So much to do, so little time ...

5/9/2018

Hello !

We have just returned from yet another invigorating and highly successful workshop event, this time in central Melbourne, Australia. It is super exciting to see the passion, the dedication and the hunger for understanding of all the participants, and it is humbling to be able to provide them with guidance and support.

One of the key discussions in my particular workshop (Spanish Ab Initio) centered around the issue of time.

Time.

Aren't we all short of time, all the time ? This one commodity that, according to Roman author Seneca (yes, he of the letters), can never be gotten back once it's gone ...

As far as the language Ab Initio course and the language B courses is concerned, a very valid point was made that the removal of the Written Assignment and the introduction of the Listening Comprehension component are not a straight swap when it comes to the time required to teach and prepare the students for the final assessment.

Whilst the Written Assignment is (soon to be 'was') mainly produced outside the classroom, the development of auditive comprehension skills will require a much bigger time investment inside the classroom and, therefore, in the daily lesson plans of the teachers.

In addition, there will now also be greater emphasis on the conceptual understandings and on international-mindedness. Concepts will need to be taught and explicitly addressed throughout our teaching. Exposure to the cultures where the target languages are spoken needs to be at the center of what we do in our classrooms.

This all takes time, and teachers will be hard-pressed to find ways to adjust their already-packed syllabus and lesson plans.

One interesting idea to consider is to start treating the language Ab Initio course and the language B SL courses as 'higher level' courses as far as their time requirement is concerned.

As we all know, the IB recommends 240 hours of contact time for HL subjects and 150 hours of contact time for SL subjects.

How easy or how difficult would it be for you, the teacher, to have a discussion with your school's administration and to request that our two courses be given the same time investment as HL courses ?

In many schools there are combined HL and SL classes already - in many subjects. If your language B class is a combined HL/SL class, do you have to tell the SL students at some point that they can miss class because you will be covering the HL literature ? If so, are you planning to have the SL students use this time to work on their listening skills ?

In other schools the timetable may differentiate between HL classes and SL classes by giving the HL classes a higher frequency in the students' schedule or by making the HL classes longer (in minutes) than the SL classes. If so, can you discuss with your school's admin and ask that the Group 2 subjects be scheduled in the HL blocks ?

I'm struggling to think of other ways to 'create' more time for our Group 2 courses.

Can you help with further suggestions ?

Something needs to be done ...

9 Comments

Author

Ronny Mintjens is a practising Language Ab Initio teacher, examiner and workshop leader for the International Baccalaureate. He is the author and publisher of the “Language Ab Initio Student Workbook” and the various Language Portfolios (for Ab Initio, B and MYP). He is also a language acquisition and mother tongue consultant, the Head of Languages at a world-renowned IB school and a tireless advocate for mother tongue entitlement in international education. Beyond his life as a linguist, Ronny is a world traveller, a published novelist and photographer, a former professional football coach, a serial writer and an avid reader.

Sunanda

5/9/2018 07:49:47 am

I feel that my school will consider this proposal (more time for ab initio classes) only if there is a communication from IB recommending more time allotment. Otherwise, they have their own challenges of setting the timetable and this needs to be done at the beginning of the academic year which will be June 2018 in our school's case. So there isn't much time for us to decide unless IB acts quickly.

Ronny link

5/9/2018 07:59:19 am

It is very doubtful that the IB will recommend a higher number of contact hours for specific SL courses. They have drawn a line between HL and SL a long time ago and this line has probably calcified by now. It will, in most cases, indeed be a difficult conversation to have with the school administration, but it may be worth a shot. I am aware of schools where the SL Group 2 subjects do indeed have more contact time in the schedule than other SL subjects. In most cases, it comes down to a matter of language culture within the school community. Hard work but a battle worth fighting, in my humble opinion ;-)

Veena Soma-Barron

5/15/2018 06:25:09 pm

AGREED Sunanda!!

Ranjini

5/9/2018 08:46:26 am

I agree...my school too will only consider increasing the hours..if IB mandates it..else we will just be struggling to teach the new curriculum...infact am seriously worried about the time constraints..

Naomi

5/9/2018 10:39:28 am

Whilst not in any way dismissing the problems of course delivery you highlight, I do worry about the additional pressure treating an SL programme as an HL one would create. My students are already very busy with lessons, trying to schedule even more contact hours for them would leave them with even less time for the huge amount of work they need to do outside of lesson time.

5/9/2018 11:03:13 pm

Point very well taken. It's a matter of either / or. With an ever-increasing workload, is it better to have more regular contact with the students and help them structure their work ? I sometimes have the feeling that they need support with time management outside the classroom - especially with all the modern-day distractions around. I think I am in favor of having more contact time with my students, possibly getting them some of the study/revision etc done under supervision and guidance, so that there is less out-of-class time to be invested in the subject but so that I can also, to some extent, control the quality that they put in their study/revision time ...

Shiman

5/9/2018 12:10:04 pm

Please consider there are languages without alphabet such as Mandarin. To make the exam so challenging within such short time is a mission impossible for teachers and the students. When the IB course is designed, please think that not all the foreign languages have same level of difficulty. Naturally it means the hours needed to learn the ab initio, language B SL and HL are definitely different from other languages.

5/9/2018 11:04:29 pm

I agree 100% - the issue of time in the Mandarin, Japanese and Arabic courses is even more pressing.

rayesh

5/10/2018 09:57:38 am

Thank you for your post, it is reassuring to know that other ab initio teachers also have similar concerns.

Time, as I mentioned in a previous comment on another post, is a luxury ab initio teacher just do not have.

As the ab initio course is SL, the IB should ensure that the material that has to be taught is manageable within 150 hours. If it isn’t then the Ab Initio course should be designated as a HL class.

Fairness. Is it fair.

In your post, you state the possibility of allocating HL class time. How is that fair for some students who would not get this extra learning time while others would ? Yet, when assessed all students take the same exam but some would have 90 more hours to master the material.

While I recognise that different schools have different scheduling systems if this option is being entertained it suggests there is too much to cover in the ab initio course. Fixing that on a school by school basis does not seem to be a solution. The IB must take matters in its hands and come up with a comprehensive solution that is applicable to all school and not just some.

So much to do, so little time ...

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