UABC VII Encuentro Centros de Autoacceso in Mexicali

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

Greetings from Mexicali. Not liveblogging but Ill do the best I can. Im here in Mexicali, (remembering all I forgot about desert life - used to live in southern Arizona once upon a time) at the self access center conference here. Fair amount of technology focused workshops... sometimes they forget the self access center part! ja ja ja got nice idea about using wordpress for online, electronic portfolios. Need to include that in one of my upcoming workshops at my school. Im on break but Ill be back later on today with more.

[Frank]

Have fun .. and thanks for sharing ... waiting with anticipation!!!!

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

Ok.. got some time... Do you know it gets pitch dark here at 530pm? Very weird and unnerving.

The first plenary speaker was ???? (get you the name later). Got a doctorate in something, and is from Holland. Taught at the U of Auckland, NZ and was a visiting profesor at the U of Tokyo. Talked at lot about how, at least for adults, 80% of what they learn, they learn on their own, spending about 15 hours a week on average doing it. Argued that education shouldnt be about "teaching" in the classroom but rather supporting learners as they learn on their own, showing/giving students tools and opportunities and showing them how to take best advantage of them. To illustrate his point, he used a program in Cambodia where 3,000 or so villages have no schools at all. They set up computer kiosks in a central location in these towns and a bus with wireless access downloads requests for information into the kiosks for the villagers to access, then the people decide how to use the information. He also talked about the One Laptop Per Child program. Both he cited as examples of how technology can support autonomous, individualized learning. By the way, supposedly Mexico is the only country he knows of that has a regular conference on self access.

The next workshop I attended was about using portfolios in self access. Long on portfolios and very short on how their use would support self access. However, he did mention using sites like Wordpress and "Writely" for electronic portfolios, which I thought was an interesting idea.

The next talk I went to again was long on technology and short on self'access centers per se. But then it was titled New Ways of Teaching with Technology in Language Learning. It was given by Frank Lozano, who gave the first plenary at MexTESOL this year. He did have some interesting points...Basically, that technology pushes changes in teaching and changes in teaching are possible using technology... in particular, contextualizing learning in differing situations, short'cycle and frequent feedback and incorporating students' own and varied experience, interests and prior knowledge into the learning process.

Some benefits of CALL that Frank mentioned were 1)saves teacher time as much of the drill practice can be moved to computer and/or self access materials 2) helps teacher monitor the learning process (if the program has this feature) 3) allows for blended and distance learning 4) and is highly motivational. Of all of these, the only one a unhesitantly agree with is number 4. I can think of a few "but"s for the others.

Only the last workshop dealt extensively with self access centers. It was given by three teachers from Universidad del Caribe in Cancun. This is a new, public university "in the mangroves" near the resorts. All students must study English. Not only do they have a well developed SAC (self access center), with just about all the toys someone like me would want, their SAC is central to the English dept. It takes the entire second floor of the library building. But the really important thing is that after students are accepted by the university, placement in English consists of both a test, AND an interview at the SAC to verify the placement and even negotiate it with the student, if s/he feels it is not correct. The English department is located in the SAC, and the full-time teachers have their work stations there. All teachers, full or part-time spend one hour a week for each class they teach conducting conversation sessions with students at the SAC. All students are required to spend a minimum of 20 hours in the facility each semester. Interestingly enough, assesment of what students do is not done. I asked specifically, and other than attendance, nothing else is really evaluated. However, they claim that getting students to practice English there is not a problem as they focus on making the SAC a place students WANT to come to and WANT to use their English. Or in education-speak, they "create a socio-cultural background"... since EFL students cannot go to an English-speaking environment, they create this space that is English-speaking. Everything done, whether it is academic or just for fun is done in English. The also call it "humanistic"... treating students affect and emotive intelligence first before the cognative. Im not sure what I think about this last part. I dont think it would be practical for my school. Though I would absolutely love having teachers take shifts at a SAC. UDLAP does this as do some other schools.

Met a couple of interesting people already. One works for CELE's self access and the other is from Monterrey and interested in picking my brain about the self access center I created in Toluca.

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

Heres some fotos of UABC's self access facilities. Nothing fancy, but quite functional.

[Frank]

This is all very interesting. I am also interested in understanding more about publishers in the front lines addressing technology... as many inquiry- and project- based school programs that cater to developing 21st century skills have pretty much canned using structured course books ... which is a huge revenue stream for publishers. Francisco Lozano works for Heinle/Tompson and am not sure how to read their stand on all this. If they want to really be behind technology, they need to modernized their programs as well. With so much authentic material available to 21st century learning already on the Web, I don't clearly see a traditional publisher's role in emerging school programs. I really didn't think that Lozano's keynote at MEXTESOL addressed technology and immersive learning environments ... even though the plenary was about technology. These publishers do have a wealth of resources, including research, authors, editorial staffs that could reinvent themselves to help lead in the area .. more than just interactive whiteboards. I find a lot of the stuff that publishers have on the Web as too schooly and still tied to traditional teaching and learning. We shouldn't use new tools in old ways. But rather we should use them in 21st century ways.

Since you are talking about Wordpress, perhaps your mind has shifted about the death of the blog? People use blogs as a personal reflection tool, which is perfect for portfolios as well. Blogs aren't meant to be collaborative tools, but more a network of connected journals that create a networked "node" identity, sort of cross fertilization rather than collaboration. For that we have wikis and social networks and such.

Self-access needs to be address more here in Mexico .. and I am happy to see that Mexico in stepping up to the plate by hosting peer gatherings to further the cause.

Remember from my MEXTESOL preso, that the NCTE guidelines for 21st century skills look like this:

Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

There isn't much above that ties to sitting at desks in straight rows cracking a coursebook with a teacher-fronted class. And the NCTE are English teachers, not content-based subjects such as History or Math (although the NCTE guidelines would fit there too).

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

Frank didnt address in his plenary how publishers need to adapt to the 21st century in his plenary... probably appropriate as MexTESOL is a teachers' conference and not a publishers' conference. But I agree, publishers risk being left behind. A lot of it is that they simply want to keep control over what they produce.... something that is getting harder and harder in the digital world. I happen to think the notion of copyright as we have it now is going to become unenforcible... and traditionally in the courts, laws that are unenforcable are ... well ... not enforced. (my paralegal background is showing here)

I dont think blogs per se are useless, but there are much better tools if the goal is authentic communication with an audience outside of the classmates and/or teacher. There are so many blogs that the chances of a random person commenting on a blog a student produces is too small. I thought the portfolio online was an interesting idea because everyone can see everyone elses' work and comment on it.... a use for peer review. Wordpress seems better because you can create entries and sub-pages.


Frank said:

This is all very interesting. I am also interested in understanding more about publishers in the front lines addressing technology... as many inquiry- and project- based school programs that cater to developing 21st century skills have pretty much canned using structured course books ... which is a huge revenue stream for publishers. Francisco Lozano works for Heinle/Tompson and am not sure how to read their stand on all this. If they want to really be behind technology, they need to modernized their programs as well. With so much authentic material available to 21st century learning already on the Web, I don't clearly see a traditional publisher's role in emerging school programs. I really didn't think that Lozano's keynote at MEXTESOL addressed technology and immersive learning environments ... even though the plenary was about technology. These publishers do have a wealth of resources, including research, authors, editorial staffs that could reinvent themselves to help lead in the area .. more than just interactive whiteboards. I find a lot of the stuff that publishers have on the Web as too schooly and still tied to traditional teaching and learning. We shouldn't use new tools in old ways. But rather we should use them in 21st century ways.

Since you are talking about Wordpress, perhaps your mind has shifted about the death of the blog? People use blogs as a personal reflection tool, which is perfect for portfolios as well. Blogs aren't meant to be collaborative tools, but more a network of connected journals that create a networked "node" identity, sort of cross fertilization rather than collaboration. For that we have wikis and social networks and such.

Self-access needs to be address more here in Mexico .. and I am happy to see that Mexico in stepping up to the plate by hosting peer gatherings to further the cause.

Remember from my MEXTESOL preso, that the NCTE guidelines for 21st century skills look like this:

Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

There isn't much above that ties to sitting at desks in straight rows cracking a coursebook with a teacher-fronted class. And the NCTE are English teachers, not content-based subjects such as History or Math (although the NCTE guidelines would fit there too).

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

Todays sessions were more self access center (SAC) centered than yesterday's. I attended 2 plenary sessions and 3 workshops, much of which overlapped each other, so because of this and because I lost the first version of this post (argh!) I will combine what I learned.

CELE UNAM’s Mediateca is propoings a kind of training and certification program for Mexican SAC’s based on Mexico’s experience with them. For those of you who think this is completely new (as I did), the truth is that it is not. Way back in 1992, SEP signed onto the idea of SAC’s for the public universities working to develop them with the British Council. I knew that the BC has been advocating SAC’s for many years but I only knew that they have had success in English itself and Asia… not in Mexico. However, 33 such centers were opened in various institutions between 1993 and 1997 and 60 centers were opened with UNAM’s projects in its affiliated prepas in 1999.

One point that came up when I chatted with Drs Martha Fabela and Rocio Dominguez Gaona was that there is no documentation of this history and it needs to be done. It would be very valuable for those like me who seek to establish new centers and those looking to set standards.

The BC’s model of a self access center is basically this. It can have anything from just worksheets to the latest technology. What is important is how it is run. The BC advocates a system where the students work out what they need to improve, what materials they need to use to improve it/them and how they will work with these materials. They do this with the SAC staff/their teacher and/or on their own. If that seems to be like a lot to ask of students, you are right. The hardest thing to do is to train students to take advantage of this kind of SAC. I have to admit, however, that the UABC Mexicali center has some good worksheets to this effect. (Ill scan them when I get a chance).

Under this definition, the Language Learning Resource Center (LLRC) I developed for ITESM Toluca is NOT a self access center. It has most of the resources a SAC has, but students use it principally to complete assignments given to them by teachers.

However, given that according to a study in progress by UANL’s Dr Martha Fabela, many Mexican students, even those studying to become English teachers, do not feel ready to take on the responsibility for auto dirigido learning, maybe my center is not such a bad idea. In the discussion that followed her presentation of her study, she said that in many situations in this country is may be more culturally appropriate to begin with a “interdependent” or “semi autonomous” model rather than the auto dirigido model found in most of the research. This seems to jive with my experience. I got more cooperation from teachers for my center when I stressed the monitored nature of student work in the center, rather than stressing that they work on their own.

In other words, in places that have never heard of self access or self directed learning, baby steps may be necessary, for both students but ESPECIALLY for teachers and administrators. However, the fact that such exist in so many public uni’s means that it has merit, at least at the adult learner level.

[Benjamin Stewart]

All teachers, full or part-time spend one hour a week for each class they teach conducting conversation sessions with students at the SAC.

Very interesting! Any idea as to the number of students who are attending the SAC (at UCC) and how may full and part-time teachers we´re talking about? Also, did they mention how many hours per week the SAC is open? Or the percentage of students using the SAC?

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

They stated that SAC use is manadatory by students. This is the norm. Unfortunately, there has to be some kind push to get students into the facility, at least initiallly, because it is so different from what they are used to. The SAC at UDLA Puebla, makes attendance count as a credit hour. So at least theoretically, all language students use the center. Their hours are from 7 am to 10pm... this also seems typical. UABC did not mention their numbers as to full and part time teachers but another school in Cancun mentioned about 10 full time to 25 part time... again typical. Ive heard of mostly full time teachers only at the the state universities in Oaxaca.

The one hour or so a week is a MINIMUM, not a maximum. The goal is to get students working in there, but students are welcome to spend as much time as they like and many SAC's work to make the centers as inviting as possible.

What is really important is how well the use of the SAC is planned and integrated into the overall curriculum. If a space is set up simply because its showy or fashionable, it will fail. As I stated in an earlier post, the "traditional model" (SACs have been around 15 or more years even in Mexico so I guess they have a tradition) is that students actively plan how they will use their time there. The center I created in Toluca was not that radical. Students had a minimum number of hours there (set by teachers not by institution... never got that far with it), but students were quite welcome to use it more. I had students comment to me that the Toluca center was one of the best places to get homework done, and I did have to put in a policy of no other work other than language work there. Students worked at their own pace and there was some choice of materials.. but again that depended on what the teachers assigned. Some assignments were watch DVD "X" and do the accompanying assignement. Something Im sure the British Council would cringe at. I had students watch movies, choosing the movie and summarizing it. Again, it wouldnt get the BC stamp of approval, but its a step in the right direction. We were using the Top Notch/Summit and Attitude series when I left, which have DVDs for class. We decided to put those in the lab and I think students preferred to work with them this way. Again, they could wiz through it fast if it was easy for them or repeat it, if necessary.

More student planning than this requires an institutional acceptance of the SAC concept. Definitely a hard sell in such a top-down authoritarian system that seems to be very common in Mexico. It worked in the public unis because SEP (the governmental top dog) told the unis to do it.


Benjamin Stewart said:

All teachers, full or part-time spend one hour a week for each class they teach conducting conversation sessions with students at the SAC.

Very interesting! Any idea as to the number of students who are attending the SAC (at UCC) and how may full and part-time teachers we´re talking about? Also, did they mention how many hours per week the SAC is open? Or the percentage of students using the SAC?

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

In the public unis they are. When I ran the center at ITESM Toluca I was a full timer already so I was comped one class for the work I put into the center.

You are right that not everyone is ready for this, its a huge change from the teacher-dominated paradigm we are all-so-used to. Thats why the Toluca center did not do this. The public unis could do it because the British Council only had to convice SEP and SEP was just in a position to say "Do it"... another plus in the public unis... at least in the last 10 years is that they have been seriously pushing for the professionalization of their staff... that means absolutely having advanced degrees in your field, doing research and networking. Its not the level of the US but the direction is unmistakable. With such, the openness to new ideas is there. I think you will see most of the private schools quite behind the curve on this, because most are too obsessed with this/next semester's profit margins and not the profit margins 2-5 years down the road.
Michaela Johnson-Tena said:

I like the sound of this SAC, although I am not sure if everyone is ready for something like this. But I am wondering, are the teachers paid for the time they put in at the SAC, in addition to their class time?

Leigh Thelmadatter said:

Ok.. got some time... Do you know it gets pitch dark here at 530pm? Very weird and unnerving.

The first plenary speaker was ???? (get you the name later). Got a doctorate in something, and is from Holland. Taught at the U of Auckland, NZ and was a visiting profesor at the U of Tokyo. Talked at lot about how, at least for adults, 80% of what they learn, they learn on their own, spending about 15 hours a week on average doing it. Argued that education shouldnt be about "teaching" in the classroom but rather supporting learners as they learn on their own, showing/giving students tools and opportunities and showing them how to take best advantage of them. To illustrate his point, he used a program in Cambodia where 3,000 or so villages have no schools at all. They set up computer kiosks in a central location in these towns and a bus with wireless access downloads requests for information into the kiosks for the villagers to access, then the people decide how to use the information. He also talked about the One Laptop Per Child program. Both he cited as examples of how technology can support autonomous, individualized learning. By the way, supposedly Mexico is the only country he knows of that has a regular conference on self access.

The next workshop I attended was about using portfolios in self access. Long on portfolios and very short on how their use would support self access. However, he did mention using sites like Wordpress and "Writely" for electronic portfolios, which I thought was an interesting idea.

The next talk I went to again was long on technology and short on self'access centers per se. But then it was titled New Ways of Teaching with Technology in Language Learning. It was given by Frank Lozano, who gave the first plenary at MexTESOL this year. He did have some interesting points...Basically, that technology pushes changes in teaching and changes in teaching are possible using technology... in particular, contextualizing learning in differing situations, short'cycle and frequent feedback and incorporating students' own and varied experience, interests and prior knowledge into the learning process.

Some benefits of CALL that Frank mentioned were 1)saves teacher time as much of the drill practice can be moved to computer and/or self access materials 2) helps teacher monitor the learning process (if the program has this feature) 3) allows for blended and distance learning 4) and is highly motivational. Of all of these, the only one a unhesitantly agree with is number 4. I can think of a few "but"s for the others.

Only the last workshop dealt extensively with self access centers. It was given by three teachers from Universidad del Caribe in Cancun. This is a new, public university "in the mangroves" near the resorts. All students must study English. Not only do they have a well developed SAC (self access center), with just about all the toys someone like me would want, their SAC is central to the English dept. It takes the entire second floor of the library building. But the really important thing is that after students are accepted by the university, placement in English consists of both a test, AND an interview at the SAC to verify the placement and even negotiate it with the student, if s/he feels it is not correct. The English department is located in the SAC, and the full-time teachers have their work stations there. All teachers, full or part-time spend one hour a week for each class they teach conducting conversation sessions with students at the SAC. All students are required to spend a minimum of 20 hours in the facility each semester. Interestingly enough, assesment of what students do is not done. I asked specifically, and other than attendance, nothing else is really evaluated. However, they claim that getting students to practice English there is not a problem as they focus on making the SAC a place students WANT to come to and WANT to use their English. Or in education-speak, they "create a socio-cultural background"... since EFL students cannot go to an English-speaking environment, they create this space that is English-speaking. Everything done, whether it is academic or just for fun is done in English. The also call it "humanistic"... treating students affect and emotive intelligence first before the cognative. Im not sure what I think about this last part. I dont think it would be practical for my school. Though I would absolutely love having teachers take shifts at a SAC. UDLAP does this as do some other schools.

Met a couple of interesting people already. One works for CELE's self access and the other is from Monterrey and interested in picking my brain about the self access center I created in Toluca.

[Frank]

I think this blog article about libraries is relevant to this discussion, Humanity meets in the library

[ALEJANDRA SAAVEDRA CLEMENTE]

What I read about SAC is very interesting because there are lots of people that go to regular english classes, but where I think they really learn more is where they HAVE TO use the language as if they had no other choice. Everything done, whether it is academic or just for fun is done in English. That helps them manage the way to speak or even to write depending on the activities they receive.
I also like that the teachers rotate their schedules, so they get to help other students. I also like that students get tested before entering so the teacher can know how much english they know or where to start the reviews/activities..
Does Angloamericano have one?

[ROSA EMILIA PINEDA VELASCO]

Wow!!! This is such an interesting topic !!! I wonder if SEP in Mexico will allow to install at least one of these SAC´s. I guess it would be a great progress if they would. I understand that Enciclomedia is a kind of program that SEP has installed in some schools, however neither teachers nor materials involved are being used in the way they should. The reason is simple: not all of the teachers are prepared to use Enciclomedia. It´s a pity to have an "interactive" whiteboard installed in a school and neither teachers nor students (who are able to use it) could even turn it on. This happens in Morelia in one of the most prestigious universities. Other elementary schools have 1 or 2 interactive whiteboards but students have become so disenchanted because they have never seen how it works. Sometimes, these young students are not allowed to play football because "they are noisy".
I ´ve heard that a private University in Puebla has a SAC but I have not been able to know it. I wonder if the Politècnico or UNAM have one, I ´m sure they do, but I guess it must be like a "language laboratotry" a kind of place where you can listen to a kind of authentic material and repeat the best you can to acquire the language you´re learning.
I know that some other schools have a SAC (if the term can be used as it is) where students answer or do different activities related to listening, grammar, use of english, and some writing. Once they´ve finished their tasks, they cut and paste their results and send it by email to their teachers. These students have a personal number or code to access their group at their school web site.
Having a SAC would be a wonderful idea. I´ve read something about N. Negroponte and his OLPC program (one laptop per child program) and I wonder where those 50,000 laptops assigned to Mexico are !!! I invited two elementary students to find out if there was a program like that (one is 9 years old and the other is 7, respectively) The youngest shouted: Oh! We´re going to investigate in the computer !!! I love that homework!!! Technology arrived yesterday... When are we going to start as teachers??? It´s a pity that not only some interests but ignorance could be stronger than our compromise to get updated and be prepared to work with technology and avid students who want to learn.
I wonder what would be necessary to install a SAC?? even a small one ??