ITAIS Newsletter - September 2021 (Plain Text Version)
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ARTICLES THE RISKS OF A TEST-FOCUSED ITA TRAINING COURSE
Introduction This article examines ITAs experience of an ITA training class using the theoretical construct of investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015), which is defined as the confluence of learners’ identity, capital, and ideologies. “Investment” is viewed as preferable to “motivation” by scholars interested in questions of identity within SLA because, “the term ‘motivation’ is too weak to cover the strong feelings of attraction and rejection” (Kramsch, 2009, p. 205). Methods, Participants, and Research Site A qualitative, multiple case study was done for the duration of a semester-long ITA training course, “ESL 9999”. At this institution, incoming ITAs take an initial oral/ teaching assessment (IOTA). Based on their performance, they may become certified to perform various teaching roles within their home departments. After taking the course, ITAs take a final oral/ teaching assessment (FOTA) for the same purpose. This assessment battery was implemented in compliance with state law regarding ITAs. This project involved six ITAs, coming from China, Taiwan, and India, all of whom were required to take ESL 9999. Three were in-service ITAs, meaning they had been certified to serve in instructional roles (lab leading, instructor of record), and three were pre-service (graders). Participants were enrolled in three different sections of ESL 9999 during the same semester, taught by three different instructors. Participants’ home departments included Chemistry, Sociology, Education, Pharmacy, and Economics within a major research university in the Midwest. Data collected for this study included ITAs weekly journals, semi-structured interviews and stimulated recall sessions, class assignments, and classroom observations both of the ESL 9999 and of home department courses. Interviews were also done with home department administrators and with ESL 9999 instructors. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, with all data analyzed using qualitative content analysis (Merriam, 2009, p. 205). Research was undertaken in accordance with best practices of human subject research. As a researcher, I conducted this study while concurrently teaching my own sections of ESL 9999 during the same semester, however, no participants were enrolled in courses under my instruction. Being intimately familiar with much of the research context afforded me a deeper understanding of ITAs experiences. Two Distinct Approaches to Teaching ESL 9999 ESL 9999 instructors were able to adapt the course, knowing that all learners would take the FOTA following ESL 9999. Three instructors teaching ESL 9999 (myself excluded) were U.S. men, all native-speakers of English with unique, fascinating language learning/ teaching trajectories. It became apparent only when researching that instructors were enacting two starkly distinct teaching approaches. One instructor taught the class exclusively as a practicum for FOTA. The other two focused broadly on skills and concepts beyond the assessment alongside FOTA preparation. In fact, the research found that the most important differences between ITA participants’ investments did not result from the distinction between pre-service / in-service ITAs, but rather from which approach their instructor was taking. The instructor of the test-centric sections, Mr. Camden ( all names are pseudonyms) explained that he was tasked by the department to design an innovative approach to teaching the course. He took pride in his designing of his test-focused sections. Through the two research interviews, his views became clear that ESL 9999 is a burden to ITAs and distracts them from their disciplinary research. Aligned with these beliefs, he viewed his workshop approach to ESL 9999 as stream-lined, more effective, and more ethical treatment of ITAs. For this reason, the course had no other assignments other than in-class microteaching demonstrations. The instructor was in his late 30’s, had taught ESL in four different institutions, and was in his second year of teaching ESL 9999. On the other hand, the two instructors of non-test-centric sections took an approach that incorporated a range of activities beyond microteachings. This included making key terms lists and recordings, conducting interviews with undergraduates and current ITAs, doing classroom observations within their disciplines, reflective/self-assessment/transcriptions of microteachings, and other assignments. Interviews with these instructors revealed their views on ESL 9999: students’ need for cultural knowledge and quasi-ethnographic awareness of American academic spaces, in addition to traditional phonetic and microteaching practice. The overlap in their views resulted from their very disparate relationship with ITA training. One of these two instructors was in his 20’s and was teaching ESL 9999 for the first time and was in his first semester teaching at this university. The other instructor had many years of experience teaching ESL 9999 and ITAs generally. The former largely utilized the materials developed by the latter. From interviews, classroom observations, and feedback analysis, it became clear the veteran’s approach was very detail-oriented, which led to one ITA participant enrolled in his section remarking that his scrupulous attention to her speech demonstrated how much he cared for her learning, something which astonished her and which she respected about him. Among the ITA participants, two were enrolled in test-centric sections of ESL 9999, and four in non-test centric sections, which was roughly proportional to the breakdown of students enrolled in sections with test-centric and non-test-centric approaches. After ESL 9999, the TOTA was administered by trained ESL department staff. Test-takers were not assessed by their ESL 9999 instructor. Zack, an Evangelist of (test-centric) ESL 9999 Zack was an extremely extroverted and confident English user. From India, Zack was studying chemistry, seeing the Ph.D. as securing him a future managerial position within corporate laboratories, and to improve his research. Zack’s results on the IOTA certified him to teach undergraduate lab sections but while concurrently taking ESL 9999. He was confident in his lab leading and enjoyed it because of its social nature. Zack initially misunderstood the significance of the post-ESL 9999 assessment, thinking it would entitle him to become a recitation-leader, something he did not want. Only later he realized he would need to take another ESL course to maintain his lab-leading role if he did not gain certification on the FOTA. Nonetheless, Zack continued to not put much effort into the class out of his confidence. Zack was a gregarious and confident instructor. In his lab, Zack would sit atop the tabletop to welcome his students. He played music from his smartphone that students had previously voted on while they worked. Zack’s confidence was rooted in his prior work experience in multiple U.S. states, his work as a head TA during his master’s study, and his wide social circles with Americans. So confident in his teaching was Zack that welcomed criticism of it. This confidence underlaid his approach to ESL 9999 as well. Welcoming challenges and growth, Zack initially saw the course’s utility positively. ESL 9999 presented opportunities for general self-improvement and for economic advancement in the long run. He felt so positively about the course that he reportedly promoted his peers to enroll in ESL 9999, even if they were not required. Adopting His Instructor’s Views By the end of ESL 9999, Zack’s views aligned very closely with those of Mr. Camden. Zack would refer to ESL 9999 as the “FOTA class”, positioning the final assessment as the entire purpose of the course. This label reflects Mr. Camden’s design of his ESL 9999 sections, a series of practice-runs of the assessment with no other assignments. Zack measured his language development based on the prospect of success on the FOTA, of which he was very confident. His confidence grew with Mr. Camden’s affirmations of his positive outcomes on the upcoming FOTA. Zack received such messaging via near perfect scores Mr. Camden would award him on feedback sheets of mock assessments (microteachings) performed in class and in conversations during tutorials. In fact, Zack’s understanding of why he was even enrolled in ESL 9999 was shaped by Mr. Camden’s comments to him that the reason why he failed in initial assessment was due only to a poor Skype connection. In the classroom, Zack appreciated Mr. Camden’s minimization of lecturing, which comported with Zack’s views of good teaching. Regarding microteachings, Zack was recognizing the difference between a teacher voice and a “bar” (social) voice, a view that Mr. Camden emphasized. Both men viewed pressure on public speakers as negatively impacting performance. Zack fabricated this pressure, intentionally under-preparing his microteaching by preparing only the lesson’s outline - typically a single slide - only the night before. He compared his approach to his “free-style” dancing, in which he lets the music direct his movements in unplanned ways. In this way, Zack was seeing ESL 9999 activities as fun, stimulating, and useful for contexts apart from teaching, but of little use within his labs. Mr. Camden was reportedly shocked when Zack explained his approach and advised him to prepare more materials. Zack began to see a division between practices that were efficient “for people from Chemistry” and those that were efficient for the FOTA. Undesired Test Results Plunge Zack At the start of the following semester, Zack had not gained a certifying score on the FOTA and was surprised and “depressed”. Once evangelizing for the course, he now saw it as a requirement for international students. Zack reported developing no pedagogical, economic, or cultural skills in ESL 9999. Against his score, Zack’s prior work experiences within the U.S. became counterevidence of his proficient English competencies. These experiences then became capital he possessed against the assessment’s positioning of his skills as deficient to teach American students Chemistry in English. Having spent one semester in a course engineered for FOTA success, not attaining FOTA success led to Zack’s affective plunge. The following semester, Zack continued to serve as an instructor of chemistry labs and was required to enroll in an additional ESL course. At the time of the final interview conducted for this research, he was scheduled to meet with Mr. Camden, again his instructor, to learn of “what went wrong”. Conclusion This research provided a detailed look at the trajectory of ITA participants during their ITA training course. For ITA practitioners, it showed the need for language testing policies and their implications on work be clearly -and repeatedly- communicated to ITAs. It is clear that instructors exert a powerful influence on their learners’ language ideologies. Moreover, it demonstrated the risks involved in centering courses on assessments. However well-intentioned the design, pedagogies that teach to the test sow seeds of damaging learners, even its former evangelists. References Darvin, R., & Norton, B. (2015). Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 36-56. Kramsch, C. J. (2009). The multilingual subject : What foreign language learners say about their experience and why it matters. Oxford University Press. Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research : A guide to design and implementation. Jossey-Bass.
Roger Anderson is currently an assistant professor of international languages & cultures at Central State University, Ohio’s only public historically-black university (HBCU). Roger instructs classrooms for learners of French and Arabic and enjoys maintaining and learning new world languages. |
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