Daniel Man-Hon Tse is an EFL teacher at IH Milan. He spoke on behalf of IH at Oxford TEFL’s InnovateELT Conference in October 2022. Daniel discussed the complex and fascinating topics of synchronous and asynchronous learning. He explored his experiences and observations of working with both delivery methods and how teachers can challenge their preconceived ideas about them.
He wrote an article for us detailing the main principles of his talk and how he found the experience of speaking for IH.
InnovateELT’s aim is to celebrate and encourage innovation in language education and it’s a great opportunity for teachers to come together and share ideas and observations. The theme this year was ‘All Together Now: focusing on our shared goals in the increasingly diverse world of TEFL’.
Reflections on synchronous and asynchronous learning - Daniel Man-Hon Tse
I was delighted to be back in Barcelona as a first-time speaker at Oxford TEFL’s InnovateELT Conference 2022. It was a splendid morning of meeting both old and new delegates in person before my conference talk began at noon. There were fifteen supportive faces in the audience, some of whom are teacher trainers and directors whom I had met at this conference over the previous years.
As a self-contained topic, synchronous and asynchronous learning comprises a broad range of methodological areas. To address some of these in my talk, I decided to approach the topic by sharing personal reflections on my journey of teaching and learning. More precisely, I analysed my decision-making process of choosing lesson activities for both modes of learning. My guiding principle is that every decision I make will lend itself to maximising learning opportunities in the classroom. After establishing this background context for the audience, I proceeded to summarise my reflections in five principles.
Principle 1: ‘Do it on your own’ or ‘do it together'
Can students complete an activity individually? Do they need to cooperate with each other in order to achieve a certain outcome? In theory, if teachers shift any ‘do-it-on-your-own’ activity to the asynchronous space, they will be able to provide students with more communicative practice in lessons. To this end, I illustrated the first principle with a coursebook unit on the present perfect simple and the past simple. Rather than use the Reading task and the gap-fill of this unit for synchronous learning, teachers can consider moving such ‘do-it-on-your-own’ tasks to the asynchronous space. This is akin to adopting the flipped classroom method.
I would, however, argue that there are flaws in this over-simplified principle. With the increasingly popular use of technology in education, some teachers have used ‘do-it-together’ tasks in the asynchronous space with great success. More importantly, given that most receptive skills tasks can be done individually, students might never have any opportunity of learning Listening or Reading skills in the classroom. This brings us to the next principle.
Principle 2: Teaching or testing aims
Reconsidering the previous Reading task, it is evident that the target grammar, not skills development, constitutes its aim. In choosing between synchronous and asynchronous learning, teachers, therefore, need to identify their purpose of using any receptive skills task. Are they teaching or testing their students?
I illustrated this principle with a Reading Part 4 task of the Cambridge Preliminary for Schools exam, which focuses on the sub-skill of identifying references. If it is the first time students encounter this task type, teachers should keep it in the synchronous space. In fact, students need to be taught how to properly deploy the above target sub-skill. Once they can complete this Reading task autonomously, teachers can consider moving any further Part 4 exam practice outside lessons as homework.
Principle 3: Cognitive processing and order of thinking
Given that there is a positive correlation between cognitive processing and time, teachers can use the level of cognitive demand of an activity to make decisions about either mode of learning. With the aid of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy, I demonstrated how teachers can exploit a reflection task for Speaking Part 3 of Cambridge First for Schools exam. In this two-part task, students reflect on certain targeted aspects of the candidates’ performance as they watch a sample video of the Speaking exam.
According to the revised Bloom’s taxonomy, a ‘reflect’ task type represents the second highest order of thinking. In other words, this reflection task demands a high level of student cognitive processing as well as a considerable amount of time for them to complete. Teachers may therefore wish to use both parts of the task for asynchronous learning so that they can spare lesson time for Speaking exam practice instead. Alternatively, students can watch the video once and do the shorter first part synchronously, but they complete the longer second part outside the classroom.
Regardless of how this reflection task is used, teachers will be better able to make educated guesses about timings if they are aware of the cognitive demands of lesson activities. It is this kind of awareness which would help teachers to choose between synchronous and asynchronous learning.
Principle 4: Learning contexts
Although teachers can maximise communicative practice in lessons by shifting all ‘do-it-on-your-own’ activities to the asynchronous space, they should be aware of their students’ circumstances. If every teacher did exactly as it was suggested above, some students would find it extremely challenging to manage the sheer amount of asynchronous learning at home.
After confessing to the audience that I used to forget my homework and almost fail my maths exams, I highlighted the need for teachers to consider a range of factors when making decisions about lesson activities. Such factors include students’ motivation, learning needs, preference for learning styles, and available time for learning outside lessons.
Furthermore, as a German learner, I often appreciate having individual time for absorbing and reorganising new information in any lesson. By arguing that teachers should leave some ‘do-it-on-your-own’ tasks in the synchronous space, I, therefore, contradicted my first principle with this qualification. Nevertheless, this kind of dilemma only exemplifies the constant interaction between different principles in the teacher’s decision-making process. In fact, there is no single principle alone which can give us a satisfactory answer.
Principle 5: Eclectic approach
Having mentioned the holistic nature of all four previous principles, I concluded my talk with the final one: an eclectic approach. In order to maximise learning opportunities in the classroom, teachers need to be eclectic in their choice of lesson activities for both synchronous and asynchronous learning.
Overall, it was a marvellous experience speaking at the InnovateELT conference. I would like to thank International House World Organisation for generously sponsoring my trip to Barcelona through the Speak for IH grant award.
Daniel Man-Hon Tse - IH Milan
If you too would like to speak for IH, you can find out more about the criteria and how to apply here.