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3rd HAAL Research Seminar

Today, I attended the Third HAAL Research Seminar. The event was wonderful and inspiring, providing beginning academics and serving teachers with a good platform to share their research and teaching ideas. More important, I had opportunities to talk with colleagues that I seldom see because of our busy teaching schedules, doctorate students who study in other institutions or the same one with mine and experienced academics whom I seldom see in other conferences. This HAAL Research Seminar is just like a party where people in the same fields - applied linguistics and teacher education - can see each other and talk about their research. I saw Andy Gao, Andy Kirkpatrick, Icy, George, Becky, David Carless, Jessica, Maggie, Iris, Darren, Simon, Jon, Lixun, Emily, Pauline, Amy, Victor (my previous colleague in CityU). I also attended some interesting sections and have to highlight the most wonderful closing talk given by Andy, Dave and Becky who presented and discussed the journey of writing for publication. After the event, I spent some quality time with Grace who picked me up after the conference (treat me like a kid) as she attended a NSS professional development course at PolyU as well. Looking forward to the Fourth HAAL Research Seminar!

NSS course

Dear NSSC participants,

This is my third year to teach this EDB-tendered professional development course. I hope you like the ideas I delivered in this morning and trust that they can be utilized in the real classroom context.

The syllabus, despite designed by Tim, is largely based upon the EDB curriculum guide published in 2007. You may find some ideas too idealistic or impractical in your classroom situations. That's why it's significant to remember to fine-tune whatever teaching models or suggestions proposed to you as there is no one-size-fit-all pedagogical model that suits all contexts.

Lastly, the most important thing is that you can get to know one another who also works in the same field, or who is, like you, still struggling in the NSS teaching. However, after hearing what is happening in other schools, you may become more relieved that you know you are not alone. Instead, we are all in the same boat! Perhaps, you may make new friends through this occasion.

Good luck and enjoy.

Ricky

SSLW 2009

Last week, I attended the SSLW 2009 in Tempe, Arizona.


The symposium was well-received and very successful since participants from more than 20 countries joined this function. The 3-day symposium has a very thought-provoking as well as philosophical theme - the future of second language writing, so in other words, this year symposium aims to give writing scholars opportunities to think and plan ahead how the field continues to develop and even pass on to the next generation.


Presentation sessions, plenary sessions and colloquia were all inspiring and enlightening. I am sure the symposium attendees might fly home with tons of good ideas on their research agendas given it consists of so many themes and topics which could stimulate the thoughts of the audience.


To round up, my trip to Arizona State University was quite an eye-opener.

Fighting Against Youth Drug Abuse

It is quite disheartening to realize that youth drug abuse has become an increasingly popular trend in Hong Kong in which teens have used drugs even when they are at school or at their leisure time like having fun on the beach.

Does the social problem reach an alarming level that all stakeholders should turn their ideas on how to combat the problem of drug abuse into actions which should be stepped up to help schools and parents to resolve the predicament? The answer is definitely yes.

Some schools facing the challenges of their own students taking soft drugs such as ketamine are able to view the problem squarely and take action to help those troubled youths as mush as they could. Instead of penalizing students involving drugs, the school principal was trying to give a helping hand to those 'bad' students and took them out of the abyss. While some schools attempt to evade the issue, the other school heads have been very positive to rack their brains to work out ways to help those students who are in deep trouble. A case in point is that a pilot voluntary drug test, suggested by the commission report led by the Secretary of Justice in 2007, will be in place in a cluster of Tai Po secondary schools which sets a very good example for other schools in the territory despite the fact that its effectiveness was questioned and the issues of privacy and human rights in relation to the drug test further exacerbated its implementation.

While the notion of voluntary drug test is sound and it early arrival is doing more good than harm to school administrators and parents, other preventive measures such as parental education and collaboration of police school liaison officer, teacher and social worker should be further strengthened in order to keep an eye on students' whole person development. More resources should be granted to help teens to quit drugs if they were identified positive in the drug test. Extra resources might have been funded to establish drug rehabilitation centres. In the mean time, the issue of youth drug abuse deserves more attention from all walks of life as it is a problem of society. More care and supervision should be provided to those rebellious youths. Home-school relation should also be fostered so that there is better communication among all stakeholders such as parent, teacher, student, social worker and police. Civil education is also a must to curb the problem from getting worse. I reckon the problem of youth drug abuse needs the help of all people and again we should not fish for the answer to this question 'Who is to blame?' The troubled youths need our trust and support which could transform them into a good citizen in future.

A seminar on new perspectives on feedback practice

Last Saturday, I attended a very interesting and thought-provoking seminar which introduced ten new perspectives on teacher's feedback practice. The talk was given by a famous writing scholar who has aspired to revolutionize feedback practice in Hong Kong writing classrooms. The title of the talk features how to free writing teachers from being composition slaves.

The talk was well-received and also included a panel discussion during its second part. Five guest speakers, also in-service teachers in various secondary schools, shared their points of view how to adopt alternative approaches such as peer response and conferencing to give feedback to their students. Their sharing was authentic as well as stimulating. I am sure on that day, the audience may have taken home a lot from both the speaker and guest speakers.

A small accident

It was not the first time.

It was I think the fourth time, but this time it was me who fell prey to an unwanted accident...

What happened to me? I was bitten by my doggy last night. The wound isn't large and serious, but definitely a little scar will appear on my wrist... Not too bad!

Actually, my doggy has bitten Grace for two times. He is always in a bad mood and he has a very bad temper. I - is occupied by somebody. We could only sit on the sofa with his presence. Sometimes, if he saw us sit there without inviting him, he became very upset and angry.

Last night, while I was about to take him down the sofa, he gave me a bite as he thought he should stay there. Actually it was 1 am, I usually escorted him to his cage. Probably he didn't want to sleep. This is him who never wants to sleep at night... a very bad habit like most kids......

I went to the doctor this morning and she said I was fine. Only a small scar. I don't mind. But surely need to discipline this little doggy today.

Student teacher

Lately, I have browsed my students' blogposts about their 'school life' as they have attached to either local primary or secondary schools for practising English teaching over 8 weeks' time.

No doubt, some students shared their joys and some tears and most important of all, the majority of them talked about their students and mentors. In general, most students are happy about the schools they work in and do enjoy teaching young kids. I also realize that they become more and more ready to become a good teacher as they have learnt a lot through their mentors and supervisors.

Occasionally, some students would share their excellent performance in teaching practice with other coursemates but some may be disappointed with the grades they received. To me, no matter what summative grade they obtained is not an issue; what matters most is their attitude and commitment. I think as long as they did their best to prepare the lessons and teach the students, they should regard themselves as good student teachers. I am not saying that grades are not significant. Of course, without the summative grades, who will motivate to teach to the best in the practicum?

Time and again, I have met a lot of energetic and enthusiastic in-service teachers who really teach with heart. So what grades should these teachers deserve? In my opinion, they all deserve a Distinction. I also truly appreciate some teachers, without any incentives and rewards such as promotion or bonus, are still conscientious to work day and night for the well-being of their students. These teachers are the heroes/heroines in this field.

Conferencing

Having finished teaching ENG 2213 and ENG 3280, I started to give consultations to individual students or a group of students by appointment.

In these two weeks, I met a lot of them who either prepared questions about their drafted assignments or intended to clear any misunderstandings of some key concepts in the modules. That's a good sign. Up to this point, most students asked me how they could design an effective formative assessment task to be carried out in the ESL classroom (which is part of the assessment requirements of the module ENG 3280 and some actually required me to define the formative assessment task conceptually before they planned their assessment strategies for use.

'Formative assessment is not like its summative counterpart in terms of form and mode of delivery. Students, however, do not need to pick up a pen and fill out correct answers on a quiz paper under timed conditions when performing formative assessment. Instead, it takes place minute by minute and hour by hour and is part of teaching and learning process. For instance, the conference between you and me is a kind of formative assessment since I give you verbal feedback which may result in improvement being made in the next step of your learning.' I replied.

Some of my students fully understood this analogy but some still interpreted formative assessment from the perspectives of psychometric assessment paradigm, that is, formative assessment is a tool to judge students rather than to help them improve.

To round up our meetings, I usually said, 'Keep up with your reading and call me if you have further questions about your assignment.'

Carol

Last night, I invited Carol, one of my previous BEd students to give a talk to my ENG 3172 students in my lecture. Carol has just started her career as a primary school teacher since 2008 and is working in a Band 1 school located in Diamond Hill. What she shared with students was how she used portfolio-based approach to support P1 students' learning of writing. Though she only talked about the assessment practice for about 40 minutes, students were very attentive and studied the students' sample work carefully. Towards the end of the talk, students raised some questions concerning the implementation of the portfolio approach in junior primary classroom.

Based upon students' responses, this kind of talk is welcome and actually Carol is in a position to share her experience with the pre-service teachers as she is the real consumer of this alternative assessment approach. Her presence could really bridge the gap between theory and practice. After the talk, I treated Carol for dinner. She really deserved it! We shared a lot of interesting anecdotes when she was still a student in the Institute and she told me about her work and students. What's an interesting evening!

'Effective Feedback'

What is 'effective feedback'?

Should effective feedback be a grade, a mark or a phrase like 'Good', 'Excellent' or 'Well done'?

All of the above is FEEDBACK, but may not be effective one...

Yesterday, I received student evaluation from two groups of students. One is from in-service NSS course and one from BEd students. I was elated as both groups of students gave me very positive feedback which could motivate me to do better and encourage me to continue my good practices. However, I realize that the in-service group gave me some very weird comments such as:

"In this short course, there should be no assignments."

"The course should not be held on Saturdays."

"I think this tutor is young and inexperienced to teach us." (My immediate response is I am not very young.)

What do you think? The above is all feedback but not feedback about how to improve teaching and learning. The feedback given by the teacher participants can't inform me how to improve my teaching nor how to facilitate better learning in this professional development course. Instead, they are purely 'personal' grievances towards the course. And also I would say the last comment is a little bit offensive though I took it as a compliment!! I think being a professional teacher, we should learn how to give effective feedback which can help improve our teaching as well as enhance effective learning.

Pass or Excellent

Yesterday, I met my supervisor, Dave and asked him a lot of advice about the strategies on how to write up the last two chapters which are rather challenging and significant. Dave asked me, "When you submit your thesis, we will rank you based upon 5 grades, Excellent, Very good, Good, Pass and Fail."

I then replied, "I just want to get a Pass as the task of writing a doctoral thesis is so difficult to accomplish.'

He added, " You can't just get a Pass because if the external examiner is tough, you may obtain a Fail."

Having heard about this comment, I felt even more scared than before and didn't know how I should proceed and improve my work.

Luckily, Dave is a very supportive and understanding supervisor who did not really give me too much pressure. Up to now, he didn't say too much about when I should submit the first draft. He simply said, "Try very best to make your thesis consistent and produce a good first draft once you are ready. And jot down every single idea which is useful for your thesis."

Then we went on with our lunch. I felt a bit relieved this time but still worried about my study progress as I was too occupied with the teaching duties and other committments in my working place.

I remind myself, "Be strong and believe I can do it."