By Scott Thornbury
What you do need to know in order to be able to teach?
The
question concerns not only teachers, but also teacher educators and methodology
writers, since the way we answer it impacts on the design of training programs
and their related materials. Do teachers need to know a lot about grammar, for
example? Second language acquisition? Educational theory? Curriculum design?
Developmental psychology? And so on.
Those who
study these things have hypothesized a number of different kinds of knowledge
that appear to be implicated in teachers’ decision-making, including subject
matter knowledge, general pedagogic knowledge (such as classroom management
skills), and contextual knowledge, such as knowledge of the curriculum, of the
students, of their social context and so on. At the same time, this slicing up
of the pie should not obscure the fact that, in the actual business of
teaching, these knowledge bases are deployed simultaneously and
interdependently, and constitute ‘an integrated and coherent whole’ (Tsui 2003
p.59). ‘It is the melding of these knowledge domains that is at the heart of
teaching’ (op. cit.p.58).
Nevertheless,
in the interests of teacher training and evaluation, and for the purposes
of course design, it is often necessary to tease apart these diverse
domains and organize them into a structured programme.
One such
attempt at isolating and itemizing the components of teacher knowledge in our
own field is embodied in the Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT), a teaching award offered by
Cambridge ESOL. Aimed primarily at teachers whose first language is not
English, and in response to a perceived need for affordable training
opportunities in a wide range of contexts, the TKT was originally ‘designed to
assess English language teachers’ knowledge about teaching, including concepts
related to language, language use and the background to and practice of English
language teaching and learning’ (Harrison 2007 p.30).
Initially conceived purely as a test of knowledge, the
TKT did not at first include an assessment of teaching ability in the
classroom. Yet there was evidence to suggest that, for some teachers at least,
the TKT was perceived as being as much a test of ability as of knowledge. An
impact study on the TKT in Uruguay, for instance, found that ‘even though TKT
is a test ofknowledge, 61% of respondents seemed to expect the test to
have an impact on their teaching
practice’ (Valazza 2008
p.22). This expectation may well derive from the widely-held belief that
knowledge does in fact equate with ability and that the more you know, the
better you teach — that, in short, the naming of parts is tantamount to being
able to use these parts. But, as Freeman (2002 p.11) observes, ‘One needs the
words to talk about what one does, and in using those words one can see it more
clearly. Articulation is not about words alone, however. Skills and
activity likewise provide ways through which new teachers can articulate and
enact their images of teaching’.
Just as
important, therefore, as identifying, naming, and describing the knowledge
bases of teaching is understanding how they are proceduralized in practice and
developed over time. It is now generally accepted that learning to teach
involves a dynamic interplay between knowing and doing. As Tsui (op. cit. p.65)
puts it, ‘teachers’ knowledge shapes their classroom practices, but their
classroom practices in turn shape their knowledge, as they reflect on their
practices during and after the action, and they come to a new understanding of
teaching’. For this reason, teacher training programs, whether
pre-service or in-service, ideally (some would say necessarily) involve some kind
of hands-on practical component, where planning-for-teaching, teaching, and
reflecting-on-teaching are integrated into a continuous developmental cycle.
To their
credit, Cambridge ESOL have now incorporated a practical test, involving 40
minutes of assessed teaching, into the packet of core modules on offer as part
of the TKT. This can only be a good thing. But ‘core’ does not mean
compulsory, and there is always the risk that, because of pragmatic and
economic considerations, the practical component will be side-lined, and the
‘knowledge modules’ alone will be considered a sufficient measure of classroom
teaching ability.
As publishers,
training and examining bodies scramble to address the very real needs of
language teachers worldwide, shouldn’t we be asking: What is the minimum a
professional development program should offer teachers?
References
Freeman,
D. 2002. ‘The hidden side of the work: Teacher knowledge and
learning to teach’. Language
Teaching, 35/1.
Harrison,
C. 2007. ‘Teaching Knowledge Test update — adoptions and courses’. Research
Notes, 29, University of
Cambridge ESOL Examinations.
Tsui, A, B.
M. 2003. Understanding
Expertise in Teaching: Case Studies of Second Language Teachers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Valazza, G.
2008. ‘Impact of TKT on language teachers and schools in Uruguay’.Research
Notes, 34, University of
Cambridge ESOL Examinations.
This post is an adapted version of a review of Jeremy
Harmer’s Essential Teacher Knowledge (Pearson, 2012) that appeared in
the ELT Journal, 67/1,
January 2013.
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