Do teachers teach or learn?

Jai Raj Awasthi

Department of English Education

Tribhuvan University

February 21,2010

• Jim Scrivener (2005): Its not just students who do the learning, but you do as well. You teach you learn- and the two things are intertwined. Out side and inside the class, you live and learn. You learn throughout your teaching career.

Head and Taylor (1994)• What is being taught is being learned?

Underhill (1988)• Keeping myself on the same side of

learning fence as my students. Learner perception of a teacher and vice versa

• Pasternak and Bailey (2004)Teachers need to know three key

areas;• knowing about how to use the target

language• knowing about and how to teach in

culturally appropriate ways,• knowing about how to behave

appropriately in the target culture

• Lawe (2002)

The most surprising thing to me was how contradictory I was as a learner. I couldn’t say “Well, I know that I want a particular approach or methodology”

• We learn from our teaching also:

Richards and Farrell (2008)

Why do teachers learn for their teaching:

• To become more informed about their field of study

• To learn more about learning strategies and to explore ways incorporating a focus on strategies into their teaching

• To develop more effective ways of assessing students

• To improve aspects of their teaching that are in need of review

• To develop better understanding of English aspects and skills and how to teach them

• To ask on collaborating materials development projects with colleagues

• To learn how to plan and evaluate a language course

What did we learn during these three days?

• World Englishes and why need of English • Techniques: play, drama, songs, stories,

movies, theatre and other activities• Dealing with physically challenged children• Critical pedagogy• ICT in the language class• Language and culture• Teaching various aspects and skills

• Various language teaching methods and their success or failure

• Creative writing

• Attitudes, anxiety and motivation

• Use of mother tongue in foreign language class

• Sociolinguistics: language and politics, borrowing and code switching and even seven wonders of ELT

• Teaching young learners

• English for sustainability

• Corporal punishment

• Language testing; designing test papers etc

• Teacher learning is concerned with exploring questions (Freeman & Richards, 1996), such as:

a.What is the nature of the teacher knowledge and how it is acquired?

b.What cognitive processes do we employ while teaching and while learning to teach?

c.How do experienced and novice teachers differ?

• The answer to these questions requires conceptualizing teacher learning (Richards 2008):

a.Teacher learning as skill learning: as the development of a range of different skills and competencies which help to conduct successful teaching.

b.Teacher learning as a cognitive process: Teaching as a complex cognitive activity and focuses on the nature of teachers’ beliefs and thinking and how these influence their teaching and learning.

• Borg (2003: 81) “ teachers are active, thinking decision-makers who make instructional choices by drawing on complex practically-oriented, personalized, and context- sensitive networks of knowledge, thought and beliefs.”

c. Teacher learning as personal construction:

an emphasis on teachers’ individual and personal contributions to learning and to understanding of their classrooms, and it uses activities that focus on the development of self awareness and personal interpretation through such activities as journal writing and self –monitoring

d. Teacher learning as reflective practice Teachers learn from experience through focused

reflection on the nature and meaning of teaching experiences.

Novices and experts: DifferenceExperienced teachers approach their work

differently from novices because they know what typical classroom activities and expected problems and solutions are like.

Novice teachers are less familiar with subject matter, teaching strategies, and teaching contexts.

• PD traditionally viewed as improving effectiveness of delivery.

• PDL is not viewed as translating knowledge and theories into practice but rather as constructing new knowledge and theory through participating in specific social contexts and engaging in particular types of activities and processes which is also called ‘practitioners’ knowledge.

-Burns and Richards(2009)• PD should be a permanent process of change

and growth, no denting painting works

• PD means many things:

• Tomlinson(2003): In PD, teachers are given new experiences to reflect and learn from.

• Templer ( 2004) We need to hold up mirrors to our own practice, making more conscious of what is beneath the surface.’

• Davies (1999) ‘ as development becomes more powerful, the role of the trainer will become less important.’

• Piai (2005) ‘ you can train me, and you can evaluate me, but you can’t develop me- I develop.’

• ‘Unlearning’ old habits and recovering a childlike interest in experimentation and discovery.

• Recognizing ones own ‘ghost’.

• PD is the professional growth a teacher achieves as a result of gaining increased experience and examining his or her teaching systematically.

Two types of experience:a.Formal: attending workshops and professional

meetings, mentoring, attending university classes, participating training sessions, etc.

b. Informal: Reading professional publications, watching TV documentaries, etc.

What do teachers need to know?a. General pedagogical knowledge: learning

environment and instructional strategies, classroom management, knowledge of learners and learning.

b. Subject matter knowledge: knowledge of contents to be taught

c. Pedagogical- content knowledge: conceptual knowledge of how to teach a subject using instructional strategies , understanding of students and knowledge of curriculum and curricular materials

d. Knowledge of student contexts and a disposition to find out more about students and their families.

e. Knowledge of bridging theory and practice.

f. External evaluation of learning.

h. Knowledge of strategies, techniques and tools to create and sustain a learning environment and the ability to use them effectively.

i. Knowledge and attitudes that support political and social justice( teachers are agents of social change)

j. Knowledge and skills as to how to implement technology in the classroom.

Two models of TD/PD:

A. Organizational partnership model:

i. Professional development schools

ii. University Colleges

iii. Schools’ net works

iv. Teachers’ networks

v. Distance education

Two models of TD/PD:

A. Organizational partnership model:

i. Professional development schools

ii. University –school partnership

iii. Inter-institutional partnership

iv. Schools’ net works

v. Teachers’ networks

vi. Distance education

vii. Coaching/mentoring/team teaching

viii. Use of teacher’s narratives

ix. Generational or cascade model

x. Keep a teaching journal

xi. Analyze critical incidents

xii. Join Teachers’ Associations

• Translation Studies• English for Mass media• Academic Writing• English Grammar for Teachers• Phonetics phonology• Second Language Acquisition• Sociolinguistics• Directions in Applied linguistics

• Courses at Faculty of Education at TU to enhance learning and teaching

• Foundation of Language and Linguistics• English for Communication• Reading Writing and Critical Thinking• Expanding Horizons in English• ELT methods• Literature for Language Teaching

• Advance ELT Methods

• Discourse and Pragmatics

• Advanced Reading and Writing

• Language Testing

• Research Methods in English Education

• Thesis Writing etc.

Scrivener (2005) Any teacher who stopped leaning--- has probably also stopped being useful as a teacher.

Learning about teaching does not stop whenever your training course finish. In fact, this is where your development as a teacher begins.

A professional teacher makes the personal resolution like this:

I promise myself that I am going to spend more time with teachers discussing educational issues and finding out about the realities of their teaching situations, their particular concerns, solutions, innovations, and strengths. I am going to read more and reflect on the implications of my reading. I am going to find time to work with more students, trying out ideas I have been exploring, honing new techniques, and learning more, always more about adult language learners and second language acquisition ( Pettis,2003).