CSU Stanislaus Professor Stuart Wooley, who traveled to Honduras with his wife and five children to teach as a Fulbright Scholar last fall, returned home recently with new insights that have dramatically changed his teaching practices.
Originally slated to work with the faculty of the Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural School to develop and improve teaching techniques, Wooley, a botanist, was instead asked to teach English to university students.
Having never taught English to speakers of other languages, Wooley's immediate challenge was to create a curriculum. His instincts told him to find common ground and focus on content that the students could relate to — not an easy task, given the diverse backgrounds of the 55 students in his class. He chose the subject of biology and began with vocabulary words to practice pronunciation. From there, he worked with the students to develop their conversational skills.
This experience gave him striking insights into teaching methods.
“When I was teaching my Honduran students to speak English, I realized that a big part of that was correcting misconceptions — in other words, things they thought they knew," Wooley said. "I could see the light go on when they finally understood the root of their error and the satisfaction we all had when they got back on track.”
The experience has influenced Wooley's teaching philosophy back at home. Instead of the traditional method of delivering content through classroom lectures, homework and testing, he now uses pre-work and assessment, conducted online, to see where students have knowledge gaps. Then he focuses lectures on those areas, specifically addressing misconceptions that are uncovered by the pre-testing.
“If I see that 100 percent of my students got something wrong on the pre-test, it’s clear where we need to focus,” Wooley said. “It’s amazing how small changes in things that you do often can have a big impact. If we as teachers develop our courses with the end goals in mind, our students are certain to have more success in learning.”
Another of Wooley’s goals while teaching abroad was to enhance his ability to reach his own students, many of whom are first-generation college students and immigrants for whom English is a second language. “I wanted to forge closer links to the language of science, much of which is rooted in Latin and is therefore a natural connection point for Spanish speakers,” Wooley said.
Upon his return, Wooley immediately set to work securing internships for Zamorano students at local companies including Hilmar Cheese.
“Zamorano students are required to serve an internship in the U.S.," Wooley said. "How wonderful it will be to show these students our remarkable Valley, where more than 300 different crops are grown."
Wooley was one of approximately 1,100 Fulbright scholars for the 2011-12 academic year. The contingent included 40 biologists and 22 CSU faculty members; Wooley was the sole representative of CSU Stanislaus.
The Fulbright Program in the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between people of the United States and of other countries. Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.