Encouraging Reflective Practice

Do you want to be a good teacher? Well, there is no other way but to do a reflective practice. What is it?

Reflective Practice means thinking critically about one's experiences in order to be better understand them and improve one's practice in the future. These are 12 techniques from World Learning to make you practice them at home after teaching.

1. Use your full attention to read the posts
If you want to give good feedback, try to listen or read in full attention. Put aside all distraction.

2. Reflect before responding
There are three questions you should ask to yourself before responding somebody.

• Do you fully understand what they just say?
• What is this person needs to exam?
• How could you help her/him to do that?

3. Make sure you understood what the other persons wrote
Because there is a time break in the written discussion, you can actually restate or summarize what you read instead of simply asking for clarification.

4. Recognize the emotional side
If the person you are talking to knows that you will not understand him/her, she will not talk to you. So, you can try to be in the same shoe with them here.

5. Offer alternatives
Let our friend see alternative interpretations. Help him see other point of views, which is at the heart of critical thinking.

6. Share your point of view, knowledge, or experience
Maybe through your experience, they can see more perspectives and interpretations.

7. Request more information
When you want to request some additional information of what your partner is saying, it means that you are really listening. By doing this, you can also emerge some important information that your friend may not think of, which can help him/her overcome the problem.

8. Ask questions that the other person hasn't thought of
Do not let assumptions come in. In critical thinking, we need to examine our assumptions by asking questions. The ones that other may not think of.

9. Take an objective stance
Take an objective stance to offer more point of view because people who are emotionally involved to a story may not think critically.

10. Offer a different way of seeing things
It's just the same like point 6, however, here you can try to tell another person's point of view.

11. Get the other persons thinking about the future
Reflective practices help us to improve ourselves in the future. Think about the implications in the future and learn from your past. After teaching, I usually write down what I need to improve in my own diary. You can provide a special book for yourself to write the reflective practice.]

12. Be respectful.
Still be respectful to the other persons in choosing our comments ans questions wisely.

Happy Trying!

Description VS Interpretation

Good teaching requires accurately understanding what is happening with our students on an on-going basis.

This is what we call as "what we have observed" VS "our interpretation of what we have observed".

Now, take a look on this picture. What is happening?

Maybe in your mind you think that this dog is thrown from the sky or maybe you picture that the master of this dog is so mean for throwing out this dog from the plane (Or maybe you get mad seeing this). 😋

Now, take a look on this video.

What is happening?
Yes!! The dog is thrown on the snow. He seems so happy and wants it more.

That's exactly what interpretation looks like.

In class, maybe you see that your students really learn because they answer everything correctly, but wait! It turns out that they know the material because the answer is obvious.

Or maybe, you interpret that one of your students is unhappy because she is frowning. Wait! Maybe she is concentrating!

One of your students maybe bored because he looks at the clock. Wait! Maybe he needs to take a medicine.

Critical thinking requires us to be able to distinguish between Observation and Interpretation.

An observation is something you notice by watching or listening. It sometimes can be made through other senses, such as touch or smell.

So, think critically! Be aware of our assumptions. Imagine and explore alternative interpretations.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking has so many characters that we can practice in our daily teaching.

1. Critical Thinking examines assumptions (Epstein, 2003).
Assumptions people made usually based on their culture. For example people from low-context culture tend to think that to be direct when speaking is better. So, critical thinking helps us to be objective.

2. Critical Thinking is a thinking that is free (as free as possible) from bias and prejudice (Haskins, 2006)
Critical thinking requires us to understand things in their context.

3. Critical Thinking distinguishes fact from opinion (Debela & Fang, 2008)
When we think that someone is rude, it doesn't mean that he is really rude. Sometimes, his behavior shows his culture. It is okay if we see from his culture, but somehow, when we compare it to our culture, his behavior is rude.

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4. Critical Thinkers Imagine and Explore Alternatives (Brookfield, 1987)
To understand someone's intentions, it is necessary to understand their perspective.

5. Critical Thinking is based on "universal intellectual values" (Scriven & Paul, n.d.):
Clarity: Think Clearly.
Accuracy: Base our thinking on the correct information.
Consistency: Apply a rule to all similar contexts.
Depth: Consider information deeper, not only the surface.
Breadth: Consider a wide range of information.
Fairness: be fair.

6. Critical Thinking is a Process (Debela & Fang, 2008)
Critical thinking is a process, it takes time.

7. Critical Thinking can be learned and taught (Debela & Fang, 2008)
Critical thinking can be broken down into steps, this is how it can be learned and taught.

References:

Brookfield, S. (1987) Developing critical thinkers: challenging adults to explore alternative ways of thinking and acting. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Debela, N., & Fang, B. (2008). Using discussions to promote critical thinking in an online environment. Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 72-77. Retrieved from http://www.iiisci.org/journal/cv$/sci/pdfs/e183sl.pdf

Epstein, R. L. (2003). The pocket guide to critical thinking. (2nd ed.) Toronto, Ontario: Wadsworth. Haskins, G. R. (2006). A practical guide to critical thinking. Retrieved November 22, 2006, from
http://www.skepdic.com/essays/haskins.pdf

Scriven, M. & Paul, R. (n.d.) Defining critical thinking. Retrieved November 22, 2006, from
http://www.criticalthinking.org/

Raising Cultural Awareness in the English Language Classroom - Jerold Frank

In this class, I have the opportunity to read Jerold Frank's journal entitled "Raising Cultural Awareness in the English Language Classroom". I will share to you his ideas that really bless me.

For teachers like us, sometimes there are questions which appear in our mind like; "how to introduce cultural elements into the lessons?" and "what approach to take?"

Paige groups culture learning into categories:

1. The self as culture
2. The elements of culture
3. Intercultural phenomena (Culture - general learning)
4. Particular cultures (culture-specific learning)
5. Acquiring strategies for culture learning.

We will observe each of them deeper.

1. The Self as Culture

"Culture is what people think, make, and do!"

Bodley (1994)

If we want to insert topic about culture, encourage students to construct their own notions of culture. However, make sure, we have define what culture is to students and how it has shaped them before they can engage in interactive discussions.

How I do it in my class:

For this, I usually use a picture or video about culture. For example like showing many traditional clothes from Indonesia, and ask students with questions that can arise their thought about what culture is. I ask one or two of them to share their opinion and then conclude everything so that each of us in class has the same perception about culture that we want to discuss.

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2. The Elements of Culture

This part refers to beliefs, values, customs, products, and communication styles of a given culture or society.

A tool to help EFL students to conceptualize elements of culture is "CULTURAL ICEBERG ANALOGY". This analogy is divided into three:

• Surface Culture includes food, national costumes, and specific holidays.
• Sub-surface Culture includes notions of courtesy, body language, gestures, touching, eye contact, personal space, facial expressions, conversational patterns, and concept of time.
• Deep Culture includes nature of friendship, concepts of food, nations of modesty, concept of cleanliness, gender roles, and so on.

How I do it in my class:
I will divide my students into group and give them some pictures. Then I will stick three papers on the wall marks Surface Culture, Sub-surface Culture. and Deep Culture. The next order is that I will ask students to stick the picture according to the right analogy. After that, I will discuss the results with students.

In this activity, EFL teacher plays an important role either as a cultural informant or language expert.

3. Intercultural Phenomena
EFL teacher in this part has to prepare students for challenges they may meet when they travel to English speaking country.

One of the way is to explain about acculturation and how it works. Acculturation is a process of adapting to a new culture. It has four stages (Brown, 1994).

1. Excitement (being in anew country). It is like in a honeymoon phase, where everything seem so wonderful, until they meet culture shock.
2. Culture shock (Frustration and Hostility). In this stage, they make unfair comparisons between their host culture and their own culture.
3. Recovery (Adjustment and Emergent comfort to new culture). In this part, they become familiar and feel comfortable.
4. Adaption (Bridging cultural barriers and accepting new culture). This is the final stage where they adapt and accept the new culture.

How I do it in my class:

I will group my students and give them some drama projects. They have to perform a situation where a student moves to a totally new place. They have to express what they see, what they feel, and how they overcome the problems they meet. After that, they have to perform in front of the class. At the end of the performance, they have to conclude and re explain the drama in a brief explanation.

4. Particular Cultures

This culture includes history, geography, political system, and an understanding of particular characters of a society. 

In this part, the culture is divided into two:

• High context cultures.These cultures emphasize on interpersonal relationships and prefer group harmony. For this kind of people, words are less important than a speaker's intent. These are typified by long-lasting social relationships, spoken agreement, and mutual trust. The interlocutors of this depend less in language (native of English speaking country).
• Low Context Cultures. These cultures are individualistic and goal oriented. They are value directness with discussions resulting actions. The interlocutors of this are straightforward & concise (Asian, middle Eastern, Latin American).

How I do it in my class:

In order to know whether students are high or low context, ask them to make a list of their own character that shows who they really are (at least 10 characters). Then ask them to exchange to their best friend in class and start sharing.

5. Acquiring Strategies for Culture Learning

These are few things, EFL teachers can note to themselves on how to implement culture in learning.

1. Having students learn about a culture from NATIVE informants.
2. Develop their cultural observation skills.
3. Learn about the culture through authentic materials.

Happy trying guys!

Reference
Frank, J. (2013). Raising cultural awareness in the English language classroom. English Teaching Forum, 2-35.

My Certificate is coming

Hurrayyyyyyyyyyy..

Finally. I am so happy guys. I received my certificate of my completion of joining American English E-Teacher Program. This is an 8-week course to discuss about some topics related to English teaching. There are five topics to offer, but this time I chose: Integrating Critical Thinking Skills into Exploration of Culture in an EFL Setting.



It was so fantastic because I needed to spare my time to do all the tasks while working, but it's worth it.

If you guys are curious about how to join it, well... first, join CAMP SOAR from RELO US Embassy every year and get the chance to be chosen.

You can visit: RELO US EMBASSY

Good Luck!

Micro -Cultures

Yeay! We get back again to cultures.  This time we will discuss more about micro-cultures.

Before we get there, I want to introduce you to large-scale cultures. It is a term for a big culture such as Indonesian cultures, US cultures, Australian Cultures, etc.

Inside large-scale cultures, there are micro-cultures.

Micro-cultures are

“An identifiable group of people who share a set of values, beliefs, and behaviors and who possess a common history and verbal and nonverbal symbol system that is similar to but systematically varies from the larger, often dominant cultural milieu”  (Neuliep, 2015, p. xvi).

To make it clearer, let’s divide it into several points:

1	An identifiable group	People have to recognize them as group to make it strong to be Micro-cultures
2	who share a set of values, beliefs, and behaviors	It fits to 3Ps Perspectives, Practices, Products.
3	who possess a common history	Having the same history (as a requirement)
4	verbal	Language (Including slang or jargon). They speak different language from the larger culture. For example: Spanish speaking Latinos in US.
5	nonverbal symbol system	a)      Clothing b)      Art or Music c)       Gestures
6	similar   to but systematically varies from the larger	·         Has a lot in common with larger culture ·         Also have certain key differences

Micro-cultures may have to do with:

Hobbies, family ties, profession, religion, or politics.

It is connected to

A PERSON IDENTITY

That’s why, students must understand that there are several different aspects of our identity. We call it as Multiple Identities.

 These multiple Identity can be inserted into Identity Wheel.
                         

This diagram will help us to define who we are.

The aspects can be changed into something else like age, nationality, etc.

Try to ask your students to draw their own identity wheel, and see the shocking results!

Wanna see mine???

Comment below to post your own identity wheel. :-D