. Glick’s quantitative analysis of the data gathered in Mexico and shown during his presentation at ABLA, the corpus of statistical data I processed at the binational center where I work was approached from a more qualitative frame of reference.

          “Students taking blended English language courses using English Discoveries outperform students taking the same course in a face-to-face format” (Glick, 2016). At the binational center where I hold a curricular position, we started using EDO back in 2014. Part of the rationale we used to start using this online platform was the need to provide learners with a virtual space to practice course content outside the classroom. When we started analyzing the data coming from our electronic gradebooks, especially in final examinations, we started to see a difference in the way learners were performing prior the use of EDO and when they had had six months of EDO usage. There was a gradual improvement we could note in the way our students were performing. Our experience did not count with students who were solely taking our courses F2F since the transition to a blended format took place in about 4 months, but when compared to what had been happening before EDO started being used, learners were performing exceptionally. And as Dr. Glick stated in his ABLA presentation, the difference we could also see “did not happen due to chance” (2016); something was being gestating cognitively speaking in the minds of our students.

          “The gap in favor of the blended model increases as the English proficiency level of the students increases” (Glick, 2016). EDO helped us improve our students’ performance in our binational center’s English program, but we did not get to see the gap spotted by Dr. Glick as the level of proficiency increased. Based on his quantitative analysis of data presented at ABLA 2016, the higher the level of mastery of the students the wider the gap between EDO users and non-users was. That is, higher proficiency levels were favoring the learners who were working with the blended format. What I basically observed in the samples of data gotten from the database of gradebooks was that final written exams were becoming better in terms of their grades when compared to what we used to do prior the implementation of EDO at our binational center. There was indeed a difference in test scores, but we did not quantify what was observed in the Mexican case study. Though I do not have evidence of this per se, what was noticeable in our database was an increase of final test performance and their corresponding grades.

          “Blended courses were found to be more cost effective when compared with traditional fact-to-fact teaching” (Glick, 2016). Having learners transition from a F2F teaching format to a blended one was a great improvement in our teaching standards at our binational center; we found that having learners work on an online platform benefitted them especially because we decided to grade their work on it. Based on our national idiosyncrasy, we agreed on grading student platform work because otherwise they wouldn’t work on it autonomously.  From this point of view, the course turned “cost effective” because the investment on the platform brought interesting changes in learner performance when we got to the program’s exit exams, the TOEIC test. Since differences in test scores do not “happen due to chance,” a blended format in our program produced a positive change in our students who –after more hours of language exposure- were able to get better grades in their exit exam tests. From a mere qualitative stand we can conclude that the effect of a blended cycle in which EDO played a great part positively affected learner performance on this exit test.

          Like in any case study, we need to keep in the lookout that it pertains to a very specific group of individuals with very specific teaching and learning conditions. Dr. Glick’s “case study” learners were located in a Mexican university where they were using English Discoveries as part of their courses. However, as it was explained by him, there were other groups who did not participate and who were used as a basis for comparison. In my particular situation, we were migrating our whole F2F program to a blended format by means of EDO, and we did not have controlled groups or anything like that. What we can attest and corroborate with the school’s course databases is that there was an improvement in language proficiency.

          I must agree 100% with Dr. Glick that phenomena like these do not happen just by chance; something triggers these changes in student behavior. I am more than certain that EDO (English Discoveries Online by Edusoft) must have played a role in the improvement of student language proficiency, but there are other factors that also need to be considered in our particular case: the amount of blended learning training hours invested on instructors, a marked change in the recruitment policies our institution had to look for more suitable teaching candidates with some electracy traits in their teaching profile, the continuous guidance given to students in the use of the platform by our teaching staff, the weekly class performance reports issued by Edusoft that allowed us to pinpoint courses where supervisors needed to help the instructor with the blended learning cycle implementation, the inclusion of test items coming from lexical component extracted directly from EDO, and so on. There were and continue being changes in our blended program that make it more robust and competitive in our local teaching market.

Reference

Glick, D. (2016, August 16-19). Maximizing Learning Outcomes through Blended Learning: What Research Shows. 21st Century Challenges ABLA 2016 Convention Program . Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico: Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales.

My First Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016 “Living and Learning Online”

Taken from http://www.relacionesculturales.edu.mx/abla-2016/

My First Lesson Learned at ABLA 2016

“Living and Learning Online”

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Friday, August 26, 2016

Post 285

          Is education keeping up with the new technologies that are available for us to boost student learning? In spite of the fact that we are now living in a technology-rich environment, we teachers constantly ask ourselves whether students are ready to use technology to learn autonomously or if instructors are also ready for the quantum leap towards the integration of technology for teaching and learning purposes. My very personal position has always been that learners are quite good at smartphone use and apps but not necessarily savvy when technology is used for other purposes than social media. At the ABLA Convention in Houston I met many other Latin American teachers who agree that learners are not fundamentally ready to utilize technology to further their learning.

         

          A Technology-Rich Virtual Environment

          Education and technology, especially in the 21^st Century, walk hand in hand to promote and sustain learning. Our learning and teaching realities imply living in a technology-rich environment that is here to aid learners in the building of their knowledge and use of that knowledge to speak a foreign language, to develop skills and competencies to perform new jobs, and so on. But how is technology used by teachers and learners nowadays? Experience shows us that entertainment and communication peak the uses of technology by either group. But how about learning? It is undeniable that many people do use virtual environments accessed through smartphones, tablets, or any other portable technology to learn autonomously. However, a vast majority still uses technology for very trivial, trifling, and shallow purposes.

          Many educators have the pervasive assumption that students will use technology for learning. As Bernáldez (2016) stressed during her ABLA presentation abstract, “just because today’s students have grown up in a technology-rich world does not mean that they know how to effectively and responsibly utilize technology” for learning. But the same is true about educators who may not know how to “effectively and responsibly” use technological resources to boost learning. “It is a common misconception that today’s learners can seamlessly transition from the routine use of devices for personal reasons to using them for learning, research, and enhanced productivity” (Bernáldez, 2016). But it is also a “seamless” assumption that teachers can also start using devices such as tablets and phones to potentiate learning.

Prof. Jonathan Acuña in his five minutes of fame during Bernáldez’s “Living and Learning Online” presentation

          A Quantum Leap in Learning: Are We There Yet?

          During Bernáldez’s presentation, the adience was asked whether they had a Facebook user’s profile. The answer from the audience in the ballroom was an almost resounding yes. Bernáldez changed her question and re-stated it by asking the audience who did not have a Facebook profile, and being there myself, I had to raise my hand to stand tall for those of us who do not believe in a social media network as Facebook. When I was asked to share with my peers in the room why I refused to join this kind of social media, I got immediately reminded of the way people are living their online lives. “What kind of online imprint are you leaving online,” I asked the audience. “If your name were typed on Google, what kind of result would we get? And would you like your students to see that information regarding your personal life?” were two other questions I asked participants. In this business of education, it is a better idea to have a professional online imprint that can speak better of who you are and not of that other imprint that taken out of context can be interpreted wrongly by learners and contractors.

          But more importantly than what Facebook represents for many people is the lack of self- and instructor-oriented training that teachers deserve to make learning take place with technology. What has been done by instructors to use technology “effectively and responsibly?” Based on what I was able to discuss with many of the ABLA participants, some instructors have been diligently working on their development, but this does not apply to all the people who teach in their binational centers. And what has been done by these institutions? In the cultural center where I work, we have done a lot, and still we are not satisfied with the results we are getting. Other binational centers are in the planning phase to approach personnel who deals with students, learning objectives, and the use of technology. But still the question that needs to be posed is, “how can our learners be trained to use the gamut of technology that can be used to foster and boost learning?”

          Some Simple Conclusions

          There is no doubt that the potential that social media has is immense. We need to question ourselves why it is this boundless amount of technology underused by students and teachers to make it work for learning. The trifle use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on will not produce any good learning in our students if their mindset is not changed. The need for a more in-depth comprehension of online and mobile learning is needed by binational centers, teaching personnel, and learners as well. If binational centers such as the one in Uruguay and Chile do use this technology-rich environment to help their learners improve their English language skills, one gets to question oneself what “magical solution” they were able to find to boost autonomous learning in hybrid language programs.

Reference

Bernáldez, B. (2016, August 16 - 19). Living and Learning Online. 21st Century Challenges, ABLA 2016 Houston, Texas Convention Program . Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico: Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales.

ABLA 2016 Convention: 21st Century Challenges

Jonathan Acuña, Head of Curricular Development at CCCN, Costa Rica [left]

and Julio Prin, General Director at CVA, Venezuela [right]

ABLA 2016 Convention:

21^st Century Challenges

Houston, Texas

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Post 284

          In spite of the fact that I don’t normally attend international conventions outside Costa Rica (my home country), at my workplace, Centro Cultural Costarricense-Norteamericano, I was given the chance to attend the ABLA Convention in Houston, TX from August 16 to 19 by the Academic and Executive Directors. And I must confess that it was until I got to participate in this convention that I understood why ABLA (the Association of Bi-National Centers of Latin America) exists and is there to let institutions like the one I work for share their best practices, experiences gained through the years, and the unique networking that a teaching professional can create in an event like this one.

           Participating at the ABLA 2016, 21^st Century Challenges, in Houston, Texas widened my perspective and comprehension of the role of binational centers (BNCs) across Latin America. It is through this unique experience that BNCs can share their best academic practices and social projection and programs. BNCs’ personnel from various countries in the region explained novelties in their language programs for adults and children, and how they managed to get to that point in their language programs’ development and social presence. Sessions on teaching training gave us participants food for thought on how we are currently measuring the impact of our teacher training programs and its ulterior impact in the short and long run. And when it comes to put the pieces together, language programs and teacher training, rationale is explained and shared, and collaboration is always offered to make this symbiosis work.

          Part of the deal when an ABLA Convention is attended is to get to know the colleagues of ours who do similar things to what we do in our home country’s BNC. While interacting with administrative and teaching professionals from these other binational centers across Latin America one gets to create friendship bonds with peers and partners who are behind the same or similar objectives in our fields of work. These bonds give room for cooperation to achieve academic goals, especially when one has already walked the road peers are beginning to trot on. Being there also means finding collaborative hands that can guide us towards success in the academic endeavors one is trying to attain. To sum up, part of all these friendship bonds that are create prepares all of us for the sharing of well-gained experiences that only through academic life they are treasured and then shared with people with similar ideals.

          Though these facts may sound convincing to people who work at BNCs in Latin America, is it really worth attending an ABLA Convention like the one hosted and organized by the Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales de Nuevo León (Monterrey, Mexico)? A resounding yes needs to be the answer to this question. ABLA needs to be the channel to share BNCs’ gained experiences in the implementation of language programs that do have an impact on the communities they serve. ABLA can be a bridge to find the right academic, administrative guidance coming from sister institutions that pursue the same objectives in the teaching of English as a foreign language. ABLA is the right place to network with peers and other academic authorities to get feedback on what one is intending to achieve because of their former experiences and gained knowledge in their academic and institutional lives. ABLA is a space for BNCs and their personnel to learn from one another to enrich their visions of one’s future.

          Though I am not the kind of instructor and curricular developer who gets to participate in a convention of this magnitude, ABLA was a great opportunity to get to know lots of other Latin American professionals who are interested in areas I am really fond of. I was offered helping hands coming from various countries in South America to strengthen the plans we have to create more solid English programs at our BNC with a healthy online component. I offered my expertise in blended education to help our sister institution in Venezuela and any other BNC that might need someone with expertise and studies in this area. To conclude, the friendship bonds created in this single participation of mine in this international event sponsored by the US Department of State will not fade out in time and won’t get tainted by the absence of contact with so many professionals who –no doubt- create a better future for the BNCs they represent and a brighter future to the communities they serve.