Poll on the value of teaching qualifications

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

Are teaching qualifications of value?

    1. Teaching qualifications are of value.
    1. Teaching qualifications make no difference.
    1. Teaching qualifications are harmful.

0 voters

I’ve been uncharacteristically introspective lately and pondering some nagging self-doubts; the most irritating one being my teaching performance. Looking back on an old thread, viewtopic.php?f=35&t=76545, got me thinking again.

As such, I’d like to run a poll to see what my fellow professionals think. There are just three options regarding the value of teaching qualifications. If you think that it is obvious that any professional development should improve your performance in the classroom, then type one. If you think that in fact qualifications make little difference to teaching performance, type 2. If you think that, in fact, teaching qualifications make people a worse teacher due to the teaching of outdated or plain incorrect methodology, type 3.

2

I voted 2, though that’s not entirely what I mean, but was the best of the options.

We are all just playing make believe here. Every single one of us. Some of us acknowledge that, some of us don’t, but every single one of us is playing make believe. My co-teachers are using such incredibly antiquated methods it defies belief. There is so much that they do (such as writing bopomofo as a pronunciation guide beneath English text) that I feel I need to undo (though usually, it’s far too fossilised by the time I get the kids, and they get one lesson per week with me and several per week learning a combination of linguistics and Chinglish that I really am fighting a losing battle) before I can even begin to make any progress.

The other day, I wrote to Ben Slavic about how to implement TPRS in my classroom. Amongst other things, I asked him what to do about the pitiful 20-25 hours per year I spend with my classes. His response?

I’m going to keep pressing ahead under the delusion of making a difference, but really, I’m just playing make believe, just like everyone else.

3

Ben Slavic is one person. I would not take his response as being representative of Truth, necessarily.

The thing to do when implementing your own stuff is to do it right. Teach narrow and deep. Get in the repetitions. Keep everything comprehensible. The language that will stick with those kids past the test and into adulthood is what you will be exposing them to, not the information they are memorizing for the text.

Back on topic, though – in language teaching, I would actually consider many teacher preparation programs to be harmful, since most are different ways to make rules palatable during class time. They are still teaching that languages are learned through memorization, no matter how beautifully they are camouflaging that fact.

4

[quote=“ironlady”]Ben Slavic is one person. I would not take his response as being representative of Truth, necessarily.

The thing to do when implementing your own stuff is to do it right. Teach narrow and deep. Get in the repetitions. Keep everything comprehensible. The language that will stick with those kids past the test and into adulthood is what you will be exposing them to, not the information they are memorizing for the text.

Back on topic, though – in language teaching, I would actually consider many teacher preparation programs to be harmful, since most are different ways to make rules palatable during class time. They are still teaching that languages are learned through memorization, no matter how beautifully they are camouflaging that fact.[/quote]
It is true that some of the training I have had didn’t show me the way things really are in the classroom. That said, not all programs will harm you. It is a matter of how much experience in the classroom the trainer themselves has. Some trainers started out as really good teachers. Then, they became really good trainers. After they became successful at that, they spent more time training other teachers and less time actually in the classroom themselves. Over a period of time they forget what it is actually like to be in a classroom. Thus, their training ability slips.
Ironlady, what are programs and books that you would recommend? There have to be some good ones out there.

5

I always point people to Fred Jones (Tools for Teachers) for classroom management. Anything over and above management is methodology, and it will be no surprise that I recommend people taking TPRS training. (Assuming, of course, that you’re in an environment where that makes sense, and you’ll be able to implement it – and Taiwan frequently is NOT that environment.) Otherwise, I do a lot of reading in the elementary literacy (L1) area as for me Language and Literacy are separated and come in sequence, therefore I can apply a lot more of the L1 techniques than someone teaching all four skills simultaneously.

I was thinking more about the idea that virtually all of the “methodology” classes I’ve seen in the US gloss over CI-based instruction, or try to pretend it “went out”. I think that is mostly because of the split between the primary/secondary classroom teachers and the universities, which are doing the teacher training.

6

ironlady: Obviously, he is only one person, but don’t you think that the point stands that if you’re only getting 25 hours or less per year, spread over the course of the year, that the gains are going to be very small? Especially when others are actively running interference?

From what I’ve read, people seem to suggest that if your L1 and L2 are both Indo-European languages with some bearing on each other, then you’re looking at about 500 hours to get to an intermediate level. What must it be for people whose L1 and L2 are so different as we’re talking about with Taiwanese kids? Even if we say CI/TPRS is twice as effective, then we would still need at least 250 hours. That would be all of elementary, junior and senior high school here under my circumstances.

7

Intermediate is a good level for here, don’t you think. Half the people here can’t make it to A1 and then they have all these great ideas about teaching because they know what cholestrol and pollution is. :loco:

8

Well, believe me, I’d be over the moon if many people here were really intermediate.

9

[quote=“tomthorne”]I’ve been uncharacteristically introspective lately and pondering some nagging self-doubts; the most irritating one being my teaching performance. Looking back on an old thread, viewtopic.php?f=35&t=76545, got me thinking again.

As such, I’d like to run a poll to see what my fellow professionals think. There are just three options regarding the value of teaching qualifications. If you think that it is obvious that any professional development should improve your performance in the classroom, then type one. If you think that in fact qualifications make little difference to teaching performance, type 2. If you think that, in fact, teaching qualifications make people a worse teacher due to the teaching of outdated or plain incorrect methodology, type 3.[/quote]
You could add a third; It may not improve your teaching, but will improve your chances of finding a job.

10

Of course the point stands. But the point also stands that any CI they get is better than none. Should you simply say, “I cannot make any difference” and give them coloring pages the whole time you have them? Of course not. You wouldn’t ever consider doing that. So IMO you should be giving them the very best instruction you know of during the (sadly limited) time that you have them. As I said, the CI is what will stick with them, fall out of their mouths when they need it, and generally give them the “I CAN learn English” attitude that will be missing for most through traditional instruction. It will not make them superior-level fluent speakers in 25 hours a year, no. But it will make them better speakers than kids who had no CI instruction at all.

11

I posted the (only) vote (so far) for “teaching qualifications are harmful”. But not for the reasons the OP suggested I choose that. I’ll get to my reasoning later in a future post, if there is any interest…

I don’t like forced choice that much, especially when I think there are more (i.e., better) choices. I also understand the notion that it is sometimes necessary to reduce mental clutter, keep it tight and marginalize other possibilities. But I digress. It’s not calculus or the Bell Curve - no matter how much you want it to be.

Teacher training (i.e., having formal qualifications) is, to me, an oxymoron. If a teacher is in need of training, he or she should have considered a future in teaching at an obedience school for pets. If a teacher needs to be trained, he or she is not capable of the ideals (I have) of teaching. Training is nothing more than learning to copy (even perhaps to improve) but it’s still without thinking. Uh-oh. My emotional self has a knee-jerk, bad reaction to training when it is substituted for education. McDonalds trains, 7-11 trains, Apple trains, etc.

Oxymoron: Getting teaching qualifications is like graduating from McBuDong McUniversity.

12

ironlady: Of course, I wasn’t saying I’m not going to try to do the best that I can. hat is, after all, why I’ve organised this professional development for next semester. I don’t know if anyone else out there in the MOE programme (at least) has said, “Right, I’m going to take the bull by the horns on this!” I do think that doing stuff like TPRS or other stuff where they have to interact with me in a real way with English, such as in a cooking class, will be more engaging and will lead to greater acquisition. I just get despondent about the number of contact hours, though change may be afoot here in that regard. For my current eighth grade classes, both of whom are 90% awesome (not just good, but really cool, funny, lovely kids to be around), there is talk about teaching them three or four lessons per week next year, though not all in a classroom setting. I have to submit a proposal for what other kinds of lessons I could do with them such as cooking, outdoor education, etc.

13

Guy, your job sounds so cool. Are you SURE you’re not ready to bugger off to some other place and leave it to me?

Seriously, how can you get away wtih proposing curriculum that YOU think might be helpful to the kids. That’s too awsome.

14

housecat: Yeah, as much as I complain, I do really like my job. Probably the two things I dislike about this job are certain kids and certain colleagues. I thought I was the one with the major issues with the current ninth grade that I always rail about. They’re about to graduate and the principal was giving them the “you think you’re too cool and don’t have to listen anymore” speech yesterday. Anyway, my wife is kind of friends with one of the admin. staff here and she (the admin. worker) was tearing her hair out yesterday because over the past three years, the current ninth grade have managed to vandalise a lot of things that have cost quite a bit to replace! The only thing in my room they vandalised was a cushion, but their homeroom teacher rang the father of the boy who did it and the next day, I arrived at school and there was a new cushion. He went all the way to Taidong City to get it. Anyway, the admin. lady said that normally, at this time of the year, the staff are all sad to see the kids go, but this time, they cannot wait to get rid of the ninth grade! Haha.

The other thing is certain reprobate homeroom teachers who continue to send their kids to my class up to fifteen minutes late, despite me talking to them several times. Then, a couple of days ago, at lunchtime, I had a couple of kids cleaning a classroom as punishment. I let them go before the end of lunchtime, but they decided to go AWOL. So then, one of the homeroom teachers came and jumped on me because it was supposedly my fault! :unamused: My elementary school co-teacher is a bit screwed up and kind of screws the kids up too. I think I mentioned the recent reading competition already.

Other than that, it’s pretty chilled. For the summer camp, we finally have approval to actually do…wait for it…a summer camp. We just need to work out the details, but we’re going to Taroko Gorge for several days.

Next semester, the principal and my supervisor want me to teach some other things such as P.E. (not sure how that would work out considering I can’t play any sports! I’m thinking of picking up a cheap kids’ cricket set when I’m in Australia over summer and letting them have a go at some indoor cricket for a challenge), but I’m allowed to propose some things. So far, on my list, I have:

Outdoor education (map reading, using compasses and all of that) culminating with another hiking trip (Yushan?)
Kendo (though I’m reluctant to actually let anyone but the current eighth grade go anywhere near wooden or bamboo swords)
Cooking
Gardening/vegetable growing (which could work in conjunction with the cooking, though again, I’m reluctant to let the current seventh grade anywhere near a kitchen)
Guitar/band
Musical (if we can really get some other teachers involved, then we could actually put together a really decent performance with kids doing the acting, music, props, costumes, sound/lighting, etc.)
Learning about their other subjects in English (so maybe making crazy science projects like volcanoes that explode)
World cultures (where kids have to research other cultures and then we have a “culture day” where they dress up and bring food they’ve made)

Unless I undertook something pretty intense like putting together a musical, I’d probably just do “tasters” of two different activities per semester (lasting about ten weeks each).

Anyway, I have a whole bunch of ideas, but we will get two new English teachers next year, maybe a new principal, and my current supervisor is taking paternity leave to be with his kid for a semester so his wife can go back to work. So, none of this may work out. We’ll see.

15

Getting off the subject of CI versus other methods, I would say generally that it depends on the qualification, but on the whole I’ve found that teachers with qualifications are better than those with nothing. It’s a fallacy to imagine that because you can speak a language you can therefore teach it. The commonest fault of untrained teachers is that they stand in front of a class and do a lot of talking. Some of them even make the classes quite entertaining. But if you ask them how they know, at the end of the class, whether anyone has learned anything they’re unable to answer you.

Here in the UK the teaching of Basic Skills (now called Skills for Life) to adults was appalling for many years. It was the same old thing that it was thought that if you were pretty literate yourself you’d easily be able to teach someone else to read and write. Things are still quite bad in this area but they have improved as a result of the Government bringing in a requirement that all adult ed. teachers be qualified or working towards qualifications. What people forget is that teaching isn’t a matter of telling or showing people the correct information and just expecting them to pick it all up by osmosis.

16

[quote=“IYouThem”]I posted the (only) vote (so far) for “teaching qualifications are harmful”. But not for the reasons the OP suggested I choose that. I’ll get to my reasoning later in a future post, if there is any interest…

I don’t like forced choice that much, especially when I think there are more (i.e., better) choices. I also understand the notion that it is sometimes necessary to reduce mental clutter, keep it tight and marginalize other possibilities. But I digress. It’s not calculus or the Bell Curve - no matter how much you want it to be.

Teacher training (i.e., having formal qualifications) is, to me, an oxymoron. If a teacher is in need of training, he or she should have considered a future in teaching at an obedience school for pets. If a teacher needs to be trained, he or she is not capable of the ideals (I have) of teaching. Training is nothing more than learning to copy (even perhaps to improve) but it’s still without thinking. Uh-oh. My emotional self has a knee-jerk, bad reaction to training when it is substituted for education. McDonalds trains, 7-11 trains, Apple trains, etc.

Oxymoron: Getting teaching qualifications is like graduating from McBuDong McUniversity.[/quote]
I feel the same way about people who give liver transplants. My view is that if you need to be trained to do it, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

17

Of course the point stands. But the point also stands that any CI they get is better than none. Should you simply say, “I cannot make any difference” and give them coloring pages the whole time you have them? Of course not. You wouldn’t ever consider doing that. So IMO you should be giving them the very best instruction you know of during the (sadly limited) time that you have them. As I said, the CI is what will stick with them, fall out of their mouths when they need it, and generally give them the “I CAN learn English” attitude that will be missing for most through traditional instruction. It will not make them superior-level fluent speakers in 25 hours a year, no. But it will make them better speakers than kids who had no CI instruction at all.[/quote]

Sometimes I love this lady!

18

[quote=“housecat”]Guy, your job sounds so cool. Are you SURE you’re not ready to bugger off to some other place and leave it to me?

Seriously, how can you get away wtih proposing curriculum that YOU think might be helpful to the kids. That’s too awsome.[/quote]
Guy’s job is no cooler than mine. I can’t remember the last time anyone told me what to do in a classroom. They give me vague ideas about what they’re sort of hoping for, but nothing quantifiable, and then leave me to it. It’s not because of what I teach, it’s because of how I interact with the management.

The point I keep making, to everyone, is that if you play the game then you can have it your own way in Taiwan. OK, there are a lot of restrictions in terms of time and class size, and you have to be seen to cater to people’s expectations, but you’re in a land where nobody really knows how to get results but is vaguely aware that same-old same-old isn’t working. Keep 'em sweet, teach 'em to trust you, and they will give you increasing levels of freedom.

All of which begs the question, “value for what” of teaching qualifications. You can be a great teacher, in conflict with the system. You can be a teacher of indeterminate competence, and be in control of what happens in your classroom. A qualification might help you get a job, it might mark you out as a potential troublemaker. It might ensure you know more about English than anyone else, or it might make you great at managing your classroom. Depends on the qualification, depends on the situation.

19

@ Loretta: the value of qualifications on teaching performance in the classroom. Do people think that, in general, teaching performance is better or not as a result of formal professional development.

20

[quote=“IYouThem”]I posted the (only) vote (so far) for “teaching qualifications are harmful”. But not for the reasons the OP suggested I choose that. I’ll get to my reasoning later in a future post, if there is any interest…
[/quote]

I am interested.