A Learner–centered Approach to Developing Transferable Skills through M‐learning Activities in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

ABSTRACT

Traditional way of teaching has always been regarded as a process of transmitting knowledge to learners who act as passive recipients of information. There has long been a controversy over traditional pedagogical style of lecture delivery as opposed to active learning environment in which learners are engaged in the learning process itself. (Wilson & Sipe 2015 p. 89). Educators are trying to apply various teaching methods to promote learner-centered approach and engage students in active learning since dynamic learning environment stimulates students’ interests and motivation. Furthermore, this new model of teaching promotes transferable skills development that has become the primary objective of Higher Educational Institutions.

In the light of this innovative teaching approach, the emphasis has been paid to m-learning, that is engaging learning practices through creating more digital learning environment. Incorporating m-learning tools in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in higher education stemmed from the rapid move towards viewing language learning as more autonomous as well as keeping pace with the recent development of technological devices in education.

Consequently, the paper sheds lights on various ways of implementing m-learning approaches in the classroom, which aims at managing learner-centered learning environment. It examines the ways to bring different educational tools, which can create engaging learning environment that contributes to the development of transferable skills and fosters students’ motivation.

Key words: Active learning, m-learning, transferable skills, motivation, Higher Education

Full article available on https://ircelt.ibsu.edu.ge/

Authors: Guranda Khabeishvili

Nato Pachuashvili

"Using Gamification Approach in the Classroom to Create Engagement and Active Learning'

A novel learning experience that increases student engagement and motivation could be created in a learning environment that incorporates a gamification approach. Gamification has become the most popular topic of the recent years. Although the concept of game is too old, the concept of gamification is a new concept in the field of education. The primary objective of gamification is to make the learning process more attractive to learners. Consequently, the paper sheds lights on various ways of implementing gamification approach in the classroom. It introduces different educational tools, such as Brainscape, Socrative, Mentimeter, PlayBrighter, kahoot and some more, which can help to improve learning engagement through creating an active learning environment, as well as, it can contribute to the development of the 21st century skills. The paper examines the ways to bring games to our classrooms, in order to activate the skills and promote an interactive learning environment. The aim of the research is to determine the students’ awareness of implementing various educational tools in the classroom; hence, it discusses the students’ perceptions on gamification methods in the learning process.

See full article in IRCEELT Conference proceedings book

Employability skills development: Are Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) responsible?

                                                                     ABSTRACT

Today’s challenging world means that it is no longer sufficient for a new graduate to have knowledge of an academic subject; more and more it is crucial for the 21^st century learners to gain the skills, which could be developed within one situation (in our case in higher education institutions) and then they can transform these necessary skills in another situations, like employment or future life. Charles, Bernie and Maya (2015) indicate that the system of education does not adequately prepare learners to succeed in today’s or tomorrow’s world. One of the reasons is that, the world continues to transform dramatically, while education is not adapting quickly to meet all the demands these transformations are bringing. Hence, nowadays, we are expecting HEIs to include employability skills more fully into the curriculum and provide various teaching and learning opportunities for the learners to acquire the skills. Since employability skills (transferable skills, generic skills, core skills, life skills, the 21^st century skills or key skills, as they are labelled in various ways by different authors) are essential for effective performance not only in the workplace, but also in life, HEIs should promote the development of these general skills that are relevant to a broad range of disciplines. Consequently, this paper sheds light on the perception of educators in European context regarding the role of HEIs in promoting the development of the essential skills, as well as, it describes how this process could be encouraged in HEIs.

Key words:  employability skills, development, higher education institutions, teaching, learning process

See full article in IRCEELT Journal 2018.

The Significance of Using Concept Checking Questions (CCQ) in English as a Foreign Language Classroom (EFL)

Abstract

The Concept Checking Questions are vital part of EFL lessons, as they make both teaching and learning processes more effective. This paper sheds light on the effectiveness of integrating CCQ in EFL teaching and suggests other ways of checking the meaning of the target language. “The purpose of concept questions is to check a student’s understanding of the information presented in the teaching progression” (Ruiter&Dang, 2005, p.87). Presenting the target language is not enough, if it is not followed by CCQs .They are useful in order to make sure that the students have grasped the target language fully. Most EFL teachers tend to ask students ‘do you understand’ or ‘is that clear’ rather than good concept checking questions. These types of questions are not valuable in EFL classroom, as the students’ comprehension may be different from what they should understand. Therefore, the goal of the paper is to raise awareness among ELT teachers concerning the significance of constructing CCQs. Besides, it discusses various ways of conveying the meaning of vocabulary items and their efficiency. There are number of ways how the meaning of the target language could be conveyed, for instance: using realia, a cline, mime/facial expressions, from a situation/setting the context, visual aids, etc. After this presentation stage, CCQs are essential in order to achieve the lesson objectives. Furthermore, the paper illustrates how good concept questions should be formed and discusses their practical application in EFL classroom. The survey was carried out among university and high school students in Georgia. The results of the research reveal that 44,26% of the learners are asked everyday ‘do you understand’ instead of checking their understanding through various ways. Therefore, this result leads to the fact that 70,49% of the survey participants’ answer to this question is ‘yes’ even though they could not comprehend a new topic.

Key words: concept questions, comprehension, techniques, efficiency, practical application

Full paper can be found in IRCEELT 2017 journal

Creativity in English as a Foreign Language Teaching to Young Learners in Georgian Public Schools

Abstract

Creativity is increasingly becoming an important part in the field of education. Creative teaching is crucial both in life and in teaching and learning a language. This paper sheds light on the significance of integrating creativity in English as a Foreign Language Teaching, as it develops learners’ creative thinking skills, which are so valued in the 21^st century. Comparing to private schools in Georgia, public schools lack creativity in English Language Teaching. Both teachers and students are not sufficiently encouraged to be creative in their learning and teaching. Therefore, the goal of the paper is to raise awareness among ELT teachers concerning the significance of creativity in EFL classroom. A survey was carried out in Georgian public schools in Tbilisi among EFL teachers. The quantitative study reveals the current situation in Georgian public schools in terms of creativity. Namely, 75% of teachers agree that creativity plays a crucial role in EFL teaching, which reveals that theoretically they are aware of this notion but the picture of practical application of it in their teaching is different as only 41.67% of them sometimes engage their students in the creative activities that leads learners to be less engaged in creative activities. Moreover, 20.83% of participants are aware of the significance of creating autonomous learning environment and exploring unusual uses of objects to turn them into effective teaching material in order to implement creativity in their teaching. Besides that, there are some factors which restrain teachers’ creativity. The study shows that some changes are needed to encourage, English as a foreign language, teachers to be creative in order to make both teaching and learning more effective, interesting and engaging.

Key words: English as a Foreign Language Teaching, creativity, supporting factors, suppressing factors

The research results

The primary objective of this research was to explore the notion of creativity in public schools of Tbilisi, Georgia. As it is more or less new in the field of Education in Georgian context, especially in public schools, the research aimed to increase the awareness among ELT teachers on the effectiveness of creativity in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching in Georgian Public Schools. Comparing to private schools, teachers engage their students in creative activities and the students are more often encouraged to be creative, as the private schools provide more opportunities and better environment to bring creativity into reality. Georgian public schools lack creativity in EFL teaching and this quantitative study reveals the current situation in Georgian public schools in terms of creativity.

How do you perceive creativity in English as a Foreign Language Teaching? (you can tick more than one) Creativity in English as a Foreign Language Teaching is:

Figure 1. Perception of creativity in EFL teaching

 More than half of the respondents,54.17%,perceived creativity in EFL teaching as designing teaching methodology by teachers themselves, adapting the course book materials in order to present it in a new way and preparing students as a whole person for outside the classroom. On the other hand, 50% believed that creativity means being engaged in mental processes to produce creative methods of teaching. For 41.67% responders, it is associatedwith implementing some activities which promote creativity and an imaginative activity to produce outcomes that are both original and valuable.37.50% of them thought that this is a skill which can be learnt.Only 33.33% of the responders perceived creativity as teaching beyond the curriculum and  20.83% believed that being involved in the change of current curriculum is creativity, which could mean that only minority of the teachers value making some necessary changes in the curriculum by themselves. For 12.50%  it is  a rare talent.According to this result, it could be concluded that the teachers in Georgian public schools are aware of the notion of creativity and the perception of it differs from teachers to teachers.

Which factors suppress/discourage the English language teachers' creativity in your context? (You can tick more than one applicable choice):

Figure 2.Teachers’ opinions about EFL teacher suppressing/discouraging factors

There are a number of factors which suppress/discourage creativity in EFL teachers in Georgian public schools. These factors are analyzed based on the collected data. According to 75% of the research participants, negative relationship with learners restrains their creativity. Another suppressing factor for 62.50% of the respondents is the students’ negative feedback to teacher’s methods. In the third place according to 41.67% of the teachers, the suppressing factors are lack of the appreciation by the head teacher or the principal and lack of teaching aids as well. 33.33% of the respondents consider the teacher’s fear of mistakes in the language use and in the teaching methods used as one of the discouraging factors to their creativity. Only 29.17% think that setting some limitations to teachers in terms of implementing something new, self-motivation and curriculum limitations are factors which suppress their creativity in their context. 20.83% of the teachers responded that extra tasks outside the classroom restrain their creativity. Supportive learning environment is considered to be one of the suppressing factors by 16.67%. Other factors such as challenging working environment, cooperative relationship with other teachers and students’ academic achievement in English language learning are chosen as the discouraging factors by 8.33%.Only minority, 4.17% of the respondents, consider the teachers’ confidence in the language teaching method he/she is using, the teachers’ self-development purposes, the suitable curriculum and availability of teaching aids as the factors which discourages them to be creative.

How often do you engage your students in the creative activities in English Language Classroom?

Figure 3. The frequency of students’ engagement in the creative activities 

Teachers were asked about the frequency of creative activities they implemented in their classrooms and consequently engaged the learners. This chart shows the lack of practical application of creativity in their teaching by EFL teachers in Georgian public schools. Only 41.67% of the respondents sometimes engaged their students in the creative activities in English Language classroom that leads learners to be less engaged in creative activities. On the other hand, 33.33% of them often involve learners in the creative activities. The number of teachers who regularly engage their students in such activities are really low, as merely 16.67% of the participants attempt to be creative in their everyday classroom practice in order to involve students in the creative activities. 8.33% of the teachers responded that they engaged their learners in the creative activities once a month. Less engagement in the creative activities could be caused by those suppressing factors which teachers named above. The result shows that awareness among ELT teachers on the effectiveness of implementing creativity in EFL teaching should be increased in order to make them apply the creative activities more often in their teaching practice.

Conclusion

  The paper discussed how creativity facilitates the young learners to master the target language. There were discussions about the young learners learning preferences in the language acquisition process, as they favor the physical activities and natural learning environment. Furthermore, the paper outlined those key factors which promote creativity in EFL classroom. They were presented and discussed with their importance. Teaching materials as one of the promoting factors should be viewed as the product that can be modified in accordance with the learners’ needs and interests. Besides, it presented other necessary factors promoting creativity; these were the focus on learners, personal traits, environment, freedom and clarity. As stated in the paper, if we want to develop a good learning environment in the classroom, we need to establish an appropriate relationship with our students, as creating a positive rapport is a good foundation for both teachers’ and students’ creativity. The paper also suggested several essential personal traits of a creative ELT professional. Being spontaneous, self-confident, determined and having the sense of belonging are the characteristics of the creative individual. The absence of those personal traits discourages creativity. One of the promoting factors to creativity in EFL classroom, discussed in this paper was environment. There were discussions concerning the types of environment, the physical and the relational. Both were considered as the important elements in supporting the teachers’ and the learners’ creativity. Moreover, giving a freedom or autonomy and making clear to ELT teachers what is required from them to do were pointed out to have the impact on the teachers’ creativity. As discussed in the paper, some restrictions create a barrier to the teachers’ creativity that is why the teachers input in designing the plans and curriculum were considered as necessary elements. To sum up, the primary goal of this paper was to raise awareness in ELT teachers concerning the importance of creativity in EFL classroom and to provide some promoting factors as well as practical ideas how this could be achieved, in order to facilitate ELT teachers to establish EFL classroom environment in which creativity flourishes.

Recommendations

Based on the research result, it is recommended for English language teachers in Georgian public schools to apply more creative activities in their teaching in order to assist their students to master the language in more interesting and engaging way. It is also advisable for the head teachers or the principals to encourage their English language teachers to be creative through providing them with all necessary teaching aids/materials. Since creativity has become a significant not only in art or music but also in educational domain, much focus should be given by the Ministry of Education of Georgia if both teachers and students are encouraged to be creative in public schools. The training for ELT teachers in public schools would be helpful in order to gain knowledge about various new approaches and methods of teaching as well as to practice the implementation of teaching materials in a new way. The training could be held even by private school teachers, which will help public school teachers to raise their awareness on the effectiveness of creativity in teaching through sharing their experiences and creative ideas.

Full paper can be found on amazon & morebooks.de

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Craft, A. (2003). Creative Thinking in Early Years of Education. Early Years:Journal of International Research and Development, 23 (2), 142-154.

Craft, A. (2000). Creativity Across the Primary Curriculum. London and New York: Routledge.

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Craft, A. (2005). Creativity in Schools:Tensions and Dilemmas. London: Routledge.

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Minimizing chaos while using group work in EFL classes

Key words: Group work, collaborative learning, Techniques, participation, students, language classroom.

Introduction

       As we are all aware, active participation in learning plays a crucial role in education.  Learning Pyramid, which was developed by the National Training Laboratories reveals that students learn and absorb better  more from methods in which they are actively involved(teaching others, practicing doing, discussing) than when they are passive learners (listening to a lecture, reading, using audiovisual).Hence, there are many reasons for students to work in small group in any class, but “nowhere is collaborative learning and group work more important than in the language classroom” (Rhoades, 2013, p. 29).The teachers often argue that their class is too large for group work. They find it challenging as they believe that they will be unable to control the class. There are a number of problems which occur, when collaborative work is planned in a large classroom without taking into consideration a few techniques which will be discussed in my paper.

    First, let’s look at the teachers’ comments when they try to organize group work in a large classroom and as a result they only get chaos. ”I could not hear what all the teams were discussing”; “ I could not control  what language they were using”; “ I could not tell if one student had been doing all the talking or if everyone had the opportunity to participate.” The paper outlines a few techniques/practical ways to introduce group work into large classrooms and support cooperative learning. The experience tells us that “we learn language by using it”.

    How to form groups? Forming the groups is not such an easy task for a teacher. There are  a number of factors which should be taken into account. Research (summarized by Bennett, 1995),suggests “the ideal size for groups engaging in collaborative work is four - pairs are too small to generate lots of ideas, threes tend to form a pair and exclude the third member, and groups bigger than four become harder for the children to manage, and so it is less likely that everyone will be fully included.” Thus, with groups larger than four, it becomes harder for all students to hear and participate. Desk arrangement is one more point which is important when we are talking about forming the groups. As J.E.Ormond, J.E. (2006) states, “desk arrangement should actually be fluid.” Thus, it is important to arrange the desks in such a way to allow teacher move easily between groups and around classroom to monitor groups. This desk arrangement is better to be done before the class begins, to avoid taking up class time. It is said that it is more beneficial to create “mixed heterogeneous groups”.To do this we, teachers , should place students with the same interests, gender, goals, etc into different groups. One way to find out this information is to collect it from students on the first day of class. How can it be done? We can ask them to complete the information given on the cards. For instance: Name; Gender; Interests, etc. The information collected on the cards is vital to form heterogeneous groups and it also helps us to make connections among students. Keeping track of groups is also so important factor. This means to give learners chance to work with different peers and not always with the same  students. After introducing the cards, we can mark them, so I know who was in the previous group. This information helps us to quickly arrange students into new groups. For example, I put an “A” at the top of four cards for the first group and so on. In case of smaller class, students may need to work together more than once, but we should make sure they have not worked with at least two students in the group.

    Besides, these above mentioned ways how to form a group in a better way, now let’s move to the one technique which encourages learners to work collaboratively. Using colors to organize students, can support everyone’s participation into group work. This cooperative technique is known as Rainbow learning. What does it imply? It is more helpful to ensure that all students are participating and contributing to the class than assigning one student to be the spokesperson for a group. How does this technique work? We assign a color to each person in the group. It is better to use colors instead of numbers, because psychologically, having a number “1” may be understood as a superior. It is better to avoid having more than four members in a group, but sometimes it happens, so in that case one color can be shared by two students. The use of color works well with students who need some encouragement to speak and it also makes students who like to dominate the group to realize that they should let other colors to take their turns as well. Hence, all have the chance to contribute when their color is called. This way of organization helps us to make all students engaged in group activity. Of course , it might be boring to use colors all the time, we can use names of seasons, or just let them to decide what titles they want.

   One of the most important element in effective group work is “to set clear expectations of how students should act while they are in groups “. We should discuss expectations with students and decide together consequences, if an expectation is not followed. For example: what should we do if someone is not participating or what is the consequence if a group becomes too load? When they set consequences by themselves, they have higher sense of responsibility and do their best to follow the expectations.

    To encourage learners’ responsibility and leadership we can assign them roles. These can be some roles assigned to students. Topic monitor- This student has the role to keep the group to focus only on the topic and not start discussing other things. Volume monitor-  this member is responsible for keeping the volume of the group low. Participation monitor-this student has to make sure that everyone is participating. You can add some other roles as well, such a timer, writer, etc. We can switch the roles to students each time we do group work.

  The research was conducted at IBSU, where participated both students and educators. They were asked several questions concerning this issue. Their responses demonstrate that 37%  of survey participant have had some experience of working with a group in a large classroom, which might be a result of most(50%) educators view that they are not doing their job, if they are not lecturing and that’s why they allocate more time to teaching rather than students’ practice through cooperative classroom management. Half of the responders think that it is impossible to organize collaborative group work in a large classroom while other half disagrees with this statement. As 63% of participants think, it is more challenging to control the language students use  and the level of their participation, which only leads to chaos. Hence, it requires more organization to decrease the difficulties which might occur like noise level, concentration and level of contribution.

Conclusion

    The purpose of the paper was to show a few techniques how to organize cooperative work and the importance of it for language learners. The main objective of language class for students is to practice English during class time. They will not have this opportunity if their class is mostly teacher-centered. There is no verbal practice when teacher is leading and students are only passive recipients. But if we organize the group work with using cooperative techniques discussed in the paper, all learners will have a chance to practice their language in their groups. No matter age or objectives, teachers can use these techniques to minimize the chaos in their classroom and to encourage them to be learners who can learn from one another.

References

Rhoades, G. (2013). Minimizing the Chaos Through Cooperative Classroom Management. English Teaching Forum, 51(4), 1-46.

The Importance of Using Constructivist Approach in English as a Foreign Language(EFL) Classroom

Constructivism as a philosophy of learning was developed in the 20^th century by Jean Piaget. “Constructivism holds that learners learn actively and construct new knowledge based on their prior knowledge” (Sajna & Molly, 2015, p. 5).  In this approach learners are viewed as the knowledge constructors, who are actively involved in their learning process. Nowadays, constructivist approach is widely used by teachers in today’s English as a Foreign Language (Hence, EFL) Classroom  as it focuses on students engagement and autonomy.

  There are different reasons why we should use this approach in our language classrooms. “In the constructivist classroom, the focus tends to shift from the teacher to the students. The classroom is no longer a place where a teacher pours knowledge into passive students, who wait like empty vessels to be filled”(Westwood, 2008, p. 2). If we look at the constructivist classroom, students are actively involved in their learning process. Teaching is no longer transmission of  knowledge , it is more about to make students learn by themselves and the teachers never give students ready-made information, they lead students to obtain  this information by themselves. Peter (2008, p. 2) states that “the very nature of human learning requires that each individual create his/her own understanding of the world from firsthand experience, action and reflection, not from having predigested information and skills presented by a teacher and a textbook.” Thus, every method has different roles for teachers. According to constructivist approach  “knowledge is actively constructed by learners” (Arthur & Cremin, 2010, p. 47). For constructivists teacher role is facilitator. Students study from first hands-on  activities ,doing something and from being active.

Moreover, one of the goals,  teachers strive to achieve in constructivist classroom is to make students autonomous learners, which means encouraging them to learn by themselves and to be reflective ( looking at themselves what kinds of learners they are). “The goals for constructivist classrooms are to help children become reflective” (Westwood, 2008, p. 3).  One simply way how teacher can make them reflective is introducing  journals in EFL classroom, where students can write their feeling  about language  improvement.  Besides, creating constructivist classroom environment encourages students to be autonomous learners and to take ownership for their own learning, which makes them independent and self-motivated.

   We can implement different methods in our EFL classrooms to create constructivist environment. These methods are: discovery learning, project work, problem-based learning, etc. The implementation of those methods will enhance the students’ sense of independence in their learning and will make our students active participants. All these methods help teachers to motivate and engage learners. Let’s take an example of Project-based learning, as one of the effective ways, to make students construct their knowledge. Peter (2008, p. 17) believes that “ projects promote meaningful learning by connecting new information to students’ past experiences and prior knowledge and students are responsible for their own learning.” Here, teachers give students one topic and they find information and bring to class. They can prepare posters or presentations to present the information they have found. Thus, students are encouraged to think and reason independently. Projects are focused on real life issues, so with the help of this method they deep their knowledge and have a chance to work collaboratively.

     Besides of its advantages, this approach has some drawbacks. “Constructivist principles is no way guarantees that all students in the class will construct identical knowledge about a given topic”  (Westwood, 2008, p. 4).  We should not forget that “one-size instruction does not fill all” (Westwood, 2008, p. 5). There are students  who don’t have independent learning skills and are not self-motivated. So, for those students it is more suitable to use direct method, as they benefit  when they are taught directly.  “There is evidence that such students make better progress when they are taught explicitly and directly” (Westwood, 2008, p. 4). There are students, who need more guidance from teacher and minimal guidance is not enough for them. If we approach all students with the same method we may get the completely different outcome. That’s why it is so important to identify what kinds of learners we have and try to choose method which will benefit all learners in the classroom.

    To wrap up, introduction of Constructivist approach has changed the attitude toward teaching and learning. Here, the students have become the major participants of the learning process and teachers’ role is only to facilitate learners. Besides, teachers’ role is to create meaningful context which help students to construct their knowledge based on their own experience, so learning has become more meaningful for students. Constructivist approach helps to motivate and engage students by making them to take more active roles in their learning process and if we let them to do things by themselves they will learn better. “I hear, I forget;  I see, I remember; I do, I understand” (Arthur & Cremin, 2010, p. 49).

References

Arthur, J., & Cremin, T. (2010). Learning to Teach in the Primary School (2nd ed.). New York, The USA: Routledge.

Sajna, J., & Molly, V. A. (2015). Knowledge Creation in Constructivist Learning. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 3(1), 8-12.

Westwood, P. (2008). What Teachers Need to Know about Teaching Methods. Victoria, Australia: ACER Press.