Providing for effective teaching

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Providing for effective teaching

• How quality teaching can be achieved and
  maintained in a language program

2009-2010 Semester 2 TESL 3240 Lecture
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Terminology

• Teaching
• Effective teaching
• Quality teaching
• Good teaching

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How quality teaching can be achieved

• Teaching well
• Creating contexts and environments that can
  facilitate good teaching

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Issues considered

• Institutional factors
• 2. Teacher factors
• 3. Teaching factors
• 4. Learner factors

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1. The institution

• 1.1 The organisational structure
• 1.2 Quality indicators in an institution
• 1.3 The teaching context

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1.1 The organisational culture

• The organisational culture of a school refers to
• the ethos and environment that exist within a
  school, the kinds of communications and decision
  making that take place, and the management and
  staffing structure they support.

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• Questions that could reveal a schools
  organisational structure
• What are schools goals and missions?
• What is the schools management style?

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• What shared values do staff have?
• What are the decision-making characteristics of
  the school?
• What roles do teachers perform?
• How are teaching and other work planned and
  monitored?

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• What provision is made for staff development?
• How are courses and currciulum planned?
• How receptive is the school to change and
  innovation?
• How open are communicative channels?

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• the organisational structure
• mechanistic
• organic

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The mechanistic model

• This model is a bureaucratic approach to
  organising collective activities that stresses
  the need for authority,hierarchies of control,
  and and explicit chain of command(Davidson and
  Tesh 1997,178)

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The organic model

• This model maximises flexibility and
  adaptability, encourages complete confidence and
  trust between superior and subordinates, and taps
  a wide range of human motivations to achieve
  organisational goals.

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• Communication flows in all directions, both
  vertically and laterally.
• Team work is essential, and decision-making and
  control functions are shared widely throughout
  the organisation.
• (Davidson and Tesh 1997,179)

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1.2 Quality indicators in an institution

• There are clearly stated educational goals
• There is a well-planned, balanced, and organised
  program that meets the needs of its students
• Systematic and identifiable processes exist for
  determining educational needs in the school and
  placing them in order of priority

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• There is a commitment to learning, and an
  expectation that students will do well
• There is a high degree of staff involvement in
  developing goals and making decisions
• There is a motivated and cohesive teaching force
  with good team spirit

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• Administrators are concerned with the teachers
  professional development and are able to make the
  best use of their skills and experience
• The schools programs are regularly reviewed and
  progress toward their goals is evaluated

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Key dimensions of quality

• A sense of mission
• A strategic plan
• Quality assurance mechanisms
• A sound curriculum
• Flexible organisational framework
• Good internal communications
• Professional treatment of teachers
• Opportunities for teacher development

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1.3 The teaching context

• Size and staff structure
• Equipment
• Support staff

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• Teacher work space
• teacher resource room
• Teaching facilities
• Class size

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2. The teachers

• 2.1 Skills and qualifications
• 2.2 Support for teachers

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2.1 Skills and qualifications

• Teaching is a profession characterized by
• A homogenous consensual knowledge base
• Restricted entry
• High social status
• Self-regulation
• The legal right to govern daily work affairs

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• The core components of teacher knowledge
• 1.practice knowledge
• 2.Content knowledge
• 3.Contextual knowledge
• 4.pedagogical knowledge
• 5.personal knowledge
• 6.reflective knowledge

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Six areas of basic teaching skills (CELTA in
UCLES 1996)

• Language awareness
• The learner, the teacher, and the
  teaching/learning context
• Planning for effective teaching of adult learners
  of English
• Classroom management and teaching skills
• Resources and materials for teaching
• Professional development

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Characteristics of novice teachers( with a good
or native command of English)

• Novice teachers perception of classroom events
  are relatively undiscriminating and simpler than
  those of experienced teachers.
• They are less able to select which information is
  salient when planning a lesson.

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• They lack knowledge of what to expect of pupils,
  what challenges to set, and what difficulties to
  anticipate.
• They tend to work from the textbook rather than
  in terms of pupil attainment levels

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• The lack practical classroom management routines
  to keep pupils in task
• Their concern with control makes it difficult for
  them to focus on pupil learning

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• The lack an eastablished pedagogic content
  knowledge
• They lack practical experience from which to
  analyse and discuss teaching
• They lack a specialised vocabulary with which to
  analyse and discuss teaching

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Opportunities to develop these skills

• Observation of experienced teachers
• Observation of training videos
• Short theory course
• Practice teaching under the supervision of
  exeperienced teachers
• Working with a mentor teacher

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The needs of nonnative speaker of English (NNS)
Roberts(1998,97)

• NNS teachers may lack confidence in their english
  language ability and give their own language
  improvement a high priority
• NNS teachers may undergo an errosion in their
  english Language performance through its
  restriction to classroom discourse

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• They may not have NS intuitions about the
  language and may need linguistic rules as a
  source of security
• They may avoid classroom activities which demand
  unpredictable language use and where rapid and
  intuitive assessment of accuracy and appropriacy
  are needed

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• They may need the support of a textbook more than
  NS teachers

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• They have the personal experience to understand
  their learners difficulties
• Where teachers and learners share a common
  culture, group norms may exert a powerful
  influence on their behaviour, whereas NS teachers
  may be exempt from such norms.

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• Language teaching behaviour cannot be separated
  from pedagogic models inherited from the mother
  tongue culture(Koranic, Confucian, African etc.)
  in such attributes as institutional culture,
  attitudes to authority and knowledge, adult-child
  relationships etc.

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• The place of English in society at large has a
  profound influence on the purposes of English
  language education, the English language
  curriculum, and therefore the nature of the
  teachers work

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Opportunities that shall be given to teachers

• Engage in self-relfection and evaluation
• Identify their areas of strength and weakness
• Develop specialised knowledge and skills about
  many apsects of teaching

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• Expand their knowledge base about research,
  theory, and issues in teaching
• Take on new roles and responsibilities, such as
  supervisor, mentor teacher, teacher researcher,
  or material writer
• Develop involvement in professional organizations

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2.2 Support for teachers

• 1.Orientation
• 2. Adequate materials
• 3.Course guides
• 4.Division of responsibilities
• 5.Further training

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• 6. Teaching release
• 7. Mentors
• 8. Feedback
• 9. Rewards
• 10.Help lines
• 11. Review

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3. The teaching process

• 3.1 Teaching model and principles
• 3.2 Maintaining good teaching
• 3.3 Evaluating teaching

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3.1 Teaching model and principles

• 3.1.1 the operative vs problem-solving models
• 3.1.2 teaching approaches
• 3.1.3 Example of Teaching philosophy
• 3.1.4 Examples of teacher principles (Breen)

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3.1.1 the operative vs problem-solving models

• In an operativemodel the teacher is restricted
  to meeting the requirements of a centralised
  system, such as the delivery of a textbook as
  planned, to a set timescale.

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• Such a limited role, limited to that of
  curriculum transmission,implies training based on
  mastery of a set of competencies determined by
  the centralised syllabus. Roberts(1998103)

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• In the case of the problem solver model,a
  decentralised curriculum gives teachers greater
  autonomy in making educational decisions.

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• A diversified language curriculum, characterised
  by adaptation to learners needs, requires
  teachers to be able to diagnose problems and
  adapt materials and design original learning
  activities

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3.2.2 Teaching approaches

• The communicative approach
• The cooperative learning model
• The process approach
• The whole language approach

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3.2.3 Teaching philosophy supporting a secondary
school EFL English program

• 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

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• Realistic and communicative uses of language are
  given priority.
• Maximum use is made of pair and group activities
  in which students complete tasks collaboratively.

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• There is an appropriate balance between
  accuracy-focused and fluency focused activities
• Teachers serve as facilitators of learning rather
  than as presenters of information

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• Assessment procedures reflect and support a
  communicative and skill-based orientations to
  teaching and learning
• Students develop an awareness of learning process
  and their own learning styles,strengths, and
  weaknesses.

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• Students develop the ability to monitor their own
  learning progress and ways of setting personal
  goals for language improvement

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3.1.4 Examples of teacher principles (Breen)

• Selectively focus on the form of the language
• Selectively focus on vocabulary or meaning
• Enable the learners to use the language

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• Address learner mental-processing capacities
• Make the new language familar and manageable
• Make the learners internalise and remember the
  new language

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• Take account of learners affective involvement
• Directly address learners needs or interests
• Monitor learner progress and provide feedback

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• Facilitate learner responsibility or autonomy
• Manage the lesson and the group

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3.2 Maintaining good teaching

• Monitoring
• Observation
• Identification and resolution of problems
• Shared planning
• Documentation and sharing of good practices
• Self study of the programe

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3.3 Evaluating teaching

• 3.3.1 The purposes of appraisal
• 3.3.2 Developing the appriasal system
• 3.3.3 The focus of appraisal
• 3.3.4 Conducting the appraisal
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3.3.1 The purposes of appraisal

• to reward teachers for good performance
• to help identify needs for further training
• to reinforce the need for continuous staff
  development

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• to help improve teaching
• to provide a basis for contract renewal and
  promotion
• to demonstrate an interest in teachers'
  performance and development

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3.3.2 Developing the appriasal system

• 3.3.2.1 An credible appraisal system should be
  produced collaboratively and represent all points
  of views.
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• 3.3.2.2 Criteria for the recognition of good
  teaching have to be developed that recognise the
  complexity of teaching as well as the fact that
  it is a uniquely individual activity.
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• 3.3.2.3  In language teaching, there are no
  universally accepted criteria for assessing
  teacher effectiveness and several different kinds
  of appraisal approaches are used.
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• 3.3.2.4 Criteria are generally eastablished on an
  institutional basis, drawing on general
  principles for teacher effectiveness and factors
  specific to the type of program in which the
  teachers work.

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3.3.3 The focus of appraisal

• Lesson plans
• Teacher-made classroom materials
• Course outlines and handouts
• Class assignments
• Participation in profession development activities

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3.3.4 Conducting the appraisal

• Appraisal by a supervisor
• Appraisal by a colleague
• Self appraisal

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• Lesson reports
• teaching journal
• Audio/vidoe recording
• Student appraisal

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4. The learning process

• 4.1 Understanding of the course
• 4.2 Views of learning
• 4.3 Learning styles
• 4.4 Motivation
• 4.5 Support

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4.1 Understanding of the course

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• It is important to ensure that the learners
  understand the goals of the course, the reason
  for the way it is organised and taught, and the
  approaches to learning they will be encouraged to
  take.

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4.2 Views of learning

• Learners enter a course with their own views of
  teaching and learning and these may not be
  identical to those of their teachers.
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• How do they see the roles of teachers and
  learners? What do they feel about such things as
  memorisation,group work, the importance of
  grammar, and pronunciation?
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• What roles are learners expected to play during
  the course? a variety of different learner roles,
  such as manager of his or her own learning
  independent learner needs analyst collaborator
  and team member peer tutor. How happy are
  learners with the roles expected of them?
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4.3 Learning styles

• Concrete learners
• Analytical learners
• Communicative learners
• Authority-oriented learners

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Concrete learners

• These learners preferred learning by games,
  pictures, filsm and video, talking in pairs,
  learning through the use of cassettes, and going
  on excursions.
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Analytical learners

• These learners liked studying grammar,
  studying English books, studying alone, finding
  their own mistakes, having problems to work on,
  learning through reading newspapers.

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Communicative learners

• This group liked to learn by observing and
  listening to native speakers, talking to freinds
  in English, watching TV in English, using English
  in shops, and so one, learning English words by
  hearing them and learning by conversations.
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Authority-oriented learners

• These students liked the teacher to explain
  everything, writing everything in a notebook,
  having their own textbook, learning to read,
  studying grammar, and learning English words by
  seeing them.

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4.4 Motivation

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•  Why are the learners in the course and how will
  it affect their lives?
• What do they want from it?
• Which aspects of it are they most interested in?
• It may be that learners have very different
  priorities.

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4.5 Support

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• These include the kinds of feedback learners will
  get about their learning and opportunties that
  are provided for faster or slower learners.

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• Self-access components might be provided to allow
  learners to address specific learning needs and
  interests.

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• The instructional materials and resources that
  teachers use in the classroom.

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Discussion questions and activities

• 1. How would you charactrerise the organisational
  culture and structure of a language teaching
  institituion you are familiar with? To waht
  extent is the organisation culture a positive
  one, in your opinion?
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• 2. Consider a teaching context that you are
  familiar with. What factors in the school or
  institution you are familiar with? What factors
  do not? Suggest three changes that you think
  would improve the quality of the teaching?
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• 3.To what extent is a concern for quality
  reflected in the practice of your school or an
  institution you are familiar with? What quality
  measures are or should be in place?