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whynotme · Joined: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 728 Location: istanbul

Teacher Training andTeacher Development: A Useful Dichotomy?

Penny Ur

.....................The empowerment of the teacher, in the sense of endowing him or her with the status of autonomous professional as defined here, sounds great; but it does not always happen. While preparing this paper I came across several instances of situations where "teacher development" was understood as a training methodology based on "involving" teachers in interactive discussion, but where the ultimate objective was to get them to accept innovations that had been determined elsewhere: by the Ministry of Education, or by some authoritative group of experts who were not themselves teachers. And the success of such "teacher development" was evaluated by the extent to which the managers of the project succeeded in convincing teachers to take on board these innovations (for example, Hayes, 1995; Bax, 1995a). In such cases, teachers appear to be given some measure of freedom to express their opinions and initiate discussion -- but the aim of the organizers of the project is to use this discussion in order to persuade the teachers to adopt certain pre-determined ideas for change, rather than to explore and develop their own.

I do not mean to imply that such projects are "bad." On the contrary, they tell the story of some interesting work on the introduction of difficult but clearly valuable change in teacher attitudes or methodology; and, the work invested in initiating, carrying .......................

http://jalt-publications.org/tlt/files/97/oct/ur.html

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

nice link, whynotme. Thanks.

side note. i once asked mike Wallace(he was my tutor before he was put out to pasture) if DELTA was teacher training or development. He was unsure of the answer.

justme · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 1944 Location: Istanbul

Sometimes I feel like it was all just a long language class to learn the TEFL jargon...

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

justme, its what teachers do aswell. I've seen it. i.e. No it's not a gerund, it's a present participle. The age old argument learning a language to learn a learnuage. teacher trainers do it aswell and try to baffle the 'students' with jargon. It is hard to get away from as a trainer and teacher. When,as a teacher, you read Swan et al it is full of jargon. When, as a trainer, you read Wallace et al it is full of Jargon. Can you think of a time when you went through a lesson with out mentioning a single piece of jargon? I can't. In a way I should be thankful to the Turkish education system. Students might know what a verb, adjective, etc is they just can't use the language.
OK, rant over. disagree away

justme · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 1944 Location: Istanbul

I don't disagree at all. Sometimes I find the jargon frustrating because after you've learned it, it's hard to stop using it and its systems of categorization. Not all of the jargon is useful for students and I often find myself stumbling blindly trying to remember a way to explain something without the jargon. For example, when one of them finally asks what 'be' means, and all I can think of is 'it's a copula.'

Actually, in the other post, I wasn't thinking of classroom jargon-- I was thinking of the 'in-group' jargon which we use to mark ourselves as TEFLers...

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

justme · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 1944 Location: Istanbul

I liked reading cultural linguistics studies about jargon and in-groups which (somewhat self-effacingly) were written almost entirely in jargon...

When I first got here, I had a really hard time training myself to say 'present continuous' instead of 'present progressive.' Now I'm using an American book and the confusion begins again....

justme · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 1944 Location: Istanbul

Oh, and it's not quite jargon, but I saw on BBC this morning that 'spendy' has been added to the OED...

Thought Molly'd like that....

31 · Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 1797

What about boybutter?

31 · Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 1797

However, when I go home and go out with a few friends. I get lost in the conversation. They are systems analysts. Every profession has jargon and when people from the same profession get together they are bound to talk about work. It's human nature. A need for common ground?[/quote]

Systems analysts and a TEFL teacher, you must have felt embarassed. A bit like a hells angel at the ballet.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

Not really. I was the only one not in debt.

31 · Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 1797

But they had things to show for it like houses, cars and career prospects.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

The average debt in the uk is about 20,000 pounds and that doesn't incude a mortgage. I am happy having no debt. You have mentioned before about being unable to return to the UK because you couldn't afford it. well, you wouldnt be alone. TEFLers are not the only people who cant afford to live there. Do what the average Brit does and rack up a load of debt then you return. Sound appealing?

31 · Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 1797

Not possible. To rack up debts you need some kind of credit rating and a real job.

TEFLers don't count in any kind of statistics.

Niste · Joined: 28 Jul 2005 Posts: 73

Not true. The banks here will lend to anyone -they did to us before we got cold feet and sent our 15 grand back unspent -it was going to go towards an Istanbul boxette. And that loan was to me on agency pay and wife on probationary period. They will lend.