n.s Prabhu Interview

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Interview with Dr. N.S. Prabhu

by Alan Maley

A.M. Well Prabhu, its very nice of you to agree to give this interview to The Teacher Trainer and nice to have you back in Cambridge.

N.S.P. Thank you.

A.M. Can I ask you, what have been the most significant events in your own teaching life?

N.S.P. Early in my ELT career, I stumbled on Harold Palmers Principles of Language Study. Its a very small book. I really was greatly moved by what I thought was a pedagogic sense of intuition and excitement in that book. Its a book Ive read again and again since then. The other thing was Chomskys Syntactic Structures. Its equally small! These two books had a great influence on me. In a way, Ive been trying to make sense of language teaching in a way that is in harmony with those two views. Other than that, its been actual teacher training that I have learnt a great deal from. And from 1979-1984, every day teaching on the Bangalore project was a real stimulus to thinking.

A.M. From my own knowledge of you, I know that trying out ideas on people and getting a response, even if its disagreement has always been very important to you.

N.S.P. Yes, I see professional progress in those terms. I think thats the source of growth for the profession; the growth of ideas in different people and the development of these together, the influencing of one another, gradually, imperceptibly.

A.M. If we can just pass on to the Bangalore Project as its popularly known. What would you say were the defining features of that project? What made it different from other classroom research projects (of which admittedly there had been very few until then)?

N.S.P. I think it came, at least in Southern India, at a time when there was a wearing off of peoples belief in the structural approach. There was a kind of psychological readiness. In my own mind, the idea that grammatical competence might best be provided through a preoccupation with meaning took shape suddenly as a result of earlier tentative thinking. I saw it as taking Harold Palmers thinking a step further.

Because of the psychological readiness, a few people in the project said, Why dont we go ahead and do it in the classroom? And also it seemed a good way of stimulating professional discussion in the light of actual teaching and evidence about teaching made available to people rather than going on with seminars etc. So, it was one way of getting professional discussion going and making it more meaningful.

A.M. Was it ever your feeling that the pilot project could be generalised to national or state level?

N.S.P. I suppose when we started I would have said Yes but Id also have said that we wanted to work on it for a while before we could say it was something that deserved to be done on a larger scale. And indeed, within the first year it became clear that the model (of piloting followed by large scale implementation) wasnt going to do justice to the project. It was thought best to influence teachers and then teaching gradually.

A.M. I know youve always been somewhat sceptical of large-scale implementation of other peoples ideas, partly because the originators understanding and experience arent there.

N.S.P. Yes, and in fact the implementation of the structural approach in India shows that. It became a fixed set of procedures which teachers carried out with no sense of involvement, and in some cases actually with a sense of resentment. I cant think of that kind of teaching being beneficial to learning, whatever the method.

A.M. Could we pass on to your present work in Singapore at the National University? Are you doing any work there similar to the work in South India?

N.S.P. Not really. I dont think it would be easy at all in Singapore. First of all the education system is much more effectively controlled than in India. Secondly, wanting to try out a new method would imply that the methods already being followed in the schools are less than good. In Singapore, there are these sensibilities. Being an expatriate I dont think Ill be able to attempt anything like trying out a new method. Probably thered be more controversy than productive work. So my teaching is confined to Post Graduate Courses, electives in Applied Linguistics for students majoring in English on Honours or M.A. courses.

A.M. But you do still have a number of things that concern you deeply about the processes of language learning and training teachers?

N.S.P. Im thinking more and more about what it means for a teacher to work with some understanding of how the teaching leads to learning, with some concept that has credibility to the teacher himself. Also, about what it means for the teacher to be influenced by other concepts and how ideas change. To the extent that we can understand this, we can look for ways to clarify and facilitate the process.

What I want to do when I get back to India is keep an open house for any teacher who wants to walk in and talk about teaching. It doesnt matter if its only two or four teachers. I want to try to get the teachers to state on paper what theyve said. Trying to write, clarifies things. It straightens ones thinking. It reveals and develops new thoughts. This is the process writing philosophy. So, a small number of teachers trying to state their perceptions, and then other teachers trying to state their perceptions but taking in the perceptions of the first group - this can not only help those teachers immediately but it can also reveal to us some of the processes by which teachers perceptions work and form. Perhaps theres room for something like a journal not in the sense of learned articles but of teachers statements circulated to other interested teachers.

A.M. In a sort of networking mode?

N.S.P. Yes.

A.M. What youve been talking about, youve given a label to, namely a sense of plausibility?

N.S.P. Yes. I think in teaching, as in any human interaction activity, one needs to work with some understanding, some concept of what is going on. In teaching,. How the act of teaching might lead to the act of learning. That conceptualisation of intentions and effects and so on is a sense of plausibility. I call it that because I dont want to make any claims about its being the truth. For that teacher however, it is the truth! There is a very real sense in which our understanding of phenomenon at any one time is the truth for us.

There is also in teaching, as in other recurrent interactions, a need for routinisation. But if the job becomes over-routinised, there is no sense of plausibility engaged. The sense of plausibility gets buried or frozen or ossified. From that point of view, the aim of professional activity should be to keep the teachers sense of plausibility alive and therefore open to influence by the on-going experience of teaching and interaction with other teachers perceptions and senses of plausibility. I think that is the process of teacher development. There has to be some measure of routinisation but there needs to be some room for something being at stake, some scope for satisfaction and dissatisfaction, so that something is learned from the act of teaching.

A.M. Is there anything youd like to say about teacher training in connection with the Bangalore Project?

N.S.P. We did surprisingly little teacher training on the project actually. Initially it was a group of about five people who had participated in the seminars and discussions leading to the project. In the first year we tried out different kinds of lessons jointly so they were a part of the evolution of the teaching procedure. About 12 teachers came to the project in subsequent years. Mostly they had attended the Annual Review seminar, got interested and offered to join the project. The seminar gave them some idea of the philosophy, and as for the practice, all they did was watch the teaching of other people in the project for about two weeks, teach a couple of lessons, watched and commented on by one of the existing members of the project and after that they went ahead and taught.

A.M. It seems to be based on a sitting with Nellie model. You watch other people doing it, you do it yourself and reflect on what youve done and discuss it.

N.S.P. Yes, and thereafter you learn in the process of doing it yourself. But, these were people who found themselves interested in the project and volunteered, so that possibly makes a difference. There was one teacher, or trainer actually, who was drafted onto the project. He tried for four or five months but I dont think he ever understood what was going on.

A.M. Were doing this interview for The Teacher Trainer, a journal which is a little bit along the lines of the newsletter you were mentioning. The aim is an exchange of an informal kind between teacher trainers. Would you have any message for teacher trainers? Any perceptions youd like to share with them?

N.S.P. I think the problem in teacher training is finding a way of influencing teachers thinking without seeking to replace their existing perceptions. Teachers ought to be able to interact with ideas from outside and those ideas have to be available to them and, in fact, to be put forcefully so as to give them full value. But how to do this without psychologically intimidating or cowing down teachers or demanding acceptance of the ideas is, I think the problem of teacher training. Its giving value to what teachers think but giving value too to the ideas one puts to teachers.

A.M. Thank you very much. Thats very interesting.

Reference Prabhu, N.S. (1987) Second Language Pedagogy O.U.P.


LEARNER INDEPENDENCE: A WEEKEND SEMINAR FOR TEACHERS IN BAVARIA

Bruce Pye

This article gives a brief account of a teacher-training weekend on the subject of learner independence (LI). I hope there is something in it for those with an interest in LI and also for those interested in the methodology of teacher-training seminars in general.

After some necessary information about the participants and their teaching situation, and about the aims of the seminar, the account covers the materials used and the way the seminar developed, from the initial warm-up to the results produced by the group.

The Participants The seminar, which was run by myself and a colleague, Jenny Richardson-Schlotter, was held under the auspices of the Bayerischer Volkschochschulverband (Bavarian Association of Adult Education Institutes) and had been advertised as offering ideas and materials to encourage learner independence. It ran from Friday evening to Sunday lunchtime, some 16 contact hours, was residential and had eleven participants.

These were teachers from various Bavarian Volkschochschulen (VHS), teaching extensive courses in general English to adults, mostly in the evening, mostly for 90 minutes once a week, mostly using a course book they may not have had much say in choosing.

Our Aims In preparing the seminar we wanted our methodology to embody at least some of the principles of LI which we were aiming to introduce our teachers to. This meant giving our participants as much autonomy as feasible within the restraints imposed by short time, fairly low-tech resources, and above all the participants own expectations as we were able to anticipate them from our previous experience.

In general, participants on such seminars are a lot more interested in practical classroom ideas than in theory (which may have been a reason for the relatively low number of participants in our seminar). We therefore felt that some sort of tangible results should emerge from the mists of consciousness-raising. To produce concrete results of any kind, the participants would have at some point to set themselves specific aims. We saw it as our job to help them reach this point with enough time left for their aims to be realized.

Warming Up The seminar began with small group discussion tasks on various topics related to the general theme of the seminar. Thus a group could choose between tasks such as:

Make notes about something you have learned recently at home or at work, and how you went about learning it,

Complete the sentence A good learner is..

Discuss how teachers can promote learner autonomy.

Compile a list of the advantages and disadvantages of self-instruction.

Discuss your own expectations of this seminar.

We aimed to provide a range of discussion impulses varying from the personal and anecdotal to the more academic and abstract. The most popular topic proved to be the participants own experience as language learners.

Input: The Library The core of the seminar comprised a library of some 21 photocopied articles and short extracts from books. Participants were free to read as much or as little as they wanted, and in any order they chose. They were also free to read entirely on their own or to work with a partner or partners.

It was our intention that the reading should lead via discussion and negotiation to the participants defining aims and setting themselves tasks for the rest of the seminar. The articles and extracts provided information and food for thought on such topics as: learning strategies and learner types, techniques and ideas for self-assessment and self-monitoring, identifying learner needs and motivation, negotiating course content, learning to learn, project work. We also included one or two short texts on recent views of second language acquisition. Overall we were aiming for a selection of materials providing educational, linguistic and methodological perspectives on LI.

Catalogue, Checklist, Report Form We deliberately avoided categorizing texts as offering educational perspectives on LI, learner training materials, or whatever. Apart from the difficulty of the task, we wanted to influence the participants in their choice of reading as little as possible. We did, however, provide a guide to the bank of texts, giving the briefest possible information about the content and the number of pages (between 2 and 8). In the case of extracts from books, the books were also available for further consultation.

In addition to the library catalogue, participants were also provided with a kind of pre-reading checklist, actually a form of learner contract. Our intention was to try and get the participants to make themselves firm promises about what they were going to read.

To encourage them to monitor their thoughts while reading we had also prepared a sort of report form for notes. This emphasized the participants emotional as well as their intellectual responses to their reading, encouraging them for example to make a note of ideas which they found surprising, or hard to accept, or which they would like to know more about or discuss with their colleagues later.

As it transpired, the relatively formalized contract and commentary form were quickly abandoned by most participants in favour of informal individual procedures. Participants made ad hoc decisions about what to read next, and used their own paper for their individually preferred styles of note-taking.

Plenary Discussion The bulk of Saturday morning was taken up by individual reading. Saturday afternoon began with a plenary and provisional reports and feedback about what had been read. The discussion was unusually interesting and fruitful for a plenary session, precisely because no two people had read exactly the same things, and whilst one or two participants had skim-read their way through a large part of the material, others had got immersed in one subject and had read little but in depth. The exchange of tips and recommendations led to a general desire for further reading time and another hour was allotted for this.

Jenny and I had had some misgivings about basing so much of the seminar on an extended phase of individual reading. Our Bavarian seminars are usually pretty lively, sometimes even hectic affairs with everyone interacting as if there were no tomorrow. There is a danger of equating the noise level directly with the success of the undertaking. It was therefore a relief as well as a source of gratification when our participants expressed their appreciation of the peace and quiet and freedom to work on their own.

Group work, Group results From the reading there emerged three main areas of interest, which were now pursued in group work. These were: 1) progress checks, learner diaries and learner contracts; 2) differentiation and pacing within a course; 3) self-access learning.

Further concentration of focus and effort led to one group working with a group member to produce a learner contract. The contract was for an Englishman working in a management capacity in a German firm. He had learned German with little formal instruction and was particularly keen to improve his written skills in the language. The group helped him to analyse problems and clarify aims, suggested activities and offered him information about the availability of materials.

The second group produced a number of recommendations relating to differentiation within a class. This is a classic VHS issue as courses tend to be either very heterogeneous or so small that they have to be cancelled.

The third group produced a list of activities which learners can pursue by way of accompaniment to their VHS course. This ranged from general, and familiar, ideas like watching satellite TV to more specific suggestions such as corresponding with fellow course participants in English and tips to do with homework.

Classroom Implications Following the presentation and discussion of results, the tutors and participants agreed to switch the focus, in the short amount of time remaining, to classroom activities. Following a presentation by the trainers of some learning-to-learn activities and learner-created materials, the group split into two halves to discuss in one case the role of the teacher within a framework of self-directed learning, and in the other to try and find ways of making a course book unit more negotiable for the students.

Not surprisingly, these discussions proved somewhat inconclusive. We would have needed another weekend, and by now we were all tired out. This was indeed a pity because, by returning to some central issues of the classroom situation, we were in a very real sense just beginning. However, I suspect that a great deal of life is like that, and not only teacher-training.

Acknowledgements It is only fair to mention the contribution made to our seminar planning by various articles and suggestions for further reading in, (at the time of publishing), INDEPENDENCE, the newsletter of the IATEFL Learner Independence special interest group. The group is now called Learner Autonomy. A version of this article appeared in Issue No. 5, Spring 1989. A special acknowledgement is also due to the account by Marion Geddes. A teacher training workshop on individualisation in Individualisation, edited by Marion Geddes and Gill Sturtridge, Modern English Publications, 1982.


One important part of a trainers job is giving public talks or workshops. Though as teachers we are very used to working in front of and with groups of people,

somehow doing this with peers or national and international colleagues can seem more frightening. We have thus included in the journal quite a lot of help over the years on how to run training sessions. Below, Andrew Wright, an occasional speaker, gives us his tips.

Some notes on giving talks at conferences

By Andrew Wright

Thank goodness the idea of workshops has been developed in recent years. But it would be a great shame if talks or lectures were rejected out of hand. I have no doubt that lectures will always have a useful role. The question for me is how to make them as worthwhile as possible.

The way one gives a talk is a reflection of a personal relationship with the receivers and with the subject; it is also a reflection of how one responds to the context both immediate and more general.

On the whole, my talks have been about the use of games and activities. I dont assume that the forms I use for this sort of theme would always apply to other people. However, colleagues might like to hear how a fellow occasional lecturer goes about things. Here are some of the ideas which are important to me:

The receiver is as important as the subject So all the normal communicators criteria apply. Who are the receivers? What do they know already of the general area and of the specific subject you wish to deal with? What is their attitude to it? How do they value it? What form of communication are they used to? Would a different form please or offend them? What relationship do they conventionally have with a speaker? Must you mix authority/credibility with personal understanding? Can the teachers cope with broad perspectives in abstract terms or do they prefer instances?

The peripatetic speaker You probably dont know the people you are talking to individually. I feel the need to speak to people I dont know before the talk so I usually try to get my things set up early and then chat to people as they come in. It helps me. I sometimes look for something that I can acknowledge in the people there in my talklike how they have given up time to come..or that the best holiday for a teacher is watching another teacher working or I may try to comment on a more weighty aspect of what I am told concerns them, for example, a change in public examinations. Alternatively, I might begin by saying, Ive never taught in your schools and so cannot possibly advise you how to teach. Please see me as a traveling tinker who has various ideas and is offering them to see if they are of any use.

Starting with activities Although I share the same general world of language teaching with the people there I do not share any specific experience that I can refer to. So I often like to begin with activities of some sort without explanation and then, after about ten minutes, stop and point out the issues which I think are important. In this way we have a common experience and a reference point. Dramatically it is marvelous to begin immediately with activities because the listeners become participators and there is so much more excitement. If the activities are intriguing, then curiosity is aroused, the listeners become active as they take part and, at the same time, search for an idea of why you have got that activity going. At the SPEAQ Conference in Quebec I began by juggling. Then I asked for a volunteer

and taught him to juggle. About half way through I asked people to make a note of the sort of language we were using and this gave them a hint of the point I was working towards.

The structure Starting off with the broad structure of the talk does not appeal to me. However, I always try to give it after about ten minutes. And I do feel that it helps to be following a structure so people feel you know where you are going. A rigid structure or more particularly, written-out notes or even the full text is disastrous because people feel they cannot affect things and if they do you may be totally thrown. Perhaps the feeling of what I want to convey is even more important than the structure of the presentation I have in mind. The wonderful thing about being guided by feeling is that you are adaptable and that everything you say and doeven the little thingsis filled with a sense of unity of purpose. For me the feeling is usually that I want to enjoy myself with everyone there.

Individuals I need the participation of the people there. For this reason I build into my talks activities all the way through. And I always try to respond fully to individuals. If there is a very demanding individual, I usually try to respond but if they seem to be determined to go up an alley (in my view) I will say something like, thats a very interesting point. I dont think I can cope with it at the moment. Perhaps we can talk about it afterwards. If someone is being aggressive for some reasons, I sometimes put the point back to everyone else, inviting a response and then it is normally dealt with to everyones satisfaction.

Pace I do think that pace is important. There is room for slow and fast pace. A slow pace should never be because of muddled notes or inadequate control of the a/v equipment etc. but because that is the nature of the feeling of the activity. If people feel you are talking slowly and moving slowly for a significant purpose, they can be on the edge of their seats! But I tend to like a fast pace for at least some of the time. In this I like to introduce the idea of tantalizing people, perhaps by doing something nice with them and then stopping it just as they are beginning to drop from the height of their involvement.

Market Sellers of blankets and cheap crockery have some great techniques. One of them is to address, with some intensity, a particular person in response to a comment he might have overheard, or to some gesture or movement he claims to be able to interpret. An intense moment or two with someone about halfway to the back and slightly to one side is so intriguing for everyone else. Done too much it might be irritating though!

Jokes I love to be involved in the subject and in the whole act of trying to communicate. For me the moment is so important. I am prepared to risk a lot to try to relate to people. This can be done by jokes, anecdotes and a bit of fun but if the teachers feel that there is nothing more to the talk than fun they will go off feeling pretty cheated. Obviously they have to feel that you care about the subject, you know about it and you can see it from their point of view. Jokes just told to warm up the listeners are a mistake, I believe. The joke should arise out of the concept being developed and should highlight aspects of it.

There are so many things I dont know about in everything I have a go at, obviously. If one of them comes up I say so and without shame. I think I may disillusion a few people but I hope this is outbalanced by the feeling that I am, after all just like them, doing my best but far from infallible.

Take-home ideas In most of my talks I try to get activities going and some individual responding and thinking going on too. However, I feel that there is very often an expectation that a lecturer is going to give them something which can be used on Monday. Many teachers have hardly been to inservice training before and are more likely to feel positive and helped if they have something positive to take away with them than if they have simply undergone an unusual experience. I think if one can give the teachers some things they can actually use and which contain the living yeast of a new way of thinking they

will have a chance of realizing the power of the underlying idea through the act of experiencing its success in their own classrooms.

Gesture and movement For me these are important. For large groups of people between 30 and 500 I think gestures and movement are very important. (Above 500 people and the back rows probably cant see your body movements! So voice, speech and a big OHP screen become the vehicles.) Body movements help to emphasise the way you are structuring your talk, and the pace (like a conductor). They help you to stress detail and they help you convey feeling. They allow you to indicate individuals you may be talking to.

Big gestures are important for large groups. People used to talking to large groups sometimes find it difficult to talk to small groups. (Similar to a difference between acting for film and acting in the theatre?)

Gestures and movements can either be used to support spoken language or to offer contradictory concepts and feelings or they can be used on their own without speech.

I think you use gestures should be known to the people you are talking to and not gestures from your home area and not personal mannerisms without any communicative direction.

It is silly but I feel slightly ashamed to talk about gesture and movement. I suppose it is because of the long history of dominance of the world and the scorning of non-verbal forms. Yet body movement is one of the most powerful ways of affecting people for better or for worse.. so continuing I think we would speak of the need for clearly articulated gestures as we would speak of the need for clearly articulated speech. I believe that gestures should be timed to fit with spoken language ( or the other way round like Mrs. And Mr. !!!!!!) Gestures should usually only take place with one part of the body at once..the mimes arm unfolds, the hand unfolds and the finger and then it points! Im sure theres more to it than that but I havent studied the grammar of body movement.

And, to return to my very first point, whilst believing that we must communicate we must obviously do so in our own way.

Visuals OHP visuals are useful in several ways:

if you are nervous, then you can base your whole thing on transparencies and they will take you through your talk.

they give an alternative way of saying what you are trying to express orally. they can do some things you cannot do orally particularly giving a holistic view of a

number of different relationships. some people need to see an idea written down.

Andrew Wright is a teacher, teacher-trainer, author and visual artist as well as being able to juggle and ride a mono-cycle! Working freelance at the time of writing he had recently given seminars in Italy and South America and written some lively new readers for EFL students.


This series publishes original or revised versions of papers given at major conferences. Our aim here is to make sure that worthwhile contributions informing colleagues of

recent work and thoughts should be available also to those who cant get to the conferences!

Teaching, Teacher Training and Applied Linguistics

by Rod Bolitho

Language teachers, and particularly teachers of English as a second or foreign language, are under ever-increasing pressure to acquire a masters degree in addition to a post-graduate teaching certificate. A glance at the appointments columns in the educational press will confirm what many teachers already know to their cost: that state and private sector employers in many countries are, for whatever reason, insisting more and more on academic credentials as well as a basic professional qualification. In a buyers market it is clearly their perfect right to do so, and yet it is a worrying trend for those of us who value professional know-how at least as highly as academic excellence in a classroom teacher.

It is my contention that this trend is persuading far too many teachers to set their sights on professional advancement through academic prowess rather than through a more humanistic assessment of their own development needs. Add to this the worry shared by many in the field of language teaching that Applied Linguistics is an ill-defined field of activity a young discipline with a mild identity crisis, perhaps and some of the very real concerns of this essay begin to crystallise. In it, I will examine some recent contributions to the discussion of the relationship between theory and practice, and suggest a basis for a more healthy relationship.

In an article published in 1982 in English Language Teaching Journal, Christopher Brumfit and Richard Rossner offer their decision pyramid model as a point of departure for their discussion of teacher training and the structure of the language teaching profession. They postulate four levels of decision (see Figure 1) and three levels of teacher training.

4. Classroom decisions

3. Materials construction

1. Approach

2. Syllabus design

Initial Training

In-service training

Academic courses (MA upwards)

FIGURE 1 Decision Pyramid Model

From this it will be seen that they regard pre-service training as being essentially concerned with classroom-level decisions, and only very marginally concerned with superordinate issues of approach. In-service training is seen as legitimately concerning itself with all four levels of decision. Academic courses at M.A. level and beyond, however, are seen as only slightly concerned with the classroom, and primarily occupied with questions of syllabus design and approach. If, as I suspect, this is a fairly accurate representation of the status quo in teacher training, or even if it represents an ideal for Brumfit and Rossner, the implications are worrying for several reasons:

1. The pyramid model is hierarchical, and it implies the closing-off of avenues of professional development for all but the privileged few.

2. Even if the implied dynamic of the model is bottom-up, it is all too easy to see it as top-down (most hierarchies work this way), in which case it places superordinate decisions, which ultimately affect what goes on in the classroom, in the hands of academics who rarely if ever see the inside of a classroom. In this sense, the model is also paternalistic; it encourages teachers to trust in those higher up rather than to seek ways of tackling their own professional problems. So it is open to abuse as a justification of superiority by academics and as an excuse for doing nothing by teachers.

3. It therefore devalues teaching as a lower-order activity.

4. It is a convergent, academically-oriented model, apparently taking no account of all the other factors which might contribute to the personal and professional development of a teacher.

An alternative view, more difficult to realize graphically, would be to classify syllabus designers, material writers, teacher trainers and applied linguists (not to mention publishers and examining bodies!) as service providers to the teaching profession: essentially parasites who depend on the classroom encounter, on the teaching/learning activity, for their very existence. This might help teachers to take a more robust view of their own worth and to increase their self-esteem.

In another article in English Language Teaching Journal, Henry Widdowson argues that teachers should concern themselves more with theory:

No matter how concerned teachers may be with the immediate practicalities of the classroom, their techniques are based on some principle or other which is accountable to theory.

and then:

I would wish to argue, then, that language teachers have the responsibility to mediate changes in pedagogic practice so as to increase the effectiveness of language learning, and that such mediation depends on understanding the relationship between theoretical principle and practical technique. To dismiss theory is to undermine the possibility of such an understanding and to create the very conditions for the bandwagon effect that many who belong to the practical brass tacks school so vigorously criticize. (Widdowson 1984)

These are arguments which Widdowson reiterated emphatically in his opening address to this seminar (Widdowson 1986), and they deserve attention and comment, both in relation to the situation of schoolteachers in Hong Kong, and with a more global perspective.

Let me state straight away that my own stance is not anti-theoretical, and that I do not belong to the (largely mythical?) brass tacks school which Widdowson refers to. Operating between the extremes of the spectrum which extends from an unthinking preoccupation with technique all the way to an unhealthy concentration on the abstract, there is a population of principled practitioners who, fully

aware of the priority they must accord to the routine demands of the classroom, nevertheless realize that there are areas of theory which deserve their attention as they work their way towards a better understanding of the teaching/learning process. These practitioners do not need reminding of the value of theory, but to suggest that they should be mediators between theory and practice is to misunderstand the role which theory plays in their professional lives. Applied linguists, like most people who work in academic institutions, write because publications are expected of them. It is right that they should put up their views for consideration by a wider public. Teachers, on the whole, do not need to write. Much of their creative energy goes into the classroom encounter. It is right that it should. Does that necessarily mean that teachers ought to read what applied linguists write? Most teachers would prefer to choose what they need to read, basing their decision on a realistic assessment of their own strengths and weaknesses. Like other professional people, they will need only to have the options laid out for them. Theory is often perceived as gratuitous on pre-service courses (rightly or wrongly) since few trainee teachers have the basis of classroom experience they would need to furnish a proper perspective for theoretical issues which are dealt with, whether these are drawn from linguistics, psychology or elsewhere. Teachers in-service are constantly confronted with practical problems and may feel themselves, particularly in state education, to be too busy mediating between their students and inadequate textbooks, between their students parents and the institution and between 1,001 other conflicting demands, to consider any more remote form of mediation. Indeed, they may point, with some justification, to areas of theory which have contributed more confusion than enlightenment to their practice in recent years: the communicative revolution with all its half-baked interpretations in various contexts has led to a great deal of insecurity; conflicting theories of second language acquisition have also caused uncertainty.

A principled practitioner, however, will continue to glean what he/she can understand and use from these theories, through careful reading of journals attendance at conferences, etc. He/she will also pose questions to the theorists along the lines, maybe, of those posted by Richard Rossner to Pit Corder in a recent interview:

But an implication of this view of language learning* is that there will be great uncertainty in the teachers mind about what he or she should do precisely. Even if one accepts that optimum conditions for language learning have to be provided by the teacher, involving comprehensible input and meaningful tasks, as well as language awareness-raising activities, some tremendous questions still remain. What kind of comprehensible input does it matter? What kinds of task does it matter? In what order does that matter? What guidance, if any can applied linguistics offer to these areas? Is it still the teachers responsibility to provide a programme of work for his or her learners? What is to go into that programme? (Corder 1986)

* In an exchange of views with Dick Allwright, Corder has just expounded on the merits of acquiring language while focusing on something non-linguistic, allowing learners to make use of their knowledge of the world to help them to learn the structure of the language.

The answers to these (any many other!) questions will, however, be worked out co-operatively if at all. It is unreasonable to expect theorists to answer them unless they spend more time in classrooms, and to expect teachers to answer them unless they have more time to think. Teachers do not take kindly to imposed decisions, handed down directly or indirectly, from higher up the pyramid, or to guilt-inducing admonitions to concern themselves more with theory.

It is, of course, to be expected that those who populate the higher slopes of the pyramid will seek to protect their own positions in the hierarchy (especially if this involves them in teaching only a few hours per week to small, motivated groups of postgraduate students, leaving abundant time for thinking, research and work in publications), and even to sell their wares.

Those who run courses at Masters level can be expected to extol the virtues of the content of such courses, just as a double-glazing salesman might be expected to be vigorous in his attempts to sell his product. However, double-glazing has some known side-effects which are far from pleasant; in providing better heat and sound insulation to a building, for example, it often creates problems of condensation. This is clearly unsatisfactory, as the consumers initial decision to purchase was almost certainly solution-oriented. Similarly, a teachers decision to take, say, an M.A. in Applied Linguistics,

or in ELT is often solution-oriented, in which case the potential for disappointment is already there. The analogy had better end here, however, for a double-glazing salesman inhabits a different career pyramid from most of his customers and wields no power or influence in their respective professional spheres. Those who run Masters courses in Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, by contrast, seem to wield considerable power and influence, and it is difficult for those lower down the pyramid to see other solutions to the dilemma surrounding professional advancement.

It is difficult, too, to go along unreservedly with the elitist position suggested by Brumfit in his otherwise excellent chapter in this book. He maintains (Brumfit 1986) that in any system there should be a minority of teachers who have had time off to reflect. What are the criteria for allowing such periods of time off? What are the options open to a teacher? Most paid time off is granted to teachers who are prepared to devote it to gaining a higher qualification usually on a taught course. Unpaid leave may be the only solution for those who really do need time to reflect. All too often, financial support is allocated on an arbitrary basis, or is available only to a privileged few. Unpaid leave can be contemplated only by those with considerable private means, and thus almost never by breadwinners in families. Nice as it may be for those running Diploma or Masters courses to have a steady population of sponsored or rich postgraduate students on their courses, this is not a solution to the need for professional development felt by the vast majority of teachers at some time in their careers. As long as a hierarchical system is seen to operate, there will be those who make progress and those who dont. As long as applied linguistics remain in universities and express themselves in terms which teachers find difficult to understand, but somehow feel they ought to understand, as long as the rules for professional advancement are devised by academics so that training takes place on their territory and on their terms, teachers will continue to feel inferior. As long as teaching continues to be regarded as a lower-order activity, involving high stress, large numbers of contact hours and low pay, and as long as those involved in theory have visibly less of the first two and considerably more of the last-mentioned commodity, there will be im-balance in the profession. It is unfortunately true that, for every Widdowson or Brumfit, with their valuable ideas about language and language learning, there are dozens of academics who provide little or no impetus in the profession, and who nevertheless spend long years occupying privileged positions in the hierarchy. How many university lecturers go back to teaching? And it simply will not do, given the impact of their discipline on language teaching and learning, for applied linguists to assert (as some do!) that they lay no claim to practical relevance on their courses, and that teachers who come on them have no right to expect any practical orientation. As the decision pyramid makes clear, it would be wrong to expect applied linguists to concern themselves much with technique, but the concerns of language learners and teachers must also remain those of applied linguists, otherwise their very raison detre will surely vanish.

So what ways forward are there for teachers who wish to develop personally and professionally? This is the current concern of the IATEFL* special interest group on Teacher Development, formed in 1987 in the UK. Conceived resolutely as a bottom-up movement, this group has begun to explore different ways of breaking with established thinking on professional advancement. It is neither anti-intellectual nor anti-establishment in its approach. It seeks merely to explore as many different avenues as possible, thereby widening the choice for teachers. However, given the traditional emphasis on the acquisition of qualifications (very much part of the having mode identified so clearly by Erich Fromm (1979)), it is perhaps natural that many of the early contributions to the work of the Teacher Development group have been concerned with being: being a better teacher, a better listener, a better colleague, a more balanced and integrated person. Adrian Underhill, the founder of the T.D. group, put it this way:

What is missing from our thinking about teacher training and teacher development is a real understanding of precisely how teachers grow and change, based not on armchair theory but on the vigorous experience of what actually happens and what could happen inside ourselves, our colleagues and our students. (Underhill 1984)

The central impetus provided by the special interest group and its newsletter Teacher Development has led to the formation of local and institutional support groups of teachers in many parts of the U.K., and this seems to be helping teachers to identify and define their own development priorities, instead of having them laid out before them by those higher up the hierarchy. It is too early to say what effect these groups might have, but there must be, at the very least, a move to engage school managements in both state and private sectors in a discussion of staff development needs. The huge state investment (in most countries, not just the U.K.) in the pre-service training of teachers leads employers

to expect delivery of batches of well-prepared professionals to their institutions. The realization that all teachers need professional refreshment after a spell of wrestling with problems thrown up in the daily classroom encounter is an uncomfortable and potentially expensive one for employers. Yet the need for both personal development and professional updating remains. If it is articulated clearly and often enough by those who feel it, pressure will eventually mount for appropriate provision to be made in the career structure of every teacher, and not just the privileged few. If this involves a major shift of resources and manpower from pre-service to in-service training, and a consequent re-examination of the relationship between classroom and practice and theory, between teachers, trainers and applied linguists, so much the better. We might even see teacher-training relocated in schools and applied linguists in classrooms, listening to students and teachers, and remembering what it feels like to teach. By doing this, they will be making themselves available to teachers to co-operate on here and now problems such as the preparation of suitable tests for communicative teaching programmes, designing new syllabi and teaching materials, formulating realistic learning objectives for learners at different stages of development and analyzing learners errors and thereby they will be engaging themselves at first hand in the real world of language learning. If they were able to take this step, the basis for mutual respect and genuine interchange would soon be established.

*IATEFL International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language

References Brumfit, C. A Whole Profession Model of Continuing Teacher Education, 1986 I.L.E. International Seminar Papers (Hong Kong)

Brumfit, C. & R. Rossner. The Decision Pyramid and Teacher Training for E.L.T. English Language Teaching Journal, 36/4 (1982)

Corder, S.P. Talking Shop: Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. English Language Teaching Journal, 40/3 (1986)

Fromm, E. To Have or To Be, Abacus, 1979.

Underhill, A. A Quest for Permanent Evolution. E.F.L. Gazette, September 1984

Widdowson, H.G. The Incentive Value of Theory in Teacher Education. English Language Teaching Journal, 38/2 (1984)

Widdowson, H.G. The Pragmatics of Language Teacher Education. 1986 I.L.E. International Seminar Papers (Hong Kong).

Note Teacher Development , the newsletter of the IATEFL special interest group is available from IATEFL.

This article first appeared in Re-exploring C.E.L.T. edited by Verner Bicklay and is reproduced here with permission.

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The Teacher Trainer - Back Articles Saved from: http://www.tttjournal.co.uk

Some ideas stay with us for years and years and the idea of using a foreign language lesson as an interactive demonstration on an initial

teacher training course is one of those ideas. Just a week ago I received a draft article from a trainer using

the foreign language lesson on her course in Japan and wanting to share a variation with readers of the journal. So when I re-read the article below

reprinted from Volume One Issue Two, and remembered its classic trainee-centred and realistic rhythm, I knew it was one for the web archive!

The foreign language lesson-trainees prepare the trainers demonstration

by John Carmichael

Many initial teacher training courses contain an element of demonstration by an experienced teacher in which trainees are placed in the position of the foreign language learner so that they experience teaching techniques from the receiving end. They are given a lesson or a micro-lesson in Arabic or Japanese for example. As has been recognised, this procedure runs the risk of dazzling the relatively inexperienced trainee with a display of techniques which s/he will find difficult to emulate within the typically short duration of the training course. S/he may be daunted rather than impressed. It can be very frustrating for the beginner on the slopes to be expected to admire the performance of a skiing virtuoso. As a result trainers often make a point of building in to their demonstrations deliberately bad practices that can be highlighted on the subsequent discussion. A useful variation on this technique is to get the trainees to think through an appropriate procedure (for a particular micro-skill such as dialogue building, handling a listening comprehension or teaching a lexical set for example) before being taught in the foreign language. To take teaching a lexical set as a detailed example, tell the trainees that you would like to teach them seven or eight words in a foreign language (e.g. word for different fruits). You, the teacher, would like these words to become part of their active vocabulary. How would they like to be taught? What procedure do they think would be most effective in achieving this aim? Get the trainees to discuss this in small groups and note down a detailed procedure. Monitor the groups and prompt if all the relevant issues have not been considered (e.g. When do you want to see the written form? How many times do you want to hear the word before you are asked to say it yourself? How many times do you want to say each word? What context do you want to practise the words in?). Get members of different groups to exchange their ideas and then, with the whole class, draw up a consensus procedure on the whiteboard. Differences of opinion at this stage can serve to highlight the need to accommodate the different learning strategies to be found in any group of students. Then teach the vocabulary using the procedure provided by the trainees. Follow the recipe they have given you exactly. After this, repeat the group/whole class discussion so that the trainees can evaluate the suggested procedure in the light of their experience and suggest any amendments they wish. This overall process of planning in the abstract and then assessing and re-evaluating in the light of experience directly parallels the experience of trainees in their own lesson planning and classroom contact. Here is an illustration of the before and after procedures that one group of trainees came up with.

Before Use visual aids to convey meaning. Teacher gives the model for the first word twice; students listen and then repeat chorally and individually. Follow this procedure one word at a time.

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Write the words on the board and get students to read them off, checking pronunciation.

After Use visual aids to convey meaning. Teacher shows visual and says all the word while the students listen. Teacher gives a model for the first word two or three times; students listed then repeat chorally and individually. Highlight pronunciation and stress where necessary. Don't dwell too long on students who are having initial difficulty reproducing the word. They can be given the opportunity to listen to other students repetitions. Come back to them later. Build up a lexical set. Reap as you go along and at the end, both in order and in random order. Practise the words further in a personalised context (e.g. talking about likes or preferences). Elicit the words again from the students as you write them on the board. Highlight any peculiarities of the written form. Matching exercise; students write the words (jumbled at the bottom of the page) next to the appropriate pictures.


Towards Reflective Teaching

by Jack C. Richards Department of English, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong

Most teachers develop their classroom skills fairly early in their teaching careers. Teachers entering the profession may find their initial teaching efforts stressful, but with experience they acquire a repertoire of teaching strategies that they draw on throughout their teaching. The particular configuration of strategies a teacher uses constitutes his or her teaching style. While a teachers style of teaching provides a means of coping with many of the routine demands of teaching, there is also a danger that it can hinder a teachers professional growth. How can teachers move beyond the level of automatic or routinised responses to classroom situations and achieve a higher level of awareness of how they teach, of the kinds of decisions they make as they teach, and of the value and consequences of particular instructional decisions? One way of doing this is through observing and reflecting on ones own teaching, and using observation and reflection as a way of bringing about change. This approach to teaching can be described as Reflective Teaching, and in this paper I want to explore how a reflective view of teaching can be developed.

What is reflection? Reflection or critical reflection, refers to an activity or process in which an experience is recalled, considered, and evaluated, usually in relation to a broader purpose. It is a response to past experience and involves conscious recall and examination of the experience as a basis for evaluation and decision-making and as a source for planning and action. Bartlett (1990) points out that becoming a reflective teacher involves moving beyond a primary concern with instructional techniques and how to questions and asking what and why questions that regard instructions and managerial techniques not as ends in themselves, but as part of broader educational purposes.

Asking what and why questions gives us a certain power over our teaching. We could claim that the degree of autonomy and responsibility we have in our work as teachers is determined by the level of control we can exercise over our actions. In reflecting on the above kind of questions, we begin to exercise control and open up the possibility of transforming our everyday classroom life.

Bartlett, 1990. 267

How does reflection take place? Many different approaches can be employed if one wishes to become a critically reflective teacher, including observation of oneself and others, team teaching, and exploring ones view of teaching through writing. Central to any approach used however is a three part process which involves:

Stage 1 The event itself The starting point is an actual teaching episode, such as a lesson or other instructional event. While the focus of critical reflection is usually the teachers own teaching, self-reflection can also be stimulated by observation of another persons teaching.

Stage 2 Recollection of the event The next stage in reflective examination of an experience is an account of what happened, without explanation or evaluation. Several different procedures are available during the recollection phase, including written descriptions of an event, a video or audio recording of an event, or the use of check lists or coding systems to capture details of the event.

Stage 3 Review and response to the event Following a focus on objective description of the event, the participant returns to the event and reviews it. The event is now processed at a deeper level, and questions are asked about the experience.

Let us examine approaches to critical reflection which reflect these processes.

Peer Observation Peer observation can provide opportunities for teachers to view each others teaching in order to expose them to different teaching styles and to provide opportunities for critical reflection on their own teaching. In a peer observation project initiated in our own department, the following guidelines were developed.

1. Each participant would both observe and be observed Teachers would work in pairs and take turns observing each others classes.

2. Pre-observation orientation session Prior to each observation, the two teachers would meet to discuss the nature of the class to be observed, the kind of material being taught, the teachers approach to teaching, the kinds of students in the class, typical patterns of interaction and class participation, and any problems that might be expected. The teacher being observed would also assign the observer a goal for the observation and a task to accomplish. The task would involve collecting information about some aspect of the lesson, but would not include any evaluation of the lesson. Observation procedures or instruments to be used would be agreed upon during this session and a schedule for the observations arranged.

3. The observation The observer would then visit his or her partners class and complete the observation using the procedures that both partners had agreed on.

4. Post-observation The two teachers would meet as soon as possible after the lesson. The observer would report on the information that had been collected and discuss it with the teacher (Richards and Lockhart, 1991).

The teachers identified a variety of different aspects of their lessons for their partners to observe and collect information on. These included organization of the lesson, teachers time management, students performance on tasks, time-on-task, teacher questions and student responses, student performance during pair work, classroom interaction, class performance during a new teaching activity, and students use of the first language or English during group work.

The teachers who participated in the project reported that they gained a number of insights about their own teaching from their colleagues observations and that they would like to use peer observation on a regular basis. They obtained new insights into aspects of their teaching. For example:

It provided more detailed information on student performance during specific aspects of the lesson than I could have gathered on my own.

It revealed unexpected information about interaction between students during a lesson.

I was able to get useful information on the group dynamics that occur during group work.

Some teachers identified aspects of their teaching that they would like to change as a result of the information their partner collected. For example:

It made me more aware of the limited range of teaching strategies that I have been using.

I need to give students more time to complete some of the activities I use.

I realized that I need to develop better time management strategies.

Longer term benefits to the department were also cited:

It helped me develop a better working relationship with a colleague.

Some useful broader issues about teaching and the programme came up during the post-observation discussions.

Written accounts of experiences Another useful way of engaging in the reflective process is through the use of written accounts of experiences. Personal accounts of experiences through writing are common in other disciplines (Powell 1985) and their potential is increasingly being recognized in teacher education. A number of different approaches can be used.

Self-Reports Self-reporting involves completing an inventory or check list in which the teacher indicates which teaching practices were used within a lesson or within a specified time period and how often they were employed (Pak, 1985). The inventory may be completed individually or in group sessions. The accuracy of self-reports is found to increase when teachers focus on the teaching of specific skills in a particular classroom context and when the self-report instrument is carefully constructed to reflect a wide range of potential teaching practices and behaviours (Richards, 1990).

Self-reporting allows teachers to make a regular assessment of what they are doing in the classroom. They can check to see to what extent their assumptions about their own teaching are reflected in their actual teaching practices. For example a teacher could use self-reporting to find out the kinds of teaching activities being regularly used, whether all of the programmes goals are being addressed, the degree to which personal goals for a class are being met, and the kinds of activities which seem to work well or not to work well.

Autobiographies Abbs (1974, cited in Powell 1985) discusses the use of autobiographies in teacher preparation. These consist of small groups of around 12 student teachers who meet

for an hour each week for at least 10 weeks. During this period of time each student works at creating a written account of his or her educational experience and the weekly meetings are used to enable each person to read a passage from his or her autobiography so that it can be supported, commented upon by peers and the teacher (43).

Powell (1985) described the use of reaction-sheets sheets student teachers complete after a learning activity has been completed in which they are encouraged to stand back from what they had been doing and think about what it meant for their own learning and what it entailed for their work as teachers of others (p.46). I have used a similar technique in working with student teachers in a practicum. Students work in pairs with a co-operating teacher and take turns teaching. One serves as observer while the other teaches, and completes a reaction sheet during the lesson. The reaction sheet contains the following questions. What aspects of the lesson were most effective? What

aspects of the lesson were least effective? Would you have taught any aspect of the lesson differently? Why? The student who teaches also completes his or her own reaction sheet after the lesson. Then the two compare their reactions to the lesson.

Journal Writing A procedure which is becoming more widely acknowledged as a valuable tool for developing critical reflection is the journal or diary. The goal of journal writing is,

1. to provide a record of the significant learning experiences that have taken place

2. to help the participant come into touch and keep in touch with the self-development process that is taking place for them

3. to provide the participants with an opportunity to express, in a personal and dynamic way, their self-development

4. to foster a creative interaction

between the participant and the self-development process that is taking place

between the participant and other participants who are also in the process of self-development

between the participant and the facilitator whose role it is to foster such development

(Powell, 1985, Bailey, 1990)

While procedures for diary keeping vary, the participant usually keeps a regular account of learning or teaching experiences, recording reflections on what he or she did as well as straightforward descriptions of events, which may be used as a basis for later reflection. The diary serves as a means for interaction between the writer, the facilitator, and, sometimes, other participants.

Collaborative Diary Keeping A group of teachers may also collaborate in journal writing. A group of my colleagues recently explored the value of collaborative diary-keeping as a way of developing a critically reflective view of their teaching (Brock, Ju and Wong, 1991). Throughout a 10 week teaching term they kept diaries on their teaching, read each others diaries, and discussed their teaching and diary keeping experiences on a weekly basis. They also recorded and later transcribed their group discussions and subsequently analyzed their diary entries, their written responses to each others entries and the transcripts of their discussions, in order to determine how these three interacted and what issues occurred most frequently. They reported that:

Collaborative diary-keeping brought several benefits to our development as second language teachers. It raised our awareness of classroom processes and prompted us to consider those processes more deeply than we may otherwise have. Collaborative diary-keeping also provided encouragement and support; it served as a source of teaching ideas and suggestions; and in some sense it gave us a way to observe one anothers teaching from a safe distance

By reading one anothers diary entries, we were able to share our teaching experiences, and we often felt that we were learning as much from one anothers entries as we were from our own. Reading and responding to the entries led us back to our own teaching to consider how and why we taught as we did.

These teachers observed however that

1. collaborative diary-keeping is more effective if the scope of issues considered is focused more narrowly.

2. a large block of time is needed

3. participants must be comfortable in sharing both pleasant and unpleasant experiences and be committed to gaining a clearer picture of their teaching and their classrooms.

Recording Lessons For many aspects of teaching, audio or video recording of lessons can also provide a basis for reflection. While there are many useful insights to be gained from diaries and self-reports, they cannot capture the moment to moment processes of teaching. Many things happen simultaneously in a classroom, and some aspects of a lesson cannot be recalled. It would be of little value for example, to attempt to recall the proportion of Yes-No Questions to WH-Questions a teacher used during a lesson, or to estimate the degree to which teacher time was shared among higher and lower ability students. Many significant classroom events may not have been observed by the teacher, let alone remembered, hence the need to supplement diaries or self-reports with recordings of actual lessons.

At its simplest, a tape recorder is located in a place where it can capture the exchanges which take place during a lesson. With the microphone placed on the teachers table, much of the teachers language can be recorded as well as the exchanges of many of the students in the class. Pak (1985) recommends recording for a one or two week period and then randomly selecting a cassette for closer analysis. This recording could be used as the basis for an initial assessment. Where video facilities are available in a school, the teacher can request to have a lesson recorded, or with access to video equipment, students themselves can be assigned this responsibility. A 30 minute recording usually provides more than sufficient data for analysis. The goal is to capture as much of the interaction of the class as possible, both teacher to class and student to student. Once the initial novelty wears off, both students and teacher accept the presence of the technician with the camera, and the class proceeds with minimum disruption.

Conclusions A reflective approach to teaching involves changes in the way we usually perceive teaching and our role in the process of teaching. As the examples above illustrate, teachers who explore their own teaching through critical reflection develop changes in attitudes and awareness which they believe can benefit their professional growth as teachers, as well as improve the kind of support they provide their students. Like other forms of self-inquiry, reflective teaching is not without its risks, since journal writing, self-reporting or making recordings of lessons can be time-consuming. However teachers engaged in reflective analysis of their own teaching report that it is a valuable tool for self-evaluation and professional growth. Reflective teaching suggests that experience alone is insufficient for professional growth, but that experience coupled with reflection can be a powerful impetus for teacher development.

References Bailey, K.M. 1990. The use of diary studies in teacher education programmes. In J.C. Richards and D. Nunan (Eds), Second Language Teacher Education (pp. 215-226). New York: Cambridge University Press

Bartlett, Leo. 1990. Teacher development through reflective teaching. In J.C. Richards and D. Nunan (Eds), Second Language Teacher Education (pp. 2002-214). New York: Cambridge University Press

Bond, D.R. Keogh and D. Walker (Eds). 1985. Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning. London: Kogan Page.

Brock, Mark N., Bartholomew Yu and Matilda Wong. 1991. Journaling together; collaborative diary-keeping and teacher development. Paper presented at the International Conference on Second Language Teacher Education, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, April 1991.

Pak, J. 1985. Find Out How You Teach. Adelaide, Australia: National Curriculum Resource Centre

Powell, J.P. 1985. Autobiographical learning. In Boud, et al. (pp. 41-51).

Richards, Jack C. 1990. The teacher as self-observer. In Jack C. Richards, The Language Teaching Matrix. New York: Cambridge University Press (pp. 118-143)

Richards, Jack C. and Charles Lockhart 1991. Teacher development through peer observation. In press. TESOL Journal.

Schn, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Temple Smith


At the IATEFL Conference, Edinburgh 1988, I had the chance to talk to two trainers from afar. Ephraim Weinbraub told me of his work with

teacher memories and Jane Revell about her work on video materials for teaching English through other subjects such as Maths and Biology.

Trainer Talks

A talk with Ephraim Weintraub, Teacher Trainer at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem

After Ephraims workshop The ghosts behind the blackboard we had a chat over coffee. These are some of the things Ephraim said:

I see the teacher as rather a lonely person, stranded on the island of the classroom, cut off from colleagues by walls and corridors and from the students by desks and blackboards. The teacher is subject to pressures and demands of all sorts. To finish the syllabus, to get exam successes, to keep the classroom orderly, to help pupils gain jobs, to be both controlling and understanding. I have an image of the teacher as a tight-rope walker or a juggler.

Teachers are other-person oriented and tend to forget themselves. They are often under stress, burnt out. There is a great necessity for teachers to face themselves. If they dont, they cant face others. They have to have a dialogue with themselves before they can converse with their pupils. But there is a great reluctance in teachers to do this, to face the stress.

In my work in Jerusalem, I take 3rd year B.A. Postgraduate students on a TEFL teacher training programme, and teach English 8 hours a week in a High School. I train teachers at the Hebrew University too and Im a teacher-counsellor for teachers and students in any subject area. So I see most sides!

Sometimes I ask people how many teachers they have had in their lives. The answers range from I cant remember to 75 to one too many. I ask people to write down their memories of positive experiences and negative experiences as students and to share them in groups. Most people have strong residual memories and if you classify the memories they share, you find that the clusters of characteristics around good teachers are:-

1. The teacher as expert who dazzles the pupils with knowledge.

2. The teacher as parent, warm and accepting.

3. The teacher as a peer or fellow adult.

These characteristics reflect our underlying desires as teachers.

The characteristics clustering around the black ghosts or bad teachers memories are:-

1. The teacher as attacker, punisher, aggressor, or even

2. The teacher as sadist.

3. The teacher as incompetent or just no good!

Once teachers or students have shared their memories and discussed them, they realise that there is both a good and bad teacher in all of us, and that its okay to feel anger inside but how we channel it is a matter of moral responsibility.

What is essential is that we integrate our memories, our experiences into our initial or pre-service training so that the ghosts of teachers past are acknowledged and faced. Teaching technique is not unimportant but it is empty unless the ghosts have been dealt with. Once each individuals good and bad ghosts have been identified they can then be referred to by peers or the trainer throughout the course. Lets suppose someone has a bad ghost called Mr. Barnaby and a good one called Miss Martin. As the teacher with these ghosts goes through the course, the group can say That sounds like something your Mr. Barnaby would say/do! or How would Miss Martin have dealt with that? or That reminds me of Miss Martin! In this way, the past can be referred to in a non-threatening way, in an evolutionary way. People can move on.

A Talk with Jane Revell, Author and Teacher Trainer in the Canary Islands (at the time of interview)

I asked Jane about her recent work in teaching English through another subject, i.e. teaching, say, photography or crafts or geography in English to non-native speakers wanting to learn English.

Ive recently been involved in compiling a video made up of authentic TV sequences. Its for 11-14 year olds learning English. Its not a normal scripted EFL video, although I did work to a structural syllabus. Rather Ive found educational programmes on Science, Geography and other subjects. These programmes were made for native English speakers. They are good quality TV, with good content in English. Ive then screened it for linguistic constraints. So, for example, Ive found some footage for the Present Simple in sequences such as Why do elephants have trunks? and How do you cool a cuppa in the quickest way? Once Id sorted though the TV programmes to find good films with interesting content within the linguistic constraints I had, I took it to some native speaker teachers to see how they felt they could use it.

The teachers came up with two main questions:-

1. How can I use the video when the pupils dont know the subject content, let alone the English?

2. How can I use the video when I dont know the subject content myself?

I would answer the first question by saying that pupils often know more than teachers about elephants or tea or whatever so they can be the knowers for a change. Secondly, its quite okay for people not to know the content. If you watch the video, then youll know. Its a good reason for both teachers and students to watch the video! You can learn things!

Its interesting that native English speakers reacted this way. Perhaps it is the case that native-speaking language teachers go into E.F.L. because its content-secure. They have a natural competence in the language that gives them security. If asked to branch out into new content areas like Maths or Geography or Science, they may feel insecure in the subject. On the other hand maybe some native-speaking teachers will feel the need for more content, for something more to get their teeth into since the language itself need not present them with challenge. These teachers may welcome English through content subjects warmly.

Either way, I see some possible solutions for teachers who are native speakers:-

Teachers can do research themselves into the new content.

Teachers can be trained in the new content. Teachers and students can join together in joint discovery via the material

But for non-native teachers, already struggling with the language they are trying to teach, and often working with large classes of unmotivated students, we cant really ask more of them. Perhaps the solution here is to have inter-disciplinary, cross-curriculum contact. One foreign language teacher could team-teach with one content teacher and they can teach the language and the subject together. Alternatively, the foreign language teacher could teach some of the content subject but then have a chance to ask questions to the subject teacher later. Of course this is not a new idea in itself. Primary School teachers (such as the ones shown in the Old British Council Teaching Observed videos) have been doing this for years. It does raise some very interesting issues however, such as, can the publishers provide suitable material for this sort of venture, for example? We cant train EFL teachers to know 20 different other subjects so our choices are to

a) help them accept their own insecurity in the other subject areas b) help them to team-teach with subject teachers c) run cross-curricular teacher training courses. Ideas would be given out and then everyone

would work out the ramifications of the ideas for their subject area. Discussion would follow on both the content and language details implied.

d) run teacher training courses where the higher order cognitive skills that cut across language and subject skills, are taught.

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Here is another article from our very popular series:

People who Train People All the facts in the article were true at the time of writing but of course may have changed slightly over the last ten years.

Penny Aeberhard runs a medical general practice with two other doctors in Stoke Poges, England. She has been a doctor for 30 years

and regularly trains apprentices.

Training for general practice

by Penny Aeberhard

General Background Medical school training in the U.K. is changing slowly. Over the last two decades departments of General Practice have been set up in Universities and there are now even a couple of professors of General Practice. There is a greater interest in psychology and behavioural sciences. But it is still quite possible for a newly qualified doctor to have only had two weeks experience in practice out of five years of undergraduate study. Most of those five years, focus on medicine as a science: strings of cause and effect, symptoms and signs, laboratory tests and prescriptive medication the basis of hospital medicine. However, back in 1966, when the Charter of General Practice was produced, it was recognised that a good General Practitioner (GP) needed more than that. At that time General Practice was in the doldrums. Professional respect and job satisfaction was very low. Emigration of doctors peaked at this time too. But the Charter was a turning point and succeeded not just in encouraging good practice but also in winning professional respect over a time so that now the majority of newly qualified doctors aim to enter General Practice. Back in the 1960s too, Balint, a psychoanalyst at the Tavistock Clinic and his group of GPs were starting to analyse the doctor-patient relationship. This analysis continues to this day.

From the time of the Charter, the existing training scheme for GPs was expanded until in 1981 it became compulsory, by law, that all new GP principals*(1) had to have undergone, after initial qualification and one year preno -Lregistration work, three years of approved further experience. This is two years in hospital in four approved specialities such as paediatrics, psychiatry, gynaecology or geriatrics, plus one year in one or two approved practices. The scheme is overseen by a board of certification. At present, at any one time, there are around 2,000 trainee GPs in their General Practice year. They are organized into districts and regions to facilitate the group meetings and discussions that occur half to one day a week. For the rest of the time they work as an apprentice under their approved trainer.

The Selection of Trainers Trainers do not as yet have a nationally agreed approval board. In all areas, however, the applicant, an experienced general practitioner, has to provide evidence of some ability to teach, and to have a high standard of patient care and good consultation skills, bedside manner, if you like. In the Oxford region this selection is rigorous and three visiting doctors will spend a whole day interviewing nurses and receptionists who work in the practice; scrutinizing the patient notes that have to reflect a high standard of care and organisation; and, furthermore, assessing the trainers suitability of attitudes and skills. The latter is done by discussion and analysis of a videoed consultation. Trainers are now well respected members of the profession. They no longer use trainees as just an extra pair of hands in a busy practice but give thorough teaching.

What is a Good GP? To select trainers, academic boards have had to start to define what they think good General Practice is. Quality in practice is a big debating point now and there are attempts to define too, exactly what a

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trainer is trying to give to a trainee. The training year is not cheap, as a trainee doctor is paid the salary of her/his last post by the training practice and yet the training practice is only paid 2,400 p.a. Of course patients in the lucky practice get a good deal, but the practice and the profession must justify the expenditure.

What are these criteria at the present time, then, and how are they being taught? Criteria for a good GP and curriculum for a trainee are one and the same.

Some years ago, vast curriculum checklists were produced of clinical illnesses, emergencies and procedures. Trainer and trainee would try and collect cases to discuss at their two-hour tutorial. But it was clear that GPs were just emulating hospital doctors and trying to compete and be specialists in everything. It is not ever possible to see more than a sample of conditions in a year. The idea was bound to fail. But what is important for a generalist is to learn that the management of a chronic illness can be similar whether it is diabetes or arthritis. To be able to recognize that there are medical and social aspects to these diseases is what counts as well as the long term responsibility to these patients. In practice one sees illness in early, unformed stages. In hospital the disease process has crystallized into a more definitive diagnosis. GPs have to learn at times when to be patient and wait, for so much illness gets better spontaneously, and to tolerate their own anxiety because over diagnosis and treatment are not appreciated by patients. There are times, of course, when action has to be prompt and accurate to be safe. A trainee has to gain this discrimination by experience. A fruitful source of learning here is the discussion, often after a long day, of the trainers surgery*(2). Alternatively the trainee can sit in on the trainers surgery or vice-versa or the two of them can share a surgery. This sharing of patient care means a greater spectrum of illnesses can be covered.

Can you teach Communication skills? Acknowledging, then, that lists of diseases are not necessarily the best curriculum, what should be covered? Back to the idea of what is good General Practice. Communication has to be an important skill, until recently undervalued by the profession but instantly recognized by patients. How is it to be taught? Is it possible to teach a good bedside manner or is it simply intuitive? Analysis of consultation by different techniques, e.g., Balint-type discussion; listening to tape recordings; interviewing patients before and after seeing the doctor have all been used so that we now understand the processes better than ever. Psychologists have helped us analyse non-verbal and bodily communication too. One of the tools used in General Practice is now the frequent use of a video camera in consultations (with the patients permission). Trainer and trainee can then look at different aspects of communication and different styles. One ten minute consultation can be viewed and then ensuing discussion can take an hour. An example here is observation of behaviour used by a GP to attempt to end a consultation, e.g., dropping of eye contact, pulling back from desk, writing out prescriptions, shuffling papers, standing up or helping the patient on with their coat. Trainees can be made aware of abrupt or rude behaviour. Though intuitive for some, good consultations can be taught and even the good can be bettered.

Another aspect in the curriculum for good practice is liaison with, and respect for, other professionals (such as district nurses and health visitors) working in the Primary Health Care Team.

The opportunity to accompany others in their jobs, and, hopefully, seeing a good team meeting and working together is the best education, and will lead to effective communication within a group.

Management Skills General practitioners are independent contractors to the Health Service and therefore the business administration side must also be covered in training. Patients appreciate efficient and kind receptionists, a good appointment system and pleasant, warm reception areas. The jungle of claim forms and regulations must mean that by the end of the year the trainee doctor should at least be equipped with a machete and map!

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Some of this can best be taught by a traditional lecturing format in the Day Release scheme with others, but for the information to be meaningful, the trainee should be present at the partners business meetings, meet the accountant and understand for example how sick pay is calculated when a receptionist is ill.

One to One Training Methods We are aware of how in a one-to-one situation we should be able to offer a training flexible enough to take into consideration the trainees own perceived needs as well as the professions thoughts on what is good. Formal assessments are needed therefore to plan the individual curriculum, as well as to assess progress and avoid collusion between trainer and trainee to miss out a boring or weak area. Assessments in General Practice training have developed, not just through the professionals skills, but have also been gleaned from psychologists working in businesses and hospitals, and from the wider teaching profession.

Teaching assessments often go hand in hand, for instance, with video analysis. To make the best out of video viewing and discussion there are now many tools available. One example is the map, a form filled in while watching the video. If the video is of a GP/patient consultation for example the viewer can jot down notes under headings such as Patients concerns. Patients expectations. Involvement of patient in manage

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