Wake me up when September ends.

Oh well, back to the whiteboard. I returned to work on monday: Now for another term full of testing, enrolment, stress and acquired colds. I'm still getting back into my stride and going through one of those 'bugger this for a game of soldiers' moments. However, there are fairly good reasons for this - we are chronically understaffed, we have a new Curriculum Manager, we have an administrator who still needs a bit of breaking in, I'm busy testing out new systems, I don't know yet how many students I'm going to have coming through the door, and the University Reprographics department has run out of its budget and doesn't have any paper. That's right, we can't print anything up. Oh, and there's been a nasty snafu about the enrolment sessions involving a buggered up booking programme, two classrooms and too many potential ESOL students. On top of that, I'm having a mare finding time to study - and there's another thing: I will have to do my Cert Ed this year on top of completing my Dip. Joy.
On the plus front however, I found this electronic version of the European Language Portfolio, which will hopefully make using portfolios with my students much, much easier.

Portfolios and VLEs

Slowish day today, but at least I've pretty much resolved all that needs doing until September, and the rest can wait till then. I even managed a bit of precious research time.
One thing that will wait till the start of the new academic year is the portfolios, or rather the virtual part of the project. I mentioned in the earlier post that a designated list of tasks would be given, from which the students would select the best work for their portfolios at the end of the year. Well, what will also happen is that these will form the core of 'key tasks' on the university's VLE, Blackboard. Not only will the task be outlined alongside the companion tasks that a student will need to be able to understand and do in order to complete the task, each component will be a learning module. The idea is that where students can't come to class for whatever reason, they will be able to complete the designated self-study tasks and still have their attendance counted. That's what we're moving towards, anyway. In addition, links pages will direct students to additional reading, exercises and study linked to each key topic, the idea being that we can create differentiation within the cohort - faster students will be able to do more challenging work involving less guided, more real-world learning material, while lesser able students still complete the tasks they need to. It will also be a boon for the IT sessions we ru for our FT students, as these are currently a bit on the flabby side.

busy?

rather a slow week, or at least it's felt that way - maybe it's the weather. And again, frustratingly, not much going on on the Dip. front. I want to complete my current workbook in the next few days (the distance Dip. Tesol is split up into workbooks), then try and do as much as possible over the summer before I'm inundated by the shitwave of work that inevitably breaks over me come september. So far this week, I've been working on publicity for the PT & FT EFL courses, marketing strategies (too little, too late, in my opinion: The university's sole overseas agancy is about to be closed, meaning that we probably won't be getting much in the way of FT students for the new academic year), and, of course, portfolios. It finally looks like they've crystallised. Basically, the FT programme will use the portfolio in very much the way they were originally designed to be used, vis. a showcase of each student's best work. However, the Programme Leader will set out prior to the start of the programme what work needs to be covered, and from that the minimum number of items that need to be included. On top of that, and to encourage students to work, having a complete portfolio will be in some way a requirement of course completion, and prizes will be given for the best portfolios.
For the PT programme, because of time constraints and its more specialised nature, the portfolio will be used more in the way I originally envisaged it, i.e. a way of delivering specific tasks that conform to ECF freamework descriptors and show students the type of tasks they may face in PET, FCE, CAE and CPE. It means we can spread the exam skills workload over the whole of the course, rather than trying to cram it from halfway through the course (don't ask why this is: suffice to say it's a long story involving fundaing regulations for FE).
Anyway, I'm fairly pleased with what I've hammered out - now all I have to do is sit back and see if it bloody works.

Another rather slow and plodding monday. Currently working on the whole portfolios idea - it's evolved a bit. just a bit. Currently, the idea is to use the European Language Portfolio as the core for students to reflect on their own language skills and what they want to do with language, followed by a reflective diary-type thing, possibly on the net, then sections covering functional and notional skills. The headache lies in the latter. I don't want to be too proscriptive as to what can and cannot be done, yet it would be desirable to have concictency across several levels in the same learning cohort - it means we can match students to the ALTE framework and give us a really accurate snapshot of a whole academic year, covering accuracy of initial placement tests to end of year results. It'll also give us standardised pieces that would make Internal Validation, and external for that matter, much easier. However, saying 'this and this must be in the portfolio, but not this' isn't desirable, as it ignores the students' needs. In addition, each class may have subtly different needs that require addressing. It's all rather thorny.

Portfolios

This is a work-related post, and a warning. Never volunteer ideas too loudly - you might get saddled with redesigning an entire syllabus, as I have done. And I've only got a few weeks to do it in!
Actually, it fits in fairly neatly with the curriculum and syllabus design section of my Dip studies, and it bodes to be a hell of a lot more interesting than doing plod work on the Summer School. It also chimes in with a few ideas I've had about running the part time programme and how we keep students from drifting away, as often happens when their work/life/study balance changes.
Basically, it centres on using student portfolios. It's not a new idea, and in fact there is, somewhere out on the Interweb, a British Council document about using a learning portfolio, which for the life of me I can't find. The idea and structure is simple. Each student creates a portfolio of work which is proof of work done over a course, and contains marked and internally validated work covering the main skills. It will also contain a 'biography' section, a 'personal vocabulary' section (for vocab students come across in everyday life rather than in the classroom), a reflective diary and individual learning plan for them to identify what their targets are. So far, so good.
The difference comes in two places: How it is delivered and how it is differentiated. I'm weighing up how much of the portfolio needs to actually be on paper and whether it can't be done using our online learning platform, Blackboard. Anyone who's used this bit of software will know how clunky it is - it's very old as a piece of software and relies on plug-in modules to keep it up-to-date - and how it tends to render users rather passive (and here I mean teachers and students). However, with some nifty wrangling I think I may be able to do something usable. Actually, it does have its own version of a portfolio as a plug in, but it's really not much more than a glammed up CV. There is also the issue of technophobe students, and even more technophobe teachers. Currently, I think that the portfolio can be in parts delivered online, but with backup documentary evidence to place in a file. For example, the reflective diary can be in the form of blogs, which would give them much greater flexibility - students can use alternative ways of recording what they're doing, including pictures and sound recordings. The various marked tasks might be done both electronically and on paper.
Which last point leads very nicely onto differentiation. By this, I mean not only differentiation across levels, but also across the courses. For example, we have an evening Effective Writing course: It would be rather ridiculous having the students complete a portfolio that has elements not related to their study needs. In addition, one feature of this course is that students bring in real life writing situations into the class, and so a portfolio should cover this - perhaps by some kind of case study, analysis and solutions - some kind of report, perhaps. For the classes that cover Exams - for example, FCE, CAE etc. - the portfolio requires tasks that directly relate to the type of tasks they will need to do in exam conditions, but without being tainted by Backwash.

The most important differentiation task will be across the levels. Here, I intend to use the Common European Framework to identify what students are expected to be able to do and how they express it. For example, in the 'biography' section, I envisage the lowest level students just completing a simple form asking for basic details, while a higher level student might be expected to write a CV and sample cover letter, or write a more complex biography.
Well, that's the idea, anyway. Wish me luck.