Training, Development and the Challenge of Supporting a Heterogeneous Body

By way of an initial general observation, Richards and Nunan (1990: xi) argue that “the field of teacher education is a relatively un-explored one in both second and foreign language teaching. The literature on teacher education in language teaching is slight compared with the literature on issues such as methods and techniques for classroom teaching”. In Qatar’s Independent Schools as is the case elsewhere, teachers who may be required to teach language through academic subjects can be at a disadvantage in terms of their actual level of preparation in those subjects. Freeman (2001) states that second language teacher education describes the field of professional activity through which individuals learn to teach a second language. This professional activity is generally referred to as teacher training, while the professional activities that are undertaken by experienced teachers, mainly on individual basis, and which may be voluntary, are referred to as teacher development. In this study, teacher education refers to the sum of experiences and activities through which individuals learn to be second language teachers. Those learning to teach, whether they are new to the profession, or more experienced, whether in pre or in-service contexts, are referred to as teacher-learners (Kennedy, 1998: xi).

Freeman (2001:73) notes that teacher education is predicated on the idea that knowledge about teaching and learning can be transmitted through the process of organised professional education to develop the individual skills repertoire of teachers. This knowledge consists of subject matter and pedagogy. This means that pre-service teacher education programmes may provide teacher- learners with certain knowledge including general theories about language learning, descriptive grammar approaches to particular languages, and pedagogic methods and models.

Table 5.1 shows a form of transition between teacher training i.e. pre-service education, and teacher development (i.e. in-service programmes). It also shows that there are certain features which appear to be common in both, suggesting that the two are not as mutually exclusive as they might first appear.

This is important because as we will see in Chapter 7, most of the women ESL teachers in this study are generally untrained and responsible for teaching and learning in areas where they are essentially unqualified and as I have noted already, they come from a wide range of national, language and other backgrounds. In examining their needs, and in trying to ensure they make as close to an optimum contribution to Education for a New Era as possible, it strikes me that the Supreme Education Council’s school support organisations need to assess teacher needs based on where they are in their overall development, ensuring that they address shortcomings in teachers’ experience and expertise i.e. plan and deliver professional development according to identified teacher needs, rather than making assumptions about other factors.

Table 5.1 Teacher Training and Teacher Development by Freeman (2001:77)

‘what’ Content

‘how’ process

‘to what effect’ impact/outcome

Teacher

Training •_• Defined externally_{Usually determined beforehand}

• Providing access to knowledge base • Transmitting knowledge and skills • Organising access to new content • Externally assessed • Bounded • Often drawing on publicly-demonstrated evidence

In Common _• External process of presentation/articulation triggers

• Internal process or incorporation

• Use leads to usefulness

Teacher

Development • Usually generated through experience

• Determined by/in relation to participants • Sense making, using articulated experience to construct new understandings • Self-assessed • Open-ended

• Often using self- reported evidence

Clearly in an ideal world, teachers would undergo broadly comparable types of pre-service education and training meaning that approaches to later professional development might be more consistent and uniformly applied. However, this ideal is far from current reality, where pre- service programmes vary considerably within nations, and more so between nations. What this means though is that teachers, including the ESL teachers in this study, will tend to gain optimum benefit from professional development programmes that build on the knowledge, skills and understandings they gained in pre-service programmes.

While professional development need by no means be a linear activity, i.e. it does not need to follow directly from pre-service experience, it does strike me that more benefits will flow if those delivering professional development are aware of the sorts of knowledge, skills and understandings teachers have. Within this context what is as important is that organisations offering professional development avoid making assumptions about the levels of knowledge,

skills and understandings teachers have and/or assumptions about the nature and extent of pre- service programmes which may be vastly different. In short, my argument is that professional development will be more successful if it is tailored to teachers’ needs, avoids assumptions about their pre-service education and training, and does not presume that the models obtaining in one country apply to another.

This issue takes on particular import when, as shall be shown in Chapters 7 and 8, the women ESL teachers in this study comprise individuals from 25 different nationalities, come from a wide range of academic disciplines which seldom include teaching English as a second language or teaching English more generally, and who are teaching English because they are native speakers or have some facility in the language.

I am arguing that whileit may be sometimes useful to differentiate ‘training’ from ‘development’, maintaining this separation is not always helpful, as I will show for women ESL teachers involved in this study. Without dwelling overly on the circumstances of ESL teachers, it is fair to say that they come from a diverse range of educational and professional backgrounds, some may have undertaken pre-service programmes for English as second language teaching, for others their pre-service experience is entirely different, some were engaged for their apparent capacity to use English even though their academic qualifications are not related, and some are not native English speakers. The complexity of these issues becomes far more evident in Chapter 7.

What this means is that professional development for this heterogeneous group of women ESL teachers must inevitably combine aspects of both ‘training’ and ‘development’: they may need programmes addressing their present responsibilities as ESL teachers and thus enable them to develop their knowledge and pedagogy, particularly where they may lack exposure and training

in either teaching ESL or teaching per se; and they may need programmes addressing their wider responsibilities as teachers and agents of change within very different schools which seek to enable them to grow as teacher–practitioners in terms of teaching and of themselves as teachers. Thus, at the same time, the women ESL teachers in this study may need programmes that cater for and address quite different requirements. Moreover, given the heterogeneity of backgrounds and experience among ESL teachers in this study, it seems to me that individual or ‘one-off’ approaches to professional development are likely to be less successful, and indeed as I noted earlier, professional development gains are larger when part of a wider, more fully articulated programme designed to meet teachers’ needs. What this suggests is that unless there is continued professional development, differences in approach and outcome will not only remain, but may actually be exacerbated. This will be evident from the discussion of the data in Chapter 8.

Since ESL teachers in Qatar’s Independent Schools are required to teach English language as well as teaching the content of other subjects such as mathematics and science via English, this places extra demands on them. Hence, if Qatar’s teachers are to become professionalised practitioners, who actively engage in reflective review and analysis of their own practices and behaviours, then they will need assistance and guidance in making what is a substantial transition from their own experience of pedagogy as learners. My experience as an educator in Qatar, including in Ministry of Education schools and institutions, and my wider knowledge of circumstances in other Arabic speaking countries, suggests that many current ESL teachers will have been working in schools with quite limited approaches to teaching and learning pedagogy. Moreover, as I have found, and has been reported in UNDP papers on education in the Middle East and North Africa region (UNDP, 2003), many ESL teachers, particularly those from Arabic speaking backgrounds will have encountered and worked in schools where teaching and learning

is firmly rooted in rote learning and recitation, where there is largely top-down management, and where promotion and esteem is very largely based on seniority rather than competence.