Curriculum changes – welcome!

As you are probably aware of, the Norwegian government has announced a major school reform that is scheduled for the autumn of 2019, which primarily revolves around changes in the national curriculum. Needless to say, this is a big deal for the educational sector in Norway in general, and for pupils, parents and teachers in particular. It has been a while since the last big reform (K06), 12 years to be precise, and given the ever-increasing rate of globalization and technological development (unprecedentedly influencing communication, understanding and knowledge) many consider the need for reform to be highly due.

Of course, there are always pros and cons regarding reforms like this: they are time-consuming, extremely expensive and success is hardly a guarantee. Still, the possible end result can potentially improve the whole concept of Norwegian education on a national level in profound ways. Furthermore, the process the Ludvigsen committee has gone through during the last years in the planning seems open, fruitful and well-communicated. Therefore, I give the curriculum changes a warm welcome. Here is one reason why:

In an article at Khrono.no, published in 2016, math-teacher and prof. Bjørn Smestad has a very optimistic take on the forthcoming reform. He highlights the fact that the government has ordered fewer competence aims, which implicates more “depth-learning” and cross-curricular subjects. At the very core of what we as teachers are supposed to teach our pupils are the competence aims, and as of now, simply, there are too many of them. At worst, this can lead to nerve-wrecking “time trouble” for teachers (and pupils) during year 10, wondering if they have covered all the aims sufficiently prior to the spring exams, and hereby jumping from topic to topic in order to get them all “done”. At best, it seems as if the pupils experience a subtle alienation in regards to both the often vague nature of the competence aims and the shear amount of them.

Of course, one could argue that the pupils are not necessarily supposed to relate to the competence aims on a day-to day basis, rather they could be regarded as useful tools for the teacher to use in planning her lessons and semesters. However, working in a year 8-10 school, I often see examples of teachers using competence aims directly as learning aims on weekly schedules etc. This practice has been advocated by some (Egil Hartberg), but is in my opinion seldom beneficial for the majority of the pupils in a given class. Frankly, using the aims from K06 in practice seems highly teacher-dependent, reflecting the fact that the level of freedom in the competence aims of today is a blessing, but also a curse. 

There are many reasons to look forward to the changes in our curriculum. However, the reform certainly also provides some challenges. Bjørn Smestad briefly mentions one (probably the greatest one?): what to leave out? This question orbits what we regard as important when we imagine our future society and consider what aspects of knowledge and methods we think should be a priority in preparing our pupils on what to come.

In my opinion, the curriculum changes are most welcome!

Curious to hear your opinions on this!

 

 

Sources:

https://khrono.no/debatt/gleder-seg-over-mye-i-nye-laererplaner

Grammar in the classroom (reflection text)

Rykkinn skole, Bærum
Three of the four participants teach a variation of 8-, 9- and 10^th grade English, while one teaches in-depth English only.

Grammar in the classroom

I recently initiated a meeting for the English teachers at my workplace in accordance with the study plan. The school`s principal let me use an hour out of the mandatory weekly two-hour meeting (“fellestid”), which was welcoming since my two previously initiated English-meetings, from last year, ended up being done outside of regular school hours. Quite to my surprise, the topic grammar in the classroom, immediately sparked an interest during lunch before the meeting. It turned out one of my colleagues always has a lot of explicit grammar teachings in her classes, while another teaches absolutely none. This gap in practice was hopefully going to lead to a fruitful discussion, if not a heated debate. My colleagues seemed curious getting insight into the do`s and don’ts of grammar-teaching. Unfortunately, research in this field, do not give clear black- and white answers, making a discussion about it even more relevant.

I started off my presentation by introducing chapter 11 in English for Teachers and Learners (EFTAL) and a few articles (“The Grammar Dilemma”, by Carmen Garrido Barra (Barra: 2013), “Grammar in communicative English teaching” by Hilde Hasselgård (Hasselgård), and Grammatikken I skolen – klar for en omkamp?” by Frøydis Hertberg (Hertberg, 2014)) as starting points. I briefly talked about the backdrop: that the English subject during the last decades has undergone a shift from mechanical language drills to an enhanced focus on communicative aspects. Our main aim is to enable our pupils to interact in real-life situations and increase their communicative competence. The question is: which implications does this have on grammar teaching? Is it necessary or not, and if it is, how should we teach it? I showed examples of both experts saying explicit grammar teaching is vital, and some (Tracy Terrell, Krashen etc) who claims that formal grammar instruction does not play an important role in developing language competence.

Furthermore, I talked about grammar typically being a challenge since it is often thought of as demotivating for reluctant Norwegian learners. I introduced the question: How can we keep motivation high while still facilitate grammar learning? And I brought up Stages, our school`s English coursebooks, and showed examples of how it integrates grammar in the chapters in a rather subtle manner. We all agreed that we were lucky to be using this rather than Key, Searching or Crossroads, which integrate grammar. My colleagues picked up on different elements from my presentation, but for the sake of clarity, let me mention three of them:

Firstly, one of the things I mentioned in the presentation was that Norwegians in upper-secondary often have great fluency in oral English, while continue to make the same mistakes over and over in written English (one of Hilde Hasselgårds points). One of my colleagues suggested gaming to be the reason for this. One colleague argued that accuracy (through improved grammar skills) in written English will become increasingly more important in the future, due to the steady growth of the English language in general and a more globalized Norway, business and culture-wise in particular. This simply calls for more focus on grammar. Accuracy, obviously, has to do with precision and communication.

Secondly, an important branch of the discussion revolved around motivation. Given that we only teach 8-10 graders English two hours each week, needless to say, we should keep those lessons as interesting and inspiring as possible. But to balance the fun and the serious/important is challenging. On this note, one claimed that it is simply a myth that grammar is abstract, difficult and demotivating. Rather, she found grammar to be appealing to their “logical, curious nature”, and that upper secondary is “the perfect time to learn it”. Not surprising, she also teach German. Come to think of it, it turned out all except one had some anecdote or vague memory of engaged pupils in our own grammar classes. We agreed that well-planned and well-executed grammar classes rank high among our best experiences teaching English.   

Thirdly, they picked up on using authentic texts when teaching grammar. We discussed which books we have used in the past, which we would like to use later this year (the school library has gotten about 20 new English novels this semester, the ideal length of such texts, before having a closer look on the authentic texts in Stages   

Our conclusion was all in all pretty much in line with Carmen Barra: that formal grammar instruction play an important role in increasing our pupils communicative competence, but that we should remember that grammar learning should be motivating and appropriate in terms of their level. In this regard we agreed that it is particularly important to implement adaptive learning (advanced learners typically get more out of grammar classes than reluctant learners according to Frøydis Hertberg), vary our methods, while requiring feedback from our pupils after classes. Post-it notes after grammar classes, thumb up/down/sideways or signs (that pupils hold up after sessions) are some ways to ensure that we get our messages across, and that the pupils all have a learning outcome in grammar classes.    

I really enjoy giving my co-workers, and leadership at my school, insight into my studies, and I felt that the meeting was a success ending on a positive note. It seemed that my colleagues thought of it as time well spent. I have pressed my boss that we should have these kinds of meetings more often. Due to the school-building (the different teams are located far away from each other) and our respective time-schedules, there is not an established routine for cooperation amongst the English-teachers at my workplace (the exception being sharing weekly plans and coordinating assessment). Being able to sit down and exchange ideas on a highly relevant topic like grammar was definitely in place, and at the end of the meeting we were even promised more scheduled English-meetings for the next semester. 

 

Sources:

Barra, Carmen Garrido (2013). The grammar dilemma, in English teaching professional, issue 88, September 2013.

Flognfeldt, M.E. & Lund, R.E “English for Teachers and Learners” (Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2016)

Hasselgård, Hilde. Grammar in communicative English teaching (in Språk og Språkundervisning 1/01)

Hertberg, Frøydis (2014). Grammatikken i skolen – klart for en omkamp? (In Bedre skole nr. 2, 2014)

 

Ambitions, dreams and laughs

In short, my ambition in life is to keep progressing as a rock-climber for another decade (eventually ticking off a Font 8A-boulderproblem), while being a good familyguy and a great husband. The trick is to balance things out I guess, getting time for both training, work and kids/family.

When I was little I dreamt of becoming a car-mechanic for several years (as most boys I guess). Ironically, it turned out I`m not at all handy, and ended up being drawn to academics, music, and later teaching.

A podcast called "Guttene som flyttet til Oslo" makes me laugh. It`s absurd, strange and very... different.