PLLEs and the transfer of teaching methods and techniques

Reference has been made above to the fact that, when asked about their L2 learning history, teachers are likely to recall positive and/or negative memories of L2 teachers and L2 teaching incidents. Likewise, they hold positive and/or negative recollections of the methods and techniques which were used during their PLLEs. In cases where there is transfer (or lack thereof) from PLLEs to current teaching practices, the rule of thumb seems to be that teachers tend to replicate those teaching approaches and strategies which they found effective or positive as L2 learners and to reject those which are associated with negative experiences. As was observed in Johnson (1994), this rejection does not automatically result in developing alternative teaching practices since teachers may slip back into ways of teaching which they reject.

Within the field of L2 education, several studies report on the impact of teachers’ negative or positive PLLEs on their decisions to adopt certain instructional strategies in their own L2 teaching contexts. Numrich (1996) found that the two most frequently cited techniques which teachers were motivated to replicate in their teaching practices because of their positive PLLEs were “integrating culture” and “giving students a need to communicate” (p. 138). On the other hand, the ones which they associated with negative PLLEs and which they, therefore, rejected were “correcting errors” and “teaching grammar” (p. 139). A similar experience and effect in relation to error correction is reported by an in-service ESL teacher in Golombek (1998) whilst she is describing a tension which emerged when she intended to develop both her learners’ fluency and their accuracy. The teacher was afraid of overcorrecting and thus embarrassing her students while doing simultaneous monitoring, since this would have a negative

effect on their affective side and their oral performance. This teacher thought this fear derived from her PLLEs while studying Russian as an L2. Golombek then concludes that this teacher’s “recounting of this experience points to the affective nature of her personal practical knowledge (her fear of being corrected), its moral nature (how she would like to be treated and how she should treat others), and its consequential nature (how her behaviour might silence students)” (p. 454). This conclusion serves to show how teachers’ PLLEs can give shape to their personal practical knowledge and, eventually, to their teaching practices.

In Warford and Reeves (2003), two of the three NNS teachers in the study, though they praised the communicative teaching approaches they were introduced to in their TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) training programme in the USA, could not envision themselves teaching in any other way but using the grammar-based teaching models they had observed in their PLLEs. Exploring the preconceptions about English Language Teaching (ELT) of both NS and NNS teachers, Warford and Reeves claimed that “evidence of this phenomenon was more prevalent among non-native speakers” and that “in visualizing themselves in the role of teachers, the three NNS appeared more likely to have access to their own language learning experiences than their native-speaking counterparts, several of whom had particular difficulty remembering their language learning experiences in significant detail” (p. 57). Though this observation appears to be interesting, it seems inappropriate to presume that the mere condition of being a NS or a NNS determines our capacity to access our PLLEs. First, people are more apt to evoke memories when these are retrieved in a meaningful context. This may be the case of NNS student teachers remembering their L2 learning experiences in the country where that L2 is officially spoken. Second, many native speakers training to become ESL teachers have limited or no prior L2 learning experiences and many of them consider their first language (L1) learning experiences irrelevant to their L2 teacher training programme. This may well be the reason why NS trainees might not access their PLLEs. Third, it might also be that NNS teachers in Warford and Reeves’ study are drawing on their direct experience of learning English, while NS trainees may be reflecting on learning other foreign languages. Thus, the latter’s experience is less directly involved with what they are now learning to teach. Finally, though the focus of the studies in this section and my own research is largely on prior language learning experiences, we cannot disregard

any other schooling experiences which might bear some relevance to L2 teachers’ instructional practices.

In Hayes (2005), the three participants interviewed (experienced NNS teachers) claimed they used instructional techniques, such as reading aloud, which their own role model L2 teachers had employed. Hayes suggests that this transfer may be due to “the lack of training prior to initial appointment as a teacher which was common at the time [in Sri Lanka]” (p. 182). This echoes the idea in the previous section that novice teachers tend to replicate techniques derived from their PLLEs because they have not been exposed to alternative instructional practices (Johnson, 1994). In another study where he describes the life of Sudarat, an experienced Thai teacher of English, Hayes reports on the transfer of teaching methods from positive PLLEs (Hayes, 2009a). Unlike most other classroom realities where traditional methods were used by Thai teachers, Sudarat’s classes were taught by American and British educators who promoted skills development and implicit grammar learning. What is worth noting about this case is that when Sudarat began teaching, despite the strong opposition she faced from senior colleagues (some of whom were her former teachers) who still favoured traditional EFL methods, she persisted in adopting a more student- centred methodology which was in line with that used during her PLLEs. Her loyalty to her prior beliefs and principles is even more salient if one considers that she started teaching in the school where she had studied and, according to the social conventions in Thailand, former students are expected to continue paying respect to their teachers, which involves outwardly conforming to their teaching philosophies and practices, whether they happen to share these or not.

Borg, M. (2005) reveals that the formation of a CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) student teacher’s pre-course beliefs was influenced mostly by her negative early school experiences. An example of this is the trainee’s belief in an anti-didactic, student-centred teaching methodology, which was formed as a reaction to her experience in teacher-centred classrooms characterised by boring teacher-fronted lecturing. Also rooted in her positive and negative PLLEs with schoolteachers were her beliefs about L2 teachers. The trainee believed teachers should be positive, patient, empathetic, and respectful towards students; use humour; make their lessons appealing; and create a relaxed, comfortable, and non-judgemental classroom atmosphere. Despite her stated beliefs, in her early teaching practices this student teacher resorted to the

default teaching models provided by her prior school experiences. For instance, she tended to lecture the learners and to provide negative feedback to their responses. Borg claims, however, that by the end of the course she was able “to bring her beliefs into line with her practice and successfully moved from ‘lecturing’ to a student-focused lesson with maximum student involvement” (p. 24). Unlike the participants in Johnson (1994), who reverted to the negative teaching style present in their PLLEs, the student teacher in Borg’s study eventually managed to break free from her negative PLLEs. This development which the trainee seems to have experienced may be due to the fact that, during the course, the trainee observed and tried alternative teaching practices which were congruent with her teaching beliefs, as is revealed by the trainee on several occasions (p. 9). Yet, given the brevity of the training course and Borg’s study (4 weeks), it is hard to assert that, despite her strongly held beliefs about L2 teaching and learning, the trainee will not revert in the future to the teaching models she was exposed to in her PLLEs.

In Zeng and Murphy (2007), though the six experienced NNS teachers participating in the study favoured the adoption of a language teaching approach which focused on authentic communication, four of them highlighted the importance of using didactic materials and tasks such as drills, grammar-based activities, and translation. Not surprisingly, the four teachers had been exposed to “didactic language learning” as L2 students (pp. 13-14) and acknowledged the contribution this had made to boosting their confidence in EFL learning and to developing a solid L2 foundation. The teachers’ beliefs in a communication- based language teaching approach were also rooted in their PLLEs, when they remembered that their solely language-focused lessons had failed to help them develop speaking, listening, and communication skills.

As regards grammar teaching in particular, in Pahissa and Tragant (2009), three experienced NNS teachers (Emma, Joel, and Miquel) reported using grammar teaching methods which were congruent with those adopted in their PLLEs. Emma made use of explicit grammar teaching, translation, and terminology because these had helped her as an L2 learner. Joel adopted an anti-grammar stance (kept grammar teaching to a minimum and made no use of terminology) derived from his grammar-free French classes at school and his content-based English lessons at university. Like Emma, Joel used translation because he had found it useful as a learner as well. Finally, Miquel, though he

had positive recollections both of grammar-focused lessons with a NNS teacher and of the communicative methods used by a NS teacher, felt he more easily identified with the former and, thus, assigned grammar teaching (analysis of structures, terminology, and L1 comparison) an essential role in his classes. It seems appropriate to point out that two different studies focusing on NNS teachers (Pahissa and Tragant, 2009; Zeng and Murphy, 2007) and different participants in each study report on the transfer and wide use of translation (or L1-L2 comparison) in their FL classrooms. This adds to the literature which claims that this teaching technique is more frequently used by NNS teachers than by NS educators (Árva and Medgyes, 2000; Medgyes, 1994; Reves and Medgyes, 1994), especially when the former work in monolingual contexts. It will be interesting to observe if this is the case of the participants in my study, who are also NNS teachers working in monolingual contexts. Finally, Pahissa and Tragant (2009) show that the teachers in their study were motivated to teach grammar and use specific teaching techniques (e.g., L1-FL comparison and structure analysis in the case of Emma and Miquel) by the prospect of the selectivitat exam, which the students take at the end of secondary school to be admitted to university. This might indicate that decisions to use some strategies or methods may derive from more than simply experiential factors (e.g., contextual and cognitive aspects). Exploring the relationship among a variety of factors (PLLEs, KAG, GRPK, and CFs) is precisely the focus of the present study.

All in all, the work reviewed here indicates that the transfer of techniques and methods used in PLLEs is commonplace among both experienced and inexperienced teachers from a variety of teaching contexts. NNS practitioners in particular have been claimed to have more access to their PLLEs than their NS counterparts (further evidence in Borg, S., 2005 in 3.4.2). Teachers have also been observed to relate the transfer of techniques or lack thereof to prior positive or negative experiences respectively, though there is also evidence that some negative transfers are made against teachers’ will (Borg, M., 2005; Johnson, 1994). Finally, the transfers reported above appear to have been made exclusively from prior language learning experiences and not from other schooling experiences. Further insight is needed about how exposure to prior teaching models in other subjects, say maths and arts, may relate to current L2 teaching practices.

Some final comments are worth making about methodological issues in the work reported thus far. First, most of the studies in this section (Hayes, 2005, 2009a; Numrich, 1996; Pahissa and Tragant, 2009; Warford and Reeves, 2003; and Zeng and Murphy, 2007) do not involve class observation and the findings are based entirely on teachers’ accounts, which may not necessarily coincide with what actually occurs in the classroom. This methodology makes it impossible to examine the impact which teachers’ PLLEs may have on their teaching practices, the context in which transfers from these experiences are made, and the rationale behind teachers’ decisions to use certain teaching strategies. There is evidence, however, of the effectiveness of a variety of methods to explore the

nature, not the influence, of teachers’ PLLEs and pre-service beliefs (e.g.,

‘language learning history’ accounts, in-depth interviews, and writing conferences combined with ‘prompted’ interviews). Second, the focus has been predominantly on the PLLEs of NS teachers with little or no teaching experience. We seem to have, therefore, minimal insight into the nature and influence of experienced NNS teachers’ PLLEs. All this information appears to be highly relevant to my study to understand the methodological gap which it intends to fill by including class observation and stimulated recall and by examining a largely under-researched group.