4. E-Course on Teacher Development in ESL: An Experiment in the Flipped Classroom Model - by Dr C.A. Lal

E-Course on Teacher Development in ESL: An Experiment in the Flipped Classroom Model

The E-Course titled "Teacher Development in ESL" began on 30 March and concluded on 29 April 2015 with a 3 day contact programme involving teaching practice. This was done using the Moodle facility of the Virtual Learning Centre of the University of Kerala.

The course was offered free to 36 school/college teachers and research scholars, of whom 31 logged in and 27 actively participated. These teachers were from different parts of Kerala, and one of them was working on it from Singapore. They later worked in 4 teams, preparing model lessons for the contact sessions. The result was very encouraging with participants having shown keen interest to learn, work and interact in a virtual environment. This was a new experience for all participants, and they coped with varying measures of success. This was great learning experience for me too as the person running the course.

The lessons were structured on a weekly basis, with video clips, reading material, discussion boards, links to resources, assignments and quizzes.

The course and its progress was evaluated by Ms. Libby Rafferty, an ESL expert from the San Jose State University, California and English Language Fellow in Chennai, through the US Embassy. She commented in her feedback that,

I just took a look at your moodle course. Looks like it's going well! I like the short readings and videos you chose for the teachers, and it seems they are actively participating in the discussions. Their comments will surely give you some insight into what will be most beneficial to focus on during your in-person sessions. It looks like many teachers are concerned about how to incorporate CLT methods while still completing their portions.

I think it will be important to emphasize that CLT doesn't have to take a lot of time, and can be used to teach the actual curriculum. I think a lot of teachers see CLT as something teachers do in addition to their portions. So often it is portrayed as teachers spending hours every day cutting out colorful materials and cards. I think it's helpful to show teachers that it can be as simple as having a discussion about the day's topic to make students feel that they are responsible for their own learning. The students can memorize information on their own; the role of the teacher is to inspire them to think critically about the information.

I'm really impressed by the level of thoughtfulness and English ability shown by the teachers in your group. They seem like a teacher "dream team!" I'm excited to hear how the in-person training goes. (Email, dated 13 April 2015)

The contact programme from 27 to 29 April 2015 went on as planned, with 25 participants. This involved largely teaching practice, observation, feedback and review in groups. The Women’s Club of the University of Kerala helped on this by arranging a vacation programme on these days for school children of employees.

This experiment in the flipped model has been most enlightening. The big advantage is that people in different parts of the state could do it at their pace, in their comfort, and get together for the actual practice.

Report of the E-Course

Name of course: Teacher Development in ESL

Teacher: Dr. Lal C. A.

Total Participants: 36 (enrolled) Active 31 Completed 25

Mode of transaction: Online (30 March to 26 April), Teaching Practice (27 to 29

April, 2015) Moodle platform of the Virtual Learning Centre <hpc-ku.in/moodle>, University of Kerala.

Online content:

Week 1 (30 March to 5 April) The Learner

Week 2 (6 to 12 April) Communicative Language Teaching

Week 3 (13 to 19 April) Framing ESL Lessons

Week 4 (20 to 26 April) Lesson Plans

(Each week had online videos, reading material, discussion boards, links to sites with follow up quiz or assignment submission)

Report:

The content and the transaction mode where tested with good level of success. There was initial inhibition on the part of many learners due to lack of familiarity with a virtual learning environment. But this was mostly resolved over time. Teaching practice had 25 participants from the districts of Palakkad, Trissur, Kottayam, Pathanamthitta and Trivandrum. The students for the practice sessions were the participants of the vacation programme organized by the Kerala University Women’s Club from 27 to 30 April 2015. The teacher trainees working in four teams did three teaching sessions of one hour each and equal number of peer observation sessions. There were three hours of face-to-face review with the trainer during these days.

Dr. Lal C A, Faculty of English, School of Distance Education, University of Kerala.