International Perspectives on English Language

Teacher Education
International Perspectives on English Language Teaching
Series edited by Sue Garton and Keith Richards

Titles include:
Ema Ushioda (editor)
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON MOTIVATION

Sue Garton and Kathleen Graves (editors)

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON MATERIALS IN ELT

Sarah Rich (editor)

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

Simon Borg and Hugo Santiago Sanchez (editors)

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHER RESEARCH

Chris Jenks and Paul Seedhouse (editors)

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON ELT CLASSROOM INTERACTION

Thomas S.C. Farrell (editor)

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION
Innovations from the Field

International Perspectives on English Language Teaching

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International Perspectives on
English Language Teacher
Education
Innovations from the Field

Edited by
Thomas S.C. Farrell
Brock University, Canada
Selection and editorial matter © Thomas S.C. Farrell 2015
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Contents

List of Figures and Tables vii

Series Editors’ Preface viii

Notes on Contributors x

1 Second Language Teacher Education: A Reality Check 1

Thomas S.C. Farrell

2 Constructivist Language Teacher Education: An Example from Turkey 16

Simon Phipps

3 Encouraging Critical Reflection in a Teacher Education Course:

A Canadian Case Study 36
Thomas S.C. Farrell

4 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone:

Addressing the Content in Content Based Instruction 51
Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

5 Dissonance and Balance: The Four Strands Framework and

Pre-Service Teacher Education 74
John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

6 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education: An Example

from Southeast Asia 90
Jack C. Richards

7 Translanguaging Principles in L2 Reading Instruction: Implications

for ESL Pre-Service Teacher Programme 107
Leketi Makalela

8 Creative Enactments of Language Teacher Education Policy:

A Singapore Case Study 125
Lubna Alsagoff

9 Changing Practice and Enabling Development: The Impact of

Technology on Teaching and Language Teacher Education in
UAE Federal Institutions 142
Helen Donaghue

v
vi Contents

10 Using Screen Capture Software to Improve the Value of Feedback

on Academic Assignments in Teacher Education 160
Steve Mann

11 Developing Novice EFL Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge

through Lesson Study Activities 181
Hao Xu

12 Reflective Practice as Innovation in SLTE 193

Thomas S.C. Farrell

Index 201
List of Figures and Tables

Figures

1.1 Novice-service teacher education 5

2.1 Language teacher beliefs, input, intake and uptake 21
2.2 Types of academic writing criteria used 26
10.1 A SCS video giving feedback on a TL’s transcription 165

Tables

2.1 Models of teacher education 20

2.2 MA courses and links to Delta 23
2.3 Assessments for MA/Delta: time-line and links 25
5.1 Programme structure 77
5.2 A graduate scenario 83
5.3 Dissonance between current and future experience 84
6.1 Macro- and micro-levels of course organization 100
7.1 Spelling 115
7.2 Lexical decisions 115
10.1 Corpora and length 167
10.2 Illustrative outcome and recommendations 173
10.3 Suggestions for tools 175
11.1 Summary of lesson study activities in a cycle 185
12.1 Summary of innovations 195

vii
Series Editors’ Preface

Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) was traditionally seen as a set of

skills and content knowledge to be acquired during a programme and put into
practice in classroom once the course was over. It would seem that those days
are long gone, at least if we read the more recent literature on SLTE. In his 2010
review, Wright dates the reconceptualization of SLTE to Freeman and Johnson’s
(1998) seminal paper leading to the shift from behaviourist to constructivist
models of teacher education and right up to even more recent socio-cultural
views (Johnson, 2009). Certain key concepts, which until relatively recently
might have been considered innovative, if not downright revolutionary, are
considered to be pretty much mainstream: reflective practice (Schon 1983;
Farrell 2007), teacher thinking (Freeman 2002; Borg 2006) and practitioner
research (Burns, 2010) in particular. And yet the effectiveness of teacher educa-
tion programmes in preparing teachers for the realities of the classroom con-
tinues to be questioned and, as Wright (2010: 277) notes, “relatively little has
been published which examines what actually happens in formal institution-
based training sessions.” Indeed, there must be doubts as to just how wide-
spread the new received wisdom in teacher education actually is.
The starting point for this latest addition to the International perspectives in
ELT series is precisely that SLTE is still failing to prepare novice teachers for
what happens once they leave their programmes and embark on their new
careers. That this book is different from previous books about language teacher
education immediately becomes clear right from Farrell’s own introduction
with his personal take on what “state-of-the-art” in SLTE actually means today.
As Farrell points out, novice language teacher education in particular is in
need of a serious rethink and his introductory and concluding chapters argue
cogently for the need for a new approach, presenting a clear vision of what that
new approach might look like. In between, each of the chapters in this book
presents an example of how teacher educators in a variety of contexts have
rethought their work. Thus the book presents a series of concrete examples of
how teacher educators responded to the particular challenges they face on their
programmes and how they have addressed those challenges in innovative and
creative ways.
Each chapter is a case study of a SLTE programme, consisting of descriptive
and interpretive analysis of an innovation in language teacher education that
arose in response to some contextual change or emerging need. One of Wright’s
(2010: 280) reservations about the research he reviewed was that “we gener-
ally learn little about the circumstances in which they [educator-researchers]
viii
 Series Editors’ Preface ix

innovate and experiment, or the institutional and contextual difficulties they

may have faced.” That is certainly not the case with the chapters in this collec-
tion as each one is contextualized both theoretically and physically in its local
context and each one has as its starting point as a particular institutional or
contextual puzzle to be solved.
Farrell follows Mann and Edge’s (2013) definition of innovation as the con-
crete steps taken to put ideas into action, and the innovations covered in the
chapters in this book give a good overview of the range of possibilities available
to teacher educators today. Thus we have innovation in the design of whole
courses with Phipps’s (Chapter 2) integration of MA and Delta programmes
as well as his introduction or adoption of specific course strands. DelliCarpini
and Alonso (Chapter 4) describe how they prepared teachers for content-
based instruction, while Alsagoff (Chapter 8) had to respond innovatively
to government demands for changes in language competency and Richards
(Chapter 6) introduced principles of materials design and preparation, often
neglected in initial SLTE. Other chapters are concerned with the development
of particular skills and strategies for novice teachers. These include Makalela’s
(Chapter 7) exploration of the principles of translanguaging in reading instruc-
tion, Xu’s (Chapter 11) use of lesson study to develop pedagogical knowledge
and Donaghue’s (Chapter 9) focus on the use of technology in the classroom.
Still other chapters focus on changing the way teachers think. Macalister and
Musgrove (Chapter 5) challenge teacher beliefs on their programme, while
Farrell (Chapter 3) uses reflection on course content to change the ways teach-
ers think about their work. Finally, Mann (Chapter 10) shows how technology
can be used to give more effective feedback.
While the chapters in this collection tend towards the more descriptive end
of the descriptive-interpretative spectrum, they are no less persuasive for that
and each one is a clear demonstration of the power of the case study to reso-
nate across contexts. Each chapter therefore challenges the received wisdom of
language teacher education in a thought-provoking book that should set a new
direction for second language teacher education.
Notes on Contributors

Orlando B. Alonso is Mathematics Education Professor and Co-coordinator of

the Mathematics Education Program at Lehman College, CUNY. His research
interests include combinatorial geometry, mathematics education and teacher
collaboration between Mathematics and TESOL Educators.

Lubna Alsagoff serves as Associate Dean at the Office of Education Research

where her responsibilities include a focus on the development of knowledge
management in the service of enhancing the reach and impact of NIE research
on Singapore schools as well as the research community. Prior to this appoint-
ment, A/P Alsagoff was Head of English Language and Literature from 2004
to 2008. Her most recent scholarly monographs on the dynamicity of English
as an international language include: Principles and Practices for Teaching English as
an International Language (with S. McKay, G. Hu and W. Renandya) and The Global-
Local Interface and Hybridity: Exploring language and identity (with R. Rubdy). She
has also published widely on Singapore English in international journals and
book chapters. She is also author of A Visual Grammar of English – an introductory
text used widely by Singapore teachers.

Margo DelliCarpini is Dean of the College of Education at Morehead State

University (MSU) in Kentucky and Professor of TESOL Teacher Education. Prior
to her appointment at MSU she was Full Professor of TESOL and Chairperson
of the Department of Middle and High School Education at Lehman College,
CUNY. She has been the Editor of the TESOL Journal since 2009. Margo
has taught ESL at the P-12, Adult, and University levels before transitioning
completely into teacher education. Her research interests include teacher col-
laboration, TESOL teacher development, developing academic language for
ELLS in STEM subjects, virtual field experiences and faculty development.

Helen Donaghue is Senior Lecturer in English Language Teaching at Sheffield

Hallam University, UK. She has worked in TESOL and teacher education in
Hungary, the United Arab Emirates and the UK. She teaches EAP and teacher
education courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her teaching
interests include EAP, teaching L2 reading, language testing, discourse analysis,
language teacher development and the use of educational technology in lan-
guage learning. Her research interests focus mainly on language teacher educa-
tion and institutional interaction in educational settings. She is researching
the co-construction and negotiation of identity and face in post observation
feedback meetings.

x
 Notes on Contributors xi

Thomas S.C. Farrell is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Brock University,

Canada. His professional interests include Reflective Practice, and Language
Teacher Education and Development. He has published widely in academic
journals and has presented at major conferences worldwide on the topic
of Reflective Practice. His most recent books include: Reflective Writing for
Language Teachers (2013), Reflective Practice (2013) and Reflective Practice in ESL
Teacher Development Groups: From Practices to Principles. His webpage is www.
reflectiveinquiry.ca.

John Macalister is Head of the School of Linguistics and Applied Language

Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has extensive
teacher education experience, including in Namibia, Kiribati, Vanuatu,
Thailand, Cambodia and NZ. He also teaches and researches in the field of
language curriculum design and is the co-author of two books in that field, both
with Paul Nation – Language Curriculum Design and Case Studies in Language.

Leketi Makalela is Head of the Division of Languages, Literacies & Literatures

and Chair of the Wits School of Education’s Research Committee, at the
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. His research interests are in
multilingualism, ESL, translanguaging and biliteracy. He is Editor-in-chief of
the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (SALALS).

Steve Mann is Associate Professor at the Centre for Applied Linguistics at

University of Warwick since September 2007. He was a lecturer at both Aston
University and University of Birmingham. He has experience in both English
language teaching and teacher development in Hong Kong, Japan and Europe.
His most recent book Innovations in Pre-service Teacher Education (2013) is part of
the British Council’s new Innovation Series. Steve supervises a research group
of PhD students who are investigating teachers’ education and development.
The group’s work considers aspects of teacher development, reflective practice
and teacher beliefs.

Jill Musgrave is Senior ELI Teacher at Victoria University of Wellington, New

Zealand. She teaches English for Academic Purposes on the English Proficiency
Programme. She also teaches on the Graduate Certificate in TESOL.

Simon Phipps is a freelance teacher training and educational consultant. He

worked as Deputy Director of Bilkent University School of English Language
in Ankara for 20 years, where he was responsible for in-service teacher train-
ing and development. He designed and directed an in-house MA programme
(Management in Education in ELT), and taught MA courses on linguistics, lexis
and educational management. He has worked in ELT in the UK, Germany and
Turkey since 1985, and has been involved in teacher education since 1989. He
has worked on Cambridge ESOL courses since 1993, and has been an External
xii Notes on Contributors

Assessor for the DELTA course since 1997. He holds a PhD in Education, from
the University of Leeds, UK, with a focus on teacher beliefs. His current profes-
sional interests include teacher cognition, teacher learning, teacher education
research and educational management.

Jack C. Richards has had an active career in the Asia Pacific region (Singapore,
Hong Kong, Indonesia and Hawaii) for many years and is based for much of
the year in Sydney, Australia. He teaches part of each year at the Regional
Language Centre in Singapore and is Honorary Professor in the faculty of edu-
cation at the University of Sydney and the University of Auckland. His most
recent books are Key Issues in Language Teaching (2015), Approaches and Methods
in Language Teaching (3rd edition, with Ted Rodgers, 2014) and Language
Learning beyond the Classroom (edited with David Nunan, 2014). He has also
written many popular classroom texts such as the Interchange series and the
series Four Corners.

Hao Xu is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the National Research

Centre for Foreign Language Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University. His
research interests include language teacher education, second language acquisi-
tion and psycholinguistics.

References
Borg, S. (2006). Teacher cognition and language education: Research and practice. London:
Continuum.
Burns, A. (2010). Doing action research in English language teaching: A guide for practitioners.
London: Routledge.
Farrell, T.S.C. (2007). Reflective language teaching: From research to practice. London:
Continuum.
Freeman, D. (2002) The hidden side of the work: Teacher knowledge and learning to
teach. Language teaching, 35, 1, 1–13.
Freeman, D. & Johnson, K.E. (1998). Reconceptualizing the knowledge-base of language
teacher education. Tesol Quarterly, 32, 3, 397–417.
Johnson, K.E. (2009). Second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective.
New York: Routledge.
Mann, S. & Edge, J. (2013). Innovations in Pre-service Education and Training for English
Language Teachers. London: The British Council.
Schön, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action
(Vol. 5126). Basic books.
Wright, T. (2010). Second language teacher education: Review of recent research on
practice. Language Teaching 43, 3, 259–296.
1
Second Language Teacher Education:
A Reality Check
Thomas S.C. Farrell

Introduction

This introductory chapter is a state-of-the-art (SOA – of sorts) on second

language teacher education (SLTE). However, it is not the usual type of SOA
review (for a recent excellent review see Wright, 2010) one would normally
read because I maintain that second language teacher education is in a state
(i.e., a negative state) and so this chapter is more of a reality check for second
language educators that we need to be doing something different. Part of the
reason for the state we may be in is that we may have lost sight of whose
needs teacher educators are addressing when preparing second language teach-
ers: their own or their teacher learners’ needs? This is not an easy question to
answer because there are many stakeholders involved within second language
teacher education and each can have a different agenda than the other, but as
you will see in this chapter I agree with Faez and Vaelo (2012) when they sug-
gest that teacher preparation programmes should reconsider how programme
content needs could be aligned more closely with the needs of novice teachers.
As such, I also talk about what some teacher educators are attempting in
order to prepare their teacher learners for the reality of what they will face
in the classroom in their first year(s). Thus I also discuss the art in terms of
self-initiated innovations that various teacher educators in different contexts
have attempted to implement in order to compensate for the state we seem to
be in. In addition, when I talk about “innovation” here and throughout the
book I mean the process that has taken place in terms of the actions and steps
various educators have taken to implement a particular innovation (Mann &
Edge, 2013). As Mann and Edge (2013: 2) point out: “it is the realisation of an
idea in action that constitutes genuine innovation.” I shall return to the idea
of innovations and teacher learning in the final chapter.

1
2 Thomas S.C. Farrell

The reality

First my reality: I was not adequately prepared to deal with the realities of
teaching in a real context (Farrell, 2012). I clearly remember my first month as
a newly qualified English language teacher in a university-affiliated language
institute. In the third week of the semester the Director of Studies told me
that she would be coming to observe my class. I prepared as usual and com-
menced my lesson following my plan. The lesson seemed to be going well
but after about twenty minutes the Director suddenly stood up and, in a “You
call yourself a teacher?” moment (Fanselow, 1987: 1), suggested that I was not
doing the lesson correctly (I was doing a communicative activity in groups).
She proceeded to take over the class for the remaining 25 minutes, drilling the
students via teacher-led grammar activities. After class, she said to me, “That is
how to do it!” and then she said not to worry as I would learn in time, and that
“those new group techniques you were using will not work in this institute.”
I remember how low I felt emotionally and professionally as I had been deni-
grated in front of my own students and how I felt like leaving the profession,
thinking that maybe I was not suited to be a language teacher. Thank goodness
that, at the very beginning of my career, a few colleagues had decided to act as
my “guides and guardians” (Zeichner, 1983: 9). These colleagues boosted my
morale and provided wise counsel.
That was 35 years ago and over the years I have often wondered how many
other novice teachers have had negative experiences but without the guides
and guardians who came to my rescue. How many of these novices travelling
alone decided to abandon the teaching path before ever discovering the joys
of teaching? As a result, I have always taken special interest in the develop-
ment of novice teaching professionals in TESOL, their experiences and espe-
cially their well-being (the issues and challenges they face), as well as in how
they are prepared (or not prepared) for their first years of teaching (e.g., Farrell,
2003, 2006a,b, 2007a,b, 2008a,b,c, 2009, 2012). Yes, there are many novice
language teachers who seem to be able to navigate their first years successfully
either largely on their own or thanks to supportive administrators, staff and
fellow teachers. Unfortunately, it seems that supportive environments are the
exception rather than the rule. Too often novice teachers are left to survive
on their own in less than ideal conditions and, as a result, some drop out (as
in teacher attrition) of the profession early in their careers (Crookes, 1997;
Peacock, 2009).
So I would say the reality is that we are still not preparing our teacher learners
adequately about how to deal with the realities of teaching in a real classroom
(Faez & Vaelo, 2012; Wright, 2010). Unfortunately, some teacher educators,
teachers, students and administrators still assume that once novice teachers
have graduated from a teacher preparation programme they will be able to
 Second Language Teacher Education 3

apply what they have learned during their first year of teaching. However,
research in general education has indicated that the transition from the teacher
education programme to the first year of teaching has been characterized as a
type of “reality shock” because of “the collapse of the missionary ideals formed
during teacher training by the harsh and rude reality of classroom life” and by
the realities of the social and political contexts of the school (Veenman, 1984:
143). This reality shock is often aggravated because novice teachers have not
one, but two complex jobs during these years: “teaching effectively and learn-
ing to teach” (Wildman, Niles, Milagro, & McLaughlin, 1989: 471). Thus, dur-
ing the transition from training to teaching novice teachers, as Richards (1998:
164) points out, must be able to construct and reconstruct “new knowledge
and theory through participating in specific social contexts and engaging in
particular types of activities and processes.”
During this transition period, some novice language teachers may realize
that they have not been adequately prepared for how to deal with these two
different roles (Peacock, 2009), and may also have discovered that they have
been set up in their pre-service courses (and teaching practice) for a teaching
approach that does not work in real classrooms, or the school culture may pro-
hibit implementation of these “new” approaches (Shin, 2012). Consequently,
many novice teachers are left to cope on their own in a sink-or-swim type
situation (Varah, Theune, & Parker, 1986). Continuing the theme of the rela-
tive weak impact of language teacher education programmes on the actions
of novice teachers, Freeman (1994) cautioned language educators and novice
teachers alike that most of what is presented in language teacher education
programmes may be washed away by the first year experiences of becoming a
novice teacher, a point also confirmed later in research studies by Richards and
Pennington (1998) and by Farrell (2003).
In addition, language teacher education programmes may be at fault because
they are not delivering relevant content that novice language teachers can
implement in real classroom settings (Johnson, 2013). As Tarone and Allwright
(2005: 12) argue, “differences between the academic course content in lan-
guage teacher preparation programs and the real conditions that novice lan-
guage teachers are faced with in the language classroom appear to set up a gap
that cannot be bridged by beginning teacher learners.” Indeed, Johnson (2013:
75) has recently noted the “disjuncture between teachers’ own instructional
histories as learners and the concepts they are exposed to in SLTE programs
epitomizes the persistent theory/practice divide that remains a major chal-
lenge for SLTE programs today.” She goes on to say that it is the responsibility
of SLTE programmes to present concepts they think are important to teachers,
“but to do so in ways that bring these concepts to bear on concrete practical
activity, connecting them to everyday concepts and the goal-directed activities
of everyday teaching” (2013: 76).
4 Thomas S.C. Farrell

Learning to teach in the first year is thus a complex process for novice teach-
ers to go through (Bruckerhoff & Carlson, 1995; Featherstone, 1993; Solomon,
Worthy & Carter, 1993) because they are faced with specific challenges that
must be addressed if they are not to abandon the profession after only a short
period of time (Varah, Theune, & Parker, 1986). It is important to ask how
second language teacher education programs could bridge this gap more effec-
tively and thus better prepare novice teachers for the challenges they may face
in the first years teaching.

Laying the foundation(s)

How should be try to address the issues outlined above or in other words,
how should we check this reality? First I would suggest that SLTE and second
language teacher educators should not only focus on the formal period of
the teacher education program but also include the novice years of teaching.
I define novice teachers as those who are sometimes called newly qualified
teachers (NQTs), and who have completed their language teacher education
programme (including teaching practice) and commenced teaching TESOL
in an educational institution (usually within three years of completing their
teacher education program). I see three years as realistic (Huberman, 1989: 199,
calls this the novice period: “career entry years”). As can be observed with this
definition, age is not relevant. It is general enough to include teachers in any
context who have acquired a second license (endorsement) in teaching English
to speakers of other languages as long as they have taken a particular course
that qualifies them to become a TESOL teacher. I also can see where one can be
a “novice” at instructing a new technology.
Unfortunately, what usually occurs is that on graduation from an SLTE
programme most novice teachers suddenly have no further contact with their
teacher educators, and from the very first day on the job must face the same
challenges as their more experienced colleagues, often without much guid-
ance from the new school/institution. These challenges include lesson plan-
ning, lesson delivery, classroom management and identity development. So in
this chapter I also outline practical suggestions that can help bridge this gap,
with the idea that novice teachers can experience the transition from teacher
preparation to the first years of teaching as “less like ‘hazing’ and more like
professional development” (Johnson, 1996: 48). I have called this bridging
period, novice-service teacher education (Farrell, 2012). However, I now want
to expand on the concept and suggest we eliminate the term pre-service and
just have terms/concepts that address the issues of teacher education and
development: novice-service to include second language teacher preparation
(or the “old” pre-service term), and the first novice year(s) of teaching and then
in-service to include any aspects of teacher education and development after the
 Second Language Teacher Education 5

Novice-Service

Second
First
Language
Year(s) In-service
Teacher
Teaching
Preparation

Novice-Service

Figure 1.1 Novice-service teacher education

novice-service years. Figure 1.1 outlines a basic model of novice-service teacher

education.

Novice-service teacher education

Novice-service teacher education begins in second language teacher preparation

programmes and continues into the first years of teaching in real classrooms. It
includes three main stakeholders – novice teachers, second language educators
and school administrators – all working in collaboration to make for a smooth
transition from the SLT preparation program to the first years of teaching. The
idea is that the knowledge garnered from this tripartite collaboration can be
used to better inform SLT preparation educators/programmes so that novice
teachers can be better prepared for the complexity of real classrooms. For exam-
ple, working in the US context Margo DelliCarpini and Oslando noted that ESL
teachers were struggling with the demands of content where the content was
that of the academic program in which their English language learner (ELLs)
students were enrolled and where content teachers had a lack of awareness and
understanding of the needs of ELLs in the mainstream classroom. They realized
that this was an issue related directly to ESL teacher preparation so they devised
what they call a two-way content based instruction (CBI) that builds on and
extends teacher collaboration and traditional CBI. This innovation, they note,
means that language-driven content objectives (which are enacted in the main-
stream classroom) and content-driven language objectives (which are enacted in
the ESL classroom) are collaboratively developed therefore eliminating the dis-
connect that is often present between language and content in the classroom.

SLT preparation

Johnson (2009: 11) proposed that the knowledge-base of second language

teacher education programmes inform three broad areas: “(1) the content of L2
teacher education programs: What L2 teachers need to know; (2) the pedagogies
6 Thomas S.C. Farrell

that are taught in L2 teacher education programs: How L2 teachers should teach;
and (3) the institutional forms of delivery through which both the content and
pedagogies are learned: How L2 teachers learn to teach.” However, there is still
no consensus in TESOL about what specific courses, and if they are connected
to teaching practice (TP), should be included in SLT preparation programmes,
and as Mattheoudakis (2007: 1273) has observed, “The truth is that we know
very little about what actually happens” in many of these courses. Part of the
reason for this is that most SLT preparation programmes vary so much in their
nature, content, length and even in their philosophical and theoretical under-
pinnings, and so it is no wonder, as Faez (2011: 31) has recently indicated, that
there is still “no agreement in the field as to exactly what effective language
teachers need to know.”
However, we can still point out several dimensions of knowledge, skills and
awareness that educators agree are important for teacher learners to acquire
in second language teacher education programmes in order to become effec-
tive teachers (Richards & Farrell, 2011). Among these dimensions Richards and
Farrell (2011) suggest that a teacher’s ability to acquire both the discourse of
TESOL as well as the ability to use effective classroom language is a key dimen-
sion. They also note that teacher-learning thus involves not only discovering
more about the skills and knowledge (academic and pedagogical) of language
teaching, and how to apply these in teaching, but also what it means to be a
language teacher in terms of developing the identity of a language teacher in
a particular context. In addition, Richards and Farrell (2013) have noted that
teacher learners need to be sensitive to the norms that operate in the contexts in
which they work as well as reflect on their practice in order to further develop
their theories and concepts throughout their first years. I will not however enter
into the debate of what should (or should not) be included in SLT preparation.
Instead, I outline and discuss what should be added to existing courses within
the programme (regardless of the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of
that programme), and the addition of one supplementary course that is focused
exclusively on exploring the first years of teaching through reflective practice.
During SLT preparation programmes pre-service teachers can be better pre-
pared for what they will face in their first years in two ways: the first way is
by making clear connections, in all the preparation courses, to teaching in
the first year by including reflective activities and assignments that are related
to the subject matter of those courses (Farrell, 1999). Thomas Farrell uses a
reflective assignment to promote critical reflection in a graduate course (called
‘sociolinguistics as applied to language teaching’) where students were encour-
aged to reflect not only on the materials and content they are exposed to, but
also how the content of the course has impacted, and will continue to impact,
them both professionally and personally in their first years and beyond as lan-
guage teachers. All thirteen participants in the course noted the value of such a
 Second Language Teacher Education 7

reflective assignment as a means of developing an awareness of self as a future

teacher that they may not have been able to develop alone.
A second, and more direct, way of addressing the needs of novice teachers
is to add a supplementary course, called ‘Teaching in the First Years’ (Farrell,
2009, 2012), that provides opportunities for pre-service teachers to develop
skills in reflective practice so that they can better manage challenges, conflicts,
and problems they may face in their first years of teaching. As Feiman-Nemser
(2001: 1019) explains: “Preservice preparation is a time to begin forming hab-
its and skills necessary for the ongoing study of teaching in the company of
colleagues … serious conversations about teaching are a valuable resource in
developing and improving their practice.”
‘Teaching in the First Years’ could promote the development of skills in
anticipatory reflection (reflection-for-action). This reflective approach supports
Wright’s (2010: 273) recent observations that SLT preparation should place “an
emphasis on the student teacher’s learning to teach, and becoming a thinking
teacher” which “in turn means a great deal of reflective activity programmed
into learning experiences.” Such activities could include anything from a broad
exploration and analysis of teacher beliefs and practices to a specific related
focus on issues such as life histories, critical incidents, case studies, teacher
metaphors, lesson study, classroom management, teacher identity develop-
ment, and teaching practice (see Richards & Farrell, 2011, for details on these
activities and many more). In addition to the above, changes brought about
by technology have begun to challenge established beliefs and practices about
teacher preparation. As Wong (2013: 248) has noted, language teachers these
days “are not only expected to keep up with new technologies, but also to
integrate IT into their curricula and classroom practices to equip students with
the skills of the information age.”
Regarding the broader exploration of teacher beliefs and practices, and not
satisfied with the disjuncture he noted between what is taught on a teacher
education programme and the realities which many practicing teachers face
in classrooms when they teach, Simon Phipps combined two teacher educa-
tion programmes, a practice oriented Delta (Diploma in English Language
Teaching to Adults) and a MA programme based on contemporary thinking
about teacher learning, in order to better integrate both theory and practice in
a Turkish setting. Indeed, Wright (2010: 272) in his SOA review also pointed
out the limitation of short courses like the CELTA because they “might inhibit
the growth of reflective thinking and changes in beliefs about learning and
teaching.” So Phipps decided to merge two programmes together and noted
that the new Delta/MA programme seemed to contribute to teacher learn-
ing because teacher learners could make links between theory and practice,
between the “MA Linguistics/SLA” course and the Delta, and between reflective
assignments/tasks on the MA and assessed teaching practice.
8 Thomas S.C. Farrell

Similarly and in order to account for the realities that teachers face once they
graduate, John Macalister and Jill Musgrave used scenarios written by graduates
of their TESOL program in New Zealand; each scenario selected a difficulty the
graduate had encountered that prevented him or her from making use of the
course principles he or she had studied before graduation. Then during class
discussions they began the process of creating what they called “dissonance” or
conflict between each student teacher’s own language learning experiences and
the course principles. As Macalister and Musgrave noted, their teacher learners
found the scenarios very motivating and informative, and particularly for the
teacher learners who were able to read about classrooms in a country where
they hoped to teach. This idea meshes well with what Wright (2010) noted in
his SOA article, that influencing teacher learners’ beliefs about learning and
teaching should be a primary goal of SLTE; Wright (2010: 271) observed: “not
only are STs in transition to a new teacher identity, but their beliefs may also
conflict with contemporary constructivist views of learning – hence the quest
in SLTE for changed minds.”
In a similar mode, and in order to create the realities of what teachers will
face when they graduate, Jack Richards, a luminary in the field of second lan-
guage teacher education, attempted to induct teacher learners into the prin-
ciples and practices involved in writing course materials for use in countries
that are members of SEAMEO – the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education
Organization. As Richards noted, many language teachers tend to be users of
materials produced by others but often find they need to adapt materials to
their local teaching context. Many, however, work in contexts where no pub-
lished materials are available and need to develop materials for a course with
a very specific local context. As a result, Richards developed different ways of
engaging teachers in understanding how materials work, the design principles
they reflect, and the procedures materials developers use in preparing materials
and course books so that they could adapt and develop material for their own
teaching contexts. As Richards noted, all of the course participants found the
course very practical and useful for their future careers as language teachers.
This too was the case in a teacher education program in South Africa when
Leketi Makalela noted that the main reading materials are taken from devel-
oped countries such as Australia and the US that assume that second additional
language learners can use language proficiently as a means of self-expression.
Makalela noted that because there was a lack of attention to the actual skills
and knowledge of the teachers, as well as the lack of resourcing in remote rural
areas of South Africa, he introduced a culturally responsive program with ESL
pre-service teachers in order to facilitate development of reading in more than
one language and so produce balanced biliterate readers. This is called “trans-
languaging” (or the purposeful juxtaposition of the languages of input and
output). The goal of the program was to produce teachers with ESL teaching
 Second Language Teacher Education 9

expertise that draws from home language resources. As a result, he observed

that the innovation of “translanguaging” he introduced to pre-service teach-
ers during teaching practice could provide the basis for training ESL teachers
through a deliberate pedagogic strategy of word induction and contrastive
reading methodology among pre-service student teachers in ESL contexts.
Just as Makalela questioned the validity of reading materials that have been
taken from developed western countries for his context, so too Lubna Alsagoff,
as Head of an English Department in the National Institute of Education (NIE),
was faced with the broader issue of which target variety of English in terms of
language teacher competencies given the multilingual and multicultural con-
text of Singapore. While questioning the monolithic view of language teaching
that focuses on the native variety as the norm and attempting to adopt poli-
cies that balance a global outlook with one that still values language as local
practice, Alsagoff and her team at NIE addressed language proficiency issues
holistically as part of the repertoire of skills teachers would need to become
effective educators and be able to teach a variety of English that is valued
internationally.
Recent changes brought about by developments in technology have also
challenged established beliefs and practices in second language education.
Indeed, a survey by Kessler (2007) of MA TESOL programmes suggests inad-
equate levels of preparation for using technology in the classroom and, as
Wong (2013: 260) has noted, effectiveness of integration of any technology
innovation is “closely linked to teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical expertise.”
When IT fits into a teacher’s beliefs, then its integration is more effective;
however, when it does not, IT is not effectively integrated, as Helen Donoghue
discovered when iPads came into classrooms in tertiary institutions in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) with no models or guidelines on how to use them
as learning tools. When Donoghue studied the impact of this IT government
initiative on those who were expected to administer this change, the teachers
and their supervisors, she noted (just like Wong, 2013) that the teachers said
they learned best through experience and talking to each other and so it is
important that professional development includes opportunities to facilitate
both. Donoghue also remarked that the teachers observed that their supervi-
sors were not sufficiently experienced in the use of IT to observe and give
feedback to the teachers.
Steve Mann outlines an innovation of how supervisors can use technology
when providing feedback on a module called Spoken English, or in this case
audio-feedback provided through screen capture software (called Jing) in a UK
teacher education context. This, Mann said, allows a supervisor to simultane-
ously provide a visual focus and an auditory commentary. As Mann observed,
this new type of screen capture software (SCS) allows the tutor to record and
send a video that records on-screen actions and corresponding comments
10 Thomas S.C. Farrell

(through a microphone), while reading and annotating the original assign-

ment on their computer screen.

The first year(s)

Although SLT educators are aware that novice teachers face many issues and
challenges in their first years (Warford & Reeves, 2003), it is interesting to
note that many TESOL programmes still have limited information about how
their graduates are faring in their induction years, or even what their work
lives involve (Baecher, 2012). Because of this paucity of knowledge about nov-
ice English language teachers’ experiences, novice-service teacher education
includes the provision for some form of contact to be maintained between SLT
educators/programmes and schools, and novice language teachers after they
have started their first years (Graves, 2009). Graves (2009) noted that collabora-
tive relationships between teacher education institutions and schools in which
teachers are placed must move beyond practicum placement so that novice
teachers can make stronger professional links as they are socialized into the
profession. Indeed, establishing more SLT education-school partnerships is also
important for SLT preparation programmes because, in order to establish an
effective knowledge-base for second language teacher education, SLT educators
must have an adequate understanding of schools and schooling and the social
and cultural contexts in which learning how to teach takes place (Freeman &
Johnson, 1998). Freeman and Johnson (1998: 409) state: “Studying, under-
standing, and learning how to negotiate the dynamics of these powerful envi-
ronments in which some actions and ways of being are valued and encouraged
whereas others are downplayed, ignored, and even silenced, is critical to con-
structing effective teacher education.”
This SLT educator-novice teacher-school arrangement can be formal or infor-
mal. In a formal arrangement, SLT preparation programmes and the schools
where the novice teachers are placed can collaborate when designing and
implementing novice teacher induction programmes (Faez & Vaelo, 2012). As
a SLT educator, Karen Johnson (2013: 76) attempted to link the theory/practice
divide she noted is present in many SLTE programmes with a microteaching
simulation through an extended team-teaching project that required teams of
(three or four) teachers to teach a lesson in a real ESL course with the idea of
“moving them toward greater self-regulation of theoretically and pedagogi-
cally sound instructional practices.” This she suggests is a more realistic view
of microteaching than is usually the case because the students are real rather
than teacher learners.
Some schools and institutions do have their own induction programmes
that include the provision of mentoring of novice teachers, but it may not be
mandatory and it may not have a prescribed pattern of support and mentors
may not get the proper recognition in schools (Mann & Tang, 2012). Mentor
 Second Language Teacher Education 11

teachers may need training in how to explain what they know intuitively
about teaching so that they can articulate this clearly to novice teachers, and
this can be accomplished by more collaboration between the school and SLT
programmes, which can help facilitate such training. If schools already have
a mentor who covers TP, then they can probably assist the appointed novice
teachers in their school as well. At the very least, Mann and Tang (2012) sug-
gest that novice teachers need priority in timetabling to allow novices and their
mentors to meet up to discuss aspects of their work, and observe each other’s
lessons. That said, Brannan and Bleistein (2012) have also noted that support
from a mentor (which may be infrequent anyway) alone may not sufficient to
meet the needs of novice teachers; rather, the combination of support from
multiple sources (such as mentors, co-workers, and family) may be needed
if they are going to survive their first years. As such, Brannan and Bleistein
(2012) maintain that pre-service English language teachers should be educated
in how to build a social support network and given strategies for developing
mentoring and collegial relationships, as this can increase the quality of their
teaching experience and lead to an increase in teacher efficacy beliefs during
their first years.
If these formal relationships are not possible for whatever reason, it is still
important for SLT educators to continue to monitor their novice teachers’
development during the first years so that they can develop case studies of
what really happens during these formative teaching years. In order to make
these case studies real however, they should be generated by the novice
teachers themselves, because as Elbaz (1988) has noted, there seems to be a
gap between what teacher educators/researchers produce (and interpret) as
reconstructions of novice teachers’ knowledge and experience and the nov-
ices’ own accounts and interpretations of what they experience. So, novice
teachers should be encouraged to tell their own stories of the various issues
and challenges they were faced with in their particular setting during their
first years. Farrell (2006b) has suggested the use of a story structure framework
of orientation-complication-result as one way of imposing some order on these
stories/experiences so that novice language teachers can have a sense of struc-
ture when reflecting on their experiences. As Jalongo and Isenberg (1995: 162)
have noted, this type of story framework can offer both pre-service and novice
teachers a “safe and nonjudgmental support system for sharing the emotional
stresses and isolating experiences of the classroom.” Shin (2012) also discov-
ered that the participants reported that sharing their stories had let them reflect
on their teaching practices, and that they found such sharing empowering. SLT
educators can then build up a corpus of such first years stories from a variety of
different contexts and these case studies can be fed back into SLT preparation
programmes for pre-service teachers to explore. Such real case studies can thus
better inform the curriculum of SLT preparation programmes, and pre-service
12 Thomas S.C. Farrell

teachers can use them, as Wright (2010: 273) has noted, to reflect on their
beliefs and narratives, and look “into the professional contexts of teaching and
learning for which [they] are being prepared.”
In addition, individual teacher educators can “follow” their novice teachers’
development throughout their first years and provide support and feedback in
different ways. For example, in a Chinese context, Xu Hao attempted to pro-
vide support and feedback for his novice teachers by attempting to stimulate
novice teachers’ pedagogical knowledge development through lesson study. As
Johnson (2009) has noted, lesson study is teacher-directed, collaborative, non-
evaluative and grounded in everyday classroom practices. Xu adopted lesson
study cycles and activities where novice teachers in small groups collaborate
with one another, discussing teaching objectives, planning an actual classroom
lesson, observing how it works in practice, and then revising and reporting on
the results so that other novice teachers can also benefit. As a result Xu noted
that the novice-teacher participants developed their pedagogical knowledge,
transformed their conceptions of sharing, obtained peer support, and activated
their autonomy for self-directed professional development.

Conclusion

Although much has been accomplished in a relatively short period of time

in the newish field of second language teacher education, the reality check is
that we still have a long way to go when preparing our teacher learners for the
realities they will face during their teaching careers. There is still a disjuncture
between theory provided in SLT preparation programmes and practice in real
classrooms, a gap that needs to be narrowed. One way of bridging this theory/
practice divide that I outline in this introductory chapter is novice-service lan-
guage teacher education to include teacher preparation (the “old” pre-service and
so we eliminate that pre-service term) and the first year(s) of teaching. Novice-
service teacher education begins in SLT preparation programmes where teacher
learners are provided with opportunities to practice reflection during their
existing courses. I have highlighted the need for the inclusion of a supplemen-
tary course that specifically explores and examines the first years of teaching.
Such a course is also designed to support as Johnson (2009: 10) has noted, “the
development of teachers’ adaptive expertise.” I have also called for greater SLT
educator/program-school-novice collaboration so that SLT educators can not
only help novice teachers but also learn more about, and eventually influence,
the cultures of the schools in which their students are likely to be placed in
the future. All of the chapters in this book fit into this novice-service model
of teacher education and offer exciting innovations that teacher educators can
adopt in their particular context which are presented in the order they appear
in this introductory chapter.
 Second Language Teacher Education 13

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2
Constructivist Language Teacher
Education: An Example from Turkey
Simon Phipps

Introduction and overview

There has been much discussion in recent years, in both general education and
language teacher education, about the need to reconceptualize teacher educa-
tion in line with contemporary constructivist and cognitivist thinking about
how teachers learn how to teach, and what skills and knowledge they need to
become effective teachers. It is becoming increasingly common for language
teacher education programmes around the world to follow a “reflective,”
“inquiry-based” approach to teacher learning. Nevertheless, many such pro-
grammes, both pre-service and in-service, have so far been unable to satisfacto-
rily rectify the tensions between theory and practice, as well as between what
is taught on the programme and the realities which many practising teachers
face in their daily teaching.
In this chapter I report on the case of an innovative in-service language
teacher education programme in Turkey, which ran for ten years from 2003 to
2013, integrating Delta (Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults) into
an MA, and which was based on contemporary thinking about teacher learn-
ing. Language teacher education programmes in Turkey have tended in recent
times to be more reflective and inquiry-based, and there is an emphasis on
trying to integrate theory and practice. The constructivist approach followed
in this particular in-service programme in Turkey affords equal importance
to theory and practice, builds on teachers’ existing beliefs about language
teaching and learning, and attempts to consciously develop teachers’ reflec-
tive abilities. The content and structure of the programme are informed by an
understanding of the professional skills and knowledge required to be an effec-
tive teacher, while the pedagogical approach and assessment tools used reflect
a clear understanding of theories of teacher learning.
This chapter outlines the key components of the programme in terms
of structure, content, pedagogy and assessment, and describes some of the

16
 Constructivist Language Teacher Education 17

activities used to promote teacher learning. In particular it draws on evidence

from two separate studies to argue that such an approach to language teacher
education can have an important impact on teacher learning. Although this
chapter describes a single example of an in-service teacher education pro-
gramme in Turkey, it has resonance for many global contexts which face the
challenges of how to better prepare teachers, both pre-service and in-service,
for the realities of everyday classroom teaching.

The context and setting for the programme

The context for the innovative teacher education programme described in

detail later in this chapter is a tertiary-level preparatory programme within
a private English-medium university in Turkey. This preparatory programme
aimed to bring students’ level of English up to a high B2 level on the CEFR
(Common European Framework of Reference), approximately equivalent to
FCE-level (Cambridge First Certificate in English). It provided English for aca-
demic purposes (EAP) instruction in order to prepare students for academic
study in the departments within the university. The preparatory programme
employed approximately 180 full-time EFL teachers, of whom about 70 were
native-speakers. It actively promoted teachers’ professional development
by offering the following Cambridge English Language Assessment training
courses to its teaching staff; ICELT (In-service Certificate for English Language
Teachers) and/or CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults)
for newly-recruited teachers; Delta for teachers with at least three years’ experi-
ence. These courses were offered to teachers working in the institution as part
of their professional development, and a reduction was given from teachers’
normal teaching hours to enable them to take these courses while working.
I will now look at constructivist learning theory, types of teacher education
and theories of teacher learning in order to provide the theoretical underpin-
ning for the innovative programme discussed in detail in section 3 below.

Constructivist learning theory

The relatively recent move away from behaviourism in education has been
brought about by the growing influence of cognitive psychology, which views
the learner as an active participant in the learning process (Piaget, 1972). This
has given rise to the constructivist movement, which considers learning to be
a construction of knowledge rather than a change in behaviour, and knowledge
to be constructed rather than received (Marlow & Page, 1998). As Williams &
Burden state:

the main underlying assumption of constructivism is that individuals are

actively involved right from birth in constructing personal meaning, that is
18 Simon Phipps

their own personal understanding, from their experiences. In other words,

everyone makes their own sense of the world and the experiences that sur-
round them. In this way the learner is brought into central focus in learning
theory.
(1997: 21)

The important contribution of constructivist learning theory is that the teacher

can only create the conditions under which learning takes place, and that mere
“verbal reiteration of facts and principles” will not result in real learning (von
Glasersfeld, 1989: 13). In ELT this gave rise to problem-solving (Prabhu, 1987;
Nunan, 1989) and task-based approaches (Willis, 1996; Skehan, 1998; Bygate
et al., 2001; Ellis, 2003).
Traditionally the study of teaching followed behaviourism and has only rela-
tively recently started to view teaching as a cognitive undertaking (Richards &
Lockhardt, 1994: 29; Freeman, 1996: 353; Freeman & Johnson, 1998: 400).
Clark & Peterson were one of the first writers to notice this “paradigm shift”;

Prior to 1975, the dominant research paradigm was the process-product

approach to the study of teaching effectiveness. Process-product research-
ers have been concerned primarily with the relationship between teachers’
classroom behavior, students’ classroom behavior, and student achieve-
ment. In contrast, the domain of research on teachers’ thought processes
constitutes a paradigmatic approach to research on teaching which has only
recently emerged.
(1986: 257)

The focus then was on “what the teacher does rather than what the teacher
is” (Richards, 1990: 4). This missing paradigm (Fang, 1996: 50) has since been
filled by constructivism, which has shown that teacher learning is an individ-
ual cognitive process involving construction of knowledge. In order to better
understand the process of teacher learning we need to;

understand more about how language teachers conceive of what they do:
what they know about language teaching, how they think about their class-
room practice, and how that knowledge and those thinking processes are
learned through formal teacher education and informal experience on the job.
(Freeman & Richards, 1996: 1)

Types of teacher education programmes

Historically, the main aims of teacher education programmes have tended to be
to deliver subject knowledge and skills training. However, the past 25–30 years
 Constructivist Language Teacher Education 19

have seen a shift from transmission-based, product-oriented theories to con-

structivist, process-oriented theories of learning, teaching and teacher learning,
as Crandall (2000) noted. During this time different writers (e.g., Calderhead
& Shorrock, 1997; Feiman-Nemser, 1990; Korthagen, Loughran & Lunenberg,
2005; Zeichner & Liston, 1990) have attempted to categorize the various orien-
tations available to teacher education:

• Academic: this involves transmitting knowledge about language and teach-

ing, often by means of separate, even unrelated, courses on an MA – here
there are few if any explicit links to practice;
• Applied science: this involves imparting “expert knowledge” and/or princi-
ples of effective teaching, based on empirical research findings, often by
means of methodology courses on an MA – here theory informs practice;
• Craft: this involves apprenticeship and/or imitation of “good practice”,
which has been handed down from generations of masters or experienced
practitioners, often by means of an MA practicum or mentoring, and/or by
many teacher training courses – here theory is derived from “good practice”;
• Reflective: this model gives equal weight to “received knowledge,” which is
based on research findings, and “experiential knowledge” (Wallace, 1991),
which teachers gain by reflecting on their own classroom experience, and
involves developing teachers’ ability to reflect – here theory and practice
mutually inform each other.

The reflective approach follows constructivist learning theory, and is increas-

ingly becoming the dominant paradigm in both mainstream teacher education
(Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2006; Darling-Hammond, 2006; Cochran-Smith,
Feiman-Nemser, McIntyre & Demers, 2008) and language teacher educa-
tion (Farrell, 2007; Johnson & Golombek, 2011; Burns & Richards, 2009;
Barkhuizen & Borg, 2010; Borg, 2011a). It is now commonly followed by
many teacher training courses such as the Cambridge Delta course (http://
www.cambridgeenglish.org/teaching-english/teaching-qualifications/delta/).
Delta is one of the best-known and most popular advanced TEFL/TESOL quali-
fications in the world. It integrates theory and practice, and aims to improve
in-service teachers’ knowledge and skills through a modular system which
includes assessed teaching practice, written assignments, peer observations
and a reflective portfolio assignment. More details will be discussed later in
section 3.2 below.
Table 2.1 below compares the four models: note the potential contradiction
between MA and teacher training courses. It is, of course, also important to
bear in mind that some teacher training courses focus first on theory before
teaching practice, and also that some MA courses do tend to have a more prac-
tical focus.
20 Simon Phipps

Table 2.1 Models of teacher education

Model Type of Practice and Mode of teacher

knowledge theory education

Academic Expert Theory MA courses

Applied science Expert Theory into MA courses
practice
Craft Master Practice into MA practicum, Mentoring
theory Teacher training courses
Reflective Received & Practice theory Teacher training courses
experiential

Teacher learning
The content of language teacher education programmes has traditionally
been informed by a common knowledge-base from linguistics, SLA, psychol-
ogy and teaching methodology (Ellis, 2009). However, there is now a greater
understanding of “how language teachers conceive of what they do: what they
know about language teaching, how they think about their classroom practice,
and how that knowledge and those thinking processes are learned through
formal teacher education and informal experience on the job” (Freeman &
Richards, 1996: 1). Language teacher education programmes no longer “view
L2 teaching as a matter of simply translating theories of second language
acquisition into effective instructional practices, but as a dialogic process of
co-constructing knowledge that is situated in and emerges out of participation
in particular … contexts” (Johnson, 2009: 21). This has stimulated a growing
interest in teacher cognition and contributed to a gradual re-conceptualization
of this knowledge-base (Graves, 2009), as previously called for by Freeman and
Johnson (1998).
A crucial point to emerge from teacher cognition research in both main-
stream and language education is that teachers’ thinking and behaviour are
guided by a set of personal, practical, systematic, dynamic and often uncon-
scious beliefs (Borg, 2006). Today teacher learning is increasingly seen as a
complex process through which teachers’ prior beliefs about teaching/learning
are mediated by their own experience of teaching, input from teacher educa-
tion and importantly by their own reflections (see Figure 2.1).
Beliefs are initially informed by teachers’ schooling and L2 learning experi-
ence. Input from teacher education and reflection on classroom experience is
filtered by these beliefs before it can become “intake,” which in turn is filtered
before teachers can incorporate it into their daily teaching and it can become
“uptake” (Pennington, 1996). This suggests that:
 Constructivist Language Teacher Education 21

Teacher
education

Beliefs C
Schooling
O
intake uptake
N
T
Second language
learning E
experience X

Teaching T
experience

Figure 2.1 Language teacher beliefs, input, intake and uptake

Source: Phipps (2010: 20).

the process of learning to teach is not a linear accrual of various aspects of

teaching, but rather a gradual process of proceduralising aspects of formal
and experiential knowledge gained from teacher education and classroom
experience mediated by beliefs and contextual constraints.
(Phipps, 2010: 23)

The innovation

Rationale for the innovation

In 2003 a strategic decision was taken at the university mentioned in section
2 above to start a 3-year, part-time, in-house MA programme which was inte-
grated with the Delta course. Previously many local teachers at the university
had tended to choose to pursue an external MA instead of Delta as MAs as they
considered that they were more widely recognized in Turkey, and therefore
more valuable for their future careers. Yet traditionally MA courses are often
not teacher training-oriented and often do not contain a practical teaching
component. Moreover, practical teaching qualifications such as the Delta
(see Types of Teacher Education Programmes section above), which focus on
improving classroom teaching, are crucial in helping to improve the quality of
teaching. The idea of integrating an MA programme with the Delta course was
thus seen as a novel way of enabling teachers to improve their classroom teach-
ing while also working towards a widely recognized academic qualification.
The main aims of the MA were to help teachers improve their teaching
skills as well as their understanding of teaching, curriculum and management.
22 Simon Phipps

Specifically with regard to classroom pedagogy the MA aimed to help teachers

develop their:

• understanding of theories of learning and pedagogical principles;

• ability to apply appropriate methodology to achieve learning objectives;
• awareness of how effective teaching contributes to successful learning.

Teachers were expected to develop their theoretical knowledge, understand-

ing of learning theory and teaching methodology, but also to reflect on and
improve their actual classroom practice. To this end, teaching practice was
assessed as part of the MA. Acceptance to the MA programme was made con-
ditional on having a minimum of three years’ full-time experience of teach-
ing ELT, so that the programme as a whole could focus better on developing
“teacher expertise.”

Integration of content and structure of the MA and Delta

Aims were first defined for each of the separate MA courses, before planning
content and pedagogical delivery in detail. A decision was taken to link six
of the 15 courses to the Delta syllabus to enable teachers to complete the
Delta requirements while also receiving credits for the corresponding MA
courses. Table 2.2 shows how the two are linked in terms of content and
assessment (italics are used below to indicated courses not linked specifically to
Delta).
An important aspect of this integration was the linking of theory and prac-
tice, so all courses on the MA were designed so that teachers’ professional
knowledge, awareness and skills were developed:

The logic behind this sequencing of individual courses is that teachers

on the MA/Delta first get a grounding in general learning theories (in the
“Learning Theories” course), theories of SLA and cognitive theories of lan-
guage learning (in the “Linguistics/SLA” course) in the first semester before
starting the Delta course in the second semester of the first year. During the
following three semesters (approximately 16 months) teachers complete the
requirements of the three modules of Delta which count directly towards
6 of the MA courses, and indirectly to one other. Teachers wishing to take
the Delta only usually already have an MA and are therefore not required to
take the additional MA courses or to do additional assessments beyond the
Delta requirements, and complete the three Delta modules over a period of
16 months:thus any Delta group will consist of some teachers taking Delta/
MA and others just taking Delta.
(Phipps, forthcoming)
 23

Table 2.2 MA courses and links to Delta

yr/semester MA course* Assessment Link to Delta

1 1 Learning theories Assignment, reflective tasks, Module One

quiz
Linguistics and SLA Assignment, reflective tasks, Modules One,
quiz Two

2 Methods 1: Language LSA 1 assignment, peer obsv, Module Two

systems quiz, reflective tasks LSA 1
Methods 2: Language LSA 2 assignment, peer obsv, Module Two
skills quiz, reflective tasks LSA 2

Summer Curriculum Simulation, needs analysis, Module Three

course plan, testing plan EA

2 1 Developing LSA 3 assignment, peer obsv, Module Two

Practice 1 quiz, reflective tasks LSA 3
Reflection on practice PDA (stages 1–4 as one Module Two
assignment), experimental PDA/EP
practice, quiz, reflective tasks
2 Classroom practice 3 × TP/lesson plan/ Module Two
commentary/post-lesson TP1–3
evaluation
1 TP/lesson plan/commentary/
post-lesson evaluation
Developing Reflective tasks, mock Module One,
Practice 2 exam Qs, quiz, lang analysis Two

Summer Assessment Assignment, tasks, n/a

presentation
Research methods Proposal for research project
3 1 Intro to educ. Assignment, reflective tasks,
management quiz
Human resource Assignment, reflective tasks,
management quiz
2 Budgetting and Assignment, reflective tasks,
finance quiz
Research project 8–10,000-word research project
(mini-thesis)

Source: Adapted from Phipps (2015).

Note: *LSA = language skills/systems assignment, TP = teaching practice, PDA = prof. development
assignment.
24 Simon Phipps

All internally assessed written assignments and observed lessons for Delta
(including background assignment, lesson plan, commentary and post-lesson
evaluation) were also marked by the Delta tutors and contributed to course
grades for the MA. The following externally-assessed components of Delta were
not graded for MA purposes:

• the written examination (Delta Module One);

• externally assessed lesson and assignment (Delta Module Two);
• extended assignment (Delta Module Three).

Table 2.3 shows how the various assessments were linked and spread out over
three semesters.

Pedagogical approach on the Delta/MA

The pedagogical approach followed on the MA is mainly reflective, although it
also contained elements of the academic, applied science and craft models (see
Table 2.1 above). Some courses (such as “Learning Theories” and “Linguistics/
SLA”) were more theoretical in nature, while others (e.g., “Classroom Practice”
and “Reflection on Practice”) were more practical. It is important to note,
however, that theory and practice were not viewed as separate: rather both
informed each other, and participants were encouraged to make explicit links
between the two. It was also emphasized to participants at the start of the
programme that critical reflection on their beliefs, teaching, input and reading
was an essential element of their own learning. This can be clearly seen in the
MA/Delta Handbook:

The purpose of input sessions is to improve participants’ subject knowledge,

enable them to reflect critically on their own practice in the light of this
knowledge, and ultimately to improve their professional practice. Course
tutors will employ a mixture of lecture style, group work, individual work,
discussion and questioning techniques to promote critical thinking and
encourage participants to critically reflect on the reading and content of
the session.
(MA Handbook, 2012: 2)

On the “Linguistics/SLA” course, for example, participants were given an initial

questionnaire, which was adapted from Lightbown & Spada (2006), during
the very first session of the course in order to elicit their existing beliefs about
teaching/learning. They were then encouraged to discuss their answers with
their peers, consider the reasons for their answers and reflect on how these
beliefs might be/might not be reflected in their teaching. The first formal
 Constructivist Language Teacher Education 25

Table 2.3 Assessments for MA/Delta: time-line and links

Year/ Delta assessment MA

Semester assessment

Yr 1 sem 2 LSA 1 Methods 1

TP 1 Classroom
Prac
Peer observation Methods 1
PDA 1–2 Reflect/
Practice

LSA 2 Methods 2
TP 2 Classroom
Prac
Peer observation Methods 2

Yr 1 summer PDA 3 Reflect/

Practice
EA plan Curriculum

Yr 2 sem 1 EA plan Curriculum

exp prac Reflect/
Practice
Peer observation Dev Practice 1

LSA 3 Dev
practice 1
TP 3 Classroom
Prac
Peer observation Dev
Practice 1
PDA 4 Reflect/
Practice

Yr 2 sem 2 Exam Dev

tasks practice 2

Mock Dev
exam practice 2

Source: Adapted from Phipps (2015).

Note: *LSA = language skills/systems assignment, TP = teaching practice, PDA = prof. development
assignment.
26 Simon Phipps

assessment task was then a guided reflection task in which participants had to
choose three of the statements from the questionnaire which they wished to
further explore, using the following prompts:

• what is your belief (about the statement) now (at the start of the course);
• to what extent is this belief manifested in your teaching now (at the start
of the course);
• evidence in support of your belief (during the course from input, readings,
discussions, observations from own teaching, peer observations, etc.);
• evidence against your belief (as above);
• what is your belief at the end of the course (whether it has strengthened or
changed);
• how might you adapt your teaching in the future.

Such reflective assignments can be useful tools for assessing teachers’ personal
practical knowledge, although it is of course possible that some teachers might
complete the assignments simply to pass the assessment.

Tensions between academic and reflective types of writing

An important tension emerged during the design of this Delta/MA programme:
namely different expectations as to what constitutes good and acceptable aca-
demic writing. Traditionally, MA courses place greater emphasis on discursive
writing which follows academic conventions, whereas teacher training courses
often promote more reflective types of writing. It is sometimes argued that
reflective writing has less “academic rigour” than traditional discursive writ-
ing, yet contemporary thinking suggests that both have equally important
roles to play in promoting teacher learning (see e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2006;
Cochran-Smith et al., 2008; Burns & Richards, 2009).
MAs are often considered to be academic qualifications, while teacher train-
ing courses such as Delta are often seen as “merely” professional qualifications.
However, Delta has been accredited at Level 7 on the Qualifications and Credit
Framework (QCF) in England, which is equivalent to MA level, so it has been
clearly acknowledged that both require similar levels of knowledge and skills.

peer observation
MA course EA LSA 1-3 PDA MA reflective
reports
assignments (Delta Module 3) (Delta Module 2) (Delta Module 2) papers
(Delta Module 2)

discursive/academic

reflective

Figure 2.2 Types of academic writing criteria used

 Constructivist Language Teacher Education 27

Thus a range of different assignments were developed for this Delta/MA pro-
gramme, each with emphasis on different types of academic writing. Figure 2.2
shows the different types of written assignments used in the programme on
a continuum from discursive/academic to reflective writing. Ultimately the
purpose of any written assessment in teacher education is to promote teacher
learning and help teachers make better links between theory and their own
practices. Thus, an important strength of this programme was the way both
types of writing were integrated, so that teachers taking the programme were
expected to demonstrate not only the academic rigour required of traditional
MA study, but also the ability to critically reflect on their learning and teaching
and to explicitly make links between theory and practice.

MA assessment
A major part of the final course grade on most of the MA courses came from a
3000-word discursive assignment, based on background reading, analysis and
organization of ideas into a coherent argument following recognized academic
conventions, which were assessed according to the following criteria:

• academic writing (language, presentation, organization, use of references);

• subject knowledge (familiarity with theory, evidence of reading, use of
terminology);
• analysis/synthesis (clarity of argument, quality of ideas, use of supporting
evidence).

Other reflective tasks on the MA focused on participants’ ability to critically

reflect rather than on whether they followed academic conventions or devel-
oped a coherent argument, and were graded accordingly. The example task
mentioned at the end of section 3.3 above is a case in point.

Delta assessment
The 4500-word Extended Assignment (EA) on Delta has similar expectations
to the MA, although less weighting is given to academic writing, clarity of
argument and clarity of ideas. The 2500-word LSA assignments on Delta
place slightly less emphasis on academic conventions, and require fewer
references. In the Professional Development Assignment (PDA) and peer
observation reports participants reflect on their own learning without being
assessed on their use of academic conventions or development of argument.
Here the emphasis is more on their ability to reflect on their own learning
and make connections between any knowledge learnt, and their own teach-
ing practices.
A further tension relates to different perceptions of research and its role
in teacher education. In Turkey non-thesis MAs are often considered as
28 Simon Phipps

“professional development” while MAs-with-thesis are seen as more academic

and “research-based.” However, today “practitioner/teacher research” are rec-
ognized as important by mainstream teacher education, while concepts such
as exploratory practice, reflective practice and action research are popular in
language teacher education (Allwright & Hanks, 2009; Burns, 2009; Burton,
2009). This Delta/MA programme integrated the following types of research:

• action research (assessed through the Delta PDA);

• exploratory/reflective practice (assessed through reflective assignments/
tasks);
• classroom research (assessed through an 8–10,000 word research project).

Evaluation of the programme

The most important aspect of teacher education is arguably its impact on
teacher learning. Various studies have shown the positive impact Delta courses
can have on teacher learning (Borg, 2011b, 2011c; Phipps, 2007). Of particu-
lar interest here, however, is the ways in which the Delta/MA contributed to
teacher learning, and also the extent to which the integration of MA and Delta
encouraged a more constructivist and reflective approach to teacher learning.
To date, two separate studies have shed light on this.
Phipps (2010), in a study of three teachers taking the Delta/MA programme,
identified a number of ways in which it impacted on their learning and devel-
opment. Firstly, the constructivist and reflective pedagogical approach helped
participants become aware of their initial beliefs and critically question them,
as the following interview extract shows:

I started to see what I had in my mind. The MA created circumstances to

question more, and supporting these questions through readings and input
helped reshape my beliefs, and feel more confident about those beliefs and
teaching (…) Reflection on my practice helped me a lot … having to prepare
observed lessons in such a staged way, because it was such a meticulous way
of thinking (…) I could relate things and understand why I believed such
things.
The experimental practice assignment, portfolio tasks, and peer observa-
tions are quite useful … you’re really forced to put it into practice, and also
you have that stage in-between where you’re questioning, … actually apply-
ing it … and then you have a chance to reflect on it as well.

Such questioning of initial beliefs seemed to function as a catalyst for subse-

quent learning, encouraging participants to explore “tensions” in their own
minds (Phipps & Borg, 2009; see also Basturkmen, 2012), which they them-
selves then wished to work on further, both during and after the course.
 Constructivist Language Teacher Education 29

Secondly, the links between theory and practice, both between the “MA
Linguistics/SLA” course and Delta, as well as between reflective assignments
and tasks on the MA and assessed teaching practice, seemed to help learning,
as the following two extracts from different interviews show:

The TP cycles linked theory and practice … I learnt about lesson prepara-
tion, class management … thinking in a more detailed way … the observa-
tion cycle, discussing issues was good to reflect on … getting answers to
my questions and reacting to them quickly makes learning more effective.
The assignments linked to the TP cycle, seeing language learning theory,
and being able to practise this in detail, and … detailed research about the
language point, then linking this theoretical input to teaching was good.

The findings of the study also posit that the following aspects of the Delta/MA
had a powerful influence on the development of teachers’ beliefs and practices
(see Phipps, 2010: 182):

• explicit focus on beliefs; enabling teachers to become aware of their beliefs and
to critically question them in the light of input and their practices;
• reflective practice; encouraging teachers to critically reflect on their beliefs,
practices and input;
• link between theory and practice; helping teachers put ideas into practice, and
theorize their practices;
• language awareness; enabling teachers to improve their awareness of the
complexities of grammar and reasons for learners’ difficulties;
• practical examples; helping teachers see the “plausibility” of alternative prac-
tices especially if modelled by teacher educators;
• experimentation; enabling teachers to personally experience the benefits of
alternative practices;
• practical assignments/tasks; encouraging teachers to plan assessed lessons
in detail considering different options and justifying their choices. Thus,
the combination of more theoretical MA courses with more practical Delta
courses impacts positively on teacher learning.

Phipps (2012), in a separate study of nine teachers doing the Delta/MA, found
further support for the integration of MA and Delta, as two participants’
commented:

I think the MA and Delta link well. For example most of us used the things
that we learnt in the [Linguistics/SLA] course and throughout the Delta. It
was all nicely interrelated. If I had done Delta without the MA … I wouldn’t
be able to make sense of the process that the students go through. For
30 Simon Phipps

example even though we’re in the last stage of MA, even when I’m doing
my research project I used the things I learnt in the course so I can make
sense of the things the students are saying. I can’t separate what I learnt
from MA and Delta.
MA and Delta help each other for example with “Learning Theories” we
focused on our interaction with students and the things that shaped the
learning environment and it affected my whole teaching. I started to feel
like a better teacher. This is very important and in the course for example
you see how the teacher should be (…) and you say that if I act like this
my students are going to be more motivated … and the linguistics course
helped us a lot in our assignments and TPs and we always referred to the
terminology and ideas.

In particular the links between the “Learning Theories,” “Linguistics/SLA”

courses and Delta were seen as very useful. Another important point was that
integrating the Delta into the MA enabled teachers’ work to contribute to both
qualifications at once, thus saving time, as one participant commented.

MA is like the theoretical side, Delta is the practical one. The MA courses are
really vital because before the course I had no idea about Piaget or Vygotsky,
so those are really helpful and I’m happy that Delta is accepted as part of the
MA without doubling what we have to do.
Actually that is why I’m here, because while applying for this job I looked
at the courses … I really liked the idea because at that time I was accepted to
[another university] for another MA and then I changed my mind because
doing MA with Delta is a really good idea and you don’t lose time. It saves
your time because they are all related (…) for example linguistics definitely
helped me while doing LSA2 and “Curriculum” helps while designing les-
sons and the tasks in the lesson and in that course we learnt how to reflect
on what we are doing in class, it was really helpful for Delta.

Despite the above comments, there were of course some negative points to
emerge from the study, such as the difficulty of maintaining a pace of study
over three years while also doing a full-time job, and the challenge of keeping
track of and completing all the various assessment tasks for both the MA and
Delta. However, interestingly there were no negative comments regarding the
potential difficulty of adjusting the style of writing to meet the requirements
of the various assignments (discursive to reflective) as outlined in the previous
section.
The integration of the Delta/MA from 2003 to 2013 was highly successful
in meeting institutional needs and contributing to a considerable increase
 Constructivist Language Teacher Education 31

in teachers’ professional skills, knowledge, confidence and awareness. It

helped increase the importance of Delta as a practical teaching qualifica-
tion in Turkey, where more non-native than native-speaker teachers now
take and pass Delta, in stark contrast to the situation ten years previously.
It has also showed the feasibility and desirability of integrating a construc-
tivist reflective approach to teacher education into an academic degree
programme.

Practical implications and wider (global) significance

of the case study

The above case study has shown that constructivist language teacher educa-
tion, employing a reflective, inquiry-based approach, can be extremely effec-
tive in promoting teacher learning, and can also successfully integrate theory
and practice to achieve a balance between academic study and professional
development. The ultimate aim of teacher education, whether an MA or a
Delta programme, is to help teachers to improve their professional knowledge
and skills.
Although this chapter describes just one in-service teacher education pro-
gramme in Turkey, it has resonance for different contexts in both Turkey
and globally, in which teacher educators face the challenges of how to
better prepare teachers, both pre-service and in-service, for the realities of
everyday classroom teaching. As Farrell (2001, 2003) found, teacher educa-
tion programmes often do not do this well enough. There are now a number
of MA programmes world-wide which either integrate Delta as part of the
programme or offer credits for Delta. It would be worth language teacher
educators, managers and policy makers considering ways of integrating such
programmes, so that they are presented to developing teachers as comple-
mentary elements of teacher education, rather than as mutually exclusive
options.
Even where Delta courses are not offered, or where such integration is not
viable, it would indeed be useful for MA programme directors to consider
ways of involving more reflective practice in their programmes and to explore
ways of helping teachers make clearer links between theory and practice. It
is also recommended that teacher beliefs are focused on explicitly in such
programmes.
A further implication of this case study is that there should be more discus-
sion among teacher educators, programme developers and policy makers, as to
how to better integrate academic and reflective elements of teacher education
programmes so as to better foster teacher learning and help teachers improve
their professional knowledge and skills.
32 Simon Phipps

Summary and conclusion

This chapter has highlighted some key issues in language teacher education
and teacher learning. The case of Delta integrated into an MA in Turkey has
shown that academic and professional qualifications need not be mutually
exclusive, that theory and practice can be thoughtfully integrated, and that a
reflective approach to teacher education need not mean sacrificing academic
rigour. It suggests that experienced teachers’ knowledge, skills, confidence
and awareness can be greatly enhanced by integrating practical teaching
into an MA programme, and that this can appeal to many teachers’ career
aspirations.

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Further reading
Borg, S. (2006). Teacher Cognition and Language Education. London: Continuum.
This book gives a fascinating insight into the relatively new area of teacher cognition,
and the benefits of exploring the ways teachers think about their work and how their
existing beliefs interact with their learning and teaching practices.
Burns, A. and Richards, J. (eds) (2009). Second Language Teacher Education. Cambridge: CUP.
This edition contains 30 state-of-the-art articles about different aspects of second lan-
guage teacher education, and outlines key issues and approaches in contemporary SLTE.
Farrell, T. (2007). Reflective Language Teaching. London: Continuum.
This book gives an insightful view of the benefits of reflective practice based on cutting-
edge research, and illustrates a range of strategies through a series of case studies. A
number of useful reflective questions at the end of each chapter help engage the reader.
Phipps, S. (2010). Language Teacher Education, Beliefs and Classroom Practices, Saarbrucken:
Lambert Academic Publishing.
This book provides an in-depth look at the development of the beliefs and practices of
three language teachers while they are taking the MA/Delta programme outlined in this
chapter, and identifies a number of key elements of teacher education which really pro-
mote and stimulate teacher learning.

Engagement priorities
1. To what extent do you think critical reflection promotes teacher learning in your
context? Do you think it works for all teachers? Why/Why not?
2. How can teacher educators encourage teachers to reflect more on their own beliefs,
teaching practices and their own learning? In your experience, to what extent do you
consider that such reflection actually helps teachers to develop and become more
effective professionals? How do you approach teachers who seem to resist reflection
and do not put much effort into reflective assignments?
3. What is teacher learning? What aspects of teachers’ professional knowledge and skills
do you think should be focused on in teacher education programmes such as MA,
Delta, etc?
4. “Many MA programmes around the world tend to focus more on developing research
skills and academic writing, and less on developing teachers’ practical teaching skills.”
To what extent do you think the latter should be done through traditional teacher
 Constructivist Language Teacher Education 35

training courses? Do you see a benefit in integrating theory and practice as well as
academic and reflective approaches?
5. Further research is needed as to ways in which constructivist and reflective approaches
to language teacher education impact on teacher learning. More case studies of pro-
grammes which adopt such approaches in different contexts are also needed, as well
as examples of best practices which can be shared among teacher educators.
3
Encouraging Critical Reflection in a
Teacher Education Course: A Canadian
Case Study
Thomas S.C. Farrell

Introduction and overview

Participants come to teacher education courses with prior experiences, values,

and beliefs and with specific expectations about the subject matter they will
learn. These beliefs have been accumulated from a variety of sources including
their past experiences as students in the school system and may act as filters to
what they have been exposed to in the teacher education programme (Lortie,
1975). Hence, differences are likely to exist between what teacher educators
may think is important for the participants to learn and what they actually
learn as a result of taking a course. Bearing this in mind, it is crucial then for
educators to be able to establish a reliable means of gauging the effectiveness
of their courses. This chapter describes how I attempted to encourage graduate
students in an MA course to become more critically reflective not only con-
cerning the materials and content they are exposed to in a graduate course, but
also how the content of the course has impacted, and will continue to impact,
them both professionally and personally as they embark on their careers as
language teachers.

Context and setting

13 participants were enrolled in a one-year programme, the MA in Applied

Linguistics/TESL, at a university in Canada. I taught a course called “sociolin-
guistics as applied to second language teaching” in an MA Applied Linguistics
programme that emphasizes teaching English to speakers of other languages
(TESL) in Canada. The course emphasized the following general topics in
the field of sociolinguistics: Language Choice in Multilingual Communities,
Language Maintenance & Shift, Linguistic Varieties, Language Planning,
Language & Gender and so on. Many of the students, especially those who
were not from Canada, had no background in sociolinguistics or even language

36
 A Canadian Case Study 37

teaching and most had not taken any introductory course in sociolinguistics
at the undergraduate level. Thus I used a mix of materials and activities in the
course that provided some background in the main topic of sociolinguistics
such as language choice in multilingual communities, language maintenance
& shift, linguistic varieties, language planning, language & gender and such
topics in sociolinguists that can give an overview of main issues. In addition,
I wanted to make some specific connections to TESL and so I chose read-
ings of papers that were included as subtopics within the main traditional
sociolinguistics topics, such as Shuy’s (1969) classic TESOL Quarterly paper
“The Relevance of Sociolinguistics for Language Teaching” as one of the first
readings. As the main topic the following week was multiculturalism with a
subtheme of code-switching, I added Liu, Ahn, Baek and Han’s (2004) paper
“South Korean high school English teachers’ code switching: questions and
challenges in the drive for maximal use of English in teaching”; for the class
on language planning, I added Farrell and Tan’s (2008) paper that connects
planning to language: “Language policy, language teachers’ beliefs and class-
room practices”; and for gender and language I added Norton and Pavlenko’s
paper (2004) “Addressing gender in the ESL/EFL classroom.” In this manner
I attempted to directly connect the broad topic of sociolinguistics to second
language teaching so that those students who did not have much of a back-
ground in either sociolinguistics or language teaching could see how they
are connected.
Each of the 13 students registered for my class sociolinguistics as applied
to language teaching. For the purposes of reporting the process and impact
of the specific intervention discussed in this chapter, each participant was
assigned the capital letter “T” (to represent teacher) and a number (from
1–13) behind the letter “T” so that identities remain hidden. T1, T2, T3 and
T4 were all female Canadian graduate students who also had a certificate in
TESL and all had limited teaching experience (less than three years). There
were five graduate students from the same Asian country with no teaching
experience, four female students (T5, T6, T7, T8) and one male student (T9).
All the other participants were female and from Middle Eastern countries
(T10, T11, T12, T13).

Innovation

As I have been teaching this course for a few semesters I have noticed that even
though I had been trying to make direct connections between sociolinguistics
and second language teaching with the papers mentioned above, which were
presented and discussed each week along with the “larger” topic from sociolin-
guistics, I noticed that many of my students were still not able to make explicit
links to language teaching. I noticed that even those graduate students who had
38 Thomas S.C. Farrell

taken an undergraduate course in sociolinguistics also were not able to really

see connections to language teaching and indeed, as one graduate student who
took an undergraduate course in sociolinguistics reflected: “Even after previous
exposure to sociolinguistic content as an undergraduate student and now as a
graduate student, I had never considered sociolinguistics as directly relevant
to language teaching.” This comment made me reconsider my approach to
the course and so I decided to add some component that would encourage
all the students, and especially those students who had no previous back-
ground in the subject and did not have much language teaching experience, to
directly reflect on the relevance of sociolinguistics to language teaching.
Thus, I decided to try to incorporate the students’ direct reflections on lan-
guage teaching throughout the course by asking presenters and participants
during each topic about its relevance to language teaching. More importantly I
also changed the main assignment of the course. As the main assignment now
I asked each graduate student to write a reflective position paper that sought to
answer the question: What is the importance and impact of sociolinguistics for my
future as a language teacher? I analyzed all 13 assignments and with each of the
students’ permission, I now report on their reflections and in most instances
in their own words.

Outcomes

One of the major outcomes of the added reflective assignment for having
the students consider the importance and impact of sociolinguistics for their
future careers as language teachers is that all 13 teachers remarked that they
had been deeply impacted in some way by taking this course. In addition, all
13 also noted that they now consider this subject matter very important for all
language teachers but they did not know this before taking the course. In fact,
many students, and especially those who came from outside Canada to study
in the MA programme had never heard of the word sociolinguistics before; as
T6 wrote: “Before this class, I had never heard of, been exposed to or discussed
sociolinguistics.” For many of these international students, the only real expo-
sure they had to English before was as a second language learner and some
prior training in second language teaching that included some background
courses in linguistics that apparently did not expose them to the sub-discipline
of sociolinguistics.

Prior learning experiences

For many of the international students learning English as a second or for-
eign language was their main exposure to second language teaching and as a
result many considered learning English to consist of translating vocabulary
from one language to another. including studying grammar, reading, writing
 A Canadian Case Study 39

and speaking. As T5 noted, “to me, an English major in China before coming
to Canada, English is surrounded by grammar and vocabulary and teach-
ing English involves speaking, listening, reading and writing. That is almost
everything I know about teaching English before I came to Canada.” T5 then
outlined an incident that occurred in China when she was a university student
which she did not understand at the time; now, on reflection after taking the
sociolinguistics course, she understands the significance of its meaning. The
incident is outlined in the students’ own words as written in her reflective
assignment:

An incident I came across and confused me for years that happened in my

university. At that time, our department was willing to hire foreign teachers
to teach us speaking and writing. I guess the aim to do this was to improve
our oral proficiency and use English naturally, which meant to be more
native-like. We were nervous, at the same time, really excited to see our
foreign teachers because most of us did not have the experience to talk to
native speakers before. Our first foreign teacher was a guy who was around
our age. He is American and we were interested in everything he spoke
about and tried to imitate his accent awkwardly. The improvements of our
oral proficiency initially mainly showed on our energetic involvement in
the activities the teacher thought was useful.
The class went pretty well until the teacher noticed that one of our class-
mates wore the same dress as she wore on Tuesday, then he stopped in front
of her and made fun of her. He started by asking her “Where were you sleep-
ing last night?” Everyone else was confused until he continued saying that
“You must be off-campus last night, look, you did not change your dress!”
The class went silent; the girl blushed, and became embarrassed. The teacher
noticed the difference from usual, but he had no idea what was really going
on in the classroom. The whole class turned against the teacher and we no
longer took any active part in his lessons. After that class, the teacher quit
his job and left our school because he was loathed by our peers. I really did
not understand what had happened and was really confused for some time
because I liked the teacher. Anyway, I did not think about this incident
until I took this course and now I realize that every learner has his or her
own sociolinguistic background, and as a future English teacher, I have to
pay attention to aspects such as gender, social background, personality and
learning mood of my target students. In the incident above, the teacher
made an obvious mistake that he did not respect the culture. In China, chas-
tity is very important to a girl who is not married. Even though the society
is becoming more open than before, this still cannot be discussed in public.
In fact, I now realize that good teachers should not only know the learners’
language level based on whatever tests, but also each individual learner’s
40 Thomas S.C. Farrell

sociolinguistic repertoire. The language we teach is not just mechanical and

cannot be extracted from society that surrounds it. This coexistence influ-
ences the language learning as well as teaching.

Another example is how a student from Canada, who had previously taken an
introductory undergraduate sociolinguistics course, noted the impact of her
prior learning experiences on her reflections as a result of taking the course
and how these reflections will shape her future teaching philosophy. As T1
pointed out, “this sociolinguistics course gave me the opportunity to reflect
on my past experiences as a language learner. For me, the most important
aspect to language teaching is creating a safe and comfortable environment.”
Again I relay T1’s comments, in her own words, on how she realized that she
could incorporate her reflections from reading a paper assigned in the course
by Norton-Peirce (1995): “Social identity, investment, and language learning.”

I have had experiences in warm and welcoming environments whereby the

teacher saw me as an individual. On the other hand, I have also had experi-
ences in cold, unwelcoming environments whereby the teacher was only
interested in whether the students got the right answer. It was in these cold
language learning environments where I remember feeling very anxious
and uncomfortable. This not only prevented me from learning, but also
prevented me from enjoying learning. Therefore, the moment I knew that I
wanted to be a language teacher, it became my mission to ensure I provide a
safe and comfortable learning environment for my students. Before sociolin-
guistics, establishing this kind of environment meant explicitly letting my
students know that it is normal to make mistakes, as making mistakes is part
of learning. Aside from that, I had not considered what other components
could be added to represent this safe learning environment. Sociolinguistics
allowed me to build on my teaching philosophy by incorporating aspects of
Norton-Peirce’s (1995) framework.
Norton-Peirce’s (1995) framework has reminded me of the scenarios that
many language learners face, especially when they immigrate to target
language countries such as Canada. Immigrants are expected to drop their
native language in order to learn English and function in the target language
community. I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to immigrate to a
country where I would not be able to use my language and would have to
learn an entirely new one in order to be considered a member of the target
language community. When language learners come into the classroom,
they have a history in another language which has shaped their identity.
I had not considered this aspect of how learning a new language nor how
their role in the target language community would affect a language learn-
ers’ identity. As Norton-Peirce (1995) further asserts, “it is through language
that a person gains access to-or is denied access to-powerful social networks
 A Canadian Case Study 41

that give learners the opportunity to speak” (p. 13). This is an area that is
not typically given much attention, but it certainly plays a role in the shap-
ing of a language learners’ identity. Therefore, as is demonstrated through
these concepts that encompass part of Norton-Peirce’s (1995) framework,
there is a lot more that needs to be considered in regards to understand-
ing language learning through the learners’ perspectives. By incorporating
aspects of Norton-Peirce’s (1995) framework, I have developed an action
plan to implement my teaching philosophy more effectively. T1 went on
to note how taking such a course in sociolinguistics and applying it to lan-
guage teaching “served as a reminder to look at my future learners as diverse
individuals who come into the classroom with their own unique history and
experiences. It has also allowed me to reflect on my teaching philosophy
and build on it to better reflect this new perspective of my future learners.”

So even though the above reflections note the impact of the course on the
prior learning experiences of two students with very different backgrounds, as
a result of reflecting on the readings in the course they were able to form their
own action plans as future teachers of English to speakers of other languages. I
believe, however, that this reflective process and the resulting connecting of read-
ings and future plans would not have occurred if the students did not have to
write a reflective assignment on the impact of the course on their future careers.
As T1, who had already taken an undergraduate course in sociolinguistics, noted
above: “Before I had never considered what sociolinguistics means to me as a
language teacher. Now that the question has been asked, there is certainly a lot
to consider and reflect on and I do not think I would have done this reflection
or had made any connections from the course to my future if I had not been
required to through this assignment.” Other students in the course also began
to notice the impact of the course through the reflective assignment on such
issues as code-switching, power relations, English varieties, and language maintenance.

Code-switching
A number of students, especially the international students, related to the
topic of code-switching both from the students’ perspective and the teachers’
perspective. For example, a student from a Middle Eastern country, T10, noted
that when she arrived in Canada there were some English as a second language
schools that had an established “English Only” policy in all classes and they
effectively banned code-switching by the students. T10 said that she found this
policy ineffective and isolating for her because she was not able to express her
thoughts and as a result began “to feel incompetent in the L2.” T10 explained
that the school which had the policy of preventing the students’ L1 use in
classes also instituted particular “punishments” to enforce this rule: “the stu-
dent who is caught using his or her L1 is subject to certain punishment. Some
of these punishments are a red card, suspension from the school for one to two
42 Thomas S.C. Farrell

weeks and if the student does it more than once he or she will be expelled. The
school system also bans the use of electronic dictionaries.”
T10 then outlined a particular incident that occurred in one class that had an
enormous effect on her as a student. She explained in her reflective assignment:

One incident happened when I was an intermediate student. During our

communication class, the topic was about different types of crimes; the
teacher gave us an activity as a warm up activity which required us to define
the names of different crimes by giving either examples or brief definitions.
To make the activity easier, the teacher assigned the whole class to different
groups with different ethnicity. Some of these terms were not familiar to me
such as smuggling, larceny, burglary, and embezzlement. Fortunately, there
was a Saudi girl in the same group who tried to explain each term for me
in Arabic. However, as the policy in the school bans the use of our mother
tongue, the teacher gave us a red card, but because it was not our first time
to have the red card, my friend and I were suspended for one week. As a
result, I remained silent most of the class only because I did not understand
most of the terms and consequently, I became hesitant to participate with
the wrong information or meaning of the terms. This incident affected my
self-confidence because I was not sure about the right answer.

T10 then reflected that she realized from one of her readings on the sociolin-
guistics course, “Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom” by Auerbach
(1993), that only allowing a monolingual ESL classroom can have severe results
in terms of self-esteem because of the students’ sense of being excluded from
the class: they may not be confident to speak in English so they remain silent.
In fact, T10 mentioned that see too has suffered not only emotionally but also
from being excluded literally through suspension as she could not interact with
the other students in pursuit of learning English. Therefore, T10 has concluded
from her experiences and from her readings in the course that she will always
allow her students to code-switch in her English language lessons irrespective
of whether the school that employs her has an “English Only” policy or not. As
T10 stated in her paper: “When I teach an ESL class I will allow code-switching
in my classroom regardless of the ‘English Only’ policy that may or may not
be in place. Preventing the students from using their L1 in the classroom can
backfire. For example, my switching to L1 is to keep on track with the teacher
and my peers and therefore, I attempt to avoid losing the track and achieve the
progress especially with my lack of sufficient knowledge about a topic.”

Power relations
The topic of power relations is somewhat broad and used here to encapsulate
a few interrelated issues such as language and gender, language and identity,
 A Canadian Case Study 43

diversity, ethnicity, language power and discrimination. T12, a student from a

Middle Eastern country, captured all of these issues when she wrote: “sociolin-
guistics has helped me understand my role as a future teacher in scaffolding
my students and providing them with cultural, social and lingual responsive
classrooms, which on the other hand, highlights my responsibility towards
understanding their different backgrounds, religions, social and political values
that may affect their language learning experiences and levels.”
For T11, another student from a Middle Eastern country, a reading in the
course triggered a memory of not one but two incidents she said she was
involved in and both related to intolerance for different ethnic or religious
backgrounds that occurred in her English as a second language class in Canada.
The general topic under discussion at the time was cross-cultural communica-
tion and the particular reading that she said had triggered her memory of the
incident was Rich and Troudi’s (2006) “Hard times: Arab TESOL students’ expe-
riences of racialization and othering in the United Kingdom.”
T11 wrote that she had only been in Canada for two months when the first
incident occurred. She was enrolled in an ESL programme and was placed in
an upper-intermediate level class. She noted that she was the only Muslim
female in that class. T11 said that in one particular lesson, although the topic
of the lesson was not related to Islam or religion, the teacher began to speak
negatively about Islam and T11 began to feel very uncomfortable: “She did not
show any respect to me in front of my classmates as an international student
who has her own beliefs, opinions, and religion. The worst thing was that she
did not give me any opportunity to share my perspective, and she kept inter-
rupting me when I wanted to defend or justify my perspective.” After this les-
son, T11 said that she was anxious and stressed as she felt she was undermined
in that lesson: “Every time this teacher came to the class, I felt I was going to
a war and I was stressed and anxious because she took the advantage of my
inability to speak well and lack of vocabulary. Sometimes she excluded me
from conversations and ignored my participation in the classroom. In brief,
this situation was my first experience of ‘racialization’ in the classroom.”
T11 then wrote about another incident where she also felt the teacher did
not welcome her as a second language learner because of her ethnicity in a
different language school that was to have a similar impact on her as the pre-
vious incident. T11 noted that before this incident in her writing course she
felt that the same teacher tended to focus only on students from the teacher’s
ethnicity and tended to leave her out even when she raised her hand to answer
a question. However, T11 said that she did not think too much about these
occurrences in her previous lessons until a particular class that was supposed
to focus on individual discussions with students about their research papers.
T11 was actually excited to have this class because she thought she would now
have an opportunity to speak directly to the teacher about her research paper
44 Thomas S.C. Farrell

and get the attention she thought that she needed. T11 said that the teacher
announced to the class that the purpose of the individual discussions with
each student “was to explore each student’s weaknesses and strengths in the
writing of his or her research paper.” While T11 was waiting for her turn to
discuss her paper, she noticed that the teacher was “spending around 10–15
minutes with each student discussing and giving feedback. She seemed to care
about each student. I definitely preferred this idea because it would give me a
good opportunity to meet with my teacher individually to receive her feedback
and to know exactly how my writing could be improved.” So T11 was excited
to have her teacher approach to discuss her paper but unfortunately it did not
turn out that way as T11 perceived that the teacher was not fully engaged with
her during the discussions. T11 wrote: “I was shocked at her treatment of me
when it was my turn to discuss my research paper. She did not show any con-
cern; during the discussion, she was just listening to me without looking to at
my paper. When I pointed out my mistakes, she just answered my questions
very briefly and in a vague way. She did not provide me with any feedback to
improve my writing as she did with all the other students. She did not offer
suggestions on how to improve my writing, or how to develop my ideas. The
time that I spent with her was less than 5 minutes compared to all the other
students in my classroom. Her behavior made me feel that I was not welcomed
and that I had no value at all in her class.”
On reflection, T11 noted that she was being treated as a Muslim rather than
an ESL student: “These two situations showed clearly the discrimination against
wearing a hijab and being Muslim regardless of being an ESL student.” As a
result of these reflections T11 has decided that she will treat all her students
equally when she becomes a second language teacher: “Now I have promised
myself to treat all my students the same. There will not be any discrimination
and mistreatment to anybody whether at the classroom or somewhere else.”
She also reflected that an ESL teacher has a special responsibility to be inclusive
to all students regardless of their background while teaching: “Although I am
fully aware that these two teachers do not reflect all Canadians, they were sup-
posed to be more aware than anybody else about students who have different
religions, beliefs, abilities, and attitudes. These two teachers gave me implicitly
negative impressions about themselves as educators and ESL teachers. I will
not be like them.”
T12, another student from a Middle Eastern country had similar reflections
as T11. Here are her reflections as written in her reflective assignment:

My experience as an Arab Muslim immigrant in Canada has exposed me to

various sorts of discrimination and racialization. I used to think that seek-
ing English language is separated from any other social and personal issues
 A Canadian Case Study 45

that I may experience. Yet, sociolinguistics made me realize that what I am

going through should not be suppressed at the back of my head but should
be accepted as an active part of my learning experience. Sociolinguistics has
helped me bridge the gap between myself as a woman from the Middle East,
whose experience is being influenced by gender, culture, ethnicity, religion,
and nationality to different extents and at different times, and as a learner
in a foreign country that finds herself the “other” to many people while
negotiating her new social and cultural space. Moreover, sociolinguistics has
increased my understanding and acceptance to my learning experience low-
ering my anxiety and negative attitudes towards the various difficulties that I
experience in a new different place, while trying to adapt and express myself.

Similar to most of the topics and issues that are presented in the sociolinguis-
tics course being intertwined with each other (although each one is treated
separately each week in order to make it a sequential course), so too were power
relations and language, as T12 noted. T12 summarized how gender, language
and identity, diversity, and ethnicity and language power and discrimina-
tion are all connected: “understanding power relations between the different
genders and ethnicities, in addition to the power that English has over other
languages increased my sensitivity and responsibility towards thinking about
various strategies to best involve all students in a comfortable environment
while maintaining their individual space, especially in a multicultural coun-
try like Canada where increasing numbers of immigrants from various back-
grounds are settling and seeking language acquisition and integration into the
new society.” She also attempted to connect this new realization to her future
career as an ESL teacher where she said she would provide her students with a
culturally and socially relevant classroom where everybody will try to under-
stand each other.

English varieties
Another interesting reflection made by a male student from an Asian country,
T9, related to which variety of English he would teach in the future now that
he has taken the course (sociolinguistics). T9 realized that before he came to
Canada all of his “foreign” English language teachers were from the USA and
were teaching American English (AmE) and this was considered the “standard
English” for him. He noted that at that time he considered that if he studied
this “standard” he would have no communication problems with English
speakers but this was not to be the case, as he experienced when he first trav-
elled away from China. T9 continued: “when I went to a conference in Hong
Kong in 2011, I found it was difficult for me to understand English speakers
who were not from America and British. When I came to study in Canada, I
46 Thomas S.C. Farrell

found it was hard for me to understand some people who were not native here
such as a taxi driver who was an immigrant from India.”
T9 noted that these experiences and course readings such as the article by
Young and Walsh (2010), “Which English? Whose English? An investigation of
‘non-native’ teachers’ beliefs about target varieties” made him reconsider this
issue. T9 wondered, for example, why his English education teachers “never
gave me a chance to expose to English varieties other than BrE and AmE?” and
as a result wondered if he will “teach these varieties to my students?” T9 noted
from the course and that article that he should maybe consider exposing his
students to other varieties of English and not just British English or American
English. T9 reflected:

Traditionally English teachers believed that they should only teach standard
variety of English, such as British English (BrE) or American English (AmE)
(Young & Walsh, 2010). However, Young and Walsh (2010) indicated com-
munication in English between NNES (Non-native English Speakers) was
increasing and NNES would have more influence on how language was used,
taught and learned. As a result, researchers start to suggest that other varie-
ties of English such as English as an International Language (EIL) and English
as a Lingua Franca (ELF) should be used introduced in language class.

As a result of all his reflections, T9 has decided that in his future teaching he
will “introduce some other frequently used varieties in class. For example, if
my students are planning to study in North America or they think they might
contact foreigners from North America more in their work, I think it is nec-
essary to introduce vernacular languages that are used relative frequently in
North America. Although it might violate the curriculum objectives, I believe
that learners need to be exposed to those frequently used varieties other than
‘standard English’, which will provide them an opportunity to become familiar
with the real-life communication.”

Language maintenance
A final important topic that emerged from the course that impacted the reflec-
tions of some students and especially T4, a female Canadian born student, was
that of language maintenance. T4 said that when she started reading on this
topic in the course she began to connect her own experiences as a bilingual
Canadian with the importance of maintaining a language in a community
where everyone does not speak it. She reflected on how difficult it is for
families who are bilingual to continue to use both languages when the school
system discriminates against the use of any language other than English (or
French in Canada). T4 wrote: “I had an immediate personal connection to it
because as a bilingual speaker born in Canada, I feel I have had some similar
experiences to the children of immigrants in Canada. As a child, my family
 A Canadian Case Study 47

spoke [the home language different to English] in our home, but were advised
by school administration to use English instead for the sake of my future
English capability. Luckily, this simply was not possible because of the limited
English proficiency of my grandmother who was my primary caregiver. In the
end, I was proficient in both languages.” As a result of the course readings on
language maintenance, language shift and language death, she now realizes
how influential the school system can be when discouraging multiculturalism
and multilingualism in the home. T4 continued: “Often school administration
takes the approach that English-only both in school and home environments
is the best option for children. However, this can be at the cost of the family’s
dignity and pride in their home language and culture. Not only that, but also
a feeling of being silenced by not being able to express inner thoughts and
feelings due to lack of L2 proficiency. If children are led to believe their L1 is
inferior or useless, they may grow to resent their parents’ culture.” As a result
of her reflections T4 said when she is a teacher in future she will support “both
the L2 through focused language lessons, and the L1 by encouraging use in the
home, children can grow to be functionally bilingual which appears to have
many benefits for them, both cognitive and practical.”
Although the above cited examples of the impact of the sociolinguistics course
as written by the students in their reflective assignments only give limited and
particular examples that impacted specific students on topics such as prior learning
experiences, code-switching, power relations, English varieties, and language mainte-
nance, in fact all the students thinking about their future careers as language
teachers seem to have been changed in various ways. As T8 noted: “To sum-
marize, sociolinguistics is a crucial source of knowledge for all language teachers
because it helps teachers become more equipped and knowledgeable of how best
to present the language for their students while maintaining an understanding of
the various elements that may govern learners’ attitudes, beliefs and knowledge.”
In real terms of how the students can or will attempt to integrate the knowledge
they seem to have gained in the course into their future teaching, T9 seems to
have summed up this challenge succinctly when he wrote: “When I start to teach,
I need to make a choice on whether I should follow the traditional teaching
patterns or change it with integrating sociolinguistics findings and knowledge.
Although it might be hard, I think my job is to make the changes in how we
teach language. One thing is for sure, sociolinguistics is essential to me in terms
of providing me new perspectives on how language is related to the society as
well as the problems and challenges in traditional language teaching methods.”
I think the personal connections and reflections produced in the written
reflective assignments provide evidence that for most (if not all) of the students
the act of writing as reflection contributed to their personal reflections. Because
writing has a built-in reflective mechanism – one must stop to consider what
one will write and once written, one can “see” ones thoughts now in writing
(Farrell, 2013) – it facilitated the students to consider and reflect on material
48 Thomas S.C. Farrell

they were not necessarily familiar with and how this material could be of use to
them in their future careers as language teachers. That said, one possible pitfall
of such a written requirement is that not all students, and especially second
language students, may want to reflect through the mode of writing because
they may fear writing in a second language or even in their L1. This factor will
be addressed in the practical applications of the written reflective assignment
requirement below. However, I would suggest that the written reflective assign-
ment at the end of the sociolinguistics course allowed the students to reflect on
the overall impact of the course in a way they may not necessarily have been
able to do on their own. Some of these reflections were serious for individual
students and had profound implications for them personally and profession-
ally. As T12 realized, “before studying sociolinguistics I used to blame myself
for taking various identities or even switching codes. My main concern was to
preserve my first language and identity. Yet, understanding that code switching
and multiple social identities are normal and constituent parts of the process
of learning a second language, has encouraged me to appreciate the change
and accept it as a bridge towards social and lingual integration since identities
are usually complex, multiple, and subject to change. I have now only come to
realize this and it really makes me feel relieved.”

Implications

The evidence from the written reflective position paper assignments presented
above suggests that such written reflective assignments (such as the reflective
position paper in this case study) could be used in other graduate courses (or
even undergraduate courses) to provide space for students to step back and
consider their reflections, now written, after the course, in a way that may not
be possible in any other manner. The question that can be asked to students
in order to encourage written reflections can use the same structure as the
one used in this chapter but with a blank for the name of the course: What is
the importance and impact of (name of course) for my future as a language teacher?
Alternatively, course instructors in other contexts (they can also change the
requirement to have the answer written in English to their L1 as mentioned
above) can adjust the question to their particular course focus with the similar
overall objective of encouraging critical reflection in a teacher education course.

Conclusion

This chapter outlined and discussed the results of 13 graduate reflections on

the importance and impact of sociolinguistics for each graduate student who
was enrolled in a Master’s Degree programme in Applied Linguistics/TESL in
Canada. The paper emphasized how the students could apply their knowledge
 A Canadian Case Study 49

of sociolinguistics to second language teaching in general and their particu-

lar context in particular, as well as their perceptions of how they have been
impacted by sociolinguistic issues in the past as a second language student.
All 13 students reported being surprised with what they wrote in each of their
papers and reported that they never had such a reflective assignment in any
of their previous undergraduate or graduate courses. They also noted the value
of such a reflective assignment as a means of creating an awareness of self as
future teachers in a way that may not have been possible by themselves.

References
Auerbach, E.R. (1993). Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly
27, 1, 9–32.
Farrell, T.S.C. (2013). Reflective Writing for Language Teachers. London, UK: Equinox.
Farrell, T.S.C. & Tan, S. (2008). Language policy, language teachers’ beliefs and classroom
practices. Applied Linguistics 29, 3, 381–403.
Liu, D., Ahn, G., Baek, K. & Han, N. (2004). South Korean high school English teachers’
code switching: Questions and challenges in the drive for maximal use of English in
teaching. TESOL Quarterly 38, 4, 605–638.
Lortie, D. (1975). The Schoolteacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL
Quarterly 29, 1, 9–31.
Norton, B. & Pavlenko, A. (2004). Addressing gender in the ESL/EFL classroom. TESOL
Quarterly 38, 3, 504–514.
Rich, S. & Troudi, S. (2006). Hard times: Arab TESOL students’ experiences of racialization
and othering in the United Kingdom. TESOL Quarterly 40, 3, 615–627.
Shuy, R.W. (1969). The relevance of sociolinguistics for language teaching. TESOL
Quarterly 3, 3–22.
Young, T. & Walsh, S. (2010). Which English? Whose English? An investigation of “non-
native” teachers’ beliefs about target varieties. Language, Culture and Curriculum 23, 2,
123–137.

Further reading
Farrell, T.S.C. (1999). The Reflective Assignment: Unlocking preservice teachers’ prior
beliefs. RELC Journal, 30, 2, 1–17.
This paper describes how one teacher educator encouraged pre-service teachers to
articulate their prior beliefs about teaching grammar and how this impacted their future
teaching decisions.
Farrell, T.S.C. (2008). Learning to teach in the first year: A Singapore case study. In T.S.C.
Farrell (ed), Novice Language Teachers: Insights and Perspectives for the First Year (pp.
43–56). London: Equinox.
This chapter offers insights into how a teacher educator used a story structure frame-
work to outline how a first year language teacher attempted to balance a delicate,
and sometimes conflicting, role between learning to teach and learning to become a
teacher.
50 Thomas S.C. Farrell

Farrell, T.S.C. Ed. (2008). Novice Language Teachers: Insights and Perspectives for the First
Year. London: Equinox.
This book brings together different research-based perspectives on the experiences of
novice teachers in their first year of teaching.
Gray, J. (2000). Training for reflective practice: Getting the most out of preservice courses.
The Teacher Trainer 14, 14–17.
This paper outlines how teachers can be encouraged to reflect during pre-service teacher
education courses.

Engagement priorities
1. How can teacher educators best encourage critical reflection in teacher education
courses?
2. Why is it important for teacher educators to get pre-service teachers to articulate their
prior beliefs and knowledge?
3. How can teacher educators gauge the effectiveness of their courses in terms of their
impact on pre-service teachers’ teaching in real classrooms?
4. Compare how the pre-service teachers taking a course called “sociolinguistics as
applied to second language teaching” above and outline how you would encourage
the students to critically reflect if you were teaching this course?
4
Teaching Everything to No One and
Nothing to Everyone: Addressing the
Content in Content Based Instruction
Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

Introduction and overview

Vignette
It was a late fall afternoon when we arrived at the middle school mathematics
classroom of Ms. J. Ms. J was a certified secondary level math teacher employed
at a middle school in New York City. As Mathematics and TESOL Teachers
Educators we had developed a project to help both mainstream math and sci-
ence teachers and ESL teachers develop academic language for their English
language learner students (ELLs). We entered the classroom for an observation,
and watched Ms. J deliver a lesson to a classroom of 24 students, all ELLs, most
placed at the beginning and intermediate level, with two new arrivals (enrolled
in school for less than two months). Ms. J delivered a sufficient content lesson,
but had made absolutely no accommodations for the linguistic challenges that
the students in her classroom faced. No language scaffolds, no consideration of
polysemous vocabulary, no breaking down of the complex syntactic structures
contained in the word problems, and in fact, no consideration at all for the
language challenges of these students. It was clear to us, as she was teaching
and questioning students, that little was being understood by her students. She
was teaching everything, in other words all of the appropriate content, to no
one as these students understood little of the lesson.
Our next observation was of Ms. R. Ms. R was a secondary level ESL teacher
and we were going to observe her teaching a Content Based Instruction/CBI
lesson on the science topic of pollution. Her classroom was engaging, with
word walls and a station with current magazines related to her theme. Her
lesson made use of multi-media in the form of a news clip; she had created
differentiated worksheets for the students, and was working to help them
understand climate change. She made several factual and mathematical errors
when she was working to compute the rate of change of carbon emissions
over time for five industrialized nations. While the intention of her lesson

51
52 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

was good, and there was at least a correlation to the content math and science
classes the students were taking, when Ms. R got to the problem solving part,
she gave factually wrong information about the mathematics behind the con-
cepts of curve and rate of change, and she was solving the equations as if they
were linear rather than quadratic. The students were engaged, but learning no
real content and she was not reinforcing academic language or concepts in a
way that would prepare them for their mainstream classroom, In fact, they
were leaving with mis-information in terms of the actual content. There were
a great deal of activities that promoted the four language skills, but sadly, Ms. R
was teaching nothing to everyone. There was no real content in her Content
Based lesson plan.
This chapter reports on the effects of a TESOL teacher education programme
restructuring that implemented coursework specifically designed to prepare
pre-service teachers to effectively engage in Content Based Instruction that is
tied to the academic curriculum through Two-way CBI and teacher collabora-
tion. We describe the rationale behind the programme restructuring, provide
a detailed description of the new courses and their requirements, and present
findings from the participants enrolled. Additionally, we discuss the lessons
learned and the modifications made based on the findings and offer sugges-
tions for teacher education programs interested in developing and adopting
similar coursework.

Content Based Instruction

Content Based Instruction (CBI) is the prevalent method of teaching English

to speakers of other languages. Globally referred to as Content and Language
Integrated Learning/CLIL, CBI is the focus of many TESOL preparation pro-
grammes. The practice, an outgrowth of Communicative Language Teaching,
is grounded in the theory that second language learning is most successful
when the target language is integrated with some meaningful subject, which
is used as a vehicle for language learning so that the language is both the sub-
ject of study and the vehicle for learning about a particular topic or subject
(Cummins, 1981; Met, 1991; Lightbown and Spada, 1993; Genesee, 1994;
Wells, 1994).
Developing Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency, or CALP (Cummins,
1981) through CBI has been a focus for ELLs and their teachers, but the selec-
tion of the content, or the type of academic language that was being developed
has not been consistent. In the past, researchers varied on notions of what
the content could or should consist of. For example, Met suggested that the
‘“content” in content-based programmes represents material that is cognitively
engaging and demanding for the learner, and is material that extends beyond
the target language or target culture’ (1991: 150). Genesee (1994: 3) proposed
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 53

that that content did not need to be academic in nature and that “it can
include any topic, theme, or non-language issue of interest or importance to
the learners” and that “CBI is a way to address the development of CALP in
the classroom setting.”
While definitions of the Content in CBI have shifted over time, the current
emphasis is on the academic language and content that English language learn-
ers (ELLs) need to be successful not only in their English as a second language
(ESL) class, but in their subject area classes as well. TESOL most recently defines
CBI as follows (2006: 1):

As contrasted with language teaching in isolation, CBI uses specific subject

matter on which to base language instruction. In other words, the language
is taught within the context of a specific academic subject.

Cummins and Man make further distinctions to CBI (2007) and include
notions of Conversational fluency, which is aligned with more traditional defini-
tions of BICS and is a learner’s ability to engage in everyday, usually face-to-
face conversations. They then discuss Discrete language skills, which include the
learning of rule governed aspects of language, and finally, Academic language
proficiency, which is aligned with more traditional notions of CALP, and is nec-
essary for successful participation in school.
In the US, the focus on standardized testing, combined with legislation that
makes few accommodations for those who are learning English as an addi-
tional language (for example, the No Child Left Behind Act/NCLB of 2001),
creates a situation where appropriate academic content becomes a critical com-
ponent of the ESL classroom. For example, NCLB mandates that the academic
testing results for ELLs be included in statewide accountability reports. In fact,
by the year 2014, NCLB requires that all students are meeting state proficiency
standards in math and reading.
Including ELLs in statewide accountability measures is a good thing because
in the past, states varied on their requirements for testing ELLs in the content
areas, and a student could be exempt from state mandated assessments if he
or she had Limited English Proficient (LEP) status.1 This had the potential to
create a situation where ELLs were not receiving instruction in their subject
areas. However, including ELLs in content assessments with no accommoda-
tions for language proficiency can result in ELLs’ test scores, and ultimately
their access to academic success, lagging behind those of their native speak-
ing counterparts. In the US we see this lag, or gap between the performance
of native speakers and ELLs. The most recent aggregated data on national
achievement gaps are from the 2005, 2007, and 2009 National Assessment of
Educational Progress. In the 2005 academic year, only 29% of ELLs scored at or
above the “basic” level in reading, compared with 75% of non-ELLs. By 2007,
54 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

at the national level, despite the intention of NCLB, the gap had not closed
and according to the 2007 results of NAEP, ELLs have continued to lag behind
(United States Department of Education, 2013).
While there are multiple reasons for the achievement gap, we can in part
attribute lack of gains to HOW English as a second language (ESL) and main-
stream teachers are prepared (or are not prepared) to develop both language
and content for ELLs.
Teacher preparation: Are mainstream teachers ready for ELLs and are ESL teachers
adequately prepared to teach the Content in CBI?
ELLs are an increasing population in US schools, and by all estimates, this
population will continue to grow. In fact, the federal government projects
that 40% of students in US schools will be ELLs by the year 2030 (US Census
Bureau) and their growth continues to outpace that of linguistic major-
ity students in the US (Uro & Barrio, 2013). This makes the preparation of
content teachers who are effectively prepared to work with this population
a critical and pressing factor in the field of teacher education. The teacher
education standards in the field do address this issue: The National Council
of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) pedagogy standard 8.1. states that the
teacher:

Selects, uses, and determines suitability of the wide variety of available

mathematics curricula and teaching materials for all students including
those with special needs such as the gifted, challenged, and speakers of other
languages (authors’ emphasis).
(NCTM, 2000)

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) offers the following in

their position paper on the role of English teachers in teaching ELLs in the
mainstream classroom:

Teachers working to better meet the needs of linguistically diverse stu-

dents need support. NCTE encourages English teachers to collaborate and
work closely with ESL and bilingual teaching professionals, who can offer
classroom support, instructional advice, and general insights into second
language acquisition. School administrators should support and encourage
teachers to attend workshops and professional conferences that regularly
offer sessions on bilingual learners, particularly in the areas of reading and
writing. Schools should also consider seeking professional development for
their teachers from neighboring colleges.

In turn, colleges and universities providing teacher education should offer

all preservice teachers, as well as teachers pursuing advanced degree work,
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 55

preparation in teaching linguistically diverse learners in their future class-

rooms. Coursework should be offered on second language writing and read-
ing, and on second language acquisition, as well as on culture, and should
be encouraged for all teachers.
(NCTE, 2006: ¶ 6 & 7)

However, the level to which we are preparing teachers to meet this standard
varies and ultimately, the question of whether or not teacher education pro-
grammes are meeting this need currently must be answered with a resounding
no. While there are efforts underway in some preparation programmes, there
are not large-scale and across the board initiatives. The data bear this out: Only
one-sixth of institutions of higher education require explicit coursework with
respect to the education of ELLs (Menken & Antunez, 2001). As of 2014, only
five states (Arizona, California, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania) have
some requirement related to effective instruction of ELLs for teacher certifica-
tion. Investigations of teacher preparation report that only 20% of content
area teachers have had course-work or professional development addressing
ELLs (Ballantyne, Sanderman, & Levy, 2008) and in a survey of seven states,
less than 8% of teachers who work with ELLs reported having participated in
eight or more hours of professional development specifically relating to ELLs
(NCES, 2002). Since 88% of mainstream teachers nationwide teach ELLs (de
Jong, 2013) and ELLs generally spend about 80% of their school day in main-
stream classrooms (Dong, 2002), preparing the mainstream educators who
work with them is an important component of student success and teacher
quality. However, research suggests that content teachers may feel that the
education of ELLs is not their responsibility (de Jong & Harper, 2005). When
mainstream teachers do make accommodations for ELLs, they often emerge as
comprehensibility accommodations rather than specific pedagogical practices
that support second language learning (de Jong & Harper, 2011). de Jong and
Harper (2005) point out that although the professional organizations that
govern the disciplines, such as NCTM and NCTE, have clearly articulated
the content and concepts essential to understanding and the development
of content knowledge as well as the sound pedagogical practices needed to
facilitate learning, they “fail to explain the linguistic foundation underlying
these effective content classrooms. Yet students are expected to learn new
information through reading texts, participate actively in discussions, and use
language to represent their learning by presenting oral reports and preparing
research papers. These extraordinary language and literacy demands remain
invisible” (102).
The preparation of content teachers revolves around the development of
content knowledge and theory-grounded practice. The pedagogical skills
needed form what researchers have termed “just good teaching practices”
56 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

(de Jong & Harper, 2005: 102), but these are not adequate when working with
ELLs in the mainstream classroom, especially in mathematics, where language
and conceptual knowledge are inexorably intertwined.
Content teacher preparation programmes are not the only place where there
are challenges. TESOL professionals whose primary role has traditionally been
the development of language, are frequently unprepared or under-prepared to
engage in instruction where the content is that of the academic programme
in which their students are enrolled. Looking specifically at the preparedness
of ESL teachers to engage in CBI, where the content is actually tied to the aca-
demic curriculum in meaningful and correct ways we find that ESL teachers
often struggle with the demands of the content. ESL teachers may select the
content to teach based on their strengths or student interests and lack aware-
ness and understanding of the needs of ELLs in the mainstream classroom
(DelliCarpini, 2009). This is an issue related directly to ESL teacher prepara-
tion. While requirements for programmes vary, ESL teachers are not required
to have a minor or substantial coursework in a discipline other than linguistics
or applied linguistics, which makes sense since they are language teachers,
not content teachers. However, the federal initiatives discussed earlier have
created a situation where ESL teachers cannot ignore the actual content, and
must develop learning experiences where the content in their CBI lessons is
based on the actual curricular demands of the subject courses in which ELLs
are engaged.
Based on the aforementioned challenges and factors, and tasked with the
effective preparation of mainstream content teachers and ESL teachers in a
School of Education, we knew that we needed to be innovative and agents of
change. Collaborative partnerships between mainstream and ESL teachers and
Two-way CBI can be a way to solve this.

Context and setting

Lehman College, part of the City University of New York, is the only senior
public college in the Bronx, NY. The overall ELL population (classified and does
not include the number of students who speak a language other than English at
home who are not classified ELL or are former ELLs) in NYC schools is 14.4%.
The Bronx, one of the 5 boroughs of NYC, has an ELL population of 25.72%
(NYC Department of Education, 2013). If we drill further down, the schools
that were visited in the opening vignette were 30% (the location of the main-
stream math classroom observed) and 29% (the location of the ESL classroom
observed). The Department of Middle and High School Education houses all
graduate and undergraduate secondary (7–12 grade) content certifications and
the graduate level TESOL (pre-school through 12th grade/secondary school
commencement level) grade teacher preparation programmes that lead to
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 57

New York State teaching certification. The pre-service and in-service teachers
are conducting fieldwork, students teaching, and teaching primarily in the
Bronx and most are in schools with demographics similar to those in our two
observation locations.

The innovation

As teacher educators conducting visits together and alone where scenes similar
to our opening vignette were the norm, we knew that we had to radically re-
think how we were preparing the teachers we were ultimately sending into these
schools. Our ideas began as discussions around the faculty lunch table … each
sharing the challenges we saw our respective teachers facing, and brainstorm-
ing ways to address the problem. We began with visits to each other’s methods
classes, giving lectures on working with ELLs in the mainstream, content class-
room, or the actual demands of the content and how ESL teachers could help
develop academic language. Then, after success with these visits, we began plan-
ning on co-scheduling courses (English methods and TESOL Methods; Math
Methods and TESOL Methods; Science Methods and TESOL Methods). The
Math and Science Methods courses that we targeted were already being co-
scheduled as they were part of a grant funded programme designed to develop
more STEM educators (Robert Noyce Grant). The simple co-scheduling and
engaging in collaborative lesson development further evolved into a formal-
ized course that built both collaborative practice and that ultimately evolved
into the practice we call Two-way CBI. Two-way CBI builds on and extends
teacher collaboration and traditional CBI. Two-way CBI differs from the preva-
lent Sheltered Instructional Observation Protocol, or SIOP (Echevarría, Vogt, &
Short, 2000) in that language-driven content objectives (which are enacted in
the mainstream classroom) and content-driven language objectives (which are
enacted in the ESL classroom) are collaboratively developed and are comple-
mentary in nature, therefore eliminating the disconnect that often is present
between language and content in the classroom (see Appendix 4.1 for exam-
ples of these objectives). Two-way CBI also focuses on making both language
and content teachers aware of the types of linguistic knowledge necessary for
success in STEM subjects, and through collaboration between the mainstream
STEM and ESL teacher, the full range of language forms and functions is decon-
structed and explicitly developed, which is critical since research suggests that
language objectives are often little more than vocabulary lessons and do not
make the language of the discipline visible (Regalla, 2012). The course formal-
ized into the following, and became required for the students in the Noyce
programme and a required CBI course for the TESOL candidates.
Additionally, candidates had to be taught about teacher collaboration
and the what, when, and where in the curriculum it could occur. We define
58 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

collaboration along a continuum, with what we call the “weak form” at one
end, consisting of discussions about shared students, to the “strong form”, at
the other end of the continuum consisting of formalized co-teaching. Activities
that fall in between include sharing resources, visiting each other’s classrooms,
and co-planning. We have found that the strong form, actual co-teaching,
requires a great deal of preparation, training, and administrative support, not to
mention time, so it is not practical in every setting. Asking teachers to co-plan
can be a better and more sustainable way to achieve the same goals, namely,
developing both language and content for ELLs in both the ESL and main-
stream settings. Whether teachers engage in the strong or weak form, or any
combination of the collaborative practices that fall in between, collaboration
between mainstream and ESL teachers provides a way to address the needs of
ELLs within both the mainstream and ESL classrooms.

The course in detail

The course we share here, in its final form, was originally co-developed and
co-taught by a Mathematics Teacher Education Professor and TESOL Professor
during the summer of 2011, with the goals of supporting novice secondary-
level mathematics/science teachers in teaching ELLs in the mainstream content
classroom as well as novice ESL teachers in their ability to understand and effec-
tively engage in CBI. Additionally, developing strong collaborative partnerships
between secondary-level ESL and content teachers was a focus of the course.
Each semester the faculty members reflected on practice, used student data to
inform decisions, and made changes as needed, with the final course format that
included the ongoing development of a framework identifying and assessing
ELLs’ challenges; weekly readings related to the topic of academic language devel-
opment for ELLs and guided reflections on the readings, course discussions, and
experiences in the candidates’ field placements; lecture, discussion, and a related
group activity focusing on the collaborative development of Two-way CBI objec-
tives and lesson plans; and finally field observations and reflections (reflecting on
reflections) as well as various additional course assignments (in detail, to follow).
These elements formed the foundation and framework for the following reg-
ular assignments: Pre-service teachers (both STEM and TESOL) collaboratively
developed content/ESL lessons and units of study explicitly addressing the
needs identified, using the knowledge and skills gained during the course (see
lesson planning format in Appendix 4.2). Students engaged in weekly readings/
reflections, as well as larger sessions that the researchers called “reflecting on
reflections”, and a series of student responses were coded by the researchers for
emergent themes which were then discussed in a larger group setting. Students
were required to develop a position paper through individual and collaborative
inquiry, reading/reflecting, analysis of classroom observations, and reflective
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 59

discussions and writing to problematize the identified needs, re-conceptualiz-

ing and re-framing their initial needs/solutions within a theoretical and socio-
cultural context. Participants also developed a Teaching experiment/Action
research paper/Discursive approach to educational research which was carried
out in subsequent semesters where they were visited by researchers in either
their field placements, student teaching placement, or classroom of record.
Finally, the course contained field observations and guided reflections.
The weekly topics for the course are listed below:

• Who are our ELLs? The role of the ESL teacher

• Second language acquisition/L2 teaching & learning
• BICS & CALP/Language of the discipline/Cummins Quadrants
• Approaches to instruction for ELLs, challenges, & promising practices
• Teacher Collaboration: What, how, when, where
• Two-way CBI/language-driven & content-driven CBI
• Reflective practices (Dr. Thomas Farrell)
• Teaching Experiment/Action Research
• Common Core State Standards & ELLs
• Schema theory/Content reading & ELLs
• Lexical acquisition/Developing academic vocabulary for ELLs
• Cooperative learning/Oral language development
• Text structure/materials/text adaptation/differentiation/writing
• Technology/Enhancing CALP through CALL
• Assessment of ELLs/The language factor

An example reading assignment is the 2005 de Jong and Harper article,

Preparing Mainstream Teachers for English Language Learners: Is Being a Good
Teacher Good Enough? Students come prepared to class with a written response
(prompt below) and a whole group discussion of the reading follows:

Reflective prompt: How can “just good teaching practices” apply to ELLs
in mainstream classrooms? Are the challenges de Jong and Harper discuss
present in your own settings? How are the needs of ELLs in the mainstream
content classroom being met? How can teachers develop practice that
addresses the issues identified? What can you do to enhance your own prac-
tice based on the issues raised by the authors?

An example small group, in class activity that relates to the development of the
Two-way CBI objectives:

In small groups (ESL & Content) identify a content concept and collabora-
tively develop a complementary set of language and content objectives so
60 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

that the content teachers are developing content-driven CBI learning expe-
riences and the ESL teachers are developing language-driven CBI learning
experiences. Then, develop two lesson outlines, one for the content class-
room and one for the ESL classroom. Finally, be prepared to discuss HOW
these lessons work collaboratively to enhance BOTH content AND academic
language learning in BOTH settings.

Findings

The responses to the reflections on course readings, their observation logs,

and reflective discussion during focus groups were the sources of the qualita-
tive data collected. Throughout the iterations of the course, we were engaged
in research about the course, what the outcomes were, and finally, based on
our data over time, we developed a collaborative practicum course where we
visited students who went through the course and continued to offer support
and guidance in their teaching placements.
We addressed the following research questions on an ongoing basis as a way
to evaluate the course:

• What are mainstream math and science (MMS) teachers’ attitudes and cur-
rent practices related to the inclusion of ELLs in the secondary level content
classroom? How does this change as a result of the course?
• What is the level of knowledge ESL teachers have about the mainstream,
content curriculum and how does this change as a result of the course?
• What are the participants’ understandings of the role of academic language
and how does that change as a result of the course?
• What are MMS teachers’ perceptions of ESL teachers and all participants’
current level of knowledge and skills in collaborative practice? How does
this change as a result of the course?
• What is the effect of explicit coursework that develops collaborative practice
and Two-way CBI skills on teachers’ beliefs and practices about working
with ELLs in the mainstream content classroom? How does this change as
a result of the course?

The evaluation of the course was conducted using mixed-methods that

included reflective writing, interviews, focus group and pre-post course survey
data. We collected data for four semesters and included the results from 33
students (the number who completed all assignments and related surveys/focus
groups/interview sessions). For the purposes of this chapter, we will share the
qualitative data findings and representative comments from participants to
highlight the themes that emerged from our analysis as they add a richness
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 61

to the discussion and the implications. We found that in the beginning of the
class mainstream TCs generally held a deficit view of ELLs. For example, Oscar,2
a high school Living Environments teacher, wrote in an early response to a
reflective prompt: [How can teachers meet the challenge of ELLs in the mainstream,
secondary level content classroom? What are some of the main issues you see related
to effective instruction of ELLs (issues including but not limited to teacher prepara-
tion, content material, academic success, collaboration between mainstream an con-
tent teachers, etc.) and what are your thoughts on addressing these challenges? Who
is responsible for addressing these issues? What is the learner’s responsibility? The
teacher’s/administrator’s/family/community?]

“Teachers can only do so much. If the family isn’t on board with what the
school goals are and didn’t prepare their kids for school there will be prob-
lems. Many of the students in my class who are ELLs come from families
where the parents didn’t go to school either here or there and they don’t
prepare their kids for school and they don’t place value on learning English
so these kids just come to pass time and go back home and live their lives.”

The underlying message in this response is that the English language learning
students and their families bear the primary responsibility for success or fail-
ure in school, and the teacher “can only do so much”. This speaks directly to
course readings incorporated that underscore who is ultimately responsible for
these students. In the de Jong and Harper (2005) work, the gap between good
teaching practice for mainstream students and good teaching practices for
ELLs in the mainstream classroom, as well as academic achievement of ELLs is
examined, and the authors share: “The reality is that many content-area teach-
ers assume that ELLs will be taught English in another class. In a recent study
of content-area teachers, one social studies teacher stated, ‘I believed that was
someone else’s job’ (Short, 2002: 21)” (109).
We also found that mainstream TCs had low levels of understanding regard-
ing the needs of ELLs and desired more knowledge of these students in general.
Joy, a middle school math teacher’s frustration comes through in her reflection
about the needs of ELLs in the mainstream classroom: [Review the resources in
the Standards Resource Folder. Reflect on the types of teaching and learning that
these documents guide in general, specific to your discipline, and specifically what
the needs/considerations/challenges/issues related to ELLs in the mainstream content
classroom are and what specific guidance these documents give you related to working
with these students].
“I reviewed the material and feel even more lost. In my teacher preparation
classes so far, I haven’t been taught anything about actually TEACHING ELLs,
just that they are there and there are challenges. Not even what the challenges
62 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

are. I really hope that during this semester, with the both of you [Math and
TESOL Professor], I can get some actual answers.”
These types of responses supported the literature in terms of programme
type. Content teacher preparation programmes in the US rarely include sub-
stantive coursework related to the effective education of ELLs, and they need
to integrate what Lucas, Villegas and Freedson-Gonzalez call “Linguistically
responsive teacher education” (2008). They argue that the issue is not one of
research availability, as there is a rich and continuous body of work related
to the effective education of ELLs, but rather that this work is geared towards
the preparation of specialists (ESL and bilingual educators) and does not make
its way into mainstream teacher preparation programmes. Additionally, they
posit that the language itself used in these works is linguistically discipline
specific and may pose challenges when applied in mainstream preparation
programmes and used by faculty and students who do not have the requisite
background knowledge to be successful with these texts. This is an impor-
tant consideration, as earlier work on this topic (DelliCarpini & Gulla, 2010)
showed that sometimes it is just a matter of “speaking the same language” and
while concepts may be similar across disciplines, the language used to describe
them is not. Collaborative partnerships like the one described here can bridge
the gap that clearly exists.
From the TESOL side, we found that ESL teachers were unsure of the content
to include and often focused on things that they were confident with, and this
tended to eliminate or under-focus any STEM subjects in the ESL classroom.
Elisabeth, a middle and high school level ESL teacher felt inadequate in terms
of her ability to engage in CBI. In response to a prompt on the integration of
language and content [Read the article on integrating language and content for
ELLs. Reflect on the role of sheltered instruction in the content classroom. What are
the challenges and promises of such integration? Can this be accomplished while
maintaining academically rigorous standards for all learners? Is there a benefit to
other students? What support do content teachers need to be effective in integrat-
ing language and content? What role can collaboration between the content and
ESL teacher play? What does content mean in the term content-based instruction?
What does content-based instruction mean in your own practice (current or future)],
Elisabeth states:

I feel like I am never doing anything more than giving vocabulary lists
related to their subject classes, and even then, we are not really explor-
ing the words, just defining them and trying to give examples, but how
can I give an example of something like pi when I am not even sure about
it. I also have some very smart students, better in math and science then
I ever was, and I can’t answer all the questions they ask. I tell them to ask
it in math class, then of course they don’t because they are embarrassed or
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 63

they don’t like their accents, or whatever teenage stuff they go through.
So, bottom line, I don’t think I do a great job of integrating language and
content in CBI, not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t have the
content background.

This is a problematic and under-explored issue in the preparation of TESOL

educators and the prevalence of CBI. As stated earlier, definitions of CBI have
changed over time, from the content being anything the teacher selected that
would interest students, to a purely academic focus. With the academic demands
placed on students in English speaking countries, and the prevalence of English
medium programmes worldwide with their focus on CLIL, it is critical to address
this challenge. ESL/EFL teachers simply do not have the ability to teach the
subject area in isolation but necessarily must rely on developing collaborative
partnerships to effectively integrate language and content knowledge/language
development. ESL teachers are responsible for both the language development
and the sheltering of content, and recent research has shown that this is a challenge
for ESL teacher candidates (Baecher, Farnswort, & Ediger, 2013).
We also found that initially the participants had a lack of knowledge regarding
the role of language in the mainstream, content classroom. For example, Betsy,
a high school science teacher, shared in her initial reflection, “I am more focused
on them getting the science than building language skills. That is what happens in
their ESL class. I’m not a language teacher. I’m a science teacher.” Betsy’s response
indicates that first, there is a lack of awareness that the discipline is comprised
of language specific to that field, and that second, her role is one of building
content, not language skills, and that language learning takes place elsewhere.
Students’ thinking and communication of content area material involves not
only communicative language skills, but also an understanding of the appro-
priate discipline specific language according to their developmental level. This
discipline specific language must be developed within the context of the con-
tent classroom, but in a similar way that ESL teachers are unsure of the content,
content teachers are unsure of how to develop the language of the discipline,
making teacher collaboration between mainstream and ESL teachers critical.
Related to this was the finding that ESL teachers are unsure of how much
content to focus. These teachers also found that balancing the language focus
and content focus was a challenge (too much focus on language with little
focus on real content, or too much focus on content without the language
skills being addressed). Integration of language and content was a challenge.
For example, Andrea, an ESL teacher at the 7–12 grade level, felt that she was
sacrificing something at all times:

“I feel that there are these very clear divides between when I focus on con-
tent then shift to language building skills. When I focus on building oral
64 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

and written language, I have many things I do that are fun and engaging,
but when I focus on content, I feel that I am shifting away from my main
goals, which are language development. We talk about a fully integrated
approach to language and content instruction, but getting there is not so
easy.”

Andrea’s experiences were similar to the other ESL teachers in our class. They
felt their primary focus was on language development and they were unsure
of how to focus on content, and how much content to focus on. Another ESL
teacher, Didi, shared, “I went to get materials from one of the content teach-
ers so I could help my students with the text book and assignments. I was
made to feel like I had three heads and that I had no right stepping on the
subject teacher’s toes. Very territorial.” So, we see evidence for both a lack of
understanding related to the actual integration of content and language as well
as issues related to who owns the content. According Baecher, Farnsworth &
Ediger, “this integration is a complex pedagogical challenge” (118).
Finally, a declarative knowledge of collaboration was present in all partici-
pants, but this did not translate to a procedural knowledge of ESL/mainstream
teacher collaboration. Generally, all participants saw collaboration as a positive
practice, but knowledge of HOW to accomplish this lacked.
By the end of the class we saw growth in all of the participants during each
semester. We found that Mainstream TCs developed positive beliefs about ELLs
in their mainstream classroom and realized that they were responsible for
building both language and content skills. They no longer tended to “blame
the victim”. Oscar, our science teacher who felt that mainstream teachers
could only do so much and students and their families bore responsibility, had
shifted his perspective and in his final reflection he states, “The role of the sub-
ject teacher is to work collaboratively with the ESL teacher in order to define
the specific language needs of the ELL students, then develop two-way CBI
activities that meet those needs.” This is a significant shift in beliefs about the
role of the content teacher vis a vis the education of ELLs in the mainstream
classroom. Another secondary level math teacher, Bryan, stated, “Content and
language don’t develop separately. They develop together and math and ESL
teachers can work together to collaboratively create two-way CBI lesson plans
and Language-driven content and Content-driven language objectives to fully
integrate this for ELLs.”
We also saw an increase in the understanding of the needs of ELLs on the part
of mainstream teachers and, additionally, where to go if they had questions.
We consider this an empowering experience for mainstream teachers of ELLs:

“Introduce yourself to the ELL teacher, the math coach, the IEP counselor,
and the counselor and get all of their insight and thought on the student
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 65

and their progress. If the language is what eludes you, introduce yourself to
Administrator of the Foreign Language Department if it’s a high school, if in
a middle school I suggest finding a translator tool that you and the student
will always have quick access to. If the Language is Spanish, as in my single
experience as a teacher, find someone willing to translate. The IEP teacher
actually provided me with Spanish Text for the ELL student.” (Emma, sec-
ondary level math, final reflection)

Additionally, ESL teachers gained a deeper understanding of the curricular

demands that their ELLs faced in the mainstream classroom and were able to
identify resources and materials that would inform their practice and provide
ELLs with the needed content in a sheltered setting, and the ESL teachers felt
more confident in their ability to balance language and content in a truly
integrated way.
Ms. R, the ESL teacher who appears in the opening vignette, wrote in her
final reflection:

“After the readings and reflections and the observations, and your visits to
the classroom I learned how to work with the mainstream teacher and to
find other materials that would help me develop the objectives and lessons
that could get my students prepared for their subject classes. I also found
that what I was focusing on wasn’t always what they needed to know. I am
not the math teacher or science teacher, and I don’t have that background,
but they [subject area teachers] do, and if we work together we can develop
Two-way CBI activities that build both language and content and not let
either one suffer because they are both equally important.”

Both ESL and mainstream teachers were able to articulate the critical role lan-
guage plays in the development of content knowledge and identify linguistic
elements and specific strategies to build these types of language skills in both
settings. Paloma, a secondary level bilingual math teacher shares in her final
reflection:

“In mathematics, you cannot teach content if the students do not have
the appropriate vocabulary. As one of the articles stated: “Mathematics has
more concepts per word, per sentence, and per paragraph.” There is a solid
interconnection between the content and the vocabulary, and this is where
I need to help my students. If the students already have the knowledge in
Spanish it is only a matter of transferring the content into the L2, but if
the students do not have the previous knowledge, there is where the chal-
lenge lies. I have to start teaching to them the basic vocabulary in Spanish
and then transfer the knowledge to English after they have understood the
66 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

concept. By teaching this way I can balance language and content when I
do CBI.”

In the end, both groups of teachers not only understood collaboration, but
were able to work together to co-plan and co-develop complementary objec-
tives that would be carried out in their respective classrooms. They ended the
course very supportive of the practice and wanting to sustain it in their subse-
quent placements.
During each iteration we learned something, not only about our students
and the course structure, but also about ourselves as collaborative partners, and
we were able to use that knowledge to strengthen the instruction and support
we provided in terms of developing effective collaborative partnerships. We
know, from our own experience, that collaboration is not easy, and it is essen-
tially a relationship that develops over time. We were able to reflect on our own
practice and transfer those lessons learned into our teaching.
From a management perspective, in order to give both faculty full credit in
terms of workload, and to ensure that our students were taking the courses
required by the state for certification, we frequently co-scheduled two distinct
sections (for example a math methods course and a TESOL methods course).
From a student perspective, we had to spend time in the beginning working
on issues related to positioning. We found that the content teachers frequently
viewed the ESL teachers as helpers, rather than professionals in their own
right. We integrated works by Arkoudis and Creese (see further readings) and
worked to explicitly problematize the way that ESL teachers and students are
frequently viewed, and to develop a level playing field from which to begin the
collaborative practice part.

Implications

English is rapidly becoming a global lingua franca and the course we developed
and changes we made to our programme are important not only in countries
where ESL programmes and ELL populations are growing, but in other parts of
the world where English medium programmes and English immersion schools
at all levels are becoming the norm. According to a ICEF Monitor article (2012),
“Universities worldwide have been switching wholly or partly to teaching in
English for a number of reasons” (¶ 2) and China, the Middle East, East Africa
and Europe are all regions where this trend is growing. In the EU, there has
been a rapid growth in these programs. For example, in 2008, there were 1,500
masters programs listed in EU countries (excluding Ireland and the UK), which
was up from just 560 programs in 2002. By 2010 the MastersPortal database
contained 3,543 English-taught master’s programs offered in European coun-
tries (Brenn-White & van Rest, 2012).
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 67

At all levels of instruction, these programmes are engaged in CLIL, and the
goals are to develop both English language skills and content or special knowl-
edge (in ESP programmes). English medium programmes globally can develop
professional development workshops for faculty to engage in this practice, and
teacher preparation and training programmes can implement similar course-
work to prepare teachers, both mainstream and content, to engage in similar
practices. In Europe and other locations where English Medium programmes
are growing, CLIL is the prevalent method of instruction, yet there are numer-
ous challenges, similar to those we found in our own work. Banegas (2012)
states that “Teachers sometimes do not know what it is expected from them,
especially when CLIL means putting content and foreign language teachers
working together” (47). Related research found that when foreign language
and content teachers were required to teach together, both often did not know
what was expected of them, and if classes were only taught by content teachers,
the only language support tended to be translation; there was real and strong
resistance to co-teaching and issues related to positioning and teacher identity
(Mehisto, 2008). These are similar to the challenges we found and can be
addressed through Two-way CBI and teacher collaboration that does not have
to take the strong form of co-teaching.
The lessons learned from this course development and subsequent collabora-
tive practicum development experience provided us with the knowledge and
theory grounded tolls to make data driven changes to our teacher preparation
programmes to ensure that ALL teachers were being prepared to meet the needs
of ALL students. In fact, as an outcome of this research and course develop-
ment project, we were awarded an NSF grant to prepare secondary level STEM
educators to work with ELLs and ultimately be on a path for certification in
both their subject area AND ESL in New York State. Without the experiences
of this project and the findings from our four semesters of research this grant
would have not been possible.
The findings from this course suggest that any approach to successful
Content Based Instruction requires collaborative practice and that implement-
ing a Two-way CBI approach can be effective in overcoming the challenges
that exist in both the mainstream and ESL classroom related to the successful
integration of language and content.

Summary and conclusion

This course was initially developed as a pilot to address the needs of the grow-
ing populations of ELLs that our mainstream teachers were facing in their
classrooms and the demands on ESL teachers to engage in CBI that addresses
actual academic requirements. We had concluded that neither group of teach-
ers was being adequately prepared to meet the needs of ELLs and that this was
68 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

contributing to the persistent achievement gap. The course was structured to

develop skills in collaborative practices and Two-way CBI, and we researched
the course to evaluate its effectiveness and to make needed revisions as we
continued to develop improved iterations.
The general findings provide evidence for positive change in both groups
of teachers related to beliefs about ELLs, knowledge of linguistic and content
demands, building effective collaborative partnerships, and the integration
of language and content in both settings. As a result of our findings we have
institutionalized the course for TESOL and STEM candidates (Noyce Grant
participants). We have submitted a number of grant proposals to support the
development of the course/research in particular and support our further devel-
opment of more effective models of teacher preparation and two-way CBI. An
example of this, resulting from the initial findings, is the development of a
pilot interdisciplinary practicum component into the system so we can fully
analyze the effects of the course. This component will authenticate the gains
TCs demonstrate in identifying, understanding and addressing the needs of
ELLs within a CBI framework, and developing a greater sense of efficacy in
terms of their ability to engage in beneficial collaborative partnerships, and
would aid in the creation and implementation of curriculum materials for both
the mainstream and ESL classroom.
Effective integration of language and content has the potential to create suc-
cessful learning environments for ELLs through the meaningful acquisition of
the academic subject under investigation and the academic language needed
to communicate effectively within that subject. Both ESL and content teachers
face challenges in understanding and implementing CBI effectively. The find-
ings from this research and the ongoing project can impact teacher education
in meaningful ways. Students whose first language is not English are a growing
part of the educational landscape in the US, and many parts of the world are
working to develop effective practices for English language instruction. It is no
longer acceptable for teachers of other subjects to have little to no knowledge
of the issues related the education of ELLs. When teachers are prepared to teach
ALL learners that they encounter in their classrooms, educational success and
attainment is raised for all learners.
Appendix 4.1 Two-way CBI example
Language driven content objectives Content driven language objectives
Content classroom ESL classroom

SWBAT to associate triangles with their names, during whole SWBAT discuss triangle classification using the following sentence
group and small group discussions, based on the length of their starter: Triangle ABC is a (an) _______________ triangle because of its
sides and on the measure of their angles using the following angle measures are ____________. Students will generate sentences
academic terminology: Sides(s), Angle (s), length of a side, meas- using the classification table below (partition-pairs classification)
ure of an angle, base of an isosceles triangle, right angle, obtuse and/or triangle names, (which can act as a semantic feature analysis
angle, acute angle, Isosceles triangle, Equilateral triangle, Scalene chart to develop dictionary-like definitions (Author, in press) using
triangle, Right triangle, Obtuse, triangle, and Acute triangle, correct prepositions, conjunctions, direct and indirect articles with
equal, unequal, congruent, degree(s). an 80% level of accuracy.

SWBAT explain orally, using the academic vocabulary, concep- SWBAT discuss triangle classification using the following sentence
tual hierarchical relationships among different kind of triangles starter: Triangle ABC is a (an) _______________ triangle because of its
whenever they exists (is an equilateral triangle isosceles?) as well angle measures are ____________. Students will generate sentences
as to identify and communicate in written and oral forms differ- using the classification table below (partition-pairs classification)
ent ways in which these could be defined as they use different and/or triangle names, (which can act as a semantic feature analysis
classification criteria. chart to develop dictionary-like definitions using correct preposi-
tions, conjunctions, direct and indirect articles with an 80% level of
accuracy.

SWBAT identify all types of triangles with 100% accuracy, under- SWBAT engage in a discussion web activity and reach consensus on
stand the linguistic functions related to classifications as they how to best classify triangles (traditional or partition pairs), share
associate observable features of shapes with a classification crite- their group results with the class, then individually write a paragraph
rion, with 90% accuracy, and to correctly define all types of tri- (10 sentences), using the academic vocabulary of triangles and trian-
angles with 85% accuracy rate measured by their usage of Venn gle classification to defend their idea on this topic. Students will (1)
Diagrams, concept mapping and other graphic organizers and as incorporate 7/10 content specific vocabulary words; (2) focus on sub-
they communicate their findings. ject verb agreement (with a 70% accuracy rate) and (3) have at least

69
7/10 of the paragraph sentences complete in nature (no fragments).
70 Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando B. Alonso

Appendix 4.2 Collaborative planning format

Two-Way CBI Lesson Template

Content Area:
Topic:
Grade Level:
ELLs’ proficiency level:

Common Core Standards:

Discipline specific standards (where applicable):

Standards for Mathematical Practice:
Next Generation Science Standards:
NCTM Standards:
TESOL Standards:

Opportunities for collaborative practice:

Materials/resources/supplementary materials/visuals:

Key Vocabulary

Content:
Everyday language:

Prior knowledge needed:

Content topic/problem features

Feature Content classroom ESL/EFL classroom

Key content Concept

Key Vocabulary
Polysemeous vocabulary
Language functions/skills

Two-way CBI complementary objective

Content classroom ESL/EFL classroom

Language –driven Content Objectives: Content-driven Language Objectives:

Lesson Body: Pedagogical practices that help students reach the aforementioned
objectives
Assessment:
Closing:

Extension
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 71

Notes
1. LEP is the U.S. Federal Government official term for English language learners. Many
states include the terms English language learner or English Learner as their official
designation alongside the Federal term.
2. All names are pseudonyms.

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DelliCarpini, M., Gulla, A.N., Smith, J., Kelly, A., Cutler, C., & Shiller, J. (2011): Teacher
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better prepare Future Educators. In Honigsfeld & Cohan (eds), Breaking the Mold
of Education for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students. Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers.
DelliCarpini, M. & Gulla, A.N. (2010). Crossing borders: Interdisciplinary collaboration
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Further reading
1. Arkoudis, S. (2006). Negotiating the rough ground between ESL and mainstream
teachers. The International Journal of Bilingual Education 9, 4, 415–433.
This article investigates the barriers related to teacher collaboration between TESOL and
content educators, specifically focusing on positioning issues.
 Teaching Everything to No One and Nothing to Everyone 73

2. Dalton-Puffer., C., Nikula, T., & Smit, U. (2010). Language use and Language Learning in
CLIL Classrooms. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
This edited volume examines the issue of content and language integrated learning and
offers a synthesis of the research on CLIL. The volume focuses on the European context
and chapters represent investigations from both a theoretical and empirical standpoint.
3. de Jong, E.J. & Harper, C.A. (2005). Preparing mainstream teachers for English lan-
guage learners: Is being a good teacher good enough? Teacher Education Quarterly 32,
2, 101–124.
This article examines the gap between good teaching practices in mainstream classrooms
and good teaching practices for ELLs and provides a number of considerations and exam-
ples for teachers in both contexts.
4. DelliCarpini, M. & Alonso, O.B. (2013). Content Based Instruction. Alexandria VA.
TESOL International Association.
This book provides an overview of CBI, teacher collaboration, and the Two-way CBI
approach discussed in this chapter, with examples of learning activities for a math/TESOL
collaboration.
5. Honigsfeld, A. & Dove, M. (2010). Collaboration and Co-Teaching: Strategies for English
Learners. Corwin Press.
This book provides an overview of teacher collaboration and co-teaching with chapters
that include information, examples, and activities to facilitate the development of these
skills for both content and ESL/EFL teachers.

Engagement priorities
1. What types of action research projects could in-service teachers develop to assess how
Two-way CBI can enhance the language and content learning of English language
learners? What are the implications of the Two-way CBI approach described here
based on programme type, location, and other contextual factors? With increasing
demands on English language learners to acquire Academic English and to participate
in English medium programmes worldwide, what additional modifications to tradi-
tional CBI must be made to meet the needs of these learners? Additionally, how do
we effectively prepare both ESL/EFL and content teacher educators to engage in these
new approaches? How can ELT Teacher Preparation Programs begin to build relation-
ships and collaborative partnerships with Content Educator Preparation Programs?
What are some barriers that might be faced and how could they be overcome? How
could ELT and other Educator Preparation programmes engage schools to encourage
and support collaborative practice between ESL and content area teachers? Looking
at the continuum of collaborative practice below, what are ways that you could col-
laborate with content faculty in your programme in each of the areas identified, and
what types of space for this collaborative practice might be necessary?
5
Dissonance and Balance: The Four
Strands Framework and Pre-Service
Teacher Education
John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

Introduction and overview

The effectiveness of teacher education courses in preparing pre-service teachers

for the classroom is, naturally and unsurprisingly, an area of interest for those
involved in the delivery of such courses. It is, after all, very reasonable that
stakeholders – such as teachers, administrators, and sponsors – should want to
know whether the course is achieving its goal. In language teacher education
an ongoing concern is that novice teachers teach as they were taught, rather
than as they were trained to teach. In recent years, one focus for evaluating
course effectiveness has been whether teacher education leads to changes
in teacher cognition, a concept which Borg (2003: 81) has described as “the
unobservable cognitive dimension of teaching – what teachers know, believe,
and think.” Such change is judged to be important because of the link between
cognition and practice. As Elbaz argued, for example, “the teacher’s knowledge
[is] something dynamic, held in an active relationship to practice and used to
give shape to that practice” (Elbaz, 1981: 48). Thus, existing beliefs may lead
to classroom practices that do not reflect research and theory about effective
learning practices (Peacock, 2001: 178).
In language education, studies to date have not been uniformly encouraging
about the effectiveness of teacher education courses in shifting beliefs. Indeed,
studies of teacher cognition repeatedly find that beliefs remain largely unchanged
as a result of teacher education programmes. Richardson (1996), for example,
concluded that such courses presented a “weak intervention” that was unlikely
to change pre-service teacher beliefs. A number of studies would appear to sup-
port this characterization. For instance, in Hong Kong, Urmston (2003) used
questionnaire data to determine the extent of change in beliefs of 40 pre-service
teachers completing a three-year undergraduate programme and claimed the
findings “indicative of the resistance to change in beliefs of pre-service teachers”
(Urmston, 2003: 122). Changes that did occur tended to relate to performance

74
 Dissonance and Balance 75

in the teaching environment. Also in Hong Kong, Peacock used the Beliefs
About Language Learning Inventory (Horwitz, 1985) to track the beliefs of 146
pre-service teachers over a three-year programme and found that “disturbingly,
these beliefs changed very little over their 3 years of study of TESL methodology”
(Peacock, 2001: 186). Their beliefs were compared with those of experienced ESL
teachers, gathered in a previous study. Also using Horwitz’s BALLI instrument,
Wong (2010) investigated changes in beliefs about language learning over a
14 month period among a group of 25 Malaysian pre-service teachers and simi-
larly found that their beliefs were largely unchanged. Where change did occur it
was principally in relation to beliefs about the nature of language learning.
Stronger evidence of some change in beliefs was produced by another ques-
tionnaire-based study, of under- and post-graduate student teachers over one
semester in the UK, with the most obvious shift being “a rejection of the behav-
iourist model of learning” (MacDonald, Badger, & White, 2001: 957). Rather
than using questionnaires, Levin and He (2008) conducted a content analysis
of texts written by 94 pre-service teachers in the United States and concluded
that, while there was a strong influence on beliefs about instruction, “we do
not have a very strong influence on beliefs about the classroom as a learning
environment” (Levin & He, 2008: 64) which they appear to ascribe to Lortie’s
“apprenticeship of observation,” the fact that “[t]hose who teach have nor-
mally had sixteen continuous years of contact with teachers and professors”
(Lortie, 1975: 61). Their beliefs about the classroom as a learning environment,
in other words, have been shaped and largely fixed by their years of experience
as a learner. Levin and He’s findings also point to another important aspect of
pre-service teacher cognition studies, the need to differentiate between cogni-
tive and behavioural change (Borg, 2006).
The lack of change in beliefs reported by such studies as these has resulted
in the promotion of attention to beliefs in teacher education courses. For
instance, El-Okda (2005: 52) recommended these “as a starting point in any
methodology course” while Peacock (2001: 189) argued that “work on beliefs
should be an integral part of TESL core courses,” although both Borg (2011)
and Macalister (2012) have recently suggested that such attention may be more
appropriate in in-service than pre-service courses. If the determining factor in
cognition development is in fact teaching experience, then it is worth noting
that courses in which a teaching practicum is present have also recorded posi-
tive results (Yuan & Lee, 2014). However, as Faez and Valeo (2012: 466) have
pointed out, there is a “need to reexamine the role, nature, and duration of the
practicum and situate it within the programme as an integrated component.”
Standard practice is to have the practicum as a separate, stand-alone, and often
final component of the teacher education programme.
In this chapter, we describe a pre-service language teacher education pro-
gramme of relatively short duration that seeks to challenge and change beliefs
76 John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

based on past experience. We view teacher education programmes as change

programmes (Richardson, 1996: 102), and hold that “to achieve change they
should create dissonance between what is already known and has already been
experienced and what is expected to be known and has yet to be experienced”
(Macalister, 2013: 314). Because a practicum is closely integrated into the
programme, there are also opportunities to create dissonance between current
and future practice by drawing on the experiences of former graduates from
the programme. Our use of “graduate scenarios’ drawn from former gradu-
ates” experiences is an innovation that aims to prepare our student teachers
for life after the programme. However, to ensure that the end result is not
uncertainty and anxiety, the programme is built around a particular curricular
model that allows the student teachers to approach any learning and teaching
context from a secure conceptual framework, and thus achieve balance in their
teaching.

The context and setting for the innovation

The innovation has been implemented in a New Zealand university Graduate

Certificate in TESOL which consists of two courses and involves a total of
600 hours of coursework over a 12 week trimester. All course members are uni-
versity graduates, wishing to gain an initial qualification for teaching English
to speakers of other languages overseas or in New Zealand. The programme
instructors are teacher educators as well as practising English language teachers,
employed by the English Language Institute which draws on the expertise of and
sits within the university’s School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies.
The programme has been designed to maximize opportunities for course
members to connect the course content with their experience of language
classrooms, both through the programme structure, as illustrated in Table 5.1,
and through the use of reflective practice processes.
The Introduction to language teaching course includes topics such as the Four
Strands (Nation, 2007), language awareness, and individual learner differences.
Each week, the student teachers work collaboratively in practicum groups of
three or four to apply the course content to the planning and preparation of
a one-hour lesson and teaching materials. Each student teacher then teaches
the lesson to one or two pre-intermediate level language learners (working
with the same learners for the duration of the programme). This weekly cycle,
which aims to promote close integration of principles, practice and reflection,
is supported by a pre-teaching tutorial for each practicum group to examine the
application of principles in the lesson plans and materials and a post-teaching
tutorial to reflect on “principles in action” as experienced in the lesson.
The assessed work for Course 1 consists of a test of language teaching principles
(15%), two assignments based on the student teacher’s own teaching activi-
ties and materials, wider reading and understanding of language teaching and
 Dissonance and Balance 77

Table 5.1 Programme structure

Course 1, Introduction to Course 2, TESOL classroom

language teaching practice

Course 1 Course 2
supervised supervised
Course content → practicum practicum ← Course content

Principles of language Weekly → Course 1 Classroom teach-

teaching and learning, application principles ing skills and
Plan
e.g., of principles applied to reflective practice
• The Four Strands in lesson lessons processes, e.g.,
• Activities & design plans and Teach for larger • Giving &
features that meet materials groups checking
the conditions for instructions
learning in each Ten × 1 Observe Four × 1 • Grouping
strand hour super- hour super- students
vised lessons vised class • Giving
with one or Reflect lessons feedback
two learners (videoed)

Evaluation Also weekly Evaluation

of “prin- observation of teaching
ciples in of expe- skills
action” rienced
teachers

Repeating cycles of experiential

learning through integrated practicum
experiences

learning principles (30% each), a group poster presentation, showcasing a small

action research project, conducted during the practicum, investigating indi-
vidual learner differences (15%) and a grade for professional behaviour (10%).
The TESOL classroom practice course also contains iterative cycles of princi-
ples, practice and reflection. Each week, the student teachers focus on class-
room teaching skills, such as giving instructions, grouping students, teacher
language, giving feedback and reflective practice processes. Weekly cycles
include observation of experienced teachers working with language learners at
a range of levels; observation of peer teaching; weekly completion of a reflec-
tive journal; collaborative planning and evaluation of lessons in pre-teaching
and post-teaching tutorials; and reflecting on their video-recorded classroom
teaching of intermediate level learners.
The assessed work for Course 2 consists of a group oral presentation (20%),
two summary reports relating to reading, observation, and practice of effec-
tive teaching skills (50% in total), an individual oral presentation relating to a
relevant topic of interest (20%), and a grade for professional behaviour (10%).
78 John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

Over the duration of the whole programme, each student teacher takes
part in 34 practicum hours, consisting of 14 hours of supervised teaching; 16
hours of observation of experienced teachers; and 4 hours of peer observa-
tion. Reflective practice and collaborative practice processes help to build the
student teachers’ understanding of principles and practical skills as does inter-
action with a wide range of experienced English language teachers and their
learners at the English Language Institute.

The four strands

An important feature of the innovation and the programme is the use of
Nation’s Four Strands framework (Nation, 2007). By first becoming familiar
with and grounded in this framework, students are prepared to deal with
future challenges – referring back to our chapter title, the framework provides
the “balance” to offset the “dissonance.” Rather than being associated with a
particular method, the Four Strands draw directly on second language acquisi-
tion research to provide key principles that can be applied to any teaching and
learning situation. Central to the framework is the idea that a well-balanced
course should consist of equal strands of meaning-focused input (MFI),
language-focused learning (LFL), meaning-focused output (MFO), and fluency
development (FD). Each strand is identified by a set of necessary conditions
which teachers can use to guide their practice and help language learners
achieve their goals.
The Four Strands provide a coherent and accessible framework for student
teachers to explore and develop their understanding of TESOL principles and
practice during their programme and also once they become novice teachers.
The programme structure provides multiple opportunities for student teach-
ers to engage with and develop individual ownership of the Four Strands as
they examine and reexamine the importance and particular application of
each strand within the context of lessons for reading and listening (MFI, LFL
and FD), and for speaking and writing (MFO, LFL and FD). Each macro-skill
receives separate treatment. A balance of collaborative and individual work
also helps to promote the process of developing and clarifying understanding
of key principles.

Creating dissonance
As student teachers are introduced to key principles of the Four Strands frame-
work in the Introduction to Language Teaching course, class discussions begin the
process of creating dissonance between each student teacher’s own language
learning experiences and the course principles (although always recognizing
the possibility that prior language learning experiences and course princi-
ples may align). For example, when introduced to the fluency development
strand, student teachers learn that this strand provides language learners with
 Dissonance and Balance 79

opportunities to become better at using what they already know. They also
learn that the conditions for this strand are that activities require limited lan-
guage demands; meaningful communication; pressure to perform at a higher
level; and a quantity of opportunities where learners learn a little and use a
lot. The student teachers are then asked to reflect on their own experiences,
focusing on the extent to which their own language learning was informed by
similar principles. As a result, the majority of our student teachers recognize
that this strand was largely missing in their own language learning experi-
ences, which have occurred in diverse learning contexts. Discussions typically
focus on a range of different languages learned in a range of classrooms in
high schools, universities, and community classes in New Zealand, as well as
an occasional example of immersion learning through school or university
exchange programmes overseas. Regardless of the context, the student teachers
usually claim that most of their course time was spent learning new grammati-
cal structures and vocabulary and studying difficult spoken and written texts
(all of which belong to the language-focused learning strand).
Further opportunities are then provided for examining these differences
and consolidating understanding of the course principles. For example, when
observing the English Language Institute classrooms in action, student teach-
ers observe a range of experienced teachers conducting a daily cycle of fluency
activities including speed reading (Millett, 2008); fluency writing activities
(such as writing about a topic for seven or eight minutes without hesitation
and without the use of dictionaries); and speaking activities (such as the 4-3-2
activity, where each learner speaks three times about a topic, firstly for 4 min-
utes, followed by 3 minutes, and then 2 minutes, to a different listener on each
occasion).
The goals and conditions of fluency development activities are discussed
again as each practicum group develops lesson plans and materials in prepara-
tion for the weekly Course 1 lessons where the main focus is on applying the
principles of the Four Strands to lesson and materials development. The pre-
teaching tutorials provide an opportunity to discuss how well the key goals and
conditions for fluency development have been understood and incorporated
into the lesson planning, and adjustments are usually made at this stage before
the lesson is taught. Once the lesson has been taught, the post-teaching tuto-
rial discussions focus on the extent to which the activities met the conditions
of fluency development and each student teacher reflects on improvements
that could be made to better achieve the value of this strand for the particular
learners.
Written assignments also provide valuable opportunities for further learning
and reflection. The starting point for each Course 1 assignment is one of the
student’s weekly one-hour lessons. The lesson plan and materials are attached
as an appendix to the written assignment which focuses on a discussion of
80 John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

relevant principles for that lesson. Students read widely to explore ideas and
research evidence that underpin the key principles of the Four Strands which
they then apply to their own lesson. By critically analyzing and evaluating
the importance of key principles within a lesson, student teachers extend and
consolidate their understanding of “principles in action.”
Providing multiple opportunities for reflection on language learning prin-
ciples (through discussions, classroom observations, reflective journals, appli-
cation to lesson plans and materials development, teaching, group tutorials
for pre-teaching lesson preparation and post-teaching lesson evaluation, and
assignments) aims to help student teachers clarify their own understanding of
the principles so that they can take ownership of these principles and avoid
simply reproducing practices from their previous learning experiences.

The innovation

Anecdotal evidence of how well our programme prepares novice teachers is

usually gained through email communication with previous graduates after
they have been teaching for some time. Positive comments often focus on
the confidence they feel about their level of preparation for planning lessons,
preparing activities and materials, as well as for the classroom teaching itself.
Many graduates also report that when faced with difficulties, they go back to
the Four Strands framework to guide them. However, graduates also report
difficulties in applying what they have learned on our programme if the new
teaching situation is very different from what they have been used to.
In response to reports from previous graduates, we wanted to see if we could
use the idea of dissonance again. This time, in addition to focusing on differ-
ences between the “apprenticeship of observation” and the programme prin-
ciples and practice, we wanted to focus on differences between the knowledge
and skills our student teachers gain during their TESOL programme and the
realities of future classroom contexts. We decided to collect information about
our graduates’ teaching experiences in a more systematic way and to use this
information to help student teachers prepare for the likely need to bridge the
gap between their current and future classrooms.
We contacted approximately 60 graduates through our electronic group lists,
used primarily as a networking tool. We invited them to share any information
that they thought would be useful for student teachers, suggesting that they
organize the information into three main sections: a profile of their teaching
and learning context; examples of ways in which the course principles (such
as the Four Strands) had been helpful; and examples of difficulties they had
encountered that prevented them from making use of the course principles.
For the profile of the teaching and learning context, we provided a list of
suggested headings, such as the name of the country; details of the school (e.g.
 Dissonance and Balance 81

private language school, public high school); details of the students (e.g. age,
gender, language background); class sizes; number and length of lessons; length
of the course; instructions given for the lessons (e.g. using a specified text-book,
preparing learners for an exam, preparing own lessons and materials); details of
support provided (e.g. from teaching staff and directors); and details of resources
(e.g. technology in classrooms and for lesson preparation; resources for learners).
We received responses from approximately one-fifth of the graduates con-
tacted. The information they provided was very useful, giving us a much clearer
picture of their experiences than we had previously had. Their comments also
helped us to evaluate the extent to which our programme had supported them
in their roles as novice teachers. For example, several graduates commented on
the value of the Four Strands when facing challenges, as shown in the follow-
ing extracts from three graduates, working in three different countries:

Because there was no set course time and students could leave and arrive
from one week to the next I found it a real challenge after the structured
course experienced in our practicum. It was the lesson planning on the
GCertTESOL course that really helped me. Every week, I considered the stu-
dents in my class, used the different texts that were available and really bal-
anced out the lessons using ideas from the Four Strands. (Novice teacher A)
I kept coming back to Nation’s Four Strands. I had some bad weeks where
lessons just were not going as planned and I had to do some serious reflec-
tion. Often I’d read through my course notes and remember the importance
of materials being “meaningful” and it’d pull me back into what language
learning should be about. This resulted in really interesting lessons. […]
Developing fluency was also important; particularly fluency from wide read-
ing which the students grew to love. I think I found it useful just having a
central philosophy to fall back on. It helped me to stay grounded and often
lead me out of some problem situations. (Novice teacher B)
[…] repeating meaningless passages of text several times is a large part of
their lessons […] Therefore, the students often do not enjoy English and are
not very good at communicating in English. Because of my reflection on
the principles of the Four Strands, and feedback from my students, I spend
much of my teaching time encouraging the students to communicate mean-
ingfully, which they appear to enjoy. (Novice teacher C)

Several graduates also indicated disappointment that they were not able to
draw fully on the content of their TESOL programme in the new teaching and
learning context:

[…] many managers don’t really want you to “teach” English. They want
you to be a fun and entertaining mascot for the idea of learning English.
82 John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

This means developing lessons which are essentially games and never
attempting anything more serious. […] a common criticism […] is that
Western teachers were not fun enough. (Novice teacher B)
The school system is very much based on rote learning and there is no
freedom or appreciation of an individual’s ideas. Therefore it was hard for
them to write things that weren’t extremely heavily scaffolded. They were
also very reluctant to speak […]. Many lessons just focused on listening, or
filling in worksheets. It felt disappointing after all the things we learned on
GCertTESOL, but I couldn’t figure out how to apply those techniques to a
large class of low-level teens, as opposed to a small group of motivated uni-
versity students. (Novice teacher D)

The responses that we gathered from these graduates both affirmed the
value of the approach we were taking and suggested a need to add a new
element.
In order to prepare the students for the reality of the classroom, we devel-
oped several of the responses into individual “graduate scenarios” to use with
our student teachers during the final weeks of their programme. For each sce-
nario we included the detailed profile of the teaching and learning context and
selected a difficulty the graduate had encountered that prevented them from
making use of the course principles. In order to keep each scenario concise, we
omitted the information relating to ways in which the course principles had
been helpful. When we gave the scenarios to our student teachers, it was imme-
diately evident that these snapshot views of classrooms in different countries
were very motivating and informative, particularly for students who were able
to read about classrooms in a country where they hoped to teach1.
The following scenario was compiled using information provided by another
previous TESOL graduate working for a private language school in Germany
(Table 5.2).
We asked our student teachers to analyze the teaching and learning situa-
tions within the scenarios and make decisions about how they would use what
they had learned in their TESOL programme if working as novice teachers in
those situations. To support this process, we provided questions used for an
environment analysis from Nation and Macalister (2010). Rather than using
the environment analysis questions for the purpose of designing a new course,
the questions were used as a checklist to systematically analyze the teaching
and learning situations provided in the scenarios and then to consider any
implications for applying principles and reflective practice processes from their
coursework. The checklist also serves to identify key factors that need to be
addressed, as not all information that emerges from an environment analysis
is of equal importance. When discussing the implications, the student teach-
ers were asked to focus on two main areas: how they would make use of their
 Dissonance and Balance 83

Table 5.2 A graduate scenario

School A private language school in Germany.

Workplace A telecommunications technology company which aims to change
its company language to English.
Students Male and female; ages range from early 20s to mid 60s; beginners to
fluent speakers of English; all are employed by the company.
Class-sizes Range from four to 13 students in one class.
Number/length Three different classes for a three hour lesson each day over a 3 day
of lessons teaching week (i.e. 9 hours a day, 27 hours a week).
Course length Eight months.
Instructions for Must follow the course books provided for the lower levels. More
teacher flexibility is allowed for the higher levels.
Resources Resources provided by the language school include student work-
books and English language learner magazines. The materials often
include work-related topics and emails.
Difficulties
I have found it difficult to incorporate principles from the Four Strands into my teach-
ing due to clashes of the […] method we are required to use. The method encourages
language learning through speaking and listening, with little emphasis placed on read-
ing and writing. The courses are more or less a “one size fits all” approach to learning
which, due partly to my own inexperience with the material, has led to some minor
issues for me […].
Lessons are already planned, reducing my workload greatly, though this also means
that I am forced to teach two language items together which, based on what I learned
in TESOL (and also the reactions of my students) would be better left separate (e.g.
learning both the causative and the passive within a three-hour time frame, and learn-
ing words with opposite meanings and learning various words for the same thing).

TESOL coursework in the scenario setting and how they would continue the
process of becoming a reflective practitioner.
When discussing the features of each scenario, dissonance emerged when-
ever a particular feature in the graduate scenario differed from the TESOL
practicum situation to the extent that further discussion was required to decide
how they would use their coursework in that situation. Table 5.3 provides an
example of the questions applied to the scenario above and also to the student
teachers’ TESOL practicum setting.
By using the questions shown in Table 5.3 to compare the two teaching set-
tings, examples of dissonance emerge. These include the learners’ purposes for
learning English; the teachers’ ability to use the learners’ first language; and the
scope for developing materials using principles from the TESOL programme.
When considering the purpose for learning English, the student teachers
explored a range of implications for teaching learners who need English for
their workplace as opposed to English for entering university programmes.
84 John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

Table 5.3 Dissonance between current and future experience

Sample questions Current teaching experience: Future teaching experience:

The TESOL practicum The graduate scenario

The learners
How old are they? Mostly in their teens to late 20s. They range from early 20s to
mid 60s.
What do they know? They speak range of L1s. They share the same L1.
A range of backgrounds (e.g. All have knowledge of the
school leavers, university workplace.
graduates).
Do they need English They need English for Academic They need and expect to
for a special purpose? Purposes to enter university learn English for use in their
programmes. workplace.
Do they have preferred Individual learner differ- Not mentioned.
ways of learning? ences are explored during the
practicum.
The teachers
Are they trained? Student teachers. A novice teacher who has
completed GCertTESOL.
Are they confident in The student teachers’ first lan- The teacher’s first language is
their use of English? guage is English. English.
The teachers do not speak the The teacher also speaks the
L1s of all learners. learners’ first language.
Do they have time During TESOL practicum, les- Teaching takes place on three
for preparation and son preparation was done very full days, leaving time
marking? collaboratively. for teacher to prepare on two
days a week.
The situation
Is there a suitable Desks are changed for individ- Not mentioned.
classroom? ual and group work.
Is there enough time? The ten practicum classes are The work is set for an eight
additional to the learners’ EAP month course.
programme.
Are there enough The student teachers develop Resources are provided with
resources? individualised materials follow- limited, but some, flexibility
ing guidelines. to develop own materials.

To do this, they applied the same process they had used during the course,
using the acronym LIST (Language, Ideas, Skills, and Text; see Nation &
Macalister, 2010: 71) to discuss the scenario learners’ learning goals. Discussion
of how the learners’ first language might be used by the teacher to facilitate
learning encouraged the student teachers to think more critically about when
and how this might be of value, moving them beyond their own language
learning experiences and their teaching experiences during the TESOL course.
Their discussions also focused on how to evaluate and prepare course materials
 Dissonance and Balance 85

in relation to the needs of the scenario learners as well as in relation to the

principles of the Four Strands. Typical suggestions included incorporating flu-
ency development activities, such as asking learners to keep a fluency develop-
ment journal for writing daily entries about what is currently happening in
their company.
When discussing the difficulties encountered by the graduate teacher, they
drew on their understanding of the language-focused learning strand and the
importance of teaching language items separately to avoid interference; this
principle of language curriculum design maintains that items with strong
meaning relationships, such as hot and cold, should not be learned at the same
time as they “interfere with each other and thus make learning more difficult”
(Nation & Macalister, 2010: 48–50). In order to work within the requirements
of the set lessons, they suggested reorganizing the time and set activities for
the three-hour lesson. They would start with the construction which is likely
to be used more frequently in the workplace and present it fully to establish
its form, meaning and use, using examples from the workplace context. Once
this construction is reasonably well established, they suggested briefly intro-
ducing the other construction, using different workplace examples to keep the
associations for the two constructions separate. They also discussed the value
of continuing to keep a reflective journal once they are novice teachers to
develop their competence as reflective practitioners within the constraints of
the particular teaching and learning situation. Their suggestions included ideas
such as evaluating lessons (recording what works, what doesn’t, what can be
reused or adapted); referring back to previous journal entries when planning
the next lesson; and continuing to develop their understanding of individual
learner differences by recording how each student responds to the lessons (also
asking for and including student feedback in the reflections).

Evaluation
Using the scenarios helped students to discuss ways of applying what they
had learned on the programme to new settings. By discussing and analyzing
several different scenarios, the students’ speed and ability to apply principles
to different teaching and learning situations improved. It was interesting to
note that whereas the information we received from graduates often indicated
disappointment and a sense of inadequacy when reporting that they were
unable to apply all of the experience and skills from their TESOL programme,
once our student teachers had discussed the scenarios, they appeared to have
a more balanced perspective of what they could and couldn’t adapt and also
confidence in how they would go about it.
The use of these scenarios was, however, a recent innovation that arose from
our reflections on the course following a survey of the experiences of recent
graduates. While we evaluated them positively, and will retain them, we do
recognize the desirability of using stronger evaluative measures. To this end,
86 John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

we are planning a project employing such data generating tools as interviews,

written reflections, classroom observation and stimulated recall to gain a better
understanding of the effectiveness of the scenarios as a means of preparing the
student teachers for the challenges of an unknown future classroom.

Wider significance of the case study

The innovation described here is a local response to a global problem – how to

prepare pre-service teachers for the language classroom. It is local in a number
of ways. First, it draws on the language learning experiences of current students
to create dissonance between the course content and their “apprenticeship of
observation.” Second, it draws on the language teaching experiences of former
students to develop realistic future scenarios to create dissonance between the
course content and their imagined futures. And finally, it draws on the inter-
nationally influential work of Paul Nation, a “local hero,” for the core course
content.
However, despite these undeniably context-specific features of the pro-
gramme, the key elements can be transferred to any context. These elements are:

Developing a conceptual framework which students can apply to their own

language learning and teaching.
Using this framework as a platform for reflecting on and creating dissonance
between past and current experience.
Using this framework as a platform for reflecting on and creating dissonance
between current and future experience.

By employing these elements in the programme there are multiple opportu-

nities for developing the cognition of these trainee language teachers. Their
cognition is being challenged and changed by drawing on professional course-
work, actual classroom experience, and their own past experience. In this way
what they “know, believe, and think” (Borg, 2003: 81) becomes a dynamic and
developing construct.

Summary and conclusion

In this chapter we have described a language teacher education programme

that is perhaps already a little unusual because of its relatively short duration
(12 weeks) and the fact it includes an integrated practicum that is designed to
“help novice teachers make sense of their teacher education more holistically
and be better able to adapt to classroom contexts outside of their immediate
experience” (Faez & Valeo, 2012: 466). However, and as the experiences of
some of our past graduates have demonstrated, the integrated practicum by
 Dissonance and Balance 87

itself may not provide an answer to the problem identified by Farrell, that
novice teachers may “discover that they have been set up in their preservice
courses (and TP) for a teaching approach that does not work in real class-
rooms, or that the school culture may prohibit implementation of these ‘new’
approaches” (Farrell, 2012: 438). The innovation outlined in this chapter – the
use of graduate scenarios – has been introduced as a means of confronting this
issue. It aims to better prepare our student teachers for a world in which the
classroom is, as one of our graduates said, “a real challenge after the structured
course experienced in our practicum.” The innovation deliberately creates dis-
sonance between the sheltered environment of the teacher education course
and the unpredictable, but exciting, world of language teaching. Through this
innovation our graduates develop skills in reflection and problem-solving that
will contribute to their effectiveness as language teachers in the future.

Note
1. For teacher educators without access to such scenarios from graduates, similar exam-
ples can be found in published sources (e.g. Farrell, 2006).

References
Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what
language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching 36, 2, 81–109.
Borg, S. (2006). Teacher Cognition and Language Education: Research and Practice. London:
Continuum.
Borg, S. (2011). The impact of in-service teacher education on language teachers’ beliefs.
System 39, 3, 370–380. doi:10.1016/j.system.2011.07.009
El-Okda, M. (2005). EFL student teachers’ cognition about reading instruction. The
Reading Matrix 5, 2, 43–60.
Elbaz, F. (1981). The teacher’s “practical knowledge”: Report of a case study. Curriculum
Inquiry 11, 1, 43–71.
Faez, F. & Valeo, A. (2012). TESOL teacher education: Novice teachers’ perceptions of
their preparedness and efficacy in the classroom. TESOL Quarterly 46, 3, 450–471.
Farrell, T.S.C. (2006). The first year of language teaching: Imposing order. System 34,
211–221. 10.1016/j.system.2005.12.001
Farrell, T.S.C. (2012). Novice-service language teacher development: Bridging the gap
between preservice and in-service education and development. TESOL Quarterly 46, 3,
435–449.
Horwitz, E.K. (1985). Using student beliefs about language learning and teaching in the
foreign language methods course. Foreign Language Annals 18, 4, 333–340.
Levin, B. & He, Y. (2008). Investigating the content and sources of teacher candi-
dates’ personal practical theories (PPTs). Journal of Teacher Education 59, 1, 55–68.
10.1177/0022487107310749
Lortie, D.C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Macalister, J. (2012). Pre-service teacher cognition and vocabulary teaching. RELC Journal
43, 1, 99–111. 10.1177/0033688212439312
88 John Macalister and Jill Musgrave

Macalister, J. (2013). Desire and desirability: Perceptions of needs in a trans-national lan-

guage teacher education program. In S. B. Said & L. J. Zhang (eds), Language Teachers
and Teaching: Global Perspectives, Local Initiatives. Routledge, 303–316.
MacDonald, M., Badger, R., & White, G. (2001). Changing values: what use are theories
of language learning and teaching? Teaching and Teacher Education 17, 8, 949–963.
Millett, S. (2008). A daily fluency programme. Modern English Teacher 17, 2, 21–28.
Nation, I.S.P. & Macalister, J. (2010). Language Curriculum Design. New York and London:
Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Nation, P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 1, 1,
1–12.
Peacock, M. (2001). Pre-service ESL teachers’ beliefs about second language learning: A
longitudinal study. System 29, 177–195.
Richardson, V. (1996). The role of attitudes and beliefs in learning to teach. In J. Sikula
(ed.), Handbook of Research on Teacher Education. New York: Simon & Schuster, 102–119.
Urmston, A. (2003). Learning to teach english in Hong Kong: The opinions of
teachers in training. Language and Education 17, 2, 112–137. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1080/09500780308666843
Wong, M.S.-L. (2010). Beliefs about language learning: A study of Malaysian pre-service
teachers. RELC Journal 41, 2, 123–136. 10.1177/0033688210373124
Yuan, R. & Lee, I. (2014). Pre-service teachers’ changing beliefs in the teaching practi-
cum: Three cases in an EFL context. System 44, 0, 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.
system.2014.02.002

Further reading
The following three articles would be useful for developing understanding of the Four
Strands framework that formed the basis for “balance” in this chapter.
Nation, P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 1, 1,
1–12.
In this article, Paul Nation introduces and justifies the Four Strands approach, drawing
on theories of and research into second and foreign language learning. For anyone want-
ing to understand this approach, this article is the logical starting point.
Macalister, J. (2011). Today’s teaching, tomorrow’s text: exploring the teaching of read-
ing. ELT Journal 65, 2, 161–169. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccq023
This article considers the application of the Four Strands from a language teacher’s point
of view, with a particular focus on the teaching of reading. It thus provides a starting
point for applying the framework to other macro-skills.
Macalister, J. (2014). Teaching reading: Research into practice. Language Teaching 47,
387–397. doi: 10.1017/S026144481400007X
The Four Strands provides a framework for considering current research and practice in
the field of teaching reading in a second or foreign language. This article should consoli-
date understanding of the Four Strands developed through reading the first two articles.

The following two books are used as set texts for the programme in which the innovation
takes place. Both texts contain a large number of useful teaching techniques and easily
applied principles, using the Four Strands Framework.
Nation, I.S.P. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing. New York: Routledge.
Nation, I.S.P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking. New York:
Routledge.
 Dissonance and Balance 89

Engagement priorities
1. The “apprenticeship of observation” has long been accepted as an influence on teach-
ers’ practice. When you reflect on your own practice, to what extent do you feel you
have been influenced by your own experiences as a learner?
2. Can you identify one change in your beliefs about language learning or language
teaching? What brought about that change? Did it result in you making any change
to your actual teaching practice?
3. How familiar is the Four Strands framework to you? How is it similar and how is it
different to what you are familiar with? What challenges to understanding the frame-
work could you predict?
4. Do you consider the “graduate scenarios” an effective way of preparing student teach-
ers for the unpredictable challenges of future classrooms? Why, or why not?
6
Materials Design in Language
Teacher Education: An Example from
Southeast Asia
Jack C. Richards

Introduction and overview

This chapter describes an approach that has been developed to induct lan-
guage teachers into the principles and practices involved in writing course
materials for use in countries that are members of SEAMEO – the Southeast
Asian Ministers of Education Organization. SEAMEO hosts a number of cen-
tres in member countries, each with a particular focus and mandate. The
SEAMEO centre in Singapore is under the auspices of the Singapore Ministry of
Education and is known as the Regional Language Centre (RELC). Among the
courses RELC provides to teachers and teacher educators from the ten SEAMEO
member countries are in-services courses and workshops on topics such as
CLIL, ESP, and English for Young Learners, as well as courses linked to post-
graduate qualifications, taught in both face-to-face and blended formats. In its
earlier years RELC lecturers were sponsored by both Singapore as well by mem-
ber or associate-member countries and I was the New Zealand Government
staff member on two occasions. More recently I have been an adjunct professor
at RELC, visiting RELC annually to teach courses and workshops on curriculum
and materials design. This paper describes an approach I have developed while
working with course participants in this capacity.

The context and setting

Although participants in the RELC courses come from countries with very dif-
ferent histories, cultures, economies, and educational traditions, English plays
a prominent role in each country. In some member countries such as Singapore
and the Philippines, English is widely used in many different domains in soci-
ety, including education, the media, and government. In others (e.g. Cambodia,
Vietnam) its status varies and may have more restricted uses in society outside of
its role as a school subject. Common to each country, however, is a substantial

90
 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education 91

use of textbooks and commercially published materials to support the teaching

of English. Typically when asked to estimate the proportion of class time which
is dependent upon the use of textbooks and commercial materials, teachers
in RELC courses cite figures as high as 80–90%. The level of teacher engage-
ment with materials varies according to the contexts in which the participants
work. Some may be involved in the development or revision of textbooks and
materials in their ministry of education or institution, as was the case with a
recent group of teachers from Cambodia who were involved with the revision
of secondary school English coursebooks. Many are users of materials produced
by others but often find they need to adapt materials to their local teaching con-
text. Many, however, work in contexts where no published materials are avail-
able and need to develop materials for a course with a very specific local context.
Projects such as “a course for tourist police officers in Indonesia,” “a reading
course for environmental science majors in Vietnam,” and “a course on class-
room language for Thai teachers of English” are recent examples of this kind.
The participants in RELC courses are typically of different levels of language
proficiency. Some (such as teachers from Singapore, Philippines or Malaysia)
are “native-speaker” users of English if judged by their language proficiency
and knowledge. Others may be much less proficient in English. All, however,
are experienced English teachers, familiar with teaching in varied circum-
stances. Those with limitations in terms of proficiency typically report a greater
use of textbooks and commercial materials in their teaching. Against this back-
ground I have sought to develop ways of engaging teachers in understanding
how materials work, the design principles they reflect, and the procedures
materials developers use in preparing materials and course books. The goal
of these activities has thus been to help teachers develop the knowledge and
skills they can use in preparing or adapting materials for their own teaching
contexts. The course itself is generally delivered over several weeks, or in the
shortened form of an intensive one or two week workshop. The pedagogy I
make use of involves a series of stages moving from consciousness raising,
modelling, guided creation, to individual creation and seeks to develop a crea-
tive approach to materials’ development.

The innovation

Experiencing a coursebook-based lesson

To initiate the process I take the role of classroom teacher, the participants
become language learners, and I teach them a unit from a course book follow-
ing the suggestions given in the teacher’s book for how it is intended to be used.
I usually teach a 60–90 minute lesson from an integrated-skills international
course book such as Interchange or Headway. Following the lesson experience,
the participants form small groups to review the lesson and their experience of
92 Jack C. Richards

it. In their groups they first reflect on the kinds of activities they experienced,
what they liked or didn’t like about them, and what they thought were the
strengths or weaknesses of the unit. They consider questions such as these:

• What kinds of language use did the unit practise?

• What specific learning outcomes did the material deliver?
• Was there adequate scaffolding of tasks?
• Did you experience any difficulties with any of the activities?
• Would the material work with a mixed level class?
• How engaging were the activities?
• If you were to use this material, would you need to adapt or modify it?

I then ask them to examine the coursebook unit itself and to answer these
questions:

• What are the aims and objectives of the unit?

• What syllabus strands does it contain (e.g. grammar, vocabulary, reading,
speaking)?
• What is the format or structure of the unit and how is it organized?
• What different kinds of exercises or activities does the unit contain?
• What is the purpose of each exercise?

Answering these questions is not as straightforward as it appears, since

although the materials developer may have had a clear purpose in mind for
each exercise and for the overall design of the unit, this may not be immedi-
ately apparent. For example, in a unit from my own series Interchange Level 1
that I used for this purpose recently, it was not apparent to a number of the
participants that the unit was organized around two linked lessons, that con-
versations in each lesson were used to present grammar in context, followed
by a grammar activity that moved from controlled practice to communicative
practice and that the pronunciation activities either served to highlight a pro-
nunciation feature in a subsequent activity or to review something that had
occurred earlier in the unit.

Examining the pedagogic design of units from a course book

Participants then examine and compare a variety of units from published
materials, both at the macro- and micro-level. The purpose of this activity is to
familiarize participants with the formats used to organize units in coursebooks
(macro-level) as well as to identify and critique exercise types used to present
and practise different language features and skills (micro-level).
In reviewing the overall design of a unit the participants explore these
questions:
 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education 93

• What is the theme for the unit?

• What are its learning outcomes?
• What syllabus components does it contain?
• How is the material in the unit sequenced?
• What design resources does it make use of, such as diagrams, photographs
and art?
• What kind of progression does the unit reflect?
• What grouping arrangements does it make use of?
• How much time would it take to teach?

We then move to a more micro-level analysis of the materials, exploring both

the types of exercises and activities used in the unit, their purpose, and their
effectiveness. The first stage in this process often requires some degree of
inventiveness on the part of the participants, since they need to agree on a
terminology that can be used to identify and quantify the different kinds of
exercises the materials make use of. In the case of the Interchange series, one
group of participants looked at each labelled activity across one level of the
series (e.g. exercises labelled Snapshot, Word Power, Conversation, Grammar Focus
etc), described the purpose of each activity type (e.g. schema building, vocabu-
lary review and presentation, presenting grammar in context), as well as the
different exercise types used for each activity throughout the series.
This activity is descriptive in its focus and is followed by activities that may
require both description and evaluation. Check-lists and similar documents
are useful at this stage. For example, in examining grammar-focused activities,
the distinction between mechanical, meaningful, and communicative practice
can be used:

• Mechanical practice refers to a controlled practice activity which students can

successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are
using. Examples of this kind of activity would be repetition drills and substitu-
tion drills designed to practise use of particular grammatical or other items.
• Meaningful practice refers to an activity where language control is still pro-
vided but where students are required to make meaningful choices when
carrying out practice. For example, in order to practise the use of preposi-
tions to describe locations of places, students might be given a street map
with various buildings identified in different locations. They are also given a
list of prepositions such as across from, on the corner of, near, on, next to. They
then have to answer questions such as “Where is the book shop? Where is
the café?” etc. The practice is now meaningful because they have to respond
according to the location of places on the map.
• Communicative practice refers to activities where practice in using language
within a real communicative context is the focus, where real information
94 Jack C. Richards

is exchanged, and where the language used is not totally predictable. For
example, students might have to draw a map of their neighbourhood and
answer questions about the location of different places in their neighbour-
hood, such as the nearest bus stop, the nearest café, etc.

If the participants are interested in developing materials for a specific skill area,
criteria for activities in that skill area can be used. For example, Thornbury
(2005) lists six criteria for a speaking activity, summarized as follows:

• Productivity: it provides conditions for autonomous language use

• Purposefulness: it has a clear outcome, especially one which requires learn-
ers to work together to achieve a common purpose
• Interactivity: it requires learners to take into account the effect they are hav-
ing on their audience
• Challenge: it stretches their available communicative resources
• Safety: it does not involve too much risk or likelihood of failure
• Authenticity: it bears some relation to real-life language use

In the case of reading skills I found two resources useful in considering the
design of reading activities. The first is Grellet’s classic Developing Reading Skills
(Grellet, 1983), which contains a useful and very extensive classification of
reading activities and exercises, many of which are very creative. I select exam-
ples from her classification and ask the participants to try to identify what their
purpose is. Here is an example:
This activity practices bottom-up processing, that is, using syntactic cues to
identify the meaning of a complex sentence.

Read the sentence and complete the task that follows:

Magazine writers, or the authors of books about current affairs, often find them-
selves gratefully surprised by how much remains unexplored and untold about major
events that the day press and television once swarmed all over, then abandoned.

Find the subjects in the first column that match the verbs in the second
column,

a) Magazine writers A) find

b) books B) remains
c) current affairs C) swarmed
d) how much D) abandoned
e) major events
f) the day press and television
 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education 95

Another activity that is useful in thinking about the design of reading exer-
cises is Barrett’s widely cited taxonomy of levels of comprehension, (Hudson,
2007: 85) which identifies five different levels of understanding. These are
referred to as literal comprehension (concern with information stated explicitly
in the text); reorganization (analyzing, synthesizing and organizing informa-
tion that has been stated explicitly); inferential comprehension (using informa-
tion explicitly stated, along with one’s own personal experience, as a basis for
conjecture and hypothesis); evaluation (judgements and decisions concerning
value and worth); and appreciation (psychological and aesthetic impact of the
text on the reader). This taxonomy is useful because it reminds us that not all
texts require the same level of understanding or are read in the same way. It
also influences the design of reading materials, since tasks that seek to teach
or assess literal comprehension may be different from those that are used to
teach or assess appreciation. In class I give the participants authentic texts
from different genres and ask them a) to first identify an appropriate level of
comprehension in reading the text; and b) to develop reading activities that
involve the relevant level of comprehension.
If the participants are interested in designing materials for the teaching of
writing, I find Hyland’s classifications of second language writing tasks very
useful (Hyland, 2003). Hyland identifies five aspects of writing – content,
system, process, genre, and context – and provides examples of activities that
address one or more aspect. Before showing how Hyland links tasks to the five
aspects of writing, I ask the participants to try to do so themselves. For exam-
ple, some of the task-types on Hyland’s taxonomy are:

1. Extract information from a written text

2. Combine sentences
3. Practice construction of simple and complex sentences
4. Compare texts with different purposes
5. Practice specific rhetorical patterns
6. Revise a draft in response to comments

The course members might then review an ESL/EFL writing text to see what
features are addressed and what task-types are used.
In addition to considering the kinds of activities and exercises that can be
used with different kinds of materials, we also consider how engaging or crea-
tive such activities are. This aspect of materials is obviously difficult to evaluate
objectively, but it is something that teachers, as well as learners, often appreci-
ate in classroom materials. Some of the features that Dörnyei (2001) identifies
as “productive language learning tasks” can also be seen as reflective creative
responses to task design:
96 Jack C. Richards

Challenge: tasks in which learners solve problems, discover something, over-

come obstacles, or find information;
Interesting content: topics that students already find interesting and that they
would want to read about outside of class, such as stories we find about
sports and entertainment personalities we find on YouTube and the internet;
The personal element: activities that make connections to the learners’ lives
and concerns;
The novelty element: aspects of an activity that are new or different or totally
unexpected;
The intriguing element: tasks that concern ambiguous, problematic, para-
doxical, controversial, contradictory or incongruous material and stimulate
curiosity;
Individual choice: tasks which give students a personal choice. For example,
students can choose their own topics to write about in an essay or choose
their own topics and group members in a discussion activity;
Tasks that encourage risk taking: tasks that stretch learners resources without
frustrating them;
Tasks that encourage original thought: activities that require an original
response. So instead of comprehension questions after a reading passage
that test recall, they seek to use tasks that encourage a personal and indi-
vidual response to what the student has read;
The fantasy element: activities that engage the learners’ fantasy and that
invite the learners to use their imagination for creating make-believe stories,
identifying with fictional characters or acting out imaginary situations.

This list is used for activities in which teachers examine activities and tasks
from course materials to see if they can adapt them to make them more crea-
tive. For example, in a recent course teachers adapted a reading exercise that in
its original form consisted of a text followed by comprehension questions, to
one which became a jigsaw reading task followed by a role-play activity.

Developing a rationale for the design of materials

In developing materials for any aspect of language learning, whether it be a
skill-based course in listening, speaking, reading or writing or an integrated-
skills basic series, the materials developers’ beliefs about teaching and learning
will have a major impact on materials’ design, since it will play a role in deter-
mining the goals the writer sets for the materials, the focus of the materials
themselves and the activities they make use of. Materials’ developers draw on
knowledge of research and theory as well as beliefs and principles in planning
a course. In planning materials for the teaching of writing for example, the
materials developer could start from any of a number of views of the nature of
writing or of texts. He or she could start from a view of written language that
 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education 97

focuses on writing-modes, i.e. the organizational modes underlying paragraphs

and essays, such as definition, comparison-contrast, classification, or cause-
effect. Alternatively the materials’ developer might start from a genre or text-
based view of written language in which texts such as news reports, business
letters, or academic articles are seen to reflect their use in particular contexts.
Or the writer could begin from a process perspective in which written texts are
seen to reflect the cognitive and composing processes that go into their crea-
tion, such as prewriting, planning, drafting, composing, reviewing, revising,
and editing.
If on the other hand one were preparing a listening course the materials
developer would need to clarify his or her understanding of the nature of
listening. Is it viewed largely as a process of decoding input? Is it viewed in
terms of the mastery of discrete listening skills and sub-skills? Or it is seen as a
blend of top-down and bottom-up processing? For a speaking course likewise a
starting point is selecting an appropriate theory or model of the nature of oral
interaction. Will it be based on a model of communicative competence and
seek to address grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse
competence and strategic competence? Or is oral communication viewed more
in terms of speech act theory focusing on utterances as functional units in
communication and dependent upon the performance of speech acts?
The materials developer will also need to consider the complementary
question of the theory of language learning underlying the materials, since
this will determine how the syllabus is implemented in the form of exercises,
tasks, activities and learning experiences. Particular language models are often
linked to particular views of learning. For example, a text-based approach to
the teaching of writing is often linked to a Vygotskian view of learning based
on the notion of scaffolding (Lantolf, 2000). The teacher and the learners are
viewed as engaged in a collaborative problem-solving activity with the teacher
providing demonstrations, support, guidance and input and gradually with-
drawing these as the learner becomes increasingly independent. Models of
good writing are employed and writing (or more correctly, text construction) is
taught through a process of deconstruction, modelling, and joint elaboration
and reconstruction as students create their own texts. The theory of learning
underlying approaches to the teaching of conversation might be based on a
somewhat different view of learning. It could reflect an interactionist view
of language acquisition based on the hypothesis that language acquisition
requires or greatly benefits from interaction, communication, and especially
negotiation of meaning, which happens when interlocutors attempt to over-
come problems in conveying their meaning, resulting in both additional input
and useful feedback on the learners’ own production.
The materials developer may also seek to reflect a particular philosophy or
teaching and learning in the materials, one based on a specific educational
98 Jack C. Richards

approach such as “collaborative learning” “communicative approach” or

“learner centredness,” as we see in these statements of principles underlying a
secondary school English course:

• There is a consistent focus throughout on learning English in order to

develop practical and functional skills, rather than as an end in itself.
• Students are engaged in practical tasks that relate to real-world uses of
English.
• Realistic and communicative uses of English are given priority.
• Maximum use is made of pair and group activities in which students com-
plete tasks collaboratively.
• There is an appropriate balance between accuracy-focused and fluency-
focused activities.
• Teachers serve as facilitators of learning, rather than presenters of information.

In addition to principles based on language theories and teaching approaches,

teachers’ personal philosophies and beliefs also serve as an important source
of their thinking and decision-making (Bailey, 1996). Here is an example
of a teacher describing some of the beliefs and principles she brings to her
teaching:

I think it’s important to be positive as a personality. I think the teacher has

to be a positive person. I think you have to show a tremendous amount of
patience. And I think if you have a good attitude you can project this to the
students and hopefully establish a relaxed atmosphere in your classroom so
that the students won’t dread to come to class but have a good class. I feel
that it’s important to have a lesson plan of some sort. Because you need to
know what you want to teach and how you are going to go from the begin-
ning to the end. And also taking into consideration the students, what there
ability is, what their background is and so on. I have been in situations
where I did not understand what was being taught or what was being said,
and how frustrating it is and so when I approach it I say: how can I make it
the easiest way for them to understand what they need to learn?

This teacher’s philosophy emphasizes the teacher’s attitude and the need to
create a supportive environment for learning in the classroom. She stresses the
need for lesson planning, but her justification for lesson planning is based on
helping the students rather than helping the teacher. Other examples of teach-
ers’ principles include:

• Follow the learners’ interest to maintain students’ involvement.

• Always teach to the whole class – not just to the best students.
 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education 99

• Seek ways to encourage independent student learning.

• Make learning fun.
• Build take-away value in every lesson.
• Address learners’ mental processing capacities.
• Facilitate learner responsibility or autonomy.

The next step in the process of materials development thus involves the par-
ticipants reaching a consensus on the principles they will draw on in planning
a course or set of materials. As background to this they will either have taken
a related set of courses on methodology and second language learning or have
read and discussed core readings relevant to the area they plan to focus on. The
following is an example of the principles developed by a group of teachers for
use in developing materials in a listening course:

• Listening activities should involve goals relevant to authentic listening

• Listening activities should provide for the development of listening skills
• Listening activities should help develop listening strategies
• Listening activities should teach rather tan test
• Listening activities should develop top-down, bottom-up, and interactive
listening
• Listening texts should reflect learners out of class needs for listening
• Listening tasks should reflect the nature of on-line listening
• Listening should be taught both for comprehension and for language
learning
• Listening activities should be engaging and provide a success experience

Macro- and micro-levels of course organization

At this point I introduce the notion of macro- and micro-levels of course plan-
ning and syllabus design. A language course will generally need to include
many different syllabus strands. A course which is built around multiple sylla-
bus strands is said to be based on an integrated syllabus, which is the approach
used in most general English adult and young-adult courses today. However,
sometimes one syllabus strand will be used as the overall planning framework
for the course, i.e. at the macro-level of organization, and others will be used
as a minor strand of the course, i.e. at the micro-level. This is often the case
with skills-based courses, such as courses in speaking or writing. For example,
the table below shows different options for a writing course, with different
syllabus units as the macro- and micro-level syllabus strands (Table 6.1).
In order to identify the syllabus frameworks used in published course books,
the participants examine units from different kinds of courses and describe the
macro- and micro-levels of organization they contain.
100 Jack C. Richards

Table 6.1 Macro- and micro-levels of course organization

Macro-level Micro-level

Option 1 Skills Text types

Grammar
Composing processes
Option 2 Text types Skills
Topics
Grammar
Option 3 Composing processes Text types
Grammar
Vocabulary

Outcomes

The participants are now ready to plan a design template for a sample unit.
This serves as a check-list or reference point which the writers can use in writ-
ing the materials. It can include specifications for:

• The length of units

• The organization of units
• The skills to be covered in each unit
• The exercise types that can be used
• The length of spoken and written texts (e.g. dialogues, reading texts)
• The vocabulary level of the materials
• The arrangement of exercises on each page
• The kinds of art and other design features that needed
• The headings to be used for exercises
• The kinds of instruction lines to be employed for exercises and their length

In developing their unit template I also provide guidelines in terms of a

description of the features of a successful unit:

• Length: Sufficient, but not too much, material is included.

• Development: One activity leads effectively into the next; the unit does not
consist of a random sequence of activities.
• Coherence: The unit has an overall sense of unity.
• Pacing: Each activity within the unit moves at a reasonable pace. For exam-
ple, if there are five sections in the unit, one does not require five times as
much time as the others to complete.
• Challenge: Activities are at a level that presents a reasonable challenge, but
does not lead to frustration on the part of the learners.
 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education 101

• Interest level: The content of the unit is likely to arouse the learners’ interest.
• Outcome: At the end of the unit, learners are able to demonstrate a set of
learning outcomes.

The preceding activities are intended to prepare the participants for the materi-
als writing process itself. Effective materials do many of the things a teacher
would normally do as part of his or her teaching. These include:

• Arouse the learners’ interest

• Remind them of earlier learning
• Tell them what they will be learning next
• Explain new learning content to them
• Set clear learning targets
• Provide them with strategies to use in learning
• Help them get feedback on their learning
• Provide practice opportunities
• Enable them to check their progress

But how do teachers develop the ability to do these things, and how can they
be taught to apply these processes in developing classroom materials? One of
the core abilities materials writers make use of is their pedagogical reasoning
skills (Shulman, 1987). These are the specialized kind of thinking skills that
enable teachers to do the following:

• To analyze potential lesson content (e.g. a piece of realia, as in the example

above, a text, an advertisement, a poem, a photo etc) and identify ways in
which it could be used as a teaching resource.
• To identify specific linguistic goals (e.g. in the area of speaking, vocabulary,
reading, writing etc) that could be developed from the chosen content.
• To anticipate any problems that might occur and ways of resolving them.
• To make appropriate decisions about time, sequencing, and grouping
arrangements.

Shulman (1987) described this ability as a process of transformation in which

the teacher turns the subject matter of instruction into forms that are peda-
gogically powerful and that are appropriate to the level and ability of the stu-
dents. Experienced teachers use these skills every day when they plan their
lessons, when they decide how to adapt lessons form their coursebook, and
when they search the internet and other sources for materials and content that
they can use in their classes. It is one of the most fundamental dimensions of
teaching, one that is acquired through experience, through accessing content
knowledge, and through knowing what learners need to know and how to help
102 Jack C. Richards

them acquire it. And it is a skill that is essential in preparing effective teaching
materials. But can pedagogical reasoning skills be taught?
I believe that they can, and to do so I make use of a two-part strategy. The
first component of the strategy involves a) modelling, b) guided and collabo-
rative expert-novice practice, followed by c) participant-directed practice. The
second component of the strategy involves backward design (Richards, 2013).
Here is how this approach is implemented.

Backward design instead of forward design

Participants in my workshops typically assume that the best way to develop
materials is to use a process I call “forward design” (Richards, 2103). Wiggins
and McTighe (2006: 15) give an illustration of this process with an example of
a typical forward design lesson plan:

• The teacher chooses a topic for a lesson (e.g. racial prejudice)

• The teacher selects a resource (e.g. To Kill A Mockingbird)
• The teacher chooses instructional methods based on the resource and the
topic (e.g. a seminar to discuss the book and cooperative groups to analyze
stereotypical images in films and on television)
• The teacher chooses essay questions to assess student understanding of the
book

A similar example would be a teacher planning a unit around “narratives” in

a writing class. The starting point would be an understanding of the nature of
narratives and their linguistic and discourse features. Models of different kinds
of narratives would then be studied as preparation for students writing their
own narrative texts. Assessment tasks might involve reviewing and correcting
poorly written narratives or writing further texts based on the features that had
been taught and practised.
The difficulty with choosing forward design as a planning strategy is that
it often results in loosely or poorly connected sequences of tasks that do not
result in clear learning outcomes. Each activity in an activity sequence is often
planned independently and there are often gaps in what learners need to know.
An alternative approach is to start with a clear statement of intended learning
outcomes and examples of the outputs that reflect these outcomes and to work
backwards from these to determine what needs to be taught. This is known as
backward design.
In practice this means taking the topic or theme for a unit and mapping out in
precise details exactly what the learners should able to do at the end of the unit.
For example, if the participants want to plan a set of materials to teach business
presentation skills, I first ask them to demonstrate or provide examples of what
they think an effective business presentation looks like. They should prepare
and video-record one or more examples of what they would consider a good
 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education 103

business presentation, one that reflects the specific features of business presenta-
tions which they want their learners to master. Similarly, if they are developing
materials to teach listening skills, they should start with choosing the kinds of
listening texts they want their students to be able to understand and describe
the kinds of listening skills the learners would need to use in order to under-
stand the text. Once the participants have done this, they can then consider
how many steps it will take to get their learners to this end point, and what
they will need to learn along the way to provide them with the means to do so.
In my experience with participants on materials development courses, this is
not the usual way in which they start. They typically brainstorm through the
different activities that they think the unit could contain, without a very clear
understanding of what the precise learning outcomes are.

Modelling, guided and collaborative expert-novice practice,

followed by participant-directed practice
To demonstrate how backward design is used as a procedure in materials devel-
opment, I often model the process using a think-aloud process. For demon-
stration purposes I take an example of topic for a unit of materials, and at the
white board I develop a statement of learning outcomes and a sample outcome
for the topic. I usually choose something that can be achieved within a class
period of 50 minutes, such as “A functional lesson focussing on making invita-
tions, accepting and declining invitations.” I then talk through the whole pro-
cess of working from the learning outcomes and moving backwards to map out
what needs to be taught and how it could be taught in order to achieve them.
This also involves identifying the different kinds of activities that will be used
throughout the unit. Throughout the process I try to verbalize the thinking
processes and decision-making I make use of in arriving at choices to do with
language, skills, and tasks. Participants sometimes keep a record of this process,
using their smart-phones or laptops.
Following my modelling of the thinking and decision-making processes that
I make use of in developing materials using a backward design procedure, the
participants take part in group planning activities in which they plan a unit
on a topic of their choice or using a topic and a set of learning outcomes that I
provide. Over the next few class periods, they discuss and develop learning out-
comes for a unit of materials they would like to develop, describe the principles
the materials aim to reflect, they would like to plan a unit template, choose
activity types and exercises, discuss resources they may need to use such as
video, the internet, and texts and draft sample activities. They may also prepare
a first draft of a unit of materials, which they present to the class. During this
process I serve as a consultant, giving specific feedback on the strengths and
limitations of their materials.
These activities are designed to serve as preparation for an individual project in
which the participants go on to develop either individually or as a collaborative
104 Jack C. Richards

project. This usually takes the form of a fully developed unit of materials or a
detailed plan for a set of materials or a course they plan to develop when they
return to their home countries. In both cases the participants produce a docu-
ment that describes their teaching context, the teachers and learners who will
use the materials, why the materials are needed, the rationale for the materials,
and the process they used in developing them.

Implications

Those with little experience of materials design often underestimate the

issues involved in good instructional design. This “minimalist” perspective
on the demands of materials development is seen in the following comment
(Kumaravadivelu, 2012: 21):

A core course on materials production for pre-service teachers, and hands-on

workshops for in-service teachers, can easily facilitate the development of
the knowledge, skill, and disposition necessary for them to produce instruc-
tional materials.

Such a viewpoint trivializes the nature of instructional design. The account

given above has attempted to provide a more realistic picture of the nature and
complexity of the issues involved. While not all teachers may need or wish to
develop their own instructional materials, most are regularly involved in select-
ing, evaluating, and sometimes modifying published materials for their own
use. The workshop procedures aim to provide teachers with the knowledge and
skills that can support these kinds of activities.
Participants complete an institutional evaluation form on completing the
course and typically value the knowledge and skills they acquire, as well as the
experiences they participated in, very positively.

This class is very rich with new insight and content. Many discussion and hands
on help learning very much.

One of the best I ever attended.

The materials and lessons are at the right level. The lecturer’s extensive experiences
and knowledge are very helpful in the cause.

The lecturer, the examples and the advice was really useful in providing a clear
purpose.

Useful for my teaching and work in my university

We gain a lot of knowledge on designing curriculum and materials we can apply

it usefully.
 Materials Design in Language Teacher Education 105

The course is very effective for my teaching to make curriculum design.

This course is very useful in that I have great opportunity to design a course of
my own.

This course is really needed for my country, state and institution. It is really
practical.

Course participants’ comments, July 2014

Conclusion

Teachers who take part in materials development workshops and courses gener-
ally commence a course with very little awareness of the kinds of knowledge
and skills involved in developing classroom materials, and as observed above,
often underestimate the nature of the skills involved. From my experience of
teaching courses of this kind, teachers who prove most adept at materials devel-
opment are proficient in English, have relevant practical classroom experience
to draw on, have academic knowledge related to the area they wish to focus
on, are familiar with a wide range of teaching techniques and strategies, enjoy
collaborating with others and are receptive to constructive and at times, criti-
cal feedback, and look for original and creative solutions to issues that arise in
materials preparation. Not all language teachers will go on to develop classroom
materials due to limitations of time and resources as well as limitations in their
language proficiency. For these teachers, a course in materials development is
still useful, since it gives them a better understanding of what underlies the
materials they teach from. Other teachers may go on to become key decision-
makers and curriculum planners in their institutions or may already be engaged
in different aspects of materials development. For both of these groups of teach-
ers, comments such as those above suggest that learning the skills of materials
development is a valuable component of their professional development.

References
Bailey, K.M. (1996). “The best laid plans: Teachers” in-class decisions to depart from
their lesson plan. In K.M. Bailey & D. Nunan (eds), Voices From the Language Classroom.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 115–140.
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Grellet, F. (1983). Developing Reading Skills. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hudson, T. (2007). Teaching Second Language Reading. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hyland, K. (2003). Second Language Writing. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012). Individual identity, cultural globalization, and teaching
English as an international language: The case for an epistemic break. In L. Alsagoff,
S.L. Mackay, G. Hu, & W.A. Renandya (eds), Principles and Practices for Teaching English
as an International Language. New York: Routledge, 9–27.
106 Jack C. Richards

Lantolf, J.P. (ed.) (2000). Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Richards, Jack C. (2013). Curriculum strategies in language teaching: Forward, central
and backward design. RELC Journal 44, 1, 1–33.
Shulman, L.S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard
Educational Review 57, 1, 1–22.
Thornbury, S. (2005). How to Teach Speaking. Harlow: Longman.
Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2006). Understanding by Design: A Framework for Effecting
Curriculum Development and Assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development.

Further reading
Basturkmen, Helen (2010). Designing courses in English for Specific Purposes. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
This book describes the key considerations involved in developing ESP courses and pro-
vides case studies of how teachers developed courses to meet the specific needs of their
students.
Garton, Sue and Kathleen Graves (ed.) (2014). International Perspectives on Materials in
ELT. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
This book brings together different perspectives on ELT materials from a range of inter-
national contexts.
Gray, John (ed.) 2013. Critical Perspectives in Language Teaching Materials. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
This is a research-based exploration of how issues such as representation, identity, ideol-
ogy and commercialism are represented in commercial ELT materials.
Harwood, Nigel (ed.) (2014). English Language Teaching Textbooks: Content, Consumption,
Production. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
This book contains chapters focusing on analysis of textbook content, how textbooks are
used in the English language classroom, and textbook writers’ accounts of the textbook
writing and publication process.
McGrath, Ian. (2002). Materials Evaluation and Design for Language teaching. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
This provides a useful and practical introduction to designing tasks and materials for
language teaching.

Engagement priorities
1. Examine a unit from a published textbook series. What template or unit format is
each unit in the book written to? What principles do you think were used in deter-
mining the sequence of activities in the unit?
2. What priorities do you think teachers usually have in mind when choosing a text-
book? What priorities do you think learners have when they are assigned a textbook
as the primary reference in a language course?
3. Examine a coursebook and try to determine the particular philosophy of teaching and
learning which the materials reflect.
4. Compare two coursebooks for the same skill area (e.g. writing, listening, reading).
What macro- and micro-levels of organization are the materials based on?
7
Translanguaging Principles in L2
Reading Instruction: Implications for
ESL Pre-Service Teacher Programme
Leketi Makalela

Introduction and overview

The orthodox reading literacy teaching practices of English as a second lan-

guage (ESL) have always been lopsided towards a monoglossic orientation to
the exclusion of the language learners’ existing linguistic and cultural reper-
toires (Day & Park, 2005). Associatively, there has been a linear immersion of
these learners into second language (L2) literacy after first having received lit-
eracy instruction in their home language (HL, hereafter). As observed elsewhere
(Ricento, 2000; Makalela, 2014a), this literacy orientation is imbued with a
one-ness ideology of the European enlightenment period of nation states (i.e.,
one nation, one language) and the belief that using more than one language
causes mental confusion (Baker, 2011; Makalela, 2014b).
Contrary to the orthodox practices described above, literacy research is
replete with findings that learning to read in an unfamiliar language for
elementary school learners and developing successful instruction strategies
for teachers in ESL situations are far more complex than the current linear
approaches suggest (e.g., Williams, 2006). According to Martinez and Murphy
(2011), readers who process a text in an L2 are faced with a comparatively
laborious and cumbersome job to the extent that it becomes an unpleasant
guessing game. One of the factors militating against L2 reading development
is the teachers’ inability to mediate, prime and cue L2 reading via L1 resources
that the readers bring with them into L2 texts. Yet there are very few innovative
pre-service programmes that have inducted graduating teachers with strategies
of language alternation to enhance a dynamic reading development trajectory
among elementary school learners (e.g., Service & Kohonen, 1995; Duvfva &
Voeten, 1999; Makalela, 2014a). The study reported herein investigated how
working with ESL pre-service teachers’ use of translanguaging techniques impli-
cates a programmatic re-thinking of English teacher education to valorize the
use of HL linguistic and cultural repertoires. As operationally defined in this

107
108 Leketi Makalela

chapter, translanguaging refers to purposeful juxtaposition of the languages of

input and output to promote development of balanced bilingualism (Garcia &
Li Wei, 2014; Hornberger & Link, 2012; Makalela, 2014a). At the end, I con-
sider implications for an ESL teacher education programme that is based on the
principles of translanguaging, which may be adapted in comparable contexts.

Context and setting for the programme

The translanguaging teacher education programme reported in the study

was undertaken at an institution of higher learning in South Africa where 11
languages have an official status, with the aim of enhancing equity and par-
ity of esteem among various language communities. The Constitution of the
Republic of South Africa (Republic of South Africa, 1996) decreed the languages
of the Republic as Sepedi, Setswana, Sesotho, isiZulu, isiXhosa, isiNdebele,
Siswati, Xitsonga, Tshivenda, English and Afrikaans. While multilingualism is
recognized in the constitution, the educational practices have generally drifted
into monolingualism where English is used as the medium of learning and
teaching from grade 4 till university level. Concomitantly, the relationship
between literacy practices indigenous African languages and English has not
been cogently theorized for programmatic scaling on multiliteracy models in
English language teacher education programmes.
International literacy benchmarking tests have consistently shown that
South Africa is trailing behind most of its developing countries counterparts
(Mullis, Martin, Foy, & Drucker, 2012). Local research on reading development
has, in particular, revealed that elementary school readers are at least four years
below their expected reading levels (e.g., Pretorius & Mampuru, 2007, Makalela
& Fakude, 2014). It was found that these elementary readers are unable to make
a transition from learning to read to reading to learn and that oral reading
proficiency levels have regressed to a level of “barking at texts” (Makalela &
Fakude, 2014).
In response to what appears to be a reading literacy morass, which goes
well beyond elementary schools, several studies highlighted the need for re-
orientation of the teacher education programmes to recognize readers’ HLs in
ESL classes (e.g., Makalela, 2012). The Division of Languages, Literacies and
Literatures (LLL) at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, then
undertook a language teacher education programme to develop multi-compe-
tent and multicultural teachers for superdiverse and multilingual schools. Its
pre-service teachers in the general Bachelor of Education degree were provided
with options to major in English and take an additional language from any of
the following languages: isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho and Afrikaans. This approach
aimed at fostering multilingual development and meeting the national stra-
tegic needs for a multilingual and multicultural society as enshrined in the
 Translanguaging Principles in L2 Reading Instruction 109

Constitution as well as in the higher education language policy framework

(Republic of South Africa, 2002). Over time, however, it increasingly became
apparent that the language programmes still focused on one-language-at-a-
time models and, resultantly, limited interactions of more than one language
in the same lesson. It is against this backdrop that there was a need to develop a
programme that would enhance cross-language pollination for the pre-service
teachers.
I taught two English language classes where I introduced translanguaging as
a methodology for English language teaching in multilingual classrooms where
almost all the 11 official languages had HL speakers. In addition, 40 of the pre-
service teachers in these classes were also enrolled for Sepedi as an additional
language – another subject I taught. From the vantage point of teaching in
both programmes, I sought to trial translanguaging principles of purposeful
alternation of the languages for bilingual development. For example, recep-
tive skills such as listening and reading were conducted in one language while
the productive skills like speaking and writing were carried out in a different
language in the Sepedi class. In all these classes I introduced the students to
translanguaging, gave them readings on it and discussed with them ways of
implementing its principles in their teaching. I then sought to follow very few
of the student teachers in their teaching practicum lessons at selected elemen-
tary schools in order to support them while applying the novel strategies onsite
and to assess their efficacy for ESL pedagogy.

Programme participants
This programme involved six pre-service teachers who were followed dur-
ing their teaching practicum at six elementary schools in Gauteng Province,
South Africa. As described earlier, the student teachers majored in English
and were placed in surrounding Black townships1 where local languages are
the main media of communication outside of the classrooms. All the student
teachers were placed in intermediate phase classes (grades 4–6) from the
township schools, which were exposed to fewer reading materials than their
sub-urban counterparts. Like in most schools in South Africa, the learners
studied in a subtractive bilingual programme in which they learn to read in
their home languages for the first three years of their formal education (grades
1–3) and then make a transition at grade 4 to reading all their content subjects
through the medium of English.

The innovation

Given the national literacy challenges faced by the South African elementary
schools readers, it was deemed necessary to introduce translanguaging prin-
ciples to the student teachers in order to facilitate development of reading in
110 Leketi Makalela

more than one language. The goal of the programme was to produce teachers
with ESL teaching expertise that draws from HL resources.
The relationship between home language reading proficiency in English and
finds support in hypotheses such as the linguistic interdependent hypothesis
(Cummins, 1979) and translanguaging techniques that were initially used in
the Welsh-English programme in the 1990’s (Baker, 2011; García, Garcia, & Li
Wei, 2014). The former provides the basis for realizing bidirectional transfer
of reading skills between HL and L2 and assumes that there are two different
linguistic codes that must be accessed sequentially for bilingual children. The
latter, on the other hand, valorizes simultaneous development of languages
and overlaps between literacy skills and practices in the two languages. For
purposes of this chapter, I took the position that it is this going between
and around literacies of two languages at the same time that becomes the
cornerstone for ESL literacy development. With this stance, I keenly became
interested in assessing how purposeful juxtaposition of the languages of input
and output could be introduced in ESL teacher education to close literacy gaps
between HL and English, and how HL could be used to scaffold development
of ESL reading proficiency.
The pre-service teachers were coached on development of curriculum-based
measures (CBM) of reading competence in both HL and English. We relied on
a selection of high frequency words from grade 1 to grade 6 and reading pas-
sages appropriate for the intermediate phase (equivalent length and level of
difficulty) to develop the CBMs. This involved classroom activities that sought
to juxtapose word recognition, word picture mapping, inferential and literal
comprehension skills as well oral reading fluency protocols in English and HL.
In the first phase of the programme, the following skills were taught to the pre-
service teachers:

a. Bilingual vocabulary contrasts

Vocabulary induction in two languages involved explicit attention to
graphological, semantic and phonological attributes of the words. The stu-
dent teachers needed to recognize the different spelling and phonological
aspects of African languages and English in order to attach the importance
of drawing on language differences explicitly when teaching reading literacy
in bilingual and multilingual settings.
b. Text comprehension
The student teachers were exposed to a model of reading passages of com-
parable levels of difficulty, genres and length as prototypes for teaching
comprehension strategies in ESL contexts. The participants were particularly
shown how African languages texts are less direct and less dependent on
the hierarchical structure of English where paragraphs follow the efficiency
 Translanguaging Principles in L2 Reading Instruction 111

model of topic sentences that are followed by supporting sentences. They

were made aware of the different preference patterns between these lan-
guages as either reader responsible (African languages) or writer responsible
(English). The key to the translanguaging approach was that the passages
were read simultaneously (i.e., in the same lesson) with the idea that the
responses were given deliberately in a different language. For example, texts
read in English had questions that were answered in the HLs and vice-versa.
Metacognitive reflections were drawn to make the differences explicit.
c. Oral reading proficiency (read alouds)
One of the features of the programme was a separate introduction of oral
reading proficiency. Student teachers were made to read aloud a text in one
language, followed by another text in a different language. The idea was
to juxtapose the sound systems and reflect on syllabic and suprasegmental
features of the different languages (e.g., tone, stress). This part of the pro-
gramme was intended to show different versions of oral fluency in the two
languages.
d. Print environment
Incidental reading forms part of reading development in young readers. The
translanguaging class sought to maximize the pre-service teachers’ use of
incidental reading in different languages to balance reading development in
more than one language. The pre-service teachers had practice sessions in
which they divided A4 pages in the middle to write up stories about their
travels, giving directions, greetings, etc. The first part of the page would be
in the home language and the second part in English. They realized that
retelling the stories in a different language always extended the information
they initially scribbled in their home language. Writing in English thus both
repeated and extended the stories. In this way, the student teachers realized
language overlaps and idea development, which were both enabled by pur-
poseful translanguaging. This provided a model of how multilingual literacy
corners could be encouraged through local texts (i.e., those produced by
learners in the classrooms) to encourage reading development in the two
languages.

Practicum procedures at elementary schools

Six pre-service teachers undertook a school-based programme on translanguag-
ing to assess whether their application of its principles would improve reading
development in ESL. The teaching practicum for these student teachers was
slightly altered from the normal practicum sessions in order to give some space
for trialing the translanguaging techniques. After discussion with the supervis-
ing teachers at the schools where the student teachers were placed, the follow-
ing procedures were agreed upon and enacted.
112 Leketi Makalela

The reading process

First, all the lessons were structured in a three-step procedure: pre-reading activi-
ties with scaffolding and activation of prior knowledge, during reading, and
post-reading activities. At any of the stages, alternation of the languages was
encouraged to develop simultaneous literacies in both HL and English.
In the pre-reading activities, discussions that were intended to activate prior
knowledge were conducted in HL. Interaction with the texts included the
teacher modelling reading (reading for learners) in English, shared reading
(teacher reading with the learners) and then independent or silent reading
where the learners focused on the content of the texts.
In the post-reading activities, the learners answered questions and shared their
responses in a different language from the language of the text. The post-read-
ing activities also included development of practical activities that were geared
at promoting decoding skills, phonemic and graphemic awareness through a
contrastive reading strategy. This strategy explicitly focuses on differences and
similarities between the reading literacy codes of the two languages.

Reading packs and print environment

The student teachers developed reading packs that could be used over a
three-week period. These included texts written in HL and half of the pack
written in English. The learners were given instructions to read the texts and
then retell the stories in a different language from the text input language.
The transformed stories from the texts were shared with classmates and
posted at biliteracy corners in the classrooms. Story retelling tasks gave the
learners ownership of the recreated texts, especially as they were asked to put
their names on the stories and to decorate them in any way they deemed
necessary.

Evaluation: Success of the translanguaging intervention

I will report on two repeated measures that were carried out to assess the learn-
ers’ word recognition skills in the pre- and post-test phases of the programme.
The pre-test was conducted on the second day of the teaching practicum to
establish the learners’ levels of reading proficiency before the intervention pro-
gramme. Three weeks after the teaching practicum, we went to the schools to
assess degrees of uptake on the translanguaging techniques that were applied
during the practicum term. The following assessment tasks were carried out:

a. Listening and spelling tasks

In order to determine the relationship between phonological, graphological
and semantic interpretations of words as predictors for word comprehen-
sion, highly frequent vocabulary items in the learners’ curriculum were used
 Translanguaging Principles in L2 Reading Instruction 113

as assessment materials. The high frequency words were deduced from

grade 4, 5 and 6 curricula. At each of the schools the participating learn-
ers were asked to perform the following tasks: listen to each of the words
read to them, write the spelling of the words and then choose one picture
that represents the words from four possible picture options. The stimuli
had words of about 6–11 letters and with syllable count ranging from 2–5:
bicycle, watch, fruit, newspaper, dustbin, umbrella, organize, and judge (see also
Makalela 2014 for a full appraisal of word recognition). These words were
read twice in a natural tone by an experimenter to allow the learners to
listen. This practice was followed by learners writing spelling of the dictated
words in their answer books.

b. Lexical decisions
Second, use was made of lexical decisions where learners were expected
to make positive or negative judgments on real and pseudo words using a
bipolar scale of YES or NO. Since the learners were exposed to words in their
home language during the intervention phase, it was necessary to assess
whether they would be able to discriminate English words from non-English
words, following the protocols established in language vocabulary and word
recognition assessments (e.g., Oller & Eilers, 2002). The learner participants
were tested on their ability to recognize pseudo-words and discriminate
them from real words. In word recognition studies, the child’s ability to
discriminate real words from non-words (pseudo-words) has been used
extensively as a predictor of reading comprehension tests (e.g., Service &
Kohonen, 1995; Dufva & Voeten, 1999; Hunt & Beglar, 2005). Pseudo words
are pronounceable letters or phoneme strings that do not form a valid word,
even though they respect the phonotactic structure in the testing language.
From a list of high frequency words for grades 1–6, eight words were ran-
domly selected. Five of these words in each of the languages were pseudo-
words, which were created by randomly changing the sequence of the words
to create expressions like: perpa (paper), nizeorga (organize) teraw (water),
yclebi (bicycle). These words represent the four learning areas (subjects) in
the intermediate phase of the South African primary school curricula: math,
natural science, life orientation and language. Three real words were used to
disguise the pseudo-words: triangle, study and electricity.

Analysis of pre- and post-practicum responses from learners

The first sets of words were rated on a four point scale in the following hier-
archy: not recognizable (1), recognizable (2), minor correction (3), and
correct (4). Average scores for the ratings were recorded descriptively using
both measures of central tendencies and dispersion. For lexical decisions, NO
and YES cases were analyzed separately and comparatively to ascertain mean
and standard deviation differences. Paired t-test measures were calculated to
114 Leketi Makalela

compare mean gains between the pre- and post-test word recognition gains. All
these statistical procedures were pitched at an alpha value of 0.05 to measure
significance levels.

Analysis of student teacher reflections

The student teachers were asked to reflect on their experiences with the trans-
languaging techniques in their schools. A universal reductionist approach was
used to assess emerging themes from the data until saturation points were
reached.

Outcomes

The outcome for the intervention is presented under two categories of word
recognition: spelling and lexical decision.

a. Improved spelling and listening comprehension skills

The learners were asked to listen to pronunciation of a list of high frequency
words both in their home language and English. As would be expected, the
pre-test results showed very low vocabulary recognition levels in English.
The majority of the words fell under the unrecognizable category. This was fol-
lowed by recognizable category, then minor corrections and only limited cases
of correct spelling formations. The post-test results, on the converse, showed
a reversed performance pattern where the majority of the words were in
the correct spelling formations category whereas fewer cases of unrecognizable
words were found in both languages, but more significantly in English.
The pre-test results show that word recognition level of the majority of
the learners falls within the unrecognizable category (M = 31.87; SD = 9.5).
Correct spelling is the second highest category with a mean of 12.37 and
standard deviation of 3.7. The recognizable word category had 12.25 mean
scores and standard deviation of 2.7. The last category, minor corrections,
has a mean score of 4 and a standard deviation of 6.0. In terms of word
recognition scale, the majority of the scores fell within the unrecognizable
category, which implies that the participants were reading English words as
low as about 25% of their expected recognition level. The smaller standard
deviations in all these word categories suggest that the learners represented
a homogenous group in their word recognition levels (Table 7.1).
Post-test results showed declining scores in both unrecognizable and recogniz-
able categories and an exponential increase in minor correction and correct
spelling forms. Given these indicators for improved performance rates on
word recognition, the differences between pre-test and post-test were meas-
ured for significance, using a paired t-test. The results of the t-test showed
statistically significant reduction from 31.87 to 10.5 (t = 8, df = 59; P<0.05)
 Translanguaging Principles in L2 Reading Instruction 115

Table 7.1 Spelling

Variable Unrecognizable Recognizable Minor Errors Correct

Time-series Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test

N 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60
M 31,87 10.5 12,25 8.0 4 6.6 12,37 31.6
SD 9.5 8.2 2.7 9.8 6.0 3.2 3.7 5.6

Table 7.2 Lexical decisions

Word No Yes

Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test

M 25.75 18.50 34.25 42.75

SD 10.5 5.1 10.5 5.3

of the unrecognizable category. Under the recognizable category, there were

also statistically significant differences between the pre and post-test means
of 12, 25 to 8.0 (t = −1.69, df = 59; P<0.05), respectively. On the other hand,
the results on minor errors show a different pattern for a statistically signifi-
cant mean gain from 4 (M = 4) to 6 (M = 6) (t = −4.65, df = 59; P<0.05). With
regard to correct word formation category, there is also a statistically signifi-
cant improvement from pre-test to post-test measures of 12.37 (M = 12.37)
to 31.6 (M = 31.6), respectively (t = −3.94, df = 7; P<0.05). These results
generally indicate that there has been a significant shift in word recognition
skills, which may be explained in terms of the intervention programme that
was carried out during the teaching practicum.

b. Improved word recognition skills

The learners’ ability to discriminate words of the target language from non-
words is a reliable predictor of reading development. The second task on
word recognition among the participants involved decisions on whether the
words presented to them were correct English words or not.
First, the NO judgment (negative) category showed that real English words
were judged as non-words in the pre-test, but such a judgment decreased in
the post-test (M = 18.50; SD = 5.1). In the YES judgment (positive) category,
there is an improved positive rating from pre-test to post-test scores (M =
34.25; SD = 10.5 to M = 42.75; SD = 5.3). These results show that the learn-
ers’ English word recognition skills on highly frequent words in their cur-
riculum have shown an improvement in the post-test (Table 7.2).
116 Leketi Makalela

A closer look at the results shows that there was a better recognition of words
after the intervention programme and more correct decisions made on the
word provided. The paired t-test results show that overall differences in the
pre- and post-test YES responses have a wider mean gain, which is statistically
significant (t = −2.614; df = 7; P<0.05) whereas the negative responses did not
differ significantly between the pre-test and post-tests (t = 2,162; df = 7; P >
0.05). This means that working with words and showing syllabic differences
between the readers’ HL and English appears to show marked improvements
in the post-test scores of the learners overall proficiency levels. Overall, the
results show the value of pre- and post-testing learners’ word recognition
levels and of explicit focus on lexical development in teaching reading in the
second language and foreign language contexts (see Hunt & Beglar, 2005, for
example).

Pre-service teachers’ metacognitive reflections

After implementation of the translanguaging strategies in the township
schools, it was important to reflect on the impact of these strategies on the
pre-service teachers. They were asked to present to class what they had learned
throughout the practicum process.

a. Enhancing deeper understanding

The student teachers expressed a positive association of HL and English in
the reading instruction activities. They reported that the strategies fostered
deeper understanding for them as teachers and for their learners. The fol-
lowing excerpts reveal this affirmation:

Excerpt 1
I’ve now understood that more than one language can be used to impart
knowledge. When one language is supported by another, the learners
engaged with the content in deep ways I cannot explain. It was also a learn-
ing experience for me. I understood what I was teaching with more depth
than any of my teaching before this one.

Excerpt 2
I’ve seen that it is not really true that one language will make it difficult for
the readers to understand texts in another language. The kids enjoyed using
both languages and I saw that their performance in English had improved
so fast.

Both excerpts reveal the depth to which the learners understood the content
matter when two languages were used simultaneously in their lessons. In
the first Excerpt, the student teacher emphasizes that epistemic access to
knowledge is strengthened when learners read in more than one language.
 Translanguaging Principles in L2 Reading Instruction 117

Because of this positive gain, which is not experienced in typical monolin-

gual classrooms, the respondent in Excerpt 2 challenges the idea that use of
more than one language creates learning problems for learners. Framed in
this light, the student teacher’s use of a translanguaging approach has ena-
bled them to help the elementary readers enhance their access to knowledge
and make sense of the world in two languages.

b. Meaning extension in bilingual writing

The student teachers’ reflections show that a translanguaging approach has
increased opportunities for learners to summarize and retell stories from
reading passages they were given. Beyond this, the learners placed their
stories at bilingual publishing corners. The student teachers realized that
the ideas that were expressed in one language overlapped into the second
language when the learners were engaged in their writing processes. Excerpt
3 is a typical response:

Excerpt 3
I was struck at the way these children wrote on the walls in one language
and then continued in another. And when I compared their home language
and English versions, I realised that the kids did not just copy or translate
between the languages, they had extended the meanings from one language
to another. I thought this was the best way to see how languages overlap,
not just in speech as I had previously thought but also in writing.

What the respondent highlights in this excerpt is the distinction often

made between translation and translanguaging. The respondent affirms that
translanguaging goes beyond translation because the reproduced texts via
translanguaging are not replicas of the source texts as may be the case with
translation. The respondent aptly shows that the learners developed meaning
units that cut across the linguistic codes used in her class. The idea of meaning
continuum in the output mode is key to classroom translanguaging principles.
Here, readers do not only reproduce what they received from the input, they
transform and advance thinking and meaning making beyond the constraints
of language boundaries.

c. Phonemic contrasts in oral reading fluency activities

As translanguagers, the student teachers reported positive appraisal of their
use of sound differences between English and HL to teach oral reading flu-
ency among the learners. The following excerpt is typical:

Excerpt 4
Ehh … we told the children to read in more than one language in the same
lesson. At first it was a challenge to move from one language to another,
but it became easier later when we were at the schools. We used this space
118 Leketi Makalela

to emphasize phrasing in both languages and to assist them to move out of

syllabic reading strategies. The children had direct observation of how the
sounds differ in the languages.

This excerpt shows that the student-teachers brought a new reading instruc-
tion practice where two languages are used simultaneously in the same
lesson. When the learners read aloud, the student teachers used this oppor-
tunity to induct the learners in phonemic awareness contrasts between the
two languages. The student teachers admitted, however, that use of trans-
languaging techniques in relation to sound systems and sound rules in more
than one language can be a laborious task in the beginning.

d. Overall programme evaluation

The student teachers were also asked to evaluate the course and its impact
on their teaching. The majority of the participants expressed a strong
opinion about how the course has reshaped their way of thinking about
language development. In particular, they saw the need to scaffold English
language teaching through linguistic resources that ESL learners bring with
them to class. A typical response is in Excerpt 5 below.

Excerpt 5
Learning about translanguaging and using it in the biliteracy reading project
has changed the way English should be taught for me. Now I have the cour-
age to embed home language in English and then English into the home
languages without compromising skills development in both languages. …
I saw that reading skills developed faster in English. … In fact, this course
blew my mind as I had no idea that it is possible to get two languages used
systematically in one’s class. I am definitely going to apply the strategies I
learned. Teaching English the way I did was empowering for the learners
during the teaching experience.

The student teacher respondent points to the dominant language teaching

practices that constrain the use of more than one language in the classroom.
He has realized that application of translanguaging principles in his teach-
ing practicum classes helped him to see the value of alternation of languages
of input and output in the same lesson proceedings. Despite these positive
aspects of teacher development, the student teachers realized that translan-
guaging needs some scaffolding for the learners, as presented in Excerpt 6:

Excerpt 6
The other thing I picked up is that I need to guide learners on translanguag-
ing activities as I saw that they did not have confidence to move between
languages.
 Translanguaging Principles in L2 Reading Instruction 119

The respondent observed that successful application of translanguaging

requires that the teacher becomes deliberate in making the activities a daily
routine. He points out that it is important for the learners to develop confi-
dence to use the languages simultaneously. In other words, translanguaging
interrupts some of the established classroom protocols and processes and
requires more effort to be built into orthodox classroom practices that are
monolingual in nature. This feedback also indicated that there was a need
for more theoretical discussions among the student teachers so that they
could be grounded in the principles and develop confidence to be innovative
despite the monolingual school ideologies that prevail.

Weaknesses in the programme

Although the benefits of training student teachers through a translanguaging

approach to teach ESL are obvious from the discussion above, there are some
weaknesses that need to be taken into account. First, the programme relied
on student teachers having a teaching practicum, which is not an ideal space
to initiate innovative classroom practices that may upset the usual routines.
During the teaching practicum, the student teachers tend to be mainly con-
cerned with completing sessions to get grades. Second, the in-service teach-
ers, on the other hand, are concerned with meeting the national curriculum
requirements to the extent that practices deviating from the norm create
tensions between the student teachers’ practices and expectations from the
teachers. Third, the choice for grades 4–6 (10–12 years old) in terms of assess-
ment limits opportunities for metacognitive reflections about how the learners
experience translanguaging in their classes. Learners in higher grades might
yield a more reasoned understanding on how translanguaging impacts on their
biliteracy development trajectories.

Practical implications for ESL teacher education

There are far-reaching implications for translanguaging techniques in ESL

teacher education. First, the results of the study show that the student teachers
who were trained through the translanguaging programme were able to utilize
its techniques to improve elementary school readers’ word recognition skills.
The learner’s reading performance on word recognition gravitated from an
unrecognizable category (about 25%) in the pre-test to a correct category (75–
100%) in the post-test. Evidently, the findings of the study concur broadly with
a body of established literature on the effectiveness of using home language in
L2 reading development (Ovando & Collier, 1998; Service & Kohenen, 1995)
and specifically with research recommendations on simultaneous development
of literacies and languages through translanguaging applications (Creese &
Blackledge, 2010; García & Li Wei, 2014; Makalela, 2014a, b). We infer from
120 Leketi Makalela

these results that ESL teacher education can induct pre-service teachers in the
use of HL resources through translanguaging to teach reading, writing, listen-
ing and speaking among ESL learners.
One of the explicit teaching practices for ESL pedagogy that emerged from
the programme was the use of a contrastive reading technique, which delib-
erately focused on specific word recognition skills in both languages. This
means that the training of ESL pre-service teachers should take cognizance of
the need to induct the students with contrastive phonemic awareness exer-
cises as scaffolding tools to enhance English language learning. Moreover, the
study supports the basic principles of linguistic interdependence hypotheses,
which emphasize the interdependent nature of HL and L2 in the development
of reading and general support for the learners to develop reading within a
flexible multilingual space (García, 2009). Framed in this light, the findings
of the study provide the basis for training ESL teachers through a deliberate
pedagogic strategy of word induction and contrastive reading methodology.
Ecologically speaking, reading literacy in ESL can best be understood in a con-
tinuum of other local literacies that converge for the early readers of English
to emerge as multi-competent readers who can use resources from their HLs.
Translanguaging techniques provide student teachers with tools to harness
this literacy continuum.
The overall contribution of this study is to a broader social understanding of
reading development in ESL contexts. This approach to literacy departs from
the early works that have always viewed reading literacy as an abstraction, an
isolated cognitive activity, and an independent variable that is removed from
social contexts (Street, 1984). Beginning from a social approach to literacy,
the present study involved the socialization context of the learners as a lit-
eracy event, affirmation of their own languages and then incrementally built
towards the development of cross-linguistic awareness. In this way meaning
making was balanced in terms of the three systems that help children to make
sense of the world around them: sociological, psychological and linguistic.
This three-dimensional view of meaning making was useful in the study as it
affirmed an alternative way of looking at reading pedagogy in ESL contexts (D.
Freeman & Freeman, 2004; Goldenberg, 2008). This perspective encourages
ESL teachers to explore the benefits of translanguaging techniques where the
learners’ holistic context of reading is fully engaged. The following specific
strategies for teaching learners in ESL contexts are relevant for our teacher
education programme:

a. Purposeful alternation of the language of input and output in reading

instruction: translanguaging;
b. Raising phonological awareness in the learners’ English and using HL to
discuss reading challenges and problems;
 Translanguaging Principles in L2 Reading Instruction 121

c. Student teachers’ ability to use literature that taps into the children’s exist-
ing cultural repertoires;
d. Resourcing and improving the print environment with local texts in HL and
English; and
e. Including contrastive analysis between HL and English, building on home
language skills. (See Makalela, 2014b)

While these principles are broad, their specific application can be tailor-made
to fit comparable ESL contexts globally. I have shown that the main trans-
languaging technique – purposeful alternation of the languages of input and
output – helps to develop reading literacy in both the HL and L2. Training of
teachers of ESL would imply undertaking a holistic approach to language and
literacy as opposed to monolingual practices that have not proven successful
in South Africa and comparable contexts around the world.

Summary and conclusion

This chapter has revealed positive effects of an ESL teacher education that used
translanguaging techniques to develop a cohort of ESL teachers for elementary
schools in South Africa. It has revealed that deliberate and systematic use of the
readers’ HL, culturally-relevant reading materials, and contrastive techniques
yield positive results for the learners. The techniques enabled the student teach-
ers to understand that teaching reading development among ESL learners in
multilingual and multicultural contexts requires an interface of factors; namely,
scaffolding reading in English, multilingual enrichment of classroom print
environments, and creation of multilingual literacy corners through a flexible
approach of using outputs in a language different from the input language. Their
use of translanguaging and its flexible, fluid and versatile techniques thus ques-
tioned the validity of boundaries between languages and literacies in HL and L2.
Drawing on the successes of the intervention programme, it is instructive
that ESL educators need to be aware of the learner’s HL so that they are in a
position to cue, prime and transform its features into resources for reading
development in ESL contexts. I further deduce from the results of the study
that monologic teaching approaches that box languages into sealed units
short-circuit the fluid nature of reading in English in relation to the local
languages. Instead of treating reading in ESL as an isolated cognitive activity,
educators may need to develop larger multi-dimensional reading projects for
the elementary readers to produce positive results for reading development. It
is in this connection that ESL readers gain cognitive skills and develop a strong
sense of who they are.
The results of this programme need to be interpreted within the limitation
of a small sample size of six teachers and implementation of intervention
122 Leketi Makalela

strategies for a short period of time. Their demonstration of the need for an
inclusive, fluid and plurilogic approach to teaching ESL reading, however,
contributes new insights in the field of ESL teacher education. It is envis-
aged that ESL teacher education instructors may develop similar approaches
based on translanguaging and expand on the techniques that were developed
and applied for the setting described in this chapter. More innovative pro-
grammes on translanguaging activities are needed to tease out the relation-
ship between ESL reading pedagogy and ESL teacher education in comparable
contexts.

Note
1. Townships are reserves that were occupied by Black South Africans during both the
colonial and Apartheid periods. It was illegal for Blacks to stay in the urban centres
during the Apartheid period (1948–1994).

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Mullis, I., Martin, M., Foy, P., & Drucker, K. (2012). PIRLS 2011 international results in
reading. Chestnut Hill, MA: TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, Boston College.
Oller, D.K. & Eilers, R.E. (eds) (2002). Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children. New
York: Multilingual Matters.
Ovando, C.J. & Collier, V. (1998). Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in Multicultural
Contexts (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Pretorius, E.J. & Mampuru, D.M. (2007). Playing football without a ball: Language, read-
ing and academic performance in a high-poverty school. Journal of Research in Reading
30, 1, 38–58.
Republic of South Africa (1996). The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa: Act 108 of
1996. Pretoria: Government Printers.
Ricento, T. (2000). Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and plan-
ning. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4, 2, 196–213.
Service, E. & Kohonen, V. (1995). Is the relationship between phonological memory
and foreign language learning accounted for by vocabulary acquisition? Applied
Psycholinguistics 16, 155–172.
Street, B.V. (1984). Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, E. (2006). Bridges and Barriers: Language in African Education and Development.
Manchester: St Jerome Publishing.

Further reading
Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
This reading provides a theoretical basis for language boundaries that have become
fluid and versatile in part due to national and international mobility. Globalization
effects the relationship between first and additional languages since bilingual children
become increasingly exposed to more than one language through which they gain access
to knowledge and define themselves.
124 Leketi Makalela

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teaching for African-American

Students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 17–18.
This reading provides a model for successful teaching of cultural minorities in the US. It
contains useful materials to re-imagine classroom pedagogy where less dominant cultural
practices are given space, which in turn leads to better pedagogy.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant
pedagogy. Theory into Practice 34, 3, 159–165.
This reading reports on the need to develop a pedagogy that is relevant to the socio-
cultural conditions of students. Teaching a language thus represents multiple cultures
coming into contact. It provides a rationale for using more than one language in class.
May, S. (2011). The disciplinary constraints of second language acquisition and TESOL:
Additive bilingualism and SLA, teaching and learning. Linguistics and Education 22, 3,
233–247.
May’s text is instrumental in challenging monolingual bias in second language acquisi-
tion, TESOL and bilingual education programmes. The taken for granted assumptions
of an ideal monolingual speaker are found in notions such as interference, transfer and
mother tongue. Language learning in complex multilingual contexts does not follow the
linear, sequential and monolingual approaches favoured in these disciplines.

Engagement priorities
The implications for teacher development and reading literacy in English as a second
language are many. English teacher training instructors can develop projects where
theories of language teaching for multilingual contexts are questioned, as well as practi-
cum sessions that allow pre-service teachers to disrupt one-language-at-a-time practices.
Translanguaging techniques on phonemic awareness will, for example, involve ample
opportunities for learners to listen through the medium of L1 and retell in the L2 medium
and vice-versa (listening comprehension). For reading comprehension exercises, readers
will have opportunities to read a passage in one language and respond to different levels
of comprehension questions in a different language (literal, inference, summarizing).
However there are still many areas that need further exploration. These are:

• The amount of time that translanguaging activities will take. How can teachers adopt
translanguaging principles without compromising content coverage?
• Textbooks and materials development. What are the skills needed for teachers to
develop a multilingual print environment and generate reading texts that promote
biliteracy?
• Translanguaging activities listed above make assumptions about teachers’ content
and pedagogical knowledge. How can teachers’ depth of biliteracy competence be
enhanced with a balance struck between these knowledge areas?
• The sociolinguistic output for translanguaging. Is translanguaging limited to scaffold-
ing or can it be used as an end on its own?
• Error and translanguaging. Does this practice mean that everything goes? At what
point do translanguagers commit an error and how would a teacher engage with this?
• At the end of the year, students will be assessed. How can translanguaging activities be
assessed both in speaking and writing? Are there models of heterographic texts, and
if so, how will teachers engage with these texts?
8
Creative Enactments of Language
Teacher Education Policy:
A Singapore Case Study
Lubna Alsagoff

Introduction and overview

The issue of which target variety to teach is one that has been much debated in
English classrooms the world over, especially in the growing number of English-
speaking multicultural and multilingual communities. The rapid global spread
of English as an international language, has, in a relatively short span of time,
dramatically reversed the profile of English use and users, in which English L2
speakers and learners far outnumber L1 speakers (Rajagopalan, 2004). This has
given rise to much debate in the research literature regarding the ownership
of English, which questions the monolithic view of language teaching with a
focus on the native variety as the norm.
The growing number of L2 speakers and learners of English has also led to a
great deal of discussion as to how to represent the increasing heterogeneity of
English. The exponential proliferation of varieties of English as it spread across
the world and adopted the varied cultures of its speakers necessitated new ways
of thinking about English. Of the many theoretical models that have been pro-
posed to attempt to make sense of the plethora, the most influential has been
Kachru’s (1992) Three-Circle model which re-interprets the first, second and
foreign language distinctions made in English language teaching in terms of
the history and use of English in the countries it was spoken. Kachru represents
the spread of English using three concentric circles; at the centre are countries
such as Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, where English
is spoken as L1 – Kachru refers to these countries as the Inner Circle. In the
second circle, the Outer Circle, lie the postcolonial communities such as India,
Philippines, Singapore, Nigeria, and Malaysia for whom English has evolved
into a nativized variety. Typically, Outer Circle countries have policies that
support the institutional and therefore widespread use of English in official
domains such as government, law, and education. Such institutionalization of
English in these communities has led to the development of localized varieties

125
126 Lubna Alsagoff

of world Englishes. The outermost circle in Kachru’s model is the Expanding

Circle where English is used in restricted contexts and for limited purposes; in
these countries English is typically a foreign language for international com-
munication with L1 speakers.
The Three-Circle model provided the impetus to re-examine essential issues
underlying English language teaching, especially the issue of the ownership
of English and the norms which are used as standards of English language
classrooms. The field of world Englishes, in the thirty years since Kachru
formulated his ideas, has grown exponentially, contributing significantly to
the study and recognition of local varieties of English such as Indian English,
Nigerian English, and Singapore English, to name a few. These Englishes, once
derogated as corrupted forms of English, have gained status as legitimate varie-
ties. A case in point is Singapore – often cited in the world Englishes research
literature as an example of an English that has evolved because of the multicul-
tural and multilingual landscape in which it is spoken. Like many other Outer
Circle countries, Singapore has both an informal variety and a formal variety.
Generally, the formal variety of English, especially in the written form, is very
little different from standard British English or American English. In contrast,
the informal vernacular, often referred to as Singlish, differs significantly in
its phonology and syntax from the formal variety, and may in fact be unintel-
ligible to other English speakers. It is often the latter colloquial variety that
forms the basis of much research into how Outer Circle countries are seen as
norm-developing, as evolving entirely different norms of English from varieties
typically seen as “standard” varieties such as British or American English. The
term “Standard English” is of course, beset with ideological vagueness and in
itself, does not acknowledge the vernaculars of these nations.
In Singapore’s past, where the use of English was determined by access to
education (Lim & Foley, 2004), it clearly made sense that the status of the
local vernacular was characterized as low to reflect the fact that Singlish was
spoken primarily by the less educated (who were, also, less well-to-do). Indeed,
Platt and Weber’s (1980) model of the lectal continuum of Singapore English
attributed the variation in English in Singapore as determined primarily by
education and social status. However, in more modern Singapore, the situation
is quite different. With the spread and consequent democratization of English
over fifty years of English-medium education (Pakir, 1997; Alsagoff, 2012),
English is spoken by a wide range of individuals in Singapore, even becoming
a home language for one child in every two households (MOE, 2006). With
such widespread use of English, it is inevitable that an endonormative, i.e.
local, variety is spoken by the majority of Singaporeans. Yet, clearly even as
they speak and support the local variety, Singaporeans are keenly aware of the
need to speak a variety of English that is internationally intelligible, and hence
of economic value both to the nation, and the individual (Chew, 2006). For
 A Singapore Case Study 127

Singaporeans, and the Singapore Ministry of Education, the English that is seen
as having international currency is an exonormative standard, that of standard
British English.
Thus, allowing a non-standard vernacular form would threaten the essence
of such an economic advantage and render Singapore crippled and unable
to compete effectively against its neighbouring countries, which although
without the advantage of a language of international currency, have size and
natural resources on their side. The adoption of English as the nation’s “work-
ing language” is premised very much on economic grounds, as with educa-
tion, which is seen as the means to ensure the country’s continued economic
success.
English is acknowledged as key to Singapore’s economic success, as Ng Eng
Hen so explicitly states in almost his first speech as Minister of Education in
1991 (Ng, 2008: 4):

The first fundamental shift was the decision to use English as the medium
of instruction in our schools. Parents given the choice of English saw the
practical benefits and opted for it in droves. The concept of globalisation
was nascent and we would reap rich harvests as English became the lingua
franca of an exploding information age to come. We did not envisage the
magnitude of that change, but when it came, it enabled us to leap-frog
many nations, and also allowed us to improve the teaching of Maths and
Science and technologically based subjects. Ex-post, that the choice of
English conferred enormous advantages seems almost a no-brainer of a
choice in today’s context.

It is of little surprise, therefore, that the use of Singlish in classrooms has

become a growing concern of the government. While sociolinguists universally
agree that the use of Singlish poses no threat to the development of Standard
English, there have been arguments proposed by those concerned with lan-
guage policy that Singlish does indeed present a danger. One such instance is
the use of an outdated and defunct economic principle, Gresham’s law, which
states that “bad currency drives out good currency” (Bokhorst-Heng, 2005). In
an interview with the Straits Times (Soh, 2005), the then chairperson of the
Speak Good English movement, Koh Tai Ann, raised concerns that the increas-
ing use of Singlish might threaten the use and place of Standard English in
Singapore:

You may recall The Straits Times, at the time, had a roundtable discussion
on English in Singapore. I was one of the five members. I commented that
bad English is like Gresham’s Law in Economics which says bad currency
drives out the good. If we continue to use the local variety, this would soon
128 Lubna Alsagoff

become the standard. For all its communicative and “fun” qualities, it is
essentially colloquial and informal. I don’t think we want the local variety
to become Singapore’s Standard English. I would rather that the influence
was the other way – that standard English, while not totally inhibiting local
variations and quirks, would bring the local variety gradually nearer to its
standards.
(Soh, 2005: 3)

Clearly, for Koh and those concerned with language policy in Singapore, an
exonormatively regulated norm which ensures international intelligibility
and economic advantage is the only possible standard. Advocating a local, i.e.
endonormative, standard is seen as detrimental to the growth of Singapore in
an era where global currency and global interconnectedness are essential for
a lingua franca. The clear concern for policy makers is that the use of Singlish
will displace Standard English to become the dominant norm. This senti-
ment is no more clearly evident that in a strongly-worded response made by
Singapore’s Ministry of Education to a newspaper article featuring the views of
well-known English researchers in Singapore, which emphasized that the local
vernacular is not welcome in Singapore classrooms (Liew and Ho, 2008: 1):

Singaporeans, especially our young, must be able to communicate in English

with clarity and impact, not just with fellow Singaporeans but with English
speakers all over the world. This is especially important because we are
a small nation, and cannot expect others to understand Singlish. While
Singlish may be a fascinating academic topic for linguists to write papers
about, Singapore has no interest in becoming a curious zoo specimen to be
dissected and described by scholars. Singaporeans’ overriding interest is to
master a useful language which will maximize our competitive advantage,
and that means concentrating on standard English rather than Singlish.

This quotation offers a clear and unambiguous articulation of the position

of the Singapore government with regard to English. In all of its policy state-
ments, the state has made it clear that the only variety of English that it sees
as legitimate is one that will ensure Singapore’s competitive advantage in the
global marketplace – not surprising, given the status of English in Singapore
as the “economic workhorse” of the nation. To this end, the government
has assiduously promoted the use of an exonormative norm of English in
education – a variety of English generally recognized and established through
historical circumstances as global. This mandate, to have its citizens master an
English of international currency, is motivated by what Wee (2003) refers to as
an instrumental approach to language planning, in which languages are seen
as political implements of social control and economic advancement. It is also
 A Singapore Case Study 129

intricately tied to the way in which education features strongly in Singapore’s

economic planning.
Yet, interestingly, it is not only the policy makers and the government that
believe in this position. The debates over the status and value of Singlish are
often, in fact, spurred by a single letter by a member of the public to the edi-
tor of Singapore’s local newspaper; invariably, these are based on anecdotal
evidence, but they bemoan the quality of teachers’ English. These letters
inevitably place the local vernacular, Singlish, in the limelight, which spurs
the imagination of the public, who then take up “arms” over the subject. As
expected, there is always divided sentiment over the issue, typically with one
group of Singaporeans favouring the eradication of this local variety of English
in favour of the standard variety and the other seeking recognition and legiti-
macy for Singlish as a badge of national identity (Bokhorst-Heng, 2005). And
not unexpectedly, such debates over the valorization of Singlish, and its effect
on the “standards” of English in Singapore gravitate towards teachers’ com-
mand of English (Kramer-Dahl, 2003). What was also worrying to the policy
makers is that even the large number of Singaporeans, including teachers, who
are able to speak a standard variety of English, are choosing to speak the local
vernacular. No longer confined to informal domains such as friends and fam-
ily, Singlish is increasingly used in more formal domains such as classrooms
(Farrell and Tan, 2007; Rubdy, 2007) alongside the standard variety.
The economically-driven stance towards language has meant that many of
the local practices and communicative strategies used by Singaporean teachers
in the classroom, including code-switching and the use of a local variety of spo-
ken English, are cast in poor light and undervalued, with teachers often being
publicly disparaged for their use of “poor” English and unfavourably compared
to English “native speaker” teachers.

The context and setting for the programme

The setting
From around 2005–2007, there was yet another sharp escalation in attention
paid to the “state” of English in Singapore. Concerns about the standard of
English were fuelled by economic anxiety about the exponential growth of
China and India’s manufacturing sectors, which saw many Singapore policy
makers convinced that Singapore’s key advantage of being an English speaking
country would be eroded with the continued growth of the local vernacular,
Singlish. Thus, efforts were made to address this issue at the highest levels
of the Ministry of Education, which took the opportunity to address the
“problems” of the standard of English in Singapore by setting up the English
Language Curriculum and Pedagogy Review (ELCPR) Committee. Members of
this committee included Ministry officers involved in curriculum planning and
130 Lubna Alsagoff

teacher development; representatives from schools, including principals and

master teachers; as well as representatives from the universities.1 The commit-
tee’s role was to examine the issues relating to the English language curricu-
lum, teaching as well as teachers, and to make necessary recommendations for
improvements to English language teaching, with attention focused primarily
on how to raise the standard of English used in Singapore classrooms. Key to
this was the standard of the teachers’ English.
As the sole teacher education institute responsible for preparing all begin-
ning teachers for a career in teaching in primary schools, secondary schools as
well as junior colleges, the National Institute of Education (NIE) was to play a
large role in achieving the desired aims of the committee.2 Strictly speaking,
although NIE does not run teacher-certification programs, an NIE diploma is
nonetheless a required credential for employment by the Ministry of Education
as a “mainstream” teacher. In press releases by the Ministry of Education, NIE
is in fact referred to as the “national teacher education institute of Singapore”
and explicitly linked to preparing not only teachers, but school leaders as well:

The National Institute of Education (NIE), the national teacher educa-

tion institute of Singapore, is an institute of the Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore. NIE provides all levels of teacher education, ranging
from initial teacher education programmes to further teacher preparation
for serving teachers, departmental heads and principals.
(MOE, 2008)

The relationship between NIE and the Singapore Ministry of Education is a

complex one. Although NIE has, since 2000, been part of a university, Nanyang
Technological University, albeit an autonomous institute within the university,
it more closely allies itself with the Ministry of Education, as seen by the way
in which its policies and processes are highly attuned to, and responsive to, the
Ministry’s needs. Student teachers admitted to NIE are, in the overwhelming
majority, paid employees of the Ministry of Education with scholarship fund-
ing for their teacher preparation courses. Evidence of the close relationship
between the two organizations can also be seen in NIE’s organizational struc-
ture: although senior faculty members of Nanyang Technological University
are members of NIE’s governing council, the council is chaired by no less than
the serving Permanent Secretary of Education, with a significant number of
directors from the Ministry of Education serving as members of the council.
In addition, an MOE-NIE Coordinating Committee has been in existence, in
one form or another since 1999, which has, when necessary, been active
in ensuring the coordination of efforts between NIE and MOE – the Ministry
of Education – in the setting of common goals and working towards the
 A Singapore Case Study 131

implementation of such goals. As the sole institutional provider of teachers in

Singapore, NIE also works in tandem with the Ministry to ensure that it meets
the manpower needs of the nation.
As a result of such a close synchrony, NIE is unlike a regular university
faculty or institute. Several factors are indicative of this unusual status. For
one thing, NIE’s student admissions rise and ebb depending on the economic
climate and the manpower needs of the nation. Yet another indicator of NIE’s
role in serving national policies and needs is the fact that NIE offers a gener-
ous array of pathways for initial teacher preparation, including a Diploma of
Education (DipEd) for non-graduate teachers, Bachelor degree programmes in
Arts and Science with a Diploma in Education (BA/BSc (Ed)) for those seek-
ing to complete a degree along with teacher “certification,” as well as the
two Postgraduate Diplomas in Education (PGDE) programmes for university
graduates wishing to be “certified” as primary or secondary school teachrs.3
In addition to the initial teacher preparation programmes, NIE runs an
expansive range of graduate programmes – there are at least 20 different Master
in Education specialization programmes and 11 other Master’s programmes in
the Arts, Sciences and Education listed on the NIE website. Graduate studies
also include a PhD programme for the Arts, Science and Education, as well as
two EdD (Doctor of Education) programs. On top of this, NIE runs in-service
courses for the Ministry of Education, often bespoke ones, to meet the different
needs of the schools. And academic departments within NIE like the English
Language and Literature (ELL) department are obliged to modify their course
offerings to meet the needs of MOE’s manpower planning – this entailed, for
example, that in addition to the over 200 different courses in 12 different pro-
grammes that the ELL department runs in a single academic year, it also had
to offer a variety of in-service courses to meet the needs of practicing teachers
and the MOE’s language education initiatives.
Thus, the question was not whether the ELL department which was in charge
of English language teacher education at NIE would respond to the MOE’s
needs, but how it would do so.

The issue
The challenge was in determining how to meet the newly-articulated obli-
gations to improve the quality of teachers’ English while still remaining
true to the educational perspectives and frameworks that guided academic
and professional work at the department. The policy position taken by the
Singapore MOE was basically one that expected an exonormative standard,
primarily, Standard British English, to function not only as the target vari-
ety to be taught, but more critically also as the variety that all teachers were
expected to use in the classrooms. Consequently, the key issue with regard to
132 Lubna Alsagoff

proficiency meant that while the teacher educators at the English Language
and Literature department needed to ensure the teaching of the exonormative
norms of English aligned with the MOE’s politically and economically-driven
position on English language teacher competence, they also needed to ensure
that this did not entail subscribing to a deficit model of language teaching. The
deficit model of language teaching arose from a term coined by Braj Kachru in
1991 in response to Randolph Quirk’s advocacy of the “native speaker” vari-
ety as the only appropriate norm for “non-native” English speaking countries
(Jenkins, 2006).
Kachru’s reference to this position as a deficit model alluded to the way
in which an exonormative standard would clearly disadvantage speakers of
English beyond the Inner Circle, because it did not acknowledge the ownership
of English by the peoples of the Outer Circle, in particular. It would in effect,
endow acceptability to only the native speaker variety, creating a situation
where students in countries where English is used as an Outer Circle variety
would be seen as deficient. Quirk’s argument was premised on the grounds of
linguistic inheritance. In contrast, Kachru’s pluralistic stand saw English in
terms of its current global status as a world language and thus gave recogni-
tion to the legitimacy of the newly emergent varieties of English as appropriate
norms for education.
While the majority of NIE’s language teacher educators had professional
beliefs that were grounded on theoretical and research-based views of language
as heterogeneous and multiply-centred, many appreciated the exonormative
standards advocated by Singapore’s MOE. Even the student teachers had similar
views, as seen in the online discussion responses by a group of student teachers
in Alsagoff’s (2014) study who displayed two co-present and yet diametrically-
opposing stances towards Singlish. When speaking as individuals, the student
teachers rated Singlish positively, using adjectives such as “cool” to describe
the vernacular; in contrast, when these same student teachers spoke in their
institutional capacity as teachers, they berated the use of Singlish as an incor-
rect form of English that they saw as corrupting their students’ English. Indeed
as many of the papers in a recent volume by Kirkpatrick and Sussex (2013)
show, teachers and teacher educators across Asia have similar sentiments. On
the one hand, they recognize the power that Standard English offers in terms
of its economic capital and status, yet on the other, they express concern that
student teachers do not feel anxiety about the variety of English they speak and
advocate recognition of local linguistic resources.
Thus the challenge facing the ELL department at NIE lay in addressing the
MOE’s concerns about language proficiency, but at the same time recognizing
the complexities of the concerns surrounding the choice of language variety.
In the following section, we examine the efforts of the Teachers’ Language
Development Centre of the ELL department in resolving these issues.
 A Singapore Case Study 133

The innovation

The ELL department of NIE proposed two adjunct programmes that student
teachers would take in addition to their teacher preparation programmes. The
adjunct programmes would be offered to two groups of incoming pre-service
teachers taking English Language as one of their teaching subjects: one known
as ELCE (English Language Content Enhancement), and the other known as
CELS (Certificate in English Language Studies). The ELCE programme was to
be taken by the postgraduate diploma students, i.e. those that already had an
undergraduate degree. CELS, on the other hand, would be for the Diploma
in Education students and those undergraduate student teachers who did
not read English Language as one of their academic subjects. ELCE was the
shorter of the two adjunct programmes, comprising three content knowledge
courses, while CELS would be a longer programme that would also include
three language enhancement courses – Effective Oral Communication, Effective
Written Communication, and Grammar in Use – in addition to the three content
knowledge courses. The language enhancement courses in the CELS pro-
gramme focused on developing the language skills of the student teachers and
were included to address the concerns of the ELCPR Committee that student
teachers undertaking the undergraduate programmes of study as well as non-
graduate student teachers studying in the Diploma in Education programme
should receive training to improve their standards of English.
However, even though the MOE’s concern was clearly the standard of the
teachers’ English, it is important to note that the ELL department chose not
to position the language enhancement courses in CELS as proficiency courses.
Rather, these were conceptualized, and more importantly, presented to the stu-
dent teachers as courses that would help improve their effectiveness as teachers
through developing greater competencies and skills in the English language.
The design of the language enhancement courses thus differed from the type
of proficiency courses that would have seen student teachers put through the
paces of drill and practice. Instead, these courses approached the challenge
quite differently. There were three guiding principles that underpinned the
successful delivery of this group of language effectiveness courses, which we
will discuss in turn.

Agency
The CELS courses featured a significant percentage of self-directed learn-
ing which explicitly acknowledged the role of agency in language learning
which sees learning as more dependent on the activity and the initiative of
the learner than on any inputs to the learner by the teacher (van Lier, 2008)
whether through direct teaching or through the teacher’s use of a textbook.
Thus, the courses employed a project-based learning approach for the language
134 Lubna Alsagoff

experience camp that enabled student teachers to explore and reflect on their
English language communication skills through the development of a multi-
media product – either in the form of a digital story, e-newsletter, or a digital
journalistic report. Such activities were designed to increase the active partici-
patory roles of the student teachers in examining and reflecting on the ways
that the enhancement of their language skills would contribute towards their
overall professional development as teachers. In a similar way, the independ-
ent study modules at the Self-Access Center encouraged the student teachers
to improve on their linguistic knowledge by developing greater self-awareness
of their linguistic capacities and repertoires.
This approach saw student teachers embracing the courses positively. Issues
such as lower than average attendance were surprisingly absent; and the quality
of the student projects demonstrated a high level of commitment. More inter-
estingly, some of these projects were intensely personal, and reflected the way
the student teachers began to reflect on their choices (or not) of language and
how such choices related to their identities as individuals and as future teachers.
The technologically-advanced Self-Access Center, specifically designed and built
for these adjunct students, whose décor offered a learning environment resem-
bling more a café than a classroom, was also very popular with the student
teachers. There was a great demand among the CELS lecturers to conduct their
classes at the centre because they reported much higher levels of engagement.
The courses were designed bearing in mind that the student teachers were
clearly adult learners, able to act as change agents of their own language
skills. Such an approach was logical given that the issues facing the Singapore
teachers were quite different from those faced by teachers, for example, in the
Expanding Circle countries like China, Indonesia, Russia or Thailand where
attaining a basic threshold proficiency level was the primary concern. In the
case of the Singapore student teachers, it was much more a matter of increasing
the student teachers’ language awareness, and having them more consciously
reflect on their choices of language variety. After all, it was not that the teach-
ers could not speak English fluently, or use English to effectively teach their
classes; it was much more that the variety that the teachers used was deemed
by the MOE as not being the preferred target variety – although there were
clearly a small number of student teachers who did not have a command of
the target language variety and required more intervention. But by and large,
what was needed in the CELS courses was the active engagement of the student
teachers in key sociolinguistic issues that would allow them to explore the
various perspectives of the “Singlish” problem. While the teacher educators at
NIE clearly provided materials and practice resources based on the target vari-
ety identified by the Singapore MOE, i.e. Standard British English, there were
also opportunities for the teachers to develop a greater awareness of their own
linguistic profiles and reflect on their own choices.
 A Singapore Case Study 135

Such an approach which foregrounded the roles of the student teachers as

agents in their own learning showed an appreciation of the clear links between
language and identity. The more conventional alternative that focuses on drills
and practices of the target language variety, i.e. British English, might have led
to the inadvertent devaluation of the teachers’ own language variety, thereby
undermining the student teacher’s confidence in his or her own teaching abil-
ity, resulting in “an inadequate sense of professional legitimacy” (Seidlhofer,
1999). The teachers could also have reacted negatively to the devaluing of their
language, causing a negative, rather than a positive, outcome to such “training.”

Integration and contextualization

The CELS language enhancement component was not conceived as a separate
set of language proficiency courses, but as part of an overall suite of pre-service
courses aimed at raising awareness of the professional communicative, disci-
plinary knowledge, and linguistic competencies that teachers in general and
those teaching English language should possess. In fact, CELS and ELCE were
framed as serving to augment the scope of the “content upgrading” courses
that had already been introduced some years before at NIE to ensure that stu-
dents entering the teacher education programmes had sufficient subject knowl-
edge. This reframing of MOE’s ELCPRC recommendations as an expansion of
“content upgrading” served to give recognition to the fact that proficiency was
only one element of a language teacher’s professionalism (Snow et al., 2006),
and more important was in fact the quality of the professional preparation that
teachers underwent.
Moreover, in contrast to the traditionally oriented language proficiency
courses, the ELL team recognized the inseparability of subject knowledge from
the development of such skills, and believed that student teachers would be
better served if they were involved in learning activities that integrated such
skills with other aspects of language teacher development, much in the way
that Morton et al (2006: 38) advocate that activities designed for teacher
education should demonstrate “the fusion of content and process typical of
language teaching.” Hence, instead of a grammar course that would “drill”
the student teachers in the rules of English grammar, the CELS and ELCE
programmes included a pedagogical grammar course that aimed at developing
the pedagogical content knowledge of the student teachers and that indirectly
provided the teachers with the disciplinary knowledge to better understand
the structure of the target language variety. The aim was to equip the student
teachers with the content, knowledge and skills to become better language
teachers. Consequently, included as part of the set of courses were also modules
aimed at exposing the teachers to children’s literature, something which clearly
moved away from a preoccupation with language proficiency to a more holistic
approach to the development of English language student teachers.
136 Lubna Alsagoff

Technological affordances
To meet the challenge of fitting these two programmes of study into the overall
preparation of English language teachers, CELS and ELCE were conceptualized
as blended programmes that included significant components of online modes
of study as well as self-directed learning. For example, all three of the mod-
ules that constituted the ELCE programme, viz., Language Studies for Teachers,
Pedagogical Grammar of English, and Understanding, and Implementing an English
Language Curriculum contained significant e-learning and independent study
components. Instead of having to attend a full 36 hours of face-to-face class-
room instruction per module, the students would be able to work through the
assigned readings and assignments at their own time and complete the learn-
ing logs. Contact time was significantly reduced. Language Studies for Teachers,
for example, only comprised 14 hours of face-to-face lectures with 22 hours of
the course fulfilled through self-study facilitated by online material as well as
assigned readings. Web-based learning management systems enabled the track-
ing of student learning to ensure that all of the student teachers successfully
completed the modules.
The language enhancement modules in CELS were designed so as to be
offered as two separate components: a 68-hour language experience camp and
40 hours’ worth of self-access learning and language support. The self-access
course materials offered as part of the 40-hour language support of the lan-
guage enhancement component in CELS comprised online resources that the
students could access through the web. More importantly, such technological
affordances offered the student teachers opportunities to learn and discover
at their own pace. These differentiated opportunities also meant that students
could practise those parts of language that they wished to focus on, so that
some might work on aspect of their pronunciation while others might choose
to read about the development of English as an international language to
develop a more global perspective of English language teaching. The differenti-
ated pace and pathways was an important element of the innovative approach
taken by the ELL department because it accommodated the highly varied lin-
guistic backgrounds of the different students. Student teachers requiring more
help in understanding the target variety forms and structures were also able to
avail themselves of consultations with tutors.
On the whole, the CELS and ELCE courses, which have now been running
for the past seven years (which is equivalent to 15 different student cohorts),
have received positive feedback from the students as seen through the student
feedback framework set up at NIE. The annual course evaluation exercises
conducted by the curriculum team have also meant that the courses continue
to improve to meet the needs of the students. Notably, the use of technol-
ogy to increase student teacher autonomy in offering different pathways
has continued to expand in order to meet the challenges in timetabling and
 A Singapore Case Study 137

scheduling of classes in a packed curriculum, as well as the differing needs of

the students.

Implications

As English continues its unrelenting spread across the globe, the aggregate pro-
file of speakers and learners of English will continue on a path of exponential
change. The number of learners will far outstrip the speakers of English; the
speakers of English who use the language as part of their multilingual reper-
toire rather than their sole means of communication – those characterized
as L2 speakers – will outstrip the number of monolingual English speakers –
those traditionally characterized as “native” or L1 speakers. In addition, as
Canagarajah (1999) points out, the number of English language teachers who
are L2 or Non-native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) will greatly outnum-
ber Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs). Even the Three-Circle model,
which paved the way for more progressive approaches to English language
teaching, will have to evolve to include even more expansive and dynamic
perspectives of the changing landscape of English as an international language
(Alsagoff et al., 2012; Jenkins, 2006).
And as English takes root in an increasing number of countries, the
Expanding Circle countries that Kachru’s model has been criticized for neglect-
ing can no longer be unproblematically characterized as using English as a
foreign language. Countries like China, Thailand and Indonesia require stu-
dents to learn English from an early age, and as the years wear on, we will see
an increased spread and level of expertise in the use of English. Criticisms of
Kachru’s model with regard to these countries also include characterizations
of Expanding Circle countries as norm-dependent; in many ways, the model
still perpetuates the native speaker myth in seeing Inner Circle countries as
norm-providing. Much more likely, NNESTs in Expanding Circle countries, as
with Singapore, are simply speakers of some other variety of English; they are
also speakers who use English for very specific reasons, and as part of a wider
linguistic repertoire. The norms by which they speak and use English will likely
be different from what we know of English language use. The concerns of such
speakers may include communicative goals rather than ones which measure
these speakers against native English varieties as standards.
However, given that the reasons for the widespread adoption of English by
the governments of many countries continue to be primarily economic in
thrust, it is likely that the language policies of most countries will continue
to encourage the teaching of some international variety of English, namely,
British English or American English. While much of the extant literature in
this area advocates resistance to such policies, what the Singapore case study
demonstrates is the need, instead, of creative enactments of such policies that
138 Lubna Alsagoff

balance a global outlook with one that still values language as local practice
(Pennycook, 2007). These enactments fulfil the nation’s need to have teachers
recognize the value of an international variety of English while at the same
time appreciating the complexities of the teachers’ identities as speakers of
other varieties of English.
Of particular note in the Singapore case study was the opportunities cre-
ated by the programmes for student teachers to direct their own learning.
Technology was a key feature of the programmes which allowed differenti-
ated pacing and pathways for the student teachers. The fusion of the various
areas of knowledge gave opportunities to the student teachers to develop a
richer theoretical understanding of the field, and engage in reflection about
the complex nature of English language teaching, to raise their awareness of
the differences between their variety of English and the target variety as well
as work on their language skills. The Singapore case study demonstrated the
importance of contextualizing the development of language proficiency as
part of a broader set of language teacher competencies. Rather than focus
on language proficiency as an isolated issue, language teacher education
programmes should address language proficiency issues holistically as part
of the repertoire of skills teachers will need to become effective educators.
Such an approach values teaching as a complex activity and values teachers
as agents.

Summary and conclusion

The lessons learnt from the Singapore case study point to the complexity
of English language teacher education in multicultural contexts. While it is
important for teacher education programmes to be aware of the potential
hegemonic stranglehold that notions such as “Standard English” and “native
speakers” may have on the English language teaching industry, it is nonethe-
less imperative that teacher education programmes respond positively to the
policies of their nations. Typically, such policies involve ensuring that teachers
are able to teach a variety of English that is valued internationally.
For a nation that began fifty years ago as a third world nation, and as a “little
red dot,” Singapore has risen in status in the global educational marketplace.
In addition to being renowned for the high achievements of its students in
Science and Mathematics, Singapore has surprised many educators with its
students’ strong performance in English language in the recent internationally
benchmarked tests of PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study)
and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). The centrality of
education in the political planning of Singapore’s success has meant a culture
of positive pragmatism. In this chapter, we explored a small instance of this
approach in examining the creative enactments of policy that achieve not only
 A Singapore Case Study 139

national goals but which align well with current theoretical understandings of
language teacher education.

Notes
1. As the serving Head of the English Language and Literature department of the
National Institute of Education at that time, I was appointed as a member of the
ELCPR Committee.
2. While there are other institutions that offer teacher education courses, only NIE has
pre-service courses to prepare new teachers for the workforce.
3. Even within these programmes, there is a multitude of options or pathways. For
example, within the PGDE, BA/BSc(Ed) and DipEd programmes, there is not only
a general programme which prepares primary school teachers, but there are also
options to enable student teachers to focus on becoming either upper primary grade
teachers or lower primary grade teachers.

References
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ning in nation building. In E.L. Low, E.L. & A. Hashim (eds), English in Southeast Asia:
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Alsagoff, L. (2014). Singlish and hybridity: The dialogic of Outer-Circle teacher
identities. In R. Rubdy. & L. Alsagoff (eds), The Global-Local Interface and Hybridity:
Exploring Language and Identity. Bristol, Buffalo, Toronto: Multilingual Matters,
265–281.
Bokhorst-Heng, W. (2005). Debating singlish. Multilingua 24, 185–209.
Canagarajah, S.A. (1999). Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford:
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Chew, P.G.L. (2006). Remaking Singapore: Language, culture and identity in a globalized
world. In A.B.M. Tsui & J.W. Tollefson (eds), Language, Policy, Culture and Identity in
Asian Contexts. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, 73–93.
Farrell, T.S.C. & Tan, S.K.K. (2007). Language Policy, Language Teachers’ Beliefs, and
Classroom Practices. Applied Linguistics 29, 3, 381–403.
Greene, M. (1981). Contexts, connections, and consequences: The matter of philosophi-
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Kachru, B.B. (ed) (1992). The Other Tongue (Second Edition). Urbana and Chicago:
University of Illinois Press.
Kirkpatrick, A. & Sussex, R. (2012). English as an International Language in Asia: Implications
for Language Education. Dordrecht: Springer.
Kramer-Dahl, A. (2003). Reading the “Singlish Debate”: Construction of a crisis of lan-
guage standards and language teaching in Singapore. Journal of Language, Identity and
Education 2, 3, 159–190.
Liew, C.B. & Ho, P. (2008) Good English the way to go: Forum letter replies. The Straits
Times: Singapore, retrieved 16 December 2010 from http:// www.moe.edu.sg.
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Ministry of Education (2006, October). Recommendations of the English Language

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http://www.moe.edu.sg.
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School Leadership Development Between the National Institute of Education, Singapore and
the Institut Aminuddin Baki, Malaysia. 21 April 2008, retrieved 15 August 2013 from
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Morton, T., Maguire, T., & Baynham, M. (2006). A Literature Review of Research on Teacher
Education in Adult Literacy, Numeracy and ESOL. London: National Research and
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edu.sg.
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Pasternak, M., & Bailey, K.M. (2004). Preparing non-native and native English-speaking
teachers: Issues of professionalism and proficiency. In L.D. Kamhi-Stein (ed), Learning
and Teaching from Experience: Perspectives on Non-native English-speaking Professionals.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 155–175.
Pennycook, A. (2007). Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. London: Routledge.
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Further reading
Alsagoff, L., McKay, S.L, Hu, G., Renandya, W. (eds) (2012). Principles and Practices for
Teaching English as an International Language. London: Routledge.
 A Singapore Case Study 141

This book combines both theoretical and practical aspects of English language pedago-
gies that acknowledge the role of English as an international language with pluricentric
norms. Before reading the various chapters, you might wish to think about what you
know about the term “English as an international language” and how teachers can rec-
oncile the use of local varieties of English with the idea that English serves as an interna-
tional lingua franca. In reading the different chapters which explore the different skills
areas of language teaching, you might wish to compare the ways you are teaching your
classes and how you might be teaching them in ways that recognize the status of English
as an international language.
Jenkins, J. (2006). Current perspectives on teaching world englishes and English as a
lingua franca. TESOL Quarterly 40, 1, 157–181.
Jenkins’ article is a good introduction to the issues surrounding the use of English in
classrooms around the world. A key issue that Jenkins explores is the proliferation of
terminology in talking about the spread of English across the world, and how it is used
as a means of communication across and within different communities. Jenkins also
discusses how these different perspectives of English as a global language may bring with
them different assumptions about how English is to be taught.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008). Cultural Globalization and Language Education. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Kumaravadivelu, well-known for his work in promoting the agency of teachers, explores
the impact of cultural globalization on second language and foreign language education.
This easy-to-read book deals with some very difficult issues pertinent to the spread of
English across the globe; namely, the ways in which Western theoretical constructs such
as assimilation, pluralism and hybridity may limit the way in which we understand what
it means to teach English as second or foreign language. Two key ideas that we might
wish to explore in reading this book are the relationship between language and culture
and how identity is so closely linked with language education – both from the perspec-
tive of the learner and the teacher.

Engagement priorities
1. Think about what you do or can do to recognize the different linguistic and cultural
backgrounds of your students.
2. What do you think you can do as a teacher that will help move English language
teaching away from an exonormative standard to recognize the different varieties of
English that might be spoken by your students?
3. Examine the ways in which the language policy and curriculum documents of your
country (or of the countries which your students come from) frame the role and status
of English.
4. Reflect on the ways in which the syllabus that you use to guide your teaching assumes
certain language norms that are to be practised or learnt.
9
Changing Practice and Enabling
Development: The Impact of
Technology on Teaching and
Language Teacher Education
in UAE Federal Institutions
Helen Donaghue

Introduction and overview

The global trend of increased technology use for information access, communi-
cation and entertainment is extending into educational settings, prompting edu-
cators to consider the role of technology and review more traditional teaching
and learning methodologies. Whether or not we agree with the growing opinion
that “Traditional teaching and learning methods are becoming less effective at
engaging students and motivating them to achieve” (Gitsaki et al., 2013: 1),
the use of technology in English language teaching and learning is increasing.
Technology is moving from being a supplementary resource (e.g. language labs,
Computer Assisted Language Learning) to a means of language instruction and
practice, made increasingly easier by personal and mobile devices. However, it is
well recognized that the successful integration of new technologies in education
is dependent on teachers (Mumtaz, 2000; Albrini, 2004; Judson, 2006; Keengwe
et al., 2008; Rossing et al., 2012). Their personal beliefs, assumptions and atti-
tudes to technology will influence the acceptance, use, effectiveness and success
of new initiatives; therefore, teachers who are required to implement change
need sufficient time, support and training, without which they are unlikely
to see the value and affordances of new technology. It is important, then, that
teachers in this environment are effectively prepared for potential changes in
classroom practice (Ess, 2009) and supported in ongoing learning (Abadiano &
Turner, 2004; Borko, 2004). This is provided by in-service teacher training, con-
sidered by many (e.g. Roberts, 1998; Richards & Farrell, 2005; Wright, 2010) to be
a fundamental part of the support that any teacher requires in order to fulfil job
requirements effectively and to remain up to date with innovations in the field.
This chapter investigates the formal institutional in-service training and pro-
fessional development opportunities provided to English language teachers to

142
 Changing Practice and Enabling Development 143

support and facilitate the adoption of iPads into classrooms in tertiary institu-
tions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I also explore changes to classroom
practice created by the introduction of iPads. The chapter reports on interviews
with teachers and supervisors carried out at the end of the first year that iPads
were used as the primary teaching and learning resource.

Context and setting

The UAE has three federal institutions: the United Arab Emirates University
(UAEU), formed in 1976; the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT), founded in
1988 and offering a more technically-oriented education; and Zayed University
(ZU) which came into being in 1998. In addition, the UAE also hosts a wide
range of private universities, often satellites of institutions in other countries,
resulting in:

… an excellent and diversified system of higher education in a very short

period of time. Nationals can attend government institutions free of charge,
and a wide range of private institutions, many with international accredita-
tion, supplement the public sector. The country now has one of the highest
application participation rates in the world. (UAEinteract)

This chapter investigates changes in the foundation programme in the three

federal tertiary institutions (UAEU, HCT and ZU). The foundation programme
at each institution aims to equip Arabic speaking Emirati students with the
necessary academic skills for undergraduate study, with an emphasis on
improving English language proficiency so that students can cope with sub-
sequent degree courses in which English is the language of instruction. The
majority of the English language teachers and supervisors employed in these
programmes are well qualified and experienced. Almost all of them have a
master’s degree in TESOL or Applied Linguistics and all have at least ten years
of teaching experience.

The innovation

IT education is identified as a key strategy in the UAE (UAEinteract) and in

April 2012, the Ministry of Higher Education decided that the three govern-
ment tertiary institutions would simultaneously adopt iPads as the main learn-
ing resource for foundation students (13,000 in total) in the coming academic
year. The aim of the initiative was presented as improved student learning
(Cavanaugh et al., 2012), with proponents of the iPad scheme claiming that
the device would “transform the higher education student learning experi-
ence and post-graduate results in the UAE” (Cavanaugh et al., 2012: 2). It was
144 Helen Donaghue

claimed that the adoption of emerging technology would promote progressive

pedagogy, individualized learning, student engagement in authentic learning
opportunities and “21st Century learning” (Cochran et al., 2012).
Although the decision reflected a global move towards incorporating tech-
nology in education, at the time this initiative represented the largest adop-
tion of mobile tablets for educational purposes in the world (Hamdan, 2012;
Gitsaki et al., 2013). Writing one year before the decision, Gorichanaz claimed:
“Given the iPad’s newness, there hasn’t been enough time for empirical stud-
ies on its effectiveness to have been conducted” (Gorichanaz, 2011). Similarly,
a 2012 UNESCO report on educational technology in Africa and the Middle
East concluded that there was a “dearth of evidence-based research” on mobile
learning in the region and questioned the credibility and trustworthiness of
what information was available (Isaacs, 2012: 7). To date, the literature remains
scarce, leading Nguyen et al. (2014) to suggest that research into mobile use
in education is still in “emergent” stages with no established teaching and
learning practice. Thus, while teachers and teacher educators involved in the
UAE iPad introduction were part of a groundbreaking initiative, there were no
models or guidelines on how to use mobile devices as a learning tool and little
practice or experience to draw on.
The iPad initiative was a “top down” directive. Teachers were informed
of the decision in April 2012, giving them a matter of months to become
competent iPad users and to learn how to use the device as a pedagogical
tool. Despite the fact that teachers in the foundation programmes are well
qualified and experienced, the use of mobile devices as the primary classroom
resource represented a significant change in their established teaching practice.
Institutions therefore implemented training programmes to help teachers tran-
sition and learn how to incorporate iPads into their teaching. A working party
of representatives from each institution worked over the summer vacation to
design an extensive training programme which focused on enabling teachers
to become familiar with the iPad and with pedagogical applications. Training
varied between institutions but most included individual sessions focusing on
specific applications, workshops in which teachers explored the use of iPads,
online training videos in the use of iPads and applications and working groups
who designed lessons with different applications and then demonstrated these
lessons to their peers. Apple Educators were invited to the UAE to tour the
institutions at the beginning of the first semester, giving presentations and
demonstrations, and the federal institutions organized a conference at the end
of this semester to enable teachers to share ideas and best practice.

Research methods
Although this chapter reports on an innovation where iPads were intro-
duced into English language classrooms, the iPads themselves were not the
 Changing Practice and Enabling Development 145

subject of the research. Instead this investigation was carried out in order to
establish the impact on those who were expected to administer this change:
the teachers and their supervisors. The participants in this qualitative study
totalled six: three English language teachers (referred to in this chapter as
T1, T2 and T3) and three foundation programme supervisors (S1, S2 and S3)
from each of the federal tertiary institutions. All were involved in the initia-
tive although a significant difference was that the teachers put the policy
into practice while supervisors were tasked with facilitating the scheme,
supporting teachers and establishing whether teachers were incorporating
iPads effectively.
All six teachers and supervisors were researched by means of semi-structured
interviews to avoid “straitjacketing” (Richards, 2003). The researcher aim was
to conduct these interviews as “enjoyable discussions” (Richards, 2003), aim-
ing to elicit participants’ accounts and opinions (Alvesson, 2003). Interviews
were transcribed and two researchers independently carried out an initial
coding analysis, looking for emergent themes relevant to iPad teaching and
teacher training/development. The researchers then compared analyses, cate-
gorizing and defining codes and finally choosing those they considered most
salient and interesting for further analysis. Extracts corresponding to these
codes were collated from the six interviews and subjected to a more nuanced
analysis, looking at themes more closely and identifying differences and sim-
ilarities between participants. The results of this analysis are discussed below.

Theme 1: initial challenges

For some teachers, the introduction of iPads resulted in them feeling unsettled
and de-skilled because they lacked knowledge and experience in how to use
mobile devices in teaching:

When we were presented with them … that’s when I panicked a lot …

because I felt even though I’d been teaching for 40 years … I suddenly felt
de-skilled. (T1)

I felt … almost like a beginner teacher again. (T2)

Teachers develop routines based on tacit knowledge gained from experience

(Eraut, 2011) but when faced with learning something new they have to
unlearn established routines which can lead to feelings of disorientation, loss
of control and decreased motivation:

Last fall when the iPad initiative was launched I know it was extremely
stressful I had I think three very experienced and highly qualified people
crying in my office … and in the classroom. (S1)
146 Helen Donaghue

For example, one teacher discovered that her usual teaching practice did not
easily accommodate iPads:

I really stressed a lot because I’ve got my way of teaching and I couldn’t fit the
way I teach into the way of using the iPad, and something had to give. (T1)

Another teacher reported that some colleagues feared the introduction of iPads
and felt unable to integrate them:

I think it was touch and go at the beginning because … particularly with

some of the older teachers that were were not very tech savvy there was a
lot of fear. One teacher left … because he said he couldn’t deal with having
to use the iPad. (T3)

Teachers made frequent reference to feeling unprepared for a number of rea-

sons. Firstly, the speed in which the initiative was implemented put pressure
on them:

This tool was thrown at us and we had to learn how to use the tool first. So
there was all that. I had an iPhone so I was not unfamiliar with the Apple
interface, but I didn’t know how to teach with an iPad. (T2)

I wish that they’d given us another semester to learn it before they intro-
duced it but we everybody had to hit the ground running. (T3)

Other local based studies have also concluded that lack of time affected the
iPad implementation negatively (Gitsaki et al., 2013) and that integration of
the devices was premature, unprepared and reliant on trial and error which
may have been avoided if the scheme had been first piloted (Mullen, 2014).
The idea of piloting was also mooted by participants of this study, e.g.:

I think you couldn’t have prepared us unless some people had piloted it for
a semester and reported back to us. That, I think, would have been really
good. Instead of having everybody thrown into it I think it would have
been good to have a pilot programme … done properly. But there was just
no information around. (T2)

Lack of time to prepare also impacted on training which initially focused

almost exclusively on technical competencies such as familiarization with the
device and its applications. T1 describes one instance of this type of training:

It was a taster day and we had 15 minute sessions with lots of different apps.
Now I’m somebody who’d never had an iPhone, iPad, Mac … I’d just always
 Changing Practice and Enabling Development 147

used Word and for me [it didn’t work] to walk into a session where people
didn’t really have time to tell you what this app is for, why it’s useful …
because they were showing us all the things that you could do with it. (T1)

In addition, training often focused on multiple applications with the same

function which was confusing and stressful for teachers:

But I just felt I was going round in circles, and people were talking about
Drop Box and Evernote and Web Dav and all these things … and I didn’t
know they all did the same thing. As far as I was concerned they all needed
to be learned, and I thought how am I going to do this … we did have train-
ing but the way it was done didn’t suit my style of learning and I know a lot
of people who would say the same thing. (T1)

Similarly, Mullen’s (2014) study of teachers in one of the tertiary institutions

revealed that respondents felt overwhelmed by the variety of available appli-
cations, some of which were presented in training but found ineffective in
the classroom. One of our study participants suggested that a more limited
approach to applications would have been preferable:

I would have liked a bit more time just to learn a few things well rather than
this sort of broad brush thing, and I think if I was going to buddy somebody
in the future I think that’s probably the way I would immediately start.
You’re going to be confronted with this whole list of things, but if I was you
I would learn to do one. (T1)

In addition, this “taster” style of training did not suit all teachers:

Some people would say that we’d had adequate training. We had training,
but what always worries me is that you know we pay attention to the fact
that students learn in different ways. There’s visual learners and there’s …
but there’s no acknowledgement of that fact that teachers learn in differ-
ent ways too. And we had one day that for me was disastrous. They were
showing you it and what they could do with it, but that scared me rigid
because it just reminded me of all the things that I had to learn and that
I couldn’t do. (T1)

The result was that teachers started the new academic year feeling ill-prepared
and uncertain. This was then compounded by numerous unanticipated techni-
cal difficulties:

The other thing of course is that people don’t train you in what you do
when it goes wrong. That’s a level of confidence that you can only have
148 Helen Donaghue

when you’ve used something lots of times, and masses of things were going
wrong, you know? Like the mirroring or projectors weren’t working prop-
erly, we didn’t have dongles. (T1)

... and of course the technology is terrible, you know? Every day without fail
you can never get all the students on the same app at the same time. (T1)

This not only added to teachers’ feelings of inadequacy but also took away
time from their one hour lessons and therefore reduced student learning
time:

It was really really ridiculous because if something went wrong you ended
up with maybe 20 good minutes in a lesson, which is very difficult to do
anything with. (T2)

Technical problems also resulted in loss of student focus:

I wasn’t used to losing students’ attention. I was used to being in control

of what was going on, and that lack of control really made me feel very
insecure in the beginning and then it just got annoying later. And then
I realised that if I counted how much time was lost, it was very frustrat-
ing actually. So I think it had a negative effect on my teaching in that
respect. (T2)

Thus, for many, the beginning of the academic year was difficult:

I was just at sea, really. (T2)

I just thought “my God, I can’t do anything!” So it was a very very deep,
dispiriting … September, I didn’t think I could last much longer with that,
because even though I’d been teaching for years, I suddenly felt I was a
complete amateur. (T1)

Theme 2: how teachers learned

It is clear from the data that teachers feel they have learned how to use iPads
mostly through experience and talking to each other. Direct classroom experi-
ence was obviously a primary source of learning, with teachers talking about
experimentation, trial and error and coming to terms with how to use the iPads
selectively:

I feel better partly through experience because I’ve learnt to do a few things.
I’ve learnt a few apps that are useful. I also feel better because there isn’t this
pressure to use it all the time. (T1)
 Changing Practice and Enabling Development 149

Gradual experience also helped teachers learn how to manage classes with iPads:

So as you gain the knowledge you know what to do. You also know how
students are going to react to various things. So you know what to do or not
do to make sure that they’re all on target. You have your little techniques
like making them close them or put them face down on the desk. In the
beginning I was completely naïve about that. (T2)

and to anticipate and solve problems:

I feel of course much more confident about using the actual tool. I know
what happens, I can troubleshoot if things go wrong. One example is sud-
denly your Airplay drops out, and I didn’t really know what to do. You
expect that you can just put it back on but no, you have to reinstall it. Little
by little you learn how to troubleshoot things. But then you can also pre-
vent things from going wrong. (T2)

Teachers also learned from talking to each other and identified PD sessions
where teachers shared lesson ideas as particularly valuable:

We had discussions about how apps could be used in the classroom …

which I found very useful. We did that PD where teachers got together and
took a couple of apps and prepared a lesson and showed other teachers. I
think that was useful as an exercise for us for people to see what you did
with it. (T2)

In a similar vein, Seddon’s (2014) study of teachers at one of the UAE tertiary
institutions found that 80% of her study participants felt that collaborating
with peers was the most useful way of helping them become comfortable
with technology, confirming Markee’s assertion that “the people who are best
qualified to provide job-related help and support are the people on the job:
our fellow teachers” (1997: 121). However, the teachers in this study believed
that this learning could have been maximized if they had had the chance to
observe each other:

But I think also it would have helped to observe teachers using the iPad and
teaching. That would have been huge. (T2)

One participant was part of a small community of practice (CoP) group which
met regularly with the aim of sharing experience and problems associated with
iPads. Participants videoed their classes and chose excerpts they considered sali-
ent to teaching with iPads then watched and discussed these episodes with other
150 Helen Donaghue

group members. Being part of the CoP gave T2 the opportunity to learn how
other teachers were using iPads and to share experiences and solve problems:

And then later, when I joined the CoP and saw other people teaching and
I saw other people’s videos … that was huge and that was lovely. If we had
had the opportunity to see other people teaching … videos even … it would
have made us feel more confident but also better about our own experience,
you know? We were just so miserable in the beginning because we just felt
so inadequate and our teaching was often disastrous. (T2)

T2 also raised the importance of communication. The CoP gave the teachers
the opportunity to meet and talk together, something which T2 believes would
not have happened without the formalized group:

I like being in a group talking about things, and I enjoyed that aspect. But
because we were all floundering and really busy and didn’t have a lot of
time, it was wonderful to get together and actually be able to talk. (T2)

Theme 3: classroom impact

Although teachers talked about the potential and benefits of the iPads, e.g. the
instant availability of authentic material through the Internet:

I do love the potential that an iPad offers and the fact that you can use the
internet and you can just instantly tap into anything authentic. You see, I’m
a big fan of authenticity. I love being able to use authentic materials. (T2)

supervisors reported limitations. However, it is important to note that supervi-

sors discussed lessons where the presence of an observer may have influenced
both the decisions teachers made before an observed lesson and also what
happened during the lesson (Labov, 1972). Supervisors recognize this: they
make it clear they are aware of the pressure teachers feel to use technology in
an observed lesson:

Teachers … try and cram as much of the technology or the techniques as

they can in the classroom. (S3)

Supervisors believed that teachers chose “safe” options for observed lessons,
including a focus which could show them using technology:

In observations people have tended not to be taking risks in most cases. So

I think they’ve tended to stick with something they were fairly comfortable
with. (S2)
 Changing Practice and Enabling Development 151

I have tended to see the “safe lesson” [which] ended up being a lot of vocab-
ulary, and I think that’s because they felt safe doing those type of grammar
and vocabulary lessons as observed lessons because they could demonstrate
the umm technology. (S3)

They also noticed a tendency for lessons to feature multiple short activities:

So you might see you know 10 minutes on the smart board doing some
interactive activities, then using the iPad, umm then they’d be back using
the smart board, … so the students do lots of very short activities you know
five or six you know activities … very very quick five minute activities I’ve
noticed, but trying to demon-the teacher’s trying to demonstrate that they
have mastered the iPad, and maybe rather than focusing on learning they’re
focusing more on showing what they can do. (S3)

Supervisors also felt that lessons were less coherent and integrated than the
“pre-iPad” lessons they were used to seeing:

In the old days you’d have a … pre-reading then a post-reading activity …

but I’ve noticed now it’s very much you know a little bit of vocabulary umm
and then some game and then you know a little maybe a bit of reading, …
there isn’t the integration perhaps that I’m used to seeing. (S3)

S2 raised the observation that teachers’ use of the iPad was limited to the level
of substitution, i.e. technology added no functional change in teaching and
learning because it was used to perform the same tasks as before the technology
was introduced (Puentedura, 2006):

... people are not trying, modifying or redefining what they’re doing.
They’re just substituting or augmenting, (S2)

In other words, S2 feels that teachers are not exploiting the potential of the
iPad, merely using it as a substitute for paper:

That’s a common criticism I have of people, you know, as like you went
through each reading question … if that had been interactive you could
have looked and seen who got which questions wrong, focused on the errors
and actually taught something, rather than just checked. I’ve seen people
spending 15 minutes checking a vocab exercise on a PDF that they wouldn’t
need to check if they’d automated it. (S2)

However, a dominant theme to emerge from teachers’ interviews was the

incompatibility between iPads and institutional curricula. Teachers believe that
152 Helen Donaghue

although iPads have the potential to facilitate a more collaborative, task-based

and inquiry led approach, their curriculum remains the same: traditional and
exam based. One teacher expressed her frustration with the fact that she was
constrained by the curriculum and assessment system, resulting in a mostly
limited use of the iPads as a material source:

I had to deliver a curriculum that was the same curriculum. So if someone

had told me I had to use my iPad anyway I liked to achieve a certain end,
I would have found that liberating. But it didn’t work like that and the
fact that the assessments and the curriculum were the same and in the end
you ended up having to deliver materials through PDFs and using Adobe
Reader … there’s no difference between that and a laptop or even a paper
copy in a way in what you’re trying to achieve. (T2)

The formal curriculum resulted in teachers feeling there were limited opportu-
nities to experiment with teaching approaches and no freedom at all to change
assessment practice:

The curriculum is a factor … a huge factor. If you had total freedom you
could do lots of things. You could change to a problem-based or project-
based curriculum, or one where you measure them in a totally different way.
But we don’t have that. (T2)

This reiterates Murphy’s (2011) global survey into the ways that iPads were
used in the tertiary sector which found that despite the “significant poten-
tial in facilitating the aims of learning outcomes” (p. 30), universities over-
whelmingly limited mobile devices to content delivery and many institutions
were unsure of how to incorporate iPads into existing curricula. Curriculum
changes, however, may be imminent. One of the study participants (S1)
described a recent move towards a project-based curriculum in her institution
which has allowed teachers and students to be more creative and exploit the
iPads more fully:

Students are doing lots of research and using all the nifty mobile features
and creating videos and creating storyboards and books and all kinds of
wonderful animated things on topics of interest and they’re going out
they’re doing the research, they’re recording people on their iPads … it’s
really wonderful. (S1)

Theme 4: the supervisors’ dilemma

One of the most interesting themes to emerge from the data is described by S3
as a “dilemma”: the discrepancy between teachers now experienced in using
 Changing Practice and Enabling Development 153

iPads in the classroom and their supervisors’ corresponding lack of experience.

S3 describes the growing gap between teachers and their supervisors:

There are observers going in who don’t … teach, so what’s happening is

they’re going in and probably you know 60–70% may know in theory what
the app is but in practice haven’t actually used it in the classroom. (S3)

S3 questions how qualified supervisors are to observe and give feedback on

aspects of teaching they have not experienced themselves:

There’s also this dilemma now that I find that as an observer if I can’t use the
technology what right do I have to actually give feedback on it? If observers
are not using the technology and not up to date with the apps I feel there’s
going to be more resistance, because teachers will say “Well what do you
know about it? You’re not in the classroom. You’re not using the app.” (S3)

However, she goes on to suggest that the validity of her role as a supervisor
may lie in the opportunity to build a knowledge base of good practice gained
through observation:

So also you’re learning how to use them … obviously making comparisons

as well between different teachers using the app, which we should do. But
I think that again because we’re all learning there’s going to be a little bit
more comparison between app use in lessons and confirming which was
more effective. (S3)

This enables supervisors to identity training needs and teachers who can share
best practice. S3 also makes the valid point that supervisors may not have iPad
teaching experience but can still recognize effective classroom practice:

We don’t have that knowledge or thought or that confidence, but we know

what’s right or what’s not right. (S3)

an opinion echoed by S2:

I was always fairly innovative and would try different things, and ideas is
something I always had. So I can sit and watch you teaching, and even if
it’s good I could see another direction or extension of that. I could suggest
to you what you could do in the next lesson. (S2)

and one of the teachers:

I believe an observer can see something useful in any observation. I believe

an experienced teacher can instantly see what’s going on in a classroom
154 Helen Donaghue

whether they’ve used iPads or not. Maybe those technical sides of it or

the logistics would have to be explained to the observer, but in terms of
evaluating your performance as a teacher, I don’t really [mind inexperienced
observers]. (T2)

Practical implications/discussion

This study highlights the importance of preparation and piloting when imple-
menting new technology. As well as testing the feasibility of a new scheme,
results suggest that piloting can perform two additional important functions.
Firstly, it can uncover unanticipated (and inevitable) technical problems and
iron out solutions so that teachers’ stress is reduced, class time continues to
be maximized and classroom management problems resulting from techni-
cal difficulties are reduced. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, piloting
can inform teaching and teacher training. Participants in this study indicated
that sharing experience is key to the success of implementing new technology
therefore piloting seems especially important if there is a significant gap in the
literature and little experience to draw on.
Participants also believed that the lack of preparation impacted on teach-
ing. Findings suggest that preparation needs to include careful consideration
of both the potential uses of the technology and the possible misalignment
with institutional practices. If the purpose of using iPads is to enable “21st
Century” skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and information
literacy (Rotherham & Willingham, 2010), institutional curriculum and
assessment systems should allow this. Mobile devices bring potential ben-
efits to a classroom. Instant access to material, networks and other users
makes immediate, personalized and situated learning opportunities possible
(Melhuish & Falloon, 2010). iPads can enable communication, collaboration
and data capture and integration (Park, 2011) which can help to facilitate
student centred and student managed learning (Peng et al., 2009). However,
these affordances are limited and possibly constrained if the curriculum
does not allow for different teaching and assessment approaches. Study
participants suggest that the use of iPads in the first year of implementa-
tion was limited to substitution and augmentation. This is consistent with
Puentedura’s (2012) argument that after the introduction of new technol-
ogy in an educational environment it can take up to three years for it to be
sufficiently exploited to modify and redefine learning activities and create
tasks that were inconceivable without the technology. The first step towards
this is to ensure that the curriculum is flexible enough to accommodate new
approaches.
Ongoing teacher training and support is vital in the introduction of new
technology in teaching and learning. While initial training sessions were useful
 Changing Practice and Enabling Development 155

in introducing teachers to the technical aspects of the iPad and its applications,
they often failed to address specific problems that teachers subsequently expe-
rienced in their classrooms and stopped short of helping teachers to use the
iPads as a pedagogical resource:

Many teachers have not been exposed to transformative technology-

supported pedagogy because professional development activities have
focused primarily on how to merely operate the technology. (Hew & Brush,
2007: 228)

Crucially, this training provided little opportunity for the reflection and
discussion with colleagues that is necessary to work on new practices and
teaching challenges (Richards & Farrell, 2005; O’Connell & Dyment, 2006;
Robson & Turner, 2007). Teachers said they learned best through experience
and talking to each other so it seems important that professional develop-
ment include opportunities to facilitate both. If teachers discuss new practices,
assess and solve problems together, this can stimulate professional knowledge
and growth (Hindin et al., 2007; Mann & Walsh, 2014) and help teachers
incorporate new technology successfully. One model of professional develop-
ment considered successful was a community of practice (Lave & Wenger,
1991) group set up at one of the institutions which allowed teachers to share
experience, discuss problems, collaborate, reflect and adopt new practice. The
CoP approach to professional development has been found effective in other
studies, mainly through the affordances it brings for reflection, sharing and
discussion as well as instilling feelings of collegiality and being able to talk
openly in a safe environment (Smith & Sutherland, 2003; Takahashi, 2011;
Donaghue et al., 2013).
Results suggest that teaching practice has changed as a result of the use of
iPads, both positively and negatively. This impacts students and teachers, but
also, interestingly, supervisors, some of whom have found that their knowledge
and experience is less than that of the teachers they are observing, evaluating
and supporting. However, rather than viewing this as a potential problem, the
more collaborative style of supervision that this situation prompts may bring
benefits to both parties:

I am much aware that I don’t use technology very well and I’m not an expert
and I do find it very difficult to give feedback. I try to give feedback in a
very collaborative way because I’m learning and I can’t tell someone and say
“You didn’t use the smart board very well” because I can’t use it very well
myself. What right do I have to say that? So I say things like “Do you think
you could have used it in other ways?” You know, so it’s made me realise I’m
coming in from a slightly different perspective. (S3)
156 Helen Donaghue

Supervisors’ lack of experience and the paucity of research in the area of mobile
devices in classrooms also highlight the benefits of peer observation (either live
or recorded):

There’s not a lot of research out there of what is best practice, and we don’t
have a real model to look at and to read about. We’re all learning what is
best practice and I think that’s one of the issues that teachers are having, you
know? … you might have two teachers observing each other doing exactly
the same things … so maybe they’re gaining best practice because we’re
still finding out who is using the technology in an effective way to try and
perhaps encourage peer observation for people to observe each other. (S3)

Summary and conclusion

The decision to implement iPads in tertiary foundation programmes in the

UAE reflects a global trend in the use of technology in English language teach-
ing and learning, making the implications and recommendations outlined in
this chapter relevant to other educational contexts and to the implementation
of other types of devices. Piloting and preparation are recommended as well
as training which is directly linked to teaching experience and the pedagogi-
cal use of new technology. Ongoing opportunities for reflection, sharing and
discussion are considered vital for the professional development of teachers.
The lack of supervisory experience suggests a more collaborative style of super-
vision can be more appropriate in contexts involving new technology and the
added scarcity of literature and research on mobile learning means that peer
observation assumes primary importance as a means of sharing experience,
ideas and resources and establishing best practice.

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Further reading
Dowling, S., Gunn, C. Raven, J. & Gitsaki, C. (2012). Opening Up Learning: Creating and
Sustaining Powerful and Adaptive Learning Environments for 21st Century Learners. Abu
Dhabi: HCT Press. http://shct.hct.ac.ae/events/edtechpd2013/articles2012/index.asp
Dowling, S., Donaghue, H., Gunn, C., Raven, J., & Hayhoe, S. (2013). Redefining Learning:
Creating and Sustaining Powerful and Adaptive Learning Environments for 21st Century
Learners. Abu Dhabi: HCT Press.
These books host a collection of articles written by tertiary teachers using technology in
teaching, both with (the 2013 volume) and without (the 2012 volume) iPads. Different
 Changing Practice and Enabling Development 159

aspects of the use of technology in teaching are discussed, ranging from pedagogical
tools and applications, the use of technology in different approaches to teaching (e.g.
task based learning, student centred materials development, digital media literacy, team
projects, collaborative learning, student eportfolios, blended learning) and specific
investigations (e.g. report writing, raising awareness of reading strategies, assistive tech-
nologies for students with special needs, online learning environments). As such, this
rich collection of perspectives and affordances will interest teachers interested in using
technology in their teaching.
Howard, A. & Donaghue, H. (2014). Teacher Evaluation in Second Language Education.
London: Bloomsbury.
This book takes a critical look at observation and feedback from the perspectives of
those involved in the process. The chapters in this book are united by a single dominant
theme: the importance of reflection and self-evaluation in allowing teachers to make
choices about changes to their practice. By describing and investigating current practice
and research of observation and feedback, this book gives suggestions and recommenda-
tions to help maximize teacher development, outlining key approaches and discussing
tools for investigation and collaboration. The book highlights the importance of the
use of talk to foster reflection and teacher learning and the value of learning from expe-
rienced others, and thus has obvious parallels with the recommendation made in this
chapter.
Lefstein, A. & Snell, J. (2014). Better Than Best Practice. Abingdon: Routledge.
This book takes a novel approach to researching classroom practice, professional devel-
opment and improving teaching and learning with the use of real-life video-based
case studies accompanied by comment, analysis and debate. The book explores the
educational potential of classroom talk and the affordances and constraints of dialogic
pedagogy and considers how teachers can learn from observing and discussing practice.
It gives practical advice on how to organize and facilitate video-based professional devel-
opment in which teachers share clips of lessons with colleagues in order to learn from
one another’s challenges, problems, dilemmas and breakthroughs.

Engagement priorities
1. What role does observation and feedback play in the development of experienced
teachers who are adopting a new initiative?
2. This chapter discusses the growing gap between teachers who are using new technol-
ogy in their classrooms and supervisors/observers who lack this experience. Can these
supervisors evaluate teachers more experienced than themselves? What benefit can
supervisors offer these teachers? What role can peer observation play in a situation
such as this? Should peer observation replace the more traditional observation by a
superior?
3. What conditions need to be met in order to enable teachers to reflect, share and dis-
cuss practice, and assess and solve teaching problems? Do you have opportunities to
engage in this type of activity in your teaching context?
4. What are the affordances and constraints of using technology in your teaching con-
text (either current or future use)?
10
Using Screen Capture Software to
Improve the Value of Feedback on
Academic Assignments in Teacher
Education
Steve Mann

Introduction and overview

The provision of feedback on academic writing tasks and assignments is

an integral component of teacher education. This article focuses on audio-
feedback provided through screen capture software (in this case Jing) in a UK
teacher education context. The advantage of screen capture software (SCS) is
that you can highlight the actual part of the text that you want to focus on
(using a cursor and highlighting tools). You can simultaneously use voice com-
ments to provide feedback. Additionally, through SCS, you can draw attention
to other sites and resources (websites and online tools).
The innovation of providing spoken feedback is not in itself a new phenom-
enon. Indeed this author has conducted ongoing practitioner research span-
ning a period of 20 years in the use of recorded spoken feedback (e.g. Mann &
Willis, 1996). However being able to simultaneously provide a visual focus and
an auditory commentary is comparatively novel and this combination justifies
the term “multimodal” feedback.
The chapter begins by making comments on the context in which the writer/
practitioner is currently working. However, it also makes clear that this chapter
is an outcome of many years of innovation with spoken feedback (research
that spans eras of tape-recorders, mp3 and now screen capture software). The
chapter then provides detail on the innovation focus of the study (the use of
multimodal feedback). This section also reviews the main claims that have
been made about the effectiveness of recorded spoken feedback. After pro-
viding procedural and technical detail about SCS, the chapter moves into an
evaluation section, considering viewpoints on the value of spoken feedback/
multimodal feedback. This themed evaluative analysis and evaluation of the
feedback experience includes comments from both tutors and students.
The final section of the chapter concentrates on articulating implications
for using SCS in Higher Education. The chapter ends by providing some

160
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 161

recommendations for tutors. In particular, in evaluating the value of screen

capture, it is important to remember that the “loop” (Woodward, 2003) aspect
of seeing tutors innovate with their feedback can be particularly important. If
teacher educators are not seen to innovating in their own practice then there
are missed opportunities for dialogue about ongoing evaluation and the pro-
motion of reflective practice.

Context and setting for the programme

In this section of the chapter context is considered from two perspectives. The
first is a historical view of context. The second is more concerned with the
educational context in which I am currently working. For the latter I provide
contextual detail about the MA English Language Teaching (ELT) and students
at the Centre for Applied Linguistics (CAL) at the University of Warwick.
In terms of personal and historical context, I began to experiment with
feedback on written assignments with an EAP (English for Academic Purposes)
group based in the British Council in Tokyo in 1991. Since then I’ve worked
in three universities in the UK. Students in the first university (Aston
University) were distance-learners but the students in the subsequent universi-
ties (University of Birmingham and University of Warwick) were on-campus.
As an individual reflective practitioner, I have always been interested in the
way in which Teacher-Learners (TLs) both perceive and use feedback. During
the same period, numerous others have been engaged in similar investigations
and transformations:

In fact, over the past twenty years, changes in writing pedagogy and research
have transformed feedback practices, with teacher written comments often
supplemented with peer feedback, writing workshops, conferences, and
computer-delivered feedback.
(Hyland & Hyland, 2006: 208)

However, although these “feedback practices” are certainly varied, most of

these are written ones. It is still the norm in most contexts to give written
feedback, whether this is in the form of handwritten comment, “Word docs”
or online commentary. So, in an important sense the context of this paper
includes a long process of practitioner research into the value of spoken feed-
back on writing (cf written forms), stretching over many years and contexts. I
say this because it seems to me that most accounts of innovation are presented
as though they happened in a time-bound and discrete way. Discounting the
long lead up and iterative nature of practitioner research is misleading and
perpetuates the view that research is only valuable if it is self-contained and
experiment-like.
162 Steve Mann

The first important point to make is related to the typical TL (Teacher-

Learner) that I have been working with on various MA, MSc and MEd
programmes. Most TLs are:

• L2 users of English (typically 6.5 or 7.0 on the IELTS banding)

• Either practicing teachers or pre-experience teachers who will be teachers
of English
• Writers in development (trying to accommodate to UK academic writing
conventions and expectations)

These typical features bring with them overlapping motivations; TLs want to
improve their English, understand more about teaching and learning, and
improve their academic writing skills. One of the earliest unsolicited comments
on receiving audiotape feedback that I received suggests that it is an experience
that the respondent wants to integrate into her future teaching practice. Where
I refer to data in this chapter I will make clear in brackets the type of data and
the topic. In this case it is (email/mp3):

Using audio feedback is a very useful way of giving feedback. It makes me

feel as if you are besides me. It is easier to comprehend what kind of idea
you want to communicate to me. I appreciate that. I think I will use audio
feedback with my TLs in the future. (email/mp3)

Developing an appropriate feedback methodology for these TLs needs to take

account of these corresponding overlapping identities (the language learner,
the teacher, the writer) as they shape both the delivery and reception of feed-
back in this context.
Readers will hopefully have memories of both cassette-tapes and mp3 files.
Screen capture software is less well known because it is relatively recent. It
allows the tutor to record and send a video that records on screen actions and
corresponding comments (through a microphone), while reading and annotat-
ing the original assignment on their computer screen. As the tutor highlights
the work on the screen, using the cursor to highlight feedback points or colour-
highlighting words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs, a video is generated.
The tutor either then sends the resulting video or more likely sends a link so
that the TL can watch the video feedback at their convenience.
The majority of data featured in this chapter provides comment on the use of
Jing to give feedback on the module Spoken English. This is a core Term 1 mod-
ule for MA ELT students studying in CAL in the University of Warwick. In fact,
Spoken English is the first module that MA (ELT) students take in Term 1. It is
therefore particularly important in terms of formative feedback. This module is
one of three core modules that focus on analysis of language. It has two parts
which both have feedback:
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 163

1) collection of naturally occurring spoken data, production of a transcript and

a reflexive written account concerning data collection and transcription
2) transcript analysis with reference to relevant literature.

In most years we have provided Jing feedback to part 1 and then more tradi-
tional feedback in part 2. Both tutors felt that, particularly with commenting
on the transcript, we would be able to highlight small features of talk or turn-
taking with Jing. In other words, talking to students and pointing out both
strong and problematic features of the transcript would be more helpful than
simply writing written feedback.
As stated above, part of the rationale for using technology in feedback is also
a kind of loop input (Woodward, 2003) where their experience (receiving both
written and spoken feedback) enables a discussion of their relative merits and
features and a greater appreciation of feedback possibilities for language learn-
ers in the future. It is an important element of the Warwick MA ELT that ICT
and Multimedia is embedded in as many modules as possible and that this can
become a focus for methodological discussion.

Innovation

In the section above I have explained how we came to employ a particular

innovative tool (Jing). The initial impetus was fairly pragmatic but that is typi-
cal of the way innovation happens. Opportunities arise, colleagues talk and
collaboratively employ tools and solutions. However, it is also important to say
that a particular decision to try a new innovative tool is part of a longer process
of practitioner research. So, I want to try and do justice to both sorts of inno-
vation. The more particular “contained” innovation (the collaborative venture
of using Jing in Spoken English module) and the more long-term commitment
(achieving an appropriate methodology for teacher education, including giving
feedback in a form that TLs find useful).
This drive for an appropriate methodology in the use of spoken feedback goes
back a long way. Other have laid the foundations for an interest in the interface
between technology and spoken feedback that stretch back to “reel-to-reel”:

Almost thirteen years ago, John S. Harris of Brigham Young University began
using reel-to-reel tape recordings to facilitate the correction of technical
English papers in Texas. It proved cumbersome and time-consuming; yet
the results in terms of the students’ improvement from their “corrected”
compositions were noticeable.
(Farnsworth, 1974: 285)

Technology changes and the process has certainly become less cumbersome
and arguably less time-consuming in a 50-year time span since the early 60s,
164 Steve Mann

moving from the analogue to the digital. During my time in teacher educa-
tion, a cumbersome Coomber analogue machine with its flatzone microphone,
trailing lead and audio-cassettes has been replaced by much smaller and more
portable digital recorders (e.g. Olympus DM-10). And now I’ve implemented
SCS (screen capture software) using Jing. If the means of delivery has changed,
TL response to spoken feedback has remained overwhelmingly positive.
In terms of the specific tool used for this innovation, it is worth making a
few comments on Jing. This is one of a range of SCS softwares on the market
and many are free. Jing is an entry level tool with more sophisticated and flex-
ible tools (e.g. Camtasia) also available. Stannard (2006) was one of the first to
realize the benefits of this tool and he provides a clear overview of why it is
good entry-level tool. Other researchers have pointed to the main benefits of
Jing. It is user-friendly and free and also allows you to choose between saving
the file to your desktop or saving on the Techsmith server and sending a link
to the student (for more detail see Fish & Lumadue, 2010). A number of other
studies have looked at the versatility and impact of Jing. For example Harper
et al. (2012) found with Open University students that it was very successful
on distance learning courses and generally easy to learn. Mathisen (2012) also
found that it improved the quality of feedback. However, there are other tools
including ScreenR, SnagIt or Screencast-o-matic. They vary in price, features and
Mac/PC availability, and Appendix 10.1 provides an overview of SCS options
and their relative merits.
Jing works in a similar way to other SCS tools. An icon sits in the top right
of your screen and you drag it across to form a box around the section of the
computer screen you wish to capture. This is usually the majority of the screen.
Having “boxed” the area of the screen, a record button is then pressed. From
that moment everything within the marked area is recorded as a video including
the tutor’s voice. By highlighting aspects of the text with your cursor, you can
point to specific aspects that you want to draw the TL’s attention to. Figure 10.1
is a SCS video giving feedback on a TL’s transcription and corresponding mp3
recording for their Spoken English assignment:
In Figure 10.1 you can see that the TL has produced a transcript from a
recording of an exchange with a waitress. I had read through and highlighted
(in yellow) the parts of the transcript I want to give feedback on. As I went
through and positioned my cursor, the highlighted part changed to blue (at
this point in the video I’m questioning whether the original recording had
falling intonation).
Jing videos are limited to 5 minutes so if the feedback takes longer you need
a part 1 and a part 2 (in other words two separate files). However, I find that 5
minutes is usually enough – and it helps you concentrate on the main points
you want to get across. The video can be distributed in several ways. It can
either be uploaded onto the Screencast server or saved onto your computer.
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 165

Figure 10.1 A SCS video giving feedback on a TL’s transcription

• Uploading to server: At the bottom of the box you create with Jing there is
an icon (“share”) for sending to Screencast. This automatically creates a
link (e.g. http://screencast.com/t/6zcZf8oyVS) and helpfully automatically
“pastes” when you email a student.
• Saving onto computer: You have the option of using the icon “save”. Once
you have it saved you can upload the video onto YouTube or your VLE (e.g.
Moodle). It is of course possible for the teacher to email the video as an
attachment.

Innovation – Evaluation

This next section moves into evaluative comment. First it evaluates Jing as a SCS
tool. It then presents a themed evaluation, drawing on SCS data in relation to
other spoken feedback data sets. This thematic analysis and evaluation follows
the inductive model proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006) and draws on anecdo-
tal comments, emails, interviews, focus groups, transcripts and a teaching diary.

Jing
Overall Jing is a very simple technology to use. It can sit permanently in the
corner of your screen and you only need a few clicks to create a recording. It is
166 Steve Mann

easier to make the file in one go rather than use the pause button repeatedly.
I sometimes inadvertently press the stop button (rather than the pause) and
then you can’t go back into the file, as Jing does not allow you to “redo” parts
of the video or edit it in any way. However, I have not found that students are
concerned by the occasional “fluff” and corresponding apology.
One problem is dealing with the video that is produced. It does create a
large file (if you choose to download them to your desktop they usually take
up about 15mb of space). This is a large file to send by attachment and TLs’
in-boxes often have size restrictions. One solution is to make them available on
a VLE (in our case Moodle). It is worth thinking about all the options because
one really useful feature of Jing quickly runs out. Although initially you can
store resulting videos on the Screencast server, with a large number of students
getting individual videos, you quickly reach your “storage limit”. If you buy the
“Pro” version of Jing, you can store them all on the Screencast server. This is
the solution that we arrived at (and probably what Screencast anticipates in the
design of this “free” tool!). Several studies that have focused on the use of screen
capture for feedback have alluded to the same problem (Brick & Holmes, 2008).
The chapter now reviews data I have collected over the last three years work-
ing with TLs and Jing. There are also comparisons with other data sets collected
over the last 15 years. This evaluation draws on comments and views from
both TLs and tutors as well as my own practitioner perspective.

Overall feedback
Although most TLs are very positive about audio feedback (or at least the
inclusion of audio feedback), a few TLs do not see any significant difference
between spoken and written feedback. The following is an example of such a
minority view:

I have been thinking about the teacher’s spoken and written feedback and I
do not think there is much difference. (email/mp3)

Other TLs talk about “being more used to receiving written feedback”:

I prefer the written feedback because that is what I am used to. Anyway,
when the assignment is on my desk, I can choose which page to go to. I can
decide what to concentrate on and see what the tutor has written. In spoken
feedback I have to go and listen to the whole thing. (email/mp3)

However, the majority of comments across all three mediums are overwhelm-
ingly positive and certainly the use of SCS does mean that there is less of divi-
sion between the student’s assignment and the listening, in that in the video
they are integrated.
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 167

Quicker and “easier” feedback

It is essential that learners can easily “access” their feedback because otherwise
they cannot derive meaningful connections between the feedback and their
learning and development (Nicol & McFarlane-Dick, 2006). Across all the
data sets most comments from TLs suggest that they prefer audiotape or SCS
feedback to be included in feedback options and feel it is easy to access in two
senses. First of all, there is the sense of it being easy to access the cassette, mp3
or SCS file:

It is very easy to click and then listen. There is no trouble, it is easy to open
and listen. (email/mp3)

There is also the sense of being able to access the intended meanings and con-
tent of the feedback:

Overall I prefer Jing. It makes more sense and it made it easier for me to
know the improvement areas. (email/SCS)

Length
While there seems some disagreement about whether spoken feedback is more
useful than written feedback, there is no doubt that it ends up containing more
words. In order to provide an approximate comparison in terms of length, I
have used a simple word count to provide averages (Table 10.1):
This finding differs slightly from Gardner (2004) who found the lexical count
of audio to be seven times longer than written feedback. Here, on a bigger
sample, the ratio is closer to 4:1. However, like Gardner, the data suggests that
feedback on weaker papers is typically longer.

Detail and elaboration

TLs consistently point to detail and elaboration across the data sets as being
key factors in audio feedback. In simple terms, it covers more ground (“audio
feedback has more detail and feels like it covers more areas”) and this detail is
often seen as formative:

Table 10.1 Corpora and length

Sub-corpus Average word length

10 Written-only feedback (2007) 267

10 Audio-only (cassette 1999) 1018
10 Augmented audio (mp3 2005) 1161
10 Augmented audio (Jing 2011) 1210
168 Steve Mann

It is helpful because you can hear the suggestions for improvement in

more detail. I think I have a better idea about the next assignment. (email/
cassette)

Audio feedback can avoid general evaluative statements, as perhaps the speaker
feels more pressure for exemplification:

I So (.) erm looking at your experience of getting feedback what

do you th- think is the key point of the feedback you received?
TL you mean this piece of feedback (.) or this one?
I this one
TL well (.) for me:: it was about the data analysis (.) you gave me
lots of examples for ways I could have analyze the data (.) I
should be specific (.) and there are too many generalizations
(Interview/SCS)

The detail and clarification are particularly relevant to Jing where the com-
ments are tied to text in a more visual way. Stannard (2007) and Brick and
Holmes (2008) make the point that multimodal feedback helps to establish
discourse and representational points in clearer ways:

I like this visual way of showing me what needs changing in my work. I

think I will remember these points because you highlighted them in a dif-
ferent colour. (email/Jing)

Another student in an interview says something similar:

I okay (.) can I ask you how you felt about feedback through Jing?
TL I liked this (.) I haven’t seen this before (.) I can see what you
mean (.) what you want me to notice (.) seeing corrections on
the screen and hearing the explanation makes it clear to me (.)
sometimes the other feedback is not clear and I got confused
I so hearing and seeing at the same time is useful
TL Yes (.) for example (.) you told me that I used “at last” and your
explanation of why it is different from “lastly” was really good
(.) it was really clear (Focus group/Jing)

Overall, reviewing the data for all three modes (cassette, mp3 and Jing), my
findings support Gardner’s (2004: 23) claim that the “the shift from written
to taped oral feedback naturally brings with it more extensive feedback that
engages more with the writer, has a more formative purpose, and is more
explicit.”
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 169

Personal
Perhaps the most consistently foregrounded aspect of audio feedback across all
three modes is that it is seen as more personal:

I really prefer this because you know that the tutor is really giving you per-
sonal feedback on your work. A few times previously, I’ve wondered whether
all the feedback was really relevant to my assignment and once it seemed to
be about someone else’s assignment! (email/mp3)

Personalization seems to be enhanced through the spoken voice including tone

and expression (Rust, 2001):

This is a more personal way of getting feedback. You feel like the tutor is in
the room and talking just to you. You almost see him talking next to you.
(email/cassette)
It is much more personalized. It really feels like the tutor has taken more
time just for you. (email/Jing)

This aspect is also foregrounded in tutor comments:

It certainly seems more personal to me. I think my feedback is less technical

and more accessible. It’s a different kind of register, more informal, conversa-
tional but with the capacity to switch into specific points. It enables you com-
bine friendly and personal feedback with the more theoretical. (email/mp3)

Chen (2012: 18–19) includes these two interview comments from tutors who
have used Jing:

Michael from the teachers’ point of view I think it is (practical), because

I think the amount of feedback that you can provide in such a
short space of time you can never do that if it’s written (.) it pro-
vides a lot more information to the student, you can elaborate
more (.)
Paul Jing is useful for the detail (.) it’s for elaboration (.) extra extra
information

One of the tutors I interviewed said the following:

I certainly say a lot more. I think this is mostly a good thing in that it adds
more detail but I am also conscious that I can start talking about being
hungry or apologizing for slurping tea. I think I digress more – there’s more
stories and examples. (Interview/Jing)
170 Steve Mann

One of the important factors here is clearly that this is more “off-record”.
Gardner’s study found that oral feedback was less orientated to “multiple audi-
ences” like the second marker or an external examiner (Gardner, 2004) and
more “personally addressed to the student” (2004: 24). It is these more personal
and less threatening elements that help taped feedback to “humanise the mark-
ing process” in an EAP setting (Boswood & Dwyer, 1995: 23):

I You just said it feels more personal (.) in what way?

TL Because (.) it just like a personal tutorial (.) actually (.) it is just
one way (.) but even it is one way but still I can feel face to face
tutorial (.) so I prefer to receive Jing rather than written feedback
because it’s more humanistic interaction
I So (.) it feels almost like a face to face tutorial?
TL Yes I think so (.) this kind of feedback can help the relationship
(Interview/Jing)

Looking at the transcripts it is easy to see that the spoken texts have much
higher levels of “phatic communion” and relationship building. There is less
distance and more humour and more colloquial and informal choices in the
language. There are more tone shifts (back and forth between the personal/
conversational to the evaluative/critical). There are comments such as “hope to
see you around the centre” or “pop in and I can lend you a couple of books on
this.” There is also more disclosure and sharing of teaching or writing experi-
ence (“one thing I’ve found helpful is”).

Facework and “hedging”

Whether spoken or written, assignment feedback can provoke strong reac-
tions partly because it is inherently face threatening. One TL told me that he
thought that “feedback was easy to give and hard to take.” This comment was
prompted partly because the piece of work in question he had submitted was
problematic. Feedback is certainly “easier to take” if the overall message is posi-
tive. Sometimes aspects of the message have to be critical or negative and there
is growing interest in how tutors manage feedback in teacher education (see
Copland, 2009). Leki (1990) claims that tutors make language choices in order
to provide both task related feedback and simultaneously work at the interper-
sonal level. Hedging is part of this interpersonal work in that it mitigates face
threatening aspects of the feedback. The tutor uses language to “sugar the pill”
(Hyland & Hyland, 2001) and minimize face risks by employing hedges, ques-
tion forms, and personal attribution. Comparing the four groups of feedback
texts it is instructive, especially in relation to the claimed “personal” nature
of the spoken texts, to consider use of hedging. Analysis shows that hedging
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 171

is more prevalent in spoken texts than the written ones. Sampling 100 words
from each text (counting each lexical item as one instance), the spoken forms
have noticeably more modality and softening devices:

I think there is a slight difference between the preparation of task 1 and task
2 and you might have pointed the reader to this.

The written texts are more bald-on-record. Although they have approximately
the same proportion of softeners in the sample per 100 words (“there is rela-
tively little on how a particular group of learners might benefit from your inves-
tigation”), there are fewer questions and fewer instances of personal attribution.

Dialogic and conversational

There have been calls for feedback to be more “dialogic” in nature (Attwood,
2009; Mann & Copland, 2010). One interesting analytic perspective is to assess
the degree to which audiotaped feedback and SCS achieves dialogic elements in
relation to claims about oral conferencing. It would appear that TLs are more
likely to respond according to this tutor:

(.) to me it is more conversational and encourages dialogue (.) I think

students seem to take the feedback on board and come back on points of
detail (.) it seems to result in s- more dialogue (.) .hhh maybe they feel more
invited to share their understandings? (.) and it gets away at least to some
extent from evaluation. (Interview/mp3)

However, in some cases the “conversational” nature may raise dialogic expecta-
tions but then create a more negative experience of not being able to respond
synchronously:

I couldn’t really respond to it so it was really frustrating. (Interview/mp3)

There is also evidence in the corpus that audio feedback moves away from
transfer of pre-existing knowledge to a more scaffolded and dialogic process. By
this I mean that there is more chance of hearing the tutor thinking on the spot
and engaging in spontaneous articulation and formulation and TLs appreciate
these kind of reactive comments from the reader (“you can hear the thoughts
as the tutor responds”) and tutors’ “reader” reactions to a TL’s text provide a
more tangible and immediate insight:

I liked hearing you respond to my ideas (.) and then you came up with some
useful ways to take these materials forward. (Focus group/mp3)
172 Steve Mann

This is something that tutors talk about too:

I you said that the role of the SCS is to give students an insight
into the reader’s reaction (.) can you say more about that?
T yeah (.) err th- as a writer we want to express something (.) we
have a target meaning (.) but it doesn’t always come across (.)
the links, gaps, the clunks, (.) the pieces of logic don’t quite
go together. (.) sometimes it can be useful to hear a reader’s
response on a blow by blow basis (.) then if they’ve got their
copy there (.) they can see what I’m referring to (.) and hope-
fully that gives the writer some feedback into (.) how the reader
felt at particular times. (.) (Interview/Jing)

Tutor time
Overall, my data contradicts the view (e.g. Rust, 2001) that audio feedback or
SCS reduces time spent for tutors. Tutors that try audio feedback usually appre-
ciate that it increases the amount of feedback given (to the students):

There’s a different relationship – the students feel that you’ve made more
effort – they often make the point of thanking you. They actually seem to
think you’ve spent more time than you actually have. (email/mp3)

However, they do not feel that it reduces time (for them). My own experience
of SCS feedback is that takes 10%–20% longer. This would include the writ-
ing of a short written report (relatively easy having produced the recording
while reading). This need for some form of short written report is usually an
institutional requirement. Also, where assignments are being second marked,
the second tutor would prefer a written record (albeit a short one) rather than
having to listen to the audio feedback.

Practical implications/considerations/wider global significance

The following comments cover four areas. The first presents some advice about
implementing spoken feedback using SCS. The next considers implications for
research in TESOL. The third comments on possible wider implications for MA
ELT/EFL/TESOL programmes. The final comments are related to the impor-
tance of language teachers evaluating language learning tools and embedding
them in language learning processes.

Implementing spoken feedback using SCS

Articles on feedback in teacher training and education often provide advice,
either implicitly or explicitly, about how to improve practice. Although the
view taken here is that appropriate methodology will vary from context to
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 173

Table 10.2 Illustrative outcome and recommendations

• Locate the precise context for the comment – if using mp3 use a numbering system
so that students can easily relate the comments to specific sections of the original
paper copy. SCR does this job for you and is therefore easier and clearer in locating
the precise point of feedback. With SCR highlight the paragraph, sentence or phrase
that is being referred to in a different colour.
• Consider the balance between spontaneous “think-aloud” comment (more of a run-
ning reader-reaction) and summative feedback (overall evaluation). Too much “think-
aloud” can end up being confusing. However, too much summative feedback misses
the opportunity to provide a reader reaction in real-time. Plan and highlight parts of
the text that you want to talk about.
• Communicate how you feel as a reader (confused, enlightened, interested, short-
changed). This kind of line-by-line reaction is appreciated by students and grounds
feedback in concrete examples of the reader’s response.
• Avoid rambling or being overly anecdotal – although TLs seem to appreciate glimpses
of home life (the dog barking, kids playing guitar etc), the main business is still pre-
cise feedback on their work.
• If possible, give students a choice about the modality of their feedback. Some students
prefer written feedback. Most students prefer spoken feedback.
• The major drawback of Jing is that it only offers a maximum of five minutes. However,
you can say a great deal in five minutes. Camstudio offers longer but tutors find it
more complicated to use. With Jing I usually record one or two videos and spend 5–10
minutes on spoken feedback while reading the assignment.
• You need to learn to use the pause button while recording spoken feedback. Feedback
will be too long and rambling unless you do this. Try to choose SCS options which
have a pause functions and preferably an edit one too.
• Use a good quality microphone and computer and reduce background noise.
• Try a test file before attempting to give real feedback.

context, the following table summarizes what I consider to be important con-

siderations. They function as a set of illustrative outcomes that arise out of
my analysis and reflection and also the interviews conducted by Chen (2012)
(Table 10.2).

Implications for research in TESOL

It is clear that most studies that report the use of SCS in giving feedback
are positive in nature (Stannard, 2007; Brick & Holmes, 2008; Chen 2012;
Mathisen, 2012; Séror, 2012: Silva, 2012). In qualified terms, this has been our
experience at University of Warwick too. However, not all of the studies listed
above are based on substantial empirical data. Taken together they suggest that
students positively evaluate audiovisual feedback but we need more data-led
accounts of the nature and value of such feedback. In particular, there is clearly
a need for more empirical studies that:

• Provide a discourse analysis of feedback produced in SCS formats. It is

undoubtedly necessary for this kind of analysis to be multimodal in scope.
174 Steve Mann

• Compare student’s perception and uptake of feedback in written versus

multimodal forms.

Implications for MA ELT/EFL/TESOL programmes

SCS can be used for many purposes in teacher education. I have produced Jing
videos to show how to use advanced search library databases, online audio
players (e.g. Soundscriber), transcription tools (e.g. Express Scribe), and cite fea-
tures of Google Scholar. In courses where TLs are being encouraged to innovate
with ICT and technology, it is important for teacher educators to be seen to be
engaging in a process of working towards an appropriate methodology in the
teacher education context too. This does two things. It shows that teacher edu-
cators can practice what they preach. However, if shared in a transparent way,
it helps establish that innovation is an ongoing process rather than a one-off
experiment. What helps other practitioners understand innovation are reports
on action that has actually been taken. Innovation is easier to access for other
practitioners where there is concentration on process. This demands that we
pay as much attention to how we teach or train as to which topics get covered
along the way (Edge & Mann, 2013).

Language teachers evaluating language learning tools

On teacher education programmes it is important for TLs to see how SCS might
be used for various purposes, including giving feedback (see Hamouda, 2011).
Apart from anything else, multimodal feedback offers both information on
their writing and motivating spoken input:

When reorganising, for example, a sentence, a paragraph or a short text, the

ability to record this process and talk through the stages and considerations
is plainly more motivating and clearer than traditional forms of recast, or
paper and pen feedback.
(Russell, 2013: 159)

SCS is particularly helpful for showing TLs how to use a range of internet
tools in the language learning classroom. Russell Stannard’s site (http://
www.teachertrainingvideos.com/) provides a range of “how to” videos
showing how to use such tools as Brainshark and PresentMe. The follow-
ing is a suggestion of tools that you might use SCS to introduce TLs to
(Table 10.3):
This chapter has primarily concerned the value of SCS in providing tutor
feedback. However, there is no reason why students could not use screen
capture themselves to provide peer feedback or even self-evaluation (Séror,
2012). These processes are being explored in a current EU funded project called
VideoforALL (reference to be added at proof stage).
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 175

Table 10.3 Suggestions for tools

Presentations PowerPoint is useful but Prezi is more visually interesting and

versatile http://prezi.com/ and usually TLs are less familiar with it.
Speech bubbles This is a versatile tool where you can add speech bubbles to
YouTube videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAeQ25QEBxQ
Online e.g. www.glogster.com
exhibition This provides a hybrid of blogging, social networking, and digital
creation.
Video Polycom works well and has a whiteboard facility
conferencing http://www.polycom.co.uk/
Video conferencing is evolving rapidly and there are other options
(e.g. JoinNet)
Quiz making Pro-Profs (www.proprofs.com/) is a free online quiz tool. It is a
tools versatile choice with variety of quiz types (e.g. true-false, match-
ing). Quizlet (http://quizlet.com/) is also worth showing.
Instant feedback TodaysMeet (https://todaysmeet.com/) is a tool that can easily be
tools integrated into sessions with TLs. Using the tool is a way of getting
instant feedback from your TLs and this can be fed into a more
interactive discussion.
Animated Worth showing TLs how to use Go Animate (www.goanimate.com),
cartoons Toon Doo (www.toondoo.com) or Bit Strips (www.bitstrips.com)
Task Padlet (previously Wallwisher) is an online noticeboard maker that
collaboration is easily integrated into sessions (http://padlet.com/)
Website creation Doodle Kit (www.doodlekit.com) is a good website builder.
tool

Summary and conclusion

Taken as a whole, this chapter confirms that audio-feedback is well received by

the majority of students. They report that they find it more accessible, helpful,
detailed, personal and dialogic than written feedback. Tutors also recognize its
potential benefit but usually find it hard to sustain this mode of feedback over
time due to institutional and habitual factors.
The particular focus of this paper has been the kind of feedback that can be
delivered through SCS. Drawing on practitioner research from the University
of Warwick, this chapter has provided viewpoints and experiences from TLs
and tutors who have used Jing. Although the software has mostly been used
for software training, it has great potential in offering feedback on assignment
tasks and academic writing. Other teacher educators are beginning to realize
the possible multimodal benefits of SCS feedback. As Russell says:

It is the mix of modes, both giving feedback in writing, accompanying this

with a spoken audio commentary and most of all being able to move the
text around that increases the impact.
(2013: 159)
176 Steve Mann

My practitioner research has established that SCS feedback is clearer to TLs.

These findings are largely supported by the work of Chen (2012). The com-
bination of sound and visual information provides feedback that is easier to
engage with and follow. Additionally, the quantity of feedback is much greater
than more traditional forms of feedback (taking into account the amount of
time taken). Despite these kind of advantages, there is not much evidence that
this innovation is widespread. Its use may well grow in the future but at the
moment it is limited to a few enthusiasts. Crook et al. (2010: 14) point to this
problem of take-up by other staff of SCS:

The idea therefore still has very modest take-up. Our discussions with uni-
versity lecturers in a department at Queens University, Belfast, revealed very
satisfied staff and students: “Even where feedback is negative, the voice is
perceived as somehow less derogatory than written comments.” But there
was an awareness that success enjoyed by just one or two lecturers had not
effectively spread within the university – or even within the informant’s
department.

This is a state of affairs that I recognize in all three ages and contexts that I’m
drawing on in this chapter (Aston – cassette tape; Birmingham – mp3 files;
Warwick – SCS). Many staff are initially enthusiastic, believe that incorporating
spoken feedback is a better way to give feedback but return to giving written
feedback. This seems strange to me, as not only do students get specific point-
ers on their writing but they also get more personalized and interactive com-
ments. The majority of TLs like the multimodal possibilities of seeing feedback
and listening to the tutor on the screen. The greater closeness created by the
individual and personal comments seems to reduce the face threatening ele-
ments of evaluation and criticism. Undoubtedly, further research, perhaps with
large data sets, will help further establish the case for SCS in giving multimodal
feedback. Research projects like Video for ALL (a EU funded project) detail the
choices that language teachers and language teacher educators have in using
video and SCS to foster learning. There is a need for further projects that inves-
tigate the impact of multimodal approaches to learning.
As a final comment, I do not believe that Jing is the best option for teacher
educators. Although it is free, some of its limitations (limit of 5 minutes, lack of
editing facilities, limits of storage on the Screencast server) mean that I would
say Screencast-O-Matic is a better starting point for both teachers and language
learners. However, these decisions are highly dependent on the equipment and
budget you have and so I would suggest you refer to Appendix 10.1 in making
decisions about what might be the best option for you.
 Using Screen Capture Software in Teacher Education 177

Appendix 10.1
The following table is based on my experience and advice from Russell Stannard
and Andrew Douch (http://andrewdouch.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/the-best-screen
casting-software-for-teachers/)

Camtasia Studio Expensive PC option – hard to use but can produce very
professional results if you have a lot of time.
Adobe Captivate Very expensive and really only for professionals. Most
teachers would find it hard to use.
Camtasia:Mac I use this. Less expensive than Studio (above) but takes
some getting used to. If you are comfortable on a Mac, a
good option.
Screenr  This is a web-based, Java tool so you don’t need to
download anything on your computer. The drawback is
that it is slow (waiting for the video to upload) and you
need a good internet connection.  
Screenflow Expensive but powerful – another good Mac option.
Jing Free tool and easy to use. However, it doesn’t have many
features and you can’t include webcam in the resulting
videos. Once you have pressed the stop button you can’t
go back and edit. Videos are limited to 5 minutes.
SnagIt SnagIt and Jing are Techsmith products. Many teach-
ers progress from Jing to SnagIt. You do have to pay for
SnagIt but it has no limit on time and you can publish in
mp4 format.
Collaaj This works on both Mac and PC. It is also available
as an iPad app. You can integrate webcam. The free
version has a limit of 2 minutes but you can choose
various price plans, depending on your needs. Worth
considering.  
Screencast-O-Matic This is the best free option. It is easy to use and can
record both webcam and screen. It is available in both
Mac and PC. There is also an option of
Apple QuickTime Player This has a screen recording function and so is a good
starting point for Mac first timers.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to all the MA ELT students at the University of Warwick (CAL) for their
enthusiasm and comments on the use of Jing within the Spoken English module. In addi-
tion I’m grateful for being able to work with two excellent colleagues (Russell Stannard &
Keith Richards). Russell introduced me to Jing, both face to face and through his interna-
tionally recognized training website (http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/). Keith also
used Jing on our shared module and I have benefitted from many discussions with him. I
would like to thank Annamaria Pinter and Bushra Ahmed Khurram for helpful feedback
178 Steve Mann

on different drafts of this article. I’d like to recognize the work of Jiamei Chen in produc-
ing a fine dissertation on how students perceived the value of Jing. This has also shaped
my thinking. Finally, I would like to thank Tom Farrell whose continuing commitment
to teachers and their development is inspiring.

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02167e5d1cd4/1/brickiadis.pdf
Chen, J. (2012). Investigating Spoken Feedback Through Jing: A study at University of Warwick.
Unpublished dissertation. University of Warwick.
Copland, F. (2009). Causes of tension in post-observation feedback in pre-service teacher
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Gardner, S. (2004). Knock-on effects of mode change on academic discourse. JEAP 3,
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Mann, S. & F. Copland (2010). Dialogic talk in the post-observation conference: an

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Papers/Keynote2-Stannard.pdf
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Further reading
Marriott, P., & Teoh, L.K. (2012). Using screencasts to enhance assessment feedback: stu-
dents’ perceptions and preferences. Accounting Education 21, 6, 583–598.
This paper provides a well-balanced report of an investigation carried out into SCS feed-
back in a business and accounting context. The paper provides interesting insights into
students’ perceptions of screencast technology. It also deals well with the implications
and limitations of the study as well as pointing to areas for further research.
Mathisen, P. (2012). Video Feedback in Higher Education – A Contribution to Improving
the Quality of Written Feedback. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy 7, 2, 97–112.
This recent paper describes how screen capture can be used in various subjects. It is a
useful paper because it has helpful suggestions for developing the quality and form of
feedback given.
180 Steve Mann

Stannard, R. (2008) A new direction in feedback. Humanizing Language Teaching 10, 6:

Available at http://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec08/mart04.htm
This short article is a good introductory read if you are interested in using SCS to feed-
back to students on their written assignments. It has useful advice about correcting words
on the screen, highlighting mistakes, underlining problems and writing comments.

Engagement priorities
1. Consider the value of spoken feedback (whether in audio or video form). What differ-
ence do you think it makes to receive feedback in oral form? Think about the dimen-
sion that the human voice can make in personalizing the content (having access to
tone and expression). Do you think there might be disadvantages in getting spoken
feedback?
2. Why do you think teachers are sometimes reluctant to use screen capture software for
feedback? Think particularly about time constraints and the pressures that come from
educational norms and expectations.
3. In teacher education it may be particularly important to engage with new technol-
ogy and mediums of communication. Is there an inherent value in teacher educators
“practising what they preach”? Can you think of other ways in which this consistency
or congruence may be important?
11
Developing Novice EFL Teachers’
Pedagogical Knowledge through
Lesson Study Activities
Hao Xu

Introduction and overview

Since the beginning of China’s nationwide New Curriculum reform in 2001

(Ministry of Education, 2001), the increase in the number of teaching staff
in basic education schools has been striking. In 2011, approximately 1.139
million foreign language teachers were in service, and this number quickly
increased to 1.155 million one year later in 2012 (Wen & Xu, 2013). This
indicates that at least 16 thousand new foreign language teachers joined the
profession in China’s basic education system. Based on this finding, we could
assume that the population of novice foreign language teachers is approxi-
mately 50,000, if we consider teachers with less than three years of teaching
experience as novice teachers.
This situation brings challenges, as well as opportunities. Although they
often show higher proficiency in the target language and hold more positive
attitudes toward educational innovation (Farrell, 2006, 2009; Xu, 2013b; Gao
& Xu, 2014), novice foreign language teachers face a multitude of difficult
situations that do not seem to bother their more experienced colleagues. For
instance, they are often expected to teach as effectively as the more experienced
teachers on their very first day of work. Therefore, it is not surprising that a
common practice is for novice teachers to be given the same teaching workload
as experienced teachers (and, in many cases, their workload is even heavier
because school administrators regard novice teachers to be younger and, thus,
more energetic) and for novice teachers to be indiscriminately assessed by the
same evaluation system (Xu, 2014). Regarding such situations, novice teachers
urgently require special attention in regard to their unique needs and resources
for professional development.
Although normal universities and teachers’ colleges provide programmes for
pre-service teacher education in China, education authorities at all of the lev-
els undertake more responsibility for in-service teacher development. Because

181
182 Hao Xu

novice teachers are in-service teachers, education authorities also design and
implement teacher education programmes that are dedicated to novice teacher
development. However, these programmes are often too theory-oriented and
do not provide due attention to specific pedagogical issues regarding classroom
teaching in practical terms, which are novice EFL teachers’ top priority. This
has tremendously weakened the effect of these programmes on promoting
novice teacher development.
Therefore, it is of great importance in China that some innovations be
implemented in novice EFL teacher education programmes. More specifically,
these programmes should be primarily focused on promoting the development
of EFL novice teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, rather than their theoretical
knowledge (Xu, 2013a). Because pedagogical knowledge is the knowledge of
effective teaching (König et al., 2011, 2014), it can be more easily acquired
in authentic or simulated teaching contexts (Lundeberg & Scheurman, 1997;
Burton, 2013). Therefore, it is worthwhile to use lesson study activities to create
such teaching contexts in order to promote pedagogical knowledge develop-
ment (Lundeberg & Scheurman, 1997; Lewis et al., 2012; Dudley, 2013; Saito &
Atencio, 2013). In lesson study activities, teachers in small groups collaborate
with one another, discuss teaching objectives, plan an actual classroom lesson,
observe how it works in practice, and then revise and report on the results so
that other teachers can benefit from their findings (Fernandez, 2002; Cheung
& Wong, 2014; Lewis et al., 2012). Therefore, I have attempted to implement
lesson study activities in order to promote novice EFL teachers’ pedagogical
knowledge development.
In the following sections, I will first describe the context and setting of
the programme in which lesson study activities have been used to promote
the development of novice EFL teachers’ pedagogical knowledge. Then, I will
delineate the design and implementation of the innovative programme, pre-
sent the outcome of the innovation, and discuss the practical implications for
language teacher development in China and in other parts of the world.

Context and setting

Sixteen novice teachers volunteered to participate in the innovative pro-

gramme. They were all first-year EFL teachers who worked in senior high
schools in a district of Beijing.
The district education authorities routinely organize a few teacher education
programmes for in-service EFL teachers. These programmes generally take the
form of seminars or lectures. Although the lectures are mostly theory-oriented,
the seminars mostly focus on classroom practices in real teaching situations.
However, because teachers from all of the stages of professional development
attend the seminars, these situations are not able to address the special needs of
 Developing Novice EFL Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge 183

novice teachers, in particular. Because certain issues that arise in the seminars
only trouble novice EFL teachers and, thus, are not problems for experienced
teachers, these issues may be discussed very briefly or not discussed at all. A
few novice teachers also complain that it is difficult for them to understand the
esoteric language that is spoken by the experienced teachers because it is full of
unfamiliar jargon. Therefore, the novice EFL teachers require a tailor-made, prac-
tice-oriented teacher education programme that addresses their special needs.

The innovation

The design of the programme

Aim
The aim of this innovative programme was to promote novice EFL teachers’
pedagogical knowledge development through lesson study activities.
Research has indicated that when novice EFL teachers participate in lesson
study activities, three stages of learning exist that demonstrate different char-
acteristics of pedagogical knowledge development (Xu, 2013c). The first stage
(that is, the first six months at work for novice teachers) features the acquisi-
tion of “operational knowledge” through lesson study activities, which include
the basic steps of lesson planning (for example, warm-up, pre-reading, while-
reading, and post-reading) and basic teacher talk for classroom management.
The second stage, which may last as long as two years, allows novice teachers
to gain a growing knowledge of activity design and implementation (that is,
knowledge about the practical techniques that incorporate classroom activities
into instructional design and implement these techniques in real teaching situ-
ations). In the third stage, which normally begins in the middle of the third
year, novice teachers are more inclined to notice and learn how the teacher
in the demonstration class integrates various methods in order to achieve
pedagogical objectives in a more holistic sense, rather than how specific meth-
ods are adopted in particular activities. This shows that novice EFL teachers
develop pedagogical knowledge of different types in different developmental
stages, even when they are exposed to the same format of lesson study activi-
ties. Based on this finding, I assume that in their novice years, teachers may
undergo a few developmental stages that feature different challenges, so they
utilize lesson study activities differently in different stages in order to respond
to these challenges.
Therefore, I designed three phases in the innovative programme that feature
different emphases on what to learn in the lesson study activities. The first
phase focused on a global understanding of the general structure of a lesson
(that is, the different parts of a lesson and their interrelations) because novice
teachers benefit more from these lessons if they are first able to develop a
184 Hao Xu

sound global sense of a lesson (Zong, 2009). The second phase focused on con-
crete teaching objectives, classroom activities and classroom assessment, which
creates a complete cycle of “objective-activity-assessment” (Davison & Leung,
2009). Because novice teachers often produce teaching objectives that are too
general when creating instructional designs (Xu, 2013a), efforts to raise their
awareness of concrete objectives were of crucial importance. The third phase
focused on achieving teaching objectives from a holistic point of view (that
is, the relationships between the concrete objectives and how they synergize
in order to form the greater learning outcomes). In summary, the three phases
of the innovative programme constituted a “general-specific-general” cycle,
which began with an emphasis on the general features of a lesson, then turned
to learning important specifics, and finally returned to creating a strengthened
global understanding.

The organization of the lesson study activities

In this innovative programme, the participants were divided into four groups
of four. In general, I tried to group the participants together whose locations
were close to one another so that it would be more convenient for them to
meet for the discussions and classroom observation.
I participated in these lesson study activities and assumed the role of coor-
dinator and counsellor. I was responsible for introducing and maintaining
the focus of each session (that is, the emphases of the three phases) and for
encouraging and stimulating interaction among the novice EFL teachers. I only
provided counselling when it was requested, so I did not assume a proactive
counsellor role in the programme.
The lesson study activities were organized into cycles of five sessions. In the
first session of a cycle, participants discussed the teaching objectives of a les-
son. After this discussion, they spent a week’s time drafting a complete instruc-
tional design, which would be shared and discussed in the second session. The
third session was, in fact, a series of actual classroom lessons that were taught
by each of the participants in their own classes, while they were observed by
all of the other group members. All of the group members then met again to
discuss the lessons that they taught and observed, which was the fourth ses-
sion. Then, every participant revised their instructional designs and further
discussed their revised versions in the fifth session. Table 11.1 below shows a
summary of the organization of the lesson study activities.
In addition, in order to examine the effectiveness of this innovative pro-
gramme regarding novice EFL teachers’ pedagogical knowledge development,
I collected data throughout the programme. Before the first session of lesson
study activities, I conducted an individual interview with each participant and
observed one lesson that was taught by each participant in order to collect data
on their actual teaching performance, as well as to see how they understood
 Developing Novice EFL Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge 185

Table 11.1 Summary of lesson study activities in a cycle

Session Time Session activity Post-session activity

1 Week 1 Discussing teaching objectives Drafting the instructional design

2 Week 2 Discussing the instructional Preparing actual lessons
design
3 Weeks 3–5 Teaching/observing actual
lessons
4 Week 6 Discussing actual lessons Revising the instructional design
5 Week 7 Discussing the revised design

lesson planning and classroom teaching. In all, I conducted 16 interviews and

16 observations before the innovative programme began. I also videotaped all
of the sessions of the participants’ discussion and classroom teaching. In all,
I videotaped 96 sessions of discussion and 96 sessions of classroom teaching.1
In addition, in order to gather the participants’ views on the lesson study
activities, as well as what they gained from them, I conducted an individual
interview with each of the participants at the end of each semester (altogether,
three semesters), which totalled to 48 interviews. Additionally, the participants
also attended 12 videotaped sessions of storytelling activities on a group basis
(three sessions for each group) as a means of implementing a collective inter-
view in which they were invited to improvise and share their daily experiences
as novice EFL teachers. The participants also wrote 53 entries in their reflection
journals throughout the programme. In sum, I collected a huge volume of data,
including 64 individual interviews, 16 lesson observations, 204 videotaped ses-
sions (96 for discussion, 96 for lesson teaching, and 12 for storytelling), and
53 journal entries.

The implementation of the programme

Time frame
The whole programme lasted for three semesters, with each semester address-
ing one of the three phases. In each semester, two cycles of lesson study activi-
ties were implemented, and as described in the last section, each cycle lasted
approximately seven weeks. The first session for discussing teaching objectives
was scheduled in the first week. In one week’s time, the second session for
discussing instructional design was held. The third session (that is, a series of
actual classroom lessons that were taught and observed by the participants)
lasted approximately three weeks because group members needed to take turns
teaching the lesson and negotiating time slots for the lesson so that all of the
participants, including myself, could be present. When all of the lessons in
this round were finished, the participants attended the fourth session in the
186 Hao Xu

sixth week in order to discuss these lessons. Then, in the seventh week, the par-
ticipants discussed their revised instructional designs in the fifth session. One
week after the completion of the first cycle, the participants began the second
cycle in the same manner.

Procedures
At the beginning of each session, the major task or the crucial issue would be
briefly introduced. Then, the novice-teacher participants began the discussion
or presentations. In this stage, I would refrain from voicing my own opinions
too early and would keep the discussion going smoothly. However, I needed
to make sure that the focus of the discussion was consistent with the intended
emphasis of the current phase by occasionally intervening with questions or
comments that directed the discussion to the relevant theme or issue. In the
end, I would concisely summarize what had been discussed in the session:
what was agreed upon, what was not agreed upon, what issues were solved,
and what still confused the group. I would also share my own understandings
or interpretations of the key issues with the participants over the five sessions
at the end of each cycle.

The outcomes of the programme

This subsection will first report on the positive outcomes of the innovative
programme based on three different dimensions: the novice teacher partici-
pants’ pedagogical knowledge development, their favourable feedback on this
new format of teacher training, and the development of teacher autonomy.
Limitations of the programme will then be discussed, and a summary will fol-
low, towards the end.

Pedagogical knowledge development

Because pedagogical knowledge development was the major purpose of this inno-
vative programme, I will first examine whether or not the novice teacher partici-
pants developed pedagogical knowledge and how they developed this knowledge.
The data analysis revealed that most of the participants made significant
progress in teaching. This was shown by the actual lessons that were taught by
the participants, if one simply compares those from an earlier cycle and those
from a later one. The participants also appeared to be aware of their progress,
which is shown in the following extracts:

I feel that the approach that I adopt to lesson planning and teaching has
been gradually transformed […] from a messy way to an organized and sys-
tematic way. […] I also feel delighted that I have started to understand the
essentials (that is, the whys behind the hows). (Journal)
 Developing Novice EFL Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge 187

I felt surprised at the beginning that my group members were making so

much out of this, and later, I found out that they were also surprised about
me making as much. (Interview)

In addition to their progress in teaching and their reported gains in pedagogi-

cal knowledge (that is, the “whys behind the hows”), I also discovered that the
participants’ pedagogical knowledge development seemed to be consistent
with the arrangement of the three phases. For instance, in the interviews,
upon the completion of the first phase, most of the participants identified their
major gains as “[being] able to see a lesson from a more macro point of view”
(Interview) and “[being] able to start with a look at the whole and then break
it down for a closer look” (Interview). When the second phase concluded,
the participants reported that they “[had] confidently mastered the basics
for designing specific activities in order to serve specific aims” (Journal) and
“[would] always remember assessment as an indispensable part of teaching”
(Interview).
Another interesting phenomenon is that the participants’ confusion in one
phase (towards the end of it, in particular) was highly relevant to the intended
focus of the next phase, which is shown in the following extract:

We mostly focused on the various components of a lesson and, more impor-

tantly, how they’re related to each other. […] However, we also need to learn
how each component should specifically be addressed. […] I guess that they
each require a different way of being addressed. (Interview)

This interview extract clearly reveals that at the end of the first phase, the par-
ticipant began to ponder how the specific activities should be designed in the
different parts of a lesson, which is precisely the emphasis of the second phase.
Similarly, at the end of the second phase, the same type of confusion emerged,
which is shown below:

Objective is important. Activity is important. Classroom assessment is

important. […] Then, so what? Then, you’ll have to make them join forces
in order to achieve a more general aim. […] This is so far a very confusing
issue to me. (Interview)

As seen in the extract, the participants seemed to naturally come to the ques-
tion that would soon be addressed in the next phase. This indicates that the
order of emphases that I imposed in the three phases seem to agree with the
natural development of teacher cognition, particularly in the novice stage
(Borg, 2008).
188 Hao Xu

The format of the activities

The participants have generally found the format of the lesson study activities
to be rewarding. The most prevalent idea among the participants about this
format is that it tremendously promotes true sharing, which is rare in their
normal work settings. Interestingly, most of the participants confessed that
they had not liked sharing in the beginning, but gradually, they began to see
its value and learned how to share and make use of sharing.
A few of the participants reported that initially, they only liked for others
to share and that this programme aroused their interest in sharing what they
had in mind.

I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to talk much, and I believed that
when being a good listener, you’d always learn more. […] However, because
everyone was so frank and genuine, I started to talk more and have the cour-
age to disagree and even debate. […] This is a type of contribution. […] As
others contribute, you also need to contribute because that’s the only fair
way for a team. (Interview)

Other participants doubted that they would learn much from their novice
peers at the beginning of the programme, but this thinking was reversed as the
programme continued.

I thought that there would be little that I could gain from you [other group
members, author’s note] because we were all fledglings, struggling to learn
from the more experienced teachers. […] Learning can be direct or indirect.
Direct learning means that you get the ready-made things, which is the
way that we learn from the more experienced, but indirect learning means
that you get inspired or enlightened by what your peers [novice teachers,
author’s note] say or mention. […] Then, your thinking is triggered, and
that means that your peers provide the stimulus for thinking. (Storytelling)

This activity format also had a certain impact on the novice teachers’ emotions
(Dudley, 2013). Because they regularly met and had in-depth discussions, the
participants built relationships of mutual trust, which provided them with a
“sense of belonging and support” (Interview).

The development of teacher autonomy

In addition to the novice-teacher participants’ gains in pedagogical knowledge
and their favourable opinions of the format of the lesson study activities, the
development of their autonomy as EFL teachers can also be noted from the
data. In other words, the participants demonstrated a high degree of initiative
 Developing Novice EFL Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge 189

in regard to seeking or creating opportunities for professional development

(Ervay, 1979; Castle, 2006). An example is shown in the extracts below:

We meet at the sessions to discuss, and that is what we call an online discus-
sion. […] We have also established online offline discussions. “Offline” here
means that we have self-initiated discussion between the two sessions, and
“online” here means that we use internet tools for the offline discussion.
(Journal)

We all feel that the sessions were sometimes too brief. There are so many
things that we want to discuss further. […] We all hoped to continue the
discussion when we did not meet in person. […] Then, we started to use QQ
to carry on the discussion in a QQ group.2 (Interview)

Therefore, the participants’ teacher autonomy is evident because they took the
initiative to extend the face-to-face communication to network communica-
tion by means of internet technology.

Limitations of the programme

Based on my reflections on the whole programme, I also found a number of
limitations, the most prominent of which will be discussed below.
First, the programme relied too much on the discussion/lesson sessions as
a single official means to promote teacher development. Obviously, these ses-
sions were not enough because the participants autonomously sought other
means (for example, the use of QQ group for further discussion) in order to
compensate for the limited learning opportunities in the limited number of
sessions. Therefore, it is necessary to develop multiple means and utilize vari-
ous resources that are available in order to create more learning opportunities
(for example, the use of internet technology for extended offline interaction).
Second, I did not include an inter-group exchange in the design of the lesson
study activities. As I coordinated the sessions of the different groups, I found
that each group produced unique ideas and insights, although the focus of
discussion was similar. This led me to rethink the design of the programme in
terms of participant interaction. If the participants of different groups had the
chance to exchange ideas, such as at a small conference or symposium, all of
them would be able to learn and benefit more. Because lesson study values par-
ticipant interaction as one of its strengths (Fernandez, 2002), all of the forms
of participant interaction should be encouraged and promoted, whether it is
within a group or across groups.

Summary
In sum, through the three-semester programme of lesson study activities,
the novice-teacher participants substantially developed their pedagogical
190 Hao Xu

knowledge, transformed their conceptions of sharing, gained peer support that

helped improve their teacher emotions, and activated their autonomy for self-
directed professional development.

Practical implications

This programme demonstrated how pedagogical knowledge can be developed

through lesson study, which is a practice-based approach, rather than the
frequently adopted theory-based approach. What is particularly valuable and
distinctive about this lesson study approach is that the teachers gained peda-
gogical knowledge in authentic teaching contexts, which made such knowl-
edge highly transferable to their future teaching practices.
Although the programme was designed and implemented in a Chinese
context, some practical implications that have global resonance can be dis-
cerned from the outcome of the programme. First, when designing similar
programmes that fit into another local context, teacher educators in other parts
of the world may shorten or extend the length of the programme and increase
or decrease the number of cycles in each phase, based on the participant teach-
ers’ current pedagogical knowledge level. The programme that is delineated in
this chapter seemed a bit longer than necessary. Because the participants had
already begun to ponder issues that were to be addressed in the next phase at
the end of each phase, I assume that each phase should have been shorter (for
example, consisting of only one cycle, rather than two).
Second, the programme carries implications for novice EFL teachers, as well
as for language teachers who are in various stages of professional development.
In other words, it may also be interesting to investigate the possibilities of
using this type of programme to promote the pedagogical knowledge develop-
ment (or development of other facets) of teachers who are in more advanced
stages of professional development, such as experienced teachers with five
to ten years of teaching experience or even expert teachers. When designing
programmes for teacher groups that are not novice teachers, teacher educators
may need to modify the focuses of discussion in the lesson study activities so
that they correspond well to the participant teachers’ developmental needs.
Third, the implementation of such programmes would be made less costly
(because it was costly in this case) if they could be incorporated into exist-
ing systems for in-service teacher education in a particular context. As seen
in this lesson study programme, all of the participants, including the novice
teachers and myself as a university researcher, invested large amounts of time
and energy in these activities. This is fine when it is a tentative effort for the
purposes of an experiment. However, when such programmes are to be imple-
mented on a more regular basis for a much larger population of novice teachers
or other language teacher groups, it is foreseeable that financial support can be
 Developing Novice EFL Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge 191

a problem, particularly in the cases of many developing countries. Therefore,

language teacher educators in different contexts may choose to incorporate
such programmes into their existing teacher development systems. In the
Chinese context, for example, it would be more advisable to incorporate this
type of programme as a special component for novice teacher education into
the established in-service teacher education system, which is operated by edu-
cation authorities and receives guaranteed financing from the government,
rather than creating a new programme outside of the system.
Another practical implication is that it is worthwhile to experiment and com-
bine this format of lesson study activities and school-based lesson study activi-
ties, which has been reported in Japan (see Chichibu & Kihara, 2013). Although
this format of lesson study activities provides opportunities for teachers from
different schools to share and learn together, school-based lesson study activi-
ties are much easier to organize on a more regular basis, and they consume less
time and other resources. Perhaps, the combination of these two formats of les-
son study activities (that is, school-based and non-school-based) may become a
more effective solution regarding in-service language teacher education.

Summary and conclusion

This chapter introduces an innovative programme that was implemented in a

Chinese context and aimed to promote novice EFL teachers’ pedagogical knowl-
edge development. Through their participation in six cycles of group-based
lesson study activities, which lasted for three semesters, the novice-teacher
participants substantially developed their pedagogical knowledge, transformed
their conceptions of sharing, gained peer support that helped them improve
teacher emotions, and activated their autonomy for self-directed professional
development. The limitations of the programme were also reflected upon, and
the practical implications for in-service language teacher education in a wider
range of contexts have been discussed.

Acknowledgements
The innovative programme that is reported in this chapter was funded by a National
Social Science Fund Project of P. R. China (13CYY028). I am also grateful for the dis-
cussants who shared their invaluable opinions in my report on a preliminary study,
which was discussed at the World Association of Lesson Studies (WALS) International
Conference 2013 that was held in Gothenburg, Sweden in September 2013.

Notes
1. The programme lasted for three semesters. In each semester, each of the four groups
organized two cycles of lesson study activities, and each cycle consisted of four
192 Hao Xu

discussion sessions and four classroom teaching sessions (each session consisted of
one participant teaching).
2. QQ is a widely used internet tool for network communication in China. The QQ
group, which is one of the functions of QQ, can provide charge-free private online
chat rooms for a group of discussants.

Further reading
Hurd, J. & Lewis, C. (2011). Lesson Study Step by Step: How Teacher Learning Communities
Improve Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
This book provides step-by-step guidance, with specific strategies and materials for
teachers and teacher educators, particularly for those who plan to try the lesson study
approach for the first time.
Marton, F. & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and Awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
This book accounts for the obvious differences between more or less successful instances
of learning in schools and is highly relevant to lesson study as one ponders on the vari-
ous types of learning that occur therein.
Stepanek, J., Appel, G., Leong, M., Mangan, M. T., & Mitchell, M. (2007). Leading Lesson
Study: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Facilitators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
This book provides practical strategies for organizing successful lesson study activities
and is highly recommended to interested teacher educators and leaders of teaching
groups.

Engagement priorities
1. The lesson study approach can be adopted in order to promote teachers’ pedagogical
knowledge. Although there are various ways to implement lesson study activities, a
number of steps are indispensable, such as revising the instructional design based
on the group discussion before teaching the actual lesson and teaching the lesson at
least two times, in light of the suggestions that are provided by the peer teachers who
observed a previous lesson. Then, what type of pedagogical knowledge, specifically,
can teachers learn in each of these indispensable steps?
2. In addition to the lesson study activities, there are also other ways to promote teach-
ers’ pedagogical knowledge. Can you list a few of them and compare them with the
lesson study?
3. The chapter describes how lesson study can help promote novice teachers’ pedagogi-
cal knowledge development. Can lesson study also be used with more experienced
teachers or even expert teachers? Please sketch a lesson study design for a teacher
group (other than the novice teachers) that is suitable to your own context.
4. The leader of the lesson study activities plays a crucial role in the success of its organi-
zation and implementation. What are a few important things that the leader should
do in a lesson study?
12
Reflective Practice as Innovation
in SLTE
Thomas S.C. Farrell

Introduction

One of the major unresolved issues in second language teacher education is

what teachers need to learn and know in their preparation programmes so that
they can be adequately prepared to succeed in their first year(s). We need this
information because as I pointed out in Chapter 1, the first year(s) of teach-
ing are a critical period for teachers because if they do not feel prepared for
the realities of what they are facing in the classroom, then they may quit the
profession which is costly for all concerned. TESOL as a profession continues
to expand its knowledge-base and what we are still striving to achieve is agree-
ment on a common core knowledge-base of linguistic content and pedagogi-
cal content domains that language teachers need in order to succeed in their
first years and beyond. However, as Richards (2014: 23) has recently pointed
out, “the central issue of what constitutes appropriate disciplinary knowledge
and pedagogical content knowledge remains an unresolved issue.” Thus we
can say that teacher educators and teachers cannot yet rely on any definitive
or accepted common knowledge-base and so they will have to continue to be
innovative not only in the content of the programmes they deliver, but also in
how these are delivered and how they impact the first year(s) of teaching in a
real classroom.
In Chapter 1 I suggested that we should eliminate pre-service as a term
and as a concept and consider the concept of novice-service that includes both
teacher preparation (or the “old” pre-service) and the first year(s) of teaching
so that teacher educators can continue to work with novice teachers during
their novice-service period with innovations that suit their particular context.
The chapters in this volume have outlined and discussed examples of teacher
educators who provided successful self-initiated innovations for their teacher
learners while in their novice-service in diverse global contexts. In this final
chapter I summarize the innovations and the main themes that emerged from

193
194 Thomas S.C. Farrell

their diffusion, and I will attempt to point a way forward for second language
teacher preparation programmes with “reflective practice as innovation.”

Teacher learning and innovations

Any innovation that is diffused in a second language teacher education pro-

gramme or course should be done so in order to support novice teachers’
learning-to-teach experiences or their teacher learning development. Richards
and Farrell (2005) suggest that we can view teacher-learning according to four
conceptualizations: as skill learning, cognitive process, personal construction,
and reflective practice. Teacher-learning as skill learning sees teacher-learning as
the development of a range of different skills or competencies, mastery of which
underlies successful teaching. Teacher-learning as a cognitive process views
teaching as a complex cognitive activity and focuses on the nature of teach-
ers’ beliefs and thinking and how these influence their teaching and learning.
Teacher-learning as personal construction is based on the belief that knowledge
is actively constructed by teacher learners and not passively received and so
learning is seen as involving reconstruction and it is through these processes
that knowledge is internalized. Teacher-learning as reflective practice is based on
the assumption that we teachers learn from experience through systematic and
focused reflection on the nature and meaning of teaching experiences (Farrell,
2015). Taken together, I believe the innovative activities for the promotion of
teacher-learning discussed in this volume encompass all four conceptualiza-
tions of teacher-learning outlined above. For any innovation to be successfully
integrated into practice it must also be closely linked to a teacher’s existing set
of beliefs, experiences and skills, which means that teacher-learners much be
aware of their existing beliefs and this can be achieved when all four concep-
tualizations of teacher-learning are put into place in a second language teacher
education programme. However, when any of these conceptualizations are not
present, teacher educators must try to fill in any gaps if they want to prepare
their teachers adequately for their first years and beyond as language teachers.
In this volume second-language teacher educators from many different
countries took it upon themselves to try to prepare their teacher learners for a
successful career as a second language teacher by developing something new
within their teacher education programme. These developments were in the
form of different innovations as summarized below in Table 12.1.
As Table 12.1 shows, each teacher saw a need to develop something new
for their teacher learners, not to replace what was already in existence but,
as Tomlinson (2013: 203) has noted, “with the aim of improvement on what
already exists.” For example, in Chapter 4 we read how teacher educators col-
laborated with each other to develop a course specific to the needs of the reali-
ties their teacher learners would face in a US context. In Chapter 6 (Southeast
 Reflective Practice as Innovation in SLTE 195

Table 12.1 Summary of innovations

Country Innovation

Turkey Combination of an academic MA course with a reflective

professional development Delta course
Canada Encouraging critical reflection throughout a graduate course
through a course reflective assignment
U.S.A. Course Developed: Collaborative Two-way Content Based
Instruction (CBI)
New Zealand Teaching scenarios to prepare students for “dissonance”
between teacher education programme and the real world
South East Asian Course development for induction into the principles and
Countries practices involved in writing course materials for use in
countries that are members of SEAMEO
South Africa Pre-service teachers using “translanguaging” techniques to
teach reading literacy to ESL young readers in practicum
Singapore Course development: English Language Content Enhancement
for postgraduate students & Certificate in English Language
Studies for student teachers who did not take English Language
as an academic subject
United Arab Emirates Introduction of iPads into English language classes as the
(UAE) primary teaching and learning resource
UK Use of screen-capture software (Jing) for assignment feedback
China Group-based lesson study activities to promote novice
pedagogical knowledge development

Asia) and Chapter 8 (Singapore) teacher educators in different contexts saw the
need to develop new courses specific to the needs to their particular teacher
learners, while in Chapter 2 we read how a teacher educator combined the best
of two existing programmes to suit the needs of his particular teacher learn-
ers in Turkey. In Chapters 3 (Canada), 5 (New Zealand), 7 (South Africa) and
11 (China), teacher educators made innovations to particular courses they
were delivering to better prepare their teacher learners for the reality of what
they will face when in real classrooms. Last but certainly not least given that
we live in the 21st century, the issue of technology was raised, first in Chapter
9 (UAE) where a technological device was widely distributed in the school
system without the necessary preparation of the teachers and their supervi-
sors, and then in Chapter 10 (UK) where we read how a teacher educator
used technology successfully when preparing teacher learners for careers as
language teachers.
In addition, nearly all of the teacher educators noted that diffusion of the
“innovation” was not a one shot deal, but that it was a slow process that
should be allowed to develop over time; as Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando
Alonso noted, “innovation is slow. I contend that slow considered innovation
196 Thomas S.C. Farrell

is often most effective, particularly in the LTE arena where stakes are high
both professionally and personally for those involved.” So too has Steve Mann
observed that innovation diffusion stretches over many years and thus needs a
long-term commitment: “I say this because it seems to me that most accounts
of innovation are presented as though they happened in a time-bound and
discrete way.” This is all the more important when an IT innovation is a top-
down initiative, as Helen Donaghue discovered with the sudden introduction
of iPads by a government into an education system, which resulted in teachers
feeling unsettled and de-skilled because they lacked knowledge and experience
in how to use mobile devices in teaching, not to mention a lack of under-
standing of the “innovation” by those who had to oversee the diffusion, the
supervisors. As Donaghue pointed out, for any technological innovation to be
diffused properly it can take up to three years for it to be sufficiently exploited
to modify and redefine learning activities and create tasks that were inconceiv-
able without the technology existing in the first place.
Finally, the one constant that seemed to come through from all of the inno-
vations was the need to promote reflection by the teacher learners. In fact, one
of the reasons that the diffusion of iPads did not work properly, as Donaghue
noted, was that the training that was supposed to help with the diffusion “pro-
vided little opportunity for the reflection and discussion with colleagues that
is necessary to work on new practices and teaching challenges.” The presence
of these collaborative discussions (and reflections) with colleagues, however,
seemed to be a major factor with the success of the innovation developed by
Margo DelliCarpini and Orlando Alonso. They noted that collaboration and
reflection was at the heart of their innovation with the idea that teachers who
teach together will reflect together. This was the case when Jack Richards brought
his students through several cycles of hands-on-reflection with the ultimate aim
of providing them with tools with which they could reflect on their own outside
the course, and Hao Xu used lesson study as a reflective tool for his teacher learn-
ers. In order to promote discussion and reflection in his graduate course, Steve
Mann used a type of screen capture software (in this case Jing) to provide feed-
back, and Thomas Farrell used a course reflective assignment to promote critical
reflection in a graduate course. John Macalister and Jill Musgrave incorporated
the idea of scenarios as a reflective device for graduate students in their TESOL
programme, and on a larger scale, Simon Phipps focused his whole approach to
a teacher education programme around the development of reflective practice.
As Phipps noted, the essential element of his programme was “to consciously
develop teachers’ reflective abilities – critical reflection on their beliefs, teaching,
input and reading was an essential element of their own learning.”
I would suggest that the innovations that have been outlined and discussed
in this book have mostly been reflected in what Wright (2010: 273) noted as
four emerging pedagogical characteristics of SLTE:
 Reflective Practice as Innovation in SLTE 197

1. An emphasis on the student teacher’s learning to teach and becoming a

thinking teacher.
2. This, in turn, means a great deal of reflective activity programmed into
learning experiences, often with written records in the form of journals or
diaries.
3. This also entails a commitment to student teacher inquiry – into one’s own
beliefs and narratives, and into the professional contexts of teaching and
learning for which STs are being prepared.
4. It has resulted in the appropriation of pedagogies from adult education
whose central idea is learning from experience.

Although the innovations can be seen to have elements of all four characteris-
tics above, it is characteristic number two, reflective practice, which seems to
be the most prominent one that emerged from many of the innovations. I shall
now focus on this second characteristic and discuss the importance of reflective
practice in SLTE and how this can be accomplished.

Reflective practice as innovation

As noted above, one of the main themes that has emerged from this volume is
that reflection and reflective practice were at the heart of the majority of innova-
tions. In fact, Bailey and Springer (2013: 108) recently wrote specifically about
reflective teaching as innovation and suggested that “reflective teaching exempli-
fies innovation because … it is perceived as new … which is intended to bring
about improvement.” Indeed, Bailey and Springer (2013: 108) maintain that
reflective teaching is not limited to any one teacher educator, programme or loca-
tion, but has now become “a grassroots innovation that has begun to influence
the language teaching profession on a global scale.” Indeed, Wright (2010: 267)
has acknowledged that SLTE has incorporated many of the ideas on reflective
practice and he stated that the goal of SLTE is to produce “reflective teachers, in
a process which involves socio-cognitive demands to introspect and collaborate
with others, and which acknowledges previous learning and life experience as a
starting point for new learning.” However, one of the criticisms of the incorpo-
ration of reflective practices in SLTE is that there still is no agreement on what
constitutes reflection or reflective practice and programmes have not yet figured
out how to provide reflective practice in any coherent manner throughout a
teacher’s education. As Bailey and Springer (2013: 120) point out, it still remains
a challenge for programme administrators to be able to develop “programmati-
cally feasible forms of support for reflective practices that do not detract from a
sense of personal initiative, autonomous choice, and ownership by teachers.”
I would suggest that one of the problems with promoting reflection of any
sort in SLT preparation programmes at any level is that many different models,
198 Thomas S.C. Farrell

frameworks and strategies have been used but without any overall framework
that can be implemented in all TESOL programmes. Most, if not all, of the
models have their uses for teachers but because there are so many different
models and frameworks in existence, no one model provides any overall appli-
cation of reflecting on practice that includes all teachers, from pre-service and
novice to the most experienced teachers. As such, I have recently developed
an overall framework for language teachers and especially pre-service and nov-
ice teachers to reflect on their philosophy, beliefs, values, theories, principles,
classroom practices and beyond the classroom so that they can become and
remain effective teachers (Farrell, 2015). I hope this framework will go a long
way to addressing the “element of unstructured diffusion” (Bailey & Springer,
2013: 116) that can occur when reflective teaching is adapted at a grassroots
level so that it can become more programmatically feasible, with administra-
tive support in all contexts.

Framework for promoting reflection

I will briefly outline the framework and interested readers can refer to Farrell
(2015) for more details. The framework has five different stages/levels of reflec-
tion: Philosophy; Principles; Theory; Practice; and Beyond Practice. Each of the five
stages/levels are not isolated stages or levels of reflection as all are linked; each
stage or level builds on the other and all stages must be considered as a whole
to give effective teachers a holistic reflective practice experience.
Philosophy, the first stage/level of the framework, can be considered to be
a window to the roots of a teacher’s practice because having a philosophy of
practice means each observable behaviour has a reason that guides it even if
the teacher does not articulate this reason. Principles, the second stage/level
of the framework for reflecting on practice, include reflections on teachers’
assumptions, beliefs, and conceptions of teaching and learning. Following on
from reflecting on our principles, we are now ready to reflect on our theory,
the third level/stage of the framework. Theory explores and examines the dif-
ferent choices a teacher makes about particular skills taught (or that they think
should be taught) or in other words, how to put their theories into practice.
Influenced by their reflections on their philosophy, and their principles, teach-
ers can now actively begin to construct their theory of practice. Reflecting on
practice, the fourth stage/level, examines a teacher’s observable actions while
teaching as well as the students’ reactions (or non-reactions) during lessons. At
this stage/level in the framework, teachers can reflect while they are teaching
a lesson (reflection-in-action), after they teach a lesson (reflection-on-action)
or before they teach a lesson (reflection-for-action). The final stage/level of the
framework entails teachers reflecting beyond practice, exploring and examin-
ing the moral, political and social issues that impact a teacher’s practice both
inside and outside the classroom.
 Reflective Practice as Innovation in SLTE 199

This framework can be navigated in three different ways: theory-into-

(beyond) practice, (beyond) practice-into-theory or a single stage application.
From a SLT preparation perspective, it is probably best to take a more deductive
approach to reflecting on practice by moving from theory-into-practice or from
stage/level 1, philosophy, through the different stages to stage/level 5, beyond
practice. Some may say that pre-service teachers who do not have much class-
room experience, would be best suited to take such an approach because they
can first work on their overall philosophical approach to teaching English to
speakers of other languages and work their way through the different stages of
principles (stage/level 2), theory (stage/level 3) when they reach the practicum
stage; they will be well placed then to reflect on their practice (stage/level 4)
and eventually move beyond practice (stage/level 5). This theory-driven
approach to practice where philosophy and theory have an initial influence
on practice is probably a natural sequence of development for novice teach-
ers because they do not have much teaching experience. Of course, teachers
can also decide to reverse the process outlined above and take a more induc-
tive approach to using the framework by moving from (beyond) practice into
theory if they consider their practice (both inside and outside the classroom)
as a powerful determinant of their overall approach to reflecting on practice.
For such an approach to the framework, teachers would first consider some
issue from beyond practice (stage/level 5) or decide on a starting point from an
issue within their classroom that they want to explore and then work their way
through the different stages/levels in reverse order to the deductive approach.
When implementing any form of reflective practice, however, teacher edu-
cators must consider that teacher learners’ dispositions, personal histories,
experiences and expectations may be different to theirs and so should not try
to control the topics of teacher learners’ reflections. Therefore, we must give
teacher learners control over their reflections so that they do not become too
dependent on their teacher educators (the so-called experts) if we want them
to develop as more autonomous teachers. As Bailey and Springer (2013: 120)
maintain, when teachers find reflective teaching useful, they will engage in
“some form of these practices even without administrative support.” This to
me would be the ultimate aim and measure of success of any second language
teacher education programme.

Conclusion

As Wright (2010: 288) noted in his state-of-the-art review on second language

teacher education, “there is a growing and healthy ‘practitioner research’ cul-
ture in SLTE, in which teacher educators are examining the effect of the learn-
ing experiences they initiate,” and the self-initiated innovations by teacher
educators in different contexts worldwide outlined in this volume reflects
200 Thomas S.C. Farrell

such a vibrant research culture. Wright (2010: 288–289) also called for future
research to “generate issues and identify puzzles from practice, particularly
where reform and innovation are being attempted, and refine theories of learn-
ing and changing identity.” While this volume has attempted to answer this
call, more research is needed on the different self-initiated innovations teacher
educators in different contexts are diffusing so that we can add their results
to the ever increasing knowledge-base of second language teacher education.
I agree with Wright (2010: 289) when he says that accounts of innovations in
practice such as the ones outlined in this volume can “provide us with inspi-
ration for our own teacher education practice and lead us to question those
practices and the assumptions behind them.”

References
Bailey, K., & Springer, S. (2013). Reflective teaching as innovation. In K. Hyland &
L. Wong (eds), Innovation and Change in English Language Education. New York:
Routledge, 106–122
Farrell, T.S.C. (2015). Promoting teacher reflection in second language education: a framework
for TESOL Professionals. New York: Routledge.
Richards, J.C. (2014). Key Issues in Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Richards, J.C. & Farrell, T.S.C. (2005). Professional Development for Language Teachers.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tomlinson, B. (2013). Innovations in materials development. In K. Hyland & L. Wong
(eds), Innovation and Change in English Language Education. New York: Routledge,
203–217.
Wright, T. (2010). Second language teacher education: Review of recent research on prac-
tice. Language Teaching 43, 3, 259–296.
Index

apprenticeship of observation, 75, 80, materials’ design, 96

86, 89 meaningful practice, 93
mechanical practice, 93
backward design, 102, 103, 106 mobile devices, 142, 144, 145, 152, 154,
156, 196
classroom observation, 58, 80, 86, 184
community of practice, 149, 155, 157 novice-service, 4, 5, 10, 12, 193
communicative practice, 92, 93 novice teachers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11,
Content Based Instruction, 5, 51, 52, 62, 12, 74, 78, 80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87,
67, 72, 73, 195 181, 182, 183, 184, 186, 190, 193,
Curriculum, 11, 21, 30, 46, 52, 56, 57, 68, 198, 199
85, 90, 105, 110, 112, 115, 119, 129,
130, 136, 137, 141, 152, 154, 181 pedagogical knowledge, 12, 124, 181, 184,
186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192
dissonance, 8, 74, 76, 78, 80, 83, 86, 87 pedagogical reasoning skills, 101, 102
peer observation, 19, 26, 27, 28, 78, 156,
educational technology, 144 159
EFL teachers, 17, 63, 181, 182, 183, 184, peer support, 12, 190, 191
185, 188, 190, 191 professional development, 4, 9, 12, 17,
ESL teachers, 5, 9, 44, 45, 51, 54, 56, 57, 31, 54, 55, 67, 105, 134, 142, 155, 156,
58, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 75, 108, 159, 181, 182, 189, 190, 191
110, 120, 121, 122 pre-service teacher education, 74, 181
experienced teachers, 32, 77, 78, 79, 101,
181, 183, 188, 190, 198 reading development, 107, 108, 111, 115,
119, 120, 121
forward design, 102 reflection, 6, 12, 20, 24, 26, 28, 34, 38,
Four Strands, 74, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 58, 59,
85, 88, 89 60, 63, 64, 65, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 85,
86, 87, 111, 114, 116, 117, 119, 138,
iPads, 9, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 155, 156, 159, 173, 189
150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 196 reflective practice, 6, 7, 28, 29, 31, 76, 77,
in-service teacher education, 17, 31, 190, 78, 82, 161, 185
191 reflective practitioner, 83, 85, 161
instructional design, 104, 183, 184, 185, 186
integrated practicum, 86 scaffolding, 43, 92, 97, 112, 118,
120, 121
language teacher, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, supervisory experience, 156
18, 38, 40, 44, 45, 47, 48, 56, 67, 74,
75, 76, 78, 86, 87, 88, 90, 105, 135, teacher autonomy, 136, 186, 189
136, 137, 138, 142, 143, 145, 172, 176, teacher beliefs, 7, 31, 52, 74
181, 190, 193, 194, 195, 198 teacher education, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10,
lesson study, 7, 12, 181, 182, 183, 184, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 27, 28,
185, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 196 31, 32, 47, 48, 52, 54, 55, 62, 74, 75,

201
202 Index

76, 86, 87, 107, 108, 110, 119, 120, 121, teaching practicum, 75, 109, 111, 112,
122, 130, 131, 135, 138, 139, 160, 163, 115, 118, 119
164, 174, 181, 182, 183, 191, 193, 194, teaching objective, 12, 182, 184, 185
196, 199, 200 technology, 4, 7, 9, 81, 136, 138, 142,
teacher educators, 1, 2, 4, 11, 12, 31, 36, 143, 144, 148, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156,
50, 57, 76, 90, 132, 134, 144, 161, 174, 163, 174, 189, 196, 195, 196
175, 176, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, TESOL teacher education, 52
199, 200 teacher training, 3, 19, 21, 26, 142, 145,
teacher emotions, 190, 191 154, 172, 186
teacher cognition, 20, 74, 75, 187 translanguaging, 8, 9, 107, 108, 109, 110,
teacher learning, 6, 7, 16, 17, 20, 26, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120,
27, 28, 31, 194 121, 122, 124
teachers’ principles, 98 two-way CBI, 52, 56, 57, 59, 64, 65, 68