Professional development as autonomous enterprise

Despite the increased attention accorded teachers in the learning mode (cf. Chapter 2.5), much is still unknown about their learning processes. Thus far, language teachers have been subject to investigations regarding what they know, what they think and how they learn to teach53, but how they learn to learn for their own development has remained unstudied. Many scholars have continued to alert us to how much is still unclear or not addressed regarding the development of teachers. This is evident in some of the prominent terms that have been used in this regard, such as “The ‘unstudied’ problem” and “uncharted terrain” (Freeman 1996). These terms refer to untackled issues about teacher knowledge and teacher learning. Freeman (2002: 1) has pointed out the necessity of deepening our knowledge about teacher learning as a “core activity of teacher education”, and he included in his model of teaching (Freeman 1989: 33-6) two elements: the attitude and the awareness54 of the teachers (cf. Figure 2.11). A teacher’s attitude refers to the stance towards oneself and the activity of teaching, while awareness is defined as “the capacity to recognize and monitor the attention one is giving or has given to something”.

Figure 2.11 - Freeman’s descriptive model of teaching (Source: Freeman 1989: 36)

Freeman (ibid.33) attributes to awareness a superordinate function which can “account for the

53 _{A general limitation of these studies is that, due to the varieties of ways through which teachers learn about} teaching and learning, it is difficult to generalise about the quality of the learning experiences of the teachers (cf. Bransford et al. 2000: 190).

54 _{Awareness is a complex and much debated issue. For an extensive account of awareness please refer to} Polanyi (1958); to Schmidt (1995) for attention and awareness in language learning.

appropriate mobilization, interaction and integration of these constituents”. Through the core components of awareness, attitude, skills and knowledge, Freeman addresses important aspects of teaching as critical variables in teacher development, such as the teachers’ personal factors, (here, attitudes and awareness) and the necessity for the teachers of having more control over themselves. The internal monitoring work of the teachers thus becomes an integral part of the development process. However, some observations are necessary here. To begin with, this aspect of teacher learning has been neglected in subsequent accounts of teacher development and I agree with Freeman in assuming it to be as fundamental an aspect of teacher professional development as the self-construction process itself. However, only scarce attention has been paid to “understanding how the processes of teacher learning actually unfold” (Freeman 1996: 351), and interestingly enough, Freeman’s observation still appears to be true. Furthermore, despite Freeman's effort, some aspects are still not clear in Freeman’s account, such as what do attitudes mean exactly and what should awareness be directed at. Therefore, leaning on Kohonen’s (2000) plea about the necessity of making the learning process more ‘visible’55, it is time to heed his call and apply it to teachers' learning. What is puzzling about teacher development is the growing inventory of demands and expectations placed on the teachers – all are based on taken-for-granted and interrelated assumptions, as is demonstrated in the following:

1. Lifelong learning – Lifelong learning results in the implicit demand for teachers to be up- to-date with respect to recent developments in their field. Teachers are expected to engage in the pursuit of professional development throughout their career (Hill 1971; Camilleri Grima & Anthony Fitzpatrick 2003; Day 1999: 4). They are also expected to be able to change their attitudes (Kelly 2011: 31).

2. Reflective abilities – Teachers are expected to engage in a process of reflection on their professional activity in order to improve their practice (cf. Chapter 2.4.4).

3. Teachers as agents – Teacher agency refers to the teachers as active constructors of their own professional development (Johnson 2009; Valli 1993: 18; Calderhead 1993; Tickle 1994: 2; 203; Richards 1998: 65). This shift is associated with the insight that learning is a cognitive process which hinges on individual learning factors and presupposes an active role of the learner (Wenden 2002; Lantolf & Thorne 2006: 209; 214).

4. Autonomy – Implied in the new role of the learners as active participants in and constructors of their own learning, is a new learning competence based on the concept of

55 _{I am adapting the title of one of Kohonen' (2000) articles: “Student reflection in portfolio assessment: making} language learning more visible”.

autonomy, regarded as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning” (Holec 1981: 3). The core competences of autonomy involve being capable of defining ojectives, content and methods, and of monitoring and evaluating the process. The concept of autonomy further involves developing a critical stance toward oneself, with a strong accent on the importance of controlling one’s own learning process and on meta-cognition. However, this competence can not be taken for granted (Holec 1981: 22), just as learners’ ability to learn autonomously cannot be.

All of the assumptions listed above can be very clearly perceived in the many educational efforts and policies of the Council of Europe, or, as an example, in the report about teachers’ professional development from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The education and professional development of every teacher needs to be seen as a lifelong task.... (OECD 2010: 12)

… encouraging all teachers to be reflective practitioners, to be autonomous

learners in their own career-long professional development, to engage in

research, to develop new knowledge and be innovative (ibid. 13; bold emphasis added).

Under the characteristics of “high-quality teacher education and continuing professional development”(ibid. 14), the authors of the TALIS report mention “transversal competences” as necessary for teachers. What these consist of is not specified.

All the demands based on the assumptions outlined above have in common the concept of teachers as autonomous learners. However, some questions remain unanswered. Firstly, Loewenberg Ball & Cohen (1999: 4), point out what can be considered a historical intrinsic bias, namely, that in the common sense view of teaching, “sustained learning was not required for adequate performance”. If this corresponds to reality, then how should teachers be able to accomplish everything that is implied in the demands listed above and be in charge of their professional development in an autonomous way? The author argues therefore that both concepts “autonomous” + “learners” are not self-evident when they are applied to the teachers. In addition, regrettably enough, despite the increase in interest regarding autonomy, most of the work is focused on learners’ autonomy, leaving its implications for teachers and teachers’ experiences of autonomy underdeveloped (Lamb 2008: 6). Furthermore, the concepts of agency or of ownership concerning one’s own professional development do not explain why certain teachers do progress, develop and are able to change their practice while some others do not. Finally, the insights gained from reviewing the two bodies of research on Teachers’ Competences and Teacher Development (cf. Chapter 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5) show fundamental points of overlap in the domain of meta-cognition, as suggested by the inclusion

of self-regulatory56 abilities as a prerequisite of professional competence (Weinert 2001; Jung 2010), as well as a prerequisite of teachers’ readiness to perceive the need for change (Lipowsky 2010). Nevertheless, what are the implications for teachers?

The questions left open by the review of literature on teacher development and teachers’ competences are graphically summarised here:

Hidden assumptions:

Teachers as autonomous learners Self-regulation and metacognition

Figure 2.12 - Hidden assumptions in teacher professional development

The perspective of self-regulation has not yet been exploited nor fully integrated into theories of teacher professional development. It is however the perspective which it is suggested in this study for gaining some more specific insights in order to investigate the contribution of the teachers to the development task. I hypothesise that what is expected of the teachers rests on many invisible demands and possibly on one specific competence (beyond the other teachers’ competences addressed in Chapter 2.2), basically on a meta-competence in its own right: Professional Development Competence57.

From this hypothesis the fundamental question arises: What are the essential features of this competence? When viewing the task of teacher development from this perspective, how do language teachers approach their own professional development? Given that the underlying processes involved are not directly observable, what would be an appropriate operationalisation of the construct? As a meta-competence responsible for self-regulation,

56 _{Self-regulation is used as synonym of autonomy. For the use of these terms, cf. the following section in this} chapter.

57_{As Weinert (2001: 53; 56) captures in his extensive discussion of the concept of competence, the more general} a competence, the smaller its contribution and the lower its effectiveness in guiding concrete learning and thinking processes. Because of this consideration and because the processes behind the professional learning of language teachers have not been studied sufficiently, I argue that it is necessary to advance our understanding from the more general available insights to a more specific 'teacher professional development competence'.

Teacher

there is a strong accent on meta-cognition, which is intended as the conscious control over learning (Brown 1987; Kluwe 1987): as such it governs cognitive functioning (Bokaerts 1999; Wenden 2001; Flavell et al. 2002; Zimmerman 2000; Schmitz 2001). The way this meta- competence involved in the task of teachers’ development is conceptualised in the present study relies mainly on what studies about meta-cognition have suggested, and on Holec’s (1981) concept of autonomous learning. Two central concepts will be introduced for this purpose: autonomy and meta-cognition. They will be addressed in the next section, following the necessary clarification of the terms used.

Clarification of the terms

One fundamental distinction regards the use of the terms: ‘autonomy’, ‘self-regulation’ and ‘self-direction’ are some of the most commonly used terms58. ‘Self-regulation’ and ‘autonomy’ are used in the cognitive literature, whereas ‘self-direction’ is preferred in the literature on second language learning, as Wenden (2001: 50) helps to explain. Wenden (2001: 50) also shows how they refer to the same processes, such as those “by which learners plan how they will approach a task, their task analysis and how they actually monitor its implementation”. In Holec’s (1981: 3) seminal definition, autonomy is viewed as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning”, while ‘self-direction’ refers to the kind of learning that results from having acquired autonomy, basically the way in which learning is accomplished (Pemberton et al. 1996: 3). Despite the overlap of meaning, with the accent in the concept of ‘autonomy’ being more on the ability (since Holec’s classical definition), and both terms ‘self-direction’ and ‘autonomy’ being used in adult education, these two terms seem better suited for application to teacher learning for the purpose of this study.

Another preliminary consideration regards the relationship between metacognition and autonomy. Although they sometimes recur as synonyms (Gourgey 2001: 18), they are not equal. As Wenden explains (2001: 50), in cognitive research, metacognition is thought to be critical in the self-regulation of learning (cf. also Mayer 2001: 89). Self-regulation can thus be seen as the superordinate term.

The following section will briefly define the central concepts of autonomy, and then proceed to examine the essential aspects of meta-cognition.