Education | Higher education » Dr. Jean Chiu - A Survey Study of Holistic Learning in an English News Course

Source: http://www.doksinet 第五屆台菲學術交流研討會: 數位人文與文化研究 2012 Fifth Taiwan-Philippines Academic Conference: Digital Humanities and Cultural Studies A Survey Study of Holistic Learning in an English News course Dr. Jean Chiu Abstract The paper reports an innovatory initiative to introduce holistic teaching to Asian students, in a single program of an otherwise traditional English for Special Purposes (ESP) course. This innovation is a response to the recent trend amongst educational reforms in Asian Chinese region, which seek to avoid an exclusively cognitive emphasis on learning in academic subject areas. The writer has piloted the application of the principles of holistic education in a context beyond general education programs in a Journalistic English course in Taiwan. Findings demonstrated that students’ affective, social, cognitive, and cultural dimensions had been enhanced as a consequence of the holistic approach – in just one program.

In particular, affective support in the form of collegial one-to-one facilitation was found to contribute notably to enabling these Taiwanese students to engage effectively with cultural, and social dimension in their English learning. Suggestions for future studies are provided to help EFL students to cross the cultural boundaries of respectful silence, and to engage in critical communication. Keywords: holistic teaching and learning, Confucian Heritage Culture, affective, social, cultural, ESP Source: http://www.doksinet Dr. Jean Chiu Introduction Holistic education is a fairly recent trend in educational reforms designed to avoid exclusively cognitive emphases in teacher-centered learning (Finch, 2002; Lin, 2001; Lin, 2006; Sun, 2000; Yeh, 2000). A holistic approach to education addresses physical, affective, social, cultural, and cognitive aspects of the whole person (Forbes, 2003; Javis, 2003; Miller, 1993; Miller, Cassie, & Drake, 1990; Miller, 2000). Holistic education

expert Miller (2005) writes, “For well over two hundred years, perceptive educators and social critics have been telling us that modern educational system are intended to harness rather than liberate human energies(p. 33). Miller (2005) found that the contemporary educational system in advanced industrial societies “has relentlessly become more mechanical, authoritarian and oppressive” (p. 34) Crossing from the West into the East, traditional Eastern approaches of education have not fully prepared learners to solve personal, social, national and international problems (Forbes, 1996; Lillard, 1999). Rather, do educators train them to be "one-dimensional" persons (Lin, 2001, p. 35) Similarly, in southeastern Asia, in view of the rising students’ suicide rates due to academic pressures, former Taiwanese Education Minister Kao-Wen Mao (1992) proposed introducing holistic education to avoid exclusively testing cognitive skills in college entrance exams. However, the

consequent educational reforms did not continue to systematically implement holistic education across all curricula, but were restricted to general education, teacher mentoring and extracurricular activities (Jiang, 1998; Kao, 2003). As a result, not much research has explored the application of holistic education within the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), not to mention English for Special Purposes (ESP). The purpose of this study was to evaluate different aspects of holistic teaching and learning approach to in an ESP News class. Holistic teaching and learning approach in the study is defined as “affective, social, and cultural aspects of learning and development” (Forbes, 2003; Javis, 2003; R. Miller, 2000) In this paper, holistic education refers to the broad curriculum while holistic teaching and learning approach refers to the actual pedagogy in the class. Holistic teaching and learning approach is used interchangeably as holistic teaching or holistic

learning according to suitable contexts. The overarching aim of this research was therefore to understand: How do Taiwanese EFL students perceive the affective, social, and cultural holistic teaching approach in an ESP Journalistic English class? Literature Review Holistic Education Approach 2 Source: http://www.doksinet A Survey Study of Holistic Learning in an English News course The concept of holistic education has been utilised in western education to extend studies beyond traditional academic goals, to those based on values of whole human development (Forbes, 2003; Frijda, 1989; Gerber, 2001; Javis, 2003; Miller, 1993; Miller, Cassie, & Drake, 1990; Miller, 1997, 2000). Ron Miller (2000) advocates holistic education on the grounds that it reclaims the fullness of our humanitythe emotional/ affective, cognitive, moral, cultural, aesthetic, physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions of human existence that make learners more than mere processors of information.

Forbes (2003) insists that a holistic perspective is needed for teachers to view students as whole persons, with cognition, and affection in a different cultural background. Holistic education is featured by belief in an individual’s uniqueness (Forbes, 2003). It is implemented by practical pedagogies under different titles for teaching and learning styles, including “co-operative learning”, “critical thinking”, “multiple intelligence theory”, “small class size”, “mixed-ability”, “mixed-aged”, and the less authoritative “facilitator role of the teacher”(Forbes, 1996). Other features of holistic education include Japanese reformist Ohara Kuniyoshi’s concept of “learner-centered teaching” for active education (Lee, 2000), “exams-free” for humanistic evaluation (Lee, 2000), “journaling” in recording students’ thoughts and feelings in novel situations (Lin, 2000), “group discussions”, “group presentation”, “role play”, “outdoor

visitation”, “research project” (Chian & Fong, 1998), “outing activities” (Koetzsch, 2002), “online discussions” (Sun, 2000), and multi-cultural education (Koetzsch, 2002). The current study covered many of the above approaches The researcher wondered whether, and if so how, a Chinese language teacher may implement approaches drawn from western classrooms. Affective Needs in Holistic Teaching The affective aspect of learning is as important as the cognitive, and cultural aspects of learning and the foundation of social interactions (Javis, 2003) in creating an effective holistic environment. Learners can better achieve cognitive outcomes if their affective, social and cultural needs are satisfied (Javis, 2003). In order to achieve this, a teacher and students one-on-one relationship can best help understanding students’ individual needs (Merici, 2007; Wang, 2006). This is particularly of interest in the current research study, because Ho (2001) found that in the

Chinese context, Chinese teachers, unlike their western counterparts, reserve natural expression of their personalities, humor, and values in class. Hence, the potential of student-teacher relationship is not fully developed within classroom settings. Additionally, according Source: http://www.doksinet Dr. Jean Chiu to Sun (2003), Chinese parenting patterns generally cultivate children to refrain from being verbal in class. This is expressed as cultural norms of reverence and submission to teachers, who are the symbol of knowledgeable authority in the traditional classroom (Chang, 2001; Ho, 2001). Ho (2001) further points out that unlike their western counterparts, Chinese teachers tend to interact well with individual students after class, and express their personality and sense of humor in informal settings. The present researcher intended to explore the differences for Chinese students in a western cultural context, with its different affective and social environment. Social

Needs Regarding the solutions within Asian context, Japanese holistic education reformist Ohara (2000) called for changes in classroom social interactions from a traditional educational approach: 1) change teacher-centered to learner-centered teaching in order to promote active, optimistic, creative learning (Lee, 2000, p. 102), 2) abolish frequent and compulsory exams to humanistic evaluation, meeting students’ social needs (p. 102) The problems we face included teachers do not understand students, but use quizzes and exams, to test students’ cognitive memorization. Holistic teachers need to know students and research on texts and activities to mobilize active learning and researching spirit (Lee, 2000), yet Taiwanese students perform better if quizzes are given in a holistic education class (Chian & Fong, 1998). The researcher thus intended to investigate if exams are to be kept or to be abolished in a holistic Journalistic English class. Cultural Needs Tsai (2009) and Chao

(2009) both urge cross cultural teaching approach beyond cognitive aims of exam-orientation in long term educational objectives. Tsai (2009) found EFL teachers lack of experience in cultural teaching creates an illusion that linguistic knowledge alone is the most useful element in cross-cultural communication. EFL students need to acquire cultural awareness and identity in globalization and internationalization, and to critically reflect on their own culture and on the values of the target language and culture. According to the cultural competence study by Chao (2009), Taiwanese EFL students need confidence in cross-cultural communication, cognitive focusing on active information search, rather than perceptive strategies for feeling, and equal respect for all different cultures. It was noted, for instance, that if students make mistakes, teachers as “the authority” tend to interrupt, and correct them 4 Source: http://www.doksinet A Survey Study of Holistic Learning in an English

News course at once. Hence, Carless (2007) found in his study the need to modify a western model when adapting it into an Asian context for EFL students, by being context-sensitive and adapting a goal-oriented (often exam-related) teaching approach. Hu and Cheng (2006) suggest a shift in the teacher’s role to be an encouraging mentor, instead of the authority in the class by creating a consistently communicative environment. In view of this, there exists a pedagogical need for a culturally supportive Chiu (Chiu, 2009) and culturally appropriate teaching approach (Chiu & Cowan, 2010). Research Methods Overview To answer the research question, an action research methodological approach was chosen for this study. The semi-structured design enables the researcher to focus on themes of holistic education, particularly in affective, social, and cultural aspects of learning and development in the language learning process (Chiang & Fong, 1998; Sun, 2000; Koetzsch, 2002). To

further shed light on the questionnaire items, research participants had the opportunity in follow-up focus groups to elaborate their perception of holistic education in-depth and prior experience of holistic education taught in Chinese. Research Participants The participants comprised approximately 40 freshmen-equivalent university students, who were in their fourth year of the five-year junior college division of a Catholic college in Taiwan. All of the research participants had been exposed to four years compulsory holistic education courses entitled “Moral Development” and “Whole Person Development” taught in Mandarin Chinese earlier in the program. Research Design The study used quantitative research methodology to measure learners’ perception of different aspects in holistic teaching and learning. A semi-structured questionnaire was conducted in week 17 to assess the effectiveness of the holistic teaching and learning approach. A follow-up focus group was used to

evaluate students’ perception of holistic education in Journalistic English. Results Affective Support Source: http://www.doksinet Dr. Jean Chiu In the 6-point Likert scale questionnaire result, research participants had high appraisal (4.78) of the teacher’s affective support Table 1 shows that the affective support was the highest (5.70) in the item of ‘teacher’s understanding of them personally and individually.’ The second highest item was teacher’s respect of their individuality and photo-taking techniques to try to remember their faces with their Chinese and English names. One of the focus group students explained that her own homeroom teacher (class teacher) did not even know her name by heart, so she was affectively moved by the teacher’s efforts to personally know all of the 40 students in an elective news class. Research participants also perceived that their teacher cared about their feelings, their teacher was friendly in class and after class. However,

the lowest item in the affective support section was ‘not afraid of speaking up their opinions and feelings’, which was only rated 4.18 This indicates that the fear of speaking up in public occasion still existed despite the highly affective support. The result echoed the typical CHC characteristics of silence in class and fear of verbalising ideas (Sun, 2000). Overall, teacher’s affective support was highly evaluated while students still need social support to build up confidence in speaking up in a news class. Table 1 Students’ Perception of Affective Support Q1 My teacher knows me personally and knows my name by heart. 5.70 661 Q2 I think my teacher cares about me and my feelings. 4.51 960 Q3 My teacher respects our uniqueness and took our photos to better remember us. 5.18 907 Q4 I am not afraid of speaking up my opinions and feelings in news class. 4.18 110 Q5 My news teacher is friendly to me in class and after class. 4.32 108 Average 4.78 941 4.2 Social

Support Students expressed moderately high (4.44) social support of the news class Table 2 below shows that research participants equally liked the current news discussions and the teacher-student interactions (4.73) Building upon the highly perceived affective support by the teacher, the holistic teaching approach yielded high social interactions. Regarding the student-student interactions and peer support in news interviewing, they also rated high. This means that students enjoyed learning news by sharing their news stories of other classmates to the class and writing a feature story of their classmates. They also benefited moderately from the peer editing However, ‘the teamwork of a newspaper project,’ received the lowest rating (3.73) The focus group members pointed out that some members worked diligently while others did not, and 6 Source: http://www.doksinet A Survey Study of Holistic Learning in an English News course some members had different schedules, thus the

teamwork method was more time-consuming than expected. Although each student was responsible for his own one-paged news report (campus hard news, feature, editorial, sports, or entertaining), six of them needed to compile their news into a complete digital edition as the final group work. Hence, fair distribution of teamwork and accurate assessment of individuals’ input are important in social support of holistic learning when projects replace examinations as the assessment. Table 2 Students’ Perception of Social Support Q6 I like the discussion on current news in class. 4.73 1.01 Q7 I like the teacher-student interactions. 4.73 1.01 Q8 I think interviewing and writing a feature story of our classmate is a good training. 4.60 .95 Q9 I enjoy reading out loud my news story on my neighbor to the whole class. 4.62 1.03 Q10 I like the teamwork for our campus newspaper project. 3.73 1.35 Q11 I benefit from the peer editing. 4.24 1.14 Average 4.44 1.08 Cultural

Support In terms of cultural support, research participants had ‘highly positive’ perception of the integration of cross cultural news and international events into the course. Table 3 in the following page demonstrates learners’ high evaluation of the cross cultural learning by online news (4.95), World Games in Kaoshiung (478), weekly news reflection (4.73) and a classmate’s Australian internship (473) They acquired western values like environment and privacy, and become more global in their viewpoints. They learned more of the world media and culture by a guest speaker who was a former CNN journalist (4.41) Students were overall highly satisfied (4.64) with the cultural aspect of holistic learning in the Journalistic English class by guest speakers, local news, western values from the international news and students’ sharing of internships with overseas reporters. Table 3 Students’ Perception of Cultural Support Q12 I think I understand the world media better from the

former CNN reporter. 4.41 106 Q13 My cross cultural knowledge is increased by the news we read in class and online. 4.95 .97 4.78 .95 4.73 .96 Q14 When we learn about the news of World Games and its opening concert, we are reaching out to the world arena. Q15 In our weekly news, I understand how western people think about some issues like environment and privacy. Source: http://www.doksinet Dr. Jean Chiu Q16 I think the films “The Paper” and “Mad City” teach me about reporters’ life and ethics. 4.24 119 Q17 I learn from Zachary’s ETV internship and the time with Australian reporter. 4.73 107 Average 4.64 103 4.4 Cognitive and Ethical Support The cognitive performance was satisfying overall (4.49) based on college freshmen EFL students’ entry-level news criteria. This study also investigates participants’ perception of cognitive and ethical support. shows the moderately high positive perception of their cognitive skills in the holistic teaching

approach. They obtained the professional abilities in evaluating different styles of news leads (5.32), conducing news interviews (4.60), and writing news reports in English (441) Students expressed positive views of the first-hand experience of being a campus reporter. They also admitted that ‘producing a campus newspaper is holistic learning for news class’ (4.41) Regarding their perception of the ethical support in this course, the overall rating was high (4.74) Prior to taking this news course, they already obtained certain level of ethical sense. The holistic teaching enhanced ethical understanding of some challenging issues of pressures to news practitioners (exclusive news versus people’s privacy, digitally changing news photos). In the case of digitally enhancing an Iranian photograph, students agreed (4.22) to a news agency: ‘helping the two missiles explode successfully’ where two out of the three missiles failed to explode. This indicates that majority of the

students thought it was ‘acceptable’ to modify the shot. The focus group result had two opposite viewpoints on this important issue Some students said they digitally changed their own photos regularly on Facebook, but they would not change photos of social or crime news. It would be acceptable to change the new year fireworks and less crucial news photos. Two other students disagreed, and thought news photos should not be changed at all, because photos represented the facts and reality of a news story. Discussions The section discusses the findings of this study in the context of the existing literature pertinent to implementing holistic education approach. The discussions here focus on the affective, cultural, cognitive, and ethical dimensions of 8 Source: http://www.doksinet A Survey Study of Holistic Learning in an English News course holistic teaching approach in Journalistic English based on students’ perception. First of all, holistic learning needs to focus on

‘whole person’ instead of knowledge transmission and examinations (Forbes, 2003; Gerber, 2001; Javis, 2003; Miller, 1993; Miller, 2000). Similar to R Miller’s (2000) concept of the fullness of our humanity, holistic teaching approach goes beyond training ‘processors of information’ and involvesthe affective/emotional, ethical, psychological and spiritual dimensions of human existence. The fundamental belief of holistic teachers is that valuing students’ ‘whole-person’ development is more important than the current academic emphasis of knowledge transmission (lecturing news techniques in this study) and examinations. The research participants’ focus group result indicated that the holistic teaching approach effectively helped their value-centered development and clarified their sense of direction in the future. Unlike Carless’ (2007) suggestion of modifying western models and considering the use of examination in a Chinese context, the current study proved it

possible to develop Chinese learners’ English without examinations. Connecting youths to real ‘life’ by current news and social issues accordance with the literature’s ‘whole-person’ education. Second, teachers’ affective support for CHC students in holistic learning is particularly effective in their social dimensions of development. Similar to Javis’ (2003), affective support is closely related to CHC students’ liberation from concern over the silence comfort zone (Chang, 2001; Ho, 2001). In this study, teacher’s affective support of knowing them personally and individually (5.70) received the highest rating among all aspects of holistic teaching approach, yet students rated their confidence much lower in the item of ‘not afraid of speaking up’ (4.18) Although the social interactions were moderately high in the questionnaire, there is a gap in need of bridging to cross situation in ESP: affective support (4. 78) and social dimension (4.44) The facilitative

role was the foundation to create teacher-student interactions which resulted in a class atmosphere to help ‘freely express their opinions without confinement’ in a CHC context. The affective approaches included respect for uniqueness, and being genuine and congruent to learners both in class and after class. The result was two-fold socially: closer teacher-student interactions and students’ oral participation in news class discussions. However, the teamwork is problematic in Chinese context where distribution of work and individual assessment need to be ‘as fair and accurate as in examinations.’ Therefore, the affective support of a non-authoritative facilitator’s role is effective in CHC students’ social performance, given strategic teamwork assignment. Source: http://www.doksinet Dr. Jean Chiu Third, in addition to high appraisal of affective and social support, research participants also ranked the cognitive and ethical support positively in a holistic

environment. The cognitive dimension of learning successfully develops in the holistic learning environment for ESP. Participants rated moderately high for their cognitive skills in news interviews, and English news reports write-up. When an ESP learner’s affective needs (4.78) are attended to, the cognitive dimension (449) and ethical dimension (4.74) naturally develop in a holistic education class Ethical understanding evolves during weekly news discussions to engage learners into analysing and evaluating social issues and some tragic incidents in life. Holistic teachers openly discuss controversial issues and allow learners to exercise critical thinking in different styles of news coverage. Occasional negative cases like changing missile photo helped them learn ethics more in-depth. Additionally, research participants reported that ‘producing a campus newspaper is holistic learning for news class,’ indicating the effectiveness of the holistic approach of news learning by

immersing students in hands-on news making. What they have acquired cognitively and ethically is more useful than the testing of textbook news techniques and news vocabulary. Moreover, the cultural dimension of holistic learning is also important. Similar to Koetzsch’s (2002) and Chao (2009), cultural support fulfils the essence of EFL education in cross cultural projects and cross-cultural exchange. In the current study, students found their cultural competence increased, reaching the world through World Games news in Kaoshiung, understanding western values, practices and overseas guest speakers. Students’ cross cultural sensitivity and comprehension finally helped them go beyond the mass media stereotypes promulgated by U.S and U.K cultural exposure They were able to effectively communicate with foreigners with clear understanding of their cultural differences. Students grew to be ‘whole persons’ instead of ‘one-dimensional persons’ (Lin, 2003) because of cultural,

spiritual and self-growth. They became more complete human beings when cultural exchanges penetrated along with affective, social, cognitive, and ethical dimensions. These are more important for college freshmen’s entry level news learning. Conclusion In conclusion, the study set out to explore the perception of one CHC group regarding holistic approaches (Gerber, 2001; Javis, 2003; Miller, 1993; Miller et al., 1990; Miller, 2000) adopted to enhance their cross cultural communication 10 Source: http://www.doksinet A Survey Study of Holistic Learning in an English News course competence in a journalistic English class. The findings illustrated an overall positive result in the two-stage action research according to surveys and focus groups. The role of a holistic facilitator started from affectively loving individual students and attempting to understand them as ‘whole persons’ in a larger context of life aside from a given course, so that their affective, social and cultural

needs could be satisfied (Javis, 2003). Social communication competence gradually emerged following the holistic teacher’s affective support. With affective and social support, students were cognitively more ready and culturally more aware and open to the target language and target culture in authentic situated contexts like the interactions with the CNN reporter and World Games athletes and guests. However, in the face of the difficulties in achieving the ‘one-on-one relationships’ as Merici (2007) and Wang (2006) suggest, a holistic teacher is holistic only under the realistic restrictions of time, resources, and energy in a large class. Future studies are thus recommended to investigate explore how holistic educational approaches can better fit in different ESP and whether one-on-one relationships in ESP courses may help CHC students foster their cross cultural competence and broaden their worldviews. References Chang, J. (2001) Chinese speakers In M Swan & B Smith (Eds),

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