UPDATE: CONCRETE YouTube Channel “PROACTIVE ESL” created as part of the project, here:
PROACTIVE ESL with Teacher Andy
As well as “Business English and “English for Academic Purposes” online courses at www.edmodo.com
_________________________________
Blended Education Model for the Improvement of
ESL Speaking and Listening Skills via Zoom Meetings/Webinars.
Andrés Melo Cousineau
January-March, 2020.
_________________________________
SECTIONS
A. Introduction
B. The basic two-pronged project
C. The interconnection to curriculum
D. Other benefits and risks
E. The Question of Motivation
F. The Question of Assessment
G. Other experienced blended-teaching application samples: EF
H. Disrupting the blended model: The Humanities´ original disruptive essence
I. Technology: hardware and software.
J. Sources and bibliography
_________________________________
A. Introduction
As I have been an in-class ESL teacher for many years, one who is also a photographer and permanently up-to-date with technology, I have always been interested in seeing the possibilities related to teaching languages beyond the physical classroom, be it through hybrid, blended or flipped classrooms. In other words, continuing to traverse the ¨brick to click¨ adventure, as they say. Especially in the learning of languages, the use of the internet has become an everyday fantastic possibility. Some of my personal favourites, among many: “Mango” https://mangolanguages.com/ and “Tandem” https://www.tandem.net/ . For a more complete directory see here: http://c4lpt.co.uk/directory-of-learning-performance-tools/learn-a-language-online/
I myself have used the online learning options not only at Coursera, having finished three courses already (including learning Mandarin!), but also several at Udemy (for drone photography) and many more at the amazing The Great Courses (including many directly related to the role of the Humanities in education and cultural understanding). Moreover, I have been lucky to have learned multiple languages in diverse periods of my life and have been able to do so using diverse methodologies and technologies. This has taught me best how to be a better language teacher. A flipped kind of teacher! LOL.
I particular, I see the disruptive possibilities for current ESL classes by using online teaching as a form of emphasizing oral active (speaking) and passive (listening) production given that many students feel that both speaking and listening to English are some of the most difficult skills for them. Just today I heard once again, after having heard so many others, how a student repeated, “my English is broken”, and at the very same time added seriously, “but I have a very good teacher”. I am sorry, great teachers do not have students who end up seeing themselves in this way. Learning English thus becomes a source of frustration. But learning is definitely the highest joy available to humans. This is why I told him to tell me how you would say “My English is not broken” in Tibetan, for he was exiled from Tibet. He immediately offered the translation. I told it to repeat it to himself out loud. He got what I was saying to him, and laughed.
So we do need disruption. Disruption is necessary. Technology can be another avenue for such disruption. However, technology on its own can never be disruptive. This is why disruption is generally praised while avoided in reality. Few “talk the talk, AND, walk the walk”. As Bates puts it:
“teaching and later distance education, to a force for radical change in our educational systems – but radical change based on the full potential of e-learning is something that still has yet to occur on any significant scale”. (Bates; my emphasis)
And this disruption is not merely progressive or futuristic. True disruption moves beyond technology, Otherwise, we moderns would be the only disruptors in history! It also involves seeing that perhaps the truest education is the recovering of certain forms of understanding which are now lost to us. The original disruption is the disruption of the soul. Coming from the Humanities, one need only think of the original disrupter, Socrates. Everyone knows his name, few read him. And even less so read him in the original Ancient Greek. Learn Ancient Greek, disrupt yourself. Talk the talk, walk the walk.
B. The basic two-pronged project
More specifically, my project is twofold;
First off, to create a set of more permanent online lessons geared towards understanding why it is in fact so difficult for some students to speak and listen to English, for instance, by focusing on:
a) pragmatic pronunciation and fluency issues such as the “schwa” and issues such as the difference between “stressed-timed” languages and “syllable-timed” ones (or, another way of putting it, focusing on “thought groups”) which I believe are crucial to overcoming the sense of failure many students have in themselves,
b) the use of specific grammatical areas such as “tag questions” or “phrasal verbs” or “past progressive”, and many others, which students “LEARN”, but cannot actually produce in their communicative interactions (what the specialists, and there are tons of specialists, call “acquire”). For instance, you can have a billion apps on “phrasal verbs”, but not a single student be MOTIVATED to learn them. You can complete the sentence: “She is a teacher, isn’t she?” in a textbook or exam, BUT NEVER be able to produce a SINGLE tag question in a conversation.
and finally,
c) communication-focused topics such as c.1) those used in Business English classes —and their conception of realia and real-world assessment— which include “communication”, “presentation and body language”, “leadership”, “ethics”, “multiple intelligences, and many others, or c.2) the fundamental communicative functions which are the core topic of what is known as “Survival English” (“Buying Things”, “Giving Directions”, “Ordering in a Restaurant”, etc.). The Mango app EXCELS in this regard,
All of these, most of which we have already prepared over the years, would be set up by using screencast software such as “ScreenFlow” for the Mac in combination with other software such as Keynote, PowerPoint, iMovie (see “Technology Section” below.) and linking the finished video vlogs as specific lessons on YouTube to reach a larger audience —not of TESL experts— but of frustrated ESL students.
Secondly, and this is the real concern of this piece of writing, to use technology to engage in 1-to-1 classes (or, very small groups of maximum five such as those used in Business English environments), by means of a video conferencing technology called “Zoom”; a technology which can also be linked to broader Learning Management Systems (LMSs). In this sense, this second focus is very different from the huge MOOC courses whose audience, by their very nature, is extremely large. In contrast, mine seeks more of a 1-on-1 interaction so that the speaking and listening skills can be focused on an individual case. (or perhaps, in some cases a maximum of five students). But even for larger groups, this would apply as well, if scheduled correctly and using one’s imagination.
Rarefactions: by Andrés Melo Cousineau 
Reflections: Commentary on Aristotle’s NICOMACHEAN ETHICS; BOOK I, 1
Posted in Book I, books, education, Memorabilia, Nicomachean Ethics, on Aristotle, on Nicomachean Ethics, on politics, on puzzling, On the Bible, philosophy, political rhetoric, war, tagged "andres melo", amelo14, andresmelo, Aquinas, Aristotelianism, Aristotle, classical political philosophy, classical reason, classics, Commentary, education, Etica a Nicómaco, liberal education, NE Book I, Nicomachean ethics, political philosophy, political rhetoric, politics, rarefactions, reflection on June 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »
COMMENTARY ON ARISTOTLE’S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS: BOOK I, 1
(For the nature of the sections see the “General Introduction”, here.)
Abbreviations: Ar. = Aristotle, AQ= Aquinas, NE = Nicomachean Ethics, EE= Eudemian Ethics
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
BOOK I
CHAPTER ONE
“Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action as well as choice, is held to aim at some good. Hence people have nobly declared that the good is that at which all things aim. But there appears to be a certain difference among the ends: some ends are activities, others are certain works apart from the activities themselves, and in those cases in which there are certain ends apart from the actions, the works are naturally better than the activities.
Now, since there are many actions, arts and sciences, the ends too are many: of medicine, the end is health; of shipbuilding, a ship; of generalship, victory; of household management, wealth. And in all things of this sort that fall under some one capacity —for just as bridle making and such other arts as concern equestrian gear fall under horsemanship, while this art and every action related to warfare fall under generalship, so in the same manner, some arts fall under one capacity, others under another —–in all of them, the ends of the architectonic ones are more choiceworthy than all those that fall under them, for these latter are pursued for the sake of the former. And it makes no difference at all whether the ends of the actions are the activities themselves or something else apart from these, as in the sciences mentioned.” (NE, 1094a1-18; Aristotle´s Nicomachean Ethics, Bartlett, Robert, and Collins, Susan; University of Chicago, Chicago, 2011)
I. PRIVATE PUZZLES
1) Why does Aristotle begin his text by using such complicated, even technical, vocabulary (technē, methodos, praxis, proairesis, kalos, telos, energeia, ergon, dynamis, epistēmē …..)? For surely this is not your everyday terminology, is it? I mean, one just needs to read the contrast between epistēmē and technē in Book VI to see the comprehension requirements of such a beginning, doesn’t one? Or, alternatively, one just needs to survey the complex commentaries which such a beginning has spawned in academia! But then, WHO precisely is Ar. addressing as his audience by proceeding thus? Does he wish to point to the fact that his audience must be prepared to engage a vocabulary that is not simply given in everyday experience? Will everyday experience have to somehow be “clarified” as we proceed along his path? So, wouldn’t Aristotle be seeking from the very start an audience friendly —or better, that could potentially become friendly—– to philosophical jargon, its complexities and its detailed characterizations? But, how can he guarantee this? And MUCH more importantly, doesn’t Ar. begin AS WELL by signalling to the fact that he will bow in his ethical investigations to what is “held to be” (dokein) the case? And surely “what is held to be” is precisely what thinks itself in no need whatsoever of investigation, isn’t it? So, isn´t the audience that hears Ar. comprised as well by those morally sound citizens whose opinions are seen to be noble (kalos) from the very beginning? And, aren’t the examples actually given in subsection 1 taken from the very everyday activities known to any educated citizen of the polis? For it would be odd to think that shipbuilding/war goes on in the Lyceum, wouldn’t it? Consequently, wouldn’t Ar. be pointing to the fact that this audience has a kind of dual nature? Aren’t we moved to understand that philosophers must confront a mixed kind of audience, namely, those who have been properly educated in moral things, and those —-much much fewer, one surmises—– who being properly educated in these noble things, have a underlying longing to understand whence such education? Thus, wouldn’t such an audience be conformed both by serious citizens as well as would be individuals keen in understanding the foundation of such moral education, and because GOOD, absolutely clear on the dangers of philosophy to practical life? (Warning made explicit in EE, 1216b39-1217a6)
2) But then again, why does Aristotle wish to point to the relationship between the noble and the good? Why exactly should this be THE beginning? What is it about the noble that gives it such weight that IT allows for the beginning of THE serious ethical inquiry? Who could be the audience such that the noble would be an object of admiration and desire? Who would actually be moved by such initial assumptions? All humans? Surely not. All the citizens? Perhaps only those ALREADY capable of hearing the noble? But then, what are THEY to learn? Or, is it would-be philosophers in the Lyceum? But aren’t they supposed to question “assumptions” such as this? And, crucially, what is the nature of this kind of relationship between the noble and the good that the means of communication by the philosopher is by way of rhetorical argumentation and the use of enthymeme (Rh, 1355a)? Why does rhetoric in the investigation of the ethical take precedence over the scientific and logically syllogistic? Is the enthymeme simply a truncated syllogism? Or is it the other way around, the truncated syllogism being that syllogism which is SIMPLY scientific? Don’t many modern discussion around the ethics suffer, precisely, from this illness of inversion? But then again, what if modernity has actually subverted such rhetorical skills? How then are we to prepare ourselves to be able to listen to such beginnings? Can we moderns, in fact, even listen to the noble in its true magnitude?
3) In what perhaps has to be one of the complex puzzles: Why does Aristotle introduce the issue of teleology from the start? “By nature” (physis); what does that exactly mean? Does it mean what it means for Montesquieu at the beginning of The Spirit of the Laws? Does it mean what it means for us post-Galileans? Don’t we obviously know that Aristotle deluded himself into thinking that the universe had an intrinsic teleology which can no longer be accounted for? Or rather, aren’t WE deluding ourselves into thinking we in fact understand Aristotle so that we have little or nothing to learn from him in terms of the understanding of the whole (in this regard Bolotin’s An Approach to Aristotle’s Physics: With Particular Attention to the Role of His Manner of Writing, is of the essence)? Is “nature” merely a concatenation of natural effects and causes following certain “natural” laws (see Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I, Chapter V. “Of Reason and Science”? Or rather, does it refer to a certain intelligibility of the whole? But then again, what in humans makes them capable of understanding such a whole? And how is the understanding of the whole made accessible SOLELY by way of an understanding of the ethical/political things? And if this were true, wouldn’t then the NE be THE entrance point par excellence?
4) And why the initial reference to choice? Is Aristotle prudently, gently, preparing some of us for a choice which involves getting to understand the noble and its dynamics? Why so? Because in the EE, Aristotle in contrast has NO qualms whatsoever about making it LOUD AND CLEAR to the reader that the question is, in fact, one of CHOICE (EE, 1214b6-13: “everyone who can live according to his own choice should adopt some goal for a the fine life … “) ? But then again, why is Ar. so reticent about being as LOUD in the NE? Is it because of his better understanding of the nature of the mixed audience attending his lectures? Isn’t part of the audience, the noble part, less akin to the loudness of philosophical inquiry? Wouldn’t that audience rarely —if ever—- visit the Lyceum where the activity of dialogical questioning is taken for granted? And, very importantly for students of Ar., wouldn’t this signal to the greater maturity present in the NE in contrast to the EE? Or put another way, wouldn’t the EE stand to Plato’s Republic, as the NE stands to the elder Plato’s Laws?
5) And, why does Aristotle seem to struggle with the hierarchical relation between different ends, those that are activities for their own sake, and those which have an end (a work) apart from the activities themselves? Why does he FIRST say that the those with works apart are naturally better (again, in what sense of “nature”?)? But then at the end of this very same Subsection 1, he goes on to, seemingly, contradict himself by saying that actually “it makes no difference at all whether the ends of the actions are the activities themselves or something else apart form these”? Didn’t he just a few lines before argue the exact opposite? Why exactly is Aristotle trying to “confuse” us? Is he trying to get us to see that the relation between ethical activity and its “products” is one that will be shown to be problematic? For shouldn’t one be ethical for the sake of the activity itself and not for any results stemming from these noble actions? Or put another way, what is the product of being ethical apart from being ethical? Wouldn’t that alone be the greatest pleasure? Is the product for another, or rather the product becoming oneself a certain kind of person? Or put another way, can the moral virtues be seen solely for their own sake, and not for any ulterior product which they may obtain? And we know, as well, that Ar. will go on to claim that eudaimonia, which is in fact THE end of our human activity, is in fact not a state but an ACTIVITY? So once again, Ar. seems to make us puzzle precisely as to which type of ends take precedence over the others. Or, rather, may there not be instances in which the activity undergone IS the “product”? Isn’t the relation between logos (speech) and ergon (deed) a bit like this? Because, following Ar. and the Socratic legacy, isn’t the core question HOW we should lead our lives? And, isn’t Ar. starting to signal, perhaps, that understanding is some such kind of activity?
6) And as regards the famous expression “hence people have nobly declared that the good is that at which all things aim”, why once again is Aristotle so reticent to distinguish between the “good simply” and the merely “apparent good”? For surely we may believe of our arts, inquiries, actions and choices that they may be directed towards the/our good, but be totally wrong about this! Evidently too many are not (drug trafficking, lock-picking, bullying, smoking, stealing, murdering, prostituting ….) Why is Aristotle so resistant about giving us any of the too well-known bad examples? Isn’t it, of course, because of the connection to the puzzles put forward in 2)? Or to provide an example, why would Ar. simply see with amazement —or better, disgust—- the fact that Colombian TV networks, and MANY citizens, find it unproblematic to produce a series on the life of Pablo Escobar? And what is it about our anti-Aristotelianism that allows such actions to generate HUGE ratings and economic benefits? And, beyond this, if “the good is that at which all things aim”, surely what this superior end is, must be further dealt with? For Ar. knows quite well —as he will let us CLEARLY know as he proceeds in Book I—- that there is a philosophical tradition stemming from “Plato” that seems to claim that THE Good, and most probably also those who claim to know IT, are “not even of this world”! Doesn’t Ar. know all-too-well Aristophanes Clouds?
(more…)
Read Full Post »