The European Credit Transfer System: Enhancing Creativity in Teachers and Students
María Luisa Pérez Cañado, Spain
Dr. María Luisa Pérez Cañado is a lecturer at the Department of English Philology of the University of Jáen, Spain. Her research interests are in Applied Linguistics, English for Specific Purposes, and the intercultural component in language teaching. Her work has appeared in a notable number of scholarly journals and edited volumes. She is also author of four books on the interface of second language acquisition and teaching, co-editor of GRETA Journal, and reviewer for ELIA, The Grove, and Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. She has recently been granted the Ben Massey Award for the quality of her scholarly contributions regarding issues that make a difference in higher education. E-mail: mlperez@ujaen.es
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Introduction
Background: The subject of Inglés Instrumental Intermedio
The ECTS: Enhancing creativity in the teacher
The ECTS: Enhancing creativity in the student
Conclusion
References
The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) is effecting substantial changes in tertiary education across Europe. This is more markedly the case in countries like Spain, where the piloting of the European Credit Transfer System scheme is involving drastic changes in terms of methodology, assessment, and teacher and student roles. Initially conceived as a way of facilitating the recognition of periods of study abroad, it was first introduced through SOCRATES-ERASMUS Exchange Programs. Its further development into a generalized credit system for the emerging European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was sped up by the Bologna Process (1999), whose aim is to create the European Higher Education Area by harmonizing academic degree and quality assurance standards throughout Europe.
Its chief objectives consequently include enhancing the transparency and comparability of European study programs and qualifications; facilitating full academic recognition and thus student and teacher mobility within institutions, national systems, and internationally; and promoting key aspects of the European dimension in Higher Education.
This new credit system is radically transforming the philosophy underlying university teaching in Spain, together with the way objectives are formulated, methodology is conceived, evaluation procedures are used, and student and teacher roles are understood. Indeed, it is an essentially student-centered system based on the student workload required to achieve the objectives of a program, which are specified in terms of learning outcomes and competencies to be acquired. A credit – the value allocated to course units – is no longer conceptualized in terms of 10 hours of teaching time, but, rather, as 25 hours of work on the part of the student, with the assumption that 60 credits represent the volume of work for one academic year. There is thus a decisive shift from an initial focus on the figure of the teacher to that of the student. Furthermore, all forms of work are taken into consideration: not only contact sessions with teaching staff or lecture attendance, but also seminars, independent and private study, preparation of papers and project work, or preparing for and taking examinations. Pedagogical approaches and methods are hence increased and diversified (De Miguel Díaz et al., 2005, 2006). Evaluation also takes into account the full student workload, reducing the weight previously assigned to the final exam and increasing the control of student participation in and attendance to the established activities (De Miguel Díaz et al., 2005; García García, 2005).
This article reports on the changes which this new system is bringing about in a specific area - that of English language teaching –, by considering four pedagogical innovation projects carried out in the subject of Inglés Instrumental Intermedio, one of the only two subjects of purely instrumental character in the degree of English Philology at the University of Jaén. It evinces how, particularly in terms of methodology, the ECTS has unshackled the creativity of both teachers and students in what was previously a grammar-based subject with a traditional, lockstep, focus on form methodology.
Inglés Instrumental Intermedio is a 15-credit core subject in the degree of English Philology at the University of Jaén, which students must obligatorily study in their first year at college. Its aim, as explicitly stated in the B.O.E (Boletín Oficial del Estado) is “Formación práctica a nivel intermedio en las cuatro destrezas comunicativas, dominio del léxico y del uso del inglés. Estudio del sistema vocálico y consonántico” (B.O.E. de 17 de octubre de 2000). In other words, it provides students with extensive practice in the four language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) and with overt instruction in grammatical aspects (from verb tenses to the passive voice or reported speech), lexical competence (collocations, idiomatic expressions, phrasal verbs, or semantic fields related to such general topics as family, health, or technology), functions (e.g., agreeing and disagreeing, expressing opinions, or giving advice), and phonetics (through an introduction to the English vowel and consonant system). It is one of the only two subjects in the degree which focuses purely on the use of English; hence its importance.
Prior to the implementation of the ECTS scheme at the University of Jaén, the subject of Inglés Instrumental Intermedio was taught in what Norris and Ortega (2000: 420, following Long, 1991, 1997, and Long and Robinson, 1998) would characterize as a focus on form approach, which integrates forms and meaning, capitalizing on interventions that draw learners’ attention to formal properties of linguistic features in the context of meaningful communication. In teaching especially the oral skills, Communicative Language Teaching (cf. Richards and Rodgers, 2001) was the prime approach, as classroom language learning is linked with real-life communication outside its confines, and authentic samples of language and discourse or contextualized chunks rather than discrete items are employed. All in all, an explicit (Sharwood-Smith, 1981), intentional (Schmidt, 1994), or instructed (Ellis, 1985, 1994) methodology was followed to foster grammatical and lexical development. A main coursebook was employed, complemented with certain additional materials, and lockstep work in contact sessions with the teaching staff, where paper and pencil exercises were done and corrected, was the norm.
Ever since the ECTS scheme began to be piloted in the degree of English Philology in the academic year 2004-2005, the ELT panorama in the subject has substantially changed. The different philosophy which the European Higher Education Area has at all levels of the curriculum (from objectives through evaluation procedures) has spurred us to conceptualize, coordinate, and undertake four pedagogical innovation projects within the subject for which we are responsible, all in the course of three academic years.
The pedagogical innovation projects have involved the use of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), as understood in the inclusive sense (Levy and Hubbard, 2005: 148), and Data-Driven Learning (DDL) (Johns, 2002) to raise awareness of and remediate the writing weaknesses of our students (2004-2005); setting up a virtual learning environment (VLE) through the ILIAS Platform for the subject, where the undergraduates can download the material they need for the subject, communicate through a forum, or post their recommendations through a virtual “Suggestions Box” (2006-2007); establishing a telecollaboration exchange with the Southern Methodist University of Dallas, whereby each Jaén freshman has a Dallas tutor assigned with whom s/he communicates on a weekly basis and carries out a structured set of ELT tasks via the Blackboard on-line platform (2006-2007); and designing a bank of materials for the development of lexical competence through sitcoms and TV series in a virtual learning environment (2006-2007).
And the outcomes of these projects point to the fact that the new ECTS scheme is humanizing language teaching, enhancing the element of personalization, and making it a more creative endeavour. They also evince that it is fostering greater independence, participation, and creativity in the university student.
Sure enough, if we begin by focusing on the figure of the teacher, in addition to promoting the conceptualization and development of four pedagogical innovation projects, the implementation of the European Credit Transfer System has boosted creativity in terms of classroom organization procedures, methodological flexibility, variety of activities, and evaluation criteria.
To begin with, what used to be a purely lockstep arrangement has led to a vast gamut of classroom organizations in Inglés Instrumental Intermedio (in line with those propounded by De Miguel Díaz et al., 2005, 2006). Contact sessions with the teaching staff in large groups have been reduced to two hours a week and are now combined with five other types of arrangements from which the students are clearly benefiting. Group work is fostered in the debates and role-plays which take place on a more regular basis in the new credit system. Individual work or independent/private study, made possible in the new system thanks to its consideration of out-of-class student work in the conception of credits, has also gained in importance for such activities as the telecollaboration exchange, the preparation and delivery of oral presentations, or the completion of lexical tasks through the online virtual platform. Practical sessions subdivide the whole class into two subgroups for work on the oral skills, and seminars take place once a week in reduced groups of five to eight students with a clearly practical slant. Finally, individual tutorials are used for reinforcement purposes, problem resolution, personalized work, or follow-up to the development of the telecollaboration or VLE experiences.
Methodologically, a similar increase in the range and variety of options used in the new credit system has also been ascertained. While still maintaining a focus on form approach to grammar and vocabulary teaching, the subject of Inglés Instrumental Intermedio now also incorporates principles from at least six recent trends in language teaching. That is to say, it promotes “pluralidad metodológica”, so in line with the underlying philosophy of the European Higher Education Area (CIDUA, 2005: 26, 29). Indeed, autonomous or lifelong learning (CIDUA, 2005: 23, 27, 31) is targeted through the preparation of oral presentations or through the vocabulary activities the students have to carry out individually on the virtual platform, which aim at developing their metacognitive awareness of lexical strategies. Cooperative learning (Kagan, 1994) is the chief approach running through the telecollaboration experience set up with the Southern Methodist University at Dallas (cf. Ware and Pérez Cañado, 2007 and Pérez Cañado and Ware, 2009). Computer Assisted Language Learning (Bax, 2003) is clearly part of the subject through the use of DDL to improve seven aspects of the students’ previously diagnosed writing weaknesses in the course (punctuation, spelling, articles, verb tenses, verbal complementation, prepositions, and vocabulary) (cf. Pérez Cañado and Díez Bedmar, 2006). What Thorne (2003) terms “blended learning” can also be discerned in Inglés Instrumental Intermedio, as a combination of on-line activity (e.g., through the virtual exploitation of sitcoms or the telecollaboration project) and face-to-face interaction is used to teach the course. The use of a virtual learning environment for autonomous learning of collocations, idioms, or lexical chunks incorporates the main rationale of the trendy Lexical Approach (Nattinger and DeCarrico, 1992; Lewis, 1993), increasingly acknowledged in language teaching. And finally, the fact that individualized tutorials are now contemplated as a specific type of classroom organization (De Miguel Díaz et al., 2005, 2006) allows the application of Neurolinguistic Programming (Revell and Norman, 1999a, 1999b) and Multiple Intelligence Theory (Gardner, 1983) in catering for the students’ individual learning styles preferred primary representational systems.
This vast gamut of ELT methods or approaches is being implemented through an equally ample range of learning activities, something made possible by the obligatory use of seminars in the ECTS scheme. Indeed, following to a large extent the methodological recommendations of Casas Gómez and Márquez Fernández (2004), these seminars, where students are placed in reduced groups of 5 to 8 members, have capitalized on personal, independent, or private work and involved such varied activities as group debates, role plays, watching and commenting on popular sitcoms in DVD format, doing specialized reading activities, carrying out personalized correction of compositions and awareness-raising of the main mistakes discerned, conference attendance and summaries, personalized work on pronunciation aspects, “coffee and talk” sessions with students from different English-speaking backgrounds (The United States, Canada, Scotland, and England), or the incorporation of new technologies into language teaching (e.g., through the telecollaboration project or the use of DDL and VLE).
Finally, creativity in the use of evaluation procedures has also been boosted by the ECTS. The latter has highlighted the necessity of attaching a greater importance to formative, process, or on-going evaluation (cf. Madrid Fernández and Pérez Cañado, 2004) and to the amount of individual, private, or personal work put in by the student. In line with the foregoing, the subject of Inglés Instrumental Intermedio, which previously based its grade chiefly on summative evaluation – the final exam -, now awards only 40% of the mark to the latter, considering also the telecollaboration experience (30%), continuous assessment (20%), and oral presentations (10%).
What becomes clear from the previous heading is that the students’ way of working is profoundly transformed by the European Credit Transfer System. Spanish university teaching has traditionally followed a teacher-centered methodology, where the student is generally a passive recipient of information provided through lectures and contact sessions with the teaching staff, information which s/he then memorizes and reproduces in a final exam. The fact the ECTS places the spotlight on the learner radically reverses his/her traditional role (McLaren et al., 2005). The student is no longer spoonfed by the teacher, but, rather, left to his/her own devices (under the guidance, of course, of the professor, who now becomes a counselor, guide, or orientator, rather than a dogmatic source of information).
The subject of Inglés Instrumental Intermedio is no exception to this role reversal and increase in independence, implication, and creativity on the part of the student. Autonomous learning and independence are fostered by the students’ use of a virtual learning environment to develop lexical competence or by their delivery of oral presentations on specific grammatical aspects, which they have to prepare through the use of electronic or paper-based material found in the library. Similarly, lifelong learning (Mackiewicz, 2002) is targeted through explicit work with learning strategies on the ILIAS platform and through the cognitive, procedural, and attitudinal competencies they are expected to acquire by means of the ECTS methodology.
However, the learners are also required to engage in cooperative learning by leaning on native speakers through the telecollaboration experience and the “coffee and talk” sessions. Their participation and implication in the subject are also increased through the use of practical sessions, reduced seminars, and individual tutorials, in which they must obligatorily participate in English. They are equally asked to take the initiative by evaluating their classmates’ oral presentations via a “jury” system they greatly enjoy and become involved in. In addition, they are encouraged to voice their doubts, questions, or comments through a forum which is set up in the ILIAS platform and to post their suggestions for the subject in a virtual “suggestions box” also created on-line.
Creativity is a proven outcome of this heightened independence, participation, and initiative. It is rewarding to observe how the increased variety of classroom organizations, methods, and activities in which the ECTS engages the students enhances their creativity in the way they design their oral presentations, the comments they make as evaluators of their classmates’ grammatical explanations, the subjects they broach on the telecollaboration exchange, or the suggestions they post on the virtual platform.
Thus, this article has revealed that the implementation of the European Credit Transfer System in English language teaching at Spanish university has been the best shock therapy to unshackle creativity. Four pedagogical innovation projects developed or developing in the subject of Inglés Instrumental Intermedio have evinced that the ECTS is boosting creativity in both the main agents involved in the teaching-learning process. In the teacher’s case, this is clearly appreciable in the enhanced variety of classroom organizations, methods, activities, and evaluation procedures; for the student, it can be observed in the greater independence, implication, and participation in the learning process.
Hence, despite the initial resilience with which this new system has met in higher education at the University of Jaén (cf. García García, 2005), our outcomes evince that its implementation is well worth it, as it is empowering both teachers and students at tertiary level to be more creative, encouraging both of them to revise, update, and vary their traditional systems of teaching and learning.
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