29 November 2011

Managing an Interventionist Student-Centric Literacy Initiative - A Practice Manual for School Heads (Organising genius and the case for true grading for streaming purposes!)


Organising genius and the case for true grading for streaming purposes!

One of the difficulties faced by language teachers is in grading students performance. The false assumptions generated by a dumbed-down official National Grade Average has put language 'educators' in a quandary- whether to trust our nation's Standard 6 UPSR/GSAT (Grade Six Assessment Test) and plod along or to take interventionist measures.

Interventionist measures in educational parlance refer to the duty of each teacher to implement special pedagogic fine-tuning to bring EVERYBODY to par. At its most basic, RUN a literacy enhancement drive to speed up skills acquisition AND PROPEL THE LEARNING SPIRIT. Without language skills, without ability to comprehend text, by rote memory drilled unto, and the rush by schools to complete the examination curriculum and wave.'paper proof of success' mindset to please both parents and Jabatan, the purpose of education is missing. The purpose FOR education is also missing. This may partly be proof of  the much written, a dumbed-down education grading system where 70 % of those who obtained A's in English UPSR are either false beginners or functional illiterates. Most of these 70% end up in Band 2 MUET(Malaysian University English Test) ranking and remain functional illiterates.

Interventionist measures is to be taken by the teacher in daily contact with pupils, not by some Jabatan armchair expert miles away from reality, staring at budget allocation of new Dasar, clueless as to the nature of problems on the ground. Interventionist measures in educational parlance means remedial measures to jump-start pupils interest and desire and motivation to excel by 'teaching reading first', a competitive, structured literacy programme'. Meaning you actually teach them how to read by getting them to do it.
 
One could not help but notice the paradox of  one such official 'interventionist measures', the PPSMi.which let to the 're-spinning' of the National Grade Average, which has unfortunately slowed the learning process, dampen student interest and producing net effect when 'education quality' graded artificially. Student complacency and lack of urgency in knowledge acquisition is fashioned after their teachers. An outlook to learning based on a false sense of comfort and security due 'paper proofing' activities. But not fool proof, if one is to add.

School heads realise and continue to berate in private Jabatan interventionist measures. It is time for schools' own interventionist measures.

REGRADING THE GRADING SYSTEM AND CALLING IT THE OTHER GSAT - GRADING SCHOOLS ADVANCEMENT TEST 
 
Coming...............

Bringing literacy home

This Paper is a report of sorts on the plight of schoolchildren and teachers alike, participants in ‘bad practices’ that lead to learning discrepancies. Our assumptions on learning discrepancies are: that it is curable once students take the role of learners; that continuous mute testing and paper proof success goes against the evidence; that it is imperative teachers take the role of facilitator and provide the conditions for learning. There can be no lifelong learner lest the teacher be a lifelong reader. And School Heads are in best position to lead lifelong learning initiatives.

According to established leading research findings on the subject, learning disability stems from reading disability, and that learning discrepancies are treatable. It has been noted that a large number of school-leavers in Malaysia, those who either continue their studies or enter the job market are functional illiterates in English and victim of at best ‘mal-administered education processes’. To aid literacy enhancement and level the playing field to close the achievement gap among students from different and varied backgrounds, a peer coaching, student-driven academic co curricular Literacy Enhancement Drive [LED] is proposed.

The LED initiative is a capacity building interventionist way of giving students more time to acquire the linguistic skills and overcome L1, L2 confusion. The LED Initiative could change the entire learning culture and make simple the delivery of the hitherto formal intensive examination-biased ‘delivering’. Our observations of current teaching methodologies found that due to the “dumbed-down” national grade average, there is a lack of opportunities and conditions in the school setting for top and gifted students and the strong achievers to advance beyond the examination requirements and not be on rote memory mode.  If current teachers are trained (or retrofitted, to be exact) to facilitate and guide peer coaching what will happen is hyperbolically, ‘a user reengineered pedagogy of method and content for psycho motoring literacy by reengineering the teaching mind’.

The notion "User reengineered" is introduced because the student is now the syllabus. “Reengineering” the teaching mind means that teachers, at the minimum, will have acquired their own growing fluency with improved grammar usage, coupled with a newly-acquired lifelong learning outlook. “Reengineering” the teaching mind means that teachers, at the maximum, will have to learn along and polish language status quo and self achievement. The LED Initiative can be dubbed as ‘an in-service learning curve imbedding methodology to raise literacy level of both the teacher and the student’, and to be managed by School Heads.
  
We propose a Cerap Led initiative for Heads’ consideration; a Local Agenda 21 type community initiative on Literacy and Numeracy (LINUS) enhancement to “ensure that every child can read independently and effectively before leaving primary school.” The LED Initiative is to level the playing field and resolve the unanswered call for steps to improve the literacy skills of struggling readers. It is also an agenda to discover and groom high achievers, those handicapped by present learning mode, with a chance to advance further, freed of artificial constraints within the system.

School heads should collaborate with NGO's and PTA’s to create a  scheme that  recruit and coach jobless graduates from the community and turn them into mobile 'reading instructors', through a ‘barefoot doctor’ version of literacy coaches -  a ' francais kampung literacy outreach Brigade. We propose both Gabungan Majlis Guru Besar Malaysia (GMGBM) and Majlis Pengetua Sekolah Malaysia respond to this challenge by setting aside funds and time for installation into the school system a LED initiative that ropes in jobless yet eligible graduates as literacy coaches who want to make a difference in the life of a child.

Skim Pembacaan Inisiatif Kelab or spik!

This initiative is to train and place literacy coaches as reading instructors operating in local primary and secondary schools to provide comprehensive reading support to students who are below grade level in reading. 

These eligible graduates will be coached and be equipped as Brigade members to run SKIM PEMBACAAN INISIATIF KELAB or spik!, which in turn will see a sharp rise in their literacy skills leading to better employment prospects now that they have been forced to ‘find their tongue’. The SPIK! programme works in partnership with district education offices to identify primary school students who are in need of extra assistance. Reading support is provided at partner schools during the normal school day as well as during community support after-school programs.

The initiative offers Brigade members the unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience providing a meaningful service to local children and schools while at the same time earning money to support their upward move in workforce literacy. More importantly this second chance at literacy attainment raises self-esteem and effective communication skills in L1 and L2 using modules for Workforce Literacy.  Positions could then be made available for reading coaches as well as facilitators who qualify to help coordinate the scheme at each partner school or community centre dubbed as coaching stations.

If the reason for specific learning difficulties among schoolchildren is reading disability,
If the reason for reading disability among schoolchildren is non-reading,
If the reason for non-reading among schoolchildren is they are not asked to read,
If the reason schoolchildren not asked to read- not part of the examination business,
If the reason reading not part of the examination business is teachers lack time for it,
If the reason teachers lack time for it is they don't make time for it,
If the reason teachers don't make time for it is because reading not part of the examination business,
Is the reason reading not part of the examination business due to
our lack of common sense?

So we ask where the readers are unless we produce them. And banking on the axioms of set theory that practice makes perfect, if we produce a reading coach we then produce a coaching station; and by producing a coaching station we produce the reading habit.

Cerap bahasa is Malay for 'mind your language'

Coach-a-coach Extensive Reading Assistance Plan, CERAP, is a method and content solution for language teaching and learning of English. It is designed as a supplementary remedial cum enrichment programme to fill the gaps found in the present taught curriculum, for experience has taught us that one of the main reasons why students fail in learning is their lack of reading skills.

The present method of language teaching and learning presupposes the ability of students to obtain input for acquisition, and hence usage, of a second language via the formal intensive teaching method. The present way of English language teaching and learning also dispenses with the need for 'sound' or PROOF OF READING FLUENCY even for teachers! It is the taught curriculum (English as taught) that compounds the problem and breeds learning disability, and not the quality of the official curriculum or the various suggested tools of instruction available. Language is not taught as language is to be taught.

This lack of reading skills is rooted in learning discrepancies acquired by students' in the rush by Malaysian schools to complete the curriculum, or to target a specific examination. There are too many instances of slow learners who are left behind whilst exceptional, gifted ones are ignored. Only the “average” ones are led along to go through this system of learning, which may or may not produce students of an acceptable standard.

The number of class students and the lack of time, books and competent teachers plus general apathy to anything which is not examination business have turned reading into a foreign element in the educational and teaching process. And the price for that could be seen in the fall in the standard of language fluency and proficiency, thus perpetuating learning disabilities. What is most troubling is the sure prospect of a continuous 'tikus baiki labu' (literally, like mice repairing the gourd, which means to worsen a situation) scenario in the attempts to remedy the situation

Results from all leading research findings on the subject proved beyond doubt that students who have an early initiation in proper reading skills using interesting books in a non-threatening environment improved their learning capacity by leaps and bounds within a short period of time. We feel that there is a need then to put into place a remedial cum enrichment "interventionist" method syllabus such as CERAP, since by applying a more structured reading skills approach it will inevitably uplift reading standards as well as improve students’ general academic achievement in schools.

The programme that we envisage basically underline the basic aims of CERAP; to enhance/ boost/ supplement/develop reading and learning skills among low achievers in English (especially among students whose academic records tend to veer downwards), via an approach to pedagogy that is simple, practical and yet effective. And more importantly, to ensure that the high-achievers be put on an extensive enrichment practice, for it is from their lot that the quality coaches come from.

3.     COACH-A-COACH EXTENSIVE READING ASSISTANCE PLAN: PUTTING COMMON SENSE TO REASON


The method module for school implementation is designed to resolve classroom problems in teaching English to a big and mixed ability crowd of up to 40 students by using the big numbers to advantage. The key idea behind the method is firstly, to get the students to read as many books as fluently as possible via a graded reading programme consisting of books and accompanying audio materials. It is an enforced reading programme conducted on a regular basis by 4 coaching teams per class under the teacher's supervision.

The method of coaching is called coach-a-coach because it is peer teaching with effort as part of the evaluation and grading component. The reading practice is conducted by groups of ten students on a read aloud take-a-turn reading, with the coaches continuously correcting each and every mistake. The stress on frequency for fluency, or fluency from frequency, produces the necessary reinforcement needed for retention of subject matter in a tongue-tied environment prone to the disincentives caused by the rule of disuse (lidah dah berkarat) and issues of cultural permission (kaffir language) of the English language.

The content of the module is a selection of materials designed with a remedial cum reinforcement cum enrichment approach that seeks to screen students in the four areas of language skills, i.e. listening, reading, writing and speaking through continuous practice. It is an "interventionist curriculum" to ensure all the gaps in skills, gaps produced by the examination/testing approach in schools, are now filled. It basically employs a student-driven, peer learning approach geared to solve the stuck on the language malaise that is the product of years of distorted language teaching.

Low achievers can be taught to excel by the simple approach of enhancing their reading skills and also by boosting their interest in learning with suitable supplementary modules. And for low achievers, we discovered, there is more pleasure for them to be coached by their peers, to be huddled together whilst the head coach cues correct pronunciations, or spelling, or assist them as their written work are being done.

These modules could be used as part of an English Coaching Games for primary school students preparing the UPSR year-end written examinations, running it from February to April. Schools will have the advantage of lifting their takeoff value from a higher level, and producing students who enter secondary school with functional and usable English. It helps correct the 'anomaly' of L1 and L2 national grade average, as it levels the playing field and jumpstarts reading.

These modules could also cover the core areas of science or mathematics without the need to change the tools of instruction, or the medium. This is where a creative school might want to add the science and mathematics textbooks as reading materials, to ensure that each student who competes would end up reading the whole book before June. From June onwards revision and remedial exercises follow, and the other like could be scheduled.

This coach-a-coach approach not only enhances general reading skills, but have an in-built scheme whereby more coaches are trained internally as the programme develops. In this way the programme feeds itself without the need for onerous funding and training programmes for teachers. An enforced literacy programme such as CERAP is able to raise literacy and the appreciation of the written word, allowing learners to acquire a sustainable second language leading to at the least Intermediate mastery before leaving school.

We have also seen from our research how delighted the students were with their new-found skills and also their new-found love for books that many offered to stay on as coaches beyond the designated time, creating an almost instant shift in their outlook to learning. An interesting spin-off - from our experience - is that teachers as facilitators, and coaches themselves improve their own language skills along the way in the course of implementing the programme.

We have tested this peer coaching method, albeit on a small scale at primary, secondary level (1996-2001 in Terengganu and Pahang) and post-SPM and university level (2002-2010 UNITAR-COSMOPOINT-RANACO-UMT). We now feel that there is a need to incorporate this dynamism into the present school system so that low achievers will not fall by the wayside while their better classmates are being dragged more and more into complex IT-based learning methods, with the goal that the number of quality students coming out of the system are increased whilst the late-bloomers are catered for. 

And with the daily diet of written exercises completed in each session, to be peer marked and corrected on the spot, parents need no longer worry about present state of affairs where teachers are too busy to mark and supervise pupils’ written work, and where mistakes get uncorrected and undetected for life, and achievement level frozen up to tertiary level.

In a CERAP programme, the assigned teacher/facilitator will be supervising 4 coaching teams, each team ensconced to a component of the content module, competing to complete and then move on to a higher level, or switching to a different component, say from reading to storytelling to writing mode. The flexibility is there to maintain group dynamism by allowing students to excel by having games and competitions, using the underlying content-woven 3000 keywords corpus target.

We propose a minimum of 2 sessions per week, each lasting 90 minutes (1 hour of reading + 30 minutes of writing, spelling & other exercises per session), so that each student does 6 minutes of reading while being read to for the remaining 54 minutes, strictly speaking. Thus on a weekly basis, each student would have actually read for 12 minutes and listened for 108 minutes, making a 2 hour weekly diet of ongoing reading practice and 1 hour reinforcement activities. Compare this to virtually zero hour reading in most schools, where language is taught sans the sounds!

We have tested students from primary to university level using Oxford's Test yourself samples, and unsurprisingly the grammar skills of a graduate is approximate to that of any primary school advanced pupil. The same applies to most language teachers tested.

Non-English teachers or even volunteers from amongst parents (where it is done off school hours) could conduct the supervision of the coaching. Thus from one perspective the method should be able to produce a pool of ‘Language Para-teachers’ who would have acquired enough reading skills to be able to run the programme from constant repetition and contact with the language.

An interesting spin-off could be an impact on the tuition business run by teachers in their spare time as there are bound to be parents prepared to pay for private tuition operators simulating the CERAP programme. It is important that the capacity building path of obtaining input for skills acquisition be addressed first before students are expected to handle the 'communicative' aims of the second language syllabus in secondary schools.

Since the nature of the coaching sessions requires actual reading and active participation, the excitement and joy of competition provide the impetus for students to excel. This we have been able to observe at close range, the paradigm shift produced by actual reading practice. Compare that to the staid, passive and multiple-choice rote manner English is being taught!

What is most important is to be able to assemble a group of 10 coaches first to compete in a school run English Coaching Games, each coach assigned to 10 students, with each willing to push the group to the finals, so to speak.

Students are put on a
3-stage reading programme. The stages are tagged Remedial, Enrichment and Further Reading for students from Primary Four to Secondary Three category. This is an important grading element for the home tuition part, i.e. for sibling coaching. There will be instances where siblings from different grades end up with same module level and this acts as a catalyst for the elder one to remain ahead, or else be coached by the younger brat, so to speak.

The Further Reading stage would include read aloud sessions using science and mathematics textbooks, which will eventually generate enough interest matter in the subject.

Presently the teaching of mathematics and science though officially in English are not so taught in the 'taught curriculum' (the actual manner subject treated as against actual way it should be). Instead of teaching mathematics and science in English, it could instead be designed to run as an ongoing coach-a-coach book club/class library scheme so that students who have achieved progress post-CERAP do not wane on their reading.

The other element suggested is the passing out in June/December where awards will be given to the best reader, best mimic, best coach, best coaching team, best storyteller, best speaker, best speller, best effort etc., which needless to say, provide the impetus for the progress and success of the students. As a highlight, a district-wide competition could then be held after the UPSR and PMR exams where selected students represent their respective schools before the school year-end. Scenes of students whiling and idling while waiting for UPSR and PMR results will be a thing of the past as schools could put them to good use as coaches to run ongoing CERAP activity.

This grading through practice enables the teacher to arrange the team according to achievement, thus having 4 teams made of A, B, C and D ranking. The team members are encouraged to vie for the A team to qualify as coach to be assigned to the other 3 teams. Here the class is involved either in remedial stage or enrichment. In a dream setting, a teacher supervises the ongoing practice of 4 teams, one doing the storytelling component whilst the other 3 practice the other components.


The formula to note here is that using a 3000 word corpus as a target, the drill and practice requires a constant brush of the first 1000 crucial words; with a learning outcome credo requiring students to read aloud, spell and write them, and eventual USAGE (ability to produce written essays or speak the language when required). Through reading practice students understand and master the school English language syllabus more easily. We gauge this against the official school examination, and discovered that students who are able to read Book 6 of our remedial Class Reader fluently eventually are in the top spot. The reading for pleasure aspect begets understanding!

This is the most fascinating part of CERAP coaching for students: recording the event. Armed with borrowed laptop, thumbdrive and Microsoft recorder, and an enthusiasm rarely seen from even from the shyest violet, group members record their favourite story readout in storytelling mode to be uploaded to a Kelab Tunas Ehsan portal linked in a school website/ homepage/ weblog. In any competitive environment, a public 'display' of effort to be appraised by the school community and family members is bound to generate ‘surreptitious coaching’ and repeated recording practice and practice. The accumulated recordings are then graded and marked for listening practice use by the next coaching cohort.

BILAS - BAHASA INGGERIS AMALI LANGUAGE PRACTICE THRUST
TEBAS - BAHASA MELAYU AMALI LANGUAGE PRACTICE THRUST

Why TEKNIK EKSPRESI BAHASA AMALAN STANDARD OR TEBAS:

The progress to a second language mode, we notice, is faster once students go through a foreign language approach in language learning i.e. through an enforced reading programme. Thus as a supplemental programme it does not interfere with the ongoing lessons and reduces the exam-phobia and “examicide” of English. The progress to a second language mode, we notice, is fastest if students have acquired and mastered the First language first.

The English BAHASA INGGERIS LATIHAN & AJAR SEMULA is a refresher course module [BILAS]. But BILAS must begin with the discernment of L1 and L2 sound and grammar systems. In removing the perils of 1st language 2nd language 'sound-fusing', there is need for screening of student’s sound box and quarantining of local dialects through enforced reading of First language practice modules. There is evident L1 interference where L1 and L2 share the same alphabetic ’pillars’

So TEBAS first before BILAS!

TERRABACA is Malay coinage for Tunas Ehsan Rancangan Regu Amal Baca, roughly translated as peer coaching reading practice plan for the sprouting of virtues, or Coach-a-Coach in student parlance. It is a practice method lesson plan for Bahasa Inggeris Amali, OR in student parlance  ‘try read and teach read’ peer activity dubbed as coach-a-coach:

·         As an interventionist lesson plan run by student club as an academic co curricular tutorial group, it is to boost capacity and understanding whilst nurturing good learning habit and skills acquisition.
·         As peer coaching it is about 'organizing genius', about bringing fun to learning, about psycho-motoring literacy, about nurturing intellectual curiosity, about producing the reading habit, and about  empowering minds.
·         As reading solution it is outcome based, gradable for effort and frequency, proof of the pudding for fluency aside from the school based assessment or written examinations.
·         As student is the syllabus method plan, it is structured along Bloom's Taxonomy of three "domains": Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor, plus one other domain, GROUP SPIRIT drawn from the adrenalin rush to complete highest levels and excel in the language Games.
·         As  a LINUS Coach-a-Coach Express Games for L1 and L2 screening (or heats before the Finals), with outcome to be graded in terms of goals set by School Heads using modules above National Grade Average bandwidth .
·         Within the domains, learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels. So goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education
·         Within the domains, learning a foreign language and the progress to higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and language skills in First Language

  As a pedagogic guide TERRABACA also stands for the following-
 
T - Teacher is the best learning portal as facilitator 
E - Extensive reading using language learner books as practice modules 
R - Reading practice for fluency leading to correct grammar, to understanding and to usage leading to sustained reading habit
R - Recording the event for peer review of audio readout and for Club Games contest events; “multi-mediating” of skills in the home-grown language audio lab
     A - Assistance, reading instructors as coaches, creating all round group camaraderie
B - Bloom's Taxonomy three "domains": Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor plus one other domain, SPIRIT. Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education. So to body, mind and soul we add Practice Spirit via Coach-a-Coach Express Games!
A - Alphanumeric skills to speed up reading and writing leading to second language acquisition, leading to the ‘arrival of meaning’; Alphanumeric in recording the grading and quantifying the effort
C - Capacity building for input acquisition and auto-grammar through constant coaching practice
A - Advancement of coaches and the top 30% to higher level practice sessions leading to Intermediate Mastery or Cambridge ‘O’ Level equivalent, or to top MUET outcome.

 ADDENDUM

confucius said many hands make light work / orang tua-tua bilang mau-pakat membawa berkat

Maratib of the TERRABACA Lesson Plans as supplement to, and for supporting the National CurriculumKERAP Bahasa Melayu
Modul TEBAS
Kaedah Ekstensif Regu Amalan Pembacaan


CERAP Bahasa Inggeris Modul BILAS
Coach-a-Coach Extensive Reading Assistance Plan

SERAP Sains & Matematik Modul SMISTI (Skim Mampan Inggeris Sains,Teknologi & Info)
Science Extensive Reading Assistance Plan [EST- English for Science & Technology as Further Reading CERAP and KERAP Plan]

TERAS Bahasa Arab & Jawi Modul FAHMA (
Fasih Amal Hafal Sistem Makhraj Abjad)
Tunas Ehsan Rancangan Abjad Sejawi

Tunas Ehsan or the Sprouting of Virtues is STRICTLY METHOD and introduces learners to a practical application of the virtues of long-forgotten tradition and ethos, banking on the social capital generated from its implementation among the young, our future, to wit,

- sprouting virtues, from school to home, and back
-
buah cempedak di luar pagar/teach that I correct each mistake - mispronunciations, misspellings etc -
-
muafakat membawa berkat - many hands make light work
-
pada asasnya belakang parang sekalipun jika diasah lagikan tajam! - neglect not the slow learners, the late bloomers, the non-starters because with Kelab TUNAS EHSAN, now everybody can read (because everybody asked to read, period!).

and applying the following method ideas

- mushrooming of coaching stations anywhere/everywhere...for the glint from practice
- practice is from frequency to fluency - the alphanumerics of
buah cempedak di luar pagar
- Apex now the Axis or
Puncak kini Paksi leading to breeding and crossbreeding of coaches
- Teaching reading first as First Principle or
'Iqra

and all else leading to

* Further Readings in Science, Mathematics and the Encyclopaedia of life -
SERAP for PPSMI
* Accredited Quality Screening - in choice of coaches, and books as practice sets, in grading the effort, recording the event
* Kelab TUNAS EHSAN is to obtain proof of the pudding and the arrival of meaning...of common endeavour to improve the learning culture

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