ADVENTIST EDUCATION...Maker, to bring them back to the perfection in which they were cre-ated—this...

FaithEducationand

ADVENTIST EDUCATIONWebsi te : h t tp : / / jae .advent is t .o rg Ju ly-September 2017T H E J O U R N A L O F

Touring the Bible

Lands

Belief and

Practice: Spiritual

Imperatives for

the Adventist

Teacher

Including

Second-language

Learners in the

Writing

Classroom

ESL Writers

in the

Mainstream

College

Classroom

Using the Bible

to Teach a

Foreign Language

How to Plan

for an

Accreditation

Visit From the

AAA

Flipped Classrooms

Improve Reading

Comprehension of

Science Textbooks

C O N T E N T S

3 Editorial: Come Apart and Rest Awhile

By Faith-Ann McGarrell

4 Belief and Practice: Spiritual Imperatives for the Adventist Teacher

By Joel Raveloharimisy

8 Faith Education and Touring the Bible Lands: A Case Study

By Daniel Reynaud and Wayne French

16 Including Second-language Learners in the Writing Classroom

By Laurie Stankavich and Amanda Livanos

20 ESL Writers in the Mainstream Classroom: Cultivating a Culture

of Success

By Christian Stuart

24 Using the Bible to Teach a Foreign Language

By Francisco Burgos

30 How to Plan for an Accreditation Visit From the Adventist

Accreditation Association of School, Colleges, and Universities

By Grant Leitma

38 Best Practices at Work: Flipped Classrooms Improve Reading

Comprehension of Science Textbooks

By Deril Wood and Caroline Lipman

Photo and art credits: Cover and issue design, Harry Knox;pp. 4, 16, 20, Thinkstock; pp. 8, 10, 14, courtesy DanielReynaud; p. 27, used with permission from Francisco Bur-gos and Biblio Publishing; pp. 30, 33, 34, 36, courtesyWashington Adventist University.

The Journal of Adventist Education®, Adventist®, and Seventh-day Adventist® are the registered trademarks of the GeneralConference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists®.

The Journal of Adventist Education • July-September 2017 http:// jae.adventist.org

J U LY- S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7 • VO LU M E 7 9 , N O. 4

THE JOURNAL OF ADVENTIST EDUCATION publishes articles con-cerned with a variety of topics pertinent to Adventist education.Opinions expressed by our writers do not necessarily representthe views of the staff or the official position of the Department ofEducation of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

THE JOURNAL OF ADVENTIST EDUCATION (ISSN 0021-8480[print], ISSN 2572-7753 [online]) is published quarterly by theDepartment of Education, General Conference of Seventh-day Ad-ventists, 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904-6600, U.S.A. TELEPHONE: (301) 680-5071; FAX: (301) 622-9627;E-mail: [email protected]. Address all editorial and ad-vertising correspondence to the Editor. Copyright 2017 GeneralConference of SDA.

ADVENTIST EDUCATIONEDITOR

Faith-Ann McGarrell

EDITOR EMERITUSBeverly J. Robinson-Rumble

ASSOCIATE EDITOR(INTERNATIONAL EDITION)

Julián M. Melgosa

SENIOR CONSULTANTSJohn Wesley Taylor V

Lisa M. Beardsley-HardyGeoffrey G. Mwbana, Ella Smith Simmons

CONSULTANTSGENERAL CONFERENCE

John M. Fowler, Mike Mile Lekic,Hudson E. Kibuuka

EAST-CENTRAL AFRICAAndrew Mutero

EURO-AFRICAMarius Munteanu

EURO-ASIAVladimir Tkachuk

INTER-AMERICAGamaliel Florez

MIDDLE EAST-NORTH AFRICALeif Hongisto

NORTH AMERICALarry Blackmer

NORTHERN ASIA-PACIFICRichard A. Saubin

SOUTH AMERICAEdgard Luz

SOUTH PACIFICCarol Tasker

SOUTHERN AFRICA-INDIAN OCEANEllMozecie Kadyakapitando

SOUTHERN ASIAPrabhu Das R N

SOUTHERN ASIA-PACIFICLawrence L. Domingo

TRANS-EUROPEANDaniel Duda

WEST-CENTRAL AFRICAJuvenal Balisasa

COPY EDITORRandy Hall

ART DIRECTION/GRAPHIC DESIGNHarry Knox

ADVISORY BOARDJohn Wesley Taylor V (Chair), Sharon Aka, Ophelia Barizo, LisaM. Beardsley-Hardy, Larry Blackmer, Jeanette Bryson, ErlineBurgess, George Egwakhe, Keith Hallam, Hudson E. Kibuuka,Brian Kittleson, Linda Mei Lin Koh, Gary Krause, Davenia J.Lea, Mike Mile Lekic, Julián M. Melgosa, James Mbyirukira,

Carole Smith, Charles H. Tidwell, Jr., David Trim

The Journal of

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http:// jae.adventist.org The Journal of Adventist Education • July-September 2017

E D I T O R I A L

http:// jae.adventist.org The Journal of Adventist Educa tion • July-September 2017 3

W e are now more connected to one an-other, globally, than at any other time inearth’s history, and these connectionscomprise a significant portion of our al-

ready limited 24-hour day. While each 24-hour cyclepromises new experiences, the same also brings withit multiple demands on our time and attention.

Excelacom, a consulting and technology solutionscompany, released 2017 data about what happens onthe Internet in one minute (60 seconds):1

• 854,166 Facebook logins• 156 million e-mails sent out• 3.5 million Google search queries• 350,000 new Tweets• $265,273 million in Amazon sales• 4.1 million video views on YouTube• 29.2 million messages on What’s AppWhen compared with 2016 numbers, these numbers

are staggering! Facebook logins increased by 152,777,e-mail usage by six million, Amazon sales by $61 mil-lion, and WhatsApp messages by eight million (seeendnote for detailed comparison). Daily we manage so-cial connections using multiple electronic and digitaldevices and social media platforms. Add to this every-day home-, church-, and work-related responsibilitiesand our “to-do” lists begin to accumulate more andmore tasks. What does this mean for our ability tofocus? Rest? Spend time with our families? Time withGod? What does it mean for our ability to inspire ourstudents to do the same?

Increasingly, studies show a relationship betweenpoor sleep patterns and use of digital devices and socialmedia2; failing family dynamics due to overconsump-tion of media3; and decreased time spent in spiritualrenewal and solitude.4 What do we do with this infor-mation? Do we just turn everything off and retreat? Un-fortunately, this is not always possible; however, carv-ing out periods of time to disconnect can be beneficialto our overall sense of well-being and productivity.

Several years ago, a few of my students enrolled ina graduate writing seminar that required three days atThe Hermitage,5 a retreat center in southwest Michigannestled amidst 62 acres of lush, undulating hills, trails,and woods. The purpose of this retreat? To take timeaway from tasks that prevented students enrolled inthe class from focusing on their major writing assign-ments—proposals, theses, and dissertations. Manyneeded a quiet place to rest, think, recharge, andfocus—“a peaceful haven”6 far removed from the de-mands of daily life and the added demands of e-mail,social media, Internet searches, and shopping. The lo-cation had no Wi-Fi, (although a central landline wasavailable for emergencies), and talking was encour-aged only at mealtimes. The first few hours, and forsome, days, were difficult; however, the stillness andsilence helped many to focus and complete severalpages of their assigned tasks.

Over the past several months, many Adventist edu-cators have had time to regroup after the busyness ofthe previous school year or semester, partake inrestorative activities such as rest and time with family,and rebuild excitement for the upcoming academicyear. Indeed, the year ahead is filled with new experi-ences and opportunities for growth—and we look for-ward to it with joyful anticipation.

Yet a new academic year also brings many chal-lenges, not only to our time, attention, and focus, butalso to our overall sense of well-being. And as this newyear or semester bursts onto the horizon, and as wecreate unit and lesson plans, course outlines, syllabi,and schoolwide initiatives that will impact the lives ofcountless students, kindergarten through higher edu-cation, intentionally taking time to nurture and nourishthe spirit is essential. Jesus Himself said: “‘Come awayto a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while’”(Mark 6:31, NRSV)7 when He felt the need to recharge.Elijah, too, was reminded of the power of silence andretreat as he witnessed the wind, earthquake, fire, and

Faith-Ann McGarrellCome Apart andRest Awhile

Continued on page 46

eing a teacher involvesmore than the hours Ispend in the classroomwith my students. Be-sides the degree qualifi-

cation, I am proud to be a Seventh-day Adventist Christian who iscommitted to preparing myself andothers to meet Christ, our Savior andKing. I believe that my role as ateacher cannot be separated from myresponsibility to lead others to Christ.In order for this to occur, I must firsthave my own relationship withChrist. It is impossible for anyone tosee Christ in a human being in whomHe does not reside.

Christian teaching is a spiritualendeavor with redemption as itscore. This aim is distinctively char-acteristic of Adventist education.Ellen White said: “To restore in menand women the image of their

B Y J O E L R A V E L O H A R I M I S Y

4 The Journal of Adventist Education • July-September 2017 http:// jae.adventist.org

Spiritual Imperatives for the Adventist Teacher

B

Belief and

Practice

Maker, to bring them back to theperfection in which they were cre-ated—this was to be the work of re-demption. This is the object of edu-cation, the great object of life.”1 Sheadded: “In the highest sense thework of education and the work ofredemption are one.”2 The Adventistteacher’s role, therefore, is to notonly train the youth in worldly mat-ters, but also to educate and lead byexample in matters of the spirit.Teachers are leaders, and their stu-dents look to them for guidance inthe academic as well as personalspheres. The purpose of teaching isto guide students toward improvingthemselves. Teachers therefore are ina position to improve the spirituallives of their students.

Continually focusing on therelevance of having teachers in oureducational institutions who are dedi-cated to nurturing their own spirit u -ality is a necessary condition toachieving the goal of true education.Spirituality here refers to a constant,personal, and deep relationship withChrist. Teachers who cultivate such arelationship with Christ are impor-tant, both for the salvation of theteachers themselves and for the sal-vation of their students and otherswho are associated with them.

The works of salvation and re-demption are available to all whowould avail themselves of the oppor-tunity through Christ, whose love forus was the driving force behind Hisgift of salvation. For that reason,teachers need to take their spirituallives seriously because God lovesthem and sent His only Son to diefor their sins. Jesus gave His lifewithout reservations or conditions sothat all may have eternal life. In re-turn, He calls us to turn to Him andbe saved (Isaiah 45:22). From thisperspective, the “redemptive aimof true education” is to save theteacher. It may mean that God hascalled people into education becauseHe loves them and it is one of manyplans that God has designed to savethem. Their salvation has alreadybeen provided, but it is up to themto accept and embrace it.

Teachers need to cultivate spirituallives because they represent Christ asa role model for their students. Teach-ing is a high calling, and Adventistteachers “labor in Christ’s lines forthe salvation of souls.”3 Studentshave high expectations for teachers tolive up to their faith because theylearn better with what they see thanwhat is told to them.4 They can knowwho Christ is by observing. This prin-ciple was revealed in Valuegenesis3

2010 research, which discovered that“82% of the participants said that at-tending a Seventh-day Adventistschool had helped them develop theirreligious faith.”5

The apostle Paul’s advice to Timo-thy also provides a clear message forteachers in relation to living a spiri-tual life: “Pay close attention to your-self and to your teaching; perseverein these things, for as you do this youwill ensure salvation both for yourselfand for those who hear you” (1 Tim-othy 4:16, NASB).6 For that purpose, Iwant to present two ways teacherscan strengthen their walk with Godso they can have confidence abouttheir salvation and represent God ef-fectively and efficiently to their stu-dents. This model is based on a prin-ciple found in spiritual-leadershipliterature.7 In order to maintain ahealthy spiritual life, one has to com-bine two imperatives: spiritual beliefsand spiritual practices. True educa-tion requires the convergence of theseimperatives.

Spiritual Beliefs

Spiritual beliefs include the indi-vidual’s understanding of, experiencewith, connection to, and confidencein God. They are crucial for Christianteachers because they shape identityand determine the quality of life andspiritual experience with God. Thesebeliefs include having faith and hopein a personal and loving God, desir-ing to be close to God, and having ahigher calling to serve God.8

Having Faith in a Personal andLoving God

Having faith in God is imperativefor teachers because faith demon-strates our confidence in the limitlesspower of God to replace our limitedpower. It propels us to act, knowingthat God is in control, in spite of theuncertainties of life. We need to haveconfidence in God to carry us throughthe challenging circumstances of ourteaching responsibilities and dailylife. Faith makes even the impossiblepossible, for the Bible says that“‘nothing will be impossible withGod’” (Luke 1:37, NASB).

For this purpose, Ellen White ad-vises that teachers “have a livingfaith or they will be separate fromChrist. The Savior does not ask howmuch favor you have with the world,how much praise you are receivingfrom human lips; but He does askyou to live so that He can put Hisseal upon you.”9 Having faith in apersonal and loving God is vital toour success and survival.

Having Hope in a Personal andLoving God

Teaching is a “discipline ofhope”10—continuous hope for ourstudents and their families, and a bet-ter world as a result of our teaching.In education, “hope is necessary notsimply to endure the present situationbut to envision and work toward animproved alternative.”11 Our hopesustains us, helping us believe thatchange is always a possibility.

Therefore, we need to stay withthe main Source of hope to carry usthrough. We can find this hope inGod. “He is the One in whom ourhopes of eternal life are centered;and the teacher who learns fromHim finds a safe anchorage.”12 Hegave us His Son as our Model. He isthe great Teacher whose goal is “torestore the image of God in the soul”and to invite “every teacher in ourschools [to] work in harmony withthis purpose.”13

Desiring to Be Close to God“Come close to God, and God will

come close to you. Wash your hands,

5http:// jae.adventist.org The Journal of Adventist Education • July-September 2017

you sinners; purify your hearts, foryour loyalty is divided between Godand the world” (James 4:8, NLT).14 Re-sisting Satan requires an intentionaldecision. He who would oppose ourrelationship with and access to Godmust be repelled, and we must ac-knowledge the omnipresence of God inour lives. We are called to live accord-ing to God’s way in what we value andcherish (“purify your hearts”) andwhat we do (“wash your hands”).

The desire to be close to God em-powers us to excel in what we do.Having a close connection with Himallows teachers to have “an intelligentknowledge of practical religion.” By“keeping their own souls in the loveof God, they will know how to exer-cise the grace of patience and Christ-like forbearance.”15

Having a Higher Calling to Serve GodNot everyone is called to teach,

and not all who were called acceptthe invitation. However, Adventistteachers have accepted the “high andholy calling”16 to teach students “tobe fitted to serve God, not only inthis life, but in the future life”17 and to“love and serve God . . . to be thelight of the world, shining amidmoral darkness.”18

For that reason, there can be nocompromise in the teacher’s lifestyle.We are expected to “flee” from thedangers of sin and pursue a righteouslife (2 Timothy 2:22) and “to live alife worthy of the calling [we] havereceived. Be completely humble andgentle; be patient, bearing with oneanother in love” (Ephesians 4:1, 2,NIV).19 We can trust God to help usin this endeavor and equip us for Hisministry. Moreover, we “need tocome to [Him] with faith in all that ispromised in the word, and then walkin all the light and power that Godgives.”20 In other words, belief aloneis not enough, we must also put ourbelief into practice.

Spiritual Practices

Spiritual practice is what we inten-tionally do on a regular basis to

deepen our relationship with God. Itincludes dealing with our busyness,prayer, meditation, and study of theWord of God.

Dealing With Our BusynessTeachers face the challenge of

being 24/7 professionals and thus,other aspects of our lives directly im-pact our role and influence. Theforces of “busyness,” which occur ona daily basis and can detract fromdeeper communion with God, can beplaced into four categories: personal,family, professional, and social life.These four priorities dictate our re-sponsibilities to our jobs, families,workplaces, and ministries, and alsoinclude personal desires and goals.The problem is not found in these,but in our lack of prioritizing Godabove all. The solution: being inten-tional about making God our priority,so that “‘the worries of this life’” and

“‘the desires for other things’” (Mark4:19) will no longer be barriers todeep, meaningful communion withGod.

PrayerThe importance of prayer in the

teacher’s life cannot be overstated.Prayer is communication with God.It is the source of our strength andpower. It is the breath of the souland is central to our spiritual life(Ephesians 6:18) as we share withHim the burdens of our hearts.Prayer can be individual (Matthew6:6) or collective (Acts 1:13-15;2:42). Each type of prayer has itsplace and utility in spiritual practice.“Through sincere prayer we arebrought into connection with themind of the Infinite.”21 In return,God will pour out His blessings inour walk with Him. “‘Prayer is thekey in the hand of faith to unlockheaven’s storehouse where are treas-ured the boundless resources of om-nipotence.’”22

“Every teacher should daily re-ceive instruction from Christ andshould labor constantly under Hisguidance. It is impossible for himrightly to understand or to performhis work unless he is much with Godin prayer. Only by divine aid, com-bined with earnest, self-denying ef-fort, can he hope to do his workwisely and well.

“Unless the teacher realizes theneed of prayer and humbles his heartbefore God, he will lose the veryessence of education. He shouldknow how to pray and what languageto use in prayer. ‘I am the vine,’ Jesussaid, ‘ye are the branches: he thatabideth in me, and I in him, the samebringeth forth much fruit: for withoutme ye can do nothing,’ John 15:5[KJV]. The teacher should let the fruitof faith be manifest in his prayers. Heshould learn how to come to the Lordand plead with Him until he receivesthe assurance that his petitions areheard.”23


Considering the

importance of the

work of teachers,

Ellen White advised

them to make the

Word of God their

meditation. She indi-

cates that by relying

on the Word of

God, we become

vessels wherewith

the Holy Spirit

inspires us and then

in turn touches the

mind of the student

through us.

Conclusion

The teacher’s spiritual growth issustained by the interaction betweentwo imperatives—religious beliefsand religious practices. This synergis-tic blending—when teachers faith-fully believe in God and practicewhat they believe—has a transforma-tive effect on their life and work. It isessential for teachers to embracethese imperatives as well as considerthe salvation of their students (Philip-pians 2:12). Teachers become the firstbeneficiaries of their spirituality bybeing known and loved by God (2Timothy 2:19). Furthermore, studentsalso become partakers of the fruit ofthe Spirit (Galatians 5:22, 23) as theyinteract with and learn from theirgodly teachers.

This article has been peer reviewed.

Joel Ravelohar -imisy, MBA, PhD,is Director of theCommunity andInternational De-velopment Pro-gram at AndrewsUniversity, Berrien

Springs, Michigan, U.S.A. His areasof interest include political economy,gen der, entrepreneurship, corruption,institutions, and spirituality in educa-tion. He can be contacted at [email protected].

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. Ellen G. White, True Education

(Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press, 2000), 11.2. Ibid., 21.3. ________, Selected Messages, Book 3

(Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald,1980): 230.

4. Gyung Gu Kim, “A Longitudinal Studyof Seventh-day Adventist AdolescentsThrough Young Adulthood Concerning Re-tention in or Disaffiliation From the Church.”PhD dissertation, Andrews University, 2001,12: http://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1491&context=dissertations.

5. John Hancock Center for Youth and

✐

Family Ministry, Valuegenesis3 Research Up-date: Research Information Summary, Issue 3(January 2012).

6. Texts marked NASB are from the NewAmerican Standard Bible Copyright © 1960,1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975,1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, LaHabra, Calif. All rights reserved.

7. Louis W. Fry, “Toward a Theory of Spir-itual Leadership,” Leadership Quarterly 14:6(December 2003): 693-727. doi: 10.1016/j. leaqua.2003.09.001.

8. G. T. Freeman, “Spirituality and Ser-vant Leadership: A Conceptual Model andResearch Proposal,” Emerging LeadershipJourneys 4:1 (2011): 120-140, 123.

9. Ellen G. White, Counsels to Parents,Teachers, and Students (Mountain View,Calif.: Pacific Press, 1913), 235.

10. Herbert Kohl, The Discipline of Hope:Learning From a Lifetime of Teaching (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1998).

11. Carrie Nolan and Sarah Stitzlein,“Meaningful Hope for Teachers in Times ofHigh Anxiety and Low Morale,” Democracyand Education 19:1 (January 2011): 1-9.

12. White, Counsels to Parents, Teachers,and Students, 453.

13. __________, Fundamentals of Chris-tian Education (Nashville, Tenn.: SouthernPublishing, 1923), 436.

14. New Living Translation, copyright

© 2004, 2007. Used by permission of TyndaleHouse Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois60188. All Rights Reserved.

15. White, Fundamentals of Christian Ed-ucation, 267.

16. Mark Kriger and Yvonne Seng, “Lead-ership With Inner Meaning: A ContingencyTheory of Leadership Based on the World-views of Five Religions,” Leadership Quar-terly 16:5 (October 2005): 771-806.

17. White, Counsels to Parents, Teachers,and Students, 539.

18. __________, Fundamentals of Chris-tian Education, 480.

19. Ephesians 4:1, 2. Unless otherwise in-dicated, all Scripture quotations in this arti-cle are quoted from the Holy Bible, New In-ternational Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973,1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used bypermission. All rights reserved worldwide.

20. White, Fundamentals of Christian Ed-ucation, 531. Italics supplied.

21. __________, Steps to Christ (MountainView, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1956), 96.

22. Ibid., 94, 95.23. __________, Counsels to Parents,

Teachers, and Students, 231.24. __________, My Life Today (Wash-

ington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1952), 159. 25. __________, Counsels to Parents,

Teachers, and Students, 172.26. __________, Fundamentals of Chris-

tian Education, 525.


Meditation and Study of theWord of God

Meditation is the practice of fillingour minds with the wonder, works,and Word of God. It is the art of hav-ing a personal experience with God,especially by studying His Word. Weseek union with a personal God whenwe meditate on His Word, on Him,His creation, and the ways He has ledour lives. We make ourselves avail-able to Him by allowing Him to speakto us and to guide our lives.

The uninterrupted connection withGod through the undivided heart instudying His Word will equip us tothink about “whatever is true, what-ever is noble, whatever is right, what-ever is pure, whatever is lovely, what-ever is admirable . . . excellent orpraiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8). In ad-dition, the practice of meditation willshape our character to conform toGod’s. Meditation on the Word of Godwill enrich teachers’ lives “with thatwisdom and piety” that will makethem “beloved of God and angels.”24

Considering the importance of thework of teachers, Ellen White advisedthem to make the Word of God theirmeditation. She indicates that by rely-ing on the Word of God, we becomevessels wherewith the Holy Spirit in-spires us and then in turn touches themind of the student through us. “Thebeauty and virtue of the word of Godhave a transforming influence uponmind and character; the sparks ofheavenly love will fall upon thehearts of the children as an inspira-tion. We may bring hundreds andthousands of children to Christ if wewill work for them.”25

Ellen White expanded on the sameconcept and stated that teachersshould daily seek to learn fromChrist: “The true teacher will educatehimself [herself] in moral excellence,that by precept and example he [she]may lead souls to understand the les-sons of the Great Teacher. No oneshould be encouraged to do the workof teaching who will be satisfied witha low standard. No one is fitted toteach the grand mysteries of godli-ness till Christ is formed within, thehope of glory.”26

s part of building a link between theoreticalknowledge and lived experience, Avondale Col-lege of Higher Education in Cooranbong, NewSouth Wales, Australia, has conducted studytours for more than two decades in a variety of

disciplines. One of these, the Bible Lands Study Tour, a bi-ennial event over many years, specifically aims to connectthe religious information and spiritual experiences of stu-dents attending a church tertiary institution. A qualitativestudy was designed to validate the extensive anecdotal evi-dence for the special learning value of the 2013 Bible LandsStudy Tour and to identify the factors that best contributedto the students’ learning.

The 2013 Bible Lands Study Tour provided challenging,structured learning scenarios that placed students on theedge of their usual learning patterns. The theoretical frame-work used to design the qualitative study drew upon diversestrands. In particular, in line with several scholars’ findingson the centrality of the experiential and relational quality oftrue education,1 the tour set out to create a relationship be-tween participants, educators, and history in situ. Kolb’s2 ex-periential learning theory, which proposes that learning isthe process in which knowledge is constructed during trans-formational learning experiences, is closely aligned to theintentions of this study because it acknowledges both thecognitive and subjective aspects of learning.3

B Y D A N I E L R E Y N A U D a n d W A Y N E F R E N C H


As part of building a link between theoreticalknowledge and lived experience, AvAA ondale Col-lege of Higher Education in Cooranbong, NewSouth WaWW les, Australia, has conducted studytours for more than two decades in a variety of

disciplines One of these the Bible Lands Study ToTT ur a bi

The 2013 Bible Lands Study ToTT ur provided cstructured learning scenarios that placed studedge of their usual learning patterns. The theorework used to design the qualitative study drew ustrands. In particular,rr in line with several scholaon the centrality of the experiential and relationa

FAI T

HE D U C A T I O N

A ND

Touring the Bible Lands:

A Case Study

Research into study tours shows that they can providestudents with authentic, in-context experiences that enhancetheir course learning. By extending the boundaries of tradi-tional higher education, experiential travel learning4 aims todeepen and broaden the student’s experience by situating itwithin an authentic context.5

The 2013 Bible Lands Study Tour provided fresh perspec-tive on a discipline that, by its nature, is frequently inter-preted for students rather than by students. This is especiallyimportant for Australian students, whose experience of thepast in situ or on location relates only to relatively recentAustralian sites with limited global significance. Hence, theirconcept of the past is largely filtered through processing in-formation from textbooks. They know about the Bible, butthey have more information than experience. The 2013 BibleLands Study Tour provided students with a wholistic, life-altering integration of the world around them, themselves,and their place in the world.

The tour was designed around creating a “MemoryEvent,” a type of experience that has been demonstrated tohave great power in the lives of young people, captivatingtheir imagination and putting faith into action through mul-tisensory active experiences.6 The Bible Lands Tour stimu-lates spiritual growth by bringing context, reality, enhancedvisualization, and illustration to the ancient Scriptures. Re-search has shown that up to 80 percent of young people in-volved in “Memory Events” identified these experientialevents as having “changed their spiritual perspective in apositive way.”7 This was evident from participants’ com-ments about the Bible Lands Tour:

“This trip was amazing. It definitely served its purposeof bringing the Bible to life and enabling us, in a way, to livethe experiences for ourselves. I will not read the Bible in thesame way that I used to, especially now that I’ve learned somuch about each of the stories” (S4 Essay).8

Because these positive memories are associated with or-ganized religion, they greatly help in reinforcing the role ofthe church in young adult faith development.

Aims and Purpose of the Bible Lands Tour

The five-week Bible Lands Study Tour encompassed sitesof biblical interest in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, andEgypt in June and July of 2013. A number of nearby non-bib-lical sites were also included to provide broader cultural en-richment. Unfortunately, the outbreak of civil unrest in Egyptwith the overthrow of the Morsi government prevented thegroup from completing the Egyptian stage of the tour.

The aims of the 2013 Bible Lands Tour were:1. to lift the study of the Bible from an abstract theory to

a life-changing personal experience through a positive“Memory Event” connecting Scripture and church;

2. to model and inspire students regarding how to use“Memory Events” in their future classes and churches;

3. to inspire student enthusiasm about how the world ofarchaeology can give them accurate, in-depth, historical in-formation and context regarding the biblical world; and

4. to give students a “taste” of various biblical countries

in order to inspire them to return to further their experience. The structured learning scenarios began with 16 lectures

on biblical archaeology, chronology, examining ancientmanuscripts, and understanding the ancient Medi ter raneancultures. It also included specific material tied to each ar-chaeological site included in the visit. These lectures also in-cluded briefings on expectations for behavior and dress stan-dards (with particular instruction about how to dress inMuslim countries), and managing health and well-being dur-ing a Mediterranean summer. Presentations and lecturescontinued on location throughout the tour. Assessment tasksincluded pre-tour reading reports and worksheets, and a tourdiary to be filled out daily, with a template of suggested con-tent, which included prompts on the range and nature oftheir learning experiences and requests for them to reflecton their value. The assignment of a post-tour expositoryessay of 2,000 words asked students to apply their tour ex-periences to their understanding of the reliability of theBible.

Forty students and six staff members participated in the2013 Bible Lands Tour. The students were from the followingcourses of study: theology: 17; education: 17; arts: 2; busi-ness: 2; outdoor recreation and leisure studies: 2.

The researchers gathered data from students’ daily reflec-tive diaries, the essay, the pre- and post-tour questionnaires,and from lecturer observations made during the tour. Thepost-tour questionnaire asked a series of qualitative ques-tions similar to the pre-tour questionnaire and the tour diarytemplate. It also asked for ratings of each site visited, usinga five-point scale. While the data are too extensive to providein a single article, some highlights will be presented.

Discussion

It was evident that this tour had a significant impact onparticipants, not only academically, but also in areas of spir-itual development and engagement, professional develop-ment, personal growth, social development and to some de-gree, cultural awareness.

Student Learning

Students emerged from the tour with a heightened under-standing of biblical history, culture, and archaeology. Onestudent’s tour diary entry was titled: “Mars Hill: Today I FeltCloser to Christianity Than I Have in Years.” The entry wasone of several that also noted the impact of reading the Bibleon location: “It really does bring it home and consolidate ourunderstanding. It also makes it very real—not just a book”(S20 Diary). Many students commented that being on thetour gave them a real sense of perspective on biblical events.The words visualise and alive were frequently used to expressthe relationship to familiar Bible stories, noting how seeingthe actual locations transformed stories that had seemed like“fairy tale . . . movie locations” into “real, historical” ac-counts with “purpose and meaning.” One student expressedhaving had “preconceived ideas” changed, and a number ofstudents expressed a revived interest in Bible reading and anew love for archaeology, which had “come alive” for them.


Spiritual Development

Students’ descriptions of their academic and intellectualgrowth revealed a very obvious passion for spiritual things.Their experiences fostered a “deeper relationship” with Christ.One participant wrote that “walking in the steps of Jesusbrought me closer to Him.” Others expressed a sense of revival.When asked how it affected their spirituality, a number usedthe word intensely. One diary entry read: “this trip has reallyopened my eyes to my relationship with God and I wanna takeit seriously now” (S5 Diary). Another wrote that the tour “al-lowed me to see that these events are not a mythical story thathas been passed on to generations throughout the centuries and. . . millennia, but they happen in real time, in a real place andto real people. This closes a gap that I hold between myself andthe characters of Scripture” (S3 Essay).

Another student drew a personal spiritual connection tofeatures seen at Laodicea:

“Much like the pipes that remain at the site of Laodicea,with their mineral build up, my spiritual life can often getclogged up with unimportant things, things that don’t matterand that get in the way of my relationship with God. Since vis-iting the site of Laodicea, I have realised that I often need tobe reminded to take stock of my life, and reassess where I amplacing my values, and whether they are contributing to meliving my life the way that God intends for me to live my life”(S34 Essay).

Yet another student commented on the stories of Jesus andPeter at Caiaphas’ palace: “Throughout these two great Biblestories, my experiences in visiting these Bible locations havegreatly enhanced my understandings of what I’ve previouslyonly read on paper. It has also brought to mind some of myown failings under similar pressures to be true to Jesus andreminded me of my need to build a daily close relationship

with Him through the infilling of the Holy Spirit and not tojust ‘call’ myself a follower of Him” (S29 Essay).

Virtually all of the diaries and essays repeated, like a re-frain, the very close connection the students developed tothe Bible because of the tour. Here is an excerpt from one ofthem: “When I talk about the Bible now I light up and getpassionate like never before because I know how true andhow real it is. I never doubted the existence of the places inthe Bible but that’s all they were—far-off places. But now—now they are real. Now they are relevant. Now they areclose. Now they are geographically true. I am a very visualperson so experiencing the Bible firsthand has helped megrow spiritually in ways I never would have been able to ifI had not had this experience” (S7 Essay).

One final comment demonstrates the way in which theexperiences added significance to the students’ Adventistfaith. “Awesome Sabbath in Galilee, just loved it, it createda different mindset to the Sabbath, and I would really liketo get mine and my family’s head around what I havelearnt” (S5 Diary).

Professional Development

Students, particularly from theology and education, per-ceived the Bible Lands Study Tour as having positively af-fected their professional development. Several studentsechoed the sentiments of one theology student, “Helps withpreaching—glorious,” while education students noted thatthey had already implemented some of the lessons from thetour into their teaching practicums. One wrote, “I was ableto share my personal experience in the classroom” (Post-tourquestionnaire). This student also mentioned a professionalinterest in studying archaeology. Another had shared photosand experiences of the tour with her home church, while a


Student comment while looking over Philistine positions in the Valley of Elah, Israel: “As I was telling [my wife] about the Valley of Elah and

the footsteps of Jesus a wave of emotion flooded over me.”

business student reported benefitting from watching “othercultures’ business and law in practice.”

Others noted links between the tour, their chosen profes-sion, and their personal spirituality. One wrote, “As a futureTeacher who will be teaching History, not only are my beliefsimportant but also the history behind the Bible is of the mostimportance, especially if you are teaching students about theBible in a historical context” (S22 Essay).

Another reported: “Visiting these sites has foreverchanged the way that I not only see the Bible, but also howI explain my faith to others. For me, it is so important to beable to explain to people the history of the Bible. For thosewho do not have much knowledge of the Bible, unfortu-nately that there is so much history surrounded around theplaces that Jesus was born, lived, worked, died, and was res-urrected. The holy lands of the Bible have forever changedme not only as a future Teacher but also as a person on a re-ligious journey” (S12 Essay).

Emotional Impact

The descriptions of the emotional impact of the tour high-lighted the integrated nature of the learning experiences, tyingin with the intellectual, spiritual, and professional outcomes.Diary entries were replete with expressions of wonder, withawesome, speechless, moving, and amazing being common-place adjectives. One student’s diary entry described a day ashaving “blown my mind!” (S7 Diary). Other students also ex-perienced incidents of powerful emotional engagement; onestudent described being “moved to tears” when the groupgathered outside Caiaphas’ house and spontaneously sangCalvary-related songs (S6 Diary). Another student wrote: “Irealised when talking to [my spouse] on Skype this morningjust how much this trip means to me. As I was telling herabout the Valley of Elah and the footsteps of Jesus a wave ofemotion flooded over me. I was surprised” (S13 Diary).

Personal Growth, Social Development, and Cultural Awareness

Students noted many instances of growth in their per-sonal and social development as well as in their culturalawareness. Living in such close proximity on what was agrueling tour schedule tested students’ capacity to managetheir emotions and tolerate those of others. A number of stu-dents spoke of improving their ability to deal with others—“[I am] more patient and analytical with people,” wrote onestudent. “Enjoying the relationships formed on the tour: veryimportant to overall experience” wrote another student in adiary entry (S5 Diary).

One student observed that the trip “made me reassess mylife and childhood”—an altogether unexpected learning out-come for both the student and the organizers! Cultural obser-vations cropped up repeatedly, both in the questionnaire andthe diaries. Some noted that they were now “better at cross-cultural bonding and understanding,” while a frequent obser-vation was a desire for more time and autonomy in key loca-tions to enable them to better engage with the local culture.In particular, time in a Jewish Sabbath setting was repeatedlyrequested.

However, not all cultural experiences proved positive, asa number of students struggled with various cultural aspectssuch as expensive, ornate churches in obviously poor cul-tures, the worship habits of Christians of other faiths, andissues such as the treatment of women in Middle Easterncultures and the claustrophobic persistence of aggressivesales solicitations. Even simple issues like dealing with theheat and thirst caught students by surprise, despite their fa-miliarity with hot climates in Australia and the repeated ad-vice of the staff both before and during the tour.

This highlighted the critical importance of thorough pre-tour training relating to all aspects of the tour, particularlycultural differences, to maximize empathetic engagementwith the local culture, rather than offense and repulsion, asexemplified by a diary entry at the Church of the Holy Sepul-chre: “The Holy Sepulchre made me angry. They were wor-shipping a rock. Jesus rose, people” (S17 Diary). The com-ment both affirmed the Resurrection and misunderstoodwhat other Christian worshippers were doing.

Positive and Negative Learning Experiences

The itinerary was intentionally packed, given the sheernumber and richness of the sites available, and abetted by thefact that it was costly in money and travel time for Australianstudents living on the other side of the world. But the earlymornings and late nights took a toll on interest levels, stamina,and health. As the tour progressed, increasing numbers of stu-dents missed events due to fatigue and ill health. “The daysare slowly getting more and more boring and the informationis just getting to a point where I don’t care about [it] anymore”complained a student in a diary otherwise packed with aweand wonder (S17 Diary). “I think if we had slowed down abit, we would have learned and experienced more” respondedanother student in the post-tour questionnaire. On the otherhand, when asked in the post-tour questionnaire what mightbe changed, one student said, “Nothing.”


Country Main Sites Time Frame

Italy Venice and Florence 2 daysRenaissance and 2 daysAncient Rome

Greece Athens and Corinth 2 days

Turkey Seven churches 5 daysTroy, Gallipoli, Istanbul, 3 daysand Cappadocia 3 days

Israel Jerusalem, Judea, 7 days Dead Sea, and Galilee

Jordan Jerash, Nebo, Madaba, 3 days and Petra

*Egypt Sinai, Cairo, and Luxor 8 days

*This portion of the tour was cancelled.

Tour Itinerary

Adding to the crowded itinerary were additional interest-ing sites not connected to the Bible. While some of theseheld immediate relevance for Australian students (particu-larly the visit to Gallipoli, site of Australia’s legendary battlein the First World War), others were opportunistic, as thegroup was nearby (such as Troy, Cappadocia, and evenVenice and Florence when traveling through Italy).

The intention was to give students a taste to tempt them toplan further travels later on. It was successful in some cases,but many regretted the extra unrelated travel, and expressed awish to invest that time in Bible-related sites and in havingtime out from the intensity of the tour. “The tour didn’t reallytake on significance for me until we reached Turkey and beganvisiting the seven churches of Revelation, although even hereI think there are a number that could easily be dispensed withto save time,” wrote one student, expressing the sentiment ofa number of participants (S15, Letter to tour organizers). An-other wrote, “it seems as though we don’t spend enough timeat the places we enjoy more” (S5 Diary).

Students also expressed a desire for some autonomy, tobe able to choose sites and cultural experiences of their own,and the desire to engage in immersion experiences ratherthan hurried, fleeting surveys of a wide range of sites. Addingto the disenchantment with some of the additional sites wasa lack of understanding of the significance of the history, art,and culture experienced, due to gaps in the pre-tour learning.The intensity added up to “cultural indigestion.”

Another source of frustration for some students, as wellas the accompanying staff, was the uneven commitmentacross the group to the tour goals. A minority treated the tripas a holiday rather than a learning experience, detractingfrom the enjoyment of the rest of the group. They could gen-erally be identified by their lack of engagement with the pre-tour academic work. Ensuring that no student was merelytaking a “junket tour” would have improved the quality ofthe experience for all participants.

One student described the tour as an “immersion of thesenses” (S1 Diary). Many students appreciated the knowl-edgeability and helpfulness of the local guides; at the sametime, the information they shared was often excessive andunconnected to the students’ knowledge or experience.“An overload of information,” noted one student (S10Diary), a sentiment widely echoed in diaries and question-naires. It highlighted the need to brief tour guides thor-oughly to ensure carefully targeted on-site information thatconnected prior learning to the specific experience (seeBoxes 1 and 2).

The highlights of the learning experiences were the actualencounters with the past and the way that these encountersintersected with the students’ knowledge and experience.While local tour guides were a fount of information, the bestperson to connect knowledge and experience on this tour wasthe tour organizer, as many diaries noted: “[Lecturer was]. . . such an inspirational speaker, what he said today was SOGOOD,” wrote one student with enthusiasm (S5 Diary). An-other student re corded, “Who cares about information. I canGoogle that any time I want. All I care about is the experi-

ence” (S2 Diary). Still another student wrote, “Listening to[lecturer] explain Scripture in context left me with a profoundGod moment in an otherwise trying trip” (S24 Diary).

Perhaps the most striking feature of the diaries was themixture of amazement, delight, and exhaustion. Typical ofthese was this comment while in Jerusalem: “The first halfof the day was simply profoundly spiritual highlights to me.. . . Second half however dragged on a bit and kind of damp-ened the day a bit. Could have done without it and perhapsspread out the first half” (S10 Diary).

However, while the list of negative features may seem nu-merous, the overwhelming impact of the tour was resound-ingly positive. Its effectiveness was unquestionable. Of a dayspent in Galilee, a student wrote: “Today is a day I will never


1. Security. The tour company has clear safety proto-cols that include travel insurance, protection of travelers’financial information, secure and up-to-date itineraries,emergency contact information, and a tour guide who re-mains with the group during the entire tour—both sched-uled and unscheduled times. This is important when visitingall locations, but especially areas where there are concernsabout terrorist activities.

2. Knowledge. Select a tour company that providesguides who are knowledgeable not just about the history ofthe location, but also about customs, food, laws, language,and daily living within the new context. Tour companies, andthe guides associated with them, should be experienced inall aspects of the new environment.

3. Safety. Tour guides should be well-trained and regis-tered with their local government agencies that provide over-sight. They should be fully licensed, insured, and trained insafety and life-saving emergency care (First Aid).

4. Schedule. Tour guides can assist in providing insightinto how best to balance the tour schedule so that participantsare not worn out from visiting too many sites within a shortperiod of time. There should be enough flexibility to allow par-ticipants to make changes to the itinerary based on theirneeds.

5. Transportation. Provide multiple, yet safe, options fortransportation. The company should be able to accommodatethe size of the tour with appropriate forms of reliable trans-portation, and the insurance requirements that come witheach form of transportation.

REFERENCES

Prometour, Choosing an Educational Tour Company: What to Con-sider: https://www.prometour.com/.

Vistas in Education, 30 Tips to Choosing the Best Student Tour Com-pany: https://www.vistasineducation.com/ student-tour-company/.

Box 1. Tips for Choosing a Tour Company

forget. Being in the place of so much of Jesus’ ministry madethe Bible really live for me. Never the same again!” (S13Diary).

While students acknowledged the features they would liketo modify, their overall response to the trip can be capturedin two post-tour questionnaire responses: “Fantastic trip over-all and well planned & run,” and “Such an amazing experi-ence.” A striking feature of tour feedback was how many stu-dents personalized their relationship to the Bible. It wasfrequently referred to as not “the Bible” but “my Bible.”

Recommendations for Future Study Tours

The results of this study enabled the planner to identifythe factors that contributed to effective learning and revealedthat the Bible Lands Study Tour was extremely successfulacross a range of learning experiences, representing a pow-erful way of communicating many things that are central toa Seventh-day Adventist tertiary education. The results alsosuggest ways in which the tour’s effectiveness could be en-hanced, and these factors are in harmony with those identi-fied in an earlier study of an Avondale history tour.9

The authors began with differences on the philosophicalbasis of the tour, and hence have differing conclusions in somerespects. For the tour organizer, the tour was intended as abroad sampler, complete with visits of opportunity to adjacentincidental sites to inspire students to further travel—hence thefull schedule and wide coverage. The other author’s experi-ence of study tours focused on less breadth but closer culturalengagement, with a highly selective choice of sites, and a less-intense daily schedule. There is a case to be made for eachperspective. However, the following factors have been identi-fied as issues to consider in planning an effective tour:

• Remember that there is generally a strong correlation be-tween pre-tour preparation and student ratings of the value ofthe sites. Places such as Troy, Renaissance Rome, Florence,and Venice, intended as bonus travel teasers, received no pre-tour coverage and were among the lowest-rated sites. A num-ber of students questioned the value of such sites, while oth-ers found them interesting and motivating. On the other hand,sites covered in classes such as Jerusalem, Capernaum, an-cient Rome, and Ephesus received consistently high ratings.

• Address academic, social, and cultural matters thor-oughly in pre-tour preparation, supplemented by on-site ap-plications. It is particularly critical to address the culturalchallenges and gaps that students will encounter in meetingvastly different social and religious practices. Gaps in stu-dents’ awareness of academic, social, and cultural matterscorrelated with levels of dissatisfaction with, or misinterpre-tation of, specific sites.

• Enforce academic rigor, as it improves student engage-ment and enhances the benefits of the tour. There was a cor-relation between commitment to pre-tour assessment tasksand engagement with on-location activities.

• Create opportunities for students to participate in settingappropriate behavior boundaries before the tour, which willhelp to reduce on-tour stresses.

• Consider the relevance of each site to the purpose of thetour. While non-biblical sites had their admirers, the studentranking of sites indicated that the most effective sites were al-most all directly biblical, and clustered around Jerusalem,Galilee, and Jordan, along with selected sites in Turkey, Italy,and Greece. Students gave high ratings to only two non-bibli-cal activities: the extraordinary ballooning experience in theunique landscape of Cappadocia, and the visit to Gallipoli,whose centrality to Australian history and culture needed noother justification.

• Achieve a balance between being representative andbeing exhaustive. Select maximum-impact sites. Often, lesser


If an independent tour guide is used (someone not affili-ated with the tour, as in our case), the following tips shouldbe considered:

1. Get referrals. A good way to identify individuals toserve as tour guides is to ask for recommendations fromfriends or colleagues who have traveled to the area. Theseindividuals may be able to provide the names and contactinformation of tour guides who provided good service.Travel Websites such as Rent-a-Guide (http://www.rent-a-guide.com/); Viator (https://tourguides.viator.com/); or Trip -Advisor (https://www.tripadvisor.com/) can connect youwith individuals screened and recommended by fellow trav-elers.

2. Check references and testimonials. Ask the tourguide for references and check them. Ask for testimoni-als—these may be on a personal or travel Website sincemany independent tour guides contract with travel compa-nies as a way to gain more exposure and clients.

3. Verify certification and licensure. Many countriesrequire independent tour guides to be licensed and to reg-ister with the Ministry of Tourism or tourism board. Thisregistration may also include certification and training inFirst Aid, CPR, and the use of AEDs (automated external de-fibrillators) where available.

4. Conduct interviews. If traveling to a location wherethe language used to communicate is different from theone spoken by members of the tour, consider arranging atelephone or video chat interview with the prospective tourguide to observe communication and language proficiencyin both languages.

5. Get it in writing. Tour guides should confirm the itin-erary, their availability, pricing, and travel arrangements(what type of vehicle will be used, who will pay for trans-portation, lodging, and accommodation of the guide, howpayments will be made, etc.) ahead of time. A written con-tract or agreement is most appropriate and will help ensurethat both parties have the same expectations.

REFERENCE

“Tour Guide Characteristics—What Tour Operators Should Look forWhen Hiring”: https://www.rezdy.com/blog/ tour-guide-characteristics-every-tour-operator-should-look-for/.

Box 2. Tips for Choosing a Tour Guide

sites merely become another pile ofruins or yet another ornate Byzan-tine church. Two examples of poorlyrated yet relevant sites includedBergama and the Valley of Elah—both of which felt like one stop toomany for the majority of students.

• Minimize the number of differ-ent overnight accommodations by se-lecting a central location from whichthe group can travel to multiplesites.10 Moving from one hotel to an-other is one of the most fatiguing as-pects of a tour.

• Consider scheduling regular timeoff, with no planned activity. This al-lows students to rest, absorb, and ex-plore at their own pace in order toachieve the known benefits of stu-dent-directed learning. Heightenedlearning and connectedness occurwhen students control their own sitevisits. Tours of one to two weeks ben-efit from a couple of free half-days.Longer tours can benefit from whole days free in key lo-cations.11 It is important to note here that students and tourstaff should take every precaution to ensure safety and se-curity, such as traveling in pairs and making sure othersare aware of their travel plans.12

• Ensure that on-site information connects directly topre-tour information. In many cases, the person bestequipped to do this is the tour coordinator, rather than ahired local guide, whose generic presentation can missthe specific needs of the group.

Conclusion

Experiential learning is a powerful teaching tool be-cause the students are fully immersed in the subjectthey are studying. This sensory experience involvesevery part of the student’s being, ensuring that thelearning experience has a powerful impact.

The feedback data from the Bible Lands tour for 2013revealed an overwhelmingly positive impact on students’spiritual growth as the result of experiencing many of thelocations that they had only heard about earlier in theirspiritual journey. Visiting actual locations they had onlyread or studied about before helped them to visualize thestories in their real geographic locations. It also providedparticipants with new insights into specific scriptural ref-erences and helped them make stronger spiritual connec-tions to the Bible text.

In general, although the tour was physically exhaust-ing, prompting reflection on managing the intensity oftours (which becomes more important the longer theyare), the spiritual insights gained and the overall posi-tive impact of the learning experiences made it clearthat this type of tour can be a very successful and ef-


Tour leader Dr. Wayne French (left) explains the significance of the syna-

gogue in Sardis, Turkey.

Students on the Bible Lands Study Tour boarding a fishing vessel for a cruise on the Sea of Galilee. One

student commented: “Awesome Sabbath in Galilee, just loved it, it created a different mindset to the Sabbath.”

fective way to educate students in the future.The tour studied for this article took place several years

ago. While a longitudinal study has not yet been formallyconducted, considerable anecdotal evidence supports theconclusion of a long-lasting impact on participants. The tourorganizer, having managed multiple tours over many years,is often being told by current pastors and teachers of howbeneficial the tour has been to their personal faith and theirfaith-sharing experiences. One former student told the au-thors of being inspired to travel to Israel no fewer than fivetimes since, and to study Hebrew. Another wrote to say thatshe often caught herself “wishing I was back reliving thewhole experience with everyone over and over.” A Bibleteacher noted not only the “huge blessing” personally, butalso that “there have been countless times that I have beenable to share photos, stories, and artefacts from my trip dur-ing classes,” adding that her students found that these mo-ments made their classes “more interesting and easy to re-member.” A minister gave many examples of his use of tourexperiences in his ministry, stating that “the Bible Lands[tour experiences] have been key in developing my min-istry,” especially in making the Bible relevant to young peo-ple (e-mails to authors).

The final words come from a student who demonstratedin her response that the tour’s aim of creating a church-related spiritual “Memory Event” was highly effective:

“The entire trip was the best memory event I have ever ex-perienced. I learned so much about my own faith as well asthe beliefs of the SDA Church. During the tour many placesstood out as memorable, but the two places that have totallychanged the way I view my Bible have got to be Mount Zionin Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Despitenot having total confirmation of the site of Jesus’ crucifixionand burial, being in the general proximity and seeing just howmuch Jesus changed the lives of millions of people thousandsof years on was enough for me to realise what a great manHe was/is and the gift He has given me” (S14 Essay).


Daniel Reynaud, PhD, is an AssociateProfessor at Avondale College of HigherEd ucation, Cooranbong, New SouthWales, Australia. His doctorate is in his-tory and cinema, and he teaches coursesin history, as well as the intersection ofhistory, film, and literature. In additionto 26 years of experience teaching at the

tertiary level, Dr. Reynaud also served as Faculty Dean of Artsand Theology for four years. His areas of interest include theAustralian army and religion, representations of history infilm, online education, and innovative teaching such as his-tory tours. Among his extensive publications are ReadingWith New Eyes: Exploring Scripture Through Literary Genre(2000), “Have Passport, Will Learn: History Study Tours and

✐

Student Learning and Development” in Research and Devel-opment in Higher Education: Reshaping Higher Education(2011, Co-author Maria Northcote); and “Understanding His-tory: Seventh-day Adventists and Their Perspectives,” inTEACH Journal of Christian Education (2016).

Wayne French, DMin, has served asChaplain for Avondale College of HigherEducation for the past 12 years. He grad-uated from Avondale College in 1976with a bachelor’s degree in theology, fol-lowed by Master’s and doctoral degreesin youth ministry. He has been in min-istry for the Seventh-day Adventist

Church for the past 40 years. He spent 14 years as a localchurch pastor and 14 years as Youth Director for the NorthNew South Wales Conference. In addition to his pastoral andteaching ministry, Dr. French has written Creating Memoriesfor Teens about the importance of experiential learning. Dur-ing his time at Avondale College, he has lectured on mentor-ing and on Youth Ministry, and has taught one of the coresubjects in the Master’s program.

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. Parker J. Palmer, To Know As We Are Known: Education as a Spir-

itual Journey (San Francisco, Calif.: 1993); John Dettoni, Introductionto Youth Ministry (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House,1993), 106, 107; V. Bailey Gillespie, The Experience of Faith (Birming-ham, Ala.: Religious Education Press, 1988), 16.

2. David A. Kolb, Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source ofLearning and Development (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984).

3. David A. Kolb, Richard E. Boyatzis and Charalampos Mainemelis,“Experiential Learning Theory: Previous Research and New Directions.”In R. J. Sternberg and L. F. Zhang, eds., Perspectives on Cognitive, Learning,and Thinking Styles (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002), 227-247.

4. Kolb, Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learningand Development.

5. John Seely Brown, Allan Collins, and Paul Duguid, “Situated Cognitionand the Culture of Learning,” Educational Researcher 18:1 (1989): 32-41.

6. Wayne French, Creating Memories for Teens (Warburton, Victoria:Signs Publishing Co., 2005).

7. Ibid8. The letter “S” followed by a number identifies the student and

the response source selected for inclusion in this article. Response itemswere selected from tour diaries, essays, and post-tour questionnairesand essays.

9. Daniel Reynaud and Maria Northcote, “Have Passport, Will Learn:History Study Tours and Student Learning and Development.” In Re-search and Development in Higher Education: Reshaping Higher Educa-tion, K. Krause et al., eds., 34 (2011): 253-262.

10. Ibid.11. Ibid.12. Most countries provide updated travel warnings and alerts as

a service to their citizens and other travellers. These Websites can beuseful sources of information when planning a tour. Here are two: Aus-tralian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: http:// smartraveller.gov.au/countries/Pages/default.aspx; United States De- partment of State: https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/alerts warnings.html.


hile teaching at anacademy in the UnitedStates, I (LS) asked stu-dents to write personal-experience stories. One

student, a girl from Burma, turned ina painstakingly written account ofher experiences coming to the UnitedStates from a refugee camp in Thai-land. Unfortunately, despite all herhard work, her story made little sensein English.

Since the paper needed a majoroverhaul, and we lacked the time inclass, I invited her to my house. Start-ing at the beginning, we talkedthrough her story step by step, craftingit on the computer as the detailsemerged from her memory. Yes, thewriting came from me, but the storywas hers. I believe that by giving her avoice in English, I was not only build-ing her language abilities, but alsobringing her story to life.

Helping students to write across alanguage barrier is not always such adrastic process. Writing, however, isarguably one of the most cognitivelydemanding things that we do inschool, and for that reason, it posessignificant challenges to second-lan-guage learners and the teachers whowork with them.

A Significant Challenge

Educators worldwide face agrowing challenge as migrationbrings learners from other parts ofthe world. According to the UnitedNations Economic and Social Coun-cil, in 2010, three percent of theworld’s population lived outside theircountry of origin.1 In the UnitedStates, where we work, more thannine percent of American publicschool students—some 4.6 million,according to 2014-2015 statistics—were classified as English-languagelearners.2 Migration is a global trend,

with more diverse sending and re-ceiving countries than in the past.Teachers in more and more countriesnow face the daunting challenge ofworking with learners struggling towrite across a language barrier.

Writing demands linguistic knowl-edge, fluency, and rhetorical exper -tise. Since writing is a productiverather than receptive skill, writersneed sufficient vocabulary and theability to construct sentences in thenew language. Further, they needknowledge of the writing system forthat language, including spelling andpunctuation rules.

In addition—and this is often over-looked—a skilled writer needs toknow what different types of docu-ments look like and how they areconstructed. What is appropriate andtypical varies with the genre—poemor personal letter, blog or résumé,book report or literary analysis paper.Writing is a skill learned through ex-perience in different settings whereexpectations about language, style,and structure may also differ widely.Learning to write—in any language—is a lifelong process.

B Y L A U R I E S T A N K A V I C H a n d A M A N D A L I V A N O S


W

Writing Classroom

Including Second- language Learners in the

Younger learners can more easilysurmount the obstacles posed bycrossing a language barrier, not onlybecause they study more basic materi-als, but also because they have a lan-guage learning advantage. Researchsuggests that, if in an immersion situ-ation, younger learners can attain na-tive-like proficiency in a few years.

Jill Fitzgerald’s survey of 56 studiesof multilingual writing in preschoolthrough 12th grade uncovered fewsurefire solutions, but several studiesdid show that preschool and primarylearners developed very similarly tonative speakers of the same agegroup.3 In general, second-language-acquisition research supports the per-ception that younger learners have anadvantage in terms of developing anative-like intuition about grammarpatterns in a second language.

The sensitive period for languagelearning seems to diminish around pu-berty, possibly because of neurologicalchanges that take place around thatage.4 For this reason, emotional sup-port from teachers may help youngerstudents adjust to learning in a newlanguage, but providing specific in-struction is not linguistically vital.Therefore, for the rest of the article,we will offer recommendations aboutlearners who are not conversationallyfluent in the language in which theyare writing and who are approachingor have passed puberty—in otherwords, those over the age of 12.

Giving Effective Feedback

One of the most hotly debatedchallenges in teaching writing to sec-ond-language learners is how to effec-tively give them feedback. The litera-ture is inconclusive about whetherdirect correction or student self-cor-rection works best in the long term.5

For example, some teachers correctevery error on every assignment, butthis time-consuming process may nothelp students write better. Otherteachers believe that students shouldcorrect their own errors (self-correc-tion), but this may not always be ef-fective, either.6 Most teachers rely oncommon sense, varying the approachto fit the learners and the purpose of

the assignment. Hyland and Hylandobserve that “Teachers respond to stu-dents in their comments as much astexts, and experienced teachers oftentailor their feedback to suit each stu-dent, considering their backgrounds,needs and preferences as well as therelationship they have with them andthe ongoing dialogue between them.”7

Ultimately, teachers should keep thelearners’ needs at the forefront.

When a writer makes many lan-guage-related mistakes, teachers tendto focus their energy on those areas,often neglecting content as a result.However, the ideas shared by lan-guage learners are as meaningful asthose of the other students in theclasses. Teachers should strive to lookpast students’ language errors andhear what they really have to say. I(AL) often read written assignmentsat least once without marking anymechanical errors in order to inten-tionally give feedback about content.

However, teachers are doing lan-guage learners a disservice if they sim-ply ignore their errors. “Since lan-guage problems constrain the entirecomposing process, editing is a criticaland necessary facet of the text creat-ing process, not just a clean-up activ-ity.”8 Students must be taught the im-portance of clean writing, and withouthelp, they may be unaware of the er-rors they are making. This is why we(LS and AL) believe that teachersshould select specific assignments forwhich they will correct all errors.Chandler’s study has shown such di-rect error correction to be the bestmethod at increasing accuracy bothimmediately and in the long term.9

I (AL) often correct all the errorson my students’ short, in-class jour-naling assignments. I don’t take offpoints for their mistakes, but when Ireturn their papers, I ask them to re-view the corrections. They often ex-claim, “Wow, I didn’t realize I madeso many mistakes!” This exerciseshould not be discouraging, which isone reason we don’t recommend cor-recting all errors on every assign-

ment. But periodic error correctionwill give students a realistic idea ofareas in which they need to improve.

In some circumstances, indirectfeedback may be helpful as well. Inthis type of feedback, the teacherdraws attention to errors without cor-recting them; for example, underliningeach instance or using an error codingsystem. In this type of system, ateacher might use a “V” to refer toproblems with verb tense, a “C” to de-note comma errors, and so on. Codinggoes a step beyond underlining by di-recting students’ attention to the typesof mistakes they frequently make andpointing them toward the correction.

At high school and college levels,depending on students’ maturity, push-ing them to correct mistakes them-selves with this approach can fostervaluable proofreading skills. A study byFerris and Roberts showed that evenwhen the results from only underliningmistakes seemed equally effective com-pared with coding, students neverthe-less preferred the coding option.10

Both types of indirect feedbackwork best for easily defined types oferrors. If students already understandthe grammatical principle behind theerror, they will often be able to cor-rect it themselves just by having theirattention drawn to it (like problemswith pronouns, articles, and evenverb tenses). However, fixing othererrors presents a challenge. For exam-ple, writing “wrong word” may nothelp the student find the right word.Instead, it may be helpful to providesuggestions, perhaps by underlining aphrase and, above it, writing how anative speaker might typically conveythe idea. In one recent example, astudent wrote that CD’s were “a com-mon thing to listen to music.” Theteacher underlined the word thingand, in class, pointed out that a moreappropriate word was way.

Since marking all errors can betime-consuming, even if indirect meth-ods are used, it may be helpful attimes to focus the feedback on certainareas. Ferris and Hedgcock suggest fo-cusing on serious errors—those “inter-fering with the comprehensibility of a


acquisition research supports the perception that younger learners have anadvantage in terms of developing anative-like intuition about grammarpatterns in a second language.

The sensitive period for languagelearning seems to diminish around puberty, possibly because of neurologicachanges that take place around thatage.4 For this reason, emotional sup-port from teachers may help youngerstudents adjust to learning in a newlanguage, but providing specific in-struction is not linguistically vital.Therefore, for the rest of the article,we will offer recommendations aboutlearners who are not conversationallyfluent in the language in which theyare writing and who are approachingor have passed puberty—in other

d h h f

text”—and those that are “frequent”or “stigmatizing.”11 Alternatively,teachers may choose to focus on agrammatical concept that has recentlybeen covered in class or a recurringproblem for this particular student.

Whatever type of feedback teach-ers choose, they should also remem-ber the value of positive feedback. Inother words, when we catch studentsusing authentic, native speaker phras-ing, we can let them know that they“got it right.” Language learning is aconstant search for feedback. Learn-ers get positive feedback when theytry something that “works.” Sincewhat works can diverge from whatfluent speakers do, letting the learnerknow that something both works andmatches usual practice can be valu-able feedback and positively reinforcethe things the learner is doing right.

Beyond Feedback

While writing instruction for lan-guage learners may primarily involveproviding plenty of feedback (bothpointing out what students need tolearn and affirming what they may al-ready know), certain instructionalstrategies and resources can facilitatethe process. Here are several that wehave found useful:

1. Enhance the regular language-arts lesson with materials explicitlydesigned for non-native speakers.

Not every language has appro -priate materials developed for non-native speakers, but when these ma-terials are available, they can bevaluable. Materials designed for na-tive speakers sometimes addressissues that are not an issue for non-native speakers. Some English learn-ers, for example, have an awarenessof aspects of grammar that allowsthem to escape some of the persistentproblems of native speakers. A sub-ject-verb agreement problem thatfools a native speaker may appear ob-vious to a learner who can readilyidentify the subject of a sentence. Ofcourse, the converse is also true.

Assignments focusing on areas des-perately needed by non-native speak-

ers seldom appear in language-artsmaterials for native speakers. For in-stance, even in the early grades, nativespeakers typically use past tenses auto-matically and fluently, so language-artsmaterials offer limited drills in thisarea. Yet non-native speakers need thispractice. More and more of these mate-rials are available online and are usu-ally appropriate for non-native speak-ers since research shows that learnersfrom different language backgroundsshare many of the same problemswhen learning a new language.12

2. Encourage outside reading.Reading and writing have a closerelationship. Reading helps learnersdevelop the knowledge of the compo-nents of written language that corre-late with success in writing.13 This isparticularly true in the area of vocab-ulary development. For both nativespeakers and language learners, sig-nificant exposure to oral languagemay be insufficient to develop astrong vocabulary. Anne E. Cunning-ham and Keith E. Stanovich point outthat nearly all written sources out-strip oral sources for improving vo-cabulary. For vocabulary develop-

ment, students will benefit more fromreading preschool books than listen-ing to college graduates holding aconversation.14 Language learnersmay find it daunting to read materialsbeamed to their own age group, butbooks for elementary students andeven picture books with a few sen-tences on each page can providevaluable exposure to written lan-guage and new vocabulary.

3. Use peer tutoring to supplementinstruction by the teacher. In immer-sion contexts, peer tutoring can be anexcellent way to help students buildskills. One young refugee arrived as anacademy freshman with almost noEnglish skills, not even the ability tohold a simple conversation. Lackingthe resources to deal with her situa-tion, the best I (LS) could do was toset her up with two student tutors, onefor an hour in the morning and one foranother hour in the afternoon. Overthe course of the year, these tutorsshifted from working on basic conver-sational skills to providing guided helpwith assignments. Without much di-rection from me, these high school stu-dents were able to perceive the refugeestudent’s needs and adapt as her abili-ties grew. In fact, one of the tutorsbuilt such a strong bond with the stu-dent that she arranged for an intensiveperiod of tutoring during the summer.Inviting the student to her home, thetutor helped her work through the his-tory and English requirements for 9thgrade, a plan that ultimately allowedthe student to catch up and graduateon time. Peer tutoring can often sup-plement classroom instruction and, insome cases, it may be the only cus-tomized approach available.

4. Within each lesson, use pairand group work. When students areworking in mixed groups of nativeand non-native speakers, activitiessuch as collaborative writing and peerreview can help both groups. The na-tive speakers benefit from construct-ing meaning and giving feedback.However, the language learners maymake valuable contributions in theseareas as well. We once had a college


Language learners

may find it daunting

to read materials

beamed to their own

age group, but books

for elementary stu-

dents and even pic-

ture books with a few

sentences on each

page can provide

valuable exposure to

written language and

new vocabulary.

with polar challenges—providing feed-back that encourages and yet guides,demonstrating conventional usagewhile still fostering creativity. Both thechallenge and the reward come fromour interactions with the individuallearners, seeing them grow and changebefore our eyes.


Laurie Stank a -vich, MA, is anAssistant Professorof English atSouthern AdventistUniversity in Col-legedale, Ten-nessee, U.S.A. She

completed a BS at Andrews University,an MA from the University of Texas,Arlington, and is currently pursuing aPhD in English at Old Dominion Uni-versity in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.A.Prior to her appointment at SouthernAdventist University, Ms. Stankavichserved as a language-school director inTaiwan and has taught English andESL in China, Costa Rica, Korea, Tai-wan, California, and New York. Herareas of research interests are writingstudies and rhetoric.

Amanda Livanos,MA, is an Assis-tant Professor ofEnglish at South-ern Adventist Uni-versity (SAU). Shereceived a Mas-ter’s in Teaching

English to Speakers of Other Lan-guages (TESOL) from Andrews Uni-versity in Berrien Springs, Michigan,U.S.A. Since 2010, she has taught ESL,TESOL, and writing. Ms. Livanos hasserved as the Writing CommitteeChair and is currently the Composi-tion Coordinator at SAU. Additionally,she has taught ESL courses interna-tionally and in a variety of commu-nity settings.

✐

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. United Nations Economic and Social

Council, “New Trends in Migration: Demo-graphic Aspects” (April 22-26, 2013):http://www.un.org/esa/population/cpd/cpd2013/SGreport13February.v2_changes.accepted.FP_advance%20unedited%20version_converted.pdf.

2. “English Language Learners in PublicSchools,” National Center for Education Sta-tistics, last modified March 2017: http:// nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgf.asp.

3. Jill Fitzgerald, “Multilingual Writing inPreschool Through 12th Grade,” in Handbookof Writing Research, Charles A. Mac Arthur,Steve Graham, and Jill Fitzgerald, eds. (NewYork: The Guilford Press, 2006), 344, 345.

4. Lourdes Ortega, Understanding SecondLanguage Acquisition (London: Hodder Edu-cation, 2009), 12-22.

5. Ken Hyland and Fiona Hyland, “Feed-back on Second Language Students’ Writing,”Language Teaching 39:2 (April 2006): 88.

6. Ibid., 84-88.7. Ibid., 88.8. Sang-Keun Shin, “‘Fire Your Proof-

reader!’ Grammar Correction in the Lan-guage Classroom,” ELT Journal 62:4 (Octo-ber 2008): 360.

9. Jean Chandler, “The Efficacy of Vari-ous Kinds of Error Feedback for Improve-ment in the Accuracy and Fluency of L2 Stu-dent Writing,” Journal of Second LanguageWriting 12:3 (August 2003): 291.

10. Dana Ferris and Barrie Roberts, “ErrorFeedback in L2 Writing Classes: How SpecificDoes It Need to Be?” Journal of Second Lan-guage Writing 10:3 (August 2001): 177, 178.

11. Dana Ferris and John Hedgcock,Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process,and Practice (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erl-baum, 2005), 266, 267.

12. Lourdes Ortega, Understanding Sec-ond Language Acquisition (London: HodderEducation, 2009), 34.

13. Timothy Shanahan, “RelationsAmong Oral Language, Reading, and WritingDevelopment,” in Handbook of Writing Re-search, Charles A. MacArthur, Steve Graham,and Jill Fitzgerald, eds. (New York: The Guil-ford Press, 2006), 175, 176.

14. Anne E. Cunningham and Keith E.Stanovich, “What Reading Does for theMind,” American Educator 22 (Spring/Sum-mer 1998): 3.

15. Tanya Covic and Mairwen K. Jones,“Is the Essay Resubmission Option a Forma-tive or a Summative Assessment, and Does ItMatter as Long as the Grades Improve?” As-sessment & Evaluation in Higher Education33:1 (February 2008): 75-85.

16. Mansoor Fahim and Shahriar Jalili,“The Impact of Writing Portfolio Assessmenton Developing Editing Ability of Iranian EFLLearners,” Journal of Language Teaching andResearch 4:3 (May 2013): 496-503.


student who took three semesters ofESL writing before progressing intothe standard English Composition se-quence. She felt very insecure aboutparticipating in peer review. We reas-sured her that the time she spent inthe additional writing classes wouldpay off. During our first peer-reviewsession, she found she had severalvalid suggestions regarding her class-mate’s paper. This experience justifi-ably increased her confidence in herown writing abilities.

5. Allow students to revise for ahigher grade. Giving students the op-portunity to redo a paper reducestheir anxiety about getting it right thefirst time and allows them to experi-ment with the new language withoutthe persistent threat of a bad grade.At the academy where I (LS) taught,the school had a policy that allowedall students to improve and resubmitwork for higher grades as long as thiswas done in a timely manner. Thisproved to be valuable for many stu-dents, but especially for English-lan-guage learners. Since then, we havebecome aware of related policies inother educational contexts. While re-search on this practice is limited, astudy of Australian university stu-dents found that low-performing stu-dents appreciated having a “safetynet” that allowed them to revise finaldrafts; and ultimately, those whochose this option improved their writ-ing.15 Many teachers find writingportfolios to be an efficient way to in-corporate this principle, and severalstudies specific to language learnerssupport the efficacy of portfolios.16

Conclusion

At its most effective, writing in-struction involves coaching and men-toring. Nowhere is this truer thanwhen working with students who arealso becoming familiar with a new lan-guage. By enriching their writing peda-gogy with additional linguistic feed-back through selective correction, peertutoring, activities that call attention tolanguage patterns, and revision oppor-tunities, teachers can make the processmore productive for language learners.Everyone who teaches writing grapples

nglish-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs onU.S. college campuses play a vital role in helpingstudents develop academic English skills to a cer-tain threshold of success, usually defined by aparticular score on a language proficiency test

such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).However, educators who teach mainstream college classesmay expect that threshold of success to be defined as native-like use of English.1 These educators are surprised to findthat while some students who completed the ESL programor scored high enough on the TOEFL meet this expectation,others are still developing their English skills. As a result,these students continue to be referred to as “ESL” studentseven though they are enrolled in mainstream college classes.2

College educators often find ESL student writing especiallyunpredictable. Students who appear native-like in conversationand demeanor can still make “ESL” errors in their writing suchas inaccurate mixing of verb tense or incorrect use of articles.At the same time, ESL students who struggle with listening andspeaking might also struggle with writing, or they may producewriting at a higher level than expected. Consequently, manycollege educators who regularly assign writing in their classesfind ESL student writing challenging to read and assess.

The purpose of this article, therefore, is to offer insighton how college educators can better understand ESL stu-dents in their classrooms, particularly from three differentperspectives: ESL students’ backgrounds, the texts they pro-duce, and the errors they make. The article then concludeswith four suggestions for how educators may use this newunderstanding to choose teaching practices that will helpESL students succeed in mainstream college classes.

Understanding ESL Students’ Backgrounds

The most recent Open Doors Report from the Institute ofInternational Education reveals that more than one millioninternational students were enrolled in U.S. colleges and uni-versities in the 2015-2016 academic year, a seven percent in-crease over the previous year and the continuation of abroader increase over the past 50 years.3 Many of these in-ternational students are English-language learners who en-roll in college ESL programs before entering undergraduate-and graduate-degree programs. Also, the Open Door Reportstatistics do not account for the children of immigrants whohave become permanent residents or naturalized citizens butstill identify as ESL students upon entering college.

Consequently, U.S. college classrooms today are com-

B Y C H R I S T I A N S T U A R T


ESL Writers in the Mainstream

College Classroom

E

prised of growing numbers of ESL students with varyingbackgrounds. In most cases, these students have successfullycompleted ESL programs or scored high enough on a lan-guage proficiency test to enroll in mainstream classes. Someof them could still benefit from additional English-languagesupport. Others may appear to no longer need English-lan-guage support but actually do need assistance in variousareas, including writing.

Joy Reid, a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of OtherLanguages) scholar specializing in ESL writing, provides a use-ful way of understanding how these students’ varying back-grounds reveal their different needs as college writers. Shecalls international ESL students “eye” learners because al-though a majority of them have learned English “through theireyes [by] studying vocabulary, verb forms, and languagerules,”4 they may have limited experience using conversationalEnglish. Because of their status as international students, these“eye” learners have often developed sophisticated literacyskills in their first languages and may have potentially trans-ferable academic writing abilities from their secondary or eventertiary school experiences. Consequently, some internationalstudents struggle conversationally in class but show an abilityto produce acceptable-quality academic genres such as essays,research papers, lab reports, and proposals.

At the same time, international students can vary widely.Some may come from countries where English is used in ed-

ucational contexts, while others may not.Some come from educational back-grounds where lecture-based, teacher-centered classes are the norm and viewcollaborative, student-centered classes asunfamiliar and even unnerving. Other in-ternational students may have a difficulttime being critical in their writing, asthey have been taught to respect the au-thority of published texts. For these stu-dents, taking a stance questioning theview of a celebrated scholar or writer iscounterintuitive.

Furthermore, Reid calls U.S. citizenand permanent-resident ESL students“ear” learners because a majority ofthese students have lived in the U.S. foran extended period of time and have“[learned] English principally throughoral trial and error.”5 These “ear” learn-ers have had more exposure to conver-sational English than their “eye” learnerpeers. “Ear” learners may also be morecomfortable with U.S. classroom prac-tices than international students, sincemany of them attended U.S. middle andhigh schools. However, these studentsmay struggle with writing. Many ofthem began formal schooling in the U.S.at a young age but continued to speaktheir first language at home, so they

may not have fully developed literacy skills in either theirfirst language or in English.6 Thus, U.S. citizen and perma-nent-resident ESL students may need extra assistance withtheir writing despite their apparent comfort levels in theclassroom and ability to converse without difficulty.

Understanding ESL Writers’ Texts

Even when ESL students have demonstrated a high pro-ficiency in English, perhaps by successfully completing anon-campus ESL program or by scoring well above the col-lege’s required score on the TOEFL, it is not unusual forthem to still struggle with writing assignments in main-stream college classes. One possible explanation for thiscomes from contrastive rhetoric scholarship (the study ofhow writing in a second language is influenced by first lan-guage and culture). A subfield of TESOL, contrastive rhetoricis rooted in the work of Robert Kaplan, who in 1966 pub-lished a groundbreaking article suggesting that ESL writingcan be difficult to read from a Western educator’s point ofview because of cultural differences in “thought patterns”that shape the logic and organization of such writing.7

According to Kaplan’s argument, based on analysis ofwriting authored by students from different cultural back-grounds, ESL students write and produce texts that are logi-cal (i.e., they make sense) from a particular cultural perspec-tive of the writer, but read in the context of another cultural


Cultivating a Culture

of Success

perspective are illogical and do notmake sense.8 ESL writers from Koreaor Japan, for instance, might not ex-plicitly state the main point (thesis)until the very end of an essay, whichreflects accepted rhetorical practice inthose cultures. For readers expectingthe seemingly linear organizationalpattern of writing in English—mainpoint stated up front, followed by de-tailed support—Korean and Japanesestudents’ texts in English may appearindirect and unfocused.

Since Kaplan’s publication, manyscholars have studied contrastiverhetoric in ESL writing. One particu-larly significant revelation to emergefrom this scholarship is that Englishis a “writer-responsible” language,meaning that the onus is placed onwriters of texts in English to make thewriting explicit and understandable.9

ESL writers, however, may come fromcultures where the language is“reader-responsible” (e.g., Korean and Japanese), meaningthat it is understood that readers make an effort, as part ofthe reading process, to understand the main point of a text,which is often only implicitly stated.10

The challenges that ESL writers face in mainstream col-lege classes, therefore, can go beyond language issues. Thesestudents may demonstrate adequate vocabulary and knowl-edge of English grammar, but lack awareness of their ex-pected “writer responsibility” or of the organizational pat-terns that define the many different academic genres U.S.college professors assign in their classes. As a consequence,ESL writing, even if it is clear and mostly error-free, cansometimes come across as indirect, clichéd, or overly per-sonal when educators are expecting focused analysis, objec-tive stances, and a demonstration of critical thinking. Thesimplistic nature of some ESL writing may reflect the stu-dent’s unawareness of implicit expectations about writing inmainstream U.S. college contexts and have nothing to dowith a lack of English-language proficiency or an inability tothink in a sophisticated way. For these students, explicit in-struction on educators’ expectations for written work maygo a long way toward helping them succeed.

Understanding ESL Students’ Writing Errors

Research has revealed certain identifiable error patterns com-mon to ESL writers. Handbooks and textbooks designed formainstream college writing classes (i.e., “Freshman English”)are beginning to address these errors as more and more ESLstudents enroll in U.S. colleges. For instance, the most recentedition of A Pocket Style Manual, a popular handbook used infirst-year college-writing classes, includes a whole section on“grammar concerns for multilingual writers.”11 Likewise, WhatEvery Multilingual Student Should Know About Writing for Col-


lege identifies the “top ten” errors madeby ESL writers.12 Both handbooks focuson language issues involving voca b -ulary, verb tense, articles, parts ofspeech, and prepositions, areas of Eng-lish that ESL writers commonly findchallenging.

Most ESL writers who attend main-stream college classes have demon-strated English proficiency by eithercompleting an on-campus ESL pro-gram or by passing a language profi-ciency test such as the TOEFL. Why,then, do ESL writers still make “ESL”errors in their writing, sometimes tosuch a degree that the overall effective-ness of their written work is compro-mised?

Dana Ferris, who has devoted hercareer as a TESOL scholar to studyingESL writing errors, cites researchshowing that “error is a natural part oflanguage acquisition . . . it may evensignal progress rather than deficiency

. . . [and] language acquisition takes time and requires botheffort and patience.”13 Research also shows that students whoare given the time to develop the skill to edit their own work(rather than having each error marked by an instructor) willbecome more proficient over time.14

In short, ESL writers need opportunities to make errors andto discover and remedy these errors on their own. This is trueeven if such students have scored well on the TOEFL or havesuccessfully completed an ESL program. Despite having de-veloped a strong foundation in English, they still need ongo-ing practice to develop their skills. College educators who seeESL writing errors as a natural part of the learning processand consequently give ESL writers the space to make errors—primarily by encouraging self-correction of errors and givingstudents the chance to edit and revise written work even afterit has been turned in and graded—serve these students well.

Cultivating a Culture of Success

By better understanding ESL student backgrounds, howand why these students produce the writing they do, and howand why they continue to make certain errors in their writing,educators can begin to cultivate a culture of success for ESLwriters in their classes. This article concludes with four sug-gestions of cultivating this culture of success.

• Look beyond the ESL-mainstream divide. The terms“ESL” and “mainstream” may appear to only be a practicalmeans for categorization, but these labels can reinforce theproblematic idea that “mainstream” students are the core groupwhile the “ESL” students are a peripheral part of the class. Ed-ucators who recognize that ESL students are a diverse, legiti-mate, and numerous part of the core group can begin to seethem less and less as “ESL” and more and more as biology stu-dents or engineering students, future teachers or dentists,

“Educators who recognize

that ESL students are a

diverse, legitimate, and

numerous part of the core

group can begin to see

them less and less as

‘ESL’ and more and more

as biology students or en-

gineering students. . . .”

daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, and God’s children.That is, individuals with real lives and specific learning needswho are equipped and willing to work hard and succeed in classjust as the “mainstream” students are. Individuals whom Godloves. Indeed, seeing beyond the “ESL” label is part of a Christ-centered approach to teaching, an approach that reflects the val-ues at the heart of any Seventh-day Adventist institution.

• Avoid defining ESL writers by the errors they make.Some ESL students make a lot of errors in their writing; othersdo not. Many of the errors they make are different from theerrors made by native English speakers. But to assume all ESLwriters will make the same kinds of errors, and that they willalso make a lot of these errors is to generalize that ESL stu-dents are part of a predictable, homogeneous group. Educatorswho can distinguish between serious writing errors and minorones and who give ESL students the space to make errors—and self-correct them—can help them develop much-neededconfidence. More importantly, educators who define studentsnot by their writing errors but by their individual backgrounds,their academic interests, and the thoughts and ideas that comethrough in their writing despite a few (or many) errors, play asuccessful role in furthering these students’ English-languagedevelopment and achieve the primary objective of effectivelyteaching these students the assigned subject matter.

• Be explicit about writing assignment expectations.When educators give writing assignments, they often assumethat students know what a “short response essay” is, whatan “argument paper” should do, and what a “10-page researchpaper” should look like. Chances are, however, many stu-dents—including those who are native speakers of English—have only a partial understanding of the teacher’s expecta-tions. Educators can therefore help all of their students bybeing explicit in a number of ways: Before making each as-signment, they should provide clear directions, describe thespecific learning goals, present the grading rubric to be used,share examples of successful assignments from previousclasses, and highlight unique organizational expectations forthe particular assignment genre. They should also give stu-dents a chance to revise and further edit writing for creditafter it has been initially submitted, graded, and returned.

• Reach out to the on-campus ESL program. A final sug-gestion for educators is to reach out to the on-campus ESLprogram, if there is one, for guidance when struggling withespecially challenging ESL writing issues. These programs arestaffed by professionals who work with ESL writers on a dailybasis. In fact, these ESL instructors probably know many ofthe ESL students taking mainstream classes and can offer helpthat is tailored to their needs. Working with the on-campusESL program can also help college educators better under-stand the second-language acquisition process, replace unre-alistic expectations about this process with realistic ones, andform partnerships with ESL professionals that will serve thebest interests of ESL writers across the campus.


✐

Christian Stuart, PhD, is currently Direc-tor of the Center for Intensive English Pro-grams (CIEP) and Assistant Professor ofEnglish at Andrews University in BerrienSprings, Michigan, U.S.A. He earned hisdoctorate in English from the Universityof Washington in Seattle, Washington,U.S.A. Dr. Stuart began teaching in 1997,

and he has taught English in South Korea and Japan, and col-lege writing at several colleges and universities in the Seattlearea. His areas of interest and expertise are TESOL theories andmethods, ESL writing, composition studies, and research onmultilingual students’ college writing experiences.

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. Research in second-language acquisition, notably the work of Jim

Cummins at the University of Toronto, shows that developing basic con-versational proficiency in a second language takes less time than devel-oping academic proficiency in a second language, with the latter takingmany years. Acquiring native-like ability in a second language may alsotake many years and probably will never entirely happen. Since on-cam-pus college ESL programs often only have a few semesters or quarters, atmost, to work with ESL students, the goal of these programs is typicallyto help them develop a solid foundation in grammar, aural/oral skills,reading for academic purposes, and writing for academic purposes, withthe understanding that upon meeting a certain threshold of success, thesestudents will move into mainstream classes and further develop their Eng-lish-language skills as they pursue their academic degrees.

2. This article uses the term “ESL” to describe English-language learn-ers of all backgrounds who study in mainstream U.S. college classes andare still developing English-language skills; the term includes but is notlimited to students who have also studied in ESL programs. While thereare other descriptors used for English-language learners (for instance,“ELL” for English-language learner and “L2 student” for second-languagestudent), “ESL” is arguably the most widely understood and recognizedterm used to categorize English-language learners in U.S. higher-learningcontexts. Hence, “ESL” is used in this article. At the same time, it is im-portant to realize that the term “ESL” can have a stigmatizing effect if itis used as the primary means of identifying a student, especially when astudent demonstrates fluency in English but is still regarded as an “ESL”student by peers and instructors. For a more detailed discussion of thispoint, see the first teaching suggestion in this article.

3. Open Doors (2016): http://www.iie.org/opendoors. 4. Joy Reid, “‘Eye’ Learners and ‘Ear’ Learners: Identifying the Lan-

guage Needs of International Students and U.S. Resident Writers,” in Sec-ond-Language Writing in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook,Paul Kei Matsuda, et al., eds. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006), 79.

5. Ibid., 77.6. Ilona Leki, Understanding ESL Writers: A Guide for Teachers

(Portsmouth, N.H.: Boynton/Cook, 1992), 43.7. Robert B. Kaplan, “Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-cultural Ed-

ucation,” Language Learning 16:1-2 (1966): 1-20.8. Ibid.9. John Hinds, “Reader vs. Writer Responsibility: A New Typology,”

in Writing Across Languages: Analysis of L2 Texts, Ulla Connor andRobert Kaplan, eds. (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1987), 141-152.

10. Ibid.11. Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers, A Pocket Style Manual, 7th

ed. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016), 47-56.12. Shanti Bruce and Alan S. Kennedy, What Every Multilingual

Writer Should Know About Writing for College (Upper Saddle River, N.J.:Pearson, 2012), 52-59.

13. Dana R. Ferris, Treatment of Error in Second Language StudentWriting (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 86.

14. Ibid., 85-95.


SAGRADA BIBLIA

he first time I heard aboutthe relationship betweenlearning a foreign lan-guage and reading theBible was during one of

my linguistics classes. The professorstated: “I have learned several foreignlanguages just by reading the Bible,[and] although I do not consider my-self a Christian believer, I noticed theeffective result of learning throughan extensive, varied, and valuablebook.”1 As a 19-year-old Adventiststudent in my first year at a publicuniversity, I was deeply affected bythe words of this professor. From thatmoment, I decided that when I be-came a professor, I would use theBible as a basic manual to teach aforeign language.

I thought that I was alone in usingthe Bible as a primary resource forteaching until I found Humberto Rasi’sChrist in the Classroom series, whichhe began in 1993.2 These books are acompilation of articles and essaysabout the integration of faith in teach-ing and learning written by Adventistcollege professors. Rasi’s philosophy isstated as follows:

“The integration of faith and valueswith teaching and learning is a delib-erate and systematic process of ap -proaching the entire educationalenterprise—both curricular and co-cur ricular—from a Christian perspec-tive. In a Seventh-day Adventist set-ting, its aim is to ensure that, by the

time students complete their studies,they will have freely internalized be-liefs and values and a view of knowl-edge, life, and destiny that is Bible-based, Christ-centered, service - oriented, and kingdom-directed.”3

In reviewing these wonderful re-sources for Christian teachers, I no-ticed that while the articles and practi-cal examples came from a variety ofsubject areas, only one related to Eng-lish-as-a-second-language teaching,and none related to teaching the Span-ish language. This motivated me to fillthis faith-teaching gap through usingthe Bible as a primary resource in myEnglish and Spanish classes, and creat-ing materials that would assist instruc-tors in the integration of faith in teach-ing and learning.

Using the Bible as a Text Base

In 1998, I was hired to teach at anAdventist educational institution in Sa-gunto, Spain. During the next fiveyears, I taught English as a foreign lan-guage to the senior high school stu-dents. While I felt an enormous respon-sibility to prepare these students fortheir Selectividad (Selectivity) examina-tions, a crucial examination at the endof the course that would determinetheir ability to enter university and pur-sue desired careers, I also relished theopportunity to integrate faith withlearning. This exam would select fromamong all the high school students inSpain only those who were really pre-pared to continue with their education.

The examiners who created this

exam used random magazines, news-papers, and media news to structurecomprehension activities. I took therisk of integrating texts from a modernversion of the Bible into my lessonplans for the English class.4 I advisedmy students to accept the challenge tolearn with this method, even though afew of them were not Adventists. TheSelectivity test consisted of a finalwritten exam on writing, reading, andgrammar, so I created a few activitiesby using the Bible as the text base. Be-cause the Scriptures contain a varietyof vocabulary words, topics, and writ-ing styles, I anticipated that studentswould obtain good linguistic results atthe end of the course. Furthermore,the students, along with the professor,would also be exposed to many edu-cational and spiritual values, as wellas the integration of faith and learn-ing. (See examples in Tables 1-3.)

Surprisingly, the results were muchbetter than expected. During the fiveconsecutive years that I prepared stu-dents for the Selectivity examinationwith this method, 100 percent of thestudents passed and were able toenter the universities of their choice.Furthermore, my students obtainedthe highest average scores on the testin all the subjects taken by studentsfrom our school.

Reading Frank McCourt’s book, ElProfesor, ushered in a new stage inmy life as a teacher and served as asource of inspiration as I searched fortools and methods to help me inte-


Using the toTeach

B Y F R A N C I S C O B U R G O S

T

BIBLEa Foreign Language

grate faith with learning in my Span-ish and English classes. Based on Mc-Court’s personal experiences as a pro-fessor of Irish descent teaching at theMcKee Institute in New York City, thebook describes the passion and strug-gle of a teacher yearning to reach hisstudents. I was impressed by thewords he shared about his first class:“Ya llegan. Y yo no estoy preparado.¿Cómo iba a estarlo? Soy un profesornuevo, y estoy aprendiendo con lapráctica.” [“They are coming. And Iam not ready. How would I be? I am anew professor, and I am learning withpractice.”]5

McCourt used unconventionalmethods to teach English language andliterature in order to awaken a higherinterest among his young students. Helistened to their inquiries, immersedhimself in their communities, tried tounderstand the realities of their lives,and planned their learning experiencesbased on their routines and realitiesoutside the classroom. He set out tohave an impact on their lives and usedseveral creative approaches to do so.One such method was to engage hisstudents using the Bible. For example,he asked them to write an apology let-ter from Adam and Eve to God for hav-ing been disobedient and falling intosin. Many of his students were familiarwith the Bible since they attendedChristian churches and Bible schools.

My interest grew as I saw othersusing the Bible to help students buildimportant skills. Then, when I wascompleting my doctoral studies, oneof my professors encouraged me topursue this topic and proposed that Iread the work of Paulo Freire. Freirestates that students need to be “ac-tors, rather than spectators, that theymay have a voice, instead of just say-ing the word, that they may have theopportunity to create and re-create,and transform the world.”6

In other words, students shouldhave the opportunity to be heard and toparticipate in choosing the content oftheir learning. We, as professors,should also consider this an opportu-nity to present learning as a verticalsystem, not just a horizontal one. Inte-grating faith and the Bible engages stu-


John 10:11-16Topic: Study or Work?Title: Jesus, the Good Shepherd Writing style: Argumentative TextLevel: ElementaryGrammar contents:

• Verb “to be”• Present Simple Tense• The Negative Form• The Auxiliary Verb “to do”• Verb “to know”

Reading activities:

• Question: What are the characteristicsof a good shepherd and a bad shepherd?

• True/False: All the sheep know thegood shepherd.

• Synonyms: pastor - shepherdWriting activities: Give your opinion aboutthe differences between a good and a badstudent and/or worker.Vocabulary: shepherd, sheep, wolf, flock,pastures, hired, belong to, work, rich, money,thief, to care about, to know, life, to abandon,to run, freely Educative values: sacrifice, respect, friend-ship, honesty, responsibility, obedience, workethic, love Bible values: spiritual leadership, good andbad pastors’ characteristics, obedience toGod, faithfulness, Divinity, Trinity

Genesis 6-8Topic: A Family TripTitle: The Story of NoahWriting style: Narrative TextLevel: IntermediateGrammar contents:

• Past Simple Tense• Future Simple Tense• Family Words• Animals

Reading activities:

• Question: How many people traveledwith Noah?

• True/False: Only the clean animals sur-vived the Flood.

• Synonyms: story - account

Writing activities: Narrate your most recentfamily vacations.Vocabulary: earth, time, ground, sky, day,night, rain, torrent, wind, boat, water, moun-tain, peak, waterproof, deck, stall, feet, flood,survive, covenant, son, daughter, wife, hus-band, children, human, family, father, mother,animal, domestic, wild, creature, pair, male,female, birdEducative values: hard-working, teamwork,solidarity, creation-evolution, family care, an-imal care, peace, nature careBible values: goodness, faith, creation, obe-dience, God’s justice and judgment, confi-dence, forgiveness

Mark 10:17-31 Topic: PropertiesTitle: Poor Man/Rich ManWriting style: DialogueLevel: AdvancedGrammar contents:

• Past Simple Tense• Present Perfect Tense• Past Progressive Tense• Imperative• Auxiliary Modal Verbs• -ly Adverbs• Housing Words

Reading activities:

• Question: Why did Jesus ask the richman to sell all his possessions?

• True/False: The young man left happybecause he was very rich.

• Synonyms: belonging - propertyWriting activities: Write a dialogue of aconversation that you had or you listened toabout two people talking about the purchaseof a house. Vocabulary: inherit, house, property, com-mandments, testify, cheat, honor, teacher, tosell, possessions, money, poor, rich, treasure,kingdom, intently, truly, falsely, humanly, mustEducative values: honor, respect, obedi-ence, generosityBible values: worship, eternity, witnessing,faithfulness, love, discipleship, salvation, hu-mility

Table 1. Lesson Plan Example 1.



dents in thinking about their relation-ship with God within the context of thearea of study. Adventist schools andcolleges have an excellent opportunityto embrace the Bible as an essentialmanual that can help students learn lin-guistic and spiritual content. To furtherthis goal, I would like to present a prac-tical section describing how I have beenintegrating Adventist educative values,faith, and the Bible in my Spanish-lan-guage teaching at the college level.

Creation of Materials

As a result of almost 20 years of ex-perience teaching a foreign language,10 years of research, and 15 yearsworking on activities that include Bibleusage, I decided to create a series ofprofessional Spanish manuals, follow-ing the American Council on the Teach-ing of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)guidelines, including the universal ed-ucative values,7 and integrating theBible and faith in learning and teachingin both the implicit and explicit cur-riculum, in the teaching of college-levelSpanish.8 These manuals have beenpublished and are available for use inChristian colleges. (See Box 1.)

Meaning of IFELEThis project has been named IFELE

(Integración de la Fe en la Enseñanzade la Lengua Española—Integration ofFaith in Teaching the Spanish Lan-guage). IFELE provides materials thatintegrate faith and the Bible and canbe used in the teaching and learningof Spanish in Christian classrooms.Smith and Carvill convey that the giftof the stranger consists of faith, hospi-tality, and foreign-language learning,and that all the languages in the worlddeserve to be considered in the sameway.9 Currently, few studies havelooked at the integration of faith andthe Bible in the teaching of English, orother foreign languages, as a secondlanguage. This is also the case withSpanish, although I have found a fewindividual articles and activities.10 As aresult, I have been working on theIFELE project during my almost 20years of experience teaching a foreignlanguage. (See Example 1.)

During this time, I learned that the

acquisition of a second language is avery complex process; and thus, anyelement that we as linguists andteachers can find to facilitate it willhelp to reduce learner anxiety, aswell as motivate students to acceler-ate the four main steps through whichlearners usually progress in learning anew language: euphoria, frustration,discouragement, and satisfaction.11

Lanauze and Snow support the ideathat “unfamiliar content may be asgreat an interference in comprehensionas is unfamiliar form.”12 This is whythe ACTFL Guidelines are so relevant.Below are a few characteristics this or-ganization recommends that a teachertake into account when creating as-signments, particularly at the begin-ning and intermediate levels:

• Use a limited number of letters,symbols, or signs; identify high-fre-quency words and/or sentences stronglysupported by the context (reading).

• Create short, connected, non-complex texts with personal, social,and familiar topics (reading).

• Ask students to copy or tran-scribe familiar words and sentences(writing).

• Require learners to produce bymemory only a limited number ofisolated words or familiar sentences(writing).

• Ask students to describe per-sonal preferences, daily routines,common events, and other personaltopics (writing).

• Have students exchange greet-ings and identify and name a numberof familiar objects in the immediateenvironment, within a familiar frame-work (speaking).

• Ask students to talk about theirpersonal interests and preferences re-lated to self, family, home, and dailyactivities (speaking).

• Help students recognize isolatedwords or high-frequency sentenceswithin a context (listening).

• Remember that comprehension ismost often accurate with highly famil-iar and predictable topics (listening).

• Use approaches that help stu-dents act with greater awareness ofself, of other cultures, and their rela-tionships to those cultures, in a vari-ety of settings (community).

• Structure assignments so that stu-dents start learning from their owncommunity of practice (comfort zone),in order to participate more fully inglobal community and worldwidemarketplace (community).13

Based on the official aforementionedACTFL guidelines, one can see the con-nection to the IFELE project, which isbuilt on familiarity, faith-integrativeprinciples, and community concepts.

Use of Familiar Content

Anderson and Pearson indicatedthat “comprehension, by definition, isthe process of relating new or incom-ing information already stored inmemory. Readers make connections


IFELE Elementary Spanish I (Columbus, Ohio: Biblio Publishing, 2014). ISBN: 978-1-62249-216-6: https://bibliobookstore.com/International-Languages/IFELE- Elementary- Spanish-I-by-Francisco-Burgos

IFELE Elementary Spanish II (Columbus, Ohio: Biblio Publishing, 2014). ISBN: 978-1-62249-231-2: https://bibliobookstore.com/International-Languages/ IFELE-Elementary-Spanish-II-by-Francisco-Burgos

IFELE Intermediate Spanish I (Columbus, Ohio: Biblio Publishing, 2014). ISBN: 978-1-62249-185-8: https://bibliobookstore.com/International/IFELE-ESPANOL-INTERMEDIO -I-by-Francisco-Burgos

IFELE Intermediate Spanish II (Columbus, Ohio: Biblio Publishing, 2014). ISBN: 978-1-62249-186-5: https://bibliobookstore.com/International/IFELE-ESPANOL -INTERMEDIO -II-by-Francisco-Burgos

Box 1. IFELE (Integración de la Fe en la Enseñanza de la Lengua

Española-Integration of Faith in Teaching the Spanish Language) Textbooks

between the new information onthe printed page and their existingknowledge.”14 Langer and Applebeeadd that “one does not simply learnand write about particular things inparticular ways.”15 Instead, one canlearn from a variety of sources, andthe information is more meaningfulwhen those sources are familiar.

Anne Ediger16 also defended the fa-miliar aspect because from her personalperspective, it would be much easier tolearn moving from the known or famil-iar to the unknown or unfamiliar con-tent. She mentioned three fundamentalelements: text (familiar content), reader(group identity), and context (linguisticfeatures). Finally, as mentioned above,the ACTFL guidelines recognize keywords, cognates, and contextualizedphrases and sentences with predictableor familiar information, especially forbeginning learners of a foreign lan-guage. This organization explores theneed to motivate the teachers andlearners to produce texts related to theirdaily routines through familiar topicsand contents.

Sandra Savignon17 named the fun-

damental elements that appropriate21st-century instruction should deliver:

1. Teaching should be “new” or “in-novative,” in the sense of transformingthe learners into active participantswho are able to interpret, express, andnegotiate their own meanings.

2. The teacher should seek toachieve balance between the sociocul-tural context, the learning strategies,the discourse cohesion, and the less-popular grammar aspect of the course.

Use of the Bible in English Language

and Literature Classes

Throughout history, many preju-dices have existed against the use ofthe Bible as a text to teach a foreignlanguage because of the relationshipbetween this book and some prohib-ited terms in the context of secular ed-ucation, such as religion, faith, moralvalues or, in a critical sense, a certainfundamentalism by some teachers whohave coercively proselytized in theirclassrooms. However, Astin, Astin, andLindholm18 have suggested that carefor the spiritual lives of students can

improve their emotional state and, as aresult, their academic performance aswell. Elaine Horwitz19 observed thatclass realities which contradict stu-dents’ expectations about learningmay discourage them and, as a conse-quence, interfere with the accomplish-ment of their desired objectives. Nunanargued that “teachers should find outwhat their students think and feelabout what they want to learn andhow they want to learn.”20

Finally, a few secular authors havedefended the use of the Bible in lan-guage and literature classes. MarieWachlin21 commended the Bible as atextbook to teach a language since ithas inspired other disciplines, such asmusic, poetry, and art, with a varietyof forms and literary styles. Wachlinencouraged linguists, professors, stu-dents, administrators, and investiga-tors to use the Bible more frequently inAmerican schools, especially in col-leges and universities. However, theBible must be taught in a tolerant, flex-ible, responsible, objective, and criticalway. Professors in Christian schoolscan openly use the Bible to help stu-dents develop positive character traitsand a relationship with God, as well asto achieve academic goals.

Morris and Smith22 found a directrelationship between student reten-tion at Syracuse University and the in-tegration of the Bible as literature forEnglish-language learning. EdwardBonard,23 the pioneer of a faith move-ment that based its teaching methodof English as a second language onusing the Bible as a literary text forconversational skill, developed a pro-gram titled “Let’s Start to Speak” (Em-pecemos a hablar) in Nashville, Ten-nessee. The program has helped morethan 3,000 immigrants from some 300countries. Bonard sought to establisha comparative analysis of the resultsbetween familiar and unfamiliar texts.He found that the use of familiar textsfrom the Bible showed better resultsthan the texts taken from other books.

Use of the Bible in Spanish Language

and Literature Classes

Although I have reviewed numer-ous and diverse studies on the use of


Example 1. Lectura: Ciudades en la Biblia [Lesson: Cities in the Bible].

nfor

iti

Copyright © Francisco Burgos. Used with permission.

the Bible to teach Spanish as a secondlanguage, I have yet to find one deal-ing with the effect of Bible texts onteaching and learning. This thereforeneeds further study by ChristianSpanish-language professors. They,along with the administrators, investi-gators, and linguists, all have the re-sponsibility to study how to deliverSpanish as a foreign language in waysthat increase acquisition of a languagethat continues to be in high demand.

Communities Integrating Bible and Faith

Benedict Anderson spoke about theconcept of nationality as somethingthat should be “natural, in the sensethat it contains something that is un-chosen (much like gender, skin color,and parentage).”24 While this may beso, there are many for whom nation -ality is a choice, and the result is acommunity of practice in which theywillingly participate. Bonny Norton25

emphasized the importance of motivat-ing a specific community of languagelearners to participate in the practicesthat characterize the new communities,that they may feel the need to integratetheir own realities into their learning.In his investigation, Norton includedthe negative experiences of two stu-dents, Katarina and Felicia, who be-came discouraged and abandoned theirEnglish classes because they didn’t feelaccepted as active participants in thenew community. Lave and Wengerstated that “learning as an increasingparticipation in communities of practiceconcerns the whole person acting in theworld.”26 Eda Derhem27 observed thatlinguists estimate that about 80 percentof the 60,000 existing languages todaywill eventually disappear, and insistedon the importance of respecting theidentities of communities of linguisticpractice by avoiding separation of lan-guage from culture and society.

Smith and Carvill concluded that“If, therefore, I do not understand themeaning of what I am saying, I will bea foreigner for the speaker, and she/hewill be a foreigner for me.”28 Goulahadvocated for transformative learning“in interlocking structures of race,class, gender, and power in the context

of the standards-based world languageand culture learning . . . to transformlearners’ tendencies, attitudes, and ac-tions contributing to them. . . . Whilecritical literacy is necessary, transfor-mative learning is desirable.”29

Rito Baring30 explained why thestudents in his Christian communityin the Philippines read the Bible as anact of faith. Even though the studentswere Generation X learners, who readvery little in general and the Bibleeven less, he discovered that theycould be motivated to read and learnbetter when they read the Bible aspart of their learning experience.

Within a community of languagelearners, the students can transcend thelinguistic, developing their own per-sonal relationship with God, learningabout life outside the classroom, prac-ticing critical thinking, discerning be-tween the good and the bad, the con-venient and inconvenient. Therefore,Bible content cannot be neutral, butcan be used respectfully with consider-ation of the community of practice.

Morris, Beck, and Smith indicatedthat unlike secular or public institu-tions, Christian schools emphasize theimportance of students developingwholistically. Spiritual growth is at thecore of the overall curriculum, and in-tegrating faith with learning, both inthe classroom and in school-wide ac-tivities, will help students develop andembrace a Christian worldview. Intheir study, “when a student reportedbeing spiritually integrated, [he or shewas] more likely to persist.”31

Final Thoughts

In 2006, I began teaching Spanish asa second language at Oakwood Univer-sity in Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. Theinterest in Spanish-language learningand the number of students enrollingin Spanish classes has increased fromabout 30 to approximately 140 studentsper semester between 2006 and 2017.More than 90 percent of Oakwood’sstudent population are Christians, somost are familiar with Bible content.During the fall and spring 2010-2011 se-mester courses, the university distrib-uted a survey in order to determinehow students perceived their spiritual

growth on campus. Approximately 800students completed the 52-item Life -Core©2011 survey. In addition, ap -proximately 852 students were inter-viewed.32

According to Lifecore©2011, 67 per-cent of the students surveyed found thereligious activities interesting, 50 per-cent said they were significant, and 43percent said they were relevant. In rela-tion to student involvement in the com-munity, 46 percent of the students werewilling to help others understand theBible. With regard to personal spiritualactivities, 73 percent of respondentssaid they read the Bible frequently,compared to four percent of the partici-pants in Barna Research Group’s na-tional survey taken in 2003,33 whichstudied 2,033 adults in the UnitedStates. Finally, 32 percent of the Oak-wood students said that Bible read -ing had a significant impact on theirknowledge and study of the Bible, stillmuch higher than the national average.This could be because the Bible is inte-grated throughout the curriculum, nottaught only in religion courses.

In their responses to the Lifecore© 2011 survey, students enrolled in Span-ish courses said that integration of theBible in their courses helped increasetheir interest and understanding:

• “Yes, familiar texts helped mecorrelate and understand Spanish alot better”;

• “Yes, it was really helpful. I wasable to identify stories and it was eas-ier to identify words, as I associated itwith Bible story”;

• “Yes, relating Spanish with textsthat I already knew helped me re-member it easier”;

• “Yes, it’s a great teaching tool. Ifind it easier learning something inSpanish [that] I am familiar with ratherthan a random poem or dialogue”;

• “Yes, I took two years Spanish in[a] Christian school but never learnedwith Bible texts. I look forward beingplaced in [a] group to learn using fa-miliar texts.”

To summarize, I found a significantnumber of previous studies thatdemonstrated an impact as the resultof using the Bible in English-language


learning. However, it was almost im-possible to discover similar findingsabout the impact of the Bible on Span-ish-language learning. This, then, be-came the rationale for my creatingmaterials to teach Spanish as a sec-ond language at the college level.Scripture says: “For God has not givenus a spirit of fear and timidity, but ofpower, love, and self-discipline. Sonever be ashamed to tell others aboutour Lord” (2 Timothy 1:7, 8, NLT).34

As Christian teachers, each of us has aresponsibility to continue to use theBible in our courses and to create ma-terials that integrate faith in teachingwithin Christian education.


Francisco Burgos,PhD, is an Associ-ate Professor inthe Department ofEnglish and For-eign Languages atOakwood Univer-sity in Huntsville,

Alabama, U.S.A. Dr. Burgos earnedhis PhD in Romance Languages (Span-ish and English), with an emphasis inLinguistics, Literature, and TeachingMethodology from the University of Al-abama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Healso holds an MA in Anglo-SaxonPhilology and Hispanic Studies, andan MEd in General Education fromUniversidad Adventista del Plata, Ar-gentina. In addition to teaching forseveral years at Centro Escolar Adven-tista de Sagunto, Spain, he has servedas the Adventist Colleges Abroad Coor-dinator for the Foreign Languages De-partment at Oakwood University for11 years. He also actively supports stu-dents in the foreign-languages pro-gram by serving as founder and spon-sor of several Spanish clubs andraising money for scholarships. Hehas authored several textbooks for ele-mentary and inter mediate Spanish,and presented his research nationallyand internationally.

✐

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. This statement was made by Dr. Antonio

Briz, my linguistics professor during the 1990s.2. Humberto Rasi, Christ in the Class-

room: Adventist Approaches to the Integra-tion of Faith and Learning (Silver Spring,Md.: Institute for Christian Teaching, 1993):http://ict.aiias.edu/ifl_definition.html.

3. Ibid.4. For my classes, I use the New Living

Translation version in Spanish, as it is afresh paraphrase and more contemporaryversion suitable for teenagers and youngadults, and at the same time very close tothe original. K. N. Taylor, La Santa Biblia,Nueva Traducción Viviente (Carol Stream,Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2010).

5. Frank McCourt, El Profesor (Madrid:MAEVA, 2006), 19.

6. Paulo Freire, Pedagogía del oprimido(Montevideo: Tierra Nueva, 1970), 30.

7. Universal values are respect for others,responsibility, solidarity, tolerance, dialogue,non-violence, fellowship, self-esteem, cre-ativity, respect for nature, defense of the en-vironment, respect for diversity, respect andencouragement of the traditions of each indi-vidual culture. For more information, seeProyecto Educativo de Centro (2012), page21: http://www.educando.edu.do/articulos/di rectivo/el-proyecto-educativo-de-cen-tro-pec/.

8. The IFELE textbooks can be used toteach both high school and college/univer-sity level students.

9. David I. Smith and Barbara Carvill,The Gift of the Stranger: Faith, Hospitality,and Foreign Language Learning (GrandRapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publish-ing Co., 2000), 82.

10. Rasi, Christ in the Classroom. 11. University of Northern Iowa Study

Abroad Center: http://studyabroad.uni.edu/ index.cfm.

12. Milagros Lanauze and CatherineSnow, “The Relation Between First and Sec-ond Language Writing Skills,” Linguistics inEducation 1:4 (Winter 1989): 25, 323-339.

13. ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (Hast-ings-on-Hudson, N.Y.: American Council onthe Teaching of Foreign Languages, 1983).

14. Richard C. Anderson and P. David Pear-son, “A Schema-Theoretic View of BasicProcesses in Reading Comprehension,” inHandbook of Reading Research, P. D. Pearson,ed. (New York: Longman, 1984), 255, 255-292.

15. Judith A. Langer and Arthur N. Ap-plebee, “Reading & Writing Instruction: To-ward a Theory of Teaching and Learning,”Review of Research in Education 13:1 (Janu-ary 1986): 173, 171-194.

16. Anne Ediger, “Teaching Children Lit-eracy Skills in a Second Language,” in Teach-ing English as a Second or Foreign Language,Marianne Celce-Murcia, Donna M. Brinton,and Margurite Ann Snow, eds. (Boston:Heinle & Heinle, 2001), 153-169.

17. Sandra J. Savignon, “CommunicativeLanguage Teaching for the Twenty-First Cen-tury,” in ibid., 13-27.

18. Alexander W. Astin, Helen S. Astin, andJennifer A. Lindholm, Cultivating the Spirit:

How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives(San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 2010).

19. Elaine K. Horwitz, “The Beliefs AboutLanguage Learning of Beginning UniversityForeign Language Students,” The Modern Lan-guage Journal 72:3 (Autumn 1988): 283-294.

20. David Nunan, “From Learning-cen-teredness to Learner-centeredness,” AppliedLanguage Learning 4:1-2 (1993): 4, 1-18.

21. Marie Goughnour Wachlin, “The Placeof Bible Literature in Public High School Eng-lish Classes,” Research in the Teaching of Eng-lish 31:1 (February 1997): 7-49.

22. Jason M. Morris, Richard Beck, and Al-bert B. Smith, “Examining Student/InstitutionFit at a Christian University: The Role of Spiri-tual Integration,” Journal of Education &Christian Belief 8:2 (September 2004): 87-100.

23. See Let’s Start to Speak! by EdwardBonard (2017): http://www.lst.org/practice.

24. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Com-munities: Reflections on the Origins andSpread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006).

25. Bonny Norton, “Non-participation,Imagined Communities, and the LanguageClassroom,” in Learner Contributions to Lan-guage Learning: New Directions in Research,Michael P. Breen, ed. (New York: PearsonEducation Limited, 2001): 159-171.

26. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situ-ated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Partici-pation (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1991), 49.

27. E. Derhem, “Protecting EMLs: Soci-olinguistic Perspectives—Introduction,” In-ternational Journal on Multicultural Societies4:2 (2002): 5-16.

28. Smith and Carvill, The Gift of theStranger, 16.

29. Jason Goulah, “Ecospirituality in PublicForeign Language Education: A Critical Dis-course Analysis of a Transformative WorldLanguage Learning Approach,” Critical Inquiryin Language Studies 8:1 (March 2011): 27-52.

30. Rito Baring, “Understanding StudentAttitudes Toward Bible Reading: A PhilippineExperience,” The Religious Education Associ-ation 103:2 (March 2008): 162-178.

31. Morris et al., “Examining Student/In-stitution Fit at a Christian University,” 98,99.

32. Oakwood University Faculty Develop-ment Committee, “LifeCore© 2011 Report toFaculty and Staff” (August 2011). Datashared with the permission of the univer-sity’s Institutional Research Board.

33. Ibid. 34. Scripture quotation is taken from

the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copy-right © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permis-sion of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., CarolStream, Illinois 60188. All Rights Reserved.


The Accrediting Association of Seventh-day Ad-ventist Schools, Colleges, and Universities (AAA)was established in 1997 with the purpose to re-view the mission practices, spiritual values, andeducational policies of Seventh-day Adventist ac-

ademic institutions.1 AAA serves as the accrediting bodyfor all higher education programs and institutions ownedby the Seventh-day Adventist Church.2 The accreditationprocess begins when an Adventist college or university re-ceives notification of a AAA visit from the General Confer-ence Department of Education. Included in this notice isthe accreditation handbook and the institution’s previousAAA evaluation report. The guidelines contain the criteriadeveloped by AAA and are to be used by the host institu-tion as it completes a self-study report prior to the arrivalof the AAA evaluation team.3

The self-study process for Washington Adventist Uni-

versity in Takoma Park, Maryland, U.S.A. (formerly Co-lumbia Union College)4 began in 2012. The university wasgiven 10 criteria to address under Form B. Institutions thatuse Form B have a long history of accreditation by AAA,are recognized by a regional accrediting body, and have atrack record of adhering to church educational policies.Seventh-day Adventist institutions that are new to the AAAprocess will most likely be evaluated under Form A, whichrequires a lengthier process. WAU was evaluated using the10 criterion categories included in Form B at that time (seeTable 1, Form B). In 2013, the General Conference Depart-ment of Education significantly reduced the number ofForm B areas from 10 to seven (see Table 2), which de-creased the time required to prepare the self-study docu-ment. WAU, however, had already made significantprogress into its self-study evaluation, so the school ad-hered to the original self-study plan.

B Y G R A N T L E I T M A


How to Plan for an Accreditation Visit From the

ADVENTIST ACCREDITINGASSOCIATION (AAA)

AAA Self-Study Chair

The president of Washington Adventist University(WAU) asked if I would take the leadership role as the chairof the school’s AAA self-study committee. I agreed and wasgiven the AAA guidelines. Accepting the role of AAA self-study chair meant my workload and time commitmentswould increase over the next year. The chair coordinatesand keeps track of all the details necessary to produce awell-written AAA Self-Study report, and makes plans forhosting the AAA visiting team. The visiting team is typi-cally comprised of the General Conference liaison (chair),the division director of education/vice president for educa-tion or designee (recording secretary), the president andboard chair of the institution, peers from Adventist collegesand universities, and others in consultation with the chairand division director. In order to coordinate and managethe self-study process, the first several months were spentorganizing the steering committee, deciding on the compo-sition of the various subcommittees, developing and con-structing a timeline for the entire project, and forming theexecutive committee. While it took 13 months of planning,researching, writing, and editing to produce the finishedAAA Self-Study, our ability to complete a successful reportwas enhanced when WAU’s regional accrediting body, theMiddle States Commission of Higher Education (MSCHE),found us to be in compliance with its 14 standards. Manyof the resources we needed for the AAA Self-Study werealso reviewed and gathered by our previous MSCHE self-study team such as: MSCHE Self-Study report, faculty/staffhandbook, board minutes, course syllabi, student hand-book, general-education assessment report, the university’saudited financial statements, governance procedures, cam-pus master plan, athletic handbook, facts and figures book-

let, and various public-relations brochures. However, theAAA Self-Study report made use of those supportive re-sources differently than the regional MSCHE report (seeTable 3 on page 32). In addition, the AAA Self-Study reportincluded the university’s spiritual master plan—which out-lines the goals for spiritual life and development on thecampus, and a report on the plan’s impact on the lives ofstudents, faculty, staff, and the wider community throughthe curriculum, service, and witnessing.

I found that the chair had a number of responsibilities.He or she must make frequent reports to the institution’sadministration, who need to be informed about all com-mittee decisions and should receive the minutes of allmeetings. As chair of the AAA self-study committee, I cre-ated the minutes for each meeting and then circulatedthem by e-mail to the administration and all members ofthe steering committee.

Another important assignment for the self-study chairis to plan for a successful visit by the AAA team. This in-cluded making appropriate hotel accommodations, arrang-ing transportation from the hotel to campus meetings,scheduling daily meals, providing adequate campusworkspace, and scheduling on-site meetings with admin-istration, faculty, staff, and students, which required col-laboration with various administrative officers and staff,the school’s food-service director, and campus security.Figure 1 on page 35 provides insight into the amount oftime required to complete the AAA research and writingprocess by the various committees.

Steering Committee

An objective and accurate self-study report should reflecta campus-wide evaluation rather than the work of one indi-


Self-Study Form B

1. History, Philosophy, Mission, and Objectives 2. Spiritual Development, Service, andWitnessing 3. Governance, Organization, and Admin -istration 4. Finances, Financial Structure, andIndustries 5. Programs of Study 6. Faculty and Staff 7. Library and Resource Centers 8. Student Services 9. Public Relations and External Constituen-cies 10. Pastoral and Theological Education

Self-Study Form A

1. History, Philosophy, Mission, and Objectives2. Spiritual Development, Service, andWitnessing 3. Governance, Organization, and Admin -istration 4. Finances, Financial Structure, and Industries 5. Programs of Study 6. Faculty and Staff 7. Library and Resource Centers and Tech -nology 8. Academic Policies and Records 9. Student Services 10. Physical Plant and Facilities 11. Public Relations and External Constituencies 12. Pastoral and Theological Education

Table 2. AAA Self-Study Criteria

(2013)

Self-Study Form B

1. Mission and Identity 2. Spiritual Development, Witness, and Service3. Governance, Organization, and Administration 4. Programs of Study 5. Faculty and Staff 6. Educational Context 7. Pastoral and Theological Education

Taken from the 2013 AAA Accreditation Handbook:

http://adventistaccreditingassociation.org/images/ stories/docs/aaa_handbook_2005_part_iv_with_online_delivery_elements_and_criterion_10.pdf

http://adventistaccreditingassociation.org/images/stories/docs/aaa_handbook_2013_part_iii.pdf

http://adventistaccreditingassociation.org/images/stories/docs/aaa_handbook_2013_part_iv.pdf

Table 1. Self-Study Form B Criteria

Categories (2005)

vidual. A balanced report will result from participation by across-section of the students, staff, and faculty. Once we re-ceived the criteria and the associated questions, I chose asteering committee composed of 10 individuals to overseethe research and written responses for each of the AAA cri-teria. One subcommittee was created for each of the 10 cri-teria. Each steering-committee member was assigned towrite one section of the Self-Study report and to review thework of fellow committee members. The steering commit -tee thus engaged in a review process for every section ofthe Self-Study report and provided feedback to each steer-ing-committee chair regarding suggested improvements,changes, or additions.

I invited the university’s institutional-research director tobe a member of the steering committee. An individual fillingthis position will be able to procure self-study resource ma-terials quickly, which will lessen the amount of frustrationor delay that the self-study committee might otherwise ex-perience. If the institution does not have such a position,then the chair should select a person who works in the ad-ministrative office and is familiar with the school’s internalreport-writing process.

Subcommittee Assignments

For the WAU self-study, the AAA self-study chair, in col-laboration with the university provost, determined the fac-


Table 3. Partial Cross-Listing of MSCHE Standards, AAA Criteria, and WAU Strategies

AAA - Institution of Excellence Criteria

(2005) (Form B)

WAU – Strategies of the PlanMSCHE – Standards of Excellence

Matrix of Institutional Goals and Major Accreditors’ Goals, v2 Created by Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness. AAA Self-Study Form B (2013):http://adventistaccreditingassociation.org/images/stories/docs/aaa_handbook_2013_part_iv.pdf.

Standard 1: Mission and Goals

Standard 2: Planning, Resource Allocation,and Institutional Renewal

Standard 3: Institutional Resources

Standard 4: Leadership and Governance

Standard 5: Administration

Standard 6: Integrity

Standard 7: Institutional Assessment

Criterion 1: History, Philosophy, Mission, andObjectives

Criterion 3: Governance, Organization, andAdministrationCriterion 4: Finances, Financial Structure, andIndustries

Criterion 4: Finances, Financial Structure, andIndustriesCriterion 7: Library and Resource Centers

Criterion 3: Governance, Organization, andAdministration


Criterion 3: Governance, Organization, andAdministrationCriterion 6: Faculty and StaffCriterion 9: Public Relations and ExternalConstituencies


See entire Strategic Plan.

Strategy 4: Transform governance and thephysical campusStrategy 5: Expand and strengthen financialresources

Strategy 4: Transform governance and thephysical campus Strategy 5: Expand and strengthen financialresources

Strategy 4: Transform governance and thephysical campus

Strategy 2: Deeply engage and value people(Imperative 5)

Strategy 2: Deeply engage and value people(Imperative 5)Strategy 4: Transform governance and thephysical campus (Imperative 5) Strategy 5: Expand and strengthen financialresources (Imperative 2)Strategy 6: Embrace and explore the oppor-tunities of the nation’s capital (Imperatives 1and 3)Strategy 7: Implement an institutional as-sessment plan and metrics (Imperative 5)

Strategy 7: Implement an institutional as-sessment plan and metrics

ulty/staff/student composition for each of the subcommit-tees. Committee assignments were determined by the natureof the criteria questions and specific background of the fac-ulty, staff, and students. The sizes of the various committeesranged from five to 10 members, depending on the magni-tude of the specific criterion. Because we knew that studentinput would be valuable, several students were asked to beon certain committees such as spiritual development andstudent services.

I obtained a master list of all faculty and staff and becamefamiliar with the skills and talents they possessed. A cam-pus-governance committee list is very useful, as is a depart-mental faculty/staff phone and e-mail roster. The chairshould choose individuals who have the knowledge and ex-perience for the selected criterion areas by virtue of theircampus positions and years of experience in that position.

Ideally, the self-study subcommittees should represent abroad spectrum of people and programs on campus to en-sure a fair and balanced investigation of the school’s pro-grams and departments. The self-study subcommittees willfunction as a campus fact-gathering mechanism whose mis-sion will be to evaluate, analyze, and make recommenda-tions based upon the responses to the criteria. I tried to besensitive in the selection process so as not to choose indi-viduals who would be unduly burdened by this extra respon-sibility due to current work obligations or recent regional ac-creditation responsibilities. For example, if an individual hadchaired one of the self-study groups for the recent regional

accreditation (i.e., MSCHE), he or she was not requested tochair a similar committee but instead was asked to serve ona related AAA committee.

Having each subcommittee evaluate one of the criteria isan efficient method to accomplish the task of writing a self-study report. It would be a serious mistake to combine sev-eral criteria and have them handled by one subcommitteeas a way to reduce the number of subcommittees. Theprocess would be cumbersome, confusing for committeemembers, and an inefficient use of committee time. It mightalso produce a dysfunctional committee due to conflictingresearch objectives.

The Executive Committee

The executive committee is responsible for making allfinal edits before the self-study is sent to the publisher. Whilekeeping the committee small in size, be sure to include in-dividuals with experience in content/style/editorial work,proofreading/correcting grammatical errors, and who areregularly involved in creating institutional reports and/or ac-ademic research. Since the scope of this type of editorialwriting requires a significant time commitment, I requesteda stipend for this faculty member to compensate for the ad-ditional work. The remaining committee members were full-time staff/faculty and received no extra compensation. Theexecutive committee membership was comprised of four in-dividuals, including the chair of the WAU self-study.

An executive committee begins its task when the steering


Members of the visiting AAA team in the exhibit room reviewing artifacts, consulting and verifying information, and writing their reports.

committee has finished reviewing the criteria responses.Their primary task is to make final edits so the publisheddraft is coherent and polished. A detailed-oriented personskilled at discovering editorial issues such as punctuationand sentence-construction problems should be included onthe committee; however, no one person will catch all thesmall errors. Individuals responsible for writing the finaldraft easily become absorbed with content accuracy at theexpense of discovering editorial problems. The final step isfor the executive committee to contact the publisher and en-sure that all work is uniformly completed. Our final pub-lished report was 78 two-sided pages of content and 26pages of appendix documents, graphs, and charts. The doc-ument was then ready for the visiting committee to reviewas they conducted their evaluation.

Things to Do Before the First Steering Committee Meeting

1. Locate all resource materials. Subcommittee chairs willwant to know where to find information about the items in-cluded in their specific criteria. If your institution employsan individual who is responsible for producing regional,state, or federal reports, he or she will be an indispensableresource guide.

2. Create a packet containing all needed information foreach team. Materials should include the most recent self-study document, AAA’s last recommendations, each team’sspecific criteria, and a steering-committee timeline.

3. Produce a cross-listing of all materials used for the re-gional accreditation with relevance to specific AAA self-study criteria. If your school is regionally accredited, the re-gional accreditation standards can be cross-matched with

AAA criteria. This index will serve as a useful guide for thesteering-committee chairs in locating recent regional accred-itation report findings. We found this to be very helpful forlocating areas already evaluated.

4. Select and reserve a good meeting location with accessto a projector, a high-speed Internet connection, and a whiteboard or chalk board.

5. Choose a steering committee meeting time that has thefewest time conflicts with other campus activities and mem-bers’ schedules, and keep to it.

Timeline Construction

The AAA self-study chair should develop a reasonabletimeline to guide the self-study process. Make sure every-one understands the importance of observing the due dateslisted on the timeline. Get everyone to agree to the sched-ule at the beginning, and try not to deviate from it. Buildinto the timeline reasonable expectations regarding com-pletion of committee tasks. Construct a schedule that issensitive to the demands of the academic calendar. Facultyand staff usually find graduation, test weeks, and holidaytimes stressful, so plan to complete the major portion ofthe writing during longer break periods such as mid-se-mester or summer vacation. This will leave time for eachchair to finish writing his or her chapter of the self-studyand for it to be reviewed by the steering committee. Be sureto build some flexibility into the timetable so self-studyparticipants do not feel rushed or overloaded. Despite care-ful planning, delays may occur for a variety of reasons,often related to the professional and personal obligationsof the subcommittee chairs.


The Washington Adventist University AAA executive committee at work.

The timeline should specifically indicate the time, date,and location of the steering-committee meetings. Plan ongetting together at least once a month for a report on sub-committee progress and so that specific questions can be ad-dressed. WAU steering-committee members were particularlyinterested in knowing where to locate resource material andhow to interpret specific criterion questions. However, oursteering committee kept to the schedule, meeting every Mon-day and Wednesday during the summer until we had heardfrom each subcommittee. Figure 1 provides an example ofthe timeline that was successfully developed and followedfor WAU’s AAA self-study.

Useful Internet Aids

A decision was made at the beginning to require all of thesubcommittee chairs to work on their drafts using Googledocs.com. The self-study chair provided the names of thecommittee chairs, as well as each team member, to the uni-versity’s Information Technology Services (ITS) so theycould arrange for access to this service. Googledocs.com wasset up to allow each team to access the most current versionof their team’s draft. Using a shared space avoids the prob-lems created by having as many versions and flash drives asthere are committee members. In addition, this practiceavoided the problem of identifying who had the most currentworking subcommittee draft. Googledocs.com (1) constantlybacked up written entries and allowed only authorized teammembers to view and edit each report; (2) allowed the self-study chair access to each subcommittee’s working docu-ment in order to monitor the committees’ progress; (3) al-lowed each subcommittee chair to present his or her group’swork to the entire steering committee via the Internet; and(4) allowed the steering committee to make comments andask questions about the work being presented. Since Google-docs.com is an Internet-based program, changes could bemade immediately. The main disadvantage reported by someof the subcommittee chairs was that the program was lessuser friendly than they had hoped.

It is important to back up the report as it is being written.Do not take for granted that everything written will be au-tomatically saved by one program. The computer systemused for writing the final report should be regularly evalu-ated by updating the virus protection and making sure allsoftware is working properly. This step is easily overlookedwhen trying to finish a report on time. A small cost to aninstitution but highly recommended is a subscription to Carbonite.com, which allows writers to have documents con-stantly backed up. For example, one subcommittee membermade the mistake of not using Carbonite.com at first andinstead used an external hard drive for backing up docu-ments, only to discover later that the hard drive was notworking properly during an editing meeting with the exec-utive committee. As we attempted to complete the final ed-iting stage, the computer screen froze. Restarting the com-puter caused the loss of the last section of the document.ITS tried to retrieve the lost section by running a specialdocument-recovery program but without success. The only

solution was to re-create that section again by referring tonotes and personal memories.

Exhibit Room

An exhibit room is a useful way of displaying materialsthat are listed in the final self-study report to the visitingcommittee. The exhibit room speaks to school pride, spirit,community enthusiasm, and institutional professionalism.If carefully organized, it can identify the attributes and char-acteristics that directly communicate the school’s missionand vision. Our institution’s exhibit room displayed every-thing needed for the self-study team to read and evaluate.This room included many of the same exhibits used for ourregional accreditation visit. For example, we made availableall the faculty syllabi, previous regional self-study reportsand university board reports. Several laptops played videosof school activities; and we provided a minibar for drinks,snacks, plus a printer and projector. The exhibit room was


1. President appoints AAA self-study chair (August 2011).

2. AAA self-study chair works on organizing steering com-mittee and team members (September 2011 through De-cember 2011).

3. First organizational meeting of the steering committee (January 2012).

4. Self-study teams begin work of research, evaluation, and analysis (January 2012 through May 2012). Monthly meetings are called to get status reports from each team.

5. Steering committee gets drafts from Teams 1 through 10 (by May 31 deadline ).

Steering committee begins to review the drafts from each team on the dates below:

A. Team 1 – June 4

B. Team 2 – June 6

C. Team 3 – June 11

D. Team 4 – June 13

E. Team 5 – June 18

F. Team 6 – June 20

6. AAA draft revision and editing completed (by August 31).

7. AAA draft report circulated to faculty, staff, students, and board members for comment (September 1 to September 16).

8. Final editing finished and report sent to publisher (Sep-tember 20).

9. WAU Self-Study report submitted to AAA visitation team (October 1).

10. Site visit by AAA team (week of November 5-9, 2012).

Figure 1. Timeline for AAA Self-Study at Washington

Adventist University

G. Team 7 – June 25

H. Team 8 – June 27

I. July 4 – week off

J. Team 9 – July 9

K. Team 10 – July 11

further enhanced by its display of school colors, missionposters, and the use of embossed tablecloths. Each item inthe exhibit room was labeled and referenced in a mastersheet distributed to the AAA visitation team.

The first meeting with the AAA visitation team was anoverall orientation to the exhibit room and how the docu-ments could be accessed. The AAA visitation team found theexhibit room useful as a conference room and workroom toproduce their evaluation reports. Sometimes the exhibit roomwas used to host catered meals for the AAA evaluation team.The AAA report highly commended WAU’s exhibit room asbeing exemplary in the range and type of evidence presented.

Reflections on the Self-Study Process

Many of the problems encountered during the AAA self-study process were minimized by the steering committeechair communicating frequently with all subcommitteechairs by using an e-mail distribution list. In addition, theself-study work was intentionally organized to allow muchof the intense busy work to occur during the summer, whenthe workload for most committee members was less stress-ful. Because of the scheduling of the AAA team’s visit, it wasimportant to get much of the work done before the fall se-mester and to complete all the final editing work on time.

AAA specifically recommends receiving the finished Self-Study report one month before the evaluation visit.

Overall, participation in a self-study was an informativeand lengthy experience. The report was posted on theschool’s Website prior to its submission to AAA. This al-lowed the administration, faculty, students, and board mem-bers to respond to it, and strengthened the final report. Oncethe AAA Self-Study was completed and shared, the campuscommunity gained a better understanding of what the insti-tution had accomplished and which areas the administrationwould need to address for future improvement. The AAAvisitation team made several commendations and recom-mendations during their exit presentation to the universityon the last day of their visit. We were commended for thesubstantial progress in achieving all major past recommen-dations and for a well-written narrative report. A major AAArecommendation cited the need for WAU’s spiritual masterplan to reflect how the uniqueness of the Seventh-day Ad-ventist mission and message is expressed to the large num-ber of non-Adventist students enrolled in the School of Grad-uate and Professional Studies (SGPS). The AAA visitationteam was particularly interested in how faith and learningwas integrated across the curriculum within the programsoffered through SGPS.


The Washington Adventist University AAA exhibit room displayed and housed artifacts that would assist the visiting team in completing their worrk.

An important component of the self-study process wasbeginning each steering-committee meeting with a devo-tional thought by the chair from the book Education, fol-lowed by a prayer offered by a committee member. One par-ticular spiritual thought that gave direction and energy tothe steering committee was this quote: “In the highest sensethe work of education and the work of redemption are one.”5

While obtaining a quality education and a degree are veryimportant for every student, even more important is forevery student to personally know Jesus Christ as Lord andSavior. The AAA self-study process is one formal method todetermine how effectively the school’s spiritual mission isbeing articulated to the student population, and each em-ployee’s responsibility to model the same. Examination ofthe institution’s curriculum, organized campus events, pro-

grams, and policies allows the school to evaluate its spiritualmission’s strengths and weaknesses.

We were notified by AAA during the spring of 2013 thatwe had been granted accreditation until December 2017. Oursuccessful AAA report was made possible by adhering to thetimeline and working with a supportive administration. Ad-ministrative officials provided the self-study chair with abudget, resources, and personnel needed to finish the task.As chair, I felt privileged to work collaboratively with WAU’sfaculty, staff, administration, and students to ensure a co-herent, meaningful, and high-quality report.


Grant Leitma, PhD, is Professor andChair of the Psychology and CounselingDepartment at Washington AdventistUniversity (WAU) in Takoma Park, Mary-land, U.S.A. Dr. Leitma earned his doc-torate in experimental psychology fromthe Illinois Institute of Technology inChicago, Illinois. He has published

widely and is a member of the American Psychological Asso-ciation, American Counseling Association, Maryland Coun-seling Association, and the Adventist Association of FamilyLife Professionals. In 2012, Dr. Leitma served as Chair of theAccrediting Association of Seventh-day Adventist Schools, Col-leges, and Universities (AAA) self-study committee for WAUand the Middle States Commission on Higher Education(MSCHE) Self-Study report for WAU.

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. Lisa M. Beardsley-Hardy, “The Purpose and Function of the Ad-

ventist Accrediting Association,” The Journal of Adventist Education70:4 (April/May 2008): 15: http://circle.adventist.org/files/jae/en/ jae 200870041505.pdf.

2. The Accrediting Association of Seventh-day Adventist Schools, Col-leges, and Universities (AAA) serves as the accrediting body for allhigher education programs and institutions owned by the Seventh-dayAdventist Church. For more information about AAA’s function, see:“AAA Higher Education: What is the Adventist Accrediting Association?” http://adventistaccreditingassociation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49&Itemid=65.

3. For a detailed explanation of the accreditation process, see ibid.,pages 15-19.

4. Established in 1904, Washington Adventist University (WAU) wasfirst known as Washington Training College, a liberal-arts institution. In1907, it became Washington Foreign Mission Seminary, and then Wash-ington Missionary College in 1915. The name was changed to ColumbiaUnion College in 1961. In 2009, Columbia Union College attained uni-versity status, and the school’s constituency voted to change the nameto Washington Adventist University. WAU was first accredited by theMiddle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1942.For more about Washington Adventist University, see “WAU History”:https:// www. wau.edu/about-us/history/.

5. Ellen G. White, Education (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press,1903), 30.

✐


The Adventist Accrediting Association has two protocols:Form A for newly established or developing institutions;and Form B for more established institutions. The Form Ainstrument is more detailed, covering curriculum, fi-nances, infrastructure, etc., as well as the mission, pur-pose, and values of the institution. The Form B instrumentassumes that the institution is accredited by an outsidebody such as a regional or governmental accreditingagency and is already accredited by AAA. Below are someresources that may be helpful in preparing for an accredi-tation visit:

NAD K-12 Chairperson Evaluation Tip Sheetshttp://adventisteducation.org/downloads/pdf/1065_evaluationchairstips.pdf

Writing the AAA Reporthttp://adventistaccreditingassociation.org/images/stories/docs/WritingtheAAAReport1.pdf

Regional Accrediting HandbooksWestern Association of Schools and Colleges – WASC -

Middle States Commission on Higher Education – MSCHEhttps://www.msche.org/publications/BecomingAccredited.pdf

Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities http://www.nwccu.org/Pubs%20Forms%20and%20Updates/Publications/Accreditation%20Handbook,%202017%20Edition.pdf

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools http://www.sacscoc.org/inst_forms_and_info1.asp

New England Association of Colleges and Schoolshttp://cihe.neasc.org/standards-policies/policies-procedures

Box 1. Accreditation Resources

B E S T P R A C T I C E S A T W O R K

Caroline Lipman

rs. Lipman’s 10th-gradebiology students are notcompleting their assign-ments and are doingpoorly on tests. They

complain to Mrs. Lipman that they areunable to understand what they readin the science textbook, and they donot always understand the meaning oftechnical terms. Although a few stu-dents complete their assignments, oth-ers either give up after partially com-pleting them or do not even attempt todo the work. They are an ethnically di-verse group of boys and girls with var-ied learning abilities and academicachievements.

A review of relevant literature anddialogue with other educators sug-gested that implementing a variationof the flipped classroom1 might allevi-ate the students’ reading comprehen-sion problems, increase their motiva-tion, and consequently improve studyhabits, homework completion, and testgrades. This article shares an action re-search regarding the impact of theflipped classroom approach on a groupof biology students at the secondarylevel.

Importance of the Research

While the specifics of this study re-late to the discipline (biology) and itsspecialized vocabulary, the main em-phasis is on addressing the reading andcomprehension needs of the learners.Providing an environment for studentsuccess is the educator’s responsibility.Many classrooms today are very diverseand include English language learners(ELL)/or students with limited Englishproficiency, as well as a variety of stu-dents representing different races andethnicities, levels of socioeconomic sta-tus, learning disabilities (LD), and otherexceptionalities.2

Referring to Christ’s teaching min-istry, Ellen White wrote: “In these firstdisciples was presented a marked diver-sity . . . . they represented widely var-ied types of character.”3 In the midst ofthis diversity, Christ met His audienceswhere they were, and men and womenfrom various backgrounds found hopein His teaching. And “In the Teachersent from God, all true educationalwork finds its center.”4 Likewise, teach-ers today should devise and identifyinstructional methods that help themeffectively reach all of the students en-trusted to them. In an attempt to find

an effective approach, Mrs. Lipman im-plemented a flipped classroom model.

Flipped Classroom—Definition

Flipped classroom (flipped learn-ing) is defined by the Flipped LearningNetwork as follows: “Flipped Learningis a pedagogical approach in which di-rect instruction moves from the grouplearning space to the individual learn-ing space, and the resulting groupspace is transformed into a dynamic,interactive learning environmentwhere the educator guides students asthey apply concepts and engage cre-atively in the subject matter.”5

The term “flipped classroom” cameinto use in 2007 when JonathanBergman and Aaron Sams6 startedusing it in their high school scienceclasses in Woodland Park, Colorado,U.S.A. However, as early as 1993, Alli-son King7 wrote an article promotingthe use of class time to constructmeaning rather than to transmit infor-mation. In 1997, Eric Mazur8 published“Peer Instruction,” which describedhow he de-emphasized informationtransfer (lecture-driven instruction) in

B Y D E R I L W O O D a n d C A R O L I N E L I P M A N


FLIPPEDCLASSROOMS

Deril Wood

M

Improve Reading Comprehension of Science Textbooks

the classroom, and used that time tocoach students’ learning. In 2000,Lage, Platt, and Tregila9 published “In-verting the Classroom: A Gateway toCreating an Inclusive Learning Envi-ronment.” Their research focused onthe benefits of moving informationpresentation out of the classroom intothe realm of technology and media,where it can be more beneficial to indi-viduals with varied learning styles.Salman Khan10 also contributed to theflipped classroom when he startedrecording video lessons in 2004.

In a traditional teacher-centeredclassroom, a lot of time is spentlecturing and very little time doinginteractive activities. This creates therisk of either inadequately covering thecurriculum in the required amount oftime or overwhelming the studentswith homework that they have verylittle time to complete outside of class.In the flipped classroom, learning ismore student-centered. This methodimproves student engagement withcontent, increases and improves fac -ulty contact time with students, andenhances learning.11

Although the literature bears richevidence of the benefits of the flippedclassroom for children with excep -tionalities,12 this approach does notsubstitute for pedagogy designed tomeet the unique needs of children whohave learning disabilities or those whoare gifted and talented.

Action Research

Since reading comprehension ofscience textbooks was a problem lo-calized to the 10th-grade biology classat Bass Memorial Academy in Lum-berton, Mississippi, U.S.A., action re-search was considered the most ap-propriate investigative methodology.Action research is defined by theRichard Sagor as follows: “a disci-plined process of inquiry conductedby and for those taking the action.The primary reason for engaging inaction research is to assist the ‘actor’in improving and/or refining his orher actions.”13 In this study, the actors

were the 10th-grade biology studentsand their teacher.

Action research focuses on a localproblem and attempts to producelocal change. It accommodates theuse of both quantitative and qualita-tive methods of data collection andanalysis. Action research is always rel-evant to the participants because ithas the potential to make a real differ-ence in the students’ lives.

According to Sagor, action researchshould proceed as follows: Select afocus, do a literature review, askquestions, collect and analyze data,report results, and take action. Be-cause action research is local, resultsare not generalized to other groups.Likewise, control or comparisongroups are not usually involved. Sagorstated that the central principles of ac-tion research are professionalizingteaching, motivating and making fac-ulty more effective, meeting the needsof an increasingly diverse studentbody, and achieving success with“standards-based” reforms.14

Problem Background

Students’ reading comprehensionstruggles are generally less commonand less pronounced in other contentareas, most likely because of theuniqueness of terms connected withthe sciences. Students need to masterreading and understanding of exposi-tory text in order to perform well ontests, complete homework, stay moti-vated, and develop positive attitudestoward reading science textbooks. It istherefore crucial for educators to im-plement interest-building strategies tohelp students succeed.

Reading expository text in sciencemay be a difficult task15 because manysecondary students struggle with read-ing16 in general. Primary and elemen-tary students often lack exposure toreading informational texts becauseteachers focus on stories.17 Reading ex-pository, informational text becomes achallenge, then, when these students

enter secondary schools, and sciencetextbooks, media, trade books, andWebsites challenge students’ compre-hension skills.18

Johnson and Zabrucky19 criticizescience textbooks for containing toomany vocabulary concepts; presentingtoo many ideas at once, lacking clarity,and failing to transmit vital scienceknowledge. When students have diffi-culties understanding the text, it is easyfor them to stop paying attention andnot complete assignments.20 In addi-tion, students have difficulties in find-ing the necessary information to carryout specific tasks due to their lack ofproficiency in what seems to them a“foreign language” as well as the lackof accuracy in scientific vocabulary.21

These are some of the factors that con-tribute to the difficulties Mrs. Lipman’s10th-grade biology students experi-enced when reading biology textbooks.

The difficulty is magnified for stu-dents with reading disabilities, so theywill need to spend most of their timetrying to decode words and/or under-stand unfamiliar vocabulary.22 Studentswith learning disabilities often experi-ence difficulty with fluency, decoding,and word recognition, which interfereswith their ability to adequately compre-hend text.23 Based on the preceding rev-elations, it was necessary for Mrs. Lip-man, the 10th-grade biology teacher, toimplement an instructional strategy thatwould likely ameliorate and alleviateher students’ academic problems.

Purpose

Consequently, Deril Wood and Car-oline Lipman conducted mixed-meth-ods action research to seek answers tothe following questions:

1. Do flipped-classroom strategiesinfluence biology students’ perform-ance on chapter tests?

2. How do reading-comprehensionstrategies used in flipped-classroomsettings affect students’ attitudes to-ward out-of-class assignments and in-class activities?

3. How do students describe theiradjustments to a flipped-classroomsetting?


4. How can the outcomes help ed-ucators who are interested in usingthe flipped-classroom strategy?

Significance of the Study

Researchers Wood and Lipmanconcluded that students are likely tobenefit from the flipped-classroom ap-proach and to improve their perform-ance on tests and assignments. In ad-dition, other educators can learn fromthe research and implement strategiesto address similar problems that theyencounter in their classes.

Research Design

Wood and Lipman obtained qual -itative information by using theFlip ped Classroom Student Question-naire with open-ended questions. Thefirst set of quantitative data was alsoobtained from the same questionnaire,using questions on a Likert-type scale.The second set of quantitative datacame from the participants’ scores onthree pre- and post-assessments thatincluded intervention between pretestsand posttests.

Participants

Twelve 10th-grade students (ages 15and 16), five males and seven females,from a single biology class, partici-pated in the study. They were ran-domly paired for in-class activities.Two of the students demonstratedgrade-level reading comprehensionskills in reading the science textbooks.The class consisted of two African-American, five Caucasian, and fiveHispanic students. The five Hispanicswere ESL students who lived in homeswhere Spanish was frequently spoken.Two students had been officially diag-nosed with learning disabilities, andone with ADHD, which the LearningDisabilities Association of Americastipulates is not a learning disability,but can make learning challenging.24

Permissions

After securing the necessary ap-proval from the school administrationand signed consent from parents, aswell as willingness to participate on

the part of the students, data collec-tion activities began.

Instruments and Academic Assessments

The instruments used in this re-search were teacher-made tests, basedon a chapter in the biology unit. Two15-item and one 25-item tests com-prised the assessments. The testsconsisted of selected-response items,which required students to select fromamong a list of answers provided bythe teacher; and constructed-responseitems, including fill-in-the-blank andshort answer, which required studentsto create answers to open-ended ques-tions. One point was given for a cor-rect answer to each item.

Flipped Classroom Student Questionnaire

The Flipped Classroom StudentQuestionnaire contained 10 questions.The first six questions asked partici-pants to rate their level of involve-ment in, and commitment to, theactivities of the research, using a Lik-ert-type scale. These were followed byfour open-ended questions on the sec-ond section of the Flipped ClassroomStudent Questionnaire, which re-quired students to create brief state-ment answers.

• Validity: The assessments wereteacher-made tests, which sampledthe content of the reading materialsand videos. Validity further assumesthat the results of the assessmentswere used appropriately. Both contentand consequential validity were as-sured. In designing the study, it wasrequired that the process be monitoredto ensure best practices and evaluatedfor effectiveness of the strategy on stu-dents’ academic performance. In ac-cordance with the theory of BackwardDesign,25 the academic assessmentsand Flipped Classroom Student Ques-tionnaire were in place prior to thebeginning of the instructional activi-ties. The assessments were carefullyaligned to the content to be covered inthe instructional activities. Students’

scores from these assessments wereused to check the effectiveness of thestrategy.

• Reliability: Because of the smallnumber of participants, (N=12), Test-Retest reliability would be invalid.Computing Cronbach’s Alpha wouldalso be affected by the number of par-ticipants. However, each pretest andposttest targeted specific domainswithin the content, and the items wererepresentatives of the domain.

Preparation and Orientation

The biology class met three times perweek: Monday and Wednesday for 90minutes each, and Friday for 50 min-utes. Data collection took place duringthese sessions. First, the students wereoriented to the flipped-classroom proce-dures and how the research would pro-ceed, including in-class and out-of-classactivities and assessments. On theThursday prior to implementation, Mrs.Lipman added each new concept andtools to eBackpack (a cloud-basedlearning-management system thatmakes it easy to assign, annotate,collect, and grade assignments on anyInternet-connected device) to ensurestudent access. A majority of the 10th-grade biology students lived in the dormor other campus housing and had e-textbooks that they could access online.Students from the community lived offcampus and might not have had accessto the Internet. If there had been stu-dents in the class who did not have In-ternet at home, they could have usedtheir free periods during the school dayand afterschool study hall to access thestudy information.

Implementation and Data Collection

Procedures

During out-of-class activities, stu-dents were expected to read selectedtext from the e-textbook and otherprovided sources, and take notesusing specified reading strategies. Par-ticipants were taught how to use read-ing-comprehension strategies such asKWL, morphemic analysis, anticipa-tion guide, and SQ3R based on thetext that was given. (See Box 1.) Fur-


ther, they were to watch short videoclips and summarize the content oflecture videos and animated videoclips. The videos were short—five toseven minutes each—with subtitlesand engaging graphics, suitable forstudents with diverse learning stylesand short attention spans. The stu-dents also had to write three ques-tions about the content of the videosor the text that they read and provideanswers for these questions.

In-class activities were designed tobe engaging. These activities werealigned with out-of-class activities andprovided individual, group, or whole-class involvement. They included com-pleting study guides with differenttypes of questions (fill-in-the-blanks,matching, true-false, etc.); inquiry-based learning and problem solving inlabs; and peer teaching using jigsawand discussions. In-class activities alsoincluded pretests on Mondays.

Students received feedback fromthe pretest, followed by several inter-ventions: jigsaw group, class discus-sions, interactive activities, work-sheets, and review. These in-classactivities also included a question-and-answer period to address anymisunderstandings and to clarify con-cepts; and pair drilling in preparationfor the posttest. Peer tutoring andsmall groups were used for other in-teractive activities and labs.

A posttest identical to the pretestwas administered each Friday.26 Thetests were done individually and inde-pendently. Students were not allowedto communicate during the tests or touse textbooks or other sources.

At the end of the research period,the students completed the FlippedClassroom Student Questionnaire,working individually without commu-nicating. At the end, they turned inthe questionnaire anonymously.

Data Analysis and Results

The small number of participants(N=12) restricted the analysis to de-scriptive statistics for quantitativedata and clustering of statements forqualitative data.

Table 1 shows each participant’sraw score on each of three pretests andposttests. In this table, substituting thenumbers 1-12 for their names protectsthe identity of the students. Missing

values on the table represent studentabsences when the assessment wasperformed. The highest possible scoreon each test was 15, 25, and 15, re-spectively. General observation of the


Box 1. Terms, Definitions, and Links to Description of Terms Used in ImplementationBox 1. Terms, Definitions, and Links to Description of Terms Used in ImplementationBox 1. Terms, Definitions, and Links to Description of Terms Used in Implementation

Definitions

KWL is a strategy that guides students through reading a text or a learn-ing process. K=what students Know about the text/topic; W=what stu-dents Want to know about the topic; and L=what students say theyLearned in the process. http://www.nea.org/tools/ k-w-l- know- want-to-know-learned.html

Morphemic Analysis is a strategy used to determine or infer the meaningof a word by examining its important parts such as prefix, suffix, and root.http://ci5451literacystrategiescollective.pbworks.com/w/page/6064036/Vocabulary%20Morphemic%20Analysis

Anticipation guides are a reading-comprehension strategy that is usedbefore reading to activate students’ prior knowledge and build curiosityabout the text. http://www.adlit.org/strategies/19712/

SQ3R is a reading comprehension strategy that helps students thinkabout the text they are reading while they are reading it. http://www. adlit.org/strategies/19803/

The jigsaw teaching technique is a way of organizing classes into groupsso that students become dependent on one another to succeed. http:// www.teachhub. com/jigsaw-method-teaching-strategy

Student choice activities are activities that students chose when giventhe chance to select activities to reinforce the learning. https://www. responsiveclassroom.org/academic-choice/

Terms

KWL

MorphemicAnalysis

AnticipationGuides

SQ3R

Jigsaw

Student ChoiceActivities

Pretest

1

6

11

9

6

9

8

10

6

8

8

5

7

Posttest

1

11

13

14

6

13

14

14

10

11

15

8

13

Pretest

2

20

21

18

.

20

18

22

16

15

20

24

15

Posttest

2

22

25

22.5

.

20

.

25

17

.

25

24.5

23

Pretest

3

9

10

5

10

9

6

8

5

.

9

7

8

Posttest

3

15

14

14

12

13

11

11

8

9

11

13

13

Students

1

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Table 1. Scores for Pre- and Post-Assessments in Biology Class

15

10

5

01 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

9

15

Students

Sc

ore

s o

f A

ss

es

sm

en

t

5

14

9

13

8

13

Pretest 3 Posttest 3

10

1211

9

table reveals growth from pretest toposttest. Three participants’ achieve-ments were particularly noteworthy,one of whose test scores went up from53 to 100 percent, from 60 to 100 per-cent, and from 33 to 93 percent. Fig-ures 1-3 graphically pre sent partici-pants’ performance on each of thethree pretests and posttests.

On the Flipped Classroom StudentQuestionnaire, a majority of partici-pants gave positive feedback regard-ing their flipped classroom experi-ence. Eighty-six percent of theparticipants reported watching theflipped videos on time. Sixty-sevenpercent said they found reviews at thebeginning of class helpful. Seventy-

five percent reported needing theclass activities after watching thevideos in order to be confident aboutthe material being studied. Ninety-two percent reported being “extremelyconfident” or “somewhat confident”after viewing the videos and in-classactivities. Twenty-five percent re-ported that they neglected to take the


15

10

5

01 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

6

11

Students

Sc

ore

s o

f A

ss

es

sm

en

t

13

9

14

9

13

6

10

5

7

13

Figure 1: Results of Assessment 1


25

20

15

10

5

01 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

2022

Students

21

25

18

22.520 20

18

2225

16 1715

20

2524 24.5

15

23




11

6

8

14

10

14

8

11

8

15

8

Sc

ore

s o

f A

ss

es

sm

en

t

14

10

6

11

8

5

8

119

7

13

6

out-of-class activities seriously andwere putting in little or no effort,and 17 percent reported that they ne -glected to put sufficient effort in thein-class activities.

The flipped classroom producedpositive results among the students inthe 10th-grade biology class where theaction research was conducted. Anoverwhelming majority of the partici-pants increased their test scores frompretest to posttest on pretest andposttest 1, pretest and posttest 2, andpretest and posttest 3. One studentmaintained the identical score onpretest and posttest 2. Students re-sponded positively to questions aboutthe implementation and benefits fromthe flipped-classroom strategy. A ma-jority of students prefer the flippedclassroom over a traditional instruc-tional approach.

Responses to the open-ended ques-tions were grouped by themes and areshown in Table 2.

Impact of Instructional Strategies

• Out-of-Class Activities (includ-ing videos, PowerPoint slides, KWLs,SQ3R, and Anticipation Guide)—pre-pared students to work independentlyand to contribute more during classtime. These approaches also placedless demand on the teacher to provideinformation.

• In-Class Activities resulted instudents taking responsibility for theirlearning and produced improved testscores.

• Jigsaw Groups required studentsto become knowledgeable about thecontent so they could share with theirpeers.

• Cooperative Learning allowedstudents to help one another. Theyhad to first communicate with theirclassmates, asking and seeking an-swers to their questions, before goingto the teacher for help. This approachwas rewarding for both students andteacher since the students learnedfrom one another, and this freed theteacher to help the students whoneeded more assistance.

• KWLs, SQ3R, and Anticipation

Guides prepared students to get themost out of the content they read.These reading-comprehension strate-gies helped the students analyze con-tent and take notes in order to com-prehend what they read.

• Videos and PowerPoint Slidesprovided different perspectives on theconcepts covered by the content.

• Resources were made availablefor students to refer to whenever nec-essary.

Influential Factors

Certain factors may have influ-enced the positive outcomes from thestrategy. The students had the oppor-tunity to complete the out-of-class ac-tivities such as watching videos andreading selected texts before takingthe pretests. However, they took theposttests only after participating inseveral out-of-class and in-class activi-ties such as jigsaw, group discussions,

labs, and reviews, which resulted inhigher scores than on the pretests.Thus, it appears as if the in-class ac-tivities had a positive influence onstudents’ performance on the chaptertests.

Factors such as inclusion bias/non-probability sampling,27 and responsebias28 may have impacted the study inother ways. Inclusion bias occurswhen the group that is used for sam-pling is the one that is available. Inas-much as the biology class was theclass with the problem, it was alsothe available group. The pool of avail-able participants was small and pro-hibited random sampling of partici-pants. A larger group of participantsmight have produced different results.Response bias on the Flipped Class-room Student Questionnaire couldhave occurred consciously or uncon-sciously. For example, students whodeclared in class that they did notwatch the videos did not record anopinion about the usefulness of the


Table 2. Responses to Open-ended Questions

Open-ended Questions Grouped Participants’ Responses

What have you liked best • Availability of videos helpfulabout the flipped classroom • Cooperative and collaborative learningthis past two weeks? • Weekly assessment and feedback on growth

• Better time management• More resources were available to learn from• Nothing

What part of the flipped • Return to traditional teaching methodsclassroom would you like to see • More videos, more group activitieschanged for the next year? • More variety in classroom activities

What could I do for you to help • More explanation of videos and activities support you more in the • More help with homework and classworkflipped classroom? • Inclusion of worksheets after activities

• More videos

What is the most helpful part • Repeating the information over and over againof the flipped classroom? • Visuals of the video

• Time saved• Information from PowerPoints and videos• Discussions • Nothing

videos on the questionnaire, probablybecause they did not want to be theonly ones to respond in a negativemanner. Perhaps they thought thattheir response might affect theirgrade, even though the questionnairewas anonymous. In addition, theFlipped Classroom Student Question-naire was administered at the end ofthe last day of class, during the weekof finals, so the stress of finals couldhave caused some pressure on thestudents to respond without havinggiven much thought to the question.

Limitations

The results of the research must beviewed in light of these limitations,which should be considered in at-tempts to replicate the study:

• Time factor—This research wasconducted within a short period oftime; therefore, students didn’t havesufficient time to deeply absorb theeffects of the flipped-classroom expe-rience.

• More resources—It was challeng-ing to find videos and activities thataddressed the content being studied.Students complained about the non-animated videos. They preferred theanimated ones, but those were scarce.If the strategy was implemented for afull semester, finding resources wouldbe even more challenging.

• Reliable technology—Reliabletechnology, particularly Internet andWi-Fi, are necessary for access to on-line learning materials.

• The number of participants—Aminimum sample size is required forinferences to be drawn, even at thelocal level. The number of partici-pants did not meet the criteria fort-test analysis of the pretest andposttest scores.

• Reliability of assessments—Itwas not feasible to establish a reliabil-ity estimate, due to the small numberof participants.

• Better planning—More timewould have made it possible for bet-ter planning. This might have allowedfor gathering and archiving sufficientonline learning resources; arrangingfor reliable connectivity to the Inter-net and Wi-Fi for off-campus studentswho did not have reliable Wi-Fi athome; and reassessing the data-collec-tion instruments.

Implications

The findings of this research arelimited to the participants in thisstudy. Nevertheless, after conductingthis research, we believe that certainrecommendations can be offered toeducators:

1. Become aware of the diversity inthe classroom.

2. Identify students’ specific needs. 3. Identify the resources and strate-

gies that will meet the needs of thestudents.

4. Intentionally plan differentiatedinstruction.

5. Consider using a variety ofstrategies such as Science WebQuest,a glossary diary, learning centers, in-dependent study, tiered assignments,student choice activities, and grouppresentations.

6. Encourage students to writetheir own storyboards and create theirown podcasts/videos to share withtheir classmates.

7. Investigate how out-of-class ac-tivities could improve student partici-pation and course effectiveness.While implementing these strategies,work collaboratively with your grade-level colleagues to ensure that stu-dents aren’t overloaded with assign-ments and thus experience chapterreading, video, and PowerPoint slideoverload. If several teachers are using


Box 2. Additional Resources

For readers who wish to learn more about the flipped classroom, the following starter

list of resources is provided, along with the references:

Flipped Learning Network (FLN), The Four Pillars of F-L-I-P™, “What Is Flipped Learning?”

(2014): http://flippedlearning.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/FLIP_handout _FNL_ Web.pdf.

Patricia J. Tattersall, “‘Flipped’ Classroom: Benefits Versus Challenges for Communica-

tive Sciences and Disorders Faculty and Students,” Perspectives on Higher Education 18:10

(June 2015): 4-15. doi: 10.1044/ihe18.1.4: http://sig10perspectives.pubs.asha.org/article.

aspx? articleid=2320025&resultclick=1.

Wan Ng, “Flipping the Science Classroom: Exploring Merits, Issues, and Pedagogy,”

Teaching Science 60:3 (September 2014): 16-27: http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1048772.

Betty Love et al., “Student Learning and Perceptions in a Flipped Linear Algebra Course,”

International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology 45:3 (April

2014): 317-324: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0020739X. 2013. 822582.

Flipped Classroom Workshop, “Eight Articles Exploring Benefits of Flipped Classroom for

Special Needs Students”: http://www.flippedclassroomworkshop.com/benefits-of-flipped-

classroom-for-special-needs-students/.

Flipped Learning Workshop Video, “The Purpose of Technology in the Classroom”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGPednPvm0E&list=PLYAluQnV5H5llhld4mR8a-XvY-

OmEyngHf.

the flipped-classroom approach withthe same grade level, they may needto integrate and streamline the out-of-class work so that the strategy doesnot become counterproductive. ✐


Deril Wood, PhD, is an Assistant Pro-fessor in the Department of Educationat Oakwood University, Huntsville,Alabama, U.S.A.

Caroline Lipman, MA, is a Math andScience Teacher at Bass MemorialAcademy in Lumberton, Mississippi,U.S.A. She earned her bachelor’s de-gree in Education from Oakwood Uni-versity and her Master’s from WesternGovernors University, Salt Lake City,Utah, U.S.A.

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams,

“Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student inEvery Class Every Day” (2012): http://eds.b. ebscohost.com.wgu.idm.oclc.org/ eds/ ebook viewer/ebook/ZTAwMHhuYV9fNDc1 OTUxX19BTg2?sid=c0ebdbc9-9b4f-4016-9cfa3ae02d36e984@sessionmgr106&vid=6&format=EB&rid=20.

2. James A. Johnson et al., Foundationsof American Education: Becoming EffectiveTeachers in Challenging Times, 16th ed.(Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Educa-tion, Inc., 2014).

3. Ellen G. White, Education (MountainView, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1903), 85.

4. Ibid., 83.5. Flipped Learning Network (FLN), “The

Four Pillars of F-L-I-P™” (2014): https://flip pedlearning.org/wpcontent/uploads/ 201/07/FLIP_handout_FNL_Web.pdf.

6. Bergmann and Sams, “Flip Your Class-room: Reach Every Student in Every ClassEvery Day.”

7. Allison King, “From Sage on the Stageto Guide on the Side,” College Teaching 41:1(Winter 1993): 30-35.

8. Eric Mazur, Peer Instruction: A User’sManual Series in Educational Innovation(Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1997).

9. Maureen J. Lage, Glenn J. Platt, andMichael Tragelia, “Inverting the Classroom: A

Gateway to Creating an Inclusive LearningEnvironment,” The Journal of Economic Edu-cation 31:1 (Winter 2000): 30-43.

10. Khan Academy: https://www. khan academy. org/.

11. Cristina Rotellar and Jeff Cain, “Re-search, Perspectives, and Recommendationson Implementing the Flipped Classroom,”American Journal of Pharmaceutical Educa-tion 80:2 (March 2016): Article 34: http:// www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pmc/articles/ PMC 4827585/pdf/ajpe80234.pdf.

12. Kelsey Herron, “Can Special Educa-tion Students Benefit From Flipped Class-rooms?” (June 2013): http://remakelearning.org/blog/2013/06/20/; Bridget McCrea,“Flipping the Classroom for Special NeedsStudents” (June 2014): https://thejournal. com/ articles/2014/06/30/flipping-the-classroom-for-special-needs-students.aspx.

13. Richard Sagor, Guiding School Im-provement With Action Research (Alexandria,Va.: ASCD, 2000): http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/100047/chapters/What-Is-Action-Research%C2%A2.aspx.

14. Ibid.15. Jose Montelongo and Roberta Herter,

“Using Technology to Support ExpositoryReading and Writing in Science Classes,” Sci-

ence Activities 47:3 (July 2010): 89-102. doi:10.1080/00368121003801388: http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.wgu.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid =bb251d85-22cc-4910-bfcd-204934ed2f4%40sessionmgr 4001&hid=4205.

16. Kerry Roberts et al., “SupportingStruggling Readers in Secondary School Sci-ence Classes,” Teaching Exceptional Children44:6 (July-August 2012): 40-48. http://eric. ed.gov/?id=EJ996830.

17. Montelongo and Herter, “Using Tech-nology to Support Expository Reading andWriting in Science Classes.”

18. Ibid.19. Brandi Johnson and Karen Zabrucky,

“Improving Middle and High School Students’Comprehension of Science Texts,” Interna-tional Electronic Journal of Elementary Educa-tion 4:1 (October 2011): 19-31: http://files. eric. ed. gov/fulltext/EJ1068599.pdf?

20. Diane Lapp et al., “Students’ CloseReading of Science Texts: What’s Now?What’s Next?” The Reading Teacher 67:2 (Oc-tober 2013): 109-119: http://eds.b.ebscohost. com.wgu.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8&sid =ed971eb9-7ece-4620-8638-80b225cc2b21%40sessionmgr120&hid=119.

21. Ximena Cortés, “Using the Dictionary


for Improving Adolescents’ Reading Compre-hension of Short Scientific Texts,” Profile 15:2(October 2013): 11-33: http://files.eric. ed.gov/ fulltext/EJ1053676.pdf.

22. Ibid.23. Roberts et al., “Supporting Struggling

Readers in Secondary School ScienceClasses.”

24. Erica Kaldenberg, Sarah Watt, andWilliam Therrien, “Reading Instruction inScience for Students With Learning Disabili-ties: A Meta-Analysis,” Learning DisabilityQuarterly 38:3 (October 2014): 160-173. doi:10.1177/0731948714550204: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.wgu.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer

/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid =ed971eb9-7ece-4620-8638-80b225cc2b21%40session mgr 120&hid=119; Learning Disabilities Associa-tion of America, ADHD Affects Focus, Atten-tion and Behavior, and Can Make LearningChallenging: https://ldaamerica.org/types-of-learning-disabilities/adhd/.

25. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Un-derstanding by Design (Alexandria, Va.:ASCD, 2012), 18.

26. Jennifer N. Mahdavi and DianeHaager, “Linking Progress Monitoring Resultsto Interventions,” Perspectives on Languageand Literacy 33:2 (Spring 2007): http://dys lex iaida.org/perspectives/.

27. Stanley Deno, “Ongoing Student As-sessment,” National Center for Learning Dis-

abilities, Inc. (September 2016): http:// www. rtinetwork.org/about-us/contributors/deno-stanley; Jeffrey Henning, “TwelveTypes of Non-Probability Sampling,” JeffreyHenning’s Blog (January 7, 2016): http:// www. researchscape.com/blog/12-types-of-non-probability-sampling. It should be notedthat identical tests have often been used tomonitor growth in education and other pro-fessions such as health care.

28. William M. K. Trochim, “Nonproba-bility Sampling. Research Methods Knowl-edge Base” (2006): https://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/sampnon.php.


then the “sound of sheer silence” through which God spokeand asked: “‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’” (1 Kings19:11-14, NRSV). In the stillness, God spoke . . . and stillspeaks. His words encourage renewed focus on mission andpromise wisdom to help us (re-)envision effective ways toaccomplish the same. As educators, we MUST make timefor physical restoration, mental renewal, emotional balance,and renewed focus and zeal for the rendering of faithful andfruitful service to God.

In this issue, Joel Raveloharimisy offers an invitation tostep away from the busyness of life and consider spiritualimperatives that will strengthen the Adventist teacher’s re-lationship with Jesus and impact student-educator interac-tions. Also, Ty-Ron Douglas (available on the JAE App andonline) challenges educators to (re-)envision and reclaimthe “Big Truths” that guide our practice and help us reaffirmour purpose as Adventist educators.

The remaining articles are written by teachers who cur-rently utilize various best-practice approaches in their class-rooms: approaches to teaching writing to English as a Sec-ond Language (ESL) students (Laurie Stankavich andAmanda Livanos; and Christian Stuart); specific examplesof integrating the Bible when teaching a foreign language(Francisco Burgos); integrating faith education into an ac-ademic tour (Daniel Reynaud and Wayne French); how toprepare for an accreditation visit (Grant Leitma); and theimpact of a flipped classroom on reading comprehension(Deril Wood and Caroline Lipman). Implementing any ofthese approaches will take time, planning, and intentionalaction—as all good practice should.

Purposefully taking time to regroup—finding momentsof silence to recharge, reflect, and plan—is a must. Refo-cusing the future and charting a new course amidst the de-mands of our hyper-busy lives will not only benefit us aseducators, but also our students, many of whom face thesame challenges. May these last few moments before a newacademic year or semester give us pause to respond to

God’s call to “‘Come and talk with me’” (Psalm 27:8, NLT)8

and may our response be “The Sovereign LORD has spokento me, and I have listened . . . ” (Isaiah 50:4, NLT).

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. Loomly Toolkit, “#Data—What Happens in One Internet Minute

In 2017” (May 2017): https://toolkit. loomly. com / internetminute-2017/; Kelly Leboeuf, “2016 Update: What Happens in One InternetMinute?” (February 2017): http://www.excelacom.com/resources/ blog/ 2016-update-what-happens-in-one-internet-minute.

2. Michael Breus, “Tweeting, Not Sleeping? Balancing Sleep and So-cial Media,” Psychology Today (January 2016): https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleep-newzzz/201601/tweeting-not-sleeping-balancing-sleep-and-social-media; Jessica C. Levenson et al., “The AssociationBetween Social Media Use and Sleep Disturbance Among YoungAdults,” Preventative Medicine 85 (April 2016): 36-41; Rebecca Boyle,“Using Electronic Devices Before Bed Tied to Lousy Sleep” (November2016): https://www.insidescience.org/news/using-electronic-devices-bed-tied-lousy-sleep.

3. Alessondra Villegas, “The Influence of Technology on Family Dy-namics,” Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association2012:10 (October 2013): http://docs.rwu.edu/nyscaproceedings/ vol2012/iss1/10.

4. S. Craig Sanders, “#DistractedDevotion: Three Ways SmartphonesAffect Your Spiritual Life,” Towers 14:8 (April 2016): http://equip. sbts. edu/publications/towers/distracteddevotion-3-ways-smartphones-affect-your-spiritual-life/; Tony Reinke, “Smartphone Addiction and OurSpiritual ADD” (April 2015): http://www.desiringgod. org/ articles/ smartphone- addiction-and-our-spiritual-add.

5. The Hermitage is a retreat ministry of the Indiana-Michigan Con-ference of the Mennonite Church in the United States: http://www.hermitagecommunity.org/.

6. Ibid.7. Quoted from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the

Bible. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Divi-sion of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches ofChrist in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rightsreserved.

8. Quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) of the Bible. HolyBible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by TyndaleHouse Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House PublishersInc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Editorial Continued from page 3

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