Transcript Global values in teacher education

Global values in teacher
education
Jane Spiro
Oxford Brookes University
Global values: what are they?
• Intercultural attitudes (savoir faire):
willingness to relativise one’s own values,
beliefs and behaviours
• Skills of discovery and interaction (savoir
apprendre): ability to acquire new
knowledge of a culture
• Skills of interpreting and relating (savoir
comprendre)
• “A willingness to suspend belief in one’s
own meanings and behaviours, and to
analyse them from the viewpoint of others
with whom one is engaging” (savoir être)
• (Byram 1997: 34)
Why is this important?
• Less than 10% of students in European
Universities are availing themselves of
opportunities to study in a foreign
University. (Crowther 2000)
• University provision has focused on what
international students need to acculturate:
not how home students can learn from
international peers.
What we found at Brookes
• 30% home students never chose to sit with/work
in groups with international students in class
• 12% home students found use of other
languages alienating
• 20% home students thought group work with an
L2 speaking student would bring their grade
down
• 80% home students had never invited an
international student to their homes
• (Henderson and Spiro 2008, 2009)
What students say
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“International students stick together”
“Fluent students are sociable, but non fluent students are not.”
“Language barriers have made me feel excluded.”
“worried that if there is one person who is unconfident it will bring the
whole mark down”
• “International people should adapt to our culture. When I went to
Africa I respected their culture and I think others should do the
same.”
• Staff are “too accommodating (to international students). They get
more help/praise for effort as they don’t know culture and language”
• “(the Uni) does too much for international students and not enough
for home students.”
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What collective narrative can do
In the course of engaging with stories, however, we are beginning to
discover the process is a social one: The story may be told for
personal reasons, but it has an impact on its audience which
reverberates out in many directions at once.
•
Elbaz: (1992) ‘Hope, attentiveness and caring for difference: the moral
voice in teaching’. Teaching and Teacher Education 8, 421 – 432
The complexity of modern civilization is a daily lesson in the necessity
of not pressing any claim too far, of understanding opposing points
of view, of seeking to reconcile them, of conducting matters so that
there is some kind of harmony in a plural society.
Magonet Jonathan (2003) Talking to the Other
I.B. Tauris and Co. Ltd London)
The project: who?
•
Programme: 38 MA students on-campus and
worldwide/distance : all practising teachers
• Countries: China, Tai Wan, Thailand, Japan, Korea,
Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Iraq, Turkey,France, Austria,
Germany, Belgium, UK
• Teaching contexts: state schools, International schools,
in-company tutorials, one-to-one home tutorials
• Group design: 2 groups, each combining home and
international students
The project: what?
• Learning goal: developing reflective
practice for teachers
• Learning outcome: teacher action plan,
with rationale
• Compulsory unassessed online task to
form the basis for action plan
• One semester diary follow-up of task
• Evaluation of process after one semester
The online task: how?
5 stage online dynamics (Salmon 2002)
1) Building motivation
2) Team-building
3) Information exchange
4) “Constructing knowledge together”
5) “achieving personal goals and reflecting
on the learning process”
What?
Share a narrative about a critical incident or key
moment in your career as a teacher.
In groups, review each others' stories and
identify key themes, issues, shared concerns
that emerge.
Formulate each discussion into a statement
about your beliefs as a teacher.
Critical incidents
• the interpretation of any event as
significant, according to professional
judgement (Tripp 1993).
• . “any event that is unexpected, acute,
stressful and exceeds the normal coping
capacities of individuals” (FEAP University
of Virginia 2006).
Teacher as professional
• “I was treated like a backpacker who had
come to the language school off the street”
(English teacher in China)
• “I am a teacher of 10 years and I don’t
believe anyone thinks what I have is a
profession like a doctor or lawyer” (teacher
in Ghana)
Constructing knowledge together 1)
• We all seek respect and legitimacy as
professional educators, and regard our
roles as important and worthwhile.
• We are able to give one another that
respect and legitimacy as we
understand the challenges of our jobs.
Teacher and learner-centredness
• “I realise I never give the students time to
talk, I do all the talking myself” (UK
teacher in Turkey)
• “I was taught in that way, the teacher
talking all the time. It was so boring. I want
to be another kind of teacher” (Chinese
teacher in China)
Constructing knowledge together 2)
We all seek to reconcile what we believe is
best for our learners and
• what we actually do in practice
• what learners expect from us as teachers
• what we do automatically from our own
experience of being learners
Teaching constraints
• “we are so driven by tests and league
tables there is no room to be creative” (UK
teacher)
• “the curriculum we have to follow has
nothing to do with these children”
(Brazilian teacher)
• “I have to teach literature books which are
very very hard to make interesting
(Chinese teacher)
Constructing knowledge together 3)
• We all wish to be responsible for the
teaching experience in order to be
professionally fulfilled: we want to be
creative and autonomous to do the best
for our students.
Classroom discipline
• We all talk about discipline but we mean
different things. In Iraq E. talks about
maintaining authority as a teacher. In
Egypt S. talks about discipline when
students are learning.”
“Achieving personal goals and
reflecting on the learning process”
Keep a diary of your teaching for one
semester and reflect on if and how
these beliefs lead to action, in your own
practice.
How has this module influenced your
practice?
Cascading values into practice
“it has inspired a culture of change
throughout my language institute. We are
having regular meetings to exchange
ideas.” (Vietnam)
“I employ the methods of group work and
peer checking in teaching context.
Classroom atmosphere becomes more
relaxed and communicative. My students
all enjoy this way of teaching.” (China)
• “it has not only developed my confidance
which most of the students from overseas
lacked but also introduce to different ways
of looking at teaching pedagogy” (China)
Provisos and problems
• Groups depended on active team
participation. Inactivity led to despondency
and disappointment.
• Technical difficulties made the experience
exasperating for some.
• On-campus students continued to prefer
face to face interaction
Generative principles
• The task connected with an explicit learning
objective
• The task required information exchange with
others to be complete
• The wider the student community in the
exchange, the richer the task.
• The task clearly connected with formal
assessment
• Task boundaries and expectations were clear
• The task involved students becoming
analysts and interpreters of one another’s
narratives
• The task connected with personal goals of
improving practice
• The task had the potential of leading to
action