Transcript Approaches to Teaching

The Post Method Era & the Role of the Teacher
The ELT Profession in Tucumán
in the 21st C.
Approaches to Teaching
 20th C. to 21st C: from methods to pedagogy
 Power to the teacher
Why a ‘post method era?’
 Methods are prescriptive
 Imposed
 Teachers: adapt!
Brown’s Curriculum Development Approach
 Diagnosis
 Needs
 Syllabus
 Materials
 Treatment
 Instruction
 Pedagogy
 Assessment
 Testing and evaluation
 Methods: static set of procedures
 Pedagogy: dynamic interplay –
T/Ss/Materials
Kumravadivelu’s Conceptualization of Teaching Acts
 Is teaching an art or a science? Or both?
Can you state the difference?
 JOB / VOCATION / WORK / CAREER /
OCCUPATION / PROFESSION
From David Hansen’s The Call to Teach
 JOB:
 Sustenance
 VOCATION:
 Autonomy and significance
 WORK:
 Autonomy and meaning
 Service?
From David Hansen’s The Call to Teach
 CAREER:
 Long-term involvement
 Like job-work
 Fulfillment? Identity? Service?
 OCCUPATION:
 Endeavor in the system
 No sense of calling
 PROFESSION:
 Expertise and social contribution
 Public recognition and rewards
 Calling?
The Role of the Teacher
An architect and a an artist
Scientist and psychologist
Manager and mentor
Controller and counselor
A sage on the stage
A guide on the side
History of the role
 Teachers as passive technicians
 Teachers as reflective practitioners
 Teachers as transformative intellectuals
Teachers as passive technicians
 Linked to the Behavioral School of Psychology
 Empirical verification
 Focus: Content knowledge
 Content knowledge: broken down into discrete items for
teachers
 Teachers and their methods: unimportant
Technicist view of teaching
 Privileges professional experts
 Teachers: apprentices, passive technicians
 Teacher: conduit – does not question validity or
relevance
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Theorists conceive and construct
Teachers understand and implement
 Safe, secure for which teachers?
Teachers as passive technicians
 Consequence: disempowerment
 Received knowledge only for teachers
 Apathy: no challenge
 Reflective task
 Advantages and disadvantages of the role and function of
teachers as passive technicians. Think about some of your own
teachers whom you might call technicists. What aspect of their
teaching did you like most? Least? Is there any aspect of
technicist orientation that you think is relevant in your specific
learning and teaching context?
Teachers as Reflective Practitioners
 John Dewey (1933) How We Think:
 Action as routine
 Action that is reflective
 Teaching: Context-sensitive action grounded in intellectual
thought
 Teachers: problem-solvers
 Reflective teaching: CREATIVITY, ARTISTRY and
CONTEXT SENSITIVITY
Teachers as Reflective Practitioners
 Don Schon (1983) The Reflective Practitioner:
 Teachers have a better perspective than experts
 Reflection ON action vs. reflection IN action
 Reflective teaching:
 Goals, values, and assumptions
 Context: class, institution, culture
 Curriculum development
 Teachers’ professional development
 Teachers’ classroom research
Teachers as Reflective Practitioners
 Johnson, Karen (1999) Understanding Language
Teaching: Reasoning in Action:
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Teacher conceptualizes, constructs explanations, responds to
social interactions and shared meanings
 Reflective task
 State the main differences between a technicist and a reflective
teacher.
 Consider the true meaning of being a reflective practitioner in
a specific learning and teaching context. What are the
obstacles you may face in carrying out the responsibilities of a
reflective teacher? And how might you overcome them?
Teachers as Reflective Practitioners
 Critique
 Focus on the Teacher’s introspection – not so interactive with
other strata
 Focus on classroom actions – no sociopolitical factors
 Little contribution to change the status quo
Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals
 Giroux and Freire
 Sociopolitical emancipation
 Individual empowerment
 Education: democratic process
 Pedagogy is embedded in relations of power and dominance
 Pedagogy may create and sustain social inequalities
 Classroom reality is socially constructed
 So, pedagogy should empower, and consider teachers’ and
students’ experiences
Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals
 Giroux and McLaren view teachers as “professionals
who are able to and willing to reflect upon the
ideological principles that inform their practice, who
connect pedagogical theory and practice to wider
social issues, and who work together to share
ideas, exercise power over the conditions of their
labor, and embody in their teaching a vision of a
better and more humane life.” (1989, quoted by
Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 13)
 Reflective task: What aspect(s) of this definition
strike(s) you most?
Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals
 Giroux (1988) Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a
Critical Pedagogy of Learning: Transformative
intellectuals…
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Develop counterhegemonic pedagogies
Empower students – give them knowledge and social skills to
function as critical agents
Educate for transformative action
Create and implement forms for knowledge that are relevant
to their specific contexts
Construct curricula and syllabi around the students’ needs,
wants, and situations
 Transformative intellectuals:
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Maximize sociopolitical awareness of their learners using
consciousness-raising, problem-posing activities.
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Become aware of inequalities and injustice in society
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Address them in purposeful and peaceful ways
Transformative Teachers:
 Are inquiry oriented
 Are socially contextualized
 Believe appropriate knowledge is produced by interaction
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T-S
Are dedicated to an art of improvisation
Promote the students’ finding their own voice
Promote introspection and self-reflection
Promote a sense of ownership of their education
Are sensitive to pluralism
Are committed to action
Are concerned with the affective dimension
 Reflective task
 What are the implications of becoming/being a
transformative intellectual? For what reasons would
you support or oppose the expanded role that
teachers as transformative intellectuals are expected
to play?
 Reflective task
 What might be a productive connection between a theorist’s
professional theory and a teacher’s personal theory? Which
one, according to you, would be relevant and reliable for your
specific learning and teaching context? Is there (or, should
there be) a right mix, and if so, what?