A little more conversation, a little more action Danny Norrington-Davies International House London & King’s College London IH London Future of Training Conference
Conceptualising the future All teacher-preparation programs of the future will demand general technological proficiency. Textbooks as we know them will no longer play the dominant role they have traditionally played in our classrooms. Society will recognize that teaching is a moral imperative to sustain a democratic society, and it will begin to reward good teachers accordingly. (Natalicio and Pacheco 2000)
The future… … .of teacher training? … of teacher education? … of teacher development?
Key questions What sort of teacher should emerge from a teacher education programme and what is our role in this?
A little more conversation about 1) changing demands 2) frameworks and procedures 3) course content/trainer knowledge
A little more action
Looking back To understand anything in our everyday practice, we must know something about how it arose and developed, and how it fits into the larger context or system it inhabits (Johnson & Golombek, 2018)
Teacher-training in 1962
A rationale for the course It was very easy at the time for untrained NS graduates to find employment teaching English, despite their lack of training. (IH) recognised the need for such teachers to engage in some form of pre- service training (Andrews, 2007) Because of their lack of training, these courses included a certain amount of language analysis
A rationale for the course In the 1980 ’s, the language awareness components of pre-service TESOL courses became more important as it became clear that most native speakers of English below a certain age had no experience of studying English grammar at school. (Andrews & Yin, 2017)
The view from 2018 “As the demands of the particular work change, so do the parameters of what people need to know in order to do it” (Freeman 2018:2) How well do these programmes continue to meet the needs of the increasingly diverse candidature of ELT practitioners? (King, 2016)
1: Changing demands More ‘NNESTs’ than ‘NESTs’ (Charnaud 2017) More candidates with experience (Harrison 2018) English introduced earlier in curriculums in compulsory education Other subjects being taught through the medium of English The realities of teacher’s contexts
Candidates with experience Experienced teachers want a greater focus on learner background, particularly learning style, motivation, and engagement with activities. They also look at language from their learners’ perspective more (Dewey forthcoming) Experienced teachers also draw on intuition and their own language learning experiences to talk about methodology However, course participants can feel that they are expected to forget their prior experience (Anderson, 2018)
Candidates with experience Many report that they learn little in the language awareness inputs (Anderson 2018) Teachers report little opportunity to discuss how, why or when to use the mother tongue, either in preservice or in-service teacher education (Hall & Cook, 2013) On an in-service course, though teachers reported a shift in beliefs, they wanted a more productive and sustained examination of their beliefs (Borg, 2011)
Candidates without experience Novice teachers have a strong orientation to knowledge about language, particularly in relation to knowledge of grammar and pronunciation (Dewey, forthcoming).
The realities of teacher’s contexts Locally held views of teaching, driven by local curricula and assessments, circumscribe the practices of the majority of ELT teachers around the world (Freeman, 2018:6) CELTA holders often are confronted with two problems: the conflict between newly acquired methodologies and those followed by local professionals and the dilemma of whether or not to compromise these methods and techniques to match local needs (Sulaimani & Elyas, 2015)
The realities of teacher’s contexts “The teacher risks rebellion in various forms if he does not honour the conventions expected by the collective definition of what a teacher should be” (Breen, 1985:147)
The realities of teacher’s contexts Learners are more used to teacher-led classes emphasising accuracy, repetition, and memorisation (Rao,2006) Chinese learners may regard communicative activities as games or entertainment rather than a learning tool (Zhang et al 2013) IELTS classes and language teaching at university in China is largely a hybrid methodology of CLT, grammar translation and audio-lingualism (Badger and Yan, 2012)
The realities of teacher’s contexts Helping students prepare for exams Planning a series of lessons Integrating into school cultures Managing expectations Well-being
2) Frameworks and procedures This shift in teachers’ realities calls into question our use of a craft model we use on our courses, as this depends on an essentially static learning society in order to continue to be effective (Wallace, 1991) We need to recast the learning teacher from a ‘consumer’ of received knowledge to a thinker, a teacher who forms their own working theory – in short, a ‘reflective practitioner’ (Wright, 2010)
Frameworks and procedures Mackenzie (2018) suggests that for pre- service teachers, their relative newness to teaching may prevent their ability to reflect because beliefs and practices are impacted by their experience as students their attention is focused on issues such as class management they lack the terminology to discuss teaching in depth
Frameworks and procedures Reflection is often externally imposed and assessed, which can give rise to instances of ‘display’ or ‘strategic’ reflection. It seems only natural to feel resentment towards a stipulation that asks one to be open and honest about one's beliefs whilst implying that a certain response is preferable (Hobbs, 2007:413)
Frameworks and procedures But remember … (experienced teachers) wanted a more productive and sustained examination of their beliefs (Borg, 2011)
3) Course content/teacher knowledge The use of L1 versus English only Skills development versus skills practice Classroom Interactional Competence (CIC) versus Teacher Talk Time (TTT)
3) Course content/teacher knowledge Explicit v implicit learning Principles underpinning materials design Englishes and what people do with English Pragmatic content
Explicit versus implicit learning “(There is) massive support to the claim that concentrating on activities which help implicit knowledge … . leads to far greater gains in interlanguage development than the presentation and practice of pre-selected bits and pieces of language” (Jordan, 2018)
Explicit versus implicit learning “One of the reasons why so many teachers are unaware of the crucial importance of implicit learning is that so few teacher trainers talk about it” (Jordan, 2018) Teacher education programmes are often criticized for separating theory & practice (e.g. Johnson & Golombek, 2011)
Explicit versus implicit learning The synthetic nature of the CELTA (and DELTA) leads to a training that might only promote a superficial focus on forms and this is at odds with many current theories of how languages are learned. I think it’s our job as educators to subvert this and train teachers to respond to learners (Facebook post November 2018)
The view from 2018 “If we are going to address what needs to be done to effectively enfranchise the teaching force around the world and to meet the changing needs of students in the diverse classroom contexts, we need to work with different ideas. We need to closely examine, or move away from, the basic concepts which we have relied on to build the knowledge base” (Freeman 2018:5)
1) Needs analysis We need to recognise who the teacher is and who they wish to become (Johnson & Golombek, 2018)
2) A pick and mix syllabus “the syllabus for both CertTESOL and CELTA are remarkably flexible once you get to know them” (Ben Beaumont) Offering choices at the start of the course/sign- up sessions Assigning sessions based on needs (Krummenacher, 2018)
3) Repositioning reflection In-service teachers need to adapt and appropriate critically from the methodology and practices of their courses to make it work in their own classrooms (Anderson 2018) Introduce reflective practice slowly and don’t assess straightaway (Hobbs, 2007) share examples of ‘reflection in action’ so that its nature and value can be better understood a more dialogic, data-led and collaborative approach to reflective practice (Mann & Walsh, 2013)
3) Repositioning reflection Teacher beliefs are also constantly being constructed through interaction with classroom situations, schools and society (Zheng, 2015) Therefore, trainers need to evaluate how teachers’ prior knowledge will affect the internalisation and acceptance of new ideas (Borg, 2006)
4) Discussing principles and SLA theories Discussing how languages are learned Exploring principles underpinning materials and techniques
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