Book Review: Peter McLaren: Putting Radical Life in Schools

Peter McLaren: Putting Radical Life in Schools

Sunday, 25 January 2015 00:00By Paul Street, Truthout | Book Review

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout

Peter McLaren, Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy and the Foundations of Education, 6th Edition (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2014)

"School reform" has a very bad reputation among left thinkers and activists for some very good reasons in the neoliberal era. Captive to corporate-backed school privatization activists, contemporary "school reform" sets public schools, teachers, and teacher unions up to fail by blaming them for low student standardized test scores that are all-too unmentionably the product of students' low socioeconomic status and related racial and ethnic oppression. Its obsession with test scores assaults imagination and critical thinking, narrowing curriculum and classroom experience around the lifeless task of filling in the correct bubbles beneath droves of authoritarian multiple-"choice" questions crafted in distant, sociopathic corporate cubicles. Students become passive recipients of strictly limited information deposited into their brains by teachers who "are prevented from taking risks and designing their own lessons as the pressure to produce high test scores produces highly scripted and regimented" pedagogy, wherein "worksheets become a substitute for critical teaching and rote memorization takes the place of in-depth thinking" (Henry Giroux). Pupils are rendered incapable of morally and politically challenging – and envisaging alternatives to – the terrible conditions they face under contemporary state capitalism and related oppression structures outside and inside schools.

Much if not most of what passes for school reform is really about public school destruction, corporate takeover, slashing teachers' salaries and benefits, and undermining students and citizens' ability to question a system that has been concentrating ever more wealth and power into elite hands for more than a generation. It is deeply (and by no means just coincidentally) consistent with the late comedian George Carlin's 2005 rant about what "the big wealthy business interests that control everything…don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking." As Carlin elaborated:

"They don't want well-informed, well-educated people…who are smart enough to, figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it."

But what if "school reform" meant the empowerment of radically democratic educators who sought the opposite what Carlin's business owners want – and more? What if those teachers were dedicated to helping future citizens and workers become sufficiently smart, inspired, confident, courageous, loving and solidaristic, not only to understand what the capitalist owners and their coordinators are doing to society and life itself, but also to resist those elites and to create an egalitarian, democratic, sustainable, peaceful, and truly human world turned upside down? Such teachers wouldn't think that schools could bring about such a revolutionary transformation on their own. They would, however, understand "how," in the leading left educational and social critic Peter McLaren's words, "schools are implicated in social reproduction…how schools perpetuate or reproduce the social relationships and attitudes needed to sustain the existing dominant economic and class relations of the larger society." Determined to interrupt and overturn that deadly reproduction, they would grasp the "partial autonomy of the school culture" and the necessity of occupying that space as "a vehicle for political activism and creating a praxis of social equality, economic justice, and gender equality" (Life in Schools, 150).

That is the goal behind McLaren's classic text Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy and the Foundations of Education, recently updated for the Obama era in a sixth edition. "We are living," McLaren writes near the end of Life in Schools:

"…in what Antonio Gramsci called a war of position – a struggle to unify diverse social movements in our collective efforts to resist global capitalism – in order to wage what he called a war of maneuver (a concerted effort to challenge and transform the state, to create an alternative matrix for society other than value). Part of our war of position is taking place in our schools. Schools form part of Gramsci's integral state as a government-coercive apparatus and an apparatus of political and cultural hegemony that continually needs to be renewed in order to secure the assent of the dominant group's agenda." (Life in Schools, 245-46).

Life in Schools is (among other things) a sprawling, many-sided, and brilliant manual of theory, history, and practice for teachers, teachers-in-training, and current and future education professors ready to enlist in that "war of position." The stakes, McLaren reminds us (like his colleague and ally Giroux [1]), are not small:

"Today, amidst the most powerful conglomeration of cultural, political, and economic power aver assembled in history…we have seen our humanity swept away like a child's sigh in a tornado…The marble pillars of democracy have crashed around our heads, leaving us ensepulchered in a graveyard of empty dreams… The omnicidal regimes of our Anthropocene Era have brutalized our planet to the point of bringing ecosystems and the energies of evolution and speciation to the point of devastation and Homo Sapiens to the brink of extinction….Time is running out quickly. We are being chased to by the hounds of both heaven and hell 'with all deliberate speed' and we are being continually outflanked." (xxi, 259, 261)

Building on stories from his early years as what he considers a rather naïve liberal teacher in an inner-city Toronto school, McLaren takes his readers on a long and loving trip from his years in the classroom (Life in Schools contains a previously published journal [titled Cries From the Corridor] in which McLaren recorded his teaching experience prior to his engagement with radical theory) through the theory of revolutionary critical pedagogy; the roles that mainstream schools and educational doctrine play in subjugating working class and minority students; the structures and ideologies of contemporary oppression and inequality (class, race, gender, ethnicity, and empire); and methods for teachers to instill students with confidence, hope and capacity for resistance and solidarity.

Peter McLaren. (Photo: Challenge)Like the leading critical education theorists Henry Giroux and Paulo Freire, McLaren argues that educators have a duty to – in Freire's words – "engage in politics when we educate." The dominant methods and paradigms of North American education are richly political and ideological beneath their (false) claims of value-free objectivity and balance. Whereas those methods and paradigms covertly advance the predatory capitalist (neoliberal) project beneath the pretense of impartial neutrality (so that "being educated today constitutes a form of historically conditioned estrangement and alienation" [280]), critical pedagogy openly advances a liberating and participatory democratic socialism beyond both state capitalism and authoritarian socialism.

McLaren does not pretend that schools alone can rescue and re-energize democracy and justice in the United States. Still, he argues that schools can and must become zones of popular de-indoctrination, democratic re-imagination, and resistance to capital, whose giant transnational corporations are "taking hacksaws to the web of planetary ecosystems" and to "the covenant that once defined (however tenuously) the social commons." The task is essential in an era of escalating empire, inequality, and authoritarianism, when millions are forced into long-term "structural unemployment," prison, poverty, hopelessness and depression. The "rich are getting drunk on the tears of the poor" (233) while an "antiwar" US president kills Muslim civilians and even assassinates US citizens with arrogant impunity, and the Superpower shamelessly liquidates long-cherished civil liberties.

While Life in Schools seems directed primarily at academic departments of education, it deserves an audience far beyond the ivory tower. It is loaded with deeply informed radical perspectives that should interest progressive thinkers and activists in all spheres of life under contemporary capitalism. Especially relevant in light of recent events is McLaren's critique of academic theories that "'race,' not class is the major form of oppression in society." A dedicated anti-racist and anti-sexist, McLaren nonetheless reminds us that:

"Class exploitation…[is] the material armature material basis or material conditions of possibility for other forms of oppression within capitalist society… class exploitation is not simply one form of oppression among others; rather, it constitutes the ground on which other 'isms' of oppression are sustained within capitalist societies. When we claim that class antagonism….is [just] one in a series of social antagonisms – race, class, gender, and so on – we often forget the fact that class sustains the conditions that produce and reproduce the other antagonisms,…[whose] material basis can be traced to the means and relations of production within capitalist society – to the social division of labor that occurs when workers sell their labor power for a wage to the capitalist (Life in Schools, 217-18) ….Class as a social relation sets the conditions of possibility for many other social antagonisms, such as racism and sexism, thought it cannot be reduced to them" (125).

McLaren also offers trenchant insights on the reactionary role of the Obama administration. As portrayed (accurately by my estimation) in Life in Schools, the current US president is an abject "war criminal"(6-7, 274), a deadly enemy of civil liberties (232), a toady to Wall Street (6-7), a stealth agent of neoliberal so-called post-racial white supremacy (193-94), and a stalwart instrument of the corporate-neoliberal educational agenda, with its deadly testing obsession (16).

Equally instructive are McLaren's reflections on how much of what passes for resistance today is actually an expression of capitalist hegemony, and on the central role of corporate-manufactured hopelessness in the ruling class's intensifying destruction of justice, democracy, and life itself. "We have accommodated ourselves to the [contemporary state-capitalist and imperial] Deep State, and have routinized and ritualized our responses to it," McLaren's writes (xxi). The major barrier to the radical and democratic changes required, McLaren feels, has to do with hope and confidence: "The biggest prohibitive obstacle to organizing the Left is [a lack of] confidence that an alternative to capitalism can be made viable."

As McLaren acknowledges, it's not easy to answer the question of how to develop a widespread faith in socialism's viability. "But," he adds, "it's not easy to live in the world as presently fashioned, either, so we'd best get to work on finding some solutions" (257). Wise words.

---

1. Giroux's latest book begins with the observation that "America is descending into madness. The stories it now tells are filled with cruelty, deceit, lies, and legitimate all manner of corruption and mayhem. The mainstream media spin stories that are largely racist, violent, and irresponsible – stories that celebrate power and demonize victims…under the glossy veneer of entertainment…A predatory culture celebrates a narcissistic hyper-individualism that radiates a near-sociopathic lack of interest in – or compassion and responsibility for – others. Anti-public intellectuals …urge us to spend more, indulge more, and make a virtue out of personal gain, while producing a depoliticized culture of consumerism. Undermining life-affirming social solidarities and any viable notion of the public good, politicians trade in forms of idiocy and superstition that seem to mesmerize the undereducated and render the thoughtful cynical and disengaged. Militarized police forces armed with the latest weapons tested in Afghanistan and Iraq play out their fantasies on the home front…[while] defense contractors…market military-grade surveillance tools and weapons to a full range of clients, from gated communities to privately owned for-profit prisons." Henry Giroux, The Violence of Organized Forgetting: Thinking Beyond America's Disimagination Machine (San Francisco: City Lights, 2014), 9-10.

Teaching English in Taiwan: Know your labor rights

2015/11/29 17:21:00

(CNA file photo)

Whether it's a nightly cram school (buxiban) or prestigious primary school, understanding your labor rights as an English Teacher in Taiwan can save you a lot of trouble in the long run.

Having the law on hand and knowing a few basic provisions can provide ample negotiating power for foreign language teachers before, during, and after signing a contract.

[1] Negotiating your contract:

●Important questions to ask:

Is my pay on salary or is it by hour?

What is your policy on sick days?

What does perfect attendance mean?

If I miss a day does it affect my bonus?

What is your late policy?

What is your dress code policy?

When is the pay cycle?

Will it be direct deposit or in cash?

What is your overtime policy?

When will my health insurance be activated?

All of the answers to the questions above should be written explicitly in the contract. Remember: obtain a hard copy of the contract in both English and Chinese, and ensure your copy matches the company's copy.

●Wages:

There are two pay methods in Taiwan, and it is crucial both the employee and the employer agree upon the method used: hourly or salary.

Hourly is self-explanatory -the employee is paid for every hour they work. Pay deductions for tardiness or no-shows can be negotiated between both parties.

Salary is determined by a specific pay period (often by month) and not by an hourly basis. However, the concept of salary is not concretely defined by Taiwanese labor laws, so it is available for negotiation and differs depending on the company.

In theory, the company should not make hourly deductions because the salary is not based on hours/week, but on the work itself. Therefore pay deduction rules should be established if a workday is canceled, the employee misses half a day, etc.

The monthly minimum wage has recently been raised to NT$20,008 (US$612.93), and pay for teaching English varies greatly depending on the type of school and contract (starting roughly at NT$600 per hour).

●Working Hours:

Full time is considered 40 hours per week.

According to Article 32 of the Labor Standards Act, an employee will not work more than 12 hours per day in extension with overtime, and no more than 46 hours of overtime in a month.

Article 24 outlines that overtime is paid at the hourly wage plus an extra two-thirds of that wage. Therefore if an employee makes NT$600 per hour, overtime would equal NT$1,000 per hour.

[2] During your contract:

●Check the pay stub to ensure there are no surprise deductions from the salary.

●Leave a paper trail of all correspondences in case reference is needed for any dispute cases.

●Ensure you are not being coerced into working other jobs NOT listed in the contract.

●Stay in regular communication with your employer/supervisor.

According to the Labor Standards Act (Article 37 and Article 39)

◎Regular leave: Employee must receive one day of rest every seven days.

◎Holiday leave: All employees are granted access to approved holidays. If an employee agrees to work the holiday, they will be paid double the regular rate for such work.

Based on the Labor Standards Act, employee is entitled to:

◎Sick leave: Employee will receive half pay per day for maximum of 30 days (if not hospitalized). Each company has a different policy on sick leave, so an employee should heed those rules and keep all doctor notices.

◎Personal leave: Allowed up to 14 unpaid days.

If the employee is absent from the company with no reason/no notice for three consecutive days, the employer may immediately terminate the contract. So make sure to communicate with the company!

[3] Severance Options

According to the Labor Standards Act…

Often a contract will say that a worker needs to give one month notice before they can quit; however, if an employer violates any of the conditions in Article 14, the employee may quit without giving notice.

On the other hand, if an employee violates any conditions in Article 12, the employer may also terminate the contract without giving notice.

In Article 16, it states that an employee who has worked between three months and one year only needs to give a 10-day notice before quitting. If an employee worked for the company more than one year but less than three, then a 20-day notice is required, and anything over three years necessitates a 30-day notice.

These notice requirements also apply to the employer. Again, if ANY part of a contract is in violation of any part in Article 14 (for employers) or Article 12 (for employees), NO notice is needed.

According to Article 16, once advanced notice is given to terminate the contract, the employee is allowed a maximum of two paid days per week to seek other employment options.

After a contract is terminated, the employee has 15 days to leave the country, file for an extension, or find a new occupation that can provide a work visa and ARC.

If a dispute does occur, an employee may file a dispute case with the Council of Labor Affairs for free arbitration.

These provisions are only the starting points for someone looking to teach English in Taiwan, and it is important for those interested to review the laws mentioned earlier in greater detail.

Also, check out the following links below for more information on taxes, insurance, and visas:

●FAQ -- Labor Protection: http://www.bycpa.com/html/news/20132/1804.html

●Council of Labor Affairs Offices in Taiwan: http://www.tealit.com/article_categories.php?section=arcs&article=offices

●Tax & Insurance Information: http://iff.immigration.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1217227&ctNode=34333&mp=iff_en

●Employment Insurance Act (unemployment): http://www.bli.gov.tw/en/sub.aspx?a=yjSi8nnR0OU%3D

(By CNA intern Rachel McGuffin)
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Taiwan's Abused Readers' Theater and Spelling Bees

     The Taiwan Ministry of Education has tried different ways to make learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) more viable for students and teachers. Many studies show how Readers' Theater is effective in encouraging early beginners and low achievers to use their new language skills. RT was originally meant for classroom practice because it could improve students’ English listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, because  of a lack of training by the Ministry of Education, most EFL teacher do not use Readers' Theater in class. Some schools have decided to turn RT into a inter-school competition. Because the competition was so fierce, many schools have shied away from joining contests. The schools that play to win need professional advice. That is where I come in. 
     I am a consultant for one of Taiwan's three textbook publishing companies in the Taichung area the past few years. As a favor to schools that use the publisher's textbooks, I am sent to give workshops with students in English-language contests such as choral singing, spelling bee, and RT if they request coaching; I am also a judge at these competitions, though there has been no conflict of interest, so far.
     A few weeks ago I was asked to do three two-hour Readers' Theater workshops
at Guang Jung Middle School. The skit Guang Jung chose was "A Quiet Noise;" more accessible than the "Frog King" Shuang Wen Middle School asked me to observe a month earlier. (see http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/09/the-readers-theater-that-was-killed-by.html) The children at Guang Jung were not constricted by their teachers' interference. At the first of three dates the school asked my publisher to arrange, I saw that the skit was simple, funny, and the students were typecast correctly. I was proud that, last year, the workshops I gave helped the school troupe win third place in the Taichung English Readers' Theater Contest. I am confident they will win again.
     Readers' Theater is a form of drama that focuses on reading. It is a method of adding fun to oral reading activities and helps stimulate interest in reading. RT can be used to teach mainstream and ESL/EFL students. It generally involves two or more readers reading aloud; in Taiwan, the rules are not more than seven players for a six-minute skit. Students use their voices, facial expressions and gestures to interpret a story. It is not frightening since readers have a script and get to practice before performing.
     For this workshop appointment, the publishing company sent a van to pick me up unlike last readers' theater workshop when we had to take a taxi to Shuang Wen. At Guang Jung, the staff prepared refreshments for us, also unlike the Shuang Wen experience the month before. 
     In the rehearsal room, seven bright-eyed students and a few teachers were already assembled and practicing. The children were a bit nervous; it would be the first time they would be showing their skit to an English-speaking foreign teacher. 

   There would be three workshops with this theater troupe, I planned to make suggestions one step at a time. First, I would listen to the students practice making notes of their loudness, intonation, and pronunciation. I sat with my copy of the script drawing stars around questionable lines and checks near those well done. I drew intonation lines over sentences, vowel signs over wrongly pronounced words, and accent marks where they were needed. But I didn't speak with the children about their performances yet; I told them how well they had done and predicted that they had a good chance to win the contest this year. The feasibility of the script was the predominant review on this first workshop date. It had to be fun and comprehendable or the audience and judges would balk at hearing it.  Only those lines by students I felt would need three sessions to correct were mentioned before I left the two hour workshop. For example, I mentioned if a child wasn't speaking up loudly enough. Most importantly, I made suggestions to tighten the script and delete any distraction lines unnecessary to the gist of the play. The children ended the quality time with a second reading. There was already improvement over the first.
     At the second workshop session, after another reading by the troupe, I concentrated on body language and stage presence. Every part of the performance would be essential to winning, from how the children walked onto the stage to how they bowed at the end before they exited the stage. I updated my notes and honed in on each student's performance. I spent quality time with the children and they paid heed to my suggestions on intonation and streamlining the script; remove 'hallelujah' and add 'ah-mi-tow-fo' to the script with Buddhist overtones. "A Quiet Noise" had the hapless Mr. Lin going to a Taoist priest for advice on adding animals to quiet a noisy house in addition by subtraction.
     Before I returned to Guang Jung for the last workshop, I was asked to return to Shuang Wen Middle School to be the reader at a school-wide spelling bee. I had been the reader at a few spelling school-wide spelling bees the past few years but this was the first this season, it was also the smallest with only a hundred or son students participating.
     Spelling bees are another way English teachers in Taiwan encourage their students to learn. It is counterproductive. Instead of concentrating on comprehension and phonics, it forces the students to memorize without any residual purpose.
    The spelling bee works like this: The students sit down with a white board on their laps. I read a word and a sentence using the word. I then repeat the word again and say "Time starts now," at which time the official running the bee sets a timer for ten seconds. Assistants then rove around the contestants and eliminate the students who have spelled incorrectly. It is sad to see that over 75% of the contestants are eliminated before I reach the third word! In exasperation, the Taiwan teachers scramble to find easier words to extend the contest. I wait as they re-number the words I am to read and return the list to me.

     On October 22, I returned to Guang Jung Middle School for the third of three readers' theater workshops. It was the last public school gig I would be doing for readers' theater this season. The students had really improved. They added body language, shortened the script, and improved their loudness, intonation, and accent. Most importantly, unlike the children at the Shuang Wen readers' theater workshop, these children were having fun. The teachers were loving and not condescending to them.  My reward is knowing that the children are enjoying learning English but it a small percentage of students who benefit and for the school's glory; it is a shame more teachers do not do readers' theater regularly within the class instead of wasting time doing grammar worksheets and 'cloze' exercises.
     Since 2000, English has been a required foreign language in Taiwan beginning in the second grade. Because of the cognitive  grammar-based approach, students are relegated to learning and not acquiring English language skills.  The Natural Approach should be used instead (see http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/10/do-following-and-you-will-succeed-as_16.html). Taiwan students still cannot read, write, or communicate in English  (Taiwan Assessment of Student Achievement, 2005). Most children give up on learning English before they enter high school (Liao, 2006). Going to after-school bushibans that mimic the methodology of public schools is not the solution though the smaller class size could help at least give the child more opportunity to participate; a main barrier to acquiring English language skills is the large class size; the Ministry of Education requires at least 30 students of varying proficiency in a class.
     Through Readers' Theater in the classroom, students develop a more positive outlook, perceive themselves to improve in pronunciation and reading fluency, and develop better relationship with their peers. As a contest, RT has minimal use for most students learning EFL. Spelling bees, too, may encourage children to spell better only if they are based on a phonics program in the classroom. 

Do the Following and You Will Succeed as an ESL Teacher - Part #4: Challenging Contests

     EDITORS NOTE: This is the last of a four-part series:"Do the Following and You Will Succeed as an ESL Teacher." I call it "Challenging Contests." Part #1, "Reported Speech," can be found at http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/10/do-following-and-you-will-succeed-as.html. Part #2, "Model Politeness," can be found at http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/10/do-following-and-you-will-succeed-as_8.html. Part #3, "Second Language, Only," can be found at http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/10/do-following-and-you-will-succeed-as_16.htm

     In my advice to "Do the following and you will succeed as an ESL teacher," each of the four components - "Reported Speech," "Model Politeness," "Second Language, Only," and "Challenging Contests," must be practiced together, at every class meeting. 
     A challenging contest or activity can quickly set a student up with a "Do Now," be the focus of a lesson, "Cooperative Learning," and help a student review at the end of class, "Revision." Contests and activities are not incidental; never kill time in class.
     I will show you seven matrices that I have found useful over thirty-five years of TESOL in Taiwan and the U.S.: "Horse Race," "English Fever," old favorites based on "Chutes & Ladder," Tic-Tac-Toe," "Jeopardy," and a standard"Straight-up Competition." In addition, I will  introduce "Cooperative Learning" lessons.
      When you teach ESL, think of yourself  as Bob Barker; all the games he played on The Price is Right TV show. Contests should be exciting, but the point of all games is revision; the students must review what they have learned and write down the correct answers in their exercise books; take points away from students for neglecting to do so. Some students just get carried away with the excitement of the game and learn nothing. 

     Contests that are more kinetic than cerebral are better in ESL/EFL classes; all the students get involved at once and the goal is tangible. Any contest that requires quiet in the room (such as card games or flash cards) is suspect because students not involved will not pay attention while the game is in progress. Contests must involve every student in the class at all times, if not answering then rooting for their team to win. Furthermore, contests that do not directly review English skills that have most recently been taught might go over the students' heads.  
     The matrices I'll introduce can be used for a number of different language points. You can literally have a different contest every class with the same matrix with different content.  Here are a few of my most popular matrices:

End of Class - Revision Activities 

1. The Horse Race matrix can involve up to ten students. List functions you wish the student to achieve on the board. Students move one space once they answer correctly. Here is an example: Tell the students, "Write questions for these answers." Write the questions in order of difficulty, the easiest first and the hardest last. For example, "1. Yes, I am 2. No, they don't. 3. Three 4. Yes, there are.  5. No, she can't." The students race along the track but can't keep the spot unless they answer correctly. It is an exciting contest with each team's students cheering their favorite 'horse' on. 
     Students write the answers (questions) on mini whiteboards or in their exercise books and show the teacher immediately after by raising their hand. Move the marker (or write the initial of the student) to the next length down the stretch.  

2.Chutes & Ladders
This contest has the same sequential language practice goal as the Horse Race but it is slower to play; the teacher cannot handle more than one student's answer at a time. 
     The student throws a die and moves the number shown. On that space, there is an English task to be fulfilled. For example, answer a question about a reading passage the students have recently read. The teacher may want the student to answer orally but writing is better to retain the skill learned or reveal the error in grammar or content to the student. 
     If a student answers the question correctly on a chute, they may go down and advance. Conversely, if a student is unable to complete the task on a ladder space, they must go back up the ladder and lose spaces. The first player who finishes wins.

3. English Fever 
     In English Fever, each team, or student, has a thermometer shaped matrix with an equal number of degrees. They must reach the top. The first to "blow their top" wins. They get to the top by demonstrating fluency in some pattern, phonic or spelling skill. For example, a student must demonstrate his awareness of a word's vowel sound. 

    Just before the game, break the class up into four teams of equal abilities. The students may remain seated (in which case they write responses in an exercise book on on a mini-white board) or may be asked to go to the board. The teacher reveals the tasks and the students go to work supplying the answers.
     The teacher must monitor and approve a hike in level upon seeing correct answers; simply say "yes." If the student responds incorrectly, the teacher says "no" and the student is stuck on that level until she answers correctly. 
4. Jeopardy

     This contest is similar to the TV game, Jeopardy, except the contestant answers questions instead of asking them; the teacher may choose the harder standard version. 
      Divide the class into two teams of equal abilities. In advance of the contest, the teacher must write a matrix on the board, with no more than five categories to review what has recently been taught. For example, you can review reading comprehension, phonics, tenses, reported speech, or have a "Telephone Line;" - one student at a time leaves the room to hear the teacher's secret message, and then his teammates go outside to pass the message along. The last teammate writes the original message on the board. 
     During "Jeopardy," to save time, the teacher must go on to the next team's question while the last is finalizing their response. Go back to them when they're ready. A team may 'steal' the other's points if they correct the other team's incorrect response. The lesser points are easier questions. Add or subtract points from the totals. Set a time limit. The team with the most points wins.

5. Tic-Tac-Toe

     In advance of the contest, the teacher must write a grid on the board and prepares language tasks for each square. For example, square A1 could be T: "Spell the word 'farmer.'" B3 could be T: "Go to sleep" what did I say?'  S: "You told me to go to sleep." 
     If the student answers correctly, they gain that square on the board, otherwise, they lose their turn and the other team may choose any square. It is strategic to choose the square that would give a team a sequence of at least three squares in a row, to win. The winning team gets the squares plus double the points of their answer line. In the event of an impasse, the team with the most squares wins the contest.

6. Straight-Up Competition 

     In advance of the contest, the teacher writes a grid on the board and prepares language tasks which are written on the board; they may be from exercises in a text book or verbal prompts. 
     In the demonstration above, the four tasks are "A. Change 'has got' into 'there are' (ex. He has got three pencils.=There are three pencils.)  B. Change from 'yes/no' questions to tag questions (ex. Does he have three pencils?=He has three pencils, doesn't he?)   C. Change to reported speech (ex. "I don't know." = "He said he doesn't know." D. Change to 'every time (ex. He is going to the store.'='He goes to the store every Monday.') 
     The class is divided into teams of equal abilities and given numbers; 1,2,3,or 4. After a minute for the student to consult with her teammates, the teacher says, "Ready, set, go #1." Each player with that designated number goes to the board to respond. The student that returns to his seat first has first crack at points, or may return to the board to modify an answer if there are still players engaged, but he loses his place in line. The team with the most points after a set time wins.                           

At the Start of Class - Do Now Activities
Total Physical Response 
      The students, seated immediately after entering the classroom, commence doing the TPR "Do Now" activity. Here, the student looks up at the board, reads the task, asks for clarification from the teacher if necessary, and writes the response in his exercise book. After a limited time (perhaps fifteen minutes) the "Do Now" ends. In the meantime, the teacher roams the room checking responses and suggesting answers perhaps supplying a key word for the answer. Each of the tasks involves a preposition command such as "Draw a circle under an object you use for eating. Name the object." In this way, the students' comprehension is challenged with different multitasking functions. Reward the students for correct responses. Early completion may be enriched with sentence construction with the core word. Incorrect responses are edited by the teacher and re-written by the student.

Lexical Madness 
     In another "Do Now" matrix, awareness of lexicon is practiced. The teacher may print out a copy of the clues to find the missing word or write it on the board. The teacher may also include, out of order, the target words on the list or board. All of the words must have been recently used. The decoding skills must have been gone over by the teacher in advance for the students to be aware. The codes are as follows:
1. Word Pictures- Place the letters of the word as they would appear if written. 
2. Consonant/Vowel - Once such is mastered by students, write the letters with their sound code only.
3. Scramble- letters in the word                                                           are transposed.
4. Sky/Earth/Water - The code for elementary penmanship is used (ex upper half of line=sky, lower half of line-earth, below the line=water) and students decode the target word accordingly.
6. Missing Letters - Only write the first letter of the word, or perhaps only the vowel or consonant letters. The student fills in the rest.
7. Letter Number - Student counts off to find the corresponding letter (ex. A=1, B=2, Z=26) and supply the answer.
9. Upside-Down - Write the word upside down.
10. Reflection - Write only the bottom third of the letter on the line. The student must imagine what the top half looks like to complete the letter and decode the word. 

Cooperative Learning  Class Activities


     Where Total Physical Response (TPR) activities set up the class in a "Do Now," and contests end the class with revision, Cooperative Learning activities consume the bulk of class-time. There is a large amount of CL suggestions on the internet, and they are the mainstay of any TESOL program in college, I will summarize the main ideas of CL here:
     Cooperative Learning activities promote peer interaction and helps develop language, concepts, and content of what is being taught. Students are placed on different teams for role models; they learn from better students. The roles on a team are: reporter, recorder, time keeper, and materials manager. Rotate the students in different roles; don't let them select their own role. 
     The most popular strategies for C.L. lessons are as follows: 
1. Round Robin - Present a category for discussion. Students take turns naming items that fit in.
2. Round Table - Students take turns writing one word at a time.
3. Write Around - Good for summarization. Start a sentence and ask students to finish it passing one paper adding sentences as they go. A story or summary will emerge. Add a conclusion, edit, and share with the class.
4. Numbered Heads Together - Number students in a team, one to four. Announce a question. Give a time limit. Students put their heads together to answer the question. Call a number. Students with that number respond.  Recognize best team responders and elaborate through discussion.
5. Team Jigsaw - Assign each student one of four pages or topics to read, investigate, and memorize. Each student completes his task and teachers her teammates to complete the puzzle.
6. Tea Party - Students form two circles facing each other. You ask a question and students discuss the answer, then, after a minute, the outside circle moves to the right so each student has a new partner. A second question is posed. Continue for five questions.
     After each C.L. activity, debrief the students by asking: "What did you learn from this activity? How did you feel working with your teammates? If we do this again, how will you improve working together?"

Activities to Raise Social Consciousness 

     The best activities deal with consciousness raising and primary source surveys. Do that a lot in the Bread & Roses Curriculum classes. Finding out the living wage, where our clothes are made, comparing the IWW and the AFL are far more useful in a socially conscious setting, one that is rare in the USA and almost non-existent in Taiwan. 
     How do you draw the attention of ESL and illiterate teenagers in your high school class and help them achieve their dreams in a harsh and changing world? Since many students are or will become workers one day, they must be able to read the world, read the word, feel solidarity, and help their families make ends meet, and then some. This curriculum is designed to raise the social “workers” consciousness of students while welcoming them to the world of the written English word.

Children and their parents need to reflect on 
what their living environment in Taiwanese cities, urban and rural, is really like and how it gets this way, the basics of housing from feelings of home and economics to the notions of parks and city dwelling. Secondly, it will suggest steps that can be taken to better the conditions of daily living to enhance the environment for themselves and their neighbors, from keeping garbage covered, sidewalks clear of obstacles and debris, to safety in the busy streets of Taiwan and security in the home. In this way social fulfillment will increase as activism in neighborhood concerns becomes apparent, mot only by using English as the universal language for global change, but by influencing each student through his/her own

home language

Taiwan 
Community 
Curriculum
 then is dedicated to helping children
 and parents, through English as a Foreign Language, understand how to keep good housing good and poor housing better. All English language learners will realize the importance of activism in the Taiwanese and world community and improve their English language skills to pass national and TOEFL tests and make Taiwan and the world a better place in which to live.

Here are some of my favorite lesson plans from the Bread & Roses and Taiwan Community Curriculum:

"How does our choice of buildings affect the neighborhood?"

http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/07/professional-portfolio-or-4-4-08-how.html

"How can we organize details for a body paragraph?"

http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/06/professional-portfolio-or-4-29-02-how.html

"Where are the Good Things in the Big Bedroom?"

http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/05/or-4-6-00-where-are-good-things-in-big.html

"Where are our clothes made?"

http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/03/observation-report.html

"How can we compare descriptions of our forests?"

http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/02/professional-portfolio-5-24-99-how-can.html

"How can we describe stamps?"

http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/01/professional-portfolio-or-3-30-98-how.html

"How can we improve a city park for its users: people, animals, and insects?"

http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2014/03/aim-how-can-we-improve-city-park-for.html

     For those who seriously want to teach students English as a Second Language, I strongly recommend college to master the art of teaching. There is no ESL certificate program that can enhance your teaching ability more than a complete program of TESOL education. However, for those of you who have chosen to travel outside of your English speaking land, the four suggestions I have outlined should help you a lot.
      If you follow my humble advice, you will succeed as an ESL teacher.I hope this introduction assists you in making your job easier. Thank you for reading. 

Proposal discussed to make English 2nd official language in Taiwan

2015/10/18 21:58:11

English course at an elementary school in New Taipei. CNA file photo

Taipei, Oct. 18 (CNA) A proposal to make English the second official language in Taiwan was discussed at a conference Sunday in Tainan, the city that is leading the push.

"English is part of national power," Chen Chao-ming (陳超明), a chair professor at Shih Chien University, said at the conference, which was organized by the Tainan-based Flomo Education Foundation.

English proficiency in Taiwan is not just an educational problem, but an important asset for the country's future development, Chen said.

"With Southeast Asian countries designating 2015 as the year of English, where are the international talents or people with English proficiency that we need for our Go South policy?" he asked.

The scholar stressed that the ability to communicate in English is a "fundamental skill" that Taiwan should be using to strive for internationalization and greater access to the global market.

The idea of designating English as the second official language of Taiwan was derived from the pursuit of internationalization, Chen said. It means having "everyone in the country being able to speak English, more or less," he said.

Flomo Education Foundation Chairman Shen Kun-chao (沈坤照) said that Taiwan is an export-oriented country, in which the children will all face competition as the economy is globalized.

With more than 70 countries around the world having designated English as their second official language, Taiwan's English education policy, however, is being challenged by a lack of funds and the dispute over its squeezing funds out of the budget for mother-tongue programs, Shen said.

"How to assist our children in cultivating the ability to gear themselves for international conventions is an important issue which the relevant sectors of the country need to discuss," he said.

Apart from Chen, the conference also drew Tien Ling-hu (田玲瑚), deputy director of the Tainan city government's second official language promotion office; Chen Hsiu-ping (陳修平), head of the city's Bureau of Education; Tainan City Councilor Chiu Li-li (邱莉莉); and several school heads.

The Tainan city government kicked off efforts to promote the second official language in May based on the policy of Mayor Lai Ching-te (賴清德) to make English the second official language of the city within 10 years in an effort to build Tainan into a "true international city."

(By Yang Sz-ruei and Elizabeth Hsu)
ENDITEM/sc

Part #3: Do the Following and You Will Succeed as an ESL Teacher - Second Language, Only.

EDITORS NOTE: This is the third of a four-part article,"Do the Following and You Will Succeed as an ESL Teacher." It is called "Second Language, Only." Part #1, "Reported Speech," can be found at http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/10/do-following-and-you-will-succeed-as.html. Part #2, "Model Politeness," can be found at http://e-e-o.blogspot.tw/2015/10/do-following-and-you-will-succeed-as_8.html. The fourth part, "Contests that Challenge," with be published next week. 


     It is important that only English be used in the foreign language (EFL) classroom. However, English is a tool for business or academic purposes in non-native environments. It is seen by the public as advantageous for a student who chooses to travel abroad so quick results are important . As a result, in schools, it is treated like mathematical formula. In bushibans, speed and pretension take precedence over comprehension and retention. This is unfortunate. It creates an environment where students are learning and not acquiring language skills. There is a natural order of acquisition that takes more time than most schools (and students or their parents) are willing to afford. 

     Here is how you can teach ESL/EFL without using the first language in the classroom:
                            

     The idea of using only comprehendable input to teach a second language was new to our art in 1984 until The Natural Approach was introduced by Steven Krashen and Tracy Terrell. Every TESOL teacher should read the landmark book. The approach to teaching language through grammar worksheets and substitution drills that most schools in Taiwan and Asia rely on is not very effective for students. Your school or buxiban is wasting your students' time and money; you shouldn't care so long as you are paid on time; right? But if you want to have fun with your students and see them acquire language skills, have your own choice of materials and modify the materials your school gives you; do the right thing and use The Natural Approach. 

                             Total Physical Response

     Think of TPR as a game of "Simon Says." Demonstrate an action and then have the student repeat  it. For example, stand, walk to the door and open it. Say it as you do it: "Stand, walk, open." Then do it in reverse. "Close, walk, sit." Do this until the notion sinks in with the class as a whole and then with individual students. Take it slowly and write the words associated with the actions on the board once the student knows the alphabet. The "Simon Says" routine can become as complicated as the depth of the students' knowledge. For example, "Walk to the door after you take the red pen from on my desk, then open the door and put the pen on the left side in the hallway," and so on.  

                                 Word Bubbles

     "Word Bubbles" are TPR with the written word; you should use this activity often, especially when students are transitioning from oral comprehension to the written word. Remember that perfect grammar is not essential at the outset of learning English, but statement or question must make sense. The student must create a monitor to correct unintelligible language they produce. Word Bubbles help them do this. 

This is how it works in a contest :
     Divide the class into two or three teams. Put words associated with objects, actions, etc. on the board that you have introduced. Circle and number them. Point to a series of words (or say the numbers and have the student reconstruct the sentence on paper) and have the student copy the action or find the object: 

1-10:   verbs
11-15:  articles
16-20: nouns
21-25: prepositions
25-30: adjectives
(Ex. Take (5) - a (11) - red (26) - book (16). Put (4) - the  (12) - book  (16) - on (21)  the (12) - floor (17).

     The first player to complete the action gets points for his/her team. Repeat with a new series of word.
     As you identify objects, colors, shapes, and actions with your class, demonstrate to the class what it is you are talking about. Write the words (or letters and numbers) on the board. The first notion you should teach is the alphabet and numerals. The second notion you teach is shapes, the third is colors, the fourth is locations. With these notions you can form an idea such as this: "Draw a red circle under the blue car,"  or "Draw a star over the words beginning with 'b."
     As in all Natural Approach events, do not require the student to speak or repeat after you unless he or she is ready. So long as they understand the command, it is good! 

                                       Immersion

     Immersion does not only mean that the teacher uses only English in class; that would be confusing and a waste of time to expect the students to learn everything you read and say. The stress it causes students who try to figure out what the teacher means is counterproductive. There is an order of acquisition of a second language that the teacher should be aware of and adhere to. For example, present, present progressive, past, and future are acquired in that order. Read Natural Approach acquisition theory to learn more about it.  
     Unfortunately, most often, the ESL/EFL teacher is saddled by textbooks and syllabus of mishmash sources made by some unqualified program director. Even American and British English are mixed in some programs. Just because the instruction is all in English, it doesn't mean it is better for the student to learn. It is mostly a sham for the school to make money from unsuspecting students.
     Many schools that supply their students with a team-teaching local language adjunct to translate or explain what poorly trained English teachers use are better than immersion programs. If an English language instructor truly wants to help his students attain fluency, the best way is through second language immersion in an orderly fashion. 
    In conclusion, it is important that only English be used in the EFL/ESL classroom. In the overseas classroom, the reason is obvious; the student will have no other opportunity to practice what he is learning except in school, but even in English speaking countries, most students rarely use English outside of the classroom even though they are surrounded by English usage; their personal lives remain cloistered within their native language.  

This has been Part #3 of "Do the Following and You Will Succeed as an ESL Teacher." Part #4,"Contests That Challenge," will be published next week. Thank you for reading. I hope it makes teaching EFL/ESL easier for you.