FIXing Hazırlık…(the Postscript)

Some of you might be thunking…a postscript?

What the heck for?

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That last post gave us so many good best practices to get our teeth into…actually, we’ve already got / done a few of them.

All we need to do is put all the others in place!

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You might be right! Maybe…I should just get round to writing that book I mentioned…the one above?

Afterall, it’s that type of advice that ‘sells’…yes?

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Certainly sells more than wishy-washy, idealistic, quixotic stuff like:

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…or even,

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My turn to say…

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Now, don’t get me wrong…a lot of those suggestions can be very good for an institution. Getting involved in an accreditation process can really help an institution to ‘see’ itself…

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My worry is…

…exactly how much can going through the motions of an accreditation process (I did not say anything about…jumping through hoops…honest!) help us with problems like the ones we noted in the very first post of this mini-series:

…you know, remember…we said something about ‘hazırlık’ being ‘broken’!

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Seriously, go back and take a look at all those suggestions (this is where you CLICK…on the ‘red’ stuff)…

…put yourself in the shoes of a ‘typical’ student at your own institution (no, not one of those ‘süper-inek’, 100% scholarship students that our schools ‘love’ to cream off the YÖK lists)…

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…and ‘answer’ this little question:

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Hey! Maybe, you could even ask a few students…for REAL?

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Or, you could just ask the teachers, too!

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Yes, it’s that simple – that is the ‘litmus test’ for any ‘quality’ initiative or any ‘improvement’ strategy!

Anything else, especially the way I presented those ideas, is a bit like:

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Remember…

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Now, you might also (round about this time) be thunking:

…is Tony telling us this?

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Those ‘lovely’ accreditation folks (and the expense-paid trip)…painted a very different picture!

Tony’s suggestions (or rather…those of his ‘mates’) are very similar to those standards they showed us…the action points they suggested we put into our ‘self-study audit’…

…all the things we have to put on our 18-24 month ‘to-do-list‘…

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…again…

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But, in my defence, I did tell you this mini-series was gonna be all about…

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The thing is, when me and me mates, did that list…we kinda forgot ourselves (the wine did not help either)…

…we became:

…rather than EDUcators!

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…just for a couple of hours, mind! We’re OK…now.

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We just forgot that many of the people who put accreditation body ‘standards’ together have actually been in the ‘quality game’ for years (decades even). They have worked in schools that have built and re-invented their own traditions over time…and made many a mistake along the way!

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These schools have been able to grow, adapt and LEARN new ‘cultures’ – because they have created ‘thunking teams’ who asked the ‘right’ questions.

And, the answers they have ‘co-created’…led them to create the ‘communities of purpose‘ we discussed earlier.

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These schools were not interested in accreditation…

…for all the wrong reasons!

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They did not fall foul of the ‘trap’ that many schools have found themselves in:

…they lived ‘quality’!

…and they took the time to LEARN  how to walk-their-own-talk!

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These schools and their ‘quality’ leaders realised that:

…especially if we ‘borrow’ without ‘thunking’ – or, at the very least, consider the issue of ‘fitness-for-purpose’!

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In a nutshell, they realised that they needed to create ‘NEXT Practice’ for their OWN Institutions – and this takes TIME, CARE and LEADERSHIP…

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As I noted in Part 02 of this series, many of the people who created accreditation programmes asked themselves the type of questions Peter Block has suggested can help us ‘fix’ many of the challenges we face in our schools, colleges and universities.

And, I bet you all the profits from my next book (LOL) – they also took the advice of Arthur Ashe:

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So, if you are serious about ‘fixing’ your hazırlık…what about asking some other questions, too:

…the more, the merrier – when you thunk these over!

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What about these:

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Or, one of my favourites:

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But, double-check this by asking:

Forget, the ‘easy’ questions:

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It is the more ‘profound’ (tougher) questions that will open the minds of your people and connect those in your own community of purpose:

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Sevgiyle kalın!

FIXing Hazırlık… (Pt 03 of 03)

Come on, guys! Give me a break…for crying out loud!

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I had wanted to stick with Arthur – but my in-box overfloweth…and not with stuff that I can repeat on this blog (my daughter still reads the posts…from time to time…when I ‘bribe’ her or drop a subtle hint that I have been gossiping about her…again)!

I mean…what the Eternal Example tells us is just ‘golden‘…golden advice from a golden bloke:

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What Nikos Amca tells us about the need to create a ‘community of purpose‘ is ‘golden’:

…not to mention, a moral imperative, if we (really) want to do something about the ‘rust’ that has been building up on the hull of the ‘good ship hazırlık’ over the past few years…

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And, what about Peter Block? Those wonderful questions…of his…

…this is what WE need in OUR hazırlık…in ELL Prep Schools across the globe!

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Innit?

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What do you mean…

…you want ‘what’…WHAT?

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Practical advice?

Tips n’ hints…you can use on Monday morning?

Best practices?

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OK…that was a bit rude of me!

…guess I’ll be dining with Hannibal tonight!

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So, I sat down with some of me mates…and we came up with a few ideas…for you all.

…NO, this does NOT mean you are ‘dummies’ – some of you are soooooo sensitive!

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OK – first off:

Got that? Easy…yes?

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Then,

All good…out there?

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Oh, yes…don’t forget:

What? You want more…?

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OK – you asked for it:

Now, there’s one that can go on everyone’s list!

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Next…and read this one carefully:

I said…’carefully’!

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A few more?…you guys are ‘good’…bloody good:

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More?

…gotta get us some of those ‘handbooks’! Now, how do I Google…

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What about…these three?

This little lot should keep us busy…till Thursday!

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And…on Friday…we can have a stab at this one:

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Whoopsie-daisies…I forgot this one – the ‘bestest practice’ of all:

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That’s how WE  fix OUR  hazırlık programmes, yes?

Türküz…Doğruyuz……Çalışkanız…

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Me thunks…I need a post-script!

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FIXing Hazırlık… (Pt 02 of 03)

Love this quote from Arthur Ashe… – go on, take another (closer) look at it…

• Start where you ARE.
• Use what you HAVE.
• Do what you CAN.

If ever there was a recipe (or ‘magic bullet’…even) for ‘fixing’ something that would be it!

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In truth…cos that’s what I’m doing a lot of these days…I did not know much about Arthur (we didn’t ‘do’ tennis where I was dragged up)!

It was this very quote, a few years back, that made me take note of his life, character and courage – I soooo get (now) why he is referred to as ‘the Eternal Example’ (and why some citizens of ‘my’ canım Türkiyem also hold him in such high regard).

 

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It is just…such a pity so many educational institutions (and their ‘leaders’ or ‘in-house experts’), consultants (especially those so-called ‘quality consultants’) and ‘national educational bodies’ have not taken Arthur as their example. 

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Tony! Come on…we said we were ‘done with’:

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I know…I know!

I wasn’t planning to launch into another rant – promise! It’s just that the ideas of Arthur and Peter (whose questions we looked at in the last post) are most often ‘blocked’ by the blame game…or rather those that play the blame game (as well as those that are blamed) – people!

You see…many of the problems we have in our hazırlık schools basically come down to the people that ‘live’ in our universities…and the reason these problems have not been ‘fixed’ is because…these people ain’t fixed them.

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We all get that…

…or their KNOWLEDGE, or their SKILL SET…or their EGO!

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Hazırlık schools form part of a wider university community (though you would never know this by the way many academics and lecturers ‘look down’ on hazırlik staff and their LEARNers)…and a much wider academic community (on a national level).

Ego plays a big role in such communities – and, sadly, these communities are (as a result) not too good at all this LEARNing stuff…and working together!

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I…$#*%…you not, Sherlock!

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The Academic Community (and its educators), for the most part, actually see LEARNing (the type they have to do…for themselves) as an ‘admission of ignorance’.

Being seen not to KNOW something about something is almost as bad as not being published in, say, the last 3 years!

This is why so many professors (despite being an ‘expert’ in a very narrow specialty that very few others really care about) suddenly become ‘accreditation experts’ when asked a little question about ‘quality in education’. Isn’t the internet a great ‘research tool’?

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When it comes to language LEARNing, everyone becomes an expert in a ‘flash’ (and an even better finger-pointer) – despite the fact that very few academics or lecturers have taken a methodology course, reflected on their own teaching methods with the help of a peer observer (or a video camera)…or even developed an outcomes-based curriculum model (let alone align this to a framework like the CEFR) – just take a look at all the cut n’ paste jobbies that pass as ‘Bologna compliant documents’ these days!

Just do not get me started on assessment in most of these faculty departments…

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Sure, we hear lots of lecturers and chairs talking about their own language LEARNing experiences…“when I was in the States” – but is really isn’t the same as teaching in a hazırlık school in big, bad İstanbul, is it now?

Context…matters!

Neither does it help when Rectors and their Deans explain that all language LEARNers (and their teachers) really need is a textbook from the 1970s (the one they used), a pencil and that vocabulary list from you-know-where (also from the 70s…or was it the mid-80s)!

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Many of the guys charged with running our hazırlık schools are not much better at all this ‘collaboration stuff’ either.

Sorry, guys…just:

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I mean forget not having a curriculum for a minute (just a minute mind)…many have not even bothered to find out what their LEARNers actually need to do with what they LEARN about English when they get to faculty (let alone ‘sit’ through a lecture or tutorial session).

It’s almost as if they do not know that most of their students are there to do departmental studies in English (!) – not LEARN about what Mr and Mrs Brown ‘used to do’ before retirement …besides, who needs to conduct a ‘needs analysis’ – we bloody well know what they need, don’t we Raymond?

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It’s really OK…not to KNOW something.

LEARNing…real LEARNing…within a community (as an active decision-maker in that community) is one of the best ways to ‘fix’ anything! We can move mountains…together!

It’s not OK…to not LEARN…especially when that LEARNing can help the institution and its LEARNers – and (instead) ‘choose’ to play the blame game.

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Many members of the academic or ‘higher LEARNing’ community (and the hazırlık sub-community) in canım Türkiyem just need to recognise that…

…the same as most academic communities all over the globe!

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Bearing that little thunk in mind…it becomes eminently clear that no single person (even if she is the ‘Director-from-heaven’) can ‘fix’ all of the problems we have been looking at in the last few posts. A hazırlık school cannot solve its problems in isolation from the rest of a university – and it should not be expected to!

…or be expected to ‘fix’ stuff…while there is so much dumb, uninformed, cookie-cutter decision-making going on around the Mütevelli Heyeti meeting room table! Yes, I am still talking about increasing contact hours…as a means to improve the quality of student LEARNing!

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Just as it ‘takes a village to raise a child’, it takes every single member of a university community to produce a successful graduate (especially from a school that markets itself as an English-medium university)! These graduates (regardless of which ‘stage’ of their ‘university career’ they are at) ‘belong’ to all of us – their LEARNing is what should guide our decision-making.

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Do you see where I am going with this?

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What Peter (and Arthur, too – even though he did not play a ‘team sport’ either) was basically saying was that the questions he proposes…have to be answered by all those involved in a given community…and that all members of that community play whatever role they can in getting things back on track!

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The hazırlık ‘community’ is a pretty complex one – made up of people who ‘do’ the day-to-day ‘work’ of the community and others that either impact how it ‘does business’ or have an interest is how that business is ‘done’:

…and, yes…I know I have probably missed a few!

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The questions Peter proposed:

…can only be effectively addressed when all members of the community speak the same language…are on the same page – (and) speaking (and listening) to eachother might be a good way to start!

Dream much, Tony?

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And, that’s because a community-that-is-not-really-a-community ain’t gonna be able to do much ‘fixing’ at all!

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We all know that a…

…just ain’t gonna do it for our hazırlık woes, don’t we?

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To do that (and you are all gonna hate me for this)…we need a ‘Community of Purpose‘ (or even a community with a ‘common’ purpose…esp. with English-medium, university LEARNing).

I have a dream…a dream that involves sitting these guys:

…around a table (yes, the SAME table)!

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For starters, they all agree that…

…and accept that:

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The questions they start to ask themselves are not ‘rocket science’:

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…but they are ‘important’:

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…so much more important than mere ‘prestige’ or ‘status’ …or ‘wall decoration’:

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These are real questions that ‘matter’ – that show a true understanding of what quality education is all about:

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…and that the journey is best undertaken by a ‘true’ community…a community of purpose! This community listens to eachother…LEARNs from eachother…and recognises that:

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FIXing stuff in this kinda environment would be so much easier…don’t you thunk?

FIXing Hazırlık… (Pt 01 of 03)

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Have you ever been on the sharp end of a question like that?

It’s a bit ‘rude’, innit?

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BUT…that’s exactly the question (OK…I used the term ‘smarty-pants’ to convey the stress and intonation used…as well as some of the facial expressions I saw) that I have been asked in a number of conversations since I started:

…in the last few posts I have being doing:

• Is Hazırlık BROKEN?
• Is it our ‘Curriculum Thunking’ wot is BROKEN?
• Could it be our understanding of ‘Quality’…that is BROKEN, perhaps?
• So…Hazırlık is BROKEN! – Time to play…

(BTW – ‘hazırlık’ is the Turkish term for the English Language Preparatory Programmes run by many universities here…just so you know)!

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Perhaps, I should just remind those people what my dear friend Hannibal ‘does’ with rude people…

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I know, I know…I shouldn’t get upset by these types of questions. I know I have put myself in the firing line by popping my head out of the box. 

…just wait till I do the series on what actually happens in faculty departments!

 

 

The thing is that…this type of question started to be dropped into my in-box and the comments section of the posts before I’d even got to the second blog post. Some of them were not as rude…they were genuine questions, from genuine people…facing many of the genuine ‘problems’ that I was trying to draw attention to.

Questions like:

…fair enough!

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The thing is…these questions reminded me of the wonderful work of Peter Block (esp. his perspective-shaking book – THE ANSWER TO HOW IS ‘YES’).

For Peter, these types of questions are (usually) a defense against getting an ‘improvement effort’ started, a defense against change.

…so sad! …so true! …so common!

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Now, I’m not so sure that everyone who asks a HOW-question is running from the truth (or is trying to postpone actually doing something about a problem). However, Peter’s questions are used a heck of a lot by people in our hazırlık schools (and the guys that ‘control’ these schools with their ‘decision-making’) – especially those with those heady job titles we discussed.

Very few of these hazırlık stakeholders, for example, ask one of the ‘alternative questions’ suggested by Peter:

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…I wonder why, acaba? We’ll come back to this – promise!

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Instead, many hazırlık stakeholders (including LEARNers…and their parents) ask questions like this:

This question tells us a lot.

• Firstly, that these stakeholders are more interested in an ‘answer-orientated’ approach to ‘quality education’ – you know, ‘quick fixes’ or ‘magic bullets’.

• Secondly, that they have more ‘faith’ in others (esp. foreigners…and, even better, foreign consultants) than they do in themselves and their own abilities.

• Thirdly, that all it takes to ‘fix’ a problem is to do a bit more “alıntı, çalıntı and mış-gibi yapmak” (the Turkish translation for “borrowing, ripping off, and faking-it-till-you-make-it”).

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Silly…misguided…(and) just plain dumb!

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These people often jump to other questions (when they stumble onto a ‘solution’ they can ‘import’) – questions like these:

Mmmm…we were asking why so many Mütivelli Heyeti Başkanlar (Chairmen…and they are often ‘men’…of the Board) wanted to increase contact hours and class size!

Now, you know…

You see, many hazırlık stakeholders want the ‘cheapest’ version of the ‘quick fix’ possible – without really lifting a finger (for hazırlık that is…the Engineering Faculty can, as a rule, get whatever the bloody hell it wants). The question about length of time required kinda gives this away, too!

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…my favourite question is this one:

What were we saying about the blame game?

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…after all, it’s so easy to point the finger…when you do not really want to ‘fix’ stuff. Of course, we all want to give the impression that we…us…ourselves…have no trouble going the extra mile (to put LEARNing at the heart of our decision-making).

…it’s just THEM…THEY…those (bloody) OTHERS – that ‘stop’ us!

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And…if that don’t work, we always have the other…

…up our sleeves!

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The combination of a culture of blame (along with its sister culture – ‘CYA’) and our unquestioning worship of “how-to” pragmatism (constantly asking “how” – rarely “why”) basically means that most of our hazırlık schools are doing more and more about things that mean less and less – for both LEARNers and EDUcators!

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The first of Peter’s alternative questions (the one I promised to come back to) has much to do with my current theme:

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The question:

…is one for all stakeholders – teachers, administrators (including Rectors and the Mütevelli Heyeti), testing and curriculum specialists and LEARNers (no…they are not angels either). Rather than pointing the finger or passing-the-buck, this question asks us all to take personal responsibility for whatever might be ‘broken’ across our hazırlık schools.

Yes, ‘being’ truthful – before ‘telling the truth’!

Peter tells us that other questions can help us get to this question:

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…questions that recognise we need to ‘question’ our ‘purpose’ – and how well we might be meeting that purpose…and how far we believe (in our heart of hearts) that it is possible to create new kinds of LEARNing institutions (and workplaces) grounded on more positive values, such as respect, trust and listening…

…questions that require us to look at the reasons we have been putting off the ‘fixes’ all of us know are in the best interests of the individuals and communities that live, LEARN and work in our institutions:

…and commit to ‘do’ whatever it takes to make these things happen!

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Yes…even LEARNers…especially with LEARNers!

This is where you scroll back to the top…while I draft Pt 02 of 03!

So…Hazırlık is BROKEN! – Time to play…

I told you all (at the very start of this little series)…we’d come back to this!

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You know how to play, yes?

We pick an individual (or group)…and start pointing fingers:

…where to begin – with allthingshazırlık? 

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Even though we human beings have been playing this game for years…and (in education) we have elevated it to an art form – the first ‘target’ is usually the same!

TEACHERS!

I mean, come on!

They are all bloody lazy…been doing the same kinds of thing for years. They refuse to change…just look at how many of them are still not using technology in their classrooms. Shiriously, I mean…we offer them all these workshops and development opportunities…and they just sit there!

I guess it might be OK if they actually got decent results…but look how many of their students are failing all those lovely tests and exams we have developed for them.

That Jeff Bliss kid on YouTube (you know the one with the lovely hair) is so right…most teachers are just in it for the pay cheque…nothing inspirational, nothing that makes kids think…nothing!

Fire them all!

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You know what I really think! Don’t you?

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I did promise to uphold George Orwell’s advice in this series…

Yes, there are some teachers out there that are lazy and do not care (as in any profession)– they might even deserve to lose their jobs.

So, “deal” with them on a case by case basis – do not tar and feather a whole community for the sins of the few!

And, please…please…for crying out loud…do not believe everything you see in the blogosphere (esp. on this blog)…or anything from the so-called ‘EDUreformers’ (esp. if they owned a software firm…or still own a construction company)!

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Hang on a tick there, Tony! We are supposed to be playing the game…we do NOT apologise in this ‘game’!

Sorry, forgot meself there for a minute…well, if we are gonna play properly – we might as well start at the top.

Mmmm, where is the top, acaba?

• The SYSTEM (whatever that is) is ‘crap’!
• ADMINISTRATORS are ‘crap’!

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OK, OK…but we meant the ‘top…top’:

• YÖK is ‘crap’!
• The UNIVERSITY EXAM is ‘crap’!

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…didn’t you say something about the serenity prayer, earlier?

Let’s just stay with the easy stuff:

• RECTORS are ‘crap’!
• DEANS are ‘crap’!
• DIRECTORS are ‘crap’!
• DEPUTY DIRECTORS are ‘crap’!
• CHAIRS are ‘crap’!
• DEPARTMENT HEADS are ‘crap’!
• COORDINATORS are ‘crap’!
• LECTURERS are ‘crap’!

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Hang on…we work at a Vakıf University!

• The MÜTEVELLİ HEYETİ is ‘crap’!
• The MÜTEVELLİ HEYETİ BAŞKANI is ‘crap’!

Wait a minute…didn’t these kids study English at school?

• PRIMARY TEACHERS are ‘crap’!
• SECONDARY TEACHERS are ‘crap’!

And…what about all those ‘sweat-shops’ – parents paid them a bloody fortune?

• DERSHANE TEACHERS are ‘crap’!
• PRIVATE TUTORS are ‘crap’!

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Are we forgetting anyone?

• PARENTS are ‘crap’!

…all of them are ‘idiots’! And, there’s really something about all those ‘sonradan görme’ parents, you know…the ‘new rich upstarts’ – the ‘kültürsüz nouveau riche’ we all love to hate!

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Ahhhh, we forgot one group – a very important group!

• STUDENTS are ‘crap’!

…they are lazy, never want to do any work (let alone homework or those wonderful online practice activities we give them)…always on their bloody phones! All they want to know and ask is “Hocam, is this gonna be on the test?” …then get straight to Facebook or Instagram. We were never like that when we were younger…what’s wrong with them?

I mean do they not care about LEARNing…at all?

Sound familiar? Bet you have even said a few of these things yourself, yes?

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Oh, yeah – before we wrap up! And, what about those stupid books we have to use?

• PUBLISHERS are ‘crap’!
• TEXTBOOK SELECTION COMMITTEES are ‘crap’!

Selection what?

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Feel better?

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So, how much have we ‘fixed’?

 

Could it be our understanding of ‘Quality’…that is BROKEN, perhaps?

If you knocked on the door of all of the 175+ institutions of ‘higher LEARNing’ (HEIs) we have here in canım Türkiyem, you’d be pushed to find ONE that would publicly disagree with the words of Jedi Quality Master Deming!

This is only natural!

Look at all the wonderful communications we find on their web-sites, the messages stuck on the side of buses and bridges, the huge one-page adverts we find in every ‘quality’ Sunday newspaper:

Oh, yes…and ‘DIFFERENT’…gotta be ‘DIFFERENT’!

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I mean afterall…what parent would want to send their darling, little Arca (or Ayşe) or Dogükan (or Ali) to a university that proclaims it wants to be a pretty ‘average’ school…or worse…is prepared to wash all its dirty linen in public – for the sake of student LEARNing!

Here’s an idea…

If you are planning to choose a university for the fruit of your loins over the next few months, why not visit and ask the schools to ‘define’ what quality means to them – seriously!

You never know…

…one of them might actually listen to you!

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If they do and tell you something like this…

or even…

…push them – ‘cos these schools do love their ‘smoke and mirrors’!

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If the school is ‘smart‘, they might say something like this:

…these universities are pretty good at the old ‘alıntı, çalıntı and miş-gibi yapmak’ business!

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If you do get a reply like this (miracles do happen – and there might be a ‘quality team’ out there that actually does their ‘homework’), ask them how they actually assess the needs of their students and how these needs are used to develop and renew the curricular they use – you know, to align what is ‘taught’ with what students are supposed to be able to do with what they LEARN…and keep on LEARNing after they graduate!

I dare you!

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If the school is an English-medium school (a HUGE ‘selling point’ for most Turkish universities), ask them how their departmental academics communicate with the hazırlık team (and ‘how often’) – to ensure that the ELL programmes at the university are relevant, meaningful and motivating.

While you are at it (and if you are feeling ‘naughty’)…you might even ask how many Deans or Heads of Department even know where the hazırlık building is…

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Then…ask them if their Senate or Mütivelli Heyeti (Board of Trustees) has any plans to:

1) Increase the number of contact hours that the teachers in hazırlık are expected to do each week!

2) Increase the average class size across their hazırlık programmes!

3) Increase the (sad, sad) salaries that most hazırlık teachers are paid!

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OK, that was a bit unfair of me…but, in my defence, my inbox is overflowing with mails from schools around the country since I started this little ‘dizi‘  – and they ain’t about pay increases, I’ll tell you that much!

However (and I will run down Atatürk Bulvarı…and pretty soon…İstiklâl Caddesi…naked – yes, in my birthday suit), if the Rector or Mütivelli Heyeti Başkanı (Chairman of the Board of Trustees) has not also (recently) told the Hazırlık Director at these schools to ‘get accredited’– and sharpish!

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Hey, just me…

…here!

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BTW…if I ‘disappear’ over the next few days, the first people who should be questioned are all those ‘educators’ that carry the heady title Mütivelli Heyeti Başkanı – especially the ones that have ‘interests’ in construction, furniture and paper-products, as well as anyone that owns a ‘dershane’ (yes, I know that’s a long list of suspects)!

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Don’t get me wrong…I am not against accreditation bodies or standards – quite the opposite!

I just get a little worked up when I hear schools throwing around terms like ‘Quality Assurance’…‘Excellence’…‘Highest Standards’…when what they are really concerned with is …

…rather than LEARNing – of both the student and institutional variety!

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You see…it doesn’t really matter what a university (or hazırlık school, for that matter) says about itself!

Sorry, to burst that little bubble, guys…

What matters (and I mean really matters) is what others say about how you ‘do business’!

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What did we say many teachers and students are saying these days…something about covering a curriculum that does not exist…something about Lise 6 or 7…

So, tell me again…how EXACTLY will increasing teacher contact hours…improve QUALITY and STANDARDS?

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For me…

For me…real quality is not about ‘faking-it-till-you-make-it’ by asking (and answering) dumb-ass questions…

…it’s about asking powerful questions:

…powerful questions that matter!

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For me…real quality is not about ‘prestige’ (or ‘beating’ the school down the road)…

…even our educational ‘giants’ screw up!

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For me…standards are critical:

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…but not when we regard them as:

…to be ‘ticked off’ on some silly checklist!

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Our ‘institutions of higher LEARNing’…need to ‘get real’…they need to ‘get together’ (across the ‘whole career’ of our LEARNers – not disciplinary lines)…they need to ‘get informed’ (and really inform ‘others’ – not engage in shameless self-promotion) about what matters in allthingsquality – more, they need to ‘get consistent’!

They need a new ‘perspective’ on quality…and this requires a wee ‘shift’…

or two:

or three…

or four…

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Just.. 

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But…but…Tony:

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Well, we have to get it right with allthingsquality…

…and you can take that to the IMF!

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But, hey…what the hell do I know?

My citation index in the field of allthingsengineering is pretty crap – and, worse than that…I’ve never owned a software firm…or…construction company!

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…ONE thing I do know…

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Is it our ‘Curriculum Thunking’ wot is BROKEN?

Where were we?

Ahh, I remember…we were discussing the importance of:

…and Hazırlık (ELL Prep Schools)!

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The two conferences I noted in Part 01 of this post were, in fact, a breath of fresh air – we rarely see ELT events with themes that touch on Curriculum or Quality / Standards. Many of our conferences (and we have a LOT of them here in Turkey, we do…ask the publishers who are hassled to foot the various bills) are often little more than PR vehicles for the schools that put them on. Far too many of them operate like a show n’ tell or pot luck gathering – fronted by the same big names, the same faces and the same themes.

Sorry…just

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Maybe a conference about technology is just ‘sexier‘ than a serious discussion on the challenges we face in the areas of curriculum and assessment…maybe what the conference pundits tell us is right – “all teachers want are practical ideas to take into the classroom on Monday morning…and to be kept amused for a few hours” (I really hate it when people say this – with a passion)!

Maybe, we do not want to take a closer look at how our institutions are doing business, what type of smoke and mirrors really come into play in our curriculum thinking or why our students are so switched off by what we are doing in our classrooms.

I’m not sure either!

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OK – coming back to the first of these conferences I mentioned. The idea of a conference centred on ‘a LEARNing Curriculum’ was just up my street – and the fact that the team at Beykent University (in Istanbul) went with this theme just made me feel chuffed to bits…

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One of my opening slides was this one:

Only an idiot would disagree with this!

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Luckily, there were none of them around at the Beykent Conference – at least none of them came to my session. It’s funny, isn’t it? How the people who really need to come to conferences are exactly the people who are usually absent!

The slide touched a few hearts (and minds, I hope)…I heard more than few saying how true it is…and a lot more bemoaning the fact that their institutions just did not ‘get’ this type of thunking!

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However, I also noted that these statements are a wee bit motherhood’ish – they sound great…but are of little value if we do not take a closer look at ourselves:

I asked the administrators and teachers that came to my session whether they felt that the curriculum framework they had in place at their schools was ‘golden’ – you know, something they could be proud of!

All but a handful admitted that they did not have a ‘curriculum’  per se (shock-horror) – many used the phrase “contents page of our textbooks” to describe their course outlines, syllabi and pacing documents.

This was not a surprise…of course! We all know this (again, even at some of the so-called ‘top’ schools)…it’s just one of those things we do not talk about very much. I mean, we have far more serious worries. Take, for example, the current pressures to ‘graduate’ all those false beginners that walk through our doors every September – when the conventional ‘wisdom’ (I use this word very loosely) goes something like this:

Only an idiot would insist that our prep programmes can do this – successfully!

But, we try…boy, do we try!

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Sure, everyone is banging on about the importance of the CEFR (‘irresistible force’ that it is) these days…but what happens when it hits an ‘immoveable object’?

Raymond is still winning…

…and the war on ‘LEARNing-by-gap-fill-exercise’ has definitely taken a ceasefire – across many schools!

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But, what happens when we bring these two facts of hazırlık life together – when we look at the consequences of placing unrealistic demands into a curriculum-free zone? I tried to highlight this by asking conference participants if we ELT professionals are guilty of the ‘twins sins’ that more and more of our primary and secondary colleagues are being forced to commit:

 Guess what they said?

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In the absence of an effective curriculum framework (or clear ‘purpose’), we continue to ‘do’ the simple past on Monday…‘do’ the past continuous on Wednesday…and finish the week on Friday by ‘doing’ the present perfect (as well as every single activity in ‘the book’)!

How we ‘do’ even one of these in a week is beyond me – and, what the hell does it mean to ‘do’ a tense anyways???

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And, then there’s the assessment…all the exams, tests and pop quizzes we tag onto this type of curriculum practice. Even though…in our hearts of hearts…we know:

…we weigh, we weigh, we weigh!

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It’s almost as if the only ‘strategy‘ we have to maintain our ‘quality standards‘ is the mantra…

…and, when this fails to get our students from A to B (actually, A1 to B2…in 9 months), the best ‘improvement‘ programme we can come up with is…

But, then…I’m jumping the gun on tomorrow’s post!

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Is Hazırlık BROKEN?

This is a question I have been thunking about a lot recently – and you know what they say about questions, don’t you?

…by Hazırlık I am, of course, talking about the university-level ELL or ELT ‘prep programmes’ we offer here in canım Türkiyem…so go to another blog, if you are not that interested in this kinda stuff…

Or not, if you work in the same ‘sector’ in another part of the world (and, there are lots of you – I know)!

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Now, don’t get me wrong…I am not asking the question in the title of this post to start another round of ‘finger-pointing’ or to pour petrol onto what is already the raging bonfire of …

…we tend to play when we talk about the ‘quality’ of English language teaching (and LEARNing) that our universities offer. We’ll come back to this little ‘game’ a wee bit later – if the truth was known it is perhaps this aspect of how we ‘do’ business (in our schools of ‘higher LEARNing’) that needs the most ‘fixing‘!

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I am asking the question…

…because at a couple of recent ELT conferences here in Turkey (one on Curriculum and another on Quality and Standards), I have been thunking and talking about George Orwell’s suggestion that…

…a ‘revolutionary act’ whose time has come!

Besides, our marathon conference season is wrapping up soon…I have finished me book (plug, plug, plug) and I needed to get back to me blogging!

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When we go to a lot of conferences, we do a lot of feel-good ‘sharing’…we network…we pick up a few ‘classroom McNuggets’…and occasionally we stumble across an idea or three that really makes us ‘thunk’ (and we hear a lot of back-door self-promotion…did you know the book is available on Amazon, too – and a lot of very lame jokes we have probably heard before – but that’s for another post).

Great stuff (except those last two)! But, we do not often hear people…

…enough!

…the REAL truth, that is!

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This is what I challenged myself to do in the last couple of sessions I have done at conferences. I wasn’t quite sure what type of response I would get…

In both events, I shared this image…

…John said this at around about the time I started teaching – yes, I am that old! The funny thing was that nearly everybody (in both conference rooms) agreed that it was STILL true TODAY…in canım Türkiye (and probably in many other countries around the globe)!

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Despite this fact, there were a few people that the question made a wee bit ‘uncomfortable’. Many of them jumped in to defend themselves by saying it was not their ‘fault’ (ahh, the power of ‘the blame game’) – they reminded us about ‘educational culture’ we have to live with and highlighted the change has (sadly) taken hold of Turkey over the last decade or so…

…I know many a US ‘educational reformer’ that would love to have the network of exams and tests Turkey has been able (so effectively) to put in place all the way from primary to post-university…and even ‘job selection’.

The Higher Education Council (YÖK) has even managed to put systems in place that…

8I find it’s best, with allthingsYÖK at least…to remember the ‘serenity prayer’:

…but I’m getting off the point!

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If we take the time to look (really ‘look’) at the challenges our hazırlık schools face (the ones that are more in our ‘circle of influence’), there are many things that need more than a bit of attention.

Take, for instance, the ‘feelings’ that many teachers have about the way they have to ‘do business’ in many of our schools (even the so-called ‘top schools’)…

How many of you know a teacher that feels like this from time to time…most of the time…and has to ‘break-the-rules’ (quietly…when no one is looking…to get some real language LEARNing done)? In the two sessions I did recently, almost 100% of participants did…and many said they felt like this themselves most of the time!

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I also asked if people had come across a phrase that many hazırlık students are using to describe their current pre-freshman ELL / ELT experiences:

…a ‘sweet’ turn-of-phrase but one that captures how many hazırlık LEARNers feel about how and what they are being taught, the way hazırlik schools treat them as ‘customers’ and how similar it all is to high school.

The bottom line is, of course, if our two key groups of stakeholders (teachers and LEARNers) are feeling, shall we say, less than satisfied with their experiences…we have to listen…heck, we have to do more than listen!

Teachers, especially those with families to provide for, might not be able to ‘vote with their feet’…but many hazırlık schools (especially those of the ‘vakıf’ or ‘foundation/private’ variety) are getting more than a bit worried about the recent upsurge of footsteps on the LEARNer side of things.

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Of course, I am not suggesting that every teacher and every student feels this way. We have some really good people in some really good schools that are doing some great things (many of them have been doing these things for years – and some of them have been connecting the dots between institutions more and more recently). I am taking about a general ‘state-of-the-nation’ challenge across the ‘sector’ – about the way we ‘do the business of ELL’ across the country in general. And, I’m guessing that many of these core challenges will resonate with my fellow bloggers in other countries.

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There are other areas – and I want to take a look at a few of them over the next few posts. BUT, I’m gonna need some help!

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What do you thunk? Is hazırlık ‘broken’? Where? In what ways? …and, how do ‘we’ fix it?