Ministry of Education Chile / British Council Chile Initial Teacher Education Seminar on Teacher-research 22-23 March 2016, Santiago FINDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR REFLECTION AND EXPLORATION IN THE PRACTICUM Inés K. de Miller (PUC-Rio, Brasil)
Teacher education: an ethical, inclusive and investigative perspective It is possible and desirable to live in classrooms, in an ethical and exploratory way, considering that teachers and learners are practitioners of teaching and learning and key developing learners. (ALLWRIGHT & HANKS, 2009) Teacher educators and teacher-learners key developing practitioners
Teacher education: an ethical, inclusive and investigative perspective Teachers can either “cooperate in their own marginalization by seeing themselves as ‘language teachers’ with no connection to such social and political issues” or we can accept that “like it or not, English teachers stand at the very heart of the most crucial educational, cultural, and political issues of our time” (Gee, 1994).
Teacher education: an ethical, inclusive and investigative perspective We find support for our innovative work in: • a developmental view of learner-teachers as ‘learners becoming teachers’ (Allwright & Miller, 2012); • a process-oriented view of ‘quality of classroom life’ (Gieve & Miller, 2006); • the non-technicist belief that a reflective attitude is central in professional teacher education since its initial stages (Perenoud, 2002; Allwright, 2008; among others);
Teacher education: an ethical, inclusive and investigative perspective • the possibility of re-conceptualizing classroom work as ‘work for understanding’ (Allwright, 2003; Miller, 2009); • the desire to engage future teachers in Allwright’s proposed move from ‘teaching points’ to ‘learning opportunities’ (Allwright, 2005); • and from ‘planning to control’ to ‘planning for understanding’ (Allwright, 1997, 2003).
Monolingual and bilingual initial teacher education curriculum at PUC-Rio • “Licenciatura de Língua Portuguesa e Respectivas Literaturas” Duration: 4 years Teaching Practice (5 Workshops + 7 Courses) Portuguese Practicum I and II • “Licenciatura Português-Inglês e Respectivas Literaturas” Duration: 5 years Teaching Practice (5 Workshops + 7 Courses) Portuguese Practicum I, II e III English Practicum I, II e III
‘Puzzle - driven’ courses and ‘puzzle - driven’ practicum experiences involve…. • ‘puzzlement’ (Hanks, 1999) as a syllabus component ; • invaluable syllabus time and space to the discourse of puzzlement and reflection; • opportunities for teachers and learners to pursue issues that puzzle them about their areas of interest or that they are curious about; • collective work for understanding which becomes deeply integrated into teacher- learners’ and teacher educators’ continuing personal professional development.
BUT, ‘puzzle - driven’ courses and ‘puzzle - driven’ practicum experiences are still challenging! They can generate … • ‘ Student puzzlement’ at ‘puzzle - driven’ coursework; • ‘ Institutional puzzlement’ at ‘puzzle -driven proposals for language education courses, workshops and practicum semesters. So, “we need to concentrate our efforts on carefully co- constructing participants’ receptivity (Allwright & Bailey, 1991) for ‘puzzlement’, … facing ‘uncertainty’ and ‘accepting complexity’ . ” (Miller, 2009, p. 89).
Time and presence at schools: ‘observing for understanding’ and ‘puzzling’ Some teacher-learner puzzles: Why don’t students care about doing homework for their grades in English? Why doesn’t the teacher allow me to participate in the internship? Why don’t students in classes B and C pay attention and clearly don’t like the teacher? Why does the teacher I’m observing seem to be very motivated with class A and demotivated with classes B and C?
Time and presence at schools: ‘observing for understanding’ and ‘puzzling’ Why do teachers treat students as a ‘mass’? Why does my teacher still work in that school, if she does not like it there? Why does my teacher only talk to me to complain about/ or criticize the students? Why does my teacher behave in different ways: one with the "normal" students and another with students with special needs and / or children of employees?
Micro-teaching at the university as ‘working for understanding’ • Preparation and presentation of micro-lessons by each teacher-learner and comments made by classmates re-signified as learning opportunities rather than as opportunities to display technical knowledge. • Questioning what was learnt/understood by planning, teaching, participating and/or observing the micro-lessons innumerable issues about language (L1 and/or L2), discourse, genre, materials, pedagogic activities, group participation, etc.
Micro-teaching at the university as ‘working for understanding’ “What I have learned from my own presentation of Micro I was that it is not always easy to tell the difference between eliciting and asking questions. ” With my classmates’ presentations of Micro I, I had some other important understandings: 1. Preparing five-minute activities may be very challenging . 2. We need to be always aware of our target public (students’ profile) at all times, in order to prepare an activity, because if we ask them to do some kind of activity at home, for example, we should make sure they will have the tools needed (computer, internet … ). 3. Activities must always be meaningful. The class must have a purpose. 4. Students may not be willing to move from their seats when we ask them to. 5. We should prepare all the equipment needed before the class starts (set the movie, download the video … ) 6. Students don’t always get what we want from them . It’s difficult to guess what is on the teacher’s mind. 7. Should we run the whole class in English ? In Portuguese? Switch codes ? We must again think about the profile of our students and the knowledge they have of the language. 8. Eliciting does not have to do with “right” or expected answers . 9. We should be prepared to deal with our own anxiety, (expectations towards the students), to overcome silence, time issues, students’ pace. 10. We must be very careful not to make grammatical mistakes in presentations (oral or written in power point/ handouts) . 11. We should trust our memories and try not to read our notes during the entire class.
Micro-teaching at the university as ‘working for understanding’ My understandings with Micro II were: 1. We should be careful not to give students the answers while asking them (again, it’s important to control our anxiety). 2. Will students be able to say, for example, what “ can” and “will” have in common ? Do they know what modal verbs are ? Why use them? When we ask a question such as: “ What do these words have in common ?” Aren’t we expecting a correct/ most appropriate answer? Therefore, it should not be considered eliciting . 3. Managing the board may be difficult for some teachers. We need to practice writing on the board in an organized way in order to help our students. 4. We must avoid spoon-feeding students (don’t tell them what they can tell you and remember it’s not good to have all the grammar rules on the power point or on the board if your intention is to make them think about it and come to conclusions by themselves). 5. Sometimes we may write too much and unnecessary things on the board . (I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they … too much!) 6. We should be very careful not to ignore students’ answers and their effort . If we ask them a question and they participate, we should give importance to what they are saying and not just go on writing on the board the sentences we believe to be the best. 7. We should be careful also not to give decontextualized examples . Once again, the activities should always be meaningful. 8. We should rehearse before the class , specially the teachers that have more difficulty with pronunciation/ sentence construction. Otherwise, it seems we are insecure or not prepared .
Micro-teaching at the university as ‘working for understanding’ As you can see, I did have many understandings throughout the presentations of our two first micros and I am looking forward the next ones. The course has been very enriching so far! (Practicum report, 2012)
Lessons taught (at schools) as Potentially Exploitable Pedagogic Activities • A pedagogic activity proposed by a teacher or a learner may become an opportunity for classroom participants to understand issues not only related to the pedagogical content being worked on but also to what is going on inside as well as outside the classroom. • As future teachers begin to plan PEPAs in this pre- professional context, they become familiarized with the promising notion of ‘planning to understand’ and try to stay away from the notion of ‘planning to control’ (Allwright, 2003).
Recommend
More recommend
