The knowledge base of second language teacher education (SLTE)

What knowledge assumed to be a must for a teacher has become a focus of interest to educators and policy makers. However, how teacher knowledge is defined and what it is comprised is still a controversial issue and attracts much scholarly attention. Shulman (1986, 1987a) conceptualizes the knowledge base in teacher education on the basis that teachers must develop expertise in pedagogy and content by acquiring different knowledge categories including content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, curriculum knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of learners and their characteristics, knowledge of educational contexts, and knowledge of educational ends, purposes and values, and their philosophical and historical grounds (see Table 2.1). Implicit in Shulman’s work was the aim to reframe the study of teacher knowledge in ways that included direct attention to the role of content in teaching.

These knowledge categories proposed by Shulman (1986) emphasize the crucial role of content knowledge and place it in the broader landscape of professional knowledge for teaching. The first four categories belong to general dimensions of teacher knowledge essential for general teacher education programs. The remaining three categories address content-specific dimensions and together make up what Shulman referred to as the missing paradigm in literature, “a blind spot with respect to content that characterizes most research on teaching, and as a consequence, most of our state-level programs of teacher evaluation and teacher certification” (Shulman, 1986, p. 8). Shulman also made it clear that both the general categories and content-specific dimensions are important for teachers because “mere content knowledge is likely to be as useless pedagogically as content free skill” (1986, p. 8).

Table 2.1. Major categories of teachers’ professional knowledge base (Adapted from Shulman, 1987a, p. 8) Teacher's professional knowledge Category Definition General dimensions General pedagogical knowledge

An understanding of the main principles, methods and strategies needed for effective teaching and learning

Knowledge of learners

An understanding of learners’ cognitive, psychological and affective characteristics, behaviours, interests and developmental stages Knowledge of educational

contexts

An understanding of the workings of the group or classroom, the governance and financing of school districts, and the characters of communities and cultures

Knowledge of educational ends

An understanding of the purposes and values of education, as well as its philosophical and historical grounds

Content- specific dimensions

Content knowledge or subject matter knowledge

An understanding of both the content and the structures of a subject

Curriculum knowledge

An understanding of the syllabus, topics, and instructional materials designed for and expected in the teaching of a particular subject

Pedagogical content knowledge

An understanding of the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others

Drawing on Shulman’s study and research of teacher knowledge in general education, in the field of language teacher education, different researchers have attempted to outline what knowledge should be included in a SLTE program (see Table 2.2). The terms “content” and “knowledge base” have been used interchangeably (Day, 1993; Richards, 1998). As the content and process of SLTE is the main concern in a sociocultural perspective, studying the knowledge base of SLTE is fundamental to the understanding of second language teacher learning.

Day and Conklin (1992) identified four types of knowledge essential for the acts of language teaching: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and support knowledge. Content knowledge refers to subject matter knowledge related to English language as represented by courses in syntax, semantics, phonetics and literature and culture. Pedagogical knowledge includes knowledge of general teaching strategies irrespective of the focus of the subject matter such as classroom management, dealing with disruptive behaviours and motivating students. Pedagogical content knowledge involves representing content knowledge in diverse ways that students can comprehend, identifying their concerns and learning difficulties as well as their misconceptions about the learning. Examples of pedagogical content knowledge may include teaching specific ESL/EFL skills, teaching English grammar, teaching English vocabulary, designing English tests and evaluating English teaching resources. Support knowledge is concerned with the knowledge

of the various disciplines that inform the teaching and learning of English such as psycholinguistics, linguistics, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics and research methods. This framework is comprehensive in addressing various categories of knowledge for L2 teachers but it seems to lack a concern for understanding the teacher as a learner of teaching and the process of how they learn to teach.

Table 2.2. Views about the knowledge base of second language teacher education

Researcher The knowledge base of second language teacher education

Day and Conklin (1992)

1 Content knowledge 2 Pedagogical knowledge

3 Pedagogical content knowledge 4 Support knowledge

Lafayette (1993)

1 Language proficiency 2 Civilization and culture 3 Language analysis

Roberts (1998)

1 Content knowledge

2 Pedagogical content knowledge 3 General pedagogical knowledge 4 Curricular knowledge 5 Contextual knowledge 6 Process knowledge Richards (1998) 1 Theories of teaching 2 Teaching skills

3 Communication skills and language proficiency 4 Subject matter knowledge

5 Pedagogical reasoning skills and decision making 6 Contextual knowledge

Freeman and Johnson (1998)

1 The teacher as learner of language teaching

2 Schools and schooling as historical and sociocultural contexts for teacher learning

3 The activity of teaching

Lafayette (1993) argues that there are three domains of L2 teachers’ knowledge: language proficiency, civilization and culture, and language analysis. According to Lafayette, first and foremost, L2 teachers should have an advanced command of the target language to function as effective users and models for the learners. In addition, he maintains that L2 teachers should be knowledgeable about the literature and customs associated with the language to help their students develop cultural sensitivities and awareness towards people and things. Regarding language analysis, Lafayette states that L2 teachers should not only be well-informed about language structures, but also be aware of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. However, Lafayette does not recognize the role of pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge in an L2 teacher’s knowledge base.

in the work of Roberts (1998) and Richards (1998). Roberts (1998) proposes six types of teacher knowledge: content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, curricular knowledge, contextual knowledge and process knowledge. Similarly, Richards (1998) suggests six domains of knowledge: theories of teaching, teaching skills, communication skills, subject matter knowledge, pedagogical reasoning and decision making, and contextual knowledge. Graves (2009) recognized the merits of Roberts and Richards’s frameworks:

These knowledge bases expand far beyond subject matter competence – competence in and knowledge of the target language and general pedagogic skills. They include pedagogical content knowledge, contextual knowledge – of the learners, the school, and community – and of how the context affects and shapes teaching. They include pedagogical reasoning and decision making skills, skills in relating to and communicating with learners and colleagues, and skills in inquiry. (p. 119–120)

Moreover, Richards’s (1998) proposal of knowledge domains was the only one to date that mentioned skills instead of mere knowledge. This is extremely helpful in understanding the learning of prospective language teachers because based on the knowledge, they need to improve their skills and hone their craft. The elaborations of Richards (1998) on the three teacher skills are also used as one of the guidelines in this study to explore how the teaching practicum assists the trainee teachers in acquiring, improving and mastering them. First, teaching skills are described as the observable performance of teaching including dimensions of teaching that are essential to the repertoire of any teacher, regardless of the subject, and additional teaching skills that are specific to second language teaching. Teaching skills include selecting learning activities, preparing students for new learning, asking questions, checking students’ understanding, providing opportunities for practice of new items, monitoring students’ learning, giving feedback on students’ learning, reviewing and reteaching when necessary. Second, communication skills are made up of two dimensions. The first is the general ability to communicate effectively, which is chiefly determined by personality, presence, general style, voice, and ability to establish and maintain rapport. The second is the level of proficiency in the target language that a teacher needs to acquire so as to teach in this language effectively. Third, pedagogical reasoning skills and decision making refer to the complex cognitive skills underlying teaching actions and processes. It is the teacher’s ability to prepare, represent, select, adapt and tailor their teaching to meet the needs of students.

It appears that Richards (1998) has complemented Shulman’s categories of teacher’s knowledge by including pedagogical reasoning skills. However, these frameworks together with those suggested by Day and Conklin (1992), Lafayette (1993) and Roberts (1998) fail to recognize the role of teachers as learners of teaching and the complexity of the context where the process of learning to teach takes place. The categories of knowledge, therefore, are not mutually linked to each other. Bearing in mind the drawbacks of previous research in the field, Freeman and Johnson (1998) called for a re- conceptualization of the knowledge base of language teacher education based on the premise that

language teaching can be enhanced when examining systematically how language teachers come to know what they know and do what they do in their work. To them, such re-conceptualization is significant because teachers’ learning processes cannot be adequately described or understood without taking into consideration the socio-cultural contexts in which their learning takes place. Consequently, the core of the knowledge base must focus on the teacher as a learner, the contexts of schools and schooling and the pedagogical process.

The proposal by Freeman and Johnson (1998) was used as the main theoretical framework for reviewing the related literature in this study because the research looked at the learning of trainee teachers during the teaching practicum, which took place at the school contexts and the involved all three components of the reconceptualized knowledge base: (i) the trainee teacher as a learner of teaching, (ii) the contexts of schools and schooling and, (iii) the activity of teaching and learning. In some instances, the domains of knowledge suggested by other researchers are also employed to discuss relevant issues. For instance, the dimension of communication skills suggested by Richards (1998) is the ability to communicate in the first language, namely Vietnamese, and also the trainee teachers’ English language proficiency.