Complexity and ELT – Poster presentation @ TESOL France
5November 26, 2010 by Willy Cardoso
Here’s an electronic version of the poster with hyperlinked reference.
Complexity and ELT – Willy C. Cardoso
And the handout I’ll just paste down here:
Complex Systems are:
Dynamic | Non-linear | Chaotic | Unpredictable | Sensitive to initial conditions |Open
Self-organizing | Feedback sensitive | Adaptive
- How far is your class/school a complex system?
If Second Language Acquisition is indeed a complex nonlinear process, we will never be able to identify, let alone measure, all of the factors accurately. And even if we could, we would still be unable to predict the outcome of their combination. (Diane Larsen-Freeman)
- How far are you and your students comfortable and able to cope with the unpredictable?
To strengthen a system we make more connections. A strong and lasting system is one with strong networks.
Connectedness implies relationships, for example, between individuals and teams; between teams; between subsystems; between the institution and its environment (Lewin and Regine, 2000:19)
- How open is your class to the external environment?
- How far is your class able to influence its external environment?
- How far are students/groups able to create networks with other students/groups?
- How far are you, the teacher, connected to other teachers?
Self-organization is when order emerges from within. It enables systems to develop, adapt, create, and change so that they can respond to and influence the whole network, which will in turn respond and influence said system, thus creating a feedback loop.
- How often are groups/students able to organize and direct themselves without ‘top-down’ interference?
- How far is control/decision making distributed throughout the class/group?
- How much room is there for creation and innovation?
Great poster. Great questions. Has definitely got me thinking and evaluating. Thanks
Brilliant! Just finished an MA TEFL and got into complexity theory as a way of including all the ‘messy bits’ of research in a discourse analysis of classroom interaction between learners.
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