Transcript Grammar - Nelta Choutari

Do teachers teach or learn?
Jai Raj Awasthi
Department of English Education
Tribhuvan University
February 21,2010
• Jim Scrivener (2005): Its not just
students who do the learning, but you
do as well. You teach you learn- and
the two things are intertwined. Out
side and inside the class, you live and
learn. You learn throughout your
teaching career.
Head and Taylor (1994)
• What is being taught is being
learned?
Underhill (1988)
• Keeping myself on the same side of
learning fence as my students.
Learner perception of a teacher and
vice versa
• Pasternak and Bailey (2004)
Teachers need to know three key
areas;
• knowing about how to use the target
language
• knowing about and how to teach in
culturally appropriate ways,
• knowing about how to behave
appropriately in the target culture
• Lawe (2002)
The most surprising thing to me
was how contradictory I was as a
learner. I couldn’t say “Well, I
know that I want a particular
approach or methodology”
• We learn from our teaching also:
Richards and Farrell (2008)
Why do teachers learn for their teaching:
• To become more informed about their field
of study
• To learn more about learning strategies
and to explore ways incorporating a focus
on strategies into their teaching
• To develop more effective ways of
assessing students
• To improve aspects of their teaching that
are in need of review
• To develop better understanding of English
aspects and skills and how to teach them
• To ask on collaborating materials
development projects with colleagues
• To learn how to plan and evaluate a
language course
What did we learn during these
three days?
• World Englishes and why need of English
• Techniques: play, drama, songs, stories,
movies, theatre and other activities
• Dealing with physically challenged children
• Critical pedagogy
• ICT in the language class
• Language and culture
• Teaching various aspects and skills
• Various language teaching methods and their
success or failure
• Creative writing
• Attitudes, anxiety and motivation
• Use of mother tongue in foreign language class
• Sociolinguistics: language and politics,
borrowing and code switching and even seven
wonders of ELT
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Teaching young learners
English for sustainability
Corporal punishment
Language testing; designing test papers
etc
• Teacher learning is concerned with exploring
questions (Freeman & Richards, 1996), such
as:
a.What is the nature of the teacher knowledge
and how it is acquired?
b.What cognitive processes do we employ
while teaching and while learning to teach?
c.How do experienced and novice teachers
differ?
• The answer to these questions requires
conceptualizing teacher learning (Richards
2008):
a.Teacher learning as skill learning: as the
development of a range of different skills and
competencies which help to conduct
successful teaching.
b.Teacher learning as a cognitive process:
Teaching as a complex cognitive activity and
focuses on the nature of teachers’ beliefs and
thinking and how these influence their teaching
and learning.
• Borg (2003: 81) “ teachers are active,
thinking decision-makers who make
instructional choices by drawing on
complex practically-oriented,
personalized, and context- sensitive
networks of knowledge, thought and
beliefs.”
c. Teacher learning as personal construction:
an emphasis on teachers’ individual
and personal contributions to learning
and to understanding of their
classrooms, and it uses activities that
focus on the development of self
awareness and personal
interpretation through such activities
as journal writing and self –monitoring
d. Teacher learning as reflective practice
Teachers learn from experience through focused
reflection on the nature and meaning of
teaching experiences.
Novices and experts: Difference
Experienced teachers approach their work
differently from novices because they know
what typical classroom activities and expected
problems and solutions are like.
Novice teachers are less familiar with subject
matter, teaching strategies, and teaching
contexts.
• PD traditionally viewed as improving
effectiveness of delivery.
• PDL is not viewed as translating knowledge and
theories into practice but rather as constructing
new knowledge and theory through participating
in specific social contexts and engaging in
particular types of activities and processes
which is also called ‘practitioners’ knowledge.
-Burns and Richards(2009)
• PD should be a permanent process of change
and growth, no denting painting works
• PD means many things:
• Tomlinson(2003): In PD, teachers are
given new experiences to reflect and learn
from.
• Templer ( 2004) We need to hold up
mirrors to our own practice, making more
conscious of what is beneath the surface.’
• Davies (1999) ‘ as development becomes
more powerful, the role of the trainer will
become less important.’
• Piai (2005) ‘ you can train me, and you
can evaluate me, but you can’t develop
me- I develop.’
• ‘Unlearning’ old habits and recovering a
childlike interest in experimentation and
discovery.
• Recognizing ones own ‘ghost’.
• PD is the professional growth a teacher
achieves as a result of gaining increased
experience and examining his or her teaching
systematically.
Two types of experience:
a. Formal: attending workshops and professional
meetings, mentoring, attending university
classes, participating training sessions, etc.
b. Informal: Reading professional publications,
watching TV documentaries, etc.
What do teachers need to know?
a. General pedagogical knowledge: learning
environment and instructional strategies,
classroom management, knowledge of
learners and learning.
b. Subject matter knowledge: knowledge of
contents to be taught
c. Pedagogical- content knowledge:
conceptual knowledge of how to teach a
subject using instructional strategies ,
understanding of students and knowledge of
curriculum and curricular materials
d. Knowledge of student contexts
and a disposition to find out more
about students and their families.
e. Knowledge of bridging theory and
practice.
f. External evaluation of learning.
h. Knowledge of strategies, techniques
and tools to create and sustain a
learning environment and the ability to
use them effectively.
i. Knowledge and attitudes that support
political and social justice( teachers
are agents of social change)
j. Knowledge and skills as to how to
implement technology in the
classroom.
Two models of TD/PD:
A. Organizational partnership model:
i. Professional development schools
ii. University Colleges
iii. Schools’ net works
iv. Teachers’ networks
v. Distance education
Two models of TD/PD:
A. Organizational partnership model:
i. Professional development schools
ii. University –school partnership
iii. Inter-institutional partnership
iv. Schools’ net works
v. Teachers’ networks
vi. Distance education
vii. Coaching/mentoring/team teaching
viii. Use of teacher’s narratives
ix. Generational or cascade model
x. Keep a teaching journal
xi. Analyze critical incidents
xii. Join Teachers’ Associations
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Translation Studies
English for Mass media
Academic Writing
English Grammar for Teachers
Phonetics phonology
Second Language Acquisition
Sociolinguistics
Directions in Applied linguistics
• Courses at Faculty of Education at TU
to enhance learning and teaching
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Foundation of Language and Linguistics
English for Communication
Reading Writing and Critical Thinking
Expanding Horizons in English
ELT methods
Literature for Language Teaching
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Advance ELT Methods
Discourse and Pragmatics
Advanced Reading and Writing
Language Testing
Research Methods in English Education
Thesis Writing etc.
Scrivener (2005) Any teacher who stopped
leaning--- has probably also stopped being
useful as a teacher.
Learning about teaching does not stop
whenever your training course finish. In
fact, this is where your development as a
teacher begins.
A professional teacher makes the personal resolution
like this:
I promise myself that I am going to spend more time
with teachers discussing educational issues and
finding out about the realities of their teaching
situations, their particular concerns, solutions,
innovations, and strengths. I am going to read more
and reflect on the implications of my reading. I am
going to find time to work with more students, trying
out ideas I have been exploring, honing new
techniques, and learning more, always more about
adult language learners and second language
acquisition ( Pettis,2003).