The Common Sense Approach
How One Teacher Organized A Speaking Course
For 200 Chinese Graduate Students
by Steve Schackne
- 4

A Common Sense Approach—Grading

Oral skills efl is not a core content course and, hence, is not usually a high priority amongst Masters and Ph.D students. A common sense approach here would be to simply offer a pass(p)-fail(f) grading system, with a high pass(hp) for exceptional work. The problem, of course, is many schools demand a numerical grade. The pass-fail designation could be converted to numbers, e.g., 80-65-90, but this would leave an unacceptable spread amongst the largest group—pass. Rather, I chose 6 numerical equivalents with the following key: 68-fail, 75-low pass, 78-low average, 82-average, 85-high average, 90-exceptional. The range was arrived at based on grad school standards, and reflects a general level of student progress, while avoiding hopelessly fine numerical distinctions.

Conclusion

The field of English language teaching has been extraordinarily atomized—programs in universities, high schools, and language institutes often have little in common, and teachers, often recruited from various backgrounds, can offer different content within the same course description. The ed schools keep plying us with different theories and classroom approaches but, if the students really do have different learning styles, as well as different goals and purposes, and if they are motivated in different ways, then a common sense approach would involve several factors—an understanding of how second language is acquired; practical hands-on experience in teaching a second language; and understanding of human nature; and a knowledge of student backgrounds and prevailing conditions.

A good tefl program offers a theoretical foundation and, perhaps, a bit of practice teaching; the rest must be learned by the teacher through keen observation and real-world encounters.

References

Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman, 1991-2000

Krashen, Stephen. The Input Hypothesis, Longman, 1984.

Krashen, Stephen and Terrell, Tracy. The Natural Approach, Pergamon Press, 1982

Schackne, Steve. “Language Teaching Research—In the Literature, but Not Always in the Classroom,” in Journal of Language and Linguistics, 2002.

Biodata

Steve Schackne has spent 25 years in the field of linguistics. In addition to teaching, his background includes teacher training, program administration, and online-distance learning.

He was educated at the University of North Carolina and the State University of New York, and has taken post graduate language training at Taipei Language Institute and the University of Macau. His postings have included Taipei Language Institute, Tunghai University (Taiwan), Kansas University, Culver Educational Foundation, University of California--Santa Barbara, Oklahoma State University, University of Macau, Ming Chuan University (Taiwan), and Fooyin Institute of Technology (Taiwan). He has lectured and published all over the world, but is now best known for his educational resource web site, Schackne Online.

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