Western TESOL as a reference point

As the study progressed, I was able to identify ways in which I was using Weste TE“OL as a reference point and to see how it was influencing my understanding of the setting. A spe ifi e a ple of the professional aggage I ought ith e to the setti g is the i g ai ed Weste TE“OL pe spe ti e I had, and to a certain extent still have. This se tio looks i o e detail at , i itiall at least, so e hat fi ed Weste TE“OL influenced views on o u i ati e approaches to and related aspects of ELT, and the impact of this on the study.

At the outset of the study, I held specific views on what it meant to teach o u i ati el , e a i g a oadl eak e sio of the communicative approach , as discussed in Section 4.2. Within this view, I labelled stude t- e t ed as good and tea he - e t ed as ad, ithout e essa il ha i g a p e ise idea a out hat I understood these terms to mean, and considered the use of the L1 in the classroom as useful but at the same time not something that should be overly encouraged. I also had certain predetermined views on how things worked in the research setting, such as mentally labelling the general approach to ELT and teaching more broadly as

t aditio al , agai ithout full u de sta di g hat I meant by t aditio al .

Investigating the extent to which CLT was being used in classrooms in Kerala, I made the following notes during [Obs. 2]:

Very teacher dominated, little pair or group work. No personalising. Students not really engaged - boys muttering among themselves … the tea he o es o e to e to sa she s usi g the dis ussio ethod , ut the discussion is almost all in L1, though it is done in groups, with students turning around on benches to make groups of about ten. These groups then seem to self-divide into smaller sub- groups.

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Here, I am describing the setting through a Weste TE“OL lens, reflecting my perception of what a Weste TE“OL lass should look like, with an underlying expectation that teachers should be following a broadly CLT o othe Weste TE“OL approach, and an underlying belief that such an approach was the most appropriate one for the setting. This was something I was only able to acknowledge in later analysis of the o se atio otes he e I o e ted that I ha e CLT hat on here, I not sure why I t i g to appl this to lasses he e [i the setti g] . I was taking my experiences and presumptions about what a ( Western TESOL ) class should look like as a starting point to view the class in the research setting. I was clearly expecting a more student-centred lesson, with pair and group work, personalisation and students discussing things in the target language rather than their L1. I also seem to be assuming that stude t- e t ed as a o te t-free term, and therefore that hat Weste TE“OL o side s stude t- e t ed would be the same as what those working in TESOL in Kerala consider to be stude t- e t ed . I return to the concept of student- centredness later in this section and in Section 6.4.

This use of what I perceived as Weste TE“OL classroom traits as a reference point can be see in a number of other observations. For example, I noted:

The students are keen to participate, but opportunities seem limited to the teacher interacting with the students, i.e. the e s o pai o k. … The teacher sets up a ole-pla i ol i g d afti g a oti e, though the do t seem to have oles as su h. The teacher gives the stude ts t o i utes ehea sal/thi ki g ti e. Fou stude ts o e to the f o t to ole-pla a o versation about drafting a oti e. This is epeated ith th ee o e g oups of fou stude ts. … The tea he o ito s the g oups pe fo a es, but often interferes mid-performance to correct or improve their language, so what I expected to be quite a free activity was in fact highly controlled. [Obs. 6]

Students prepare a poster-style advert in groups. The group work is all carried out i L . The tea he does t t to get the to speak E glish. [O s. ]

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These comments suggest a somewhat fixed view of what a o u i ati e approach should look like, irrespective of context, highlighting aspects such as a need for student participation through pair and group work. They also suggest fixed views in terms of what particular activities such as a role-play should look like within a o u i ati e approach and fixed views on the use of L1. My views on the role of the teacher are also firmly located within my perception of what a teacher working with Weste TE“OL would be doing, expecting monitoring but not interference by the teacher in the role- play activity described above.

At the same time, I am equating classes that resemble my Weste TE“OL interpretation of o u i ati e teaching with good teaching. As I noted during [Obs. 22]:

Ele e ts of CLT - Students do mock interviews after reading a text about an astronaut. This seems to have been partly prepared previously. One pair comes out to the front to perform, then another two pairs do the same.

I then commented in field notes after the class that:

There was a performance element to this class. Is this an example of the pockets of progress that several intervie ees ha e e tio ed e e tl ? … ith the teacher doing activities that seem untypical of hat I seei g ge e ally. [Field notes, August 2010]

Che ki g a k o ho these se e al i te ie ees e e, [10] mentions po kets of p og ess hile [ ] e tio s i s all po kets, lots of tea he s a e doi g lots of good thi gs . Ho e e , i field notes above at least, the o d p og ess was being used to indicate a shift towards what I perceived as a o e Weste TE“OL approach to teaching. I began to realise that my initial distant eyes perspective, to a large extent subconsciously favouring this approach, was in conflict with my attempts to try to understand the setting for the study.

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The class is based on a reading passage about advertising. The teacher explains/exemplifies vocabulary connected with the passage – all in English! The class also feels more student-centred than other classes observed.

This comment, viewing features such as teaching English using English and classes being student-centred as being inherently good, is indicative of my i itial Weste TE“OL led view of good tea hi g . I suggesti g that all i E glish is a good thi g, I also overlook the fact that there can be a number of benefits in the judicious use of L1. Fu the , the se o d pa t of o e t efe i g to the lass ei g o e student-

e t ed sho s la k of a a e ess at the ti e both of the fuzziness of the term and that the concept of student-centredness itself has been questioned. For example, Holliday (2005), drawing on the work of Anderson (2003), questions how student- centred things really are when it is the teachers that choose what Anderson (2003, p.204, italics in original des i es as the what, how, when and with whom of the tea hi g .

Looking back at these observations, I can now see the contradictions in my views. On one hand, from the outset of the study I was conscious of coming from a different background and setting to that chosen for the study. Further, from the very start of the study, as discussed in Chapter 1, I had taken a view that a Weste TE“OL o u i ati e approach was not necessarily appropriate in this setting, though at the time not labelling the approach as Weste TE“OL . O the othe ha d, du i g the observations, I was subconsciously judging the classes and the teaching I was observing i the setti g i te s of this e sa e Weste TE“OL o u i ati e approach that I already suspected not to be appropriate. Further, I was equating some of the traits of this approach, such as using pair and group work, providing opportunities for students to use the la guage, e phasisi g ea i g o e fo a d so o , ith good tea hi g o est p a ti e , o side i g a Weste TE“OL o u i ati e approach as some kind of ideal to be aspired to.

Over time, I came to adopt a more pragmatic perspe ti e, seei g good tea hi g i terms of what encourages learning as opposed to seeing it in terms of following a particular approach. This is not to say that particular ideas or techniques, including those

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imported f o Weste TE“OL , a ot e suggested as possibilities, simply that particular ways of teaching should not be seen as inherently more desirable, whatever the context.