Background

I have been working in pathway provision within higher education at the time of writing for almost ten years in various roles encompassing teaching, course design and programme management. I've been fortunate in that these roles have complemented each other well and the knowledge and experience developed have always been transferrable. For example, my experience in programme management in London has been hugely valuable in my current role as a course designer in York. I have an enhanced appreciation of how different disciplines and departments work, which is helpful when thinking about how best to write a language course that prepares international students for a range of possible future degrees. Prior to my work in the UK higher education sector however, I worked for several years as a language teacher in a number of different countries including Hungary, Japan, South Korea, the Czech Republic and Costa Rica. This early period of my teaching career has helped inform all my subsequent roles working with international students from around the world.

I hold a Master's degree in Applied Linguistics, which also comprised modules related to the teaching of language such as syllabus and materials design. This degree was complemented with a series of teaching observations, from which I was awarded TEFL Qualified status and the equivalent of a Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults (DELTA). In my time at York I have completed the PGCAP and gained HEA fellowship. The PGCAP was extremely useful because it allowed me to broaden my qualifications and knowledge base away from just language teaching, and it complemented my programme management experience well.

During my time in higher education I have published articles and book chapters on topics of teacher identity, language input for learners and technology enhanced learning.

• 1. Materials should achieve impact: key in achieving this are novelty, variety, attractive presentation and appealing/engaging content. Freely available digital platforms and repositories of copyright-free images such as those covered in the previous section have allowed me to create impact with teaching materials to a much greater degree than would be possible with documents alone.

  2. Materials should help learners feel at ease: technology allows us to meet this principle more effectively by enhancing the interface (ergonomics) and page layout (aesthetics). I discussed earlier how packages such as Xerte and Google Sites can guide students through material and provide feedback and support, but they also allow more effective use of white space, and better integration of text, visuals and media. Digital platforms also allow us to link pages together cohesively and establish a clear 'voice' within the materials. All of these aspects can help make the materials more appealing and the study process less stressful.

  3. Materials should help learners develop confidence: Tomlinson contends that we should encourage students to come out of their comfort zone and build confidence by challenging them. This idea is important to consider when providing 'scaffolding' for students, which sometimes runs the risk of oversimplifying content. The way I provide this scaffolding in my teaching materials is to regularly refer back to relevant previous classes when introducing new concepts. Using digital platforms makes this much easier as I can embed links in introductory text, which make the spiral element of the syllabus explicit and thus provide that sense of scaffolding.

  4. Materials should expose learners to authentic language in use: For language learners, the availability of authentic language online is probably the biggest impact brought about by developments in technology. YouTube is potentially one of the most powerful technological platforms we have at our disposal, and I often embed video from this and other sites along with media such as podcasts in learning management systems like Blackboard, and then complement these with guided discussion questions and activities. I have also started using auto-transcription portals such as Otter, which make capturing and adapting authentic spoken and written text much easier. This has had a huge impact on my teaching and course design. As a regular listener of podcasts, I frequently come across highly engaging, academically relevant and current talks and discussions that can quickly and easily be adapted for use in language teaching. A good example of this is a lesson I adapted from Radio 4's The Listening Project.

     • There is an instructional video on page 3 of the lesson above which may be inaccessible outside of the University. An open version is available here.

  5. The learner's attention should be drawn to linguistic features of the input: a key driver in the success of learning a language is repeated exposure to specific vocabulary and structures, and teaching materials can enhance this process be drawing students' attention to specific language. Technology has allowed significant advancements for teaching in this respect, and I now use tools such as Open Shot Video Editor and Audacity to repackage language in the form of clips and edited excerpts so that students' attention can be drawn to salient features without just re-reading or listening to a set text. I then embed the excerpts in platforms such as Xerte, and create interactive tasks to guide students through the 'rules' and features of specific language points. I feel that my approach to addressing this particular principle has dramatically changed in the time that I've been working more closely with technology because it allows students to work much more at their own pace instead of me as teacher or materials designer dictating the pace of the class and attempting to keep students of different levels in a kind of 'learning lockstep'.

  6. Materials should provide learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative purposes: there are three clear examples where technology has better helped me address this principle:

     • by using the peer review platform Eduflow, which encourages students to write and submit by offering anonymity and structured feedback from classmates via a rubric;

     • by using the authoring tools Xerte and H5P that I discussed earlier, which offer note-taking facilities that can be embedded alongside video, audio and written text which students can save for use in the live sessions with their peers. Having a user-friendly facility for language production like this has changed the way I design live lessons so that they're more centred around a discussion about what language students have produced as part of flipped tasks;

     • by using Padlet and Wakelet to encourage students to make their own video and audio recordings to practice spoken English. This use of technology has hugely broadened the opportunities for language production compared to what students would be able to do in a classroom/pen and paper environment.

Critical reflection

Critical reflection on how technology interacts with our principles of teaching is very much in the spotlight at the time of writing. The summer of 2021 has seen tentative preparations being made for some degree of on-campus teaching to resume in the coming academic year, and these preparations have taken place against a backdrop of online conferences and CPD sessions which have sought to reflect and share best practice on the role of technology in teaching, and how higher education in general will look in a post-lockdown world. For my part, the last eighteen months have been the most intense period of professional development I have experienced. I have gained proficiency in a range of technological learning platforms, many of them discussed in this portfolio, and I have firm plans to continue to utilise platforms such as Xerte that better facilitate a flipped learning approach by allowing students to work independently and at their own speed. However, evidence from student forums and exit feedback continues to highlight the value learners place on in-person teaching (discussed in more detail in the next section). As such, it is important not to let new technological toys detract from underlying principles of good teaching. Technology should augment rather than dictate teaching and course design, and clearly there are places when it can even detract from the learning process.

In October of this year I will be changing roles from module leader to programme leader, and this will mean supervising teams of module leaders across a range of disciplines. This presents a significant opportunity for critical reflection, as the new role will involve collaborating with these module leaders to help guide the development of their teaching and course design. While my experience with learning technology will no doubt prove useful, the core pedagogical principles should remain the guiding lights of module development. This will also be an opportunity to observe how the principles I have developed over the last three years translate to the teaching of other subject areas, and to see where technology can best be used as a tool to enhance the range of learning opportunities. One of the challenges will be in getting to know the teaching principles of my new colleagues, and looking at what we can learn from each other in how we design courses, write teaching material and integrate technology in our lessons. To aid this process, I plan to hold regular on-to-one discussions with my team members on what pedagogical principles are guiding the development of their modules and what technological tools can help the development. The annual module review will then give us a chance to look at the impacts that any changes they've made to their teaching has had on the module. It is my hope that this will be a mutually beneficial process for me and the module leaders where we can learn from each other's expertise and experience.