Job Discussion Forums

[shmooj]

as the original thread I posted this under disappeared, perhaps I didn't make my intentions clear. I consider this entirely relevant to teaching:

Often on this forum, references have been given to back up certain points of view that teachers have about teaching and learning. Recently, in another thread, the fact that this was done was questioned, the reason being that this forum is not an academic one per se.

However, I'd argue that, as teachers, we should have a good grasp of current research in our field and experience of the practical application of that. It has often argued that TEFL needs "professionalising" and that there needs to be a tightening up in the area as a whole so that teaching is improved, teachers shed their reputation for not being "real" and so that TEFL practitioners can be considered to be as skilled and valuable in their communities as other forms of teaching.

What part do you think having a good knowledge of research plays in being a successful language teacher? Do you think it is important to be 'well read' or do you think that simply having a lot of experience is more/as valuable?

I'd be interested in thoughts you might have of this.

For my part, my experience tells me that research can inform me and in particular can show me, at least in theory, what might/not work in my situation and, importantly, why. I have often used theory as a starting point for developing activities and techniques as well as to ground myself in an approach that I display when I teach. Although that was the starting point, it was the practical experience that molded and shaped this enabling me to retain or discard theory that, from my experience, was either flawed or didn't fit my bill.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

I think this is one of the more common discussions in the world of EFL/ESL.

I think that it always basically comes down to two camps- those who have already studied theory about the subject (basically they care about education and learning because they themselves like learning), and those who haven't (because basically they are interested in aspects of the EFL life outside of the "teaching part").

If you have already studied theory about it then you try to make use of the information you studied (because otherwise, what was the point?). Mentioning it at all to anybody who hasn't studied any theory makes them defensive as if being put down for their lack of theoretical base. You compare yourself to elementary and high school teachers, saying things like "Grade one teachers can already add 1+1, and they spend a year at university getting teacher training. I can already speak English and I spent a year getting trained to teach that." Except that there are so many people who say you aren't a 'real teacher' if you aren't teaching in the k-12 system).

If you haven't studied theory, you can't use it. And so you try to find ways of explaining why theory is useless ('with all the theory in the world, the job still basically entails saying "the boy runs fast" really, really slowly' or 'My 40hour TESOL certificate instructor told me that she has an MA and in the 40 hours passes on everything that she learned'). Or that learning about it is all about putting down the people who haven't made that effort ('theory is all about the ability to name drop to make yourself look better', or maybe 'because theories change, eventualy some academic will publish a paper detailing exactly what the untrained person does already', or that 'knowledge of IPA is just a code to make those who don't know it feel bad', or that 'knowledge of the physical mechanics of producing intelligible phonemes in a given language is just an attempt to make it all seem like a real subject by throwing in some science'). Or else you explain why it is a waste of money ('spending thousands to waste a full year of your life in some musty university just reading in order to get nothing more than what someone with no training gets'). And then there are the people who don't have degrees, who say they don't need a degree for the same reasons.

[Sheep-Goats]

The people who say people with academic backings have wasted their time are jerks. The people who say that their academic backings somehow make them a better teacher are also jerks. The lesson is: don't be a jerk.

Most of what you need to teach TEFL adequatly is picked up in your first year on the job, so long as you read some books (or participate in some way in a kind of teacher development) -- be they theoretical or practical -- in addition to teaching. The acadmic backing will help you mostly with non-classroom items, like textbook seletion, materials production for non-specific classes, theorhetical writing. All of this is useful. And unnesscary.

Nothing nice to say? Ok. Be quite then.

[Glenski]

Teaching TEFL...

Are we talking about mainstream K-12 schools, international schools, universities, business English, conversation schools, ad infinitum?

[denise]

[merlin]

The big question about academics and knowledge of theories is:
Are the administrators, owners and decision makers up on things as well?
If not, are they willing to "trust us".

Right now I'm in a position where all the education in the world won't help me and in fact can get us into trouble if push comes to shove.

I see it al the time: teacher gets "educated" and realizes how screwed up things really are, makes a few waves and either turns into the director's new pet and changes everything to fit some new theory/method or else becomes a complainer sewing dissent behind the scenes.

[spiral78]

Glenski's got a point. A teacher's awareness of current theory and ongoing research in the field may be more or less important depending on his/her teaching context (at least, I think this is where Glenski's going).

In my university position, it's simply required to have academic credentials and experience. You can't teach academic English without a grounding in academia.
However, I suppose that most private language school teachers don't necessarily need much in-depth knowledge about SLA theory. Some basic training, empathy, and simple talent for the job usually serves them pretty well, IMO.
I don't think there is any big debate regarding MA versus simple basic training. Are there really that many highly paper- qualified teachers in private language schools, 'sewing' (sowing)dissention or becoming the director's pet? Because I guess most of us who've invested in the education are teaching in other kinds of schools.......

[moonraven]

This forum is a very mixed bag--folks from all kinds of schools visit this site and/or post here. They are not all research-oriented--and what one person calls research may not fit another's definition.

I will be honest: I tend to read and re-read folks whose pedagogical orientation and whose politics of education are similar to my own. Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich are two examples. Freire had to go into exile from Brazil after the military coup in 1964--and he spent a lot of time teaching in spots as disparate as rural Chile and Harvard University, and worked worldwide as a consultant for the World Council of Churches. Illich created a center in Cuernavaca that drew folks from all over the planet.

I was fortunate to spend some time with a Brazilian education minister 2 years ago when we were attending an event in Caracas--all these years later they are finally implementing Freire's pedagogy in Brazilian schools.

I believe Carl Jung said something to the effect of "Learn everything you can about symbols, then forget it all when you interpret a dream". What he meant was that one needs to focus on the dreamer--and it's pretty much the same in teaching, where our focus should be on the student as person.

[Deconstructor]

Good research is replicated research and even then, it's a matter of time before it is falsified. In addition, one can't just believe the conclusion of a given research without taking a look at how it was designed: was it reliable and valid?

This means that one has to spend countless hours looking at research, which in turn means you will never have enough time to actually teach. Unless you are a university researcher, it's not feasible to expect ESL teachers to systematically refer to research in order to make their classes "better".

Teaching techniques are also political: to believe in certain way of doing things implies a whole underlying ideology. Should we use L1 in the classroom? Should we teach grammar at all? Etc...

[Roger]

I find that recent graduates tend to be familiar with recent linguistics theories and teaching approaches, while older teachers may have studied theories that were de rigueur in their day at university; often there is no continuum from those old days to to-day. It isn't anlways necessary to revolutionise things; it would be helpful if people simply kept up reading on what has been researched and what new findings have been arrived at, while newbies should spend some time looking at how Chomsky's and Krashen's predecessors formulated their theories.

Often newer linguists are given too much credit while older ones are debunked prematurely. In staff rooms there might be two cammps hostile to each other when in fact they could reconcile their opposing views. I have left out TEFLers who don't care about linguistic theories at all - to me, these clearly don't belong here.

[Stephen Jones]

Dear Roger,
Chomsky wrote about first language acquisition and developed his theores from the late 50's through to the early eighties. He clearly stated that he did not see why his theories should have any effect on second language learning.

Krashen wrote about second language teaching/acquisition in the mid to late eighties, and has never been taken seriously in academia, precisely because of his attempts to contsruct a dubious pseudo-Chomskian theoretical framework.

I don't know who you mean by Chomsky's predecessors. The most influential was the Skinner, the guru of behavourism. His crowning work "Verbal Behaviour" ruled the roost for all of about two weeks in 1957, its arguments being completely destroyed by Chomsky's review.

I rather suspect you are not really talking about Chomsky or his predecessors, but rather about the pseudo-Latinate grammar that those of us over fifty were taught in secondary school, (and which is still espoused by Americans now). An excellent example of this approach is the "Chicago Manual of Style", which includes a hundred page secion on English Grammar that could just as well have been written in 1904.

[moonraven]

Stephen,

What point are you wishing to make in regard to the topic?

[Deconstructor]

While discussing theory and research is well and good, it is almost irrelevant to the lowly teacher, especially overseas. Why? Because wherever you work the DOS is either going to give a lame book like Headway, Spectrum, etc. and hurl you into the classroom or first tell you in the most long winded fashion his/her own methodology then hurl you into classroom.

When was the last time you worked at a place where you were given a free hand and encouraged to use the latest methodologies validated by scientific research?

[moonraven]

Or even considered defending your right to academic freedom?

[Roger]

Stephen Jones,
thanks for the mise au point. Appreciated it very much. You have some pronounced opinions on those two guys that I can sympathise with although I am not as judgemental as that. I think their contributions merit discussing them and perhaps even testing their suggestions; the problem is that younger TEFLers don't test them but take them too seriously, turning them into gurus, which they most definitely are not. I had a rather visceral dislike for Krashen initially, but over time my mind mellowed somewhat. I think if we take his theories with a pinch of salt we can use them to our students' benefit. Trouble is that Chomsky and Krashen have made a far bigger, in my opinion: undeserved impact on the TEFL scene in countries where English is a foreign tongue, i.e. South and Central America (I suppose) and in the Far East.
It is annoyhing to me to hear from Chinese principals and teachers that their students need FTs who are steeped in the Total Immersion ideology. That's what those theories have become by now - total ideologies. They have been adopted lock, stock and barrel, and nobody has given a fraction of a thought to the fact that China, for example, is absolutely no place for the practice of Total Immersion. If you point the flaws of this approach out to your local colleagues you get clobbered with their half-baked suggestions that you haven't read enough, yes, you guessed it: Krashen and/or Chomsky.

The precedessors of Krashen and Chomsky are indeed Skinner et al., but I can also think of linguists that weren't into L 2 acquisition only. I think acquisition theories have become a serious subject of research and theory in the last 50 to 60 years; before that linguists were studying languages to define how they worked and how they compared with each other. A famous linguist's name that comes to mind is Ferdinand de Saussure. In France, Saussurians are still busy making their empriical studies; I would mention Claude Hagege who has studied - as he once claimed on French TV Antenne 2, "140 languages".
In England I would mention those who in the 1800s discovered the relationship between Indian dialects and Sanskrit on one hand, and European languages on the other. I think they continued a noble tradition of investigations undertaken a century earlier by the German Grimm brothers, to whom we owe the highly relevant insights on phonetic shifts.