Day (1): Coverage of IATEFL Manchester 2015
Opening Plenary by : Donald Freeman
School of Education
University of Michigan
Donald Freeman in IATEFL Plenary on Day (1)
Frozen in thought? How we think and what we do in ELT
To download the slideshares of the above session, IATEFL'S Plenary, click on the following link:
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/files/donald-freeman-plenarypdf/download?token=R7dCGi51
Now let's see what he says in his interview with Nik Peachey:
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2015/interview/interview-donald-freeman
My View of the Plenary
Donald Freeman's Myths and the Ghosts of the Cultural Obstacles
On Day(1),Donald Freeman talks in the plenary about three myths,Direct Causality,Sole Responsibility,and Proficiency.
The first myth,Direct Causality,hits a crucial point in the teaching methodology.Donald denounces this attitude in the teaching methodology.I view this myth as the vision of what is absolute"correct and absolute"wrong".What is meant is that most of the teachers monopolize the exactitude of the answers and ignore the students' points of views.Here is an example stricken from our real life.A student in school in one of the Third World Countries was asked about mentioning one source of the environmnetal pollution.He answered that garabage is one source of the environmental pollution.Unfortunately, the teacher claimed that their answer is incorrect ,because this piece of information is not mentioned in the coursebook.What is your opinion about this incident? Your comments ,please!!
The second myth,Sole Responsibility,confirms that the teacher should not be the sole role player in the process of teaching and the students are the receivers of the taught materials who are supposed to show comprehension.I believe that there must be mutual discussions in the classroom for the sake of creating some room for creativity and innovation.
From Donald's point of view ,the third myth,Proficiency is an unrealsitic objective in the process of language acquistion .
Frankly speaking, if the ESL/EFL teacher targets the objective of creating "proficient"students in English, they will defintely do it.I have experiences for over 15 years since I was able to make students pass TOEFL and IELTS tests with high band scores.
Your comments,please!!
In fact,there exists ghosts rotating around the myths .these ghosts are called the "cultural obstacles".They represent critical factors in hindering the teacher from achieving anticipated success.In many non-English speaking countries,ELT faces frustrating environments and conditions that could augment Donald's myths into nighmarish pedagogical realities.These circumstances could be represented in the unavailibilty of the appropriate classrooms ,the poor training of the teachers,the slim budgets consecrated for eduaction,the narrow minds conflciting with modern and technology,etc....What do you think?!
