Dr. J's Blog of ELT Praxis

The loveliness of Iowa seems somehow sadly gray The glory that was Chicago now makes me ill I've been terribly alone and forgotten in Carbondale I'd love to go down south and teach in Brazil I haven't been blogging that much because over the past month I have been dedicating most of my professional life to the leaders of several Binational Centers in Brazil. This opportunity came to me through a grant I worked on with partners at Global Ties, World Chicago, and CIVIC (Council for International Visitors to Iowa Cities). Purpose & Goals The purpose of this program is to support a faculty exchange program for supervisors, coordinators, and teachers from the Brazilian Binational Centers. These participants have been chosen to make a lasting impact on the Brazilian ESL education system. Our program specifically focuses on English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Language Learner (ELL) programs. By the end of our program, participants will understan...

There's a somewhat famous expression that most teachers find insulting - " He who can does. He who cannot teaches." It implies that teachers cannot function or "produce results" in the "real world" but they know enough to tell or direct others how. And this implies that education is mainly about skill building (for jobs) and not about knowledge or character. I could go on and on about this, but I wanted to discuss HL Mencken's addition to George Bernard Shaw's quote: Those who can't teach - administrate.  Those who can't administrate - go into politics. I heard this quote way back in late elementary school or junior high school and it struck a chord. It especially rings loudly in my mind as I have spent the last few years of my life in administration rather than teaching in higher education. And sadly I have to confirm that many administrators can't or won't teach. Yes, it makes me sad because I am an educator and I bel...

I'm collaborating on a research and development project for integrating extensive reading into intensive English programs. After the initial review of the most recent literature, I was quite surprised at the overwhelming positive effects of extensive reading on reading proficiency, comprehension, and motivation. Although I'm still skeptical, I'd like to share the findings with you. I looked at 17 articles published since 2012. Although this may not seem like much, 3 of these articles were meta-analyses, which investigated a much larger quantity of studies on extensive reading. Only one was not relevant to intensive English programs, bringing it down to 16 articles. Many of these articles came from the 2015 discussion forums in Reading in a Foreign Language . The majority of those discussion forum articles were not empirical studies, but they went in depth answering "What constitutes extensive reading?" After summarizing these answers, this blog post covers the r...

One of the more influential TESOL Quarterly articles I have read over the past decade was Karen E. Johnson's "The Sociocultural Turn and Its Challenges for Second Language Teacher Education." It helped guide me during the early stages of my doctoral dissertation. I'm revisiting now because it relates to my current position, and I wanted to see if Dr. Johnson's concerns are still valid ten years later. Theory/Practice Versus Praxis From my perspective, the theory-practice dichotomy is still quite prevalent in teacher education. I have entered discussions with our faculty on what should stand at the core of our ESL curriculum, which I perceive as research in applied linguistics or informal research in teaching and learning. I see this more as a applied linguistics-education dichotomy as research is on both ends, but education is more steeped in practice. Johnson recommends praxis as a solution to this dichotomy because it "is more suitable for the prepara...

This semester, I'm taking a seminar on teacher education. The readings and discussions have prompted me to reevaluate my motivations for teaching English as a second language. I have found it useful to answer the question, "Why do you teach?" because students have come up to me and asked. This question has caught me off guard as I didn't expect them to ask me this question as I met them in the hall. I believe that I didn't give them the best answer I could, so I disappointed myself. Perhaps that disappointed them. So, why do I teach ESL? Or better, why do I choose to remain an ESL instructor? I can answer these questions in a few categories. Intellectually Stimulating I like having my worldview challenged. Living and working in another culture have certainly challenged my American worldview. After living in three different countries for nearly a decade total, I can safely say that my worldview is not the same as it was before I started teaching English. O...