A number of authors have written about the trouble they see with modern language and the breaking down of actual meaning in the words that are used to try to communicate. For many of these authors, the political discourse is the primary culprit for this breakdown in meaning, but it is recognized within other forms of official language as well, such as the discourse of academic subjects and scientific journals. In many cases, this discourse has become so convoluted that it is no longer meaningful at all at the same time that students within the traditional educational system are not able to recognize the fallacies and the lack of meaning. While this is the main focus of some scholars, such as George Orwell, others attempt to find appropriate solutions that can be put in place within the classroom setting to counteract these effects.
Main body
In his article “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell discusses the various ways in which political discourse has brought the language usage of the country to an all-time low level of actual meaning at the same time that it strives to disguise this lack of meaning behind an abundance of words. He points to the concepts of tired metaphors that no longer deliver the meaningful punch evoked through their surprising comparisons, ‘false limbs’ that complicate the subject with unnecessarily complicated words and phrases and pretentious diction that tends to lose meaning halfway through the statement as examples. It isn’t until near the end of the essay that he begins to examine some of the ways that these issues might be effectively addressed by newer generations to save the language from itself. These are predictably brief and clearly stated: “Never use a metaphor … which you are used to seeing in print; never use a long word where a short one will do; if it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out; never use the passive where you can use the active; never use a foreign phrase … if you can think of an everyday English equivalent; break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous” (Orwell, 1946). These ideas are expanded upon in the work of Rochelle Harris and Neil Postman.
The primary concern of Rochelle Harris’ article “Encouraging Emergent Moments: The Personal, Critical and Rhetorical in the Writing Classroom” is to explore a new approach to teaching composition classes to students so that they become capable of seeing through the rhetoric of modern discourse. She introduces this approach as an imperfect fusion of three different literary disciplines – nonfiction literature, rhetoric and composition and critical pedagogy. Throughout the article, she makes the argument that creative writing, using the less-restricted language and approach of nonfiction writing, can be the key to teach students the important elements of critical pedagogy, which are rhetoric and composition. She illustrates throughout the article the vast degree to which these efforts are more effective, both short and long term, for student learning. “I am arguing that a critical writing pedagogy with a primary goal of having students claim their own agency and become active participants in critiquing and transforming unjust social institutions happens at the intersections of the personal-critical-rhetorical” (402). In making this argument, the author creates two new terms to refer to ideas – the personal-critical-rhetorical by which is meant the combination of individual experiences, critical thinking skills and rhetorical ability; and the emergent moment by which is meant the convergence in the student’s text of these various perspectives. In her discussion of critical pedagogy as defined by theorist-practitioners, Harris first define the practice and then reveals how her individual approach meets these criteria better than other forms of essay-writing assignments. Having shown that the personal narrative is already an essential element of critical pedagogy, she then points to creative writing to prove that the narrative is necessary to tease out the connections between the disciplines. With this background, Harris then reveals her own emergent moment when she was working with an individual student and realized the importance of this new approach to teaching writing. This experience with her student enabled the author to adjust her own approach to teaching and she discusses how this approach can be implemented within the traditional classroom.
By ending her article with practical examples of how to implement her approach into the traditional writing classroom, Harris makes a well-built argument for change in the way writing teachers approach their subject. Her examples show many places in which she engages with the students to point out areas of their writing where they can make their meaning clearer by following many of the basic rules that were brought forward by Orwell in his much earlier essay. Her proofs as to the desirability both for the student and for the community are strong and well-researched in support of the ideas that Orwell brought forward in the majority of his essay while her emphasis on application makes it easier for the reader to ‘see’ how the results of Orwell’s suggestions, expanded and constructed within a traditional classroom setting with a modern modification, can have an effect on the welfare of society at large.
In his article “Defending the Indefensible,” Neil Postman tacitly agrees with Harris that the way English is taught today is counterproductive to real learning when he mentions that he has stopped addressing English teachers because of their unwillingness to change their own traditions. He also clearly relates his thoughts to the thoughts that were expressed in Orwell’s article regarding political thought and language designed to “make glorious the malignant ambitions of nation states” (Postman 19), illustrating how his optimism stems from the possibility of “mount[ing] a practical counteroffensive by better preparing the minds of those for whom such language is intended” (Postman 20). While traditional English classrooms continue to follow the traditions of Plato and Confucius through the form of the prescribed pedagogy, another tradition is available through the traditions of Cicero and Descartes in which questioning is actively taught and encouraged. Postman, like Harris, is arguing that this kind of education as a defense against culture is necessary for positive social growth.
Like Harris, Postman offers a process through which this approach can be pursued in the classroom, but provides a more structured element by specifying seven core concepts that he feels leads the way to true wisdom. Before he launches into these ideas, though, he takes care to establish the foundation upon which these ideas rest. “Our ancestors understood well something we seem to have forgotten, namely, that all subjects are forms of discourse – indeed, forms of literature – and therefore that almost all education is language education. Knowledge of a subject mostly means knowledge of the language of that subject” (Postman 21). Thus, to know about something means that one is capable of fully understanding the language used as well as the ways in which the language is used to create meaning. This corresponds very closely to Harris’ ideas regarding the importance of the student’s personal experience in engaging critical thinking, but makes a stronger point about the importance of understanding the principles behind the meta-language, the language about language and how that relates to all knowledge.
Postman’s seven principles are ideas he has identified as being essential to the working of a critical intelligence. These insights can be listed as definition, approach, meaning, metaphor, reification, style and non-neutrality. By definition, he points out the importance of understanding that a definition is not a concrete thing established by nature but is instead a human construction designed to ensure that the participants in the conversation are all operating from the same underlying understanding. Thus, it can be different depending upon the individual understandings involved. This leads to the second idea which is approach. This idea points to the concept that how one approaches a question will help to determine its outcome as well as the importance of asking this question to begin with. “If they do not know the questions to which these are the answers, their opinions are quite literally thoughtless” (Postman 24). In discussing meaning, Postman refers to the highly subjective nature of the meaning of conceptual terms such as law, love, anger or truth. The meaning of the word metaphor is readily understandable by most educated persons, but Postman suggests the concept needs to be given greater emphasis within all levels of education. Reification refers to the tendency for us to believe that the words have real substance – that the flower smells sweet because it is a rose rather than simply understanding that the flower smells sweet regardless of what name we attach to it. Regarding style, Postman says teachers “can help their students to see that what we call a prayer, a political speech, and an advertisement differ from each other not only in their content but in their style and tone; one might say mostly in their style and tone and manner of address” (27). Finally, non-neutrality refers to the fact that every expressed idea necessarily has a specific inherent bias that cannot be fully removed.
Postman’s approach thus provides what is essentially the focus of Harris’ comments to her students in attempting to help them achieve the emergent moment of personal-critical-rhetorical understanding that both feel is essential in developing a more responsible, socially conscious public in support of the comments that were made so many years ago by Orwell. While all three authors agree that the modern discourse has become intentionally confused by overly complicated language and language use, they each spend a different amount of effort proving this point. Orwell devotes most of his essay to proving modern language has lost any sense of real meaning and depends on confusion to make its impact while Postman points to Orwell’s essay for most of his proof and Harris only suggests it has become a problem. While all three authors provide suggestions for how to address this problem and bring meaning back into the discourse, again, they do it to different degrees and effects. Orwell merely provides a list of guidelines that should be followed offered only to his readers as suggestions on how to improve their own communication. Harris and Postman both focus their attention on improving the education of students – Harris to improving the communication efforts of her English students and Postman for all students. In each case, the suggestions are intended to create more critical citizens who will be capable of independent thought. Harris conceives of a way to convey this to students within the classroom while Postman enumerates the important basic concepts that students should be made to understand.
Works Cited
Harris, Rochelle. “Encouraging Emergent Moments: The Personal, Critical and Rhetorical in the Writing Classroom.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition and Culture. Duke University Press: Vol. 4, N. 3, (2004).
Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” (1946). Web.
The word culture is defined in numerous ways. Some may define culture as the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the language they speak, or the religion they practice. It is true that all that is part of a particular culture, but is that all? Would culture include the way we think? The way we treat others? The way we function in our society? The jobs we prefer? The things we learn at school? Hence, culture is a way of life. It is the way we think and perceives things around us. Although the language, religion, race, geographic location, and social organization are a part of the culture, it does not end there.
Multicultural Education
We live in a world with a diverse range of cultures. Being humans, we have a lot in common but we also differ greatly. When it comes to culture, the little things matter. We find all kinds of people at work, out on the streets, in our neighborhoods, and our schools; and that is where a child creates a mindset that is with him/her for the rest of their life. This is where the concept of multicultural education comes in. it is an approach to education in which an institution’s curriculum, teaching methods, and ideologies are designed and put into action in the way that all children accept and appreciate the diversity around them and are aware of their contributions to the society. With multicultural education, children experience different flavors of the world at a “make or break” age. If the children experience and learn that the world inhabits many types of people, they grow up to understand and function effectively in a world that is experiencing rapid globalization; where all cultures intermingle and work together and cultural boundaries are blurred. (Hanley, 1999)
Multicultural education revolves around certain principles. These principles are based on the findings of the Multicultural Education Consensus Panel. These principles and guidelines help policy-making and teaching methodology in a diverse learning environment. The findings revolve around creating a healthy learning and interactive environment in multicultural educational institutions. These principles will be briefly discussed in this essay.
The principles are broadly divided into teacher learning, student learning, intergroup relations, school governance, organization, and equity and assessment. (Banks, 2001)
Teacher Learning
Teachers need to be trained through development programs that enable them to understand and function well within the ethnically diverse students and understand them better.
Student Learning
Equal opportunities should be given to all students in all fields; academic and extracurricular and foster healthy relationships through teamwork. Students need to be taught that knowledge is a combination of experiences and social, political, and economic contexts in which they exist and function.
Intergroup Relations
Good communication is the key here. With group work, students can understand one another better and understand the negative aspects of discrimination and stereotyping. Teachers should help students practice healthy interaction so that no ethnic fear and anxiety exists.
School Governance, Organization, and Equity
Decision-making should be shared and fair. Just allocation of equity should be practiced regardless of the location or population/status of schools.
Assessment
Teachers should adopt multiple culturally sensitive methods to assess complex cognitive and social skills. (Banks, 2001)
Can it make a Difference?
As we can see, multicultural education can help eliminate racism, ethnic issues, fear and anxiety, and biases. With proper training, teachers will be well equipped with the knowledge of different ethnic settings within the country. Good training will also ensure a non-bias attitude towards the students and the policies made on the basisbased on of the above principles will not be discriminatory. Apart from that, students will learn and grow up in a diverse environment. They will be taught about the issues different races face and how discrimination is widening the gap between races. With healthy interaction and group activity, students will grow into smart, comfortable, and open-minded individuals who would know that ethnic discrimination, stereotyping and other biases are unacceptable and immature. Thus, if we do this today, we can ensure a much more harmonious and open-minded world tomorrow. (Lynch)
Before my study, my conceptions of multicultural education were limited. I did not understand clearly how it can potentially make such a big difference. The advantages I thought of were limited to different ethnic groups being exposed to each other and getting a chance to interact in a controlled environment. But now I see that the concept addresses issues beyond this n move into governance and policymaking. I also see the importance of teacher training and development, which I had not realized before. Without a proper understanding of the base issues and the history of ethnic relations, a teacher cannot foster a proper healthy diverse learning environment in their class. Also, if we practice these principles effectively today we can make a big difference tomorrow.
I have come to realize that training teachers through proper development programs are a vital part of adopting multicultural education in its true sense. As a teacher, I would make it my initiative to learn more about the different ethnic groups present in our schools, their backgrounds, the negative issues they face, and how to address those issues. This would help me understand my students better, without which making them learn would be impossible. So, to train and develop a positive attitude in the students’ minds, it is important to first understand the issues myself.
References
Banks, J. A. (2001). New Horizons. Web.
Hanley, M. S. (1999). The Scope of Multicultural Education. Web.
Lynch, J. Multicultural Education: Principles and Practice (Routledge Education Books) (Paperback). Routledge & Kegan Paul Books Ltd.
The first purpose of the dream school is to teach thinking. This implies that whenever students give answers, they must justify the reasoning behind the answers they give. The rest of the students should be prepared to challenge arguments raised by their fellow students based on practicality, unexpected consequences and logic. Unless students are taught how to think, most arguments will be based on emotional rhetoric. The focus of the dream school is therefore to teach thinking because this automatically leads to acquisition of problem solving skills (Adsit 19).
The second purpose of the dream school is to train kindness. Kindness gives students a chance to accept others without judging them unfairly. It is important for individuals to be always concerned about their friends rather than thinking about themselves only. Students should be allowed to contribute to conversations freely. If they develop fear that they would be ridiculed because of their backgrounds and their beliefs by their colleagues, this deters them from speaking their mind. Kindness enables individuals to give and accept valid critique without being offensive, for purposes of arriving at appropriate solutions for everybody. If all citizens practice kindness, then most of the problems that societies experience would be solved.
The third purpose of the dream school is to teach communication. It is not justifiable for schools to spend a lot of resources teaching yet they produce individuals who find it difficult to communicate amongst themselves and with the entire world. Students should be trained skills of expressing themselves and understanding other people.
The fourth purpose of the school is to promote democracy. Democracies allow people to sit together and deliberate on issues in order to create solutions that serve everybody better. Unless schools work towards promoting democracy, students cannot utilize the knowledge gained in school constructively (What is the Purpose of America’s Schools 6).
Relationship between the School and the Community
There should be a close relationship between the dream school and the multiple and diverse communities that it is meant to serve. Schools are established for the sake of the surrounding communities since they cannot exist without the communities. It is the surrounding communities that send their children to schools and become critical stakeholders in funding, overseeing and assisting the school in different ways to ensure it succeeds. This implies that the school should treat the surrounding communities as a critical element for its success (Johnson and Musial 40).
It is a fact that the surrounding communities are characterized by diversity. Such communities have different ideologies, practices and beliefs which may influence the school differently. It is the responsibility of the management of the dream school to treat all these individuals equally and respectively. For example, the school is supposed to show all the communities that it values them by accepting children from all of them without discrimination. This encourages the communities and motivates them to support it.
In addition, the dream school should prove to the neighboring communities that it cannot succeed without their input. This translates to a mutual relationship between the two entities. If there are positions that need to be filled, the neighboring communities should be given the first priority. This is an important strategy of enhancing the relationship between the school and the diverse communities it should serve.
A friendly relationship between the dream school and the diverse neighboring communities it serve is important since it determine its success or failure. The communities should not be perceived as elements that have no influence in the running of the school, but critical elements that should not be sidelined if the school is to succeed.
Content, Curriculum and Learning Experiences
It is important to have the right content, curriculum and learning experiences for the dream school. Determining appropriate content is critical since it is content that determines the nature and caliber of students produced by the school. The content should be focused on instilling critical thinking skills in the learners for them to be reliable people in the society after they leave school. This enables them to be effective problem solvers. In order to achieve this, there will be emphasis on science subjects and mathematics because they are critical in helping learners to acquire these skills. However, other subjects such languages and art are also important hence they are not eliminated from the content. Generally, the content is supposed to cover life skills that students should be trained on in school (Drake and Crawford 132).
In designing the curriculum, the input of experts is critical in order to come up with a curriculum that addresses the needs of the students comprehensively. It should focus on the standard of mathematics since good knowledge of mathematics enables students to successfully complete post secondary education. In order for the dream school to distinguish itself from other schools, the curriculum should be standard-based This will ensure that there is a clear definition of what the students are expected to learn and how academic sources are to be used to develop a unique school.
It is important to include learning experiences that develop the knowledge and abilities of the students. The first learning experience that is important in the curriculum is discovery. Students need a chance to discover things for themselves after which they discuss with teachers. The second learning experience is exposing students to hands-on experience. It is important o expose them to practical concepts of the theories they learn in class in order for them to concretize the ideas while the third one interactive forums between students and teachers.
Pedagogies and Teaching Practices
It is important for the dream school to foster unique and excellent pedagogies or teaching practices. It should not adopt teaching practices used in other schools but ones that do not produce the anticipated results.
The first teaching practice that the school should foster is cooperation among students. This is one of the teaching practices that produce good results because the practice enables students to assist one another; hence it is possible for weaker students to get assistance from the brighter ones. This is done through formation of student groups and assigning them research work and presentations. The other method is by allowing students to plan lessons and teach them. In addition, competitions can be arranged where all participants get prizes (Effective teaching practices 5).
The second teaching practice that the dream school is supposed to foster is active learning. This is achieved by giving students problem solving activities that are conducted in groups. Provision of practical problems that require the learners to come up with solutions is also an effective strategy. In addition, strategies like journaling may be used to ensure that the learners remain active.
The third learning strategy that should be fostered by the dream school is respect for diversity of talents and methods of learning. This involves exposing the students to many experiences such as teaching through multimedia, training them the use of a myriad of learning styles and taking them for field trips where they can appreciate what they learn in class.
Organization, Rules, Regulations Duties and Rights in the School
In order for the dream school to succeed in its mission, there should be good organization, rules, regulations, duties and rights for all the individuals who in one way or the other are involved in its running. With regard to its organization, it will be comprised of the principal, his deputy then the teachers. It will assume a top-down approach where policies are communicated from the principal down to the teachers and other junior staff.
Apart from the organization of the school, there are rules and regulations that define the code of behavior for all parties in the school. The rules and regulations are different for different groups of people. For instance, there are rules that apply to the teachers, students and the support staff. They are aimed at controlling the behavior of all the parties involved and ensuring that they act according to the values and principles upheld by the school. This ensures that everything done in the school has a positive impact towards its growth.
It is important for all the participants in school to have their rights since all human beings are entitle to their rights regardless of the industry they are involved with. For example, the students have the right to be taught relevant content by the teachers. They also have the right to raise any concerns they think affect their performance negatively. Teachers have the right to be handled well by the principal and the school management while the support staffs have the right to good pay and flexibility in their work.
Systems and School Structures
In order for the organization, curriculum and pedagogy to be supported, it is important to have certain systems and school structures. These keep track of all the envisaged operations in the school to ensure that goals are realized.
For instance, the school has to invest a lot of money to ensure the school curriculum is fully implemented for the students to be trained in the right way. One of the critical structures for ensuring that this goal is achieved is a school library. The dream school has to put in place a well equipped library with the most current instructional materials that can be used by teachers and reference materials for the learners. This ensures that teachers have what they require in order to follow the curriculum strictly. The students on the other hand are able to do private work assigned to them in accordance with the curriculum.
For the organization of the school to be effective, there is the need for a system that monitors the performance of all employees of the school. This may be in the form of evaluations conducted periodically to determine whether the school is moving towards achieving its goals. Such a system may be comprised of a team of individuals mandated with the task of ensuring that every department meets the expectations of the school management. It may also be combined with a reward system for employees who exhibit satisfactory performance in their specific areas of operation.
Another important requirement in ensuring that the pedagogy is adhered to is physical facilities such as classrooms. This makes it possible for teachers to employ different teaching practices without being deterred by the lack of enough infrastructural facilities. By doing so, the school is able to achieve its set goals and objectives.
Evaluation System
Evaluation systems are crucial to schools because it is through evaluation that teachers determine whether the students grasped the contents taught in class. For the evaluation system designed by the school, it should fulfill certain requirements which are derived from the users, administration, staff and organizational considerations.
The most appropriate evaluation system for the school to adopt is formative evaluation. The first advantage of this type of evaluation is that it improves equity of student outcomes. It enhances equity in the sense that teachers have an opportunity to make a comparison between their evaluation and that of other teachers to ensure that students are treated equitably. Its second advantage is that it enables teachers to establish and communicate learning goals, monitor the progress of the students and adjust the objectives to cater for the needs of the students. They discover that it might be advisable to use comments as opposed to marks in order to improve the performance of students (Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms 3).
Formative evaluation is also beneficial in that it helps teachers assess the extent to which the curriculum has been covered. Teachers use the results obtained from formative evaluation in order to guide the currculum and content taught. Based on the results, a teacher may decide to spend more hours in areas that present difficulties to students or take little time in sections where students seem to understand faster (Irons 158).
Nature and Quality of Envisaged Relationships
The school is supposed to have good relationships with all individuals involved in its running. The first envisaged nature of relationship is the relationship between the teachers and the students. A good relationship between the two groups is important because it ensures that students are free to approach teachers for any assistance they require. It is obvious that students cannot feel free with the teachers if the relationship between them is strained. It is envisaged that there will be high quality relationship between these two groups.
The second type of envisaged relationship is the one between the school management and the support staff. The support staffs play a critical role in the daily running of the school hence they should have a good relationship with the management. The quality of the relationship between these two groups may not be very high because some employees are never prepared to follow the directions given by their supervisors. In such situations, the school management is expected to exercise due diligence to ensure that its relationship with the support staff is not strained.
The third type of relationship envisaged in the dream school is the relationship between the school and the outside community. It is important for it to maintain a good relationship with the surrounding community because the community plays an important role in assisting the school to run its activities. It is envisaged that the relationship between the two parties will be of high quality because both parties are expected to benefit from the relationship.
Role of Creativity, Critical Thinking, Emotions, Imagination, Recreation, Artistic, Physical and Intellectual Engagement
Creativity is expected to play an important role in the school in that it enables students to come up with new concepts and discover things for themselves. The dream school should aim at training students on how to be creative because creativity is one of the qualities that help individuals succeed in whatever they do in life. Apart from preparing them for good jobs, creativity is important for the students in their future lives.
Critical thinking enables students to address most of the problems they face in school during their studies. It then follows that students who are able to think critically are better placed to solve problems than others who lacks critical thinking skills. Critical thinking also enables the students to come up with solutions to problems that affect the school and the community in general (Moore 61).
Recreation and physical engagement ensures that the students get time to break the monotony of listening to the teachers in class. This is important because it enables the school to produce all round students. Concentrating on class work without allowing them to engage in other activities is not an effective way of enhancing their development.
Apart from class work, there are particular students who have unique talents in various fields that may not be directly related to class work. It is important to foster and nurture such talents because some of them are beneficial, students should be exposed to artistic, imaginative and other activities that reinforce their intellectual capacity. By doing this, the school is able to serve the purpose of an institution that identifies and nurtures talent among students.
Meeting the Needs of Students
Students have both personal and academic needs hence it is important for teachers to identify ways of addressing all their needs. To make students feel comfortable while at the school, the teachers should provide respectful and friendly classrooms. Firstly, they should exercise considerate communication. They should take into consideration how some students may be judged wrongly by their peers and the negative effect this has on their school life. They should therefore treat students in a considerate manner and encourage them to extend the same treatment to their peers in order to enhance the quality of life at school.
Secondly, teachers should know the backgrounds of the students in order to effectively meet their needs. Knowledge of the background of the students enables the teachers to refine their teaching methods, illustrations, class discussions and they way they approach individual students. Referring to their backgrounds, interests or knowledge helps in personalizing the class to suit their needs. By doing this, the teachers are able to meet individual needs of the students.
Thirdly, the needs of students can be addressed by having student representatives. There are some problems that affect students that may remain unknown or take long to come to the attention of teachers. By having student representatives who meet with teachers regularly, it is possible for teachers to identify the needs of the students and address them effectively.
Works Cited
Adsit, Tim. Small Schools, Education, and the Importance of Community, New York: R&L Education, 2011. Print.
Drake, Susan and R. Crawford. Meeting Standards Through Integrated Curriculum, New York: ASCD, 2007. Print.
Teaching games to students aim to get them to enjoy, learn, and continue with physical activities even after school. However, this is not always the case partly because of the teaching approaches employed by educators. Traditional approaches focus on competition and encourage physicality. This can exclude students who do not innately like sports or show signs of physical fitness. Instead of the conventional skill-drill approaches, educators should move towards modern approaches such as Teaching Sports for Understanding, Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility, and the Sports Education Model since they generate a multitude of benefits for students.
I have mostly encountered traditional approaches in sports and physical activity. These methods are typically teacher-centered and fail to consider the needs of students. For instance, teachers typically pay more attention to and reward students who show physicality and vigor. They neglect students who are not interested in sports and those who appear physically unfit. Consequently, due to the emphasis on skill performance, the second group of learners often feel left out and dislike sports. This is further aggravated by the emphasis on competition in games. Overemphasis on performance and rivalry in physical education deters some young learners from enjoying sports and discourages lifelong participation (Braga & Liversedge, 2017). Some learners become physically inactive after they complete school because the teaching methods used for physical education did not motivate them to continue with it in the absence of an authority figure. For this reason, I have always had reservations about skill-drill approaches.
Traditional approaches to physical activity have impacted my beliefs, knowledge, and skills about sport. I believe that for learners to enjoy physical activity, then it must be student-centered. This allows them to be more involved in the activity rather than relying on the teacher to control it. Additionally, it caters to their different interests and preferred learning styles. For instance, some students would be more enthused to participate in a sport if less pressure is placed on them to perform well (Brace, 2017). Rather than prioritizing performance and competition, I believe the focus should be on leisure, health, and fitness.
Although Teaching Game for Understanding (TGfU) has existed for some time now, most instructors still prefer traditional approaches for various reasons. First, TGfU is considered a more complex approach than the other methods. For instance, the former involves six stages, which an instructor may find demanding. Additionally, Teaching Game for Understanding requires the instructor to have extensive knowledge of various sports. They need to know, not just the discrete skills of a sport, but also its tactics. This approach has not been received well because it is viewed as lengthier and more taxing than the traditional approaches (Braga & Liversedge, 2017). Coaches may feel that this mode of teaching is outside their scope and comfort level. The approach has also faced barriers to uptake because many teachers feel they do not receive the support and resources needed to implement it.
Adopting TGfU is not always simple and may require me to modify my instructional practice. To successfully use this teaching approach, I have to increase my knowledge of various sports. I will need to have a deep understanding of the tactical components of these games (Gil-Arias et al., 2020). Fortunately, some of these skills and components are transferrable between the games. I will improve my grasp of TGfU by learning from other teachers, colleagues, and experts. Workshops and other learning forums serve as useful platforms to encourage the use of TGfU. Increasing the acceptance and use of TGfU requires collaboration among educators.
Aside from Teaching Game for Understanding, other pedagogical models can be used to support physical literacy. One such example is the Sports Education Model (SEM) which is a non-traditional approach that emphasizes communication, accountability, and teamwork. By decentering competition, it allows students to enjoy the game, which translates to increased effort (Moy et al., 2016). Additionally, since SEM is student-centered, it fosters autonomy and encourages continued participation in a sport after leaving school. Another model that instructors may use instead of traditional approaches is known as Cooperative Learning. Under this teaching method, students are divided into groups and work together to achieve a certain goal. It encourages team spirit and motivates students to be active participants since the success of a group is determined by the contribution of its members (Fernandez-Rio et al., 2017). The third pedagogical model is the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) Model. This approach empowers students to be principled people who safeguard the welfare of others.
Model-based practices such as TPSR, SEM, and Cooperative Learning equip students with a variety of skills that support game understanding. Physical literacy entails knowledge, motivation, and competence to engage in physical activities during the entirety of a person’s lifetime. Model-based approaches support physical literacy because they encourage students to continue partaking in physical activity without adult supervision (Brace, 2017). Unlike traditional approaches that focus on physical development only, model-based approaches engage different domains of development such as social, cognitive, and emotional development (Gil-Arias et al., 2017). I would consider using a combination of the models discussed because this will enable my students to enjoy the benefits realizable by each approach.
Tactical approaches are beneficial to students because they inculcate skills such as cooperation, decision-making, and autonomy. They are also more effective than traditional approaches since they are student-centered. Presently, many instructors have not adopted these pedagogical models because of the inadequacy of resources and support needed to implement them. However, teachers should work together to increase their knowledge and skills about these approaches. It will make students more passionate about sports and encourage lifelong participation, which is the ultimate goal of physical literacy.
References
Brace, B. (2017). Alternative Teaching Approaches to Promote Student Motivation in Physical Education at the Secondary Level. Kinesiology, Sport Studies, and Physical Education Synthesis Projects. Web.
Braga, L., & Liversedge, P. (2017). Challenges and facilitators to the implementation of a sport education season: The voices of teacher candidates. Physical Educator, 74(1), 19. Web.
Fernandez-Rio, J., Sanz, N., Fernandez-Cando, J., & Santos, L. (2017). Impact of sustained cooperative learning intervention on student motivation. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 22(1), 89-105. Web.
Gil-Arias, A., Claver, F., Práxedes, A., Villar, F. D., & Harvey, S. (2020). Autonomy support, motivational climate, enjoyment and perceived competence in physical education: Impact of a hybrid teaching games for understanding/sport education unit. European Physical Education Review, 26(1), 36-53. Web.
Gil-Arias, A., Harvey, S., Cárceles, A., Práxedes, A., & Del Villar, F. (2017). Impact of a hybrid TGfU-Sport Education unit on student motivation in physical education. PLoS One, 12(6), 1-17. Web.
Moy, B., Renshaw, I. & Davids, K. (2016). The impact of nonlinear pedagogy on physical education teacher education students’ intrinsic motivation. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 21(5), 517-538. Web.
The development of an effective curriculum with comprehensible tasks, intensive learning units, and structured schedule is the primary objective of educators, allowing learners to reach excellent outcomes. In this regard, teachers have a variety of educational materials that assist teachers in designing the easy-to-follow curriculum considering their intercultural needs. Educators Donna Clementi and Laura Terrill have written a practical guide replete with advice and useful templates that help develop instruction units and engaging lessons based on the Standards for Learning Languages and technology integration. Thus, this book review aims at discussing the most appealing ideas delivered by the authors, the implications of these ideas, and controversial suggestions.
The Most Interesting Ideas
Clementi and Terrill provide several valuable ideas that will be useful to consider while designing learning modules. For example, they recommend educators add sensorial supports, including graphics, pictures, visuals, realia, into their lessons to make input more understandable. Besides, teachers should pay close attention to various presentational elements of speaking, such as exaggerated pronunciation, keyword emphasis, intonation, or purposeful pauses, and nonverbal communication, namely, gestures, facial expressions, or context clues. These techniques will considerably help liven lessons and make them more interactive and real.
The authors also emphasize the significance of the authentic text, that is, the text of the target language offered to learners. This text aims at providing language’s real-word context, cultural wealth, and patterns of correct language. Herewith, authors specify that the text should be interesting and diverse in ideas, relevant to the learners and the essential questions, intellectually challenging, and strongly supported by visuals.
Clementi and Terrill also ask educators to focus on the structure of learning units, indicating that students learn best what comes first and last in the lessons. In the opening ten minutes, it is reasonable to gain learners’ attention, present the learning goals of the lesson, and provide comprehensible input following the stated purposes.
Specifically, in this stage, educators can ask various questions and tell a particular story. In the core part of the session, students should cooperate with each other and instructors actively using language to gain confidence in the topic. In this respect, the authors note that learners primarily should be active participants, while teachers are only observers and assistants. The final part assumes evaluating performance via assignments or reflection and delivering feedback from teachers to determine gaps, misunderstandings, and other issues.
The Implications of the Ideas
The implications of the ideas presented by Clementi and Terrill are highly beneficial in teachers’ daily workflow and developing a curriculum that meets the learning needs of individuals of different ages and multicultural backgrounds. After reading the book, I have realized the importance of effective verbal and non-verbal communication that should be diverse, constructive, and directed at conveying the central themes of lessons.
I will pay particular attention to the application of various pictures to diversify learning modules and make them more close to real life. Besides, I have gained a clear understanding of how I should build my lessons in order to help students receive the most from the learning sections and maximize their performance. Finally, it is worth noting that I realize that I should endow the meaning to the lessons continuously to maintain student engagement and motivation to develop and broaden their knowledge.
Challenging Ideas
Despite the utility of many suggestions, the book also possesses some ideas that can be slightly debatable or cause some problems during lessons. For example, the author put considerable emphasis on the visual part of learning sessions, making it compulsory or critical in the learning context. Nevertheless, it should be indicated that such an approach may distract learners from the established objectives and essential questions, thereby undermining their active involvement. Indeed, pictures and graphics are useful in conveying the main ideas, but they simultaneously pose a risk to turn the lessons into entertainment. Therefore, visuals are not essential but a subsidiary aspect of learning modules.
In addition, Clementi and Terrill highlight the importance of stimulating and supporting students’ encouragement in the workflow. This idea makes sense, but I firmly hold to the belief that learners should be self-motivated and realize what they want, what they seek, and what they need. Otherwise, it will be a complicated task for teachers to encourage students to learn specific materials and reach performance objectives. The learners’ self-motivation and interest play a critical role in mastering a particular language. The responsibility of the educators is to make lessons informative, interactive, engaging, and practical.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the paper has discussed the most interesting ideas delivered by Clementi and Terrill, their implications, and some controversial suggestions. Specifically, the most appealing ideas include the application of pictures, graphics, and other visuals, the consideration of verbal and nonverbal communication, the significance of authentic text. Moreover, the authors draw educators’ attention to the structure of learning units, emphasizing the opening and conclusive part of the lessons. These ideas will help derive the most from the learning modules and stimulate students’ interest in acquiring the second language. However, using visuals and learners’ encouragement should be balanced and reasonable not to distract students from central tasks.
Several educators were interviewed to determine recent changes in teaching. One of the language teachers responded that he/she arranges desks so that students can work together. The change encourages teamwork, communication, and collaboration among the students. Group discussion and assignments are a form of a learner-centered technique. This is a student-centered method of learning, which can be contrasted to the teacher-centered model of teaching. In the former, learners participate actively in the learning process, and their input is valued. This kind of education aims to nurture autonomy. The teacher merely guides and supports them towards the goal and measures their progress. It is different from the conventional teacher-centered approach that the instructor used to use before. In this strategy, the educator presents information to the learners who have a more passive role.
The teacher who was interviewed commented that the change was necessary because it creates a good atmosphere. When students are encouraged to work together, it establishes a conducive learning environment. They share their ideas more freely in such a setting and seek help when stuck. Additionally, learners demonstrate more enthusiasm and motivation to do their work, develop good communication skills, and become more confident speaking before others. This approach also fosters student engagement and allows a teacher to assess comprehension since it is easier for them to visit the groups and obtain feedback. In addition, teamwork enables students to solve more complex problems than they would individually. This is because they combine a range of skills and expertise and tackle the challenges from different perspectives. The change was essential to encourage cooperation between students. Therefore, by arranging the desks so that students can work together, the teacher increased learning efficiency.
Education is often taken for granted, especially in the communities that have a plethora of resources and opportunities. However, in disadvantaged settings, the role of education and the ability to develop literacy is often minimized, which leads to the reinforcement of social inequalities and the enhancement of the corresponding status quo. More disturbingly, the lack of education opportunities prevents people from developing critical faculties that could allow them to improve the quality of their lives and embrace their potential. In turn, critical pedagogy and, respectively, critical literacies serve as a proxy for introducing people to the ability to make critical observations about the world and other people, as well as become active participants in the social, economic, and political development of their communities. Although the goals of critical pedagogy and critical literacy are geared toward different stakeholders (teachers and learners respectively), the two need to be represented as different sides of the same concept of promoting education as the gateway to community members’ active political, economic, and social engagement with the further opportunities for employment, professional development, and improved quality of life.
The notions of critical pedagogy and critical literacy are not quite new, yet they are still relevant in the present-day social and educational settings. Specifically, critical pedagogy as a concept suggests that students should be taught to adopt a critical approach not only to academic issues but also to sociocultural, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical phenomena (Vasquez et al., 2019). Thus, learners become capable of identifying the constraints that are imposed onto them due to their belonging to a particular social group or class (Vasquez et al., 2019). Therefore, critical pedagogy introduces people to the concept of engagement in economic and political processes taking place in the community in question. By offering people a chance to place the learned theory concerning social and economic phenomena into a specific context, an educator incites the need for action in an individual, therefore, opening a window of opportunity for personal development (Vasquez et al., 2019).
The described change that critical pedagogy provides is linked closely and organically to the notion of critical literacy. Whereas critical pedagogy is seen as a tool for promoting education within disadvantaged communities, critical literacy is traditionally seen as the outcome of critical pedagogy having been applied. Namely, critical literacy is regarded as the skill that members of marginalized communities can develop to question the existing power structures and prove that they are built on the lack of fairness and the promotion of division within the community (Vasquez et al., 2019). Therefore, critical literacy is the extension of critical pedagogy and its natural outcome due to the change in perspective that it facilitates.
The significance of critical literacy for the promotion of social justice has been discussed quite thoroughly as well. Due to the focus on the assessment of underlying social factors and the related premises that may have encouraged the author of a specific argument to take the chosen stance, critical literacy furthers the social discourse and promotes the discussion of critical issues that vulnerable communities face. As a result, by developing critical literacy, the representatives of the said communities receive the voice that helps them to become more noticeable and allows them to demand that their concerns are addressed.
Therefore, critical pedagogy must be deemed as the premise on which critical literacy can be created. Despite the difference in the functions that the specified concepts have, they contribute to the same goal of encouraging social change and addressing the existing social inequalities. Moreover, critical literacy as the direct outcome of critical pedagogy being applied builds the potential for action performed by the vulnerable groups in question, therefore, giving them agency and ensuring that they are capable of participating in the socioeconomic and sociopolitical discourse within their community. As a result, the cultural and financial impediments that the groups in question face, specifically, the presence of prejudices, the lack of education, and the absence of economic opportunities, can be managed accordingly to create the platform for a meaningful and lasting change.
Despite the difference in the focus of critical pedagogy and critical literacy, the two notions must be seen as inseparable and interrelated since they can be used to promote the development of critical thought in disadvantaged community members, with the resulting rise in the opportunities of their personal, academic, and professional development, as well as the notable improvement in the quality of their lives. Therefore, when combined and utilized as the way of encouraging a shift in people’s perception of knowledge and the role of information, critical pedagogy and critical literacy can become powerful drivers behind a massive sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic change. Namely, with the enhancement of critical thought that critical pedagogy and critical literacy provide, the rise in opportunities for vulnerable groups to improve the quality of their lives and contribute to the development of the community appears. Thus, critical pedagogy and critical literacy as the phenomena that are intrinsically connected must be seen as the factors encouraging positive change.
Reference
Vasquez, V. M., Janks, H., & Comber, B. (2019). Critical literacy as a way of being and doing. Language Arts, 96(5), 300-311.
Paulo Freire delivered a message about the oppressed and the main reasons their oppressors continued to mistreat them in his book, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” The goal of Freire’s pedagogy was to emancipate the oppressed by increasing their self-awareness and giving them the tools they needed to rise and confront their oppressors. Freire criticizes the traditional educational model because of its propensity for complacency and its support of oppression (Freire, 2005, p. 71). In the area of education, Freire put forth a paradigm that aims to incorporate social context into the learning process.
Traditional education is referred to as the banking concept of education by Freire in Chapter 2 of his book. The teacher gives the students information, allowing them to gather it passively (Freire, 2005, p. 72). The educator validates his existence by displaying himself to his learners as their inevitable opposite. Freire (2005), believes that ignorance is absolute in this context. The author seemed to refer to teachers as oppressors and students as oppressed in his teacher-student relationship. To resolve the teacher-student paradox, Freire proposed a problem-posing educational system (Freire, 2005, p. 79). Problem-posing education aims to constantly reveal reality through the pursuit of consciousness and critical intervention (Freire, 2005, p. 81). Generally, this system supposes that students are engaged learners who can challenge the teachers and take charge of the material being taught to them.
I concur with Freire’s ideas regarding an educational model that emphasizes the value of an individual expression and freedom of thought. I had a teacher in school who encouraged us to express ourselves freely. We were each given a blank essay and told to write about whatever came to mind. We might concur or disagree with our teacher in some situations. The lessons were fantastic and successful because there was a strong emphasis on communication between teachers and students.
In brief, Freire shows the world how to eliminate the class divide so everyone can exercise their right to free speech. Any progressive change and development involving both the oppressed and the oppressors must be centered on dialogue. Modern education, in my opinion, should focus less on students taking in, memorizing, and repeating what their teachers have taught them. The responsibility for the learning process should fall equally on both students and teachers.
Reference
Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.
Studies regarding color coding in education have been published since 1975. An exponential growth trend has emerged over the past thirty years, with the number of citations steadily increasing each year. The central focus of the present research project was to determine the effectiveness of using color coding as a tool for better learning grammatical constructions of English as a foreign language. The sample formed was composed entirely of female students from the English Language Institute with the same language proficiency level, namely pre-intermediate. Manipulating color schemes when tutoring students in the experimental and control groups through the use of color or black and white articulation and quantifiers was an intervention to assess the effects of color coding on the accuracy of using articles and quantifiers. This chapter details the findings from the entire study, examining them in terms of effectiveness, applicability, and relevance to the current research findings. In addition, this section compares the data from the discussed study to previous scholarly results. The overall structure of the Discussion section is divided into two subsections. The first interprets the results in terms of prior research and existing theory, that is, placing the findings within the framework of academic justification. The second part critically evaluates the potential implications and perspectives of the findings and, in addition, identifies some possible ways in which they might be used in an educational setting for EFL students.
Discussion of Quantitative findings
The pre/post testing conducted revealed a critical result. Color coding was shown to be effective in increasing students’ average test scores on English accuracy of article use. Discussing these data differently, it can be stated that sufficient evidence was found that color-coding of instructional materials actually helped students achieve better scores and use articles more accurately. Similar results were found in Nurdiansyah et al.’s (2019) study, for which the use of color-coding was shown to increase proficiency in test scores by nineteen units. In the present experiment, the increase in mean score for the experimental group was significant at 6.35. However, it seems that the difference in the quality of the score increase is not such a relevant topic for discussion, as it raises many more factors related to test typology and structure, conditions, and sampling; instead, it is essential to emphasize that color coding is indeed an essential tool for increasing student performance.
In examining the outcomes of the present test, it was crucial to determine precisely what was included in the concept of ” students’ accuracy of article use ” used in the previous paragraph. On the one hand, there is a particular bias in linking these outcomes to increased student achievement in English language learning. Extrapolating this reasoning could lead to the untested and possibly potentially erroneous claim that color-coding improves foreign language learning. On the other hand, since tests have been used as tools to test students’ knowledge, one might hypothesize that color-coding has been helpful for enhancing the learners’ short-term academic performance. In particular, this hypothesis can be indirectly confirmed by the results obtained: one month after the post-test results, respondents in both groups showed a drop in their scores. Finally, the preparation lessons were structured around a presentation using handouts, which means that it can be assumed that the experimental intervention increased receptivity to new information. Thus, the increase in mean scores during the training could have been justified either by a short increase in the students’ performance or by an improvement in their perceptual skills.
Notably, it is the effects on learning information recall that are among the most frequently cited in the academic literature. In a seminal paper on color-coding, Pruisner (1993) stated that a student’s academic productivity is enhanced through improved information recall in the presence of a color cue. Theoretically, the results are entirely consistent with Pruisner’s findings: students in the experimental group did show an increase in academic performance as assessed through a short test. Regarding memorization, it is crucial to discuss the observed long-term effect of color-coding. According to the results, the effectiveness of color-coding also became evident in the delayed post-test: in contrast to the control group, the drop in average test scores was only 4.7 percent compared to an almost two-fold decrease for the group of students without the intervention. Simultaneously with this change, there was a change in the standard deviation. For the experimental group, the standard deviation as a measure of the spread of data around the mean increased by only 0.191, whereas for the control group not using color coding in instruction, the SD increased by 0.730. In other words, this pedagogical tool appeared to be responsible for the fact that even after one month of instruction, most students retained knowledge of correct article and distractor spacing. In contrast, students in the group without color-coding were about six times as likely to give incorrect answers. This led to a legitimate conclusion: color-coding maintained its effect after one month and thus probably could have had longer-lasting positive effects as well. A long-standing study proved the effect of color coding on input enhancement, claiming that input enhancement might be improved through the use of color codes during learning. It becomes possible to assume, if one takes into account the longitudinal graph of changes in average scores, that the main effect of color-coding consists both in a sharp short-term increase in academic performance and the assimilation of new information. Thus, the results obtained are in good agreement with the academic evidence.
To a certain extent, it can be stated that the color-coding system has a connection with the respondents’ behavior if this behavior is expressed in language acquisition skills. This has not been tested or confirmed in the current study, so it can only be formulated a hypothesis based on the results, which is that color coding caused students to be more attentive and engaged in the educational process. The outcome of this behavior might have been a change in the results of the test being analyzed. From this point of view, the article by W. Alhalabi & M. Alhalabi (2017) describes that color-coding allowed school administrators to manage student behavior, which had a positive effect on student learning outcomes. If one applies these findings to the present experiment, one can conclude that the improvement in students’ average scores may indeed have been mediated by changes in their learning behaviors. In particular, this assumption could be an explanation for the effect of increasing mean scores for the two groups observed at once. Beginning with roughly equal conditions, the experimental group increased its mean score by 157 percent, while the control group was also able to produce a score increase of 139 percent. Consequently, for the first group, color coding may have caused a change in academic behavior management, which had an effect on the increase in mean test scores, but this still remains a hypothesis that requires further testing.
A feature of the present test was the fact that, unlike the instructional materials, the test items were not color-coded. In other words, students who were used to color-coding information during instruction were able to show reliable results even in the absence of color coding in the test materials. This directly contradicts the input enhancement framework, which suggests that color-coding should improve the students’ outputs. However, these findings do not agree with the results of a recent study, according to which the academic effect of such a pedagogical tool only makes sense when the test materials are also color-coded (Skulmowski, 2021). The conducted study showed that color highlighting demonstrates high effectiveness also in the case of using the same color schemes for the control and experimental group, which means that test materials do not necessarily have to have color. At the same time, the obtained contradiction confirms the unsustainability of color coding as an academically beneficial input enhancement technique. In other words, there is a particular knowledge gap that does not allow for a guaranteed statement of test conclusions. Color-coded input enhancement strategies, although very popular in the current age, are still to be proven as advantageous for the students during learning.
Discussion of Interview Results or Qualitative Approach
The second outcome of this research project was the results of a thematic semi-structured interview in which six participants in the experimental group were interviewed about their impressions and opinions of the color-coding experience. One of the central findings of this part was to determine a trend in the better perception of color content compared to black and white content. In fact, the results of the qualitative analysis could not lead to unequivocal conclusions, as each of the subjects had their own opinions: this created a pool of the most common and uncommon themes that required additional discussion.
As noted in the Results section, Participant #1 associated color coding with easier processes for remembering information. This subjective view of the respondent is entirely consistent with the data that was validated for the quantitative approach. In other words, a correlation was indeed found between textual information memorization and color-coding. Among other trends that were mentioned by the respondents, the ability to concentrate and focus on the material being studied better stands out. This is entirely consistent with evidence from other work: color elements do allow for the retention of a student’s attention on specific objects (Hannon, M. A., & Raymond, 2018). However, the use of color to highlight specific parts of the learning material and its relationship to focus does not seem necessary for further explanation due to its obviousness.
At the same time, a parallel should be drawn between the features of such highlighting and outcomes. One respondent answered that the use of a single color, be it black, red, or green makes no sense with respect to color-coding because there is no highlighting. To put it another way, it is not so much the color that plays a role in color coding, but rather its contrast in comparison to the text of the rest of the font. From this, one can conclude that the use of excessive highlighting, for example, to write each word in different shades, is of no educational benefit, but on the contrary, creates a feeling of not being serious for the perception of the material. In turn, the idea being developed begs the legitimate question of whether the color of textual emphasis makes sense.
The psychology of color is a significant branch of educational and organizational psychology because the clever use of hues and their combinations seems likely to produce the desired result (Qayumovich, 2021). Several color cues were used in this study: orange, green, and blue, in addition to the default black. The authors tend to interpret the meaning of the colors differently, but some common patterns for most of the work are noticeable. For example, green and blue tend to be used for rest and calming but may additionally be aimed at increasing an individual’s concentration and efficiency, while warm hues (orange, red) can hold a student’s attention during learning (Chang & Xu, 2019). Once again, however, a crucial issue is created that, if not addressed, can be detrimental in the case of color coding: it concerns the presence of students with colorblind disorders in the classroom, which result in qualitatively altered perceptions of color (Zorn & McMurtrie, 2019). If the teacher is not aware of such issues, then using specific colors to achieve desired outcomes has the potential to become a problem for individuals with color vision impairments conversely. Combining the evidence from the academic literature with the interview results of the current experiment allows us to confirm that the use of the correct colors does make a difference in the educational benefit of the classroom.
An additional and not uncommonly mentioned effect of color-coding was the ability to ensure consistency of the material. Indeed, when a presentation is presented only in black ink — in the absence of other visual elements — the commonality of connection between slides can be compromised. On the contrary, when an essential material to capture is highlighted in a particular color on the slides, it makes sense, according to the results, to create narrative logic and consistency. Using this approach can play a meaningful role for lengthy presentations, in which a large number of slides can be a negative factor for attention retention. Consistency is also essential in terms of assigning specific colors to the same elements of instructional material. For example, if at the beginning of a large presentation, orange was used to highlight the correct answers and green was for guiding comments, then using the same colors throughout the presentation for the same designations seems like a logical and appropriate strategy instead of mixing them up, which can confuse the student.
An interesting parallel has been drawn between color-coding text and highlighting individual words using the editor’s built-in tools, whether bold or italic. It is common knowledge that either form of text highlighting has the sole purpose of creating more appealing content that enhances the perception of textual information. However, the effect of text highlighting itself seems to have no scientific validity in the academic environment. For example, there is ample evidence that textual highlighting proves ineffective for literal questions whose answer must be within the text being studied (Ben-Yehudah & Eshet-Alkalai, 2018). Similar results were reported in a controversial meta-analysis by Cui (2018), who found that “highlighting text is not an effective or reliable way to study for a test” (para. 5). Although the results of the present experiment suggest otherwise, it is fair to point out then that studying the pedagogical effects of highlighting text is still a task for the educational sciences.
For the color cues that were used in the present study and for which performance was found to be superior to the control group, one can parallel the theory of Input Enhancement (IE). IE was proposed by Mike Smith at the end of the last century as an effective tool for teaching a second language to draw students’ attention to specific lexical constructions of speech (Bakhshandeh & Jafari, 2018). In this sense, color coding, which has been used to highlight articles and distractors, is a private practice of EI theory. Hence, color coding can allow specific constructions of speech to be understood even without respondents’ understanding of English. The use of orange to highlight articles allowed for a sequence in which all correct articles could be highlighted in orange – so even without understanding the more complex uses of such articles, students could know precisely what they meant and why “an” was replaced by “a.” This is entirely consistent with the theory of Input Enhancement, which means that it can be said to have proven academic effectiveness.
The final focus of the semi-structured interview was to determine students’ personal experiences with test-taking. Enjoyment of the activity is a central predictor of engagement because, in an educational setting, students without interest in the lesson do not perform well (Putwain et al., 2018). Of particular relevance to the discussion of these findings is Paul Ekman’s theory of the six emotions, who identified the primary states common to all humanity: they are joy, anger, disgust, surprise, fear, and sadness. In fact, each of these emotions has the effect of engaging in activities, including education (Hernik & Jaworska, 2018). In terms of the results found, the pleasure of taking the test (“fun,” “creativity”) can be attributed to the emotion of joy. Then, most students’ experience of taking the test may be associated with increased engagement in the research process. These findings are in good agreement with the theories of positive psychology for learning ELLs (Liu et al., 2021). Consequently, this enthusiasm from teachers has a beneficial effect on ELL/ESL students.
In addition, students noticed that color-coded instruction was a new experience for them. The academic environment is dynamic and ever-changing, and for this reason, learning new pedagogical practices is an essential component of keeping the educational process relevant. If an educator does not have the time and desire to explore new approaches to instructing young people, it can cause a decrease in engagement on the part of students who do not see the teacher’s interest. As it was noted, the lecture held included theoretical and practical types of learning, as well as fully used digital tools to convey educational information. The use of technology in teaching is one of the approaches of innovative education that students tend to like (Li et al., 2018). It is not known, however, precisely what respondents found “new” about their proposed participation in the experiment. The use of color-coding to highlight fragments is not an entirely innovative practice. The academic community has been studying the use of color-coding in educational settings for thirty years, and it is not only related to learning English as a foreign language.
From the data revealed, it can be concluded that color-coding is not an entirely new practice for the educational sciences, but nevertheless, the majority of respondents identified it as new to them. Possible reasons for this phenomenon are either the lack of use of color-coding by ELI teachers in which participants learn or the lack of attention to students’ use of the tool. Either way, the respondents are now familiar with this practice, which means they will be able to notice it if it is used in the educational process or even use it themselves in the case of group or individual presentations. On the other hand, it is possible that the particular pedagogical approach used by the teacher in designing the lesson was described as “new” in relation to the lecture. Thus, it cannot be determined conclusively what was new/innovative for the respondents, but the beneficial effect of this novelty cannot be ruled out. Even for the two participants who expressed confusion about the use of new pedagogical tactics, it was shown that their opinions changed over time.
Another component that measures the consistency of the findings with the theoretical data is the use of color-coding to enhance student cognitive abilities. In Lacy’s (2020) independent thesis and Eckert & Nilsson’s (2019) article, color coding was found to make sense in learning mathematics because it allowed for the expansion of literal learning through the creation of deeper understanding. For example, Eckert & Nilsson (2019) showed how color-coding arithmetic procedures helped elementary school students perform calculations even without a complete understanding of numbers and counting procedures. These data show that color coding can create a memory organization in which the student predicts further solution pathways if they have some background previously. From this perspective, more studies should devote attention to memorization and how color-coding impacts memory processes during learning. Moreover, with respect to the post-test, it is very likely that the color-coding exciting memories of color-coded articles in the minds of students in the experimental group and thus reminded them of the rules of their use, which probably had an effect on the better performance of such students.
Implications for Pedagogical Practice
The results of the present study have potentially long-lasting implications for educational practice. By now, it is crucial to recognize that the educational system is a dynamic and multifactorial environment that tends not to be sustainable. Education is constantly changing, and even the practices of twenty years ago may not be relevant to today’s college and university agendas. One of the most apparent advances has been the widespread use of technological solutions that qualitatively simplify administrative work in the classroom (Li et al., 2018). Technology is helping to automate many learning processes, reduce resource costs, and create engaging learning. In addition, an unobvious consequence of using digital technology in the classroom is the stimulation of environmental stewardship as a result of reducing the use of paper-based media. When using technology, the color-coded text tool has become particularly relevant because highlighting specific words, fragments, or answers on slides is a straightforward and quick task. It has already been shown in previous sections that color coding is generally consistent with most of the academic literature and has a proven effect on student learning, particularly ELLs/ESLs. Color coding was used intelligently and in sufficient quantity in the present experiment, and thus it can be said that a balance between color coding and retention of the reader’s attention was achieved. The present section discusses the pedagogical implications that result from the use of this tool in the classroom.
One of the first and most obvious consequences is the simplification of information perception among students. Proper color-coding of materials, taking into account the psychological meaning of colors and avoiding overemphasis, has already been shown to help increase student engagement and performance. It might also be activating their long-term memory, contributing to the improvement of academic productivity. As a consequence, the use of color-coding in the classroom gives the teacher powerful potential to qualitatively improve student outcomes in both the short and long term. It creates apparent organizational simplicity, clarity of narrative, and a focus on critical parts of instruction. However, it should be clarified that the present study did not test the systematic use of color-coding. Specifically, the experimental intervention involved providing four hours of English grammar instruction to ELL students: it was the intervention that had the expected effect of increasing achievement immediately and after one month. However, it was not tested what results the regular use of color coding in each lesson would lead to. The likely outcomes of such systematicity could be either a synergistic effect of maximizing academic achievement or, conversely, a decline to its former level. In the second case, one considers a situation in which the constant use of color in instructional materials ceases to be perceived as something surprising and demanding. In other words, students adapt to color coding, which means that it reduces effectiveness. Notably, the academic literature has not yet investigated the problem of student habituation to such an information-focusing tool.
Color coding offers the teacher many options for its use in the classroom environment. One of them is feedback, in which students who have previously learned articles and distractors use the same colors to emphasize them in the suggested text fragment. This tactic seems to be effective in terms of independent use of accumulated knowledge and, in addition, allows for a deeper reinforcement of the connection of color with specific designations in English grammar. In addition, color-coding has been shown to help ensure consistency and logic in the narrative. Thus, using this tool can help ELL students organize knowledge. An example of this technique would be assigning specific books, stories, or handouts a specific color depending on the complex grammar used. Color coding, in this case, can give students the motivation to develop their skills to produce more complex work associated with color.
Additional use of color coding in the classroom is to avoid focusing only on articles and distractors but to expand the range of uses of color to learn English grammar and vocabulary. It is true that students need to learn new words, new vocabulary constructions, and sentence parts — be it predicate, subject, verb, or noun — in the study of English. Classifying these words makes sense for deeper learning of English as a second language, and using color highlighting for this purposefully meets the academic goals of the class. The need for a creative component to the lesson can also be addressed through color-coding by asking students to choose their own colors to be used for the lesson. This approach would support the humanistic paradigm of education and thus seeks to address the broad interests and needs of the audience (Chen & Schmidtke, 2017). Consequently, it is appropriate to conclude that the classroom will ultimately benefit from the use of color-coding.
In addition, as the previous section suggests, the use of colors is associated with specific emotions and psychomental states of the individual. With this in mind, teachers can use specific colors to indoctrinate the class with specific emotions and manage moods in the classroom. For example, if the topic of study is historical material about wars and conflicts between countries, using “joyful” and “friendly” colors may not seem appropriate; however, using “aggressive” and “suggestive” shades of the color palette can positively reinforce the learning outcome through the use of more cognitive channels. In particular, the student will use not only memorization of color as a link to terms but also to connect a specific topic of study (“history”) with specific emotions. In this way, the teacher acquires an additional function as a color art therapy supervisor for the students, which is very likely to be highly effective for the class.
An important implication of the current study is the ability to use color coding for students with learning disabilities. Since the use of color accents in a presentation has been shown to increase student achievement, and since many of the respondents responded that the lesson was more engaging and intuitive for them, color coding can be approximated for teaching children with cognitive and mental disabilities. The assumption is consistent with an article by Robertson et al. (2021), in which color coding was a tool shown to be effective in teaching students with autism. Similar results were found in Ewoldt & Morgan (2017), who showed that color-coding helps students with learning difficulties structure text and use grammar more intelligently. As a consequence, the findings of the current study, which are consistent with the literature, show the broad potential of color coding as a tool to optimize pedagogical practice.
In addition, the findings have long-lasting implications for curriculum development. Key findings from the experiment provided a clear indication that students’ range of academic skills (whether it be academic achievement, perception of information, or engagement in learning) increased because of the use of color-coding. Consequently, the use of this tactic is necessary to develop more optimized work programs and to improve overall learning effectiveness. Khan & Liu (2020) also showed that color cues led to improved memorization of English collocations for Chinese students, which means language performance increases. Among other things, Khan & Liu also concluded that the design of work programs should be changed to reflect the use of this color tool. Thus, the overall perspective is transparent: pedagogical sciences should use coding instructional materials as a science-based technique to improve student performance in both the short and long term.
Conclusion
The problem of finding the best academic practices to enhance the learning of English as a foreign language has important implications for the pedagogical sciences. Historically, many authors have contributed to the creation of new teaching techniques, and many have persisted in current versions of national educational systems. However, it is impossible not to see the apparent progress of education: many branches and areas of the educational process have undergone, and continue to undergo, permanent transformations aimed at improving the student experience and optimizing teaching resources. One of these innovations is the incorporation of technological solutions into the classroom environment, which has a number of advantages. In this sense, an attractive tool for the digitalization of the classroom is color highlighting, which allows specific words, fragments, or sentences in a presentation to be highlighted in a specific color. An experiment has proven that the presence of such color highlighting is a positive predictor of increased student achievement among ELL students. Specifically, there was a dramatic increase in the mean score of the experimental group compared at the starting point of the test and with the control group.
In addition, additional findings of this paper were the determination of the long-term effects of color coding on student achievement. It was shown that even one month after the research intervention, students in the experimental group-maintained progress, although their average exam score expectedly declined. Attractively, the standard deviation as a measure of data dispersion relative to the sample mean one month after the study intervention did not decrease as much compared to the control group: the drop rate was almost 1 to 6. In other words, a month after the training, students were more likely to answer the test correctly: this seems to be a consequence of the use of color-coding. It is fair to admit, however, that it was not known precisely which aspect of academic performance was responsible for the higher result. It can only be speculated whether color coding had an effect on memory, engagement, or textual comprehension.
Additionally, it should also be emphasized that the results obtained are in good agreement with the academic literature. Numerous works have been shown to evaluate color coding in specific areas of pedagogy: the results of the experiment generally agree with the evidence of other authors. However, some works have been shown to contradict the results found. The reasons for this discrepancy could have been either a difference in the initial settings of the experiment (region, audience, age, proficiency level) or a difference in the metrics tested.
Limitations
The current research project has several limitations that hinder the generalization of the data to the population; most of them concern the methodological part. First, the sample generated was represented only by ELL female students from the KSA’s ELI. Thus, the findings are only valid for them, but it can be assumed that similar experiments will show similar results at other institutions and regions. Second, the initial level of all respondents was the same (pre-intermediate): therefore, one cannot reliably say whether the results would also be valid for students with other levels of language proficiency. Third, the sample was represented by a limited number of participants, and therefore scaling conclusions can also be problematic. This includes the qualitative portion of the study, where a semi-structured interview was conducted for only six participants from the experimental group. Fourth, the sample was formed according to a non-probability, convenience principle: this prevents it from being representative of the general population. Taking all of the described limitations of the study into account, it is essential to assume that conducting similar tests in other initial settings may lead to similar or identical results, which is entirely consistent with the analysis of the literature.
Future Research Prospects
The current project provided a foundation for expanding the possibilities for the use of color-coding in learning and, in addition, further confirmed the evidence of previously published work by other authors. However, obtaining the findings of the present study is not enough to complete the entire project; instead, the proven effectiveness of color-coding generates many promising directions for the development of research paradigms. Thus, it is of high academic interest to better define those aspects of an individual’s conscious activity that are susceptible to the effects of coding. In the present study, color has been shown to be important in increasing test performance, but it is now interesting to learn exactly what that performance is constructed of. Understanding these constructs will allow work programs to be more detailed and personalized.
Another promising direction for this study, which stems from its limitations, is to expand the sample, region, and level of English proficiency. It is necessary to expand the scope of the ELI to include universities and colleges in KSA and perhaps regions throughout the Gulf. A broader study would accurately reinforce the results of this project and perhaps uncover some new patterns related to sample demographics through cohort analysis. In addition, it is appealing to consider the effects of using color-coding on non-English language learning industries. Academic sources have shown that coding makes sense in mathematics, so expanding the academic disciplines analyzed will yield extensive results. This includes comparisons between the results of native English speakers and ELLs.
Finally, another prospect for the development of this project is to increase the time to test the long-term perspectives of the study. The current experiment tested students’ knowledge after one month of instruction, which means it is worth testing the same effect for several groups after a more extended period of time, but within a semester. For example, after three and six months, the differences between the experimental and control groups can be traced. This will give an idea of how long-term the effects of color coding can be on ELLs.
Professional ethics is presented by codes of conduct that ensure the moral nature of the relationships between people that arise from their professional activities. A feature of professional ethics is its close connection with the activities of members of a particular group and its inseparable unity with the general theory of morality. Teachers should be the representation of professionalism and objectivity that will enable them to evaluate students reasonably.
Pedagogical ethics is an independent section of ethical science and studies the features of pedagogical morality, determines the specifics of the implementation of the general principles of morality in the field of pedagogical work, and reveals its functions, the specifics of the content of principles and ethical categories. Ethics of teaching studies the nature of the moral activity of the teacher and moral relations in the professional environment. Moreover, it develops the foundations of pedagogical etiquette and attitude (Decker, 2022). Etiquette is a set of specific rules of communication developed in the teaching environment, manners of behavior, and people professionally engaged in training and education.
Ms. Asma showed no pedagogical ethics in her conduct. She did not analyze the child’s real problems but based on her own inconvenience and time costs. The teacher reconsidered the decision to involve the student in testing only because of the requirement for her own respective efforts. This type of behavior is unacceptable for a teacher, as it mixes professional and personal emotions. Moreover, the incorrect approach is presented by another teacher, who supported the involvement of the child Sarah in the student Study Team only because of the additional, but not objective, time spent on learning.
The recommendation for the case is the development of pedagogical tact. It should act as a form of implementation of pedagogical morality in the activities of a teacher, in which thought and action coincide with professionalism. Tact should always be represented by moral and well-thought behavior. Among the main components of the teacher’s pedagogical sense, there are a respectful attitude towards the individual, high demands, the ability to listen with interest to the interlocutor and empathize with balance and self-control, and a businesslike tone in relationships (Sipman et al., 2019). Moreover, tact in the conditions of teaching elementary grades requires attentiveness and sensitivity toward people.
Pedagogical balance is a sense of proportion in the behavior and actions of the teacher, which includes high humanity, respect for the dignity of the student, justice, endurance and self-control in relations with children, parents, and work colleagues is required. A balance of empathy and professionalism should act as a form of implementation of pedagogical ethics (Chapman, 2018). One of the main representations should be the belonging of the moral culture of the teacher’s personality to the attitude in communication with students. Balance refers to the moral regulators of the pedagogical process and is based on the moral and psychological qualities of the teacher.
In conclusion, the behavior of Ms. Asma is not acceptable in relation to children and professional ethics. The teacher needs to find an opportunity to have psychological tact and a sense of balance. A balanced approach must distinguish between personal feelings and emotions and the professional approach. Biased judgments should not affect children, as they can significantly change their psychological state. The assessment of the teacher must be reasonable and objective. Ms. Asma can positively influence a child’s development and help cope with possible difficulties through a professional approach.
Decker, D. M., Wolfe, J. L., & Belcher, C. K. (2022). A 30-year systematic review of professional ethics and teacher preparation. The Journal of Special Education, 55(4), 201-212.
