Key Points for TEFL Knowledge Transfer

Effective knowledge transfer is a main area of concern for anyone involved in teaching. I've been especially interested while I in the midst of a very interactive learning environment (in the form of immersion in a foreign culture) while at the same time in a rather limited interactive teaching environment that I hope to bring about at least some change to (in the form of the Azeri classroom).

Currently I'm reading a really interesting (text)book called 'Processing the Experience' (Luckner & Nadler, 1997) which is one of the seminal books in experiential learning and strategies to employ to generalize the learning from a specific activity to larger life scenarios beyond the specific structured activity. They list seven important factors (pg. 21) in working towards more conscious and effective knowledge transfer techniques. They are:

1) Individuals must see similarities between situations that happen during the experience and situations that have occurred in other aspects of life.

2) Individuals who see that new knowledge or behaviors bring about beneficial results are more likely to be motivated to use this new learning.

3) It is helpful if individuals can identify opportunities to use new knowledge. This is encouraged by realistically comparing a structured experience with specific past and possible future situations in their lives.

4) Meaningful learning promotes better transfer than rote learning.

5) The more thoroughly something is learned, the more likely it is to be transferred to a new situation.

6) Numerous and varied examples and opportunities for practice increase the extent to which knowledge and skills may be applied in new situations.

7) The probability of transfer decreases as the time interval between the original task and the transfer task increases.

We can go over these principles again, but this time specifically orienting them to teaching English as a foreign language:

1) The student must see the connection between language subject matter taught in class related to the language used in real life.

2) When the student sees benefits of learning English they will be further motivated to learn the language.

3) It is helpful if the student can identify real opportunities to use this language. Whether helping with employment, their social life, or new information, it is useful to discuss specific past examples where English might have benefited them and future potential scenarios.

4) Learning English in a way that is meaningful to the student is always more effective than rote memorization of the language.

5) The more confident a student feels in an aspect of the language, the more likely they will use that aspect of the language in real life.

6) It will be more likely that English will be used in new situations if the student's knowledge is reinforced again and again in a variety of ways.

7) The likelihood of the student speaking English outside of the structured classroom decreases as a natural occurring scenario takes longer to appear.

Of these seven factors the one that jumps out as the most difficult to me is number 7. All other aspects of effective knowledge transfer can, to some degree, be accounted for in the classroom environment. But number 7 requires us to find validation outside of the environment. Perhaps this is why Conversation Clubs and Summer Camps are pushed so hard by Peace Corps, it gives validation outside the classroom.

Happy Holidays from Azerbaijan

Myself and two friends are speeding down a highway, at times paved, at times gravel. Though we're near sea-level, its as if we are driving through a cloud, the driver is only able to peer no more than 40 feet in front of him. Specks of life appear as we push through the vapor; boulders become grazing sheep, broken telephone poles are men by the roadside. In the distance we see shadowy peaks breaking through the clouds. And the road continues to unfold.

Its about 10 in the morning, we are in the middle of a 2 hour ride to Baki that will take us to the clatter of the Baki Bus Station. From here we will make a not-so-brief stop in the Peace Corps Office to pick up Christmas packages for volunteers and board a bus to make our way to Sheki. We settle into our seats, relieved to finally remove ourselves from the chaos that is navigating Baki.

We take a deep breath, finally we can relax. Suddenly the televisions flicker on and blast Azeri wedding music. This will be another long ride. Just how long was it? Long enough for my travel buddy JM (and for matters of traveling convenience, my temporary fiancé) to decide that now would be the perfect time to pluck all the lint from her peacoat with tweezers.

At last we arrive in Sheki. We came the furtherest and arrived the latest. Everyone has already eaten and has certainly already started drinking and there is a huge welcome for the last to arrive. Soon we have ditched the weariness of the road and are laughing over food and drink with friends we haven't seen in two weeks, though its felt like two months.

This weekend was interesting. Its the most unusual holiday I've spent and yet there were so many consistencies. The full day of traveling to be with the people I love. The all-to-brief celebration of Christmas before rushing back to real life. It was sad that I couldn't be with those I loved, but it was a good holiday.

Merry Christmas!

More substantial blog post coming soon, but until them here is a quick card created by the extremely talented Nick Fauble. Nick is an artist living in Denver and has hung work at Dazzle, Ink Tattoo, and Mead Street Station. His works range from decoupage, to wood cuts, to ink illustration. Check out his portfolio here

What is the cost of friendship?

Bribery exists in Azerbaijan. There. I've said it. For us, and by us I mean Americans, someone who accepts a bribe is immediately viewed as a corrupt person. Those who engage in a system of bribery are unscrupulous individuals who lack basic values such as honesty. However, in a country where bribery is so pervasive that it almost goes unquestioned, bribery isn't so much corruption as proactive tipping. My friend owns a taxi, and I think he put it best: 'Ah yes, the Xachmaz police are all my friends'. Friendship; now thats a worthy value.

As a Peace Corps volunteer I don't have to participate in this system. If a police officer seems to be implying something, I can simply call a number to get things all sorted out. And I don't have to worry about bribes at school because, though I'm working for the school, I'm not employed by the school. But I do get to see it happening and, at this point in my service, I get a pretty big kick out of it. Some volunteers affect an offended stance on this, I just feel pretty cool that the people I'm with get to do something that we normally couldn't do. I know, I know, so mature.

The best example so far was a recent night when I was invited to go swimming with my host brother and his friends (who are a great group of guys by the way). We were going to an Olympic complex in Guba, near Xachmaz. It was dark when we pulled up and, from the lack of cars around the building, the complex appeared to be closed. But our group confidently strode up the steps and into the lobby.

They're talking to the guy at the reception desk and one of our group members pays for an entry ticket. We're asked if we have anything we'd like the desk to hold on to while swimming and the driver gives his car keys and another guy gives his phone. And under his phone is a folded twenty. The twenty wasn't hidden by the phone, it was more like a coaster for the phone to rest on, like he didn't want to scratch the laminate desk. And with that little transaction we were all motioned to head on our way.

So what did this get us. Well it turns out the complex was closed, so we basically had the entire olympic sized pool to ourselves. I probably haven't been swimming in 4 years and when I was asked whether I was a good or bad swimmer, I asked what he considered a bad swimmer, it turns out, in AZB, I'm a great swimmer. It was really fun, good ol' horsing around with no lifeguard to yell at us.

And who can put a price on friendship?

Time for the Year End Roundup..

Every December I look forward to the coming end of the year, not because of Christmas or New Years' Parties, or because of a new year's resolutions or goals. No, I look forward to the approaching end because we are flooded with Year End lists for music. For the lazy person, one could easily keep in the know (at least, within the year) simply by going to a few sites.

As of now, I'm most impressed with the behemoth Matthew Perpetua put together at Fluxblog, an 8 disc survey of the best of 2010. Its not ranked but simply broken into 8 segments. It provides an outstanding review of 2010 including great songs regardless of mass appeal or cult following. Download it here.

Pitchfork's annual tradition of Top 100 tracks of the year has, over time, become an emblem of pride for artists listed. Keeping with the P4K elitism, its ranked, and I am always rooting for certain songs to be ranked higher than others. Check it out here (still looking for download UPDATE: torrent it here)

So with the flurry of year end music writing, I figured I needed to get my list out before it was contaminated by all the other great lists out there. Below is my unranked 21 track listing for 2010. Certain artists (Robyn, Kanye, LCD) could have easily been represented even more, but I chose to limit it a little.

Download it HERE

1) Vampire Weekend - Giving Up the Gun

2) Cee Lo Green - Fuck You

3) Big Boi - Back Up Plan

4) Robyn - Dancing On My Own

5) The-Dream - F.I.L.A.

6) Caribou - Kaili

7) Kanye West ft/Bon Iver - Lost In the World

8) Gil Scott-Heron - New York is Killing Me

9) LCD Soundsystem - I Can Change

10) Drake - Karaoke

11) Four Tet - Angel Echoes

12) Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

13) Nicki Minaj - Girls Fall Like Dominoes

14) Sleigh Bells - Tell 'Em

15) No Age - Glitter

16) Justin Bieber ft/Ludacris - Baby

17) Kanye West ft/Dwele - POWER

18) Antoine Dodson & The Gregory Brother ft/Kelly Dodson - Bedroom Intruder

19) Clipse - There Was a Murder

20) Free Energy - Free Energy

21) HEALTH - USA Boys

And, my Top 6 Albums of 2010, in no particular order:

Robyn - Body Talk

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Four Tet - There Is Love In You

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

The-Dream - Love King

Gil Scott-Heron - I'm New Here

And for those who want to know, the song I listened to the most in 2010…Party in the U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus. Lord, that wasn't even released this year..

How many times a day do you shower?

How many times a day do you shower?' That was what Fargani asked me when our tour took us to the bathroom. I assumed I mishear and asked if he meant weekly and how often he showered. He laughed and said 'Every day of course'

This is a good introduction to my set up in Khachmaz (or Xachmaz, or Xaçmaz). I have a great living situation in a great site. We have internet in my house. The house is beautiful, the nicest I've seen in Azerbaijan so far, and my room is bright, big, and calm, a room where I can feel completely comfortable in. Fargani's family is wonderful, they are kind and patient. Unlike my previous host mother who shooed me away when trying to form a sentence my current host mother offers word choices and seeks to understand. I haven't seen his father and brother much but they seem nice and happy to have me. We also have a little girl, Fargani's niece, who is living with us for a while. She is adorable and, unlike the babies in Tagiyev, does not cry when she looks at me.

Fargani himself is incredible. Currently he is working at his English center he opened two weeks ago and already seems to be quite a success. All the classes offered are booked for the month. He was a former LCF for the Peace Corps and a MUSKI alumnus (a highly competitive program through which the US embassy sends a few AZB adults a year to post graduate education in the United States) and consequently speaks truly fluent English. He is very active in developing his community and has been involved with the Peace Corps, the US Embassy, and the United Nations. I will learn a lot from him.

He has taken it upon himself to be an ambassador of sorts for his community, not only taking around all the Peace Corps volunteers but ensuring that their families know each other and that he introduces us to his friends and key spots. His friends are great, they are active in their community, they have jobs, they're learning English, they have a hope for the future that is unlike what I saw in Sumgayit or Tagiyev. They remind me of my friends back home.

Khachmaz itself is a beautiful city. The streets are clean and the air is fresh. There is sunshine unfiltered by a haze of pollution. And everything feels new. New schools, new parks, new libraries, new arches over streets, its wonderful. The city planning feels progressive, focusing on creating a livable city, not just an efficient city. There are trees, sculpture, unique street lights. Its more liberal then other regions in Azerbaijan, you see women and men socializing in public, you can buy bacon.

The school I will be working at is also beautiful. It is a new school, dedicated to the memory of the first president's wife and Khachmaz ensured it spoke well of her. It is a stone building (like, it seems, all the buildings in Khachmaz) with marble floors. The classrooms have visuals on the wall and new furniture. There is an assembly hall and classrooms with computers. There is an English resource room and the oldest AZETA chapter (AZB English Teacher's Association) is based there. Afterwards I guested at her house and met her husband who was very warm as well.

In general my impression from the first 48 hours here is great. I have completely lucked out on a great site and have every reason to be happy. I kept telling people who asked if I liked their city that my first 10 hours here have been my favorite 10 (or 24, or 35) hours in Azerbaijan. When talking with friends I have to temper my excitement as not everyone feels as lucky as I.

The Moustache Project

Nick and MD sent a great care package this past week (thanks guys!). Included in it were for moustache masquerades, or moustaches on a stick. And of course, they are a huge hit. There is some scientific rule about the relationship between good times and moustache's on a stick. So, here are two new creative endeavors for you to get wildly excited about (share buttons below..)

The first is 'The Moustache Project,' where I am documenting people in Azerbaijan, while wearing moustaches. As you can see its pretty American heavy at this point but expect that to change once I get to site. Click here

The second is 'A Moustache a Day,' where I will be taking a picture of a random object each day with a moustache. My irregular internet might not allow me to update Flickr every day, but you can be certain there will be one every day. Click here

And to whet your appetite. Here are some flavor saver pics:

Thanks Apple! A (very) first draft of a strategic plan for 2 years in Khachmaz

I'm not much of a day-planner, but I am most certainly a quarter, year, or even longer planner. It was at Apple where I learned to effectively strategic plan and do long term goal setting and I have frequently made use of this skill in my professional and personal life. As I prepare to go into Khachmaz as a community development worker (for isn't that what we all are?) I thought it made sense to arm myself with a loose strategy of what I hope to accomplish in the next two years.

Consistently Peace Corps has discouraged us from thinking of huge projects or specific activities that we want to start, they reinforce the idea that we should seek community inspired projects with support from our actual site. We've also heard consistently from PC Volunteers that many the official PC 'expectations' are not grounded in reality and can quickly go out the window as one actually begins work.

Thus, my plan is set up to have few specifics, but rather themes that I plan on focusing on. For example, instead of demanding lesson plans for each class, I am focusing on a specific aspect of lesson planning as we were taught each 6 months, with the hope that I can teach the methodology as opposed to the specific product. Focus on the benefit of a 'motivation' step instead of on the specific 'lesson plan' product. This way I can develop skills that an be applied over a range of items rather than the ability to achieve a specific task. I believe this will be more sustainable in the long run, which is PC's largest goal anyway.

This is a draft. Some boxes aren't filled in yet, and this will evolve in the next month as I get to my site and conduct my observations. As I edit this, I'm sure I'll find that some of the results are actually indicators and vice-versa. I readily appreciate comments and questions. I believe that strategic planning is an effective exercise to help sort one's thoughts and give a starting point, whether required or not. This was not required by PC but will help me greatly as ensuring that I am not getting lost in the minutiae of today and focus on the success of completed service. I think it provides a good example of a long term strategic plan with lots of variables and few knowns, which is how most long term strategic plans are.

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