Establishing a Collaborative Relationship Between Instructors of Mainstream Courses in English and Language advisors

Ezana Habte-Gabr, Ethiopia

Ezana Habte-Gabr is a teacher from Ethiopia. He is based at Universidad de La Sabana in Colombia. His name comes from the founder of the Christian empire in the Fourth Century. Last year he presented a paper titled "Teaching Geography Electives in English to Native Spanish Speakers" at the Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education in Holland (ICLHE 2006). E-mail: ezana.habte@unisabana.edu.co

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Introduction
The symptoms of a fragmenting relationship
Perspectives from the Language Advisor
Perspectives from the Course Instructor
Positive implications for establishing collegiality in Universidad de La Sabana
References

Introduction

The provision of advice in English Content Based Instruction is often highly sensitive as it involves an outsider providing advice to the instructor of the content course. Changing academic curriculums which require adjusting to new teaching methodology and technologies and the use of a foreign language in instruction, requires a reflection and analysis on the process of collegial relationships as they are central to the process of maximizing learning outcomes. (Harris and Bretag, 2003) Here emphasis is placed on enhancing the means of collegial relationships in the teaching of English Content Based courses at the tertiary level with reference to Colombia, focusing on the nature and relationships between mainstream instructors and language advisors. Misconceptions on the part of the language specialist and content specialists could lead to a detrimental relationship, culminating in the objectives of this collaborative being far from met. It is easy for perceptions of having ones space infringed upon or being undermined to arise through the interaction between the Language specialist and content instructor. A collaborative relationship between what Snow and Brinton (1984) refer to as language specialists (language advisor) and content specialists (mainstream course teacher) are necessary for effectively teaching a course Content Based course. It is therefore important to overcome issues which are an infringement upon the relationship. Comments such as “they may know a lot, but they are not open to learning about methodology” or “how can someone who has no idea about what I am teaching give me advice” tend to come to the surface when Content Instruction staff and program coordinators attempt to enhance advisement. I will address some of the signs of the problem and go on to explain that fostering a strong relationship between the mainstream instructor and language advisor are in the interest of the student.

The academic atmosphere tends to generally promote cordiality and teamwork. However on the other side of the coin, it is a highly competitive environment, were everyone strives to show individual success through highly evaluated teaching, researching and publishing. Teaching is perhaps the most personal activity of all three as we often want to show ourselves, peers and administrators that we are fully capable of teaching and managing our students ourselves, contingently combating problems. Others, such as student advisors and language specialists are usually a last resort to combating a problem that is way out of our domain. Often, when others are involved in the process, it is too late for redressing the problem. In the case of courses taught in a foreign language such as English, in our context, it is not unusual for others to learn about the existence of acute language problems at the end of a task rather than during the process.

The symptoms of a fragmenting relationship

Problems of building a team between language advisors and teachers of mainstream subjects are not limited to our context. The University of South Australia for example underwent a process of integrating English courses into the mainstream curriculum for non native students. (Bretag 2004) Through the process, several misnomers had to be overcome regarding perceptions of language specialists or advisors. Bretag cites feelings mentioned by Benesch such as “second class citizen” and the not being treated as “an equal partner.” Talking to language advisors or specialists, I have often sensed such feelings. Let us look at some examples about this experience. Jacobs (2006) notes that efforts to establish collegial relationships between engineering faculty and language instructors in South Africa has also undergone discomfort generated by a perceived intervention in the teaching process, given the highly technical content which is generally understood by those in the discipline. Gonzalez and Colorado (2006) also report that language instructors who facing difficulties with content in content courses taught in microbiology resulting in the disintegration of content.

Often at the beginning of the semester strong efforts are made to develop what Bretag calls a “collegial relationship” with teachers of mainstream subjects. Initially plans are made to maintain contact and help students throughout the semester with tasks which require oral or written production. However, it is not uncommon for these ambitious proposals to begin to dwindle down as the semester progresses. As a result, there is very little follow up and it becomes apparent that many proposed tasks are uncompleted or in worst cases, the course is being taught in Spanish due to the fact that all learning strategies have not been utilized to combat problems such as mixed language groups, academic writing and speaking problems, lecture comprehension, to mention a few. Why does this occur from the perspective of the language advisor?

Perspectives from the Language Advisor

Language advisors perhaps attend a couple of classes and meet with the instructor, the advisee, outside class in order to provide feedback. However, the language advisor begins to sense that their suggestions are not well received because the instructor feels that there is an interference with their teaching as opposed to receiving actual help as the advisor makes some methodological recommendations such as enhancing group work, reducing lecturing or providing students with reading strategies. The advisor begins to sense that the suggestions are not well received as they instructor begins to not solicit help anymore. In the English Content Based Instruction sphere, this sense of invasion of space is quite common, though not openly manifested. Lets look with some detail at the issues to arise from the content instructor and then from the language specialist or advisor and provide some solutions from the perspective problems related to advisement.

Often, language instructors tend to feel that they are not in a collegial relationship as an advisor as they are excluded from the process. They sense that while they have been assigned to be advisors, they are unable to comply with this role because the course instructor has the upper hand over them and that they are undermined and seen merely as assistants apart from the teaching process. Also, the advisor begins to view the instructor of the course as being resistant to change and progress in pedagogy. As these feelings begin to grow internally, working with the course instructor eventually becomes close to impossible. Generally, the feelings can be summarized as follows:

1. The course instructor undermines the advisor
2. The course instructor does not understand the process of language acquisition
3. The course instructors believes that his or her academic preparation, usually with a Master’s degree or PhD is sufficient for teaching
4. The course instructor is unaware of students needs

Perspectives from the Course Instructor

Mainstream course instructors, particularly at the university level at times do not see much need for changing a lecture base course in order to accommodate language teaching strategies which are mentioned above. When they do not see this need, they are more likely to shun help because they assume that the language support is calling for a complete change in teaching paradigm and that the advisor, who is not versed in the subject being taught is an obstacle to their teaching. These feelings can be summarized as follows:

1. The advisor is imposing a methodological change without knowledge of the course content
2. The advisor believes that the instructor does not know how to teach very well
3. Language is being given priority over content because many adjustments have to me made to the course
4. Too much time is being dedicated to teaching methodology as opposed to other academic activities.
5. External help is disempowering and their students should already prepared in language skills.

While there do exist many other feelings on both sides, our purpose at this point is analyze the importance of advisement and set the stage for its importance in language English Content Based Instruction.

Prior to addressing to the issue of advisement in Content Based Instruction and the role of the language specialist in this pursuit, I would like to set the stage. Merriam Webster dictionary defines advice as “the recommendation regarding a decision or course of conduct” Advice is an issue we have positively or negatively confronted since childhood. As we became adolescents and began to assert our individuality and character our greatest conflict was perhaps with parental advice as it was an infringement upon manifesting our individuality and as the definition notes, their advice sought to modify our conduct. In contemporary society, the mere fact that one has more experience or is older is increasingly frowned upon as being a legitimate basis for providing advice or consent on how to go about our daily lives. One is considered a complete adult with full fledged abilities to take his or her own decision the day they are eligible to vote. Therefore, the individuality and their right to make individual decisions without the consent of others are completely legally and socially protected. Often one tends to sense that their privacy is violated when another person tries to provide advice, particularly when it comes to providing an alternative to how to go about problematic situation. Feelings of disempowerment could also easily arise particularly when we feel that advisor has a greater role than we do in decision making or tends to project them as being more knowledgeable. As in our adolescence, advice always calls for a degree of modification of conduct, be it a negative habit or the way we teach.

Teaching is perhaps the profession which tends to experience the most dilemmas when it comes to advisement as there are so many ways to go about the job and there is no single indicator to measure its success. Moreover, teachers are never and will never know what extent of an effect their courses would have on their students in the long run. Likewise, the effectiveness of advice comes under scrutiny as the measures of success are varied. Subconsciously much of our teaching methodology comes from our former teachers as opposed to teaching methodology. This is a fact because we are involved in a formative process and as in parenting; this is passed on from generation to generation. No day goes by when we do not emulate an aspect of a former teacher in our teaching practice and perhaps because their methodology worked for us we are unwilling to make any modifications as we tend to revere them as the best. Moreover, we are very much attracted to the fact that this particular teacher or other teachers in our past were highly looked upon and not susceptible to much questioning and external interference. I recall my high school social studies teacher coming to class completely unprepared in today’s terms, but able to teach a very interesting class. Moreover, it was quite apparent that there was no external influence on his class. This was confirmed recently when I met some former school mates after a couple of decades who also felt that they had learned a lot. These teachers generally were advisors and rarely advisees. Today, however, a teacher at all three educational levels is both an advisor as well as an advisee. There are several reasons for the teacher to increasingly become an advisee in addition to an advisor. At the surface, the first three reasons may appear not too related to the English Content Based instruction, but eventually we will see that all are eventually related to this approach stressing the importance of the advisor and advisee in the process of teaching in a foreign language.

1. Students have changed and tend to have multifaceted problems which go beyond the domain of the teacher.

The students we deal with today face social problems which were previously not as prevalent. Changes in the family structure such as divorce, both parents working and lack of attention are factors which contribute to learning problems such as attention deficit disorders, poor reading skills and poor concentration to mention a few. The teacher therefore requires an advisor who is specialized help in combating these problems and hence must assume the role of advisee. The advisor is often a psychologist, councilor or even another colleague who is familiar with the student’s problem.

2. Technological changes require a new teaching methodology

The classroom is changing at such a fast rate today due to information technology that even students in the poorest parts of the world are beginning to have access to internet and multimedia software. Therefore, the teacher, textbook and library book are not the only source of information for the student. Students at levels are increasingly much more comfortable with a computer and the internet, were they can readily obtain all the information provided in a lecture based classroom. An instructor or teacher, who is very knowledgeable and chooses to follow the methodology of his or her instructors by lecturing, would be faced with difficulties as little learning would be taking place in the classroom.

It is imperative that anyone who teaches today, no matter what level or subject, should not only have a high familiarity with information technology, but also with how to use it in the teaching process. Should the level of familiarity be low, students would be deprived of the experience to effectively use it for the subject and the course would be deficient in terms of methodology because information technology is becoming a global requirement in the learning and teaching process.

1.Science and technological progress

Formally, given the slower pace of the development of science and technology, the teacher did not have to be that updated. Today, however advances in science and technology require one to be updated in virtually all the fields, sciences and humanities alike. A successful teacher must be aware the developments in his or her field in order to transmit them and the means of obtaining them to students. Again, the teacher or instructor must be an advisee in order to learn from others in the field about the developments and also learn from librarians and those specialized in data basis how to obtain this information. Students, particularly at the tertiary level should know how to go about searching for information and in order to supplement what they are learning. Here again, the teacher must be an advisee in order to learn from colleagues and even students for that matter about obtaining information on developments. The use of technology, there requires two types advisement, technical and pedagogical. Technical advisement guarantees the transfer of know how, learning about the programs, particularly, the internet and basic software such as excel and word. On the other hand, pedagogical advisement is obtained from teachers and instructors who have been successful in using technology to enhance learning. Should the teacher not know much about technology in the classroom, assuming the role of advisee is essential.

Language instruction has perhaps been the most impacted by technology. We have noticed that once collegial relationships are withstanding and cordial, language instructors tend to contribute towards the transmission of educational technology as they use learning software. Furthermore, in an EFL context such as Colombia, language instructors heavily rely on the internet for testing and listening material.

2.Advice in language usage

In educational contexts were English has not been the medium of instruction such as in much of Latin America, there has been a growing tendency to teach mainstream subjects in English at all three educational levels. While learning a foreign language may be difficult, studying in a foreign language is even harder as the student is continuously learning the language as well. Therefore, there are two processes taking place simultaneously, language and content acquisition. It has been proven that when courses are taught in a foreign language, both instructor and student require support with language strategies. An instructor who uses a foreign language for instruction can not teach it as though he or she were teaching the subject in the native language. Should a class be completely lecture based, the student would not be able to completely process the language and would miss a lot of content. Many instructors or teachers who teach in English, particularly at the university level tend not to be aware of this fact as they believe that their students are enrolled in the course because they have the skills for studying in English. Obviously, the students do have a command of the language but one must not forget that it is a foreign language and that their exposure to the language is usually limited to the class.

Teaching an EFL course along with an elective course in English revealed the importance of language based strategies such as process writing and highlighting key concepts in texts and general approaches to conducting classes considering the heterogeneity of student’s language levels. It was observed that those students who did utilize language based skills easily obtained

Instructors who studied in English tend to confuse their own experiences with that of their students. They may have studied English at a very young age or have studied in an English speaking country, providing them with a much greater exposure to the language. Moreover, while their students may have a decent command of the language, it is often limited to non academic English and students tend to lag behind in writing and reading skills. It is very difficult to successfully complete a course in English if students’ reading and writing problems are not combated. While English Content Based Instruction obviously considers the fourth factor, the other three factors are of importance as they do impact the learning and teaching process when a foreign language is involved.

Positive implications for establishing collegiality in Universidad de La Sabana

1. Tenure track system

Bretag (2001) suggests the importance of language instructors also being incorporated into a tenure system identical to mainstream course or content instructors. All fulltime faculty members at Universidad de La Sabana, should they be language or content instructors are equally evaluated in the tenure track system. The tenure track system considers issues such as community outreach, bilingualism and collegiality as important factors, favoring all instructors involved in the process. Therefore, language instructors who are heavily engaged in the process of English Content Based Instruction are valued by the system.

2. Humanistic approach towards teaching

The university’s humanistic approach towards teaching fosters team and interdisciplinary work. Therefore, the tendency to harmoniously overcome disrupted collegial relationships is given strong consideration. For example, a language instructor who may feel uncomfortable advising a business instructor due to personality differences or limited knowledge of the subject matter could easily switch advisee. Furthermore, content instructors are not obliged to have a language advisor if they have adequate language strategies.

The Foreign Languages Department, which oversees language advisement, holds interdisciplinary seminars on English Content Based Instruction, permitting content instructors to participate in identifying language strategies and also share experiences. Emphasis is placed on socio-affective strategies such as establishing a cordial rapport with students in courses taught in English. Socio-effective strategies such as student centered teaching and coaching approaches were recognized as being preeminent in the learning and teaching process. (Habte-Gabr, 2006)

As we can see teaching subjects in English as a foreign language goes way beyond the delivery of content as there are factors related to language acquisition. Being open to advisement is important as learning processes are varied due to personal problems faced by students and also by language. There is a need on the part of advisor and advisee to open up to one another in order to challenge the multiplicity of problems faced by students today in all classes and particularly in courses taught in a foreign language. Finally, the process of Content Based Instruction calls for paradigmatic changes which call for collegiality.

References

Bretag, T. (2001) Integrating ESL in the curriculum and in the faculty. Paper presented at the Changing Identities (Language and Academic Skills) Conference, Wollongong University, 29-30 November.

Gonzalez Moncada, Adriana and Colorado Lopez, Doris (2006) On learning to collaborate successes and failures in teaching in a content based approach. First Symposium on English Content Based Instruction: Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia. October 27, 2006

Habte-Gabr, Ezana. The Importance of Socio-affective Strategies in Using EFL for Teaching Mainstream Subjects. Humanizing Language Teaching September 2006

Howard, Harris and Tracy Bretag (2003) Reflective and Collaborative teaching practice: Working towards quality student learning outcomes

Jacobs, Cecilia (2006) Collaborating in Content and Language Integrated Instruction. First Symposium on English Content Based Instruction: Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia. October 27

Please check the CLIL - Teaching Other Subject Through English course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.