2.3 Best practice in in-service teacher development
2.3.5 Components of a training programme
Wilson and Berne points out that learning often goes on ‘in the interstices of the
workday’ in conversations with colleagues, passing glimpse of another teacher’s classroom on the way to the photocopying machine, tips swapped in the coffee lounge...’. However, they agree with Lord that such opportunities are happenstance, random and unpredictable (1994:174). Teacher learning has traditionally been a
‘patchwork of opportunities- formal and informal, mandatory and voluntary,
serendipitous and planned-stitched together into a fragmented and incoherent ‘curriculum (Ball and Cohen, cited in Wilson and Berne, 1999:174).
Loucks-Horseley et al. describe teacher development as providing ‘opportunities for
teachers to engage in a wide range of growth experiences that have real meaning to them’ (1987:11). They compare a successful teacher development programme to a
37
healthy diet in that it should be varied and balanced; we should not limit ourselves as
teachers to one type of professional development activity ( 1987:14). Likewise,
Higgins and Leat (1997) stress the need for teacher educators to be flexible and
informed in their choices of approach since no one approach is likely to meet all the
needs of teachers.
Traditionally pre-service training in ELT has been divided into ‘Input’ and
‘Teaching Practice’ (e.g. CELTA). In-service training, on the other hand, consists of
the input phase only, principally providing updates and information to practising
teachers. In place of the ‘TP’ component, in-service teachers have evaluative
observations once or twice a year, and these are typically divorced from the input
sessions. This section deals with all components of training which are formative
rather than evaluative.
Ellis (1986:91) describes the kind of activities and procedures that could be effective
in teacher training sessions. He makes a distinction between ‘experiential’ and
‘awareness raising’ practices. Experiential include teaching practice, including
‘simulated’ practice such as peer teaching. Awareness raising includes comparing
and evaluating lesson plans. He points out that the former tend to be more common
in pre-service training, while the latter predominate in in-service situations;
however, he adds that this is more a result of ‘convenience and tradition’ than
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two types of practice. He goes on to question the assumption that raising awareness
automatically improves teaching in the classroom (1986:92).
Ellis’s procedures are based on data from the classroom in the form of video/audio
recordings or transcripts of lessons, lesson plans, peer, micro or classroom teaching,
readings, samples of students’ work, sample textbook materials and case studies. He
provides a list of tasks that can be used to enable teachers to analyse and evaluate the
data. These include ranking, selecting, adding, completing, improving, comparing,
adapting and listing type activities. Finally, he suggests procedures that the trainer
can use, such as lectures, group/pair discussions, workshops, demonstrations,
elicitation and plenary/panel discussions.
Joyce and Showers divide training into a) tuning our skills and b) learning new skills
(1980:380). They argue that the second of these requires more intensive training
than the first. They developed two typologies: levels of impact and training
components and considered how each component contributed to each level of
impact. The levels of impact were:
• Awareness
• Concepts and organized knowledge
• Principles and skills
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They claim that it is only after the fourth level of impact has been reached that we
can expect to see an impact on the education of children.
According to Joyce and Showers’ typology there are five components of training
which, they claim, when used together, have much greater power than when used
alone. They are:
1) Presentation of theory or description of skill or strategy
2) Modelling or demonstration of skills or models of teaching
3) Practice in simulated and classroom settings
4) Structured and open-ended feedback
5) Coaching for application (hands-on in classroom assistance with the transfer
of skills and strategies to the classroom) (1980:381)
Gebhard, Gaitan and Oprandy (1990:16) suggest the following components for a
training programme:
1. teaching a class
2. observing the teaching act
3. conducting investigative projects of teaching
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They also highlight the benefits of combining activities and encouraging teachers to
make connections between the various parts of the programme (1990:17).
Wallace (1991: 29) advocates using a variety of ‘modes’ of teaching and learning in
teacher education courses, since teachers have different learning styles and should be
encouraged to experiment with different learning strategies. He points out that
variety prevents boredom for tutor and teachers, helps the tutor get to know the
teachers better and that different activities suit different purposes (1991:30). He
highlights the point that as we wish our trainees to provide variety in the lessons, we
need to model this in our training sessions. Wallace emphasises the importance of
getting a match between modes (lecture mode or group mode) and the aspect of the
academic process we are addressing: acquisition, reflection (deep processing and
active processing), application and evaluation (trainee evaluation of content and process and assessment) (1991:34). In Wallace’s typology activities in teacher training programmes are divided as follows:
1. Data collection and analysis activities
2. Planning activities
3. Microteaching activities
4. Supervised teaching
5. Shared professional action
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‘Microteaching’ is defined as a training context in which a teaching situation has
been ‘reduced in scope and/or simplified in some systematic way’ (1991:92). There
may be a reduction of teacher task, length of lesson or size of the class. ‘Shared
profession action’ refers to auxiliary or team teaching and ‘individual autonomous
professional action’ refers to a teacher working alone in his or her classroom.
Wallace’s typology of components appears to be the most comprehensive. The last
item is not usually mentioned on lists of components, and it is an important one to
include, as trainees frequently complain that they have not had an opportunity to
‘consolidate’ their knowledge by ‘going it alone’ in the classroom. In terms of
dealing with in-service teachers without pre-service training it is essential to think of
their normal teaching commitments as part of the programme as that is when they
will have the chance to experiment with what they have learnt in workshops, peer
observation and so on. In my programme, observations of teachers’ regular classes
occurred alongside the development programme and data from the observations fed
into the workshop activities.
Sparks and Loucks-Horsley (1990) proposed five models of staff development: the
individually guided staff development model; the observation/assessment model; the
development/improvement process mode; the training model and the inquiry model
42 2.3.6 The importance of context
According to Wood and Thompson, ‘the largest unit of successful change in
education is the individual school…’ (1980). Many programmes in various parts of the world have tended to have a district-wide focus, which results in them being
distant from the needs of the school. In such programmes, teachers are provided
with information and expected to put it into practice later in a different context.
This, argue Wood and Thompson, conflicts with what we know about adult learning
(see section 2.3.7). Duncombe and Armour also concluded that effective
professional development is ‘school-based, active, collaborative, progressive,
focused closely on pupils’ learning and embedded in teachers’ everyday work’ (2004:141)
Keith (1987) promotes schools as places in which to establish connections among
teacher education, teachers, schools, and learning, and Lange suggests that the
school is the ideal site for teacher learning, and advocates integration of pre and in-
service development as well as curriculum design within the school context.
(1990:251). Likewise, research by Flores in Portugal found that a context-specific
view of learning prevailed with the norms and values of the workplace being the key
determinants of the nature and process of learning (2005). Teacher development
programmes are not a ‘one size fits all’ nature and both design and content must take
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Wood and Thompson cite two pieces of research undertaken Rapport and Rapport in
England and Tough in Canada, which suggest that adults prefer to learn in informal
learning situations which allow social interactions among learners (1980:377). The
implication of this is that in-service training should take place in the normal
workplace setting.
Teachers, as adult learners, need ‘realistic, important, job-related, immediately
useful goals’ and will only learn and retain that which they perceive as relevant (Wood and Thompson, 1980). This also seems to point to the teacher’s own school
being the most appropriate setting for teacher development to take place. If we also
accept the claim of Joyce and Showers that ‘hands-on, in classroom assistance with
the transfer of skills and strategies to the classroom’ is a necessary component of
training, we have more evidence for suggesting the teacher’s own school as the best
site for training.
A study by Harris (2001) in Nottingham found that training and improvement drives
at department level were an undervalued aspect of school improvement programmes.
Involving Heads of Department in training, trialling innovations at departmental
level, peer review and teacher involvement in reflection and research activities all
contributed towards this success. Harris concludes that both the department and the
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Gusky (1995) claimed that ‘because of the powerful and dynamic influence of
context, it is impossible to make precise statements about the elements of an effective professional development programme’, (Bolam and McMahon, 2007:53). However, Bolam and McMahon add that although some approaches may be limited to one
context, certain developments appear to be similar across countries and some
techniques can be adapted to different systems (2007:55). My research focuses on
the school as the unit of improvement, though I also consider change at department
level.