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Getting Serious About Quality

“A high quality English learning experience.” “High quality English instruction.” “High quality courses.” “Quality English lessons.” “The highest quality English programs in the area.”  

Defining Quality
Whether explicitly stated in our materials or not, we all want to offer quality, but it’s an elusive concept. The dictionary gives two definitions:

Definition 1: degree of excellence; how good or bad something is

Most likely when programs make a claim for their ‘high quality,’ they have something like this in mind. Unfortunately, ‘excellence,’ ‘good,’ and ‘bad’ don’t bring us any closer to a definition of quality, since they in turn need to be defined.

Definition 2: the extent to which something is fit for purpose

In other words, it is good quality if it does what it is supposed to do. This is unsatisfying if your program wants to market itself as standing out from the crowd. Some combination of the two, such as ‘we are ideally set up to do what we do, and we do it excellently’ gets us closer, but is still just as easy a claim to make as ‘we are high quality.’

If your program wants to avoid using the word ‘quality’ as more than marketing copy, you ought to substantiate the claim. (In fact you should do this even if you don’t explicitly use the word quality.) You not only need to satisfy potential students and other stakeholders of your quality; you also need to define it for yourself.  You need to determine what constitutes quality at your program as a benchmark against which to measure your program’s performance.

Elements of Program Quality
There are four bases on which you might define and claim quality for your program.

  • Quality of inputs. Inputs include teachers, program staff, the curriculum, the textbooks, and educational technology. For example, you might emphasize the credentials, experience, or personalities of your teachers; your highly researched and trialed curriculum; or your state-of-the art classrooms and digital learning opportunities.
  • Quality of the experience. You might emphasize your modern, comfortable facility, your carefully vetted and monitored homestay families, or your exciting social and cultural activities.
  • Quality of outcomes. While the inputs and the experience may make the process of learning at your program positive and comfortable, students are there to make progress in their English. Quality of outcomes may include increased test scores, successful achievement of measurable outcomes based on reliable and valid assessments, and job placements or college acceptances that depend on English attainment.
  • External recognition of quality. If student completion of your program is accepted by universities as an indication of English proficiency for admission programs, you have an external acknowledgment of your program’s quality. Some programs mention their accredited status as a mark of quality, or collect and publish testimonials.

Evidence for any of these claims can support the ‘we do it excellently’ and the ‘fit for purpose’ definitions of quality, but a convincing picture of program quality will need to be based on a combination of all four. A program may have knowledgeable and stimulating teachers (input), but students will not be satisfied if they are sitting in a poorly lit, unventilated classroom (experience). Accreditation involves meeting a large number of program-wide standards (fit for purpose), but has limited ability to communicate excellence above and beyond other programs, hundreds of which are also accredited.

Measuring Quality
A program that is serious about quality and about substantiating its quality claims should have quality assurance measures in place. Quality assurance means not only systematically collecting information; it also means reviewing it, sharing it, and using it to make improvements. Many programs are effective at collecting information, but few seem have consistent procedures in place to make use of it to improve quality.

Most measures of quality address inputs. Only relatively recently have measures of outcomes become more prominent, as a result of calls for greater accountability in education. The last two items in the table below are outcome measures.

MeasureQuality TypeQuestion to Ask
Class observationsInputs/ExperienceAre there plentiful affordances for learning in the classroom, and are students making use of them?
Course syllabi  InputsAre syllabi consistent with the curricular goals and objectives?
Course or teacher evaluation forms   InputsAre students delighted with their classroom experience and learning?
Student surveys  Inputs/Experience/ OutcomesWhat common themes indicate what your program is doing well or poorly?
Student needs analysis   InputsHow closely aligned with students’ expressed needs are your courses, skills, and language knowledge?
ComplaintsInputs/Experience/ OutcomesWhat do students express dissatisfaction about?
Suggestion box Inputs/ExperienceWhat are students asking for that you are not currently providing?
Teacher and staff retention  InputsIs your workplace attractive enough to maintain continuity in a faculty and staff that have a stake in your program’s quality?
Teacher feedback  Inputs/ExperienceWhat can you learn from your teachers about the student experience?
Accreditation feedbackExternal recognitionHow many of the accreditation requirements are you meeting and not meeting, and in which areas?
Student achievement  Outcomes (direct measure)Are valid and reliable measures of student attainment of your program’s learning outcomes being used to determine the level of student success?
Job placement/College acceptances (if applicable)Outcomes (Indirect measure)What percentage of your students are meeting English language standards for their academic or career goals?

Using a mix of these measures, you can develop a quality dashboard to benchmark your current quality performance and set goals for improvement. Provided the measures yield positive information, you can use the information to substantiate your quality claims and strengthen your sales messaging.

Not a bad strategy in an always-competitive field.

For Schools

How to be a Professional

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Professionalism, like common sense, may be most frequently referred to in its absence. “That was so unprofessional.” “I’m bothered by your lack of professionalism.” “You should dress more professionally.” And so on. 

In common parlance, as in the examples above, professionalism refers to a particular type of behavior in white-collar work settings. Professionalism in this sense refers to behaviors such as arriving at appointments and meetings on time, dressing appropriately, meeting deadlines, and speaking respectfully to colleagues. Being professional is a minimum requirement for most workplaces. But being a professional can also refer to one’s membership in a profession, such as the medical profession, the legal profession, or the accountancy profession. Teaching – and since this is a blog devoted to it, specifically English language teaching – may also be a profession, and English language teachers may be able to consider themselves professionals. But why the tentativeness here? 

English language teaching – that is, teaching English to speakers of other languages – has traditionally had a low bar to entry. I started in the field, as many people did, with no formal education or training in it. My first formal qualification – which I earned five years after I began teaching English – was a one-month certificate, the RSA/Cambridge CTEFLA (I was in the last cohort before it became the CELTA). These days there are plenty of copycat certificates, many of them online requiring no actual teaching practice, that permit the holder to claim certification to teach English and are accepted by some English language schools in the U.S. and many other countries.

Certificates like these offer routines to present language and have students practice the four skills (such as PPP – presentation, practice, production), and have a smattering of ‘language awareness’ to give prospective teachers at least a bare-bones knowledge of what they will be teaching. They offer training, which I’ve characterized in another post as ‘the learning of standard routines for predictable situations.’ With only a certificate in hand, one could hardly call oneself a full-fledged professional in the sense of belonging to a professional field. 

Professionals undergo an in-depth education that gives successful students an understanding of the contexts, theories, and practices in the field. It permits them to connect these three so that rather than simply following procedures, they can make informed decisions based on – in English language teaching – an understanding of the teaching and learning context, teaching and learning theories, and knowledge of effective practices. While some masters degrees in TESOL or Applied Linguistics include a focus on classroom teaching, many also introduce students to second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language, culture and society, to provide such a broad and deep knowledge background. This background allows individuals in the field to talk to each other using a common vocabulary – in our case terminology and its underlying concepts, such as communicative competence, discourse community,  pragmatics, and, if we choose, linguistic imperialism. 

The distinction between training and education gives a basis for distinguishing non-professionals from professionals in the field of English language teaching. This is not everything, though. Earning a master’s in TESOL clearly does not automatically make one a professional – it is an initiation into the field. In addition to accumulated experience over several years, being a member of the profession requires an ongoing commitment throughout one’s career. If you consider yourself a professional in this field, what, beyond education, is the basis for your professionalism? Some of the following should be on your list. 

Ongoing Professional Development
Through reading, attending conferences, webinars, and in-house workshops, you keep up-to-date with current theories and practices in the field. For example, over the years you will have become familiar with the notions of global English and English as a lingua franca; recognized the limitations of English-only methodology; and gained an increasingly sophisticated approach to error correction. You use your evolving knowledge to try out new ideas in teaching, and importantly, to reflect on and adapt them, and take on new kinds of teaching assignments. You conduct research based in your practice – formally or informally. And you give conference presentations or publish articles in the field’s publications. 

Service
Your institution and the field need the benefit of your input and efforts beyond your classroom teaching if they are to remain dynamic and vibrant. You can serve on committees and working groups in your institution, and organize professional development sessions for your colleagues. You can volunteer and take leadership roles with organizations like TESOL and (in the U.S.) EnglishUSA. You can contribute to your organization’s accreditation effort and become a site reviewer for the accreditor.  

Collaboration and Networking
You make connections with others in the field – and outside it – to identify and find solutions to teaching-related challenges. You are collegial with those inside and outside your organization and become known as a go-to person for advice and consultation. 

Mentorship and Coaching
You pass on your experience and wisdom to those newer in the field and serve as a role model for career development. You help the less-experienced develop conference proposals and articles for publication. 

Advocacy
English learners need the right learning conditions and teachers in order to make progress. English language programs are frequently looked down on in academia. English language schools may struggle with unreasonable regulations. English language teachers teach under challenging conditions, receive poor pay, or cannot find full-time work. As a professional, you become an advocate for English language learners, programs, institutions, your colleagues, and the field. 

Ultimately, being a professional means not simply treating work as a job but rather as something you are invested in, something to which you are making a lifetime commitment. This isn’t easy – work conditions and part-time employment can leave many in our field feeling as though they are always on the receiving end of other people’s decisions, and family commitments can leave little time for professional activities beyond what’s required. But no matter your situation, taking charge of your career through an ongoing commitment to being a member of the profession is a way to empower yourself and your chosen field. You’ll also make lifelong connections and enjoy an enriching professional life. 

For Schools

Paradoxes and Practices in Classroom Observation

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There can’t be that many people who enjoy being observed doing their job and having their performance analyzed. All the worse if the stakes are high and there might be negative consequences for less than stellar performance. Small wonder, then, that having a classroom observer can be a cause of some anxiety and stress for many teachers. 

The Public/Private Paradox of Teaching

Teaching can be seen as both a public and a private activity. Public because teachers in the classroom have an audience – their students. But private because the planning, delivery, and follow-up of classes tends to be a more solitary activity, done apart from colleagues. The private work of the teacher – vis-a-vis colleagues – becomes public only when someone comes to observe the class. 

Purposes of Observation

There are two main purposes for observation: developmental and supervisory. In developmental observation, a teacher is typically observed by a colleague and receives feedback to help improve teaching. Supervisory feedback is an organizational practice that is usually a part of performance evaluation. Whether developmental or supervisory, the practice of observation ‘invades the privacy’ of the classroom. It makes visible to an outsider a web of established relationships, practices, and routines that have been enclosed within four mostly impenetrable walls. And there is a good chance that the thing being observed is changed by the act of being observed – which may partly undermine the purpose of the observation itself. 

The Observer’s Paradox

The characteristic of the observed thing being influenced or changed by its being observed is known as the observer’s paradox. It presents a challenge as the observer cannot get a true picture of the thing being observed (i.e. in its unobserved state). 

Observers of teachers and classrooms encounter this paradox in two ways. First, the observer might want to observe a ‘typical lesson’ to get the best understanding of a teacher’s style. But if it’s decided in advance which lesson will be observed, the teacher might change how s/he teaches, for example by including some favorite techniques or by making a special effort to design a lesson that s/he thinks the observer will want to see. Unannounced observations might overcome this challenge, but will likely exacerbate the second aspect of the paradox, which is that the students and the teacher may feel uncomfortable with the presence of an outsider. This discomfort might make students reluctant to speak, or the teacher’s nervousness may interfere with teaching performance. 

The observer’s paradox can be mitigated to some extent if the teacher and observer follow good practices: plan in advance, agree on the criteria or focus of the observation, and communicate the purpose of the observation to the students. 

Good Practices in Observation

Whether for developmental or supervisory purposes, good observation practice comprises three steps: a pre-observation check-in, the observation itself, and a post-observation review. The pre-observation check-in can serve to build trust between the teacher and observer, and it can provide a focus for the observation. Teacher and observer can discuss the anticipated content of the lesson, the objectives, and the plan. The observer may tell the teacher what s/he will be looking out for, or, in a more collaborative process, the teacher might identify an area of perceived weakness – such as teacher talk time, the clarity of instructions, or the flow of activities – and ask the observer to focus on that.

During the observation, the observer typically finds a discreet place to sit and takes notes, often using an observation tool such as a list of categories to be observed, checked, and commented on. The chosen observation tool can depend on institutional requirements, the preferences of the observer and teacher, and the purpose of the observation. The observation tool can focus the observer’s attention, and having one is usually better than walking into the classroom with no observation plan. 

In the post-observation meeting, the observer and teacher look over the written notes and discuss the lesson. Giving and receiving feedback can be stressful if the lesson didn’t go well or if the observer perceives problems that the teacher is not aware of. Comments such as ‘You need to talk less,’ or ‘Your instructions were unclear and resulted in chaos,’ might stimulate a defensive response in the teacher, who may feel criticized or attacked. A less invasive way of addressing problematic aspects of the lesson is to ask questions, such as, ‘What did you think of the ratio of your talking time to that of your students’?’ or ‘Did you think about pre-teaching any of the vocabulary before asking the students to read the passage?’ How direct feedback is depends on the context: in a teacher training course, a trainer is likely to point out problems and help the trainee teacher develop solutions. In a more collegial environment where the conversation is between fellow professionals, feedback that gives rise to discussion might be more appropriate. 

Who or What is Being Observed, Exactly?

It’s common to think of observation as ‘teacher observation,’ an exercise centered on the performance of one person in the room. This approach might have been appropriate in more teacher-centered days, but in recent years educational theory and practice have moved in the direction of students and to a consideration of the classroom as a learning environment. Robert Diamond (2008) described this change as, “the shift that has been underway in how we describe the role that faculty have in the learning process – the move from being teaching-centered to being learning-centered.” 

He continued:

Robert Barr and John Tagg have described this shift as a move from the instructional delivery system, where faculty are conceived primarily as disciplinary experts who impart knowledge by lecturing, to the “learning paradigm,” which conceives of faculty as primarily the designers of learning environments where they study and apply best methods for producing knowledge and student success (1995, p.24).” Diamond, R.M., Designing and Assessing Courses and Curricula: A Practical Guide, 3rd ed. (2008), p. 190. Jossey Bass.

‘Teacher observation’ may have been more appropriate in teaching-centered classrooms. But in the modern, interactive classroom, the teacher is only one element in what Van Lier described as an ‘ecology’ which offers ‘affordances’ for learning (Van Lier, L., 2004. The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning: a Sociological Perspective. Kluwer Academic Publishers). The effective classroom is one that offers students rich affordances or opportunities for learning. The teacher plays a key role in this ecology, but it is also made up of each student, the physical structure and location of the room, the classroom equipment, the wider school environment, even the time of day and stage of the school term. Since the most important question in the learning paradigm concerns student learning, focusing on the activities of the teacher alone in an observation is inadequate. Observers might take a more ecological approach and look for the factors – which of course include the teacher – that encourage or impede student learning. 

This is not to deny that there are more effective and less effective teachers, but in reality it can be challenging to make that determination based on a single classroom observation. There is no easy answer to this: frequent observations will create a greater workload and induce more anxiety. 

Some Ecological Observation Tools

Here are four practices observers can use that acknowledge the classroom as a whole environment that can produce affordances for learning:

  1. The ‘What is Happening Now’ Observation

In this practice, the observer notes what is happening in the room at every five-minute point during the lesson. Going over the raw or edited notes after the class can bring to light the amount of time students vs. the teacher were actively participating or talking, the length of time devoted to an activity (too long, too short, or just right?), whether students were on task, and more. 

  1. Observation for Non-Judgmental Feedback

A useful non-judgmental observation comes from Jim Scrivener’s book Learning Teaching. It encourages a spirit of curiosity on the part of the observer, and invites a shared exploration of what occurred in the classroom by prompting the observer to notice and comment:

I noticed…and I thought…

I noticed…and I wondered…

I noticed…and I wanted to ask you…

I noticed…and I wanted to say to you…

 (Scrivener, J., Learning Teaching, Heinemann 1994, p. 211)

  1. ‘What Helps and What Impedes Learning’ Observation

Also from Scrivener, in this observation, the observer takes in the whole classroom and lesson period, and notes in two columns what is helping students to learn and what is getting in the way of learning. The form could be open or might include categories such as teacher behavior, student attitude, the physical facility and equipment, and so on. The post-observation discussion can affirm what helped students learn, and how impediments to learning might be overcome. 

  1. ‘One Student’ Observation

Here the observer chooses one student for the focus of the observation and unobtrusively watches and notes the ways in which the student appears to be engaged in learning, or simply what the student is doing at regular intervals. It can be tricky to set this observation up effectively and the observer needs to be cautious not to make assumptions about what the student may be experiencing. But noting a single student’s level of activity and engagement can be revealing of the entire learning environment. 

The view of the classroom and the observation practices described here can be a way to explore the learning environment as a whole and the teacher’s role in it, rather than putting the entire focus and responsibility on the teacher. Ideally, classroom observation, no matter its purpose, should be a positive and helpful experience for teachers, and should support both teacher and observer in uncovering, encouraging, and adopting practices and conditions that lead to learning. 

For Schools

Rubric’s Clues

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Photo by pure julia on Unsplash

When the accountabilty movement in education took off at the turn of the century, schools and teachers were called on to justify their quality claims by defining expected student learning outcomes and stating publicly whether students had met them. This ‘no child left behind’ approach filtered through to postsecondary English language programs by way of accreditation requirements, and classroom evaluation of students moved from a largely qualitative exercise (‘speaks well,’ ‘a good writer’) to a strongly quantitative one. From that point on, student language evaluation had to be based on observable, measurable behaviors.

There is a challenge in trying to quantify something that is largely qualitative in nature. Think of assigning a numerical score to a work of art or a scene in nature, for example. Measurement is typically reserved for the physical world and is expressed in standardized units such as centimeters, kilograms, and degrees, which everyone in the world agrees on. How do you apply that approach to a second language learner’s performance in a conversation, or an essay? What is the unit of measurement for language ability? (Standardized test providers have tried to quantify language proficiency for many years, but it would be a challenge to describe what a single point on the TOEFL test represents.)

For classroom teachers, this is where rubrics come in. A rubric is a grid that typically comprises columns representing levels of achievement on an assessment task (e.g. “Did not achieve,” “Minimally achieved,” “Achieved,” “Exceeded”) and rows describing aspects of the task (such as “Includes a topic sentence,” “Uses discourse markers,” “Uses vocabulary appropriately”). A rubric is essentially a yardstick for measuring students’ performance on an assessment task. It lacks the objectivity of a standardized measure (although this can be improved if teachers ‘calibrate’ the rubric by agreeing on different levels of performance in students’ work), but it makes teachers and schools accountable for student achievement by certifying what students did or didn’t do. From an accountability standpoint, this is a step forward compared with purely qualitative evaluations of students’ performance.

If you have to create rubrics, here are three pieces of advice:

1. Determine how much detail you need. Before creating the rubric, consider what level of detail you need to give in the student’s evaluation. If it is a simple letter grade, you may not need to do a detailed analysis of a student’s language using many rows of the rubric. You might be able to take a more holistic approach, describing the whole task in one or two rows. Similarly, include only as many columns (indicating level of performance) as necessary. Writing differentiated performance levels is challenging; there should be a clear difference between each one so that you are not scratching your head wondering which description best fits the student’s performance. As with many things in life, keep things  simple and avoid unnecessary effort by including only as much detail as is needed for your purpose.

2. Avoid using the words, “is able to” on the rubric. Remember that the rubric is a measuring tool and should describe only what the student did or did not do. A tape measure can give you the dimensions of a bookcase, but you (not the not the tape measure) have to evaluate whether it fits in your living room. Similarly, you use the information from the rubric to determine what the student can and cannot do. The rubric itself does not tell you that.

3. Include only assessed items on the rubric. If it is not in your course objectives, it should not be in your rubric. For example, if students are required to give a PowerPoint presentation, you would only include ‘creative, eyecatching slides’ on the rubric if this were one of the course objectives and you had taught it. Otherwise you are assessing skills that were not taught. (An exception to this advice is if students had learned a skill in a previous or connected course in the curriculum, which they were expected to incorporate in this course.) Don’t assess students on knowledge and skills that you did not teach them.

Demands for accountability in education continue, so rubrics are here to stay. Even if rubrics will never reach the level of objectivity of standardized measures, educators should learn to create effective rubrics as part of their professional skill set. Good luck!

For Schools

Education – the journey and the destination

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With a high school student about to enter 12th grade, we are finding colorful mailings from colleges in our mailbox every day. It’s a competitive market for students, and college marketing offices need to make their institutions attractive. 

As I was sifting through the pile, something struck me about how schools are trying to appeal to my rising senior. For over 20 years now, education at all levels has been driven by an accountability ethos. This is intended to ensure schools’ accountability for their quality by defining student learning outcomes (SLOs) and reporting students’ achievement of those outcomes. In an age of rising education costs and the demand for value for money (and for institutions that want to benefit from federal government financial support) this is considered to be good for students. And the definition and assessment of SLOs has become a centerpiece of accreditation standards. 

The funny thing is, I’ve never yet met a student who cares much about student learning outcomes. And if students did care about them, you would think the college marketers would have cottoned on to that fact by now. But look at some of the messages in the mailings we’ve been receiving…

“A college experience built around your definition of success.” 

This doesn’t sound like a college that is pushing its SLOs as a selling point. It is about the student finding meaning in the college experience. 

How about this student quote from another mailer…

“I’ve had professors who truly care about what I am doing and how I’m moving forward in my life.” 

I doubt you will find a requirement for ‘professors who truly care’ in your accreditor’s standards. 

“Best college town, extraordinary college experience.” 

Again with the ‘experience.’ Again, not a sales pitch based on outcomes. 

“Your (college name) story starts here.” 

College as a story – something filled with experiences and will create memories and meaning. 

“The question isn’t where you want to go. It’s how to get there” – an explicitly anti-outcome statement. 

And finally, my favorite: 

“You’ll never be bored in Buffalo.” 

Enough said? 

My point is that in the push for accountability and compliance, we can become too focused on outcomes that students may not be very interested in, and not pay attention to the quality of their experience. When we focus only on results, we can forget that what makes an education memorable is the location, the personalities, the interactions, the participation in the process, the experience of undergoing all that. A quality education should be rich in experiences, should encourage personal growth, should open us up to different ways of understanding the world. This is all very difficult to express as a measurable learning outcome. 

Does this matter? I think it does for several reasons. 

  • What does the grade for your course represent? Is it only the final result, the achievement of the outcome? Most teachers want to include assignments, projects, class participation and contribution, and quizzes – formative activities on the way to the goal – as part of the final grade. This is because teachers know that an education is not simply about the destination but also about engagement in the process. Students who fail to engage in the class but nonetheless achieve the learning outcome may have ‘succeeded’ in meeting an outcome, but may have failed to gain an education.


  • When can you consider that a class ‘worked?’ An education professor criticized teachers she observed who thought their class had ‘worked,’ because they failed to clearly define and assess an outcome for that class. But perhaps teachers know that ‘working’ can also mean having students engage in a process, in activities that enrich them in ways that are hard to measure – none of which is interesting to an outcomes-only oriented observer.

  • What is important when designing an educational program? Striving to comply with accreditation standards, many schools are focusing heavily on teaching to and assessing outcomes. An equal focus on how to get there – the journey too, not just the destination – should be taken seriously by schools and those who hold them accountable.

  • Is online learning just as good as in-person learning? From a purely outcomes point of view, maybe. Good online learning can of course be rich in experiences. But is it possible for good online learning to be as rich and engaging as good in-person learning? Personally I doubt it. 

And here comes the caveat, of course. I’m not arguing that establishing and assessing outcomes is not important. Clearly if education is going to consume students’ resources – their money, time, and effort – they want to know that they will gain knowledge and skills from it. I am concerned though that – as in many areas of life – the pendulum can swing too far in one direction. I’m arguing that it ought to swing back some way. College marketers, teachers, and students have understood this all along.

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“Why can’t we get rid of SLOs?”

Yes, a teacher asked me this recently. While her question seemed mostly an expression of frustration at what she saw as a loss of control over her teaching, it is also a question that educators should consider seriously. After all, education proceeded quite well for thousands of years without SLOs. Socrates never referred to them, nor did Jesus, the Buddha, or any other well-known teacher you could name.

A few years ago I was taking classes at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, just for intellectual stimulation and to meet people I wouldn’t otherwise meet. I signed up for a few classes taught by a remarkable teacher, Michael Koran, who taught classes in poetry, drama, religion, and other fields. One class in particular was intriguing. It was called “Reading Aloud.”

In Reading Aloud class, a small group of us (all men, it turned out) read short stories aloud and discussed them. That was the class. What is remarkable, in light of today’s fixation on SLOs, is that not only were there no stated outcomes for this class, but that the name of the class itself described the process, and not the product, of the class. What Michael Koran understood was that by engaging in this process with a group of people, something would result, learning of some kind would happen, but that it could not be defined in advance.

I don’t know what the other participants in this weekly class got out of it, but one of my big takeaways as a teacher was the value of reading aloud in the classroom, an activity that had been shunned as ‘unrealistic’ by misguided proponents of the communicative approach to language teaching. Reading a text aloud puts the words out into the public space of the classroom, where they can be discussed and analyzed. After that class, I incorporated reading aloud back into my classroom. I found that it also offers the teacher a chance to hear students speaking in a controlled form and to offer correction or group practice of challenging words or phrases. None of this was expressed as a student learning outcome in Michael Koran’s class.

Today most schools are held to a standard of public accountability that requires them to justify their quality claims through defining, assessing, recording, and publishing student outcomes. Most of this has nothing to do with the teacher’s art, which is about process, atmosphere, experience, and attention to each student as an individual. This gap between what some teachers would rather  focus on and the accountability measures they are being asked to fall in line with underlies the question that started this post.

We cannot get rid of SLOs, and we probably shouldn’t, given that education is expensive and people want to know what they are getting for their money. But it would be nice if we could turn some attention back to the quality of the educational experience and understand that not all outcomes can be planned in advance.

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The push and pull of power in intensive English programs

…a review of Organizational Power Politics: Tactics in Organizational Leadership (2nd Edition) by Gilbert W. Fairholm

Power has a bad reputation in educational environments. In many people’s minds, it is associated with terms like ‘power-hungry’ or ‘greedy for power,’ and yes, I’ve heard it used by faculty to describe what they see as overreaching administrators trying to control their work.

But power, according to Fairholm, is ethically neutral; it is the  motives of the individuals who use it that determine whether its outcomes are positive or negative. And power is intrinsic to any group of people that aims to get things done, so reading a book about organizational power politics can give you insights not only into your own power and how to use and increase it, but also into the power tactics of those around you. In turn, you will gain a deeper understanding of how your organization works, and especially why some people or groups are more powerful than others.

In any group or organizational setting, power is the ability to control scarce resources in order to achieve your aims, even if others oppose you. While you may think of power as coercive (hence its reputation), power is exerted in a number of ways, listed by Fairholm on page 12, ranging from coercive at the top, to consensual at the bottom:

Force
Authority
Manipulation
Threat/Promise
Persuasion
Influence

Those who are higher in the organizational hierarchy are more likely to be able to access the direct forms of power at the top of this list, while those lower down may exercise the indirect power types at the bottom. Yet power is not only about where you are in the hierarchy, and other sources of power include expertise, criticality to the organization, and group solidarity. This means that the exercise of power can be inverted, and power can be exerted upward. Fairholm describes “the power exercised by… lower-level workers who dominate their superiors through their control over resources (e.g., skill) the leader needs” (p. 55).

In many educational settings, especially in universities, there is a tension between faculty and administrators over the use of power. While it may be inappropriate to talk about who is higher and lower in the hierarchy, this struggle often manifests as one between authority legitimized by formal position among administrators, and the threat exercised by faculty who know that their expertise and skills are critical to the institution. Faculty in many university intensive English programs are challenged by the administrative invocation of the authority of non-negotiable accreditation standards. Fairholm sums this situation up concisely: “Promulgation of standard operating procedures, requiring prior (or post) approval of subordinate decision or actions and an over-adherence to organizational traditions, exemplify this tactic” (p. 125). Note that in the case of IEPs, it is often ‘organizational traditions’ that are promoted by the faculty in opposition to the ‘standard operating procedures’ imposed by the administration.  Note also that teachers in proprietary IEPs have long been subject to organizational standard operating procedures, and are unlikely to be able to draw on institutional tradition as a counter-weight. This is one reason why proprietary IEP teachers have relatively less power in their organizations than their university counterparts.

If you want to understand the workings of power in your organization, and gain insight into your current power and how to increase it, Fairholm’s book – with its sharp analysis, questionnaires, and lists of strategies – is a good place to begin.

Fairholm, G.W., Organizational Power Politics: Tactics in Organizational Leadership, 2nd Ed., Praeger 2009