Transcript Document

School of Education
Understanding our ELT environments
(contexts) : a starting point for
developing
appropriate ELTE goals
Martin Wedell
Conference title
English Language Teacher Education in a Diverse
Environmentexplicitly acknowledges that ONE set of goals for /
one model of English language teacher education
unlikely to be suitable for all
If we do not understand the main features of ‘the
environment’, hard to establish appropriate goals,
and so to plan and provide ‘appropriate English
Language Teacher Education’ (ELTE).
Conference themes
The Institutional Environment:
-A range of more or less multilingual - multi-grade - multi-level - multi
resourced English classrooms .
The Socio-Economic Environment
- a range of more or less mainstream/marginalised communities in different
areas , with English playing different roles in local economic development
– different English skills perceived to be needed for local employability –
different awareness /understanding of terms like ‘global citizenship’ .
The Home Environment
- different areas of the country with different language profiles (English =
L2-L3-L4?) and different linguistic priorities, able to assume differing
degrees of support from parents and local community
Understanding diverse
educational environments
to be able to understand the main features of any educational
environment / context, one needs to be able to describe it in
a more or less systematic manner. How?
Environments suggest PLACES
If one asks teachers to describe their ‘contexts’ - a physical
PLACE (classroom/school) is what they tend to refer to first.
Other core components of
any educational context
As well the main features of the PLACE, any description of
an educational context has two further core components
These are
• the beliefs, expectations and behaviours of PEOPLE, both
those working in the PLACE, and also some of those those in
the environment that surrounds it.
AND, since both places and people’s beliefs and behaviours
change over time, the point in ( chronological) TIME at which
we are describing it.
Describing contexts
PEOPLE IN A PLACE AT (point in) TIME
How can we investigate these three key components
of any environment, to help us identify the main
features influencing how English teachers think and
behave in ELT classrooms in that environment’?
…and so become able to establish appropriate goals
for our ELTE?
A framework for describing an
educational context
(Wedell & Malderez 2013)
Any educational context (environment)
Visible aspects of a
context of ‘PLACE’
Classroom
School/Institution
Village-Town-City
Region
Country
Part of the world
Invisible aspects of a
context of ‘PLACE’
Classroom culturesgroup dynamics
P Institutional cultures
E Local expectations
O of/attitudes to education
P
L Regional educational
E cultures
Socio-political belief systems
and their national
educational culture
Balance of power and
philosophical positions
_________(at a particular point in TIME________
influential features of ELT
environments
More Visible
Classrooms and schools
that are more or less
•Multi-lingual
•Multi-level
•Multi-grade
And that eg:
• have larger or smaller
classes
• are situated in more or
less well resourced parts
of the region/country
More invisible
Teachers- leaderscommunities in different
places with+/-different
norms regarding eg:
• education
• knowledge
• learning
• classroom roles and
behaviours
And so different
perceptions of eg:
• Importance of English in
the local environment
•Desirable skills that local
learners need
• how to support teaching
and learning of English
Some possible goals for ELTE
(Malderez and Wedell 2007)
‘Good’
teachers?
•‘Good’ teaching?
•Teaching professionals?
•Reflective practitioners?
•Technicists?
OR
•Gurus? ( Sharma 2012)
‘Good Teachers’
Focus on the person as a teacher - helping a
person to become a teacher
Trainees’ initial focus develop their TEACHER
identity
Non-teachers’ focus = personal qualities –
knowledgeable, dedicated, patient, kind,
humourous, as/more important than what the
teacher does
ELTE for ‘good
teachers’
suggests a curriculum that recognises the need to
provide trainees with opportunities to develop, eg:
•Confidence in their ‘teacher identity’
•Ability to understand learners as individuals whose
feelings about their learning experiences will affect
their attitudes to learning English.
•Interpersonal skills –relating to/advising learners
•Ability to make their classrooms ‘positive learning
environments’
‘Good’ teaching
Focus on the activity of teaching. Do we think it is
•A craft?
•A science?
•A ‘complex open skill’ – many possible options to
choose from at any point in the process of teachinggood teaching needs personal flexibility, creativity
and ability to cope with the unexpected
ELTE to develop ‘good
teaching’
suggests a curriculum that would need to include
• A craft – opportunities to learn from ‘experts’
• A science – opportunities to understand thinking
underpinning ‘the method/approach’ and how to use it in the
classroom in the expected manner.
• A complex open skill - opportunities to observe, practice,
discuss experiences of, both the ‘parts’ and the ‘whole’ of the
skill – through for eg:
o experiences of teacher educator modelling
o opportunities to ‘try out’ : micro teaching, classroom
observation and teaching…
Professionals
Professionals in most societies:
•Have high social status and good pay
•Are accountable for what they do
•Belong to a professional body
•Have professional training after their initial degree
•Keep themselves up to date in their field
•Are autonomous, and expected to use their knowledge and
skills to make appropriate decisions in different situations
ELTE to develop
Professionals
Suggests a curriculum that would try to provide trainees with
opportunities to eg:
•Become autonomous, through being given (some) personal
responsibility for their learning, and chances to develop
flexible decision-making skills in ‘real settings’.
•Become well-informed, through providing access to up-todate knowledge/contacts in their area of learning, and of how
to access such knowledge/contacts in future
• Understand who they are accountable to, and in what ways.
AND recognise the need for a coherent system of further
training /updating throughout teachers’ careers.
Reflective Practitioners
A view of Teachers as RPs.
Suggests the need to focus on developing teachers’
(trainees’) understanding of why they do what they do when
they do it.
• emphasises the importance of the THINKING behind the
teaching behaviour, and views teachers as people who ‘think
about’ their professional behaviour, and through such ongoing
thinking continue to ‘learn teaching’.
•sees ‘learning teaching’ as a process of lifelong learning.
ELTE to develop Reflective
Practitioners
Suggests a curriculum that tries to provide trainees with
opportunities to eg:
• develop noticing and observing skills
• observe and experience teaching
• spend time, alone and with others, thinking and talking about
what has been observed/noticed/experienced and its
implications for their understanding of teaching and their
future teaching behaviours.
• learn how to access other people’s thinking, now and in the
future, – literature – networks - conferences and how to
evaluate – integrate-adapt or reject such thinking.
Technicists
A technicist is someone whose role is primarily to carry out
plans devised by others.
Education systems might see technicists as a desirable goal
for ELTE where
• Human / material resources limited
• Emphasis within the system is on accountability and
standardisation
Trainees might also see being told exactly what to do as
desirable in the short term, in helping them develop the
confidence to ‘feel ‘ like a teacher.
ELTE to ‘produce’
Technicists
Suggests a curriculum emphasising opportunities to eg:
•Learn about / thoroughly understand the thinking underlying
the syllabus and the materials that they will be expected to
use.
•Develop the behaviours and skills needed to ‘cover’ the
syllabus content , carry out whatever in-class activities that
the syllabus expects and help learners to pass exams.
BUT, if we acknowledge that teaching takes place in
‘diverse environments’, is a solely technicist goal for
ELTE likely to prepare teachers adequately?
Teacher as Guru (Sharma
2012)
Teacher as a person who
Constantly strives as a person and a teacher – professionalreflective practitioner- a lifelong learner (of teaching)
Has a commitment to the growth of students -a reflective
practitioner- good teaching- good teacher
Has a commitment to learning – good teaching –good
teacher- reflective practitioner
Has a concern for society –professional - good teaching-good
teacher-reflective practitioner
ELTE to develop ‘Gurus’
Suggests a curriculum that provides many of the learning
opportunities previously discussed
•Learning in the training ‘classroom’
•Learning in the school ‘classroom’
•Learning through ‘books’ and through contact with ‘experts’
•Learning through ‘noticing’ what happens in clasrooms, and
learning through trying out in practice
•Learning through thinking about issues alone
•Learning through discussion with colleagues and tutors
•Teacher Learning as an ongoing (lifelong)process
ELTE for diverse
environments
If the aim of our ELTE is to prepare teachers to work in
diverse environments,
Then, before deciding on goals for the ELTE curriculum in a
particular local or regional environment, teacher educators
need to try to understand
the main features of the visible and invisible context of
English language education in schools and colleges in their
environment….
and use this understanding to develop
ELTE curricula that will prepare trainee English teachers to
be confident and effective in their (future) workplaces
Understanding teacher education
contexts- why bother?
The conference title, and ELT discourse today
in India more generally (NCF 2005, NCF for
Teacher Education 2009) suggest a desire to
change (some of) what currently happens in
the diverse classroom environments in which
ELT in India takes place.
whether the desired changes become widely visible in Indian
ELT classooms, will ultimately depend
“ on what teachers do and think – it’s as simple and as
complex as that” (Fullan and Stiegelbauer 1991:117),
ELTE implicitly assumes that it can influence what teachers
do and think. Its influence is likely to be greater if trainees
can SEE that the ELTE curriculum they follow ‘fits’ the
working environments they (will) find themselves in.
Understanding the main visible and invisible features of the
teaching environment is thus the starting point for developing
ELTE curricula.that make sense to Ts and so perhaps affect
what they do and think.
References
Fullan, M and Stiegelbauer. 1991.The new meaning of educational
change. 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press.
Malderez A and Wedell M. 2007. Teaching Teachers: Practices and
proceses .London.Continuum
Sharma A.K. 2012. Revamping Teacher Education : issues for reflection.
In Visions of Teacher Education in India : Quality and regularity
perspectives Vol 3. annex 3(i) . Delhi. Ministry of Human Resources ,
Department of School Education and Literacy.
Wedell, M and Malderez A. 2013. Understanding language classroom
contexts: The starting point for change London. Bloomsbury
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