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What Does Success Mean? What Definition Works for You?
Sometimes the simplest questions create the best conversations.
What does success mean? What definition are you using? How is that definition working for you?
After a hectic summer teaching English and directing a private high school English program in Vietnam, I’ve been asking myself these questions quite a bit. I learned many lessons, deepened a close friendship with two old friends, met many fine English teachers, and enjoyed working and living in a rapidly developing nation. I discovered new places, ate new dishes, and saw new sights. That sounds like success.
From a professional English teaching perspective, I also made some significant curriculum changes, adding more student-centered activities and oral presentations. Further, I oversaw the creation of a new, tailored version of Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations for Vietnamese English Language Learners. From the resume perspective, the summer certainly was successful. The bank account shows progress. Success right?
Yet there were several disappointments and setbacks both inside and outside the private school and EFL classrooms too. “Stunning” became an adjective of choice, and often as an expression of exasperation. The everyday restriction of information and huge income disparities continually discomforted me. I experienced culture shock for weeks, and often felt dislocated and ill at ease. I didn’t exactly feel successful. Or at least, this success didn’t feel so comfortable. As George Bernard Shaw noted, “Success covers a multitude of blunders.”
Therefore, I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of career success, and having some wonderful conversations with friends and fellow English and ESL teachers. Do you know the website TED.com? I often go there for ideas – and sometimes classroom materials for advanced ESL students.
Today, this lecture on developing a kinder, gentler definition of success from a TED conference by Alain de Botton commanded my attention. With wit and humor, the philosophical author critiqued the contemporary obsession with career success.
Personally, I found Botton’s words and reflections refreshing and helpful. You might too. Listen for yourself, and found out!
http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success.html
Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations.
Visit www.CompellingConversations.com
Redefining Success – and Staying Optimistic
Sometimes we have to redefine success in our English language classrooms. Sometimes we disappoint ourselves, sometimes our ESL students disappoint us – and sometimes school administrators disappoint us. ESL and EFL teachers, often underpaid and overworked, have to deal with high expectations, numerous classroom frustrations, and stay focused on improving student skills.
Working with mixed levels and often difficult situations this summer, I’ve found myself falling back on a classic Winston Churchill quote. “Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Sometimes redefining success just means cultivating resilience, seeing new possibilities, and staying optimistic that tomorrow we will learn more and do better as teachers and students. Sometimes.
Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations.
Visit www.CompellingConversations.com
What will I learn today?
Consider me psyched. I’m going to a huge conference of ELT, EFL, and ESL professionals today in Vietnam’s White Palace. The 4th-annual VUS-TESOL conference program is full, and I expect to hear many more teaching tips for working with Vietnamese students who want to learn English, but are often reluctant to speak.
I’m particularly interested in hearing about successful transitions from grammar-based EFL classes to communicative philosophies, and talking with other English Language trainers and ESL professionals who have enjoyed teaching much more than administering programs.
Naturally, I’m also looking for “good mistakes” that don’t seem to transfer from the United States, Australia, and England to Vietnam. As Octavio Paz notes, “To modernize is to adopt and adapt, but it is to also to recreate.” What will work for Vietnamese students? What materials will most effectively encourage more Vietnamese adults to speak more in adult courses? What techniques work best here?
Ask more. Know more. Share more. Speak more.
Create Compelling Conversations.
Visit www.CompellingConversations.com
Standardized Exams: Ends or Means?
We Just Want a High TOEFL Score!
Students often need solid TOEFL scores to study abroad, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Naturally, this need – and ambition – often makes reaching a certain number on the TOEFL exam as the goal of their English studies.
Unfortunately, sometimes these imperfect standardized exams – all attempts to measure language ability of English language learners – become a goal in and of itself. Consequently, some students and stressed parents want all their English classes to primarily focus on test preparation. “We just need a good TOEFL score” mantra can lead to pressure on private high schools and language programs to exclude material unrelated directly to the influential ETS exam.
Let me suggest that this worshipping at the altar of standardized test scores can distort, even pervert, English language instruction. While excellent, specialized test preparation courses serve a vital purpose, they should be small parts of a larger English curriculum. The main focus of language programs, especially in high schools, should be helping students develop authentic language skills so they can actually read, write, listen, and speak English – both inside and outside the classrooms and away from multiple choice exams.
Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, and Jack London may or may not appear on the next TOEFL test, but high school and older English students should be exposed to their writings. We do not want to throw away our humanistic cultural heritage and reduce our English and ESL classes into mere test training. The TOEFL exam is a means, not an end in and of itself.
Likewise, we need – as English teachers – to remember that ideas matter, celebrate our dynamic language, and avoid the temptation to become grammar fundamentalists or mere language technicians. Learning English, a global tongue, allows students to move beyond the narrow confines of their local language and more easily join the global village. Let’s keep those larger goals – and the humanities – in the English curriculum.
Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations.
Visit www.CompellingConversations.com
Two More Steps Forward
Today is a good day.
For the first time ever, an English teacher used Compelling Conversations for English Language Learners in Vietnam in an EFL/ESL classroom. Emily, a close friend and fine teacher, used the modified “going beyond hello” chapter with advanced English students with considerable success. Consider me pleased.
Second, I had a chance to actually review a physical copy of the latest edits – including the inclusion of many local photographs. Although the images are rather small, they do make a big difference.
On the other hand, editing with a less than perfectly fluent staff also lead to some additional editing work, especially on the three new chapters for Vietnam. So I’ll do another round of edits – and add more proverbs and quotes from Vietnamese writers and poets. Doing it right is more important than just finishing it. Hopefully, the conversation textbook will help students learn to ask more and better questions in English – and allow students to reflect on their experiences and ambitions in a rapidly changing Vietnam.
The addition of an index of authors quoted with nationality, profession, and birth/death dates should also help English teacher and tutors here. But every part has taken far longer than expected.
Still, patience remains a virtue. Step by step, we climb the mountain!
Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations.
Visit www.CompellingConversations.com
As always, writing means rewriting.
