Author: Kevin Stein

Kevin Stein is a teacher and a program manager. He works at Clark Memorial International High School. His areas of professional interest include how to use standardized tests to help students develop autonomous learning skills and the effective use of literature in language teaching. Kevin's Blog:The Other Things Matter Twitter: @kevchanwow

to listen

by Kevin Stein

Kevin SteinAt my high school, we have a licensed psychologist on staff once a week to meet with the students. Her name is Mrs. Kumazawa, although everyone, staff and teachers alike, simply call her Kumi. Recently I’ve noticed that she leaves a heartbeat or two of space before saying hello each morning. In that moment, she looks at you in the eyes. She sends a clear message, “I’m not saying hello to just anyone. I am saying hello to you.” Her job is to help my students stay in school. Like all teenagers, my students are struggling with what it means to become an adult. They are learning to take care of themselves while also trying to figure out when and how to take care of each other. And if that isn’t enough, many of them were bullied in junior high school, or come from families that have weathered storms of domestic violence or the loss of a parent. My students often need the extra support that Kumi can provide.

Human_Ear kevin postSometimes a student will ask for me, their homeroom teacher, to be in the room when they talk with Kumi. I’ve seen how Kumi listens to each student. The way she does not hold back her tears when a student is telling a story of deep pain or loss. The way she is open to everything a student says. And especially the way she honours students’ feelings by acknowledging those feelings as real and valid. She says, in a soft voice, things like, “You were trying so hard, and no one noticed you trying. It must have been so lonely.” When a student has finished talking, saying everything they want to say, Kumi asks them, “What do you want to do next?” She never puts forward a suggestion. She waits as long as it takes until a student comes up with a way to move forward, however small and stumbling the step might be.

It is Kumi’s job to talk to the students. It is also Kumi’s job to let me know how those students are feeling and to help me find a way to help them stay in school as well. But I would be lying if I said I never bristle at what my students sometimes say to Kumi. I would be lying if I said that I never wanted to tell my side of the story, to defend my classes, to defend myself. Kumi has told me a story of a student feeling lost and overwhelmed in class and I have said, “If he did the homework once in a while, maybe he wouldn’t feel so lost.” Or about a student who cannot connect up with the other kids in class, I have said, “If she doesn’t talk to anyone, of course she will feel disconnected.” But the longer I work with Kumi, the less I feel the need to defend myself. What am I defending myself against? Do I need to defend myself against the fears, needs, and hopes of my students?

Over the past few months, there have been a number of issues that have been discussed in the ELT community: discrimination faced by non-native English teachers, the role that gender plays in a teacher’s ability to be recognised by the community, issues of class and access to professional development. When I started curating the iTDi blog in March of this year, I wondered what role the bloggers I work with and the platform that iTDi provides us could play in these discussions. In the end, I decided that before I could address any of the issues directly, I needed to prove that the space I was curating was safe, that teachers could say and share what they wanted to, and that they would be supported as they found and used their voice. So from March to now, the last issue before the summer vacation, I have encouraged teachers to blog about the issues, inside and outside of their classrooms ,which impact them as teachers and people.

Perhaps some people might say that simply listening is not enough, that simply providing a space for people to share will not create the change we need. To that, I can only say I am sorry if I should have done more. But over the past few years, Kumi and the others mentors who have taken time to help me grow have all taught me one important thing, first we must listen. When we truly listen, we are creating the space for our students, our friends, and our coworkers to take the next step. It is through listening that we can say, without speaking a word, “I believe in you. You know what to do next.” We have started to have some very important conversations in ELT. It is my hope that the iTDi blog, by giving teachers a chance to share their struggles and joys in and out of the classroom, has and will be a part of those conversations. It is also my hope that, as curator, those conversations will be grounded in the idea that every teacher’s voice matters, and that community is not the problem, but the start to any solution.

I would like to thank all the bloggers who have joined on the first few steps of this journey, the ones who have shared stories of their heroes, their coworkers, their students, and their families. I have learned about myself by working with you and having the privilege of publishing your stories of needs and abundance. I hope that in some small way, I have managed to give something back, to the community of teachers who has given me so much.

Coffee, a student’s voice, and inspiration

Kevin Steinby Kevin Stein

It’s a cold early spring day. I’m having coffee with Sachi, one of my former students. She has chosen a traditional Japanese house which was recently converted into a cafe. The floors are Japanese style straw mats. The coffee is served in bone-china so thin the light actually shines through the sides of the cup. From the large front window, we can see deer grazing in the park across the road. Sachi is wearing a sweat suit. She is, as always, smiling and relaxed. I taught her for 6 years in my advanced learner class. When she first came to my class, she was a medical student. Now she is an attending physician at one of the largest hospitals in Osaka. She is an accomplished member of the Japanese calligraphy community, a pianist, and is currently studying the art of coffee roasting. The following interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Kevin: So what do you think of the coffee?

Sachi: It’s good. It’s a light roast, but it still manages to have a nice deep note of chocolate and a nutty quality. That’s quite difficult to get.

Kevin: You’ve had a lot of teachers over the years, can you think of three teachers who are memorable?

Sachi: Actually, I can think of many teachers who are memorable. But it’s not just the teachers. It’s the whole class. When I remember a teacher, I remember a student or two and a specific lesson as well. The teachers who I have a hard time remembering is more like a big blank in my English learning. I can’t remember the classes at all.

Kevin: That’s interesting. Do you think there is some kind of connection between good teaching and this kind of bigger picture you have of the whole class experience?

Sachi: I think so. I think a good teacher is able to make all kinds of things stand out. The best teachers I have had really give the students a chance to express themselves. So that is probably why I remember my classmates in those classes. Of course it just might be my tastes. Maybe I like a teacher who doesn’t have to have all the attention all the time.

Kevin: When you were one of my students, you always took time to ask other students what they thought in class. You were an excellent listener. What do you think about a teacher’s responsibility to teach and a teacher’s responsibility to listen.

Sachi: You know, I’m a medical doctor, and when I first started working, I thought a big part of my job was to tell patients what to do to get healthy. Which is a very typical novice doctor’s mistake. Now I know that the most important part of my job is to listen to my patients. They often know what is wrong with them. But I have to help them find the words to tell me about it. In the same way, I want my English teachers to let me speak and to let me find the words to say what I want to say. When I am a student in class, I also want to see and hear how other students express themselves. It is an important part of my learning. So I think it is a great thing when a teacher can be comfortable not talking. Of course, I love to talk, too. So sometimes I think a teacher needs to find a way to tell me to be quiet as well.

Kevin: I’m just wondering, do you think there are any other similarities between being a good doctor and being a good teacher?

Sachi: In Japanese, we use the same word for both teachers and doctors. The Chinese kanji means, “one who has lived in advance.” I take this to mean that a teacher is someone who has traveled a little further down the road that the student is on. If the student is willing, a teacher can help them take the next step a little more quickly or smoothly or enjoyably. But it is still the student who has to take that step. When you are treating a patient, it is often the same. I am an orthopaedic doctor and a lot of what I do involves patients taking special physical therapies. I might offer the treatment, but it is the patient who has to do the work.

Kevin: What happens when they just don’t do the work?

Sachi: (laughs) Are you talking about how our class never did their homework? Seriously, there is nothing I can do. But there are things I shouldn’t do. I can’t make the patient feel like a failure. If I do that, they will never go to therapy. And maybe they will just avoid the hospital. I can listen and make a different suggestion.

Kevin: Do you have any advice for teachers?

Sachi: In medicine, even in my field, which is orthopaedics, we are starting to realise that there is no such thing as illness or injury outside of a specific context. There are no living organisms which develop independently from their environment. We are focusing more and more on the environmental factors that impact our patient’s health. What is the patient’s diet at home? What is the noise condition of the neighbourhood? Is it keeping a child awake late at night, interfering with their development? Is there anything we can do to help the family mitigate these circumstances? I think learning and health are probably similar in this way.

Kevin: So you are saying that the teacher has to be aware of a student’s wider situation? That we have to understand all the factors that impact their learning?

Sachi: Not ALL the factors. But some of the factors. And more importantly, I have to help my patients learn to see the factors that impact their health even when I am not around. This is something I am just learning to do. My very best teachers helped me do this with my English learning.

Our coffee cups are empty. The sky is getting dark and the deer have all left the park across the way. Sachi looks out the window. 

Sachi: Maybe I should start taking English classes again. You know any good teachers?

The ‘Why’ of Testing

March is almost over. When it ends, so officially ends the school year here in Japan as well. Which means that tests have been marked, desks wiped down, and grades entered into each student’s report card. Again this year I am left with the nagging feeling that those grades, those indelible marks of ‘achievement’, fail to capture the important story of what learning is all about. But at least this year there were moments where I did feel that assessment was doing its job. That students were taking the kinds of tests which highlighted their own development and which fostered, as opposed to inhibited, learning. I would like to share two of the alternative assessment techniques I used in my classroom this year. While neither one was perfect, they both helped my learners, and myself, come to a better understanding of how and why we take tests in my school.

Student Designed Testing

This year, I taught one ‘standard’ English class built around a lexis and grammar focused syllabus. Each unit consisted of 3 target grammar points and a 1500 word article containing a high number of set phrases and multi-word verbs. Instead of focusing on memorisation of vocabulary and grammar rules, I spent a majority of class time helping students develop the underlying skills they need to be more effective language learners. We worked on summarising skills, creating comprehension questions as a means of checking understanding against a classmate’s, and techniques for identifying multi-word verbs and phrases. At the end of each unit, one group of four students was designated to design the unit-quiz which would then be administered to the other students. While some of the skills students learned in class made it onto each quiz, most of the questions required nothing more than memorisation of large chunks of text and the application of discrete grammar rules. When I followed up with students, one group explained that for the standard tests they would be taking in the future, whether it be a university entrance exam or the TOEIC test, knowing lots of vocabulary and grammar rules would help them get the best possible grade. It was a classic example of negative washback, or the tendency for teachers to teach to a test. Only in this case, it was the students themselves who had chosen to learn specifically for a high stakes test they would be taking sometime in the future.

Collaborative Learning Assessment & Social Testing

In a recent article on ‘social testing’, Tim Murphey (2013, p. 30) points out that, “our minds are no longer, if ever they were, isolated, independent, and individual entities, but rather our minds and our brains are interconnected and networked and work best with other minds in collaboration.” The way we test students on their learning is becoming more and more disconnected from the way students utilise that learning in the real world. By expecting students to merely study in order to fill in blanks on a piece of paper, or answer questions put to them by a teacher during an oral interview, we are arbitrarily cutting them off from the collaborative process of meaning making which is crucial to most learning outside of the classroom. With that in mind the final exam for my intermediate 4 skills English class this year consisted of the following stages:

  1. Students, in small self-selected study group of 3 or 4, had two 50-minute class periods (as well as any time they wanted to use after school) to work through their class notes to create a 3×5 inch study-card which contained all the information they thought might be useful when taking the final exam.
  2. Students took the test with the aid of their study-card.
  3. At the beginning of the next class, I gave the tests back to the students unmarked. They were then given 15 minutes to make changes or additions to their exam using a red pen. They were not allowed to use their study-cards at this point.
  4. Students were then given 10 more minutes to consult with members of their own study group and make further changes.
  5. Students were given 10 minutes to consult with members of other groups and make any final changes or additions to their answers.
  6. I collected and graded the exams giving an original score, a score after revision, and a final score which was an average of the two.

I realize that, on the face of it, this certainly doesn’t seem like much of an evaluation. Students who had not, in any traditional sense, ‘learned’ the class content still had the potential to receive a passing grade. But in the end, the students’ test grades—a test which was extremely long and covered almost all the material for 8 months of coursework—did not significantly differ from their scores in class up to that time. I would also argue that students, through this process, ended up gaining something vital to their future as language learners. They learned to see studying for exams as a dynamic process and to recognise the importance of social capital. As Murphy points out, there is real value in helping students develop, “their ability to learn more socially rather than testing an isolated brain unconnected to others. (ibid. p. 29)” In feedback interviews with students at the end of the school year, many students highlighted how much more information they retained from this final exam than from other tests. One student in particular said, “I always study just so I can pass the test. Then I forget everything as fast as I can because I really hate studying. But this time, I remember most of what was on the test. Especially the things I learned from the other students.”

A final word (which is hardly the final word)

Just as our students rarely focus on and learn what it is we think we are teaching during our regular class time, my students’ ideas of the value and importance of a test is often very different from my own. Some take tests purely to get a good grade. Some to prepare themselves for a future, even more difficult test. Some for the pleasure of learning. Perhaps an important side-effect of thoughtful assessment is to allow students to recognise the various and sometimes conflicting reasons for taking a test. Before students put pencil to paper or begin to review their notes, they should be encouraged to consciously evaluate for themselves why they are taking an exam, to ask, “Why and how am I preparing for this test?” If they can find a meaningful answer to that question, they might see the evaluation process as a valuable opportunity to grow as a language learner, regardless of the grade handed back to them at the end of the year.

References:

Murphey, T. (2013). Social Testing: Turning Testing into Healthy Helping and the Creation of Social Capital. PeerSpectives, 10, 27-31

 

How to Change a Life

Kevin SteinWhen I was 16 years old, I applied for a job as a summer camp counsellor. For 11 years I had spent each and every one of my summers at Camp Tamarack. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more than work at the camp that had played such an important part in my growing up. Before camp started, there was a two week intensive training session which included role plays with a licensed social worker, lessons on child development, workshops on drama activities, and first aid training. We were working from morning revelry at 6 AM, our breath white in the cold Michigan July mornings, to 10 PM at night. On the last night of the pre-camp training, the assistant director of the camp, gave the following speech:

In three weeks, the counsellors of the oldest kids at camp are going to be taking their bunks out on a canoe trip for 6 nights and 7 days. On the last mile of that trip, the river reverses course because of a dam. That last mile of canoeing is nearly impossible. 17 years ago, there was a young camper on the very same canoe trip. He was the smallest member of his bunk. He spent the whole summer trying just to keep up with the other kids who seemed so much bigger, so much stronger than him. During the canoe trip, he felt pretty useless. He paddled, but it felt like he was just dipping his paddle into the water. But when they got to the point where the river reversed its current, everything changed. He could feel the water pushing against his paddle. He could see the other campers struggling. So he paddled as hard as he could. And the canoe barely pushed its way through the water. When they finally reached the small stretch of beach where they landed the canoes, that small boy couldn’t feel his arms. He couldn’t even lift the paddle he was holding high enough to put it in the truck waiting to carry the canoes and paddles back to camp. At that moment, his counsellor came up to him and said, “You know, there was a moment when I thought we weren’t going to make it. I was just about to pull the canoe to the side of the river and have us carry the canoe the rest of the way. But then I looked at you, at how hard you were paddling, and I knew we would make it. And we did. We made it because of you.” Now you might be wondering how I know so much about just what that small camper did and heard that day. I know because that camper was me. And it’s because of what my counsellor said to me 17 years ago that I’m standing up here in front of you today. It’s the reason I work at this camp. It changed my life. Each and every one of you can do the very same thing. Each one of you can change a child’s life. Not by empty praise, but by watching your campers carefully. By noticing when they do something that perhaps they never thought they could do. And at that moment, letting them know that you noticed it, too. That yes, they really did do something extraordinary. That’s what it means to be a camp counsellor.

When I heard that speech I realised that yes, that is what I wanted to do as well. I wanted to be there for campers and students and friends at just those moments, to have the chance to change a life. That was over 27 years ago. I still haven’t figured out how to always notice those moments. And I certainly haven’t found the right words to say each and every time I am lucky enough to notice them. But, on a warm summer night, the day before my campers came to put their trust in me for a summer, I took the first step to understanding what being a teacher might be all about.

The iTDi community is the richest and most diverse group of teachers I’ve ever had the good fortune to work with. I feel lucky to have had the chance to read the interviews in this issue, to learn more about the people who have helped the iTDi-ers become the gifted and unique teachers that I have come to know. And with this issue, we are also taking the conversation to the wider community. A number of iTDi bloggers have written ‘Outside Influences’ posts on their own blogs. I hope you will take a few moments to read and enjoy them as I have. And if you decide to join in the conversation and write a post for your own blog, let me know and I will added to the growing list of teachers sharing the stories of the people who have helped them help make iTDi the place where, ‘Together, we can change the future.’

‘Outside Influences’ blog posts from around the web:

Sandy Millin on the (heroic) women of her family

James Taylor on Carl Sagan

Vicky Loras on her first real teacher

Anne Hendler on why sometimes you need a turtle

Josette LeBlanc continues the conversation with her father

Theodora Pap on her personal champion, Kostas Michalakis

Me (again) on learning laughter

 

 

Putting People First

By Kevin SteinKevin Stein

About 10 years ago, I was working at an international centre in rural Japan. My time was almost evenly split between teaching classes of very young learners and classes of adults. But I did have one small class of junior high school students. One exceptional class of 2 students, a 13-year-old boy named Tacchan, and a 14-year-old girl named Misa. Every week they came and chatted in English and were willing to try almost anything I threw at them. Take Peanuts cartoons, swap out low frequency words for more common words, and then stage them as mini-plays? They did it. Role-play meeting each other in the back of a bus when you are in your seventies? They slumped over and tried to take on the body language as well as voice of their older self.

About halfway through the year, a new student joined the class. He was a bit shy. His name was Kenji. He was tall. His hair was long and the bangs hung over his forehead, so it was hard to make eye contact with him. And he was much quieter than the other students. Misa and Tacchan didn’t stop doing what they had been doing, but something changed in the class. The temperature dropped a degree or two. At least, that’s how I felt to me. I remember we did an activity where one student free talked for 2 minutes about what they were good at and then the other two students had to make a suggestion for that person’s perfect future job. When Kenji’s free talk turn rolled around, he said that he didn’t think he was very good at anything. And the activity ended just like that.

A few weeks later, Misa and Tacchan, were exchanging CDs. They both loved music. Misa was a pianist and Tacchan a drummer and they often hung out in the classroom and listened to music after the lesson ended. On this day, Kenji was interested in the CDs and he stayed as well. I was cleaning up my papers when I heard Kenji say that he played the jazz saxophone. I kind of got it into my head that what Kenji needed was a chance to really shine, that if he had a bit more confidence, he would be willing to talk more. So during the next lesson I suggested that maybe, to get to know each other a bit more, we could have a bit of a jam session in class. Misa and Tacchan were excited and Kenji agreed to bring his sax as well. At the beginning of the next lesson, Kenji took out his sax and immediately began to play, ‘Take the A Train.’ I’m not an expert on saxophone, or Jazz, but I felt there was something so smooth about Kenji’s playing. The notes filled up the small classroom with a liquid warmth. Five minutes of Kenji playing solo, and then Misa joined in, and finally Tacchan. They made music for most of the lesson.

I remember the first iTDi webinar I ever attended. Penny Ur was talking about classroom management and I remember her saying something along the lines of, regardless of method, regardless of teaching philosophy, the most effective teachers all have one thing in common. Highly effective teachers keep their students on task. I believe this to be true in the way that addition is true. Adding up hour after hour of focused learning leads to greater language acquisition. But I also know that sometimes my students can’t step into the place where they can “be on task.” Sometimes I need to take a minute out of class to talk about a student’s family, in their first language. Sometimes I listen happily as a student shifts out of English into their L1 so that they can fill me in on each and every detail of their favourite manga. Part of me thinks that if I were a better teacher, I would be able to preserve that sense of excitement and alway, each and every time, bring the conversation back to using English. No matter how much I see the value in creating a space where students can feel comfortable and happy, there is this lingering doubt, this sense of guilt. If I was truly good at my job, wouldn’t I be able to make the students happy and comfortable as they used English?

I’m still in touch with Misa, Tacchan, and Kenji. They are all in their third year of university. They are all still studying English. In fact, Kenji just came back from a year abroad at UCLA. I would like to say that their jam session had something to do with their love of English. And maybe it did. But the truth is, even after the jam sessions, Kenji didn’t talk very much during lessons. And maybe that 40 minutes of music making could have been more effectively spent on language learning than music making.

Probably I will never have an answer to this question, this problem of finding a balance between meeting my students’ non-english-learning needs and being an English teacher. But reading the beautiful posts by Naoko and Aline, helps put me a little more at ease. Because I believe that in order to see my students as people first, I have to see teaching English—as important as it might be—as something that does not always have to come first.

Aline DynaThe Power of Books: Empowering underprivileged students by Aline Dyna
Naoko Amano
A Perfect Boy by Naoko Amano