Topic:- Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE)
Name
:- Upadhyay Devngana S.
Subject
:- Second Language Teaching (ELT)
Topic:-
Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE)
Roll
no :- 05
Submitted
to :- MKB University
Guide
by :- Parth Batt
Second Language Teacher Education
·
Introduction :-
Second
Language (L2) teacher education describes the field of professional activity
through which individual learns to teach L2S. In terms commonly used in the
field, these formal activities are generally referred to as teacher training,
while those that are undertaken by experienced teachers, primarily on a
voluntary individual basis, are referred to as teacher development. I return to
this issue of nomenclature later on at this point, however the reader should
understand that the tern to be language teachers. Those learning to teach –
whether they new to the profession or experienced, whether in pre – or in –
service contexts – are referred to as teacher learners.
The shifting ground
of terminology has plagued L2 teacher education for at least the past 30 years.
The four – word concept has tended to be an awkward integration of subject –
matter and professional process. In this hybrid the person of the teacher and
the processes of learning to teach have often been overshadowed. As the
relative emphasis has shifted the focus among these four words has migrated
from the consent, the ‘Second language’, to the person of the ‘teacher’, to the
process of learning or ‘education’, thus capturing the evolution in the concept
of L2 teacher education in the field. Until the latter half of the 1980, the
emphasis was on the contributions of various academic disciplines e.g. :-
Linguistics, psychology and
literature
To what made an individual an ‘L2
teacher’.
“The field of teacher education is a
relatively
Underexplored 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”
·
The Gap Between Teacher Education And Teacher Learning :-
It is ironic that L2
teacher education has concerned itself very little with how people actually
learn to teach. Rather, the focus has conventionally been on the subject matter
– what teachers should know and to a lesser degree on pedagogy – how they
should teach it. The notion that there is a learning process that undergirded,
f not directs, teacher education is a very recent one. There are many reasons
for this gap between teacher education and teacher learning. Some have to do
with the research paradigms and methods that have been valued and used in
producing our current knowledge. In the case of teacher education, there
paradigms raise questions about how teaching is defined and studied in
education and how teacher education inks to the study of teaching. Other
reasons have to do with history. In the case of L2 teacher education these
reasons have raised the issue of how the so – called ‘parent’ disciplines of
applied linguistics – cognitive and experimental psychology – and first language
(L1)acquisition have defined what language teachers need to know and be able to
do. Still other reasons have had to do with professionalization and attempts to
legitimize teaching through the incorporation of research – driven, as
contrasted with practice – derived, knowledge to improve teaching performance.
·
Teacher Education From Knowledge Transmission To Knowledge Construction
:-
In
general terms however it is fair to say that teacher education has been
predicated on the idea that knowledge about teaching and learning can be
transmitted through processes of organized professional education to form
individuals as teachers. This knowledge has been broadly defined as consisting
of subject matter and pedagogy. From this standpoint, pre – service teacher
education programmers provide teacher – learners with certain knowledge –
usually in the form of general theories about language learning prescriptive
grammatical information about language, and pedagogical method – that will be
applicable to any teaching context. Leaching, to teach has meant learning about
teaching, usually in the context of the teacher education programme, and then
actually doing it in another context. The bridge to practice has come in
observing teachers and in practicing classroom teaching behaviors overtime in
other classroom contexts during their first years of teaching.
There are many
problems with this knowledge – transmission view. Principally, it depends on
the transfer of knowledge and skills from the teacher education programme to
the classroom in order to improve teaching. Thus, this view overlooks, or
discounts the fact that the teacher learning takes place in on – the – job
initiation into the practices of teaching. Further it does not account for what
practicing teachers know about teaching and how they learn more through
professional teacher education than they receive in – service, during their
teaching careers.
Since the 1980s
teacher education has moved from this view of knowledge transmission to one of
knowledge construction in which teacher – learn build their own understanding
of language teaching through their experience by integrating theory, research
and opinion with empirical and reflective study of their own classroom
practices. To understand this change from knowledge transmission to knowledge
construction.
·
Background and Research
For many reasons
there tended to be very little substantial research in teacher education, both
in education generally and in the field of language teaching. From the 1960s to
1980s the process – product parading which dominated educational research
focused researchers on how specific classroom or curricular processes generated
particular learning outcomes or products. In language teaching throughout the
1970s, process – product research combined behaviorism to emphasis a view of
teaching that focused on activity and technique. Effective classrooms were
those in which teachers successfully applied learned behaviors to condition
their student’s mastery of language forms. Teacher education if it was thought
of at all, was viewed as a techniques undertaking of transmitting knowledge to
modify teacher’s classroom behaviors and thus improve student learning. Indeed
most teacher preparation in language teaching concentrated on literature;
little attention was paid to classroom pedagogy. Thus, L2 teacher education was
in many senses an invisible undertaking, unframed by its theory and
undocumented by its own research.
·
The questions at stake are substantial :
1. What is the nature of teaching and of
teacher’s knowledge?
2. How it is most adequately documented
and understood?
3. How is it created influenced or
changed through the interventions of teacher education?
Although there were hundreds
of studies reported which sought to assess the impact of training teachers to
do particular things, very few researchers actually looked at the process of
teacher education as it happened over time and at how teachers and student
teachers interpreted and gave meaning to the pre – service and professional
development program they experienced.
·
The Role of Input: Teacher Education strategies
As mentioned in the
first section confusing nomenclature has been the Achilles heel of L2 teacher
education. The clearest instance the co-mingling of the terms teacher training,
teacher development and teacher education. Like, any form of the notion that
some type of input is introduced or created which then has an impact on the
learner. Further, input can be examined for what it is, its content and for how
it is introduced or created the process used, and for the impacts or outcomes
it generates. This tripartite organization of what is taught, how and to what
effect can serve as a basic organizing frame to examine educational input.
However it is important to note that some research on classroom teaching has
raised complications with casting content and process – or subject-matter and
teaching method- as independent of one another, by pointing out that from the
student’s perspective the content or the lesson and how it is presented are
often largely inseparable. Nevertheless, this tripartite structure of content
process and outcome continues to be a useful way of thinking about input in
teacher education.
In the case of L2
teacher education content and process combine to create two broad strategies
for input: Teacher training and teacher development.
“In teacher training the content
Is generally defined externally
And transmitted to the teacher
learner
Through various processes.”
Outcomes are assessed on external,
often behavioral, evidence that the learner has mastered the content. In a
typical postgraduate teacher education program, for example, the faculty
defines the curriculum which teacher-learners must master. Often this language
on learning on teaching and so on. The content may be presented through
conventional processes- such as lectures, reading and the like- or through more
participant-oriented processes – such as project work, case studies and so on.
The assessment of impact is usually measured through some form of demonstration
– such as exams academic articles or portfolios. In short term teacher training
courses, the same broad typology holds.
In contrast in teacher
development the content generally stems from the teacher learners who generate
it from experience. Thus, the processes engage teacher learners in some form of
sense making or construction of understandings out of what they already know
and can do. Because it depends on teacher-learner generated understanding the
impacts of teacher development are usually self-assessed through reflective
practices. Typical teacher development activities can include teacher study
group’s practitioner research or self-development activities. In a teacher
study group for example, the triggered by a reading or other external input.
The emphasis however is on how teacher-learners cannot the input to their own
knowledge experience and ongoing practice. Assessment focuses on the value to
teacher-learner of the development activity. Given the emphasis on teacher
learner’s experiences, teacher development is generally viewed as an in-service
strategy which can take advantage of the background and teachers. Ti is often
used in the context of peer-led staff development, peer mentoring or coaching,
and other self-organized actives.
There are several
misconceptions that tend to surround these two strategies. First they are often
presented as dichotomous and mutually exclusive, which they are not. Both
training and development depend on information which is external to teacher-learners,
when they then incorporate through internal process into their own thinking and
practice. The distinction is training; the information usually originates from
sources external to the teacher-learners. In development, the information is
often externalized from the teacher-learner’s experiences through collaborative
work, reflective processes and so on A second misconception is that training
and development are often couched in sequential terms. Although it is true the
training tends to be a pre-service strategy, while development is more widely
used in in-service contexts, most effective L2 teacher education programmers
blend the two. Finally the nomenclature is not strictly applied so people may
speak of being.” teacher trainers’’ when in fact as teacher educators they use
both strategies.
·
The Role of Institutional Context : Teacher Education In Place
Acknowledging the existence of
prior knowledge in teacher education has led directly to serious
reconsideration of the role of institutional contexts in learning to teach.
Clearly teacher learner’s ideas about teaching stem from their experiences as
students in the context of schools; similarly their new practices as teachers
are also shaped by their institutional environments. The question is what is
the role of schools in learning to teach? In general, little attention has been
paid to how the sociocultural forces and values in there institutional
environments can shape impede encourage or discourage new teachers pre-service
teacher education has treated schools as places where teacher learners go to
practice teaching in practice or internships, and eventually to work Classrooms
students and schools have been seen as settings in which teacher-learners can
implement what they are learning or have learned in formal teacher education.
From a pre-service standpoint there assumptions and misconceptions have been
rarely tested since teacher-learners leave their pro-grammas and go on to teach
with- relatively little formal feedback on the validity of the connection. The
dramatic attrition rate among, focused that teachers had ‘fitting into’ schools
as institutions.
·
The Role of Time : Teacher education Over time
If schools as institutions provide
teacher education with a context in space, teacher-learner’s personal and
professional lives offer a similar context in and though time. Prior to the
work of Lorie and other, the notion of teacher’s professional life spans was
not a major concern. Major research and conceptualizations by Berliner, Huber
man and others served to establish the concept of career. Further this work
pointed to definite stages in the development of knowledge and practice which
could inform teacher education practices. It is clear that at different
professional interests and concerns. If for example as this research shows,
novice teachers tend to be concerned with carrying out their images of teaching
by managing the classroom and controlling students, it would perhaps make sense
to focus professional support and in service education although not exclusively
on these concern themselves with the purposes and objectives of their teaching
and how they may be accomplishing them. Thus, in-service education which draws
on development strategies of reflection, self-assessment, inquiry and
practitioner research maybe more suited for these learners of teaching.
·
Conclusion
There has been an assumption
in teacher education that the delivery of programmers and activities is the key
to success. In this view, learning to teach is seen as a byproduct of capable
teacher learners and teacher educators, and well – structured designs and
materials. Thus, in a broad sense, teacher education has depended largely on
training strategies to teach people how to do the work of teaching. Underlying
there aspects of delivery, however, lies a rich and complex process of learning
to teach. Focusing at this level on the learning process, as distinct from the
delivery mechanisms, is changing our understanding of teacher education in
important ways. This shift is moving l2 teacher education from its concern over
what content and pedagogy teacher should master and how to deliver there in
preparation and in-service programmer to the more fundamental and as yet
uncharted questions of how language teaching is learned and therefore how it
can best be taught. We know that teacher education matters; the question is
how, and how to improve it.
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