Exploring Engagement in ELT Teaching
Part I: Emotional Engagement
English language educators are bridge builders. We build bridges not only between people and their goals, but also between people. Language is all about connecting with others. When we learn a language, we are opening ourselves up to those personal connections. Our entire field is centered around connecting and communication. If you are like me, you probably gave very little thought to that pre-COVID. But, how about in our COVID world? How can we build those bridges when there are walls, borders and oceans between us? As I am planning my course for the Spring term, I can’t help but reflect on how I can be that bridge builder. How can I connect my students to others when it’s challenging for us to connect? Or, when my old ways of engaging learners do not translate in this new medium? It’s important to define engagement in this new environment of remote instruction. What is it? Why is it so critical to student success? And, how can I build it? Before we look at how we can build engagement in our ELT classes in the time of remote instruction, let’s examine what engagement is.
What is Engagement?
Engagement in learning is about “the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.” This engagement involves behavioral engagement—are our students participating? Are they working in groups effectively and efficiently? Then we have cognitive engagement—are they interacting with content and applying the new content? Are they developing autonomy? And, emotional or affective engagement—are they motivated? Do they see relevance in what is being studied? Are they comfortable in the learning environment?
Emotional Engagement
Now that our learning environments look quite differently, how can we build and assess engagement? Well, as ELT educators we are very cognizant of the importance of emotional engagement. We know our students need to feel comfortable to take those language risks. We have spent a lot of time thinking and designing lessons that lower that affective filter– making students more comfortable in the classroom. Thinking of my old ways of teaching, this may have involved ice-breakers and small group or pair introductions. What does that look like today when I can’t easily pair students, or I have some students online and some face-to-face? How does that happen when we move to a digital or hybrid model of teaching?
Strategies to Build Emotional Engagement
It’s all about leveraging the tools we have. And, on the upside, there are many benefits. Often times that ‘everyone is looking at me’ intimidation goes away in a virtual or digital environment, and students feel freer to share and engage.
Strategy #1: Build a Community Before Class Begins. If you are using an LMS, such as Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle or Google Classroom, consider posting a video of yourself describing your interests, expectations, etc. Ask your students to submit a video of their own. Then, begin class by asking follow-up questions, or noting individual interests. Pair students up by interest. Create a task where students ask targeted questions. “I saw you play soccer. How often do you play?” They can then introduce their partner to the class that extends upon what the video included.
Strategy #2: Hold a Coffee/Tea Hour. This should be an informal open house type of meeting where students can drop by virtually and ask questions about culture or language.
Strategy #3: Use Collaborative Tools. Consider using collaborative tools like Nearpod. The collaborative board within Nearpod allows learners to share their ideas, see everyone’s ideas and even like one another’s ideas.
Strategy #4: Think-Pair-Share/Zoom. Rather than immediately putting students in a breakout room, and giving them tasks, give students time to think. Model what you expect to happen in the breakout room. Assign pairs via Zoom breakout rooms and have them share in their rooms. Providing students time before you open breakout rooms, allows for students to better use their pair time, and be on task while in the breakout room.
Strategy #5: Races. Students love competition whether online or face-to-face. These races can also serve as great formative assessments. Consider grammar. Create a Powerpoint with common errors, then have students race to type in the correct answers. Or, if teaching vocabulary, put a sentence up with a missing vocabulary word. Provide students choices (A, B, C) and then have them type in the correct choice. For quick formative assessments, have students use the thumbs up or other reaction tool to indicate if something is correct or not. My favorite is the Time to Climb in Nearpod. Students can choose their avatar and you set the time limit. Students answer questions and race up a hill. They are awarded points by both their correct answer and how fast they answer. These races build community and you will find students ‘talking’ about these races for weeks to come.
In summary, moving learning online isn’t easy. It takes thoughtful planning and careful execution. However, there are numerous tools out there that can help build that engagement. Well-planned digital and hybrid lessons can even be more emotionally engaging to students today. Stay tuned for next month when we will look at strategies to build behavioral engagement.
References:
Student Engagement Definition. (2016, February 18). Retrieved January 05, 2021, from https://www.edglossary.org/student-engagement/
Christina Cavage is the Curriculum and Assessment Manager at University of Central Florida. She has trained numerous teachers all over the world in using digital technologies to enhance and extend learning. She has authored over a dozen ELT textbooks, including University Success, Oral Communication, Transition Level, Advanced Level, Intermediate Level and A2. Recently, Ms. Cavage completed grammar and academic vocabulary curriculum for the new Pearson English Content Library Powered by Nearpod, which is now available. Learn more here.
Citizenship Education in a Time of Transitions and Insurrection
Important update, February 22, 2021:
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it is reverting to the original (2008) version of the civics test for citizenship. We have updated our new citizenship site with information about the decision. Please visit pearsoneltusa.com/citizenship for more information and useful resources.
January 2021 was already going to be a time of transitions for our programs that prepare immigrants to become naturalized citizens. In addition to updating the answers to some civics test questions to reflect recent election results, we need to prepare for a transition to a new version of the civics test that poses challenges for our students and programs. And then came the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which demonstrated to many of our students the precariousness of the system of government they are learning about and the sudden fragility of some of the basic facts they need to know for the test, including the system of checks and balances among three branches of government, and the rules of presidential succession.
The Transitions: A New Administration and a New Civics Test
Every U.S. election can result in changes in answers to some of the civics questions for naturalization, which ask students to name the President, the Vice President, the Governor of their state, their Representative in Congress, the Speaker of the House, and one of their state’s U.S. Senators. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website offers a link with updates for the federal offices. For example, after the inauguration on January 20, the site will let us know the multiple ways students can name the new President, which will likely include Joseph R. Biden, Jr, Joseph Biden, Joe Biden, and possibly just Biden. (A link to the USCIS test update page is here.)
The greater transition challenge this year is the major revision of the civics test of U.S. history and government knowledge. The test is significantly more difficult and lengthier than the current version, which requires applicants to answer correctly six out of ten questions from an item pool of 100 possible questions. The new test requires applicants to answer correctly 12 out of 20 questions from an item pool of 128 possible questions. Many of the new questions are more difficult, use more complicated vocabulary, or are provoking controversy regarding their content. In addition, while the old test stops as soon as applicants answer six questions correctly, the new test requires applicants to answer all 20 questions regardless of whether they have already answered 12 correctly. This will potentially increase the amount of time that USCIS officers need to administer the civics portion of the exam and thereby result in longer and fewer interviews per day, further exacerbating the agency’s backlog in processing citizenship applications.
Given these concerns, many education programs, advocacy organizations, and others have submitted comments to USCIS calling for the new test to be rescinded or delayed until it can be further reviewed by the new administration. (My recent article describing issues with the new test is available here.) As of this writing, there has been no change in the policy, and the new test is required for all students whose citizenship application filing dates are December 1, 2020, and after. Students who filed prior to that date will take the old test. So unless there is a policy change, our citizenship education programs currently need to prepare students for two different sets of civics questions depending on their application dates. And since USCIS regional offices vary widely in their appointment backlogs, programs around the country will experience different percentages of students needing to prepare for the old and new test versions.
Here are some resources that show the comparison between the old and new sets of civics test questions:
A listing of the old test questions (with a comparison to the new questions) is available here.
A listing of the new test questions (with a comparison to the old questions) is available here.
A Voices of Freedom unit-by-unit integration of the old and new test questions is available here.
If you would like to provide comments or suggested edits to USCIS regarding any of the new test questions, you can send them to naturalizationtestrevision2019@uscis.dhs.gov.
The Insurrection
The attack on the Capitol on January 6 has had a profound impact on many of our immigrant students, whose reactions have ranged from shock and fear that an insurrection could occur in the United States, to a wary familiarity with such events from their experiences in their countries of origin. For many students in our civics classes, the principles of democracy and the stability of the government institutions they are studying are beacons of hope lighting their pathway to citizenship. Many cite the rights and responsibilities of citizenship as the fulfillment of a dream as they prepare to take the oath of allegiance at their naturalization ceremonies.
But many know too well from their home countries how fragile government institutions and people’s rights can be. Ironically, while one of the most important aspects of attaining citizenship is for our students to eventually be able to have relatives join them in the U.S. through family immigration, many students were hearing from those family members after the events at the Capitol to check on their safety and the stability of the United States.
When considering these events through the eyes of our students, it is also important to acknowledge that many of them have experienced the effects of growing anti-immigrant sentiment over the past few years, and many are in communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting recession. These students’ motivations for acquiring citizenship therefore also may include the goal of increasing their safety and acceptance in the country as well as safeguarding their lives and livelihoods.
The challenges our students may be facing coupled with uncertainty surrounding the recent events may result in their having lots of questions, concerns, and a need to share during instructional time. Whether you are offering citizenship instruction or general English language instruction, and whether you are currently meeting with students remotely or in a classroom, here are links to some resources you may find useful for incorporating lessons or conversations about the U.S. Capitol insurrection:
“What Happened During the Insurrection at the US Capitol and Why?” – a resource from Facing History and Ourselves, is available here.
“Three ways to teach the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol” – a lesson plan with videos from the PBS Newshour, is available here.
“Lesson from an Insurrection” – interviews with 15 instructors about how they and their students have responded to the events, from the education news site The 74, is available here.
A “January 6, 2021 Resource Guide” – from the New York City Department of Education, is available here.
I am currently preparing an article on how immigrant students view the January 6 attack and invite you to share any writing about this by your students. If a student would like to have her or his photo included and give permission, please send any submissions to: bill.bliss@languageandcommunication.org.
Considering the New Citizenship Exam
Considering the New Citizenship Exam
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced a significant revision of the civics test that immigrants take in order to become naturalized citizens. The revised version will be required for all applicants with a filing receipt date of December 1, 2020, and after. The reading, writing, and speaking portions of the test remain the same, but the civics test of U.S. history and government knowledge is substantially changed, lengthier, and arguably more difficult.
New test item content: A little more difficult
The content of the new civics exam is a combination of current questions (some exactly the same; some modified) and new questions related to U.S. history and government. (The current geography questions have been eliminated.) The new questions and the approved answers are somewhat more challenging than in the current test, but they seem fairly reasonable. An anonymous panel of educators advised on the creation of the items, and this participation probably helped provide a reality-check on the appropriateness of topics and language.
There are some content improvements that citizenship educators will probably welcome. New questions ask about the parts of the executive and judicial branches and the powers of the U.S. Congress and the President. The Supreme Court gets new questions about the number of justices needed to decide a case, the length of time justices serve, and the reason for lifetime appointments. (A lot of questions about the court, but certainly timely.) Woodrow Wilson has departed the test and some key historical figures have joined, including questions about Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. And a question about Susan B. Anthony is now expanded to invite students to learn about additional leaders of the women’s rights movement in the 1800s, including Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and others.
A few old questions have become a little more challenging. Instead of naming one promise contained in the Oath of Allegiance, applicants need to name two. Instead of naming two rights of everyone living in the U.S., applicants need to name three. And instead of naming three of the original 13 states, they need to name five.
Some test items seem more difficult than they actually are due to all the alternative acceptable answers. These alternatives might offer great enrichment for students at an advanced level, but most students will want to stick with the more straightforward answers. For example, a new question about documents that influenced the U.S. Constitution can be answered with the Virginia Declaration of Rights or the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. No worries, though, since the easy answer is the Declaration of Independence. And new questions about events of the Revolutionary War and Civil War include options to answer with the names of key battles, from Yorktown and Saratoga to Vicksburg and Antietam. Most students will probably want to opt for easier answers, such as the Declaration of Independence or the Emancipation Proclamation (unless they aspire to be Jeopardy contestants some day).
At least one content change should be controversial: The required answer to an existing question about who U.S. senators represent has been changed from “all people of the state” to “citizens in their state”. This isn’t correct. Given the current administration’s effort to not count all residents in this year’s census regardless of their legal status, it is reasonable to ask if this “error” is motivated by politics.
To help citizenship educators understand the civics test changes, I’ll share here the two comparison documents I always create when preparing a new edition of my citizenship course:
You can download the 2008 questions (with a comparison to the new 2020 questions) here.
You can download the new 2020 questions (with a comparison to the 2008 questions) here.
New test length and duration: The greater challenge
The current 2008 version of the civics test requires applicants to answer up to 10 questions from a list of 100 potential questions and answers, and they need to correctly answer six of them. In the new 2020 version, 20 questions will be asked from a list of 128 possible questions and answers, and applicants need to correctly answer 12. (For applicants who qualify by age and length of permanent resident status for the “65/20” special consideration, ten questions will be asked from a list of 20, and six correct answers will be required.)
In actuality, while the new civics test is more than double in length, it could triple in duration for many applicants. In the current version, as soon as the applicant answers six of the possible ten questions correctly, the test is ended. However, in the new version, applicants will need to answer all 20 questions regardless of whether they have already answered 12 correctly. This will potentially triple the amount of time that USCIS officers need to administer the civics portion of the exam to some applicants – resulting in the possibility of longer and fewer interviews per day for USCIS officers, further exacerbating the agency’s backlog in processing citizenship applications.
Since the civics knowledge requirements will increase as applicants prepare to answer a larger set of potential questions, the goal of refreshing the test and improving its meaningfulness will have been achieved. Doubling the civics test’s length and potentially tripling its duration places an unnecessary burden on the applicant, the officer, and the naturalization process.
Some concerns and an opportunity for policy input
The current 2008 exam was developed with a significant amount of pilot testing, stakeholder input, item revision, and field-testing. A guiding principle was to assure that the test was standardized, fair, and appropriate, without being more difficult or decreasing the pass rate. There was also a good amount of transparency in that development process. For the 2020 changes, comparatively less information has been made public. Perhaps most important, it is unclear to what extent adequate field-testing has occurred in actual USCIS settings to assure that the new civics test is fair, reliable, and not increasing the incidence of failure. Presumably, the shutdown of agency offices earlier this year due to the pandemic and the ensuing backlog had some impact on the piloting. More technical information from USCIS about the field-testing would be helpful.
Although the new civics test is scheduled to be in effect for all new applicants as of December 1, the comment period for submission of feedback to USCIS about the policy change has been extended to December 14. So there is time for stakeholders to offer comments, suggestions, and questions. This will be valuable input, whether immediately for the current administration, or eventually when the new administration takes office.
Read the USCIS Policy Alert about the new civics test.
Read the USCIS news release about the test.
Access information about how to submit feedback to USCIS regarding the policy change. (deadline is December 14, 2020)
For any comments or questions, you can reach me at: bill.bliss@languageandcommunication.org
Voices of Freedom resources:
A new training video includes a segment on remote instruction strategies using Zoom and Google Meet (segment begins at 25:48).
A digital flipbook version of the course with complete audio can be ordered here.
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