Defining Educational Innovation

Refining Educational Innovation

From the standpoint of educational innovation is extremely important because education has been strengthened and attached to a single plan and a very tedious to teach lessons, some students of a foreign language are faster to capture and acquire the second language , others have learning disabilities, this reading you want to define what is an educational innovation in this way for the development of reading learn about it.

This chapter discusses another innovation ELTO, is said to be a rather effective and applicable to teachers and administrators will always have many ways of learning, with difficulty or simplicity, we as educators we must provide the best way towards the benefit of the student .

As regards the programs of the MEP, the MEP in recent years sought to increase and enrich the knowledge of the students, this in order to meet the demands gradually requiring this globalized world, since some years now we have seen in schools and colleges, taught many specialties, such as computers, English and other academic and conversational, this in order that we all have better training and be competent in working environments.

Incidentally this is an educational innovation and not only find different ways to teach a class but we are also innovating for educational improvement looking to make competition with other developing countries that have all that is advanced technology.

In order to form a conclusion, we are intent on receiving everything that will benefit our student population, because every day we are exposed and forced to keep improving our quality of education, so the MEP provide all the tools to develop classes and educators in us find a creative way to develop the kind to make it fun and tasty for students.

This document aims to provide language teaching professionals with the theoretical
Knowledge needed to answer precisely these questions. More specifically, asking such questions –which focus primarily on issues of syllabus implementation rather than design – involves adopting a “diffusion –of-innovations” perspective on understanding educational change. This perspective leads to other questions about what change is, what attributes innovations should poses in order to be adopted, how different kinds of individuals react to innovations and how various systematic factors –all sociocultural in nature –interact to affect the implementation of innovations.

First, educational change should be part of the basic intellectual preparation of all language teaching professionals- particularly of those individuals who posses or seek to obtain advanced graduate degrees in the field. Second, curriculum development and teacher development are often treated as separate issues, they are in fact indivisible. The adoption and diffusionist perspective on educational change involves addressing the short –and long term professionalism of teachers, on whom real, long lasting change in the classroom always depends.

The implementation of change in language education occurs within a systemic ecology that either promotes or inhibits innovation. In other words, cultural, economic, political, and other factors always mediate the possibility of change

Language teaching professionals should also know what limitations of innovation research are. For example, Everett Rogers, one of the leading scholars in this field, notes that diffusion research has been criticized for displaying (1) a pro-innovation bias, in that is has been assumed that such research was conducted only to help promote the adoption of innovations; (2) an inequity bias, in which the socioeconomic and other consequences associated with developing in innovations have been ignored or downplayed; (3) an individual-blame bias, in which individuals (rather than the larger social system) tend to be blame for failure; and (4) a lack of methodological rigor, as when researchers rely on the subjective recollections of informants instead of using objective observational procedures to describe adoption behaviors.

For example, Fullan (1989, cited by MacDonald 1991) argues that, within education at least, all the conscious strategies of innovation developed to date have failed to fully achieve desired goals. Though, these issues are not raised to make language teaching professionals shy away from a diffusionist perspective. Otherwise, the importance of continuous innovation as part of professional and organizational development, particularly as circumstances in the wider environment are constantly changing.

Innovations in second and foreign language teaching

The British Council’s international development work

English Language Teaching Officers (ELTO) program. ELTO is funded by the Overseas Development Administration (ODA), the Foreign Office agency responsible for all British aid work, and is administered by the British Council, which is responsible for staffing and managing ELTO projects. ELTO personnel - typically, specialist in curriculum design, materials development, teacher training, or evaluation – operate in underdeveloped countries. They are usually based for up to five years in education ministries, universities, or teacher training institutes. Lately, ELTO projects have also been sited in secondary schools.

From a language teaching perspective, the aims of ELTO projects are quite innovative. Most “regular” language teaching professionals probably view themselves fairly narrowly as language specialists.

Something that looks odd is that while most methodology textbooks focus on learner centered ELTO projects do on teachers. In doing this, ELTO come up with teachers better prepared to work and make their classes student-centered.

The notional –functional syllabus

The result was the notional –functional syllabus which saw the needs of adult learners as being quite different from those of secondary school students, ho study foreign languages as part of their general education. In contrast, adults typically require foreign language instruction that is geared to specific professional and personal needs.

In analytic syllabus, learning is organized in terms of the social purposes that learners have for learning the target language. This suggests that learners must interact with and analyze samples of language that are relevant to their needs. Learners are invited, directly or indirectly, to recognize the linguistis components of the language behavior he is acquiring, we are in effect basing our approach on the learner’s analytic capabilities.

The process syllabus

Syllabus refers to the content or subject matter of an individual subject whereas curriculum refers to the totality of content to be taught and aims to be realized within one school or educational system. Third, in its strong from at least, not only the content but the materials, methodology, and types of assessment used in a course are not predetermined.

The process syllabus promotes innovation through a problem –solving model change. In traditional syllabus writers specify content before a course begins. Traditional syllabuses are predictive documents because they set out what is to be taught.

The natural approach

1. The acquisition -learning hypothesis posits that adults can get a second language or foreign language through the activation of two different systems (1) acquisition involving subconscious learning process that allow them to pick up the language naturally, as in first language acquisition; and (2) learning, consisting of the development of formal conscious knowledge about the grammatical rules of the language. According to this hypothesis, formal instruction does not aid acquisition but is necessary for learning.

2. Even then, monitor use can be effective only if three conditions are met. Performers must (19 have enough time to monitor their output, (2) be focused on form, and (3) know the grammatical rule for the form in question.

3. The input hypothesis states that learners acquire syntax and vocabulary by receiving and understanding input that is slightly beyond their current level of competence. By guessing and inferring the meaning of linguistic information embedded in the communicative context, learners are able to comprehend syntax and vocabulary that would otherwise be too difficult for them to understand. This input is known as comprehensible input or “i+1.” Thus, learners gradually acquire (not learn) fluency by being exposed to i +1 in the target language.

The natural approach proposes that (1) language classrooms should promote communication in the target language rather than focus on its structure; (2) teachers should allow linguistic competence to emerge over time, rather than try to dictate when and in what order particular linguistic items should be learned; and (3) error correction should focus on meaning, not grammatical form.

The procedural syllabus

The procedural, or communicational, syllabus emerged out of the Bangalore Project, an experimental English language teaching project that lasted from 1979 to 1984. the locus of the project was eight classes in primary and secondary schools in southern India, where English is a school subject. This project was initiated because of dissatisfaction with the status quo- in this case, a structural syllabus coupled with an Audiolingual methodology(Prabhu, 1987) or, according to Tickoo (1996), a form of grammar translation.

The analytic syllabus type was innovative in at least three aspects. First, it was tried to develop a syllabus with a content that was not linguistically based. Instead of organizing instruction in terms of preselected language items, they eventually hit upon the idea of using tasks as the principal carrier of language content. Second, it developed a meaning-focused methodology in which students learn language by communicating. Third, Prabhu tried (at least in principle) to avoid using form –focused activities in the classroom (i.e, explicit grammar teaching or error correction).

Task –based language teaching

Focuses on analytic activities as well as material. It contributes to work with different groups based on top -down activities.

The context based approach

The rationale for the content –based approach has two different kinds of knowledge: declarative knowledge is what a person knows about; procedural knowledge is what a person can do.

The content –based approach produces both declarative and procedural. Consequently, the students gains mastery of the language (procedural knowledge) and mastery of the subject (declarative knowledge) simultaneously. Innovations which focus in the content –based approach is very important because through activities such as games and songs teachers can transform classes into attractive and effective ones.

Implications for educational change

Curricular innovation is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon. It is a socially situated activity that is affected by ethical and systemic constraints, the personal characteristics of potential adopters, the attributes of innovations, and the strategies that are used to manage change in a particular context. The newness of any idea or practice is more a matter of adopters’ perceptions than an objectively definable fact.

In a society like ours, academic patterns change more slowly than any others. In my lifetime, in England, they have crystallized rather than loosened.

A theoretical framework for understanding innovation: who adopts what, where, when, why, and how?
A diffusionist perspective on curricular innovation involves (1) explaining differences in the rates of adoption by users in terms of potential adopters’ and social characteristics, social system variables, and the attributes of innovation; (2) analyzing how different channels of communication (broadcast and print media, electronic mail, face –to – face communication, etc) may be used to inform potential adopters about an innovation; (3) identifying the stages potential adopters go through in deciding whether to adopt, maintain, reject, or discontinue an innovation; (4) understanding the personal and social consequences of innovations; and (5) analyzing how change may be designed, implemented, and maintained.

Characteristics of a renewed and innovative pedagogical practice

It should not be routinized.

It should be a conscious act.

One that enables a good atmosphere in the classroom, excellent participation of students, permanent interactions between teacher and students, and among students.

It should enable students to construct knowledge by means of different strategies.

Where individual differences are taken into account and prior knowledge is recognized.

Where a holistic view of knowledge is stimulated.

Where the context in which the school is located is considered along the type of students.

The teacher varies strategies, methods and techniques according to subject, objectives and curricular content.

Where students’ interest in learning is awakened.

Where the teacher recovers the social and cultural knowledge of the community and adapts the curriculum to the real world and the student’s needs.

Where the teacher centers his teaching on real problems and solutions of students confronting knowledge and their development and before a local, national and worldwide context.

Where the teacher uses not only the classroom but the whole school and community.

One that allows students to develop autonomy from self learning, because this fosters confidence and gives greater value to what they do.

One that stimulates creativity as one of the best abilities an individual can develop to solve concrete situations in the learning process.

Bibliography

Scattered by Mesén, Robertho for study purpose 2009.