Upgrading Classroom Environments for Tomorrow's Learners

Educational structure in the P-12 environment has not changed in a century. However, with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, school districts were forced to become innovative in their lesson delivery models. That necessary shift has provided innovative thinking for administrators and teacher leaders about what classrooms of tomorrow might look like, supported by a hybrid model or completely online courses. This chapter will outline how to design and implement courses for a potential hybrid or online class from a teacher perspective. Further, suggestions for administrators to support the ever-evolving role of the teacher will be shared.

From The Training Room to the Classroom: Applying Concepts of Corporate Training and Tertiary Education in Secondary Education

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the nature of secondary education and encouraged teaching through blended and e-learning. This article explores how the author integrated concepts he previously applied in tertiary education and corporate training, particularly Finks Taxonomy of Significant Learning and P3 Task Taxonomy, through blended and e-Learning to a secondary education context. These ideas developed into a teaching methodology for a business curriculum and were delivered in an international Christian school in Cambodia. The teaching methodology helped streamline curriculum development, adapt to the changing conditions, and improve overall lesson delivery. The study recommends that the teaching methodology be explored further and be developed as a framework to support new and developing teaching staff.

Chasms of Communicative Language Teaching: Perils of Pupils in Primary Schools of Bangladesh

The success of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach at primary schools of Bangladesh has recently been questioned seriously. No measures have yet been taken to remedy the apprehended failure of CLT programs in the country. This inquiry focuses on the perils of pupils in the forms of shaming, failure, and fear for the tyranny of the current CLT curriculum. A mixed research method was used to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the learners’ situation through a questionnaire survey with participation of 211 CLT practitioners, an FGD with 12 participants and semi-structured interviews with 15 English learners. Along with lack of teacher empowerment mechanisms, other challenges for young learners (YLs) included problem of enduring class rules, their inability to cope with difficult texts, fear of failure in lessons, tests, and physical and psychological sufferings inflicted on them during, before and after the delivery of the lessons. The findings reveal the need of a modified CLT curriculum with provisions for innovative pedagogy, learner care and learner empowerment. Provisions for use of L1 Bangla in lesson delivery, inclusion of learner culture and local context in the teaching-learning of English are recommended to ensure expected outcomes.

THE EFFECTIVENESS AND THE PROBLEMS FACED IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN A SPECIAL EDUCATION CLASSROOM IN MALAYSIA

This qualitative case study investigated the effectiveness of lesson delivery and sequence of content and learning expectations of two English Language attached to a special education (Integration programme) school in Petaling Jaya. Malaysia. It also focused on the teaching and learning problems encountered in the particular classrooms. This study brings broader understanding of strategies for effective teaching of English in a special education classroom in Malaysia. The rationale for the study stems from the need to gain greater perspective of the teaching of English learners in a special education classroom. Results reflect analysis of classroom observation, face to face interview with two English Language and document review. Emerging from the data are some effective teaching strategies and profound problems that special education English Language teachers can add to their repertoire. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0876/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Embedding Formative Assessment in Blended Learning Environment: The Case of Secondary Chinese Language Teaching in Singapore

The fast global spread of COVID-19 has resulted in the mass disruption of teaching, learning, as well as assessment, in mainstream schools in Singapore. Teachers were caught unprepared and this jeopardised the quality of classroom delivery and assessment. The Ministry of Education has since shifted to an online asynchronous mode of teaching whilst attempting to keep the face-to-face method of lesson delivery, to which it is called ‘blended learning’ (BL) in the local context. Besides being propelled to learn and use new technology tools for online lessons, teachers also need to quickly explore to embed formative assessment (FA) in the new BL environment to substitute traditional classroom assessment. In this context, I argue that teachers’ language assessment literacy (LAL), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and e-pedagogy are vital to the success of embedding FA in BL. Following, I also describe some tentative predictions for future challenges and opportunities of embedding FA in the BL environment of secondary Chinese Language (CL) teaching in Singapore. On this basis, I discuss the ways in which current conceptualisations of language assessment literacy will need to shift in response to these challenges. Finally, I make some recommendations for practice based on this argument.

Educational Research and Practice

Teachers must innovatively bring the best out of learning situation, classroom space and available learning resources. However, very few and mostly not serious researches have been published on effects of seat arrangements on cognition, lesson delivery and classroom control. This article was aimed at highlighting the principles and clarify the context in which school proprietors and teachers (of both elementary and secondary schools) can choose or make innovations on three popular student seating arrangements: the traditional long rows,(with its variants, stadium, theatre , or angled row seats), the U-shape or horseshoe design and the paired module (two or three person per desk) row by column design. These are discussed: based on their original design principles, literature on their usage, the researcher’s students-centered experiments on their limitations. The arrangement of pair desk modules was shown to be the best in all situation, easy to readjust into pod-community like design and into u-shape when appropriate, given its flexibility, advantage in time before lesson, and with the optimum results.

A Comparative Analysis of Mean Percentage Scores (MPS) of Senior High School Classes

This comparative analysis on the Mean Percentage Scores (MPS) results of senior high school classes for Quarters I, II, and III was a good practice that can be emulated by educators in order to give meaning to the data. MPS is not for compilation only. It must be used for decision making in lesson delivery enhancements, learning resources utilization and school improvement plan and adjustment. The design used was descriptive research. This is a comparative analysis of the results of Quarterly Assessments of senior high school classes in a public school in Leyte with the sample of five sections determined by stratified sampling technique. Data were analyzed using Mean, standard deviation, dependent sample t-test, independent sample t-test, two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and thematic analysis of interviews of subject teachers. Descriptive study is scientific research that methodically deals with a certain region or population and characterizes an occurrence, phenomenon, or fact (Modato, 2017). Based from interviews and document analysis, extracurricular activities, socio-cultural involvements, the difficulty of learning competences, and examination schedules and the school calendar in general all had an influence on students' performance. In addition, test structures, test layout, and clear directions and instructions have an impact on test results.

A Call for Greater Quality Assurance in Postsecondary English Language Education in Japan

Quality assurance (QA) is a necessary component of language education that is too often overlooked or absent in Japanese higher education institutions. This paper discusses the notion of QA in language education generally, briefly outlines the landscape of QA in postsecondary English language programs in Japan, and discusses some organizational factors that may help or hinder QA in such contexts. The paper concludes with recommendations for how postsecondary English language programs in Japan can offer more robust QA measures in order to provide a uniform standard of course and lesson delivery to all students. 質保証は言語教育になくてはならない一要素であるが、日本の高等教育機関においては、あまりにも見過ごされたり、欠けていたりしている。そこで本論は言語教育一般の質保証の観念について述べる。まず、日本の高等教育の英語教育プログラムにおける質保証の状況を簡単に概観し、その中で質保証の助けまたは妨げになるようないくつかの組織的な要因について論じる。最後に、日本の高等教育における英語教育プログラムが、全ての学生に対し、コースや授業の統一された基準を提供するべく、いかにより堅ろうな質保証の対策が講じられるかを提案する。

Factors in Teachers’ Awareness of Pedagogical Gestures as Enhancement Technique Among English Teachers in Secondary Schools in Enugu State, Nigeria

The study seeks to ascertain Nigerian language teachers’ awareness of pedagogical gestures as an enhancement to teaching and whether this awareness is influenced by teaching location and teacher qualification. The study adopts the survey research design with a sample size of 262 drawn using multi-staged sampling techniques. The Z-test method was used in testing the hypothesis of the study. It was discovered that there was high mean response of teachers on the awareness of pedagogical gestures. There were significant differences in the mean response of urban/rural teachers and no significant differences in the mean response of graduate/non-graduate teacher’s awareness of pedagogical gestures as enhancement technique. Our conclusion is that pedagogical gestures are indispensable in lesson delivery and that their pedagogic values are gained through awareness of them as enhancement technique.

Effectiveness of online teaching & learning during COVID19 pandemic: A case study at college of science & technology, Royal University of Bhutan

A study was carried out to assess the effectiveness of online teaching and learning at the College of Science and Technology, Royal University of Bhutan. As a case study, two modules under the electrical engineering program taught at the sixth and eighth semesters respectively were chosen. A non-statistical purposive sampling method with a mixed-mode research approach was used to assess the effectiveness of online teaching and learning during the COVID 19 pandemic with 73 respondents. Analysis of the data revealed that students were coping up well with the sudden shift of lesson delivery from traditional offline mode to online mode and learning outcomes were achieved with 43% of the respondents agreeing to it. The offline mode of teaching and learning is still the choice of mode of learning followed by mixed-mode learning. Online learning is also able to engage students meaningfully with 44% of the respondents saying they were able to communicate in the online class effectively. Generally, students were not satisfied with the online lesson mainly citing weak internet connectivity, increased distractions at home, and lack of motivation. The case study also revealed that online learning gave more flexibility, it is more convenient, and learning at its own pace is one of the greatest benefits of online learning which shows that CST has a good foundational platform for online teaching and learning. The study also highlighted the importance of changing the instructional strategies to suit the online lesson delivery for learning to be effective.