Category: ESL

B is for Bell Curve

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Ken BeattyDr. Ken Beatty

First, let me leave nothing to the imagination: I hate the Bell Curve. Because I teach assessment statistics to graduate students, I know I shouldn’t callously bully an innocent graph of achievement, but it isn’t the tool itself I object to, but the wicked uses to which it is put.

Bad beginnings

The Bell Curve was first called “the normal curve of error” by Abraham de Moivre in 1733. He used it to explain games of chance, but by the 19th century, the Bell Curve was being misapplied to justify differences in society such as to support Francis Galton’s theories of eugenics, a pseudo-scientific movement to breed humans to produce a master race. It was only the Nazi party’s horrific love of the idea that led to its belated rejection (Goertzel & Fashing, 1981).

In time, the Bell Curve swept into classrooms as a popular means for quantifying levels of student performance. The assumption was that among any group of students, about 10 percent of the weakest ones inhabit the low end of the curve, most linger comfortably in the middle, and 10 percent can be assumed to be highly competent.

The Bell Curve in practice

At one university, my fellow teachers and I were forced to apply the Bell Curve to the grades of each of our classes. Practically speaking, this meant 3 of 30 students would get the lowest D and E failing grades, another 3 or so would get the top A grades, and the bulk in the middle, 24 students, could expect to earn C and B grades. Through considerable protests and prayers, management might permit us to squeeze the middle of the curve and award more A grades as well as save our weakest students from expiring in an assessment train wreck, but we had to beg.

Regardless of final figure manipulations, a bad taste was left in the mouths of both students and teachers. Students felt the Bell Curve inherently made the classroom unnecessarily competitive and that success depended not so much on an individual doing well as on others doing badly. It wouldn’t matter if each and every member of my class were the secret spawn of an Einstein cloning experiment; degrees of difference would be conjured up, and otherwise brilliant students would be spread across the Bell Curve like falling blossoms on wet pavement.

At the same time, teachers felt their work was devalued because even the most highly educated, experienced, and dedicated teachers offering the most innovative lessons could not hope to have their students score higher than those of their less-inspired colleagues. Any gains in student achievement attributable to a superb teacher’s work would be washed away in the Bell Curve. Teachers who rebelled against the obvious unfairness of it all faced the subtle punishment of having to provide detailed justifications of deviations from the so-called norm. From the administrative perspective, the Bell Curve helped even out teachers’ grades and avoid grade inflation, the creeping tendency for teachers to award higher marks, in some cases to garner positive evaluations. Continue reading →

Back to the Future: More Low-Tech Activities for a
High-Tech Classroom

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2013_Heyer_SandraSandra Heyer

In a previous newsletter, I described my state-of-the-art classroom and its hidden drawback: It was making my students and me a little lazy. I was glued to a high-tech console, and my students were glued to the seats of their sleek gliding desks. Concerned that our sedentary class-style might have a detrimental effect on our health, I looked for a remedy.

Fortunately, the problem caused by technology had an easy low-tech solution: simple interactive activities that got us out of our seats and moving around. We took a look at two activities, the Moving Line and Conversation Stations. In this article, let’s consider the Walking Dictation and Find Your Match.

Activity 3: Walking Dictation (also called Messenger and Scribe)
Levels: All

Almost any text suitable for dictation can be the basis of a walking dictation. Because students do this activity independently, it is best to choose a text that is a little less challenging than one you might dictate yourself. During a walking dictation, half of the students are out of their seats at any given time.

  1. Number each sentence in the text to be dictated. Then post the text on a wall in the classroom or outside in the hallway. (If you have a large class, you will need to post more than one copy.) Alternately, you could scatter single numbered sentences on walls around the room.SH_5
  2. Students pair up. Student A stays seated. Student B walks to where the text is posted and memorizes a sentence.
  3. Student B returns to Student A and recites the sentence. Student A writes it down.SH_6.
  4. Halfway through the activity, students switch roles.
  5. Write the text on the board or project it on a screen so that students can check their writing. Continue reading →

Active Teach: Helping You and Your Students
“See the Language”

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SCAD Language Studio ? Professor Christina Cavage, Human Resources headshot, Fall 2013 ? Photography by Stephanie Krell, courtesy of SCAD Christina Cavage

Classroom teaching has evolved during my last 25 years in the classroom.  Our students have changed as well.  Long gone are the days of audiocassette recorders, and overhead projectors. Many classrooms today are outfitted with Smart Boards, smart TVs, and other digital tools. However, due to funding constraints and dated buildings, many classrooms are not fortunate enough to have these tools.  How can you appeal to digital natives, while at the same time work within the constraints of your classroom?

ActiveTeach is the answer. What is ActiveTeach?  ActiveTeach allows teachers to bring the text to life without the worries of a Smart Board. Take a look at this video of my colleague, Elizabeth Holland using the Active Teach for Next Generation Grammar during her class.

Notice how she is able to highlight text to draw more attention to the content. You also have the ability to enlarge, manipulate and annotate. These are great tools for any classroom, and can really appeal to our digital natives.

One great feature is the ability to do exercises from the text, right on your board, through the ActiveTeach.  My students love when I have them come up and complete information within the Student Book via the ActiveTeach. Take a look at the image below. You can see how to select an exercise, and have students complete the answers on the ActiveTeach.

The ActiveTeach also includes all the videos and audio files, as well as some great teaching tips, exercises and games.  Make your grammar come alive!

A is for Authenticity

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Ken BeattyDr. Ken Beatty 

Since the 1970s, teachers have been arguing about authenticity in the classroom. As a TESOL professor and textbook writer, I’m often asked whether I’m in favor of authenticity. It seems a simple question, but there are several related ideas to consider: How do we define authenticity? What is a continuum of authenticity? How does authenticity relate to materials, situation, and task? and Where and how do we locate authentic materials?

Defining authenticity
Most definitions of authenticity in the classroom can be reduced to the idea of something not created for use by language learners. In general, although textbooks can contain authentic materials, they are not authentic. On the other hand, we consider a local newspaper, menu, or bus schedule as being authentic; the language is natural and generally more applicable to the needs and interests of our students. This is one of the great strengths of exposing students to authentic materials: Outside the classroom, they continue learning as they encounter additional authentic materials.

A continuum of authenticity
The opposite of authentic materials are those that are inauthentic. Elementary school teachers and teachers of beginners use inauthentic materials such as simplified menus with purely descriptive names (hamburger) rather than confusing brand names (Big Mac®, Whopper®). Other aspects of the menu are similarly set in plain speech to avoid confusion.

But between authentic and inauthentic materials are constructed materials. In making constructed materials, teachers and materials developers usually start with authentic materials but simplify vocabulary, grammar, and even typefaces to make them more pertinent and accessible. In other cases, materials are constructed from scratch, based on different genres. As an experiment, I asked 56 experienced language teachers to review three passages and decide which were authentic and which were constructed. Only three teachers identified all three correctly (Beatty, 2015). If most teachers can’t tell the difference, well-written constructed materials are probably an acceptable alternative. Continue reading →

Back to the Future:
Low-Tech Activities for a High-Tech Classroom

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2013_Heyer_SandraSandra Heyer

I recently had the pleasure of teaching in a classroom renovated specifically for English language teaching. From a console at the front of the room, I could access the Internet, project documents, or play music with a few taps on a user-friendly touch screen. Even the students’ desks were carefully chosen with language lessons in mind. The lightweight ergonomic desks were on casters, so re-configuring their arrangement for pair work or small-group work was a breeze. In fact, the desks moved so easily that my students could move them without getting up—they just shoved off with their feet and glided over the low-nap carpet.

My students and I loved our state-of-the-art classroom. However, a few weeks into the semester, I realized it had one hidden drawback: It was making us all a little lazy. Because I was at the console a lot of the time, I wasn’t moving around the classroom as much as I usually do. And my students weren’t moving at all.

This lack of physical activity was somewhat troubling in light of recent research indicating that being sedentary is dangerous to one’s health; it is linked to serious illnesses like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. “Sitting,” Dr. James Levine at the Mayo Clinic has famously proclaimed, “is the new smoking.”

My class met every afternoon from 1:00 to 3:30—a total of 2 1/2 hours of sitting. Was all that sitting adversely affecting my and my students’ health in a small but cumulative way? If so, what was the remedy? Jettison the high-tech console? Replace the sleek gliding desks with wood-and-metal clunkers? No way!

Fortunately, the fix was quick and easy. I looked through my repertoire of activities for ones that would get us all moving. Then I began incorporating one or two of them into every class. It’s hard to say whether the activities will have a long-term health benefit. But the short-term benefit was obvious. After just ten minutes of moving around, my students returned to their seats—and I to the console—with renewed energy.

In this newsletter and the next three, I’ll share the activities that worked well in my class. They are interactive, can be adapted for almost any level or learning environment, and—most important—get students up and out of their seats.

Activity 1: The Moving Line
Levels: All

This low-prep activity, which facilitates a lot of interaction in a short amount of time, gets the whole class out of their seats. Continue reading →