Tag Archives: teacher development

The Most Effective Teacher Development Model

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I have been thinking and writing about my reflections on Penny Ur’s (1997) article on Teacher Education and Teacher Development for the last few weeks. Ur (1197) refers to Wallace’s Training Models and suggests the Optimal Training Module by combining Wallace’s Models and I cannot agree more. Figure 1 is a representation of how optimal teacher development can be reached.

Optimal

 Figure 1, Ur (1997)

Teachers have to reflect on their lessons but while doing that they get ultimate benefit if they make use of the many a resources out there to improve their teaching. What are at teachers’ disposal as  resources? Their students?  Their peers?  Their teacher trainers? Their supervisors? The research? Language learning theories?  Observations?  ELT conferences? The Internet?  

Teacher's chattingThey talk to peers and discuss some classroom issues with them. Teachers observe peers,  and they get observed by them. More reflection goes on having talked and thought about the observed classes. Teachers learn from their peers and they learn greatly from honest, objective and timely feedback on their lessons. Teachers learn from the literature. They have the chance to compare their experience with what research says.  Teachers learn from classroom research or action research when they are a little bit more experienced in their field.  Teachers learn their strengths and the areas they need to work on via appraisals. Teachers learn from anecdotes, metaphors and stories.  

In Your Hands So once teachers want to learn, once they have that motivation of doing their job properly and efficiently they find a way. As in the story told by Jane Ravell and Susan Norman’s  (1997) wonderful book; everything is IN YOUR HANDS.

 This link takes you to the fantastic story of IN YOUR HANDS :  

Reference

Ur, P. (1997). Teacher Training and Teacher Development: A Useful Dichotomy? JALT Publications, The Language Teacher Online, 19 October 1997

Reflective Teaching and Teacher Development

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One of my trainers, Sheelagh Deller who taught me so much once said:

thinking‘There are three types of lessons:

  1.        1. The lesson you planned.
  2.        2. The actual lesson that you have executed.
  3.        3. The lesson you would have given.’

Some teachers spend time on the lesson, and think about it when the lesson is over.  These teachers can be described as teachers who ave begun to be Reflective teachers. What do reflective teachers do? They recall an activity or process, they consider it thoroughly and they evaluate it. Following that they make a decision and conduct an action plan. Only then, the reflection on the lesson when it is over becomes meaningful. Otherwise just thinking about it, and not doing anything about would not be productive. As Joel A. Barker says;

‘Vision without action is merely a dream.

Action without a vision is just passing time.

Vision with action can change the world.’

In my previous blog post, I wrote about Wallace’s (1991) Craft Model and Applied Science Model in teacher training. As a third model, Wallace suggests Reflective Model. In the Reflective Model teachers apply the received knowledge, i.e. methods and techniques that they acquire during their training and have the chance to develop an understanding of actual teaching where they gain the experiential knowledge. You can find an analysis of all three of these models with pros and cons in Tanvir’s Blog.

Wallace’s Reflective Model (learning derived from reflection on practice), corresponds with “teacher development.” It can be represented through the model of experiential learning provided by Kolb (1984). (Ur, 1997) Figure 1 shows the cycle.

wallace 2

Figure 1, thinking1from (Ur, 1997)

The teacher is much more active in this model (compared to the other two models). The teacher applies what s/he  learned, reflects on the experience, thinks through the experience, implements a new or adapted approach based on the conceptualisation of the initial experience and goes to the classroom and experiments his/her new plan which leads itself to repeat the whole circle one more time. 

 In the Reflective Model what the teacher experiences seems to be the only way to learn. In other words, the teacher happens to experience something in his/her class, and bases his/her actions on what s/he experiences. It appears that the teacher ignores the other sources of information and knowledge in the field that s/he could make use of.  Taken to an extreme, it implies that the incoming teacher has to “reinvent the wheel” on their own (Ur, 1997).

So what is the best model? This is the next blog topic:)

Reference

Ur, P. (1997). Teacher Training and Teacher Development: A Useful Dichotomy? JALT Publications, The Language Teacher Online, 19 October 1997

Wallace, M.J. (1991). Training foreign language teachers: A reflective approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Teacher Education & Teacher Development

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Teacher Education

As far as I know, in order to become a teacher, a person needs some kind of formal education all over the world. In order to become an EFL or ESL teacher, one needs to complete a 3-4 year BA in Teacher Education or a 100-120 hour TEFL certificate course such as a CELTA or TESOL on top of a BA that could be in a different field. We call this pre-service teacher education and teachers-to- be receive the bare minimum of the knowledge and skills to become an English teacher.

I think, Wallacewallace 1’s (1991) description of the Craft Model in teacher training fits this stage of teacher education very well. The trainee is in the middle receiving knowledge; pretty much passive intake goes on.

 

Figure 1: Trainee’s role based on Wallace’s (1991) Craft Model (Ur, 1997)

During Teacher Education (TE) Future teachers take basic methodology, lesson planning, language terminology and teaching techniques as well as some micro teaching opportunities with some peer observation. They read books by the ELT gurus such as Scott Thornbury and Jeremy Harmer.

According to Wallace’s Applied Science Model, teachers in the first years of their teaching career are busy with applying what they have learned from the literature and their trainers. (Figure 2) This may give little or no scope to teacher’s own creativity and inventions.

applied science model

 

What about observation during TE? Most of the renowned TEFL courses offer a number of guidedobservations during these courses, others neglect this component which is a real problem.  I think observing other teachers or even teachers-to-be is one of the most useful things for a teacher.

And at the end of the TE period, future teachers are certified and are ready to take their first “real” classes and….

 

Teacher Development

The real story starts when they encounter their first group of 40-48 pairs of eyes looking at them 🙂 :), there are in-service teachers who never have further voluntary or compulsory training in teaching but this number should be either really rare mainly due to lack of finances or these teachers are either lucky to be equipped with a godsend talent or totally unaware of what to do to improve their teaching skills.  

The majority of the English teachers feel the need of further in-service training and continue their professional development by voluntary courses or they are offered compulsory training by the institutions they work for. Naturally, neither the Craft Model nor the Applied Science Model alone makes them competent ELT teachers. What does then??? This will be the next blog post.

Reference

Ur, P. (1997). Teacher Training and Teacher Development: A Useful Dichotomy? JALT Publications, The Language Teacher Online, 19 October 1997

Wallace, M.J. (1991). Training foreign language teachers: A reflective approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.