Faculty Development Plan
Linguistics
1998
--President Spencer W. Kimball
Second Century Address
BYU Devotional
October 10, 1975
The above statement from President Kimball had a significant impact on me as I read it for the first time 18 years ago. I am still impressed each time that I read it. The statement is the central focus of my goals to be a contributing faculty member in the Department of Linguistics at Brigham Young University.
My Faculty Development Plan is focused on those things that I can do in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and citizenship to help accomplish this statement by President Kimball.
TEACHING
Teaching Strengths
As a teacher educator, I believe that I have five strengths which make me a good teacher. First, is my ability to model through my teaching the principles that I suggest my students implement in their own teaching of English as a second/foreign language. Teacher educators should be positive models of the teaching skills that are expected of those we are training.
Second, my teaching philosophy is rooted in the idea that students should play a major role in their own learning and should be provided with opportunities to reflect upon and react to the concepts and ideas that are presented in class. The greatest benefits to learning may not be what students read from "an authority" on a given subject, but what they do with what they have read. The voices of the teachers-in-training need to be heard more frequently in our classes.
Another strength is teaching ESL/EFL teachers to become cognitively aware of what they do as teachers in the classroom and to be able to metacognitively discuss with others their teaching philosophy. This belief is based on a reflective teaching practice. Strengthening one’s cognitive skills in language teaching and improving one’s metacognitive skills in reflecting upon what is happening in the classroom help to develop teachers who can reach their goals as educators.
An awareness of the preferred learning styles and strategies of the students is a fourth strength that I believe I have. This information provides valuable insights into how learners will best learn and thus teaching should be adjusted to reflect awareness that learners learn in different ways. Effective teaching provides opportunities for learners not to rely solely on their preferred learning styles and strategies but to strengthen their non-preferred styles through the use of strategies that are less frequently utilized.
Finally, I feel that the assignments that students complete in my courses should reflect tasks that they will be doing once they are actually teaching ESL/EFL or training ESL/EFL teachers. Four standard assignments that I give in all my classes include: classroom observation/teaching logs, textbook reviews, lesson plans, and research or position papers. First, the observation/teaching logs provide an opportunity to observe an ESL class and in a nonevaluative manner reflect on the activities that occur in the class. Watching for stages of the lesson and transitions between stages is an important part of the observation. Having an opportunity to then do some teaching allows the teacher-in-training to put the pieces of pedagogy into practice. Next, the text reviews allow ESL/EFL teachers to carefully examine materials available in language acquisition and the profession of teaching English as a second or foreign language. This assignment states that the review should be publishable. It is not simply a hypothetical publishable review. I expect the students to submit their reviews to major ESL/EFL journals for publication. Third, the lesson plans provide the students with the opportunity to think through how they would approach the teaching of second language skills. These plans should reflect a clear statement of teaching objectives as well as six stages of effective lesson plans for language teaching: warm up/review, introduction, presentation, practice, evaluation, and application. Finally, the research paper provides the students with the opportunity to examine in more detail an idea or concept which has been discussed during the course. In the grammar course this requirement is a position paper and requires that the students articulate their personal teaching philosophy of the role of that grammar should play in second language teaching. Although students often comment on the amount of work required in these courses, I feel that these assignments all reflect tasks that good ESL/EFL teachers should be engaged in on a regular basis.
My teaching philosophy is greatly influenced by my experience as a student in ESL teacher preparation courses, as well as my experience as an ESL teacher and teacher trainer overseas. I strive to show deep concern for the students in my classes and let them know that I value their experience and ideas. I want each of them to leave every class having gained some new idea or having reexamined an idea. Effective teaching results when we carefully consider what we do in the second language classroom and why we do it.
Teaching Weaknesses
I believe that there are three weaknesses that I need to improve in order to continue to develop my teaching skills. First, I need to develop more variety in how I present material and allow teachers-in-training to develop their skills.
Second, I believe that I need to improve my skills in developing assessment tools to measure growth and development in the assignments that I give. I believe that the assignments are sound and that the grading criteria I have are sound, but I need now to improve how I implement the criteria.
Finally, I believe that I over prepare for class. I have the knowledge and skills to teach all of the class sessions, I need to get to the point that I am not spending so much time preparing and be able to rely on my knowledge and strengths.
Teaching Goals
I believe that I am able to successfully model the elements of my teaching philosophy described above. These "best practices" seem to come naturally to my teaching. Now I would like to take my teaching to the next level. I want to integrate the use of technology in the classroom to allow students to be exposed to different and varied voices. This will allow me to focus on the role of variety in the presentation formats I use in order to strengthen and enhance my teaching.
My goals for teaching include:
1. Continue to gather student evaluations at weeks 4 and 12 of each semester. This evaluation allows for adjustments to be made during the course of instruction in order to improve student learning.
2. Invite peer evaluations for Fall semester 1998
[two courses]
3. Implement the use of technology in the LING 600 course focusing specifically on:• developing a course Web page to facilitate communication with students
• developing power point presentations for use in teaching
• making contact with research colleagues and inviting them to participate in a telephone conference call to discuss research methods4. Improve my skills in following the grading criteria I have established by allowing myself adequate time to grade student work so that I do not feel rushed while grading the assignments.
5. Spend no more than 1 and one-half hours preparing for each class session.
SCHOLARSHIP
Scholarship Strengths
My scholarship interests are very closely aligned with my teaching responsibilities.
Scholarship Weaknesses
My scholarship seems to have hit a slump. I need to rededicate myself to my writing with a renewed vigor.
Scholarship Goals
I plan to write every day, even if it is only for one hour. I plan to do this by arriving early each morning and making writing the first priority of the day.
I will encourage all MA thesis students I mentor that within 2 months of successfully defending their thesis that we will submit for publication a jointly authored article.
My short-term scholarship goals (1998) include:
2. Complete Multiple Intelligences State of the Art article, submit to TESOL Quarterly
3. Submit reading rate article to English Teaching Forum
4. Complete Bare Bones Bibliography of Books III, submit to TESOL Journal
5. Thesis to article possibilities: Karen Bergendorff - Self-Efficacy and Language Learning
My long-term scholarship goals (1999 and beyond) include:
2. Prepare book manuscript with XXX on Multiple Intelligences for TESOL
3. Develop metacognition study to conduct at the English Language Center
4. Thesis to article possibilities: XXX-Learning Style Matches and Mismatches; XXX- Replication of the Garden Path Hypothesis
CITIZENSHIP
Citizenship Strengths
I believe that as a contributing member of BYU faculty, I should be of service in the Department of Linguistics, in the College of Humanities, at the University, and to the profession.
Because of a desire instilled in me during my graduate studies at BYU, I want to contribute to the Professional Association of Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages in a leadership position.
Citizenship Goals
Respond to the nomination for TESOL President.
Continue to respond positively to assignments in the Department and only ask for a reprieve if it is absolutely necessary.
RESOURCES NEEDED TO ACCOMPLISH GOALS
For Teaching
For Scholarly Work
For Citizenship
• Research/Teaching assistants for up to 20 hours per week to help not only with research and teaching responsibilities, but also TESOL related tasks for all 4 years that I would be serving.
• During the year I serve as President (2000-2001), course reduction so that I would
be teaching only one class during Fall semester (2000) and one class during the Spring (2001).
• Use of telephone and fax for TESOL related business.
We have each read and agree with this Faculty Development Plan:
Signatures
| _________________________________________________ | ________________________ |
| Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics | Date |
| _________________________________________________ | ________________________ |
| Faculty Mentor, Department of Linguistics | Date |
| _________________________________________________ | ________________________ |
| Chair, Department of Linguistics | Date |