Juxtapositions

One of the primary goals of standardized testing has been to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed in school. While that's a wonderful goal, it must be noted that zip code is still the most accurate way to predict academic success. Why is this? There are plenty of explanations (or attempts at explanations).... and I'm not going to go into these in any detail here. Instead, I'd like to consider they way that our general approach to education that relies on standard knowledge, standard assessment, and increasingly standard teaching methods (both in the U.S. and Korea) might be turning English into something it isn't... a set of patterns and forms that can be divided into an ordered curriculum. I wonder if these structural issues have anything to do with the resistance to English among some Korean students and high levels of English success among others.

Here's a website that discusses the achievement gap in the U.S.

Tuesday Projects

Please leave a comment beneath this post with your topic and your URL

Monday Topics

In the comments section, please paste the URL to your group project

English Education

I've been in education for over ten years now (that makes me feel old). During that time I've come across a lot of different students with a lot of different needs, desires, and goals. I've also worked in a lot of different settings. I've found that particular students and the teaching/learning settings where I meet them have forced me to constantly rethink my approach to teaching. I have a habit of trying to reinvent the wheel with every course.
One of the primary reasons I do this is that I can't stand the feeling that what I am teaching is irrelevant and I hate to think that I'm just another person with just another set of rules and expectations for my students to negotiate on route to someplace else. The picture to the left was taken in one of my classes a couple of years ago. My initial question is, how can this be avoided? Is it necessary to turn language into a 'subject' in order to educate? Is is possible to make classroom language relevant? I haven't found the secret, but I'm still looking.

Inquiry Project

Your first tasks are pretty simple.
- Make a small group (2 to 3 people)
- Choose a topic of interest that you want to know more about
- Sign up for a blogger account (one for the group)
- Select a template
- Post a picture and a caption that briefly introduces your topic