In-service Teacher Education - Roberto Amorim

ii

AN INVESTIGATION OF TEACHERS' REACTIONS TO AN INSERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM BASED ON REFLECTION AND ACTION RESEARCH

BY ALTAMIR ROBERTO MACHADO AMORIM Licenciado, Centro Universitário de Belo Horizonte, 1974 Curso de Pós Graduação, Centro Universitário de Belo Horizonte, 2003

THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Second Language in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005

Urbana, Illinois

iii ABSTRACT

Conferences on language teacher education are being held all over the world displaying marked emphases on inservice teacher education and programs that are teacher-learner-centered,

context-sensitive,

and

which,

through

reflection

and

collaborative action research, allow teachers to further their own professional development and their knowledge about the teaching processes. In view of such interest, and the still scarce amount of published data-based evidence on the effectiveness of such programs, particularly from the point of view of the teachers, this study investigated teachers’ reactions to a program that incorporates those characteristics. More specifically, it investigated how teachers acknowledged the impact of reflection on their beliefs and practice, which activities teachers thought were more motivating and beneficial to them, what specific and practical learning issues emerged from such a program, and how much this approach contributed to giving teachers a sense of ownership of their developmental process. For this investigation, four Teacher Assistants from the Division of English as an International Language of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign participated in a 10-week program based on reflection and action research devised after suggestions from the literature. The findings indicate that teachers, without downplaying the importance of instruction on theory, see reflection and action research as effective tools for development, and see this approach to teacher education as more beneficial to their professional development than programs heavily based on theory and methods.

vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES...................................................................................................

ix

LIST OF TABLES.....................................................................................................

x

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION...........................................................................

1

The Choice of the Topic......................................................................................

1

The Scarcity of Data-based Research on the Effectiveness of Teacher Education Approaches and Practices..................................................................

1

The Effectiveness of Preservice Compared to Inservice Teacher Education…..

2

Characteristics of Inservice Teacher Education..................................................

3

A Trend toward Teacher-Learner-Centeredness, Reflection, and Action Research..............................................................................................................

4

The Purpose........................................................................................................

5

The Framework...................................................................................................

5

Specific Research Objectives and Organization.................................................

6

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW...............................................................

7

Recent History and Trends in TESOL Teacher Education Research…………..

7

Preservice and Inservice Language Teacher Education......................................

9

Common Problems with Inservice Teacher Education.......................................

11

From Top-Down to Teacher-Learner Centered Inservice Education..................

12

Reflection in Language Teacher Education Programs........................................

14

Broadening the Scope of Reflective Activities...................................................

17

From Reflection to Action...................................................................................

18

Teachers and Research........................................................................................

19

Comparison of the Program Used for Data Collection in this Project with another Tri-Dimensional Framework Suggested in the Literature......................

23

Empirical Research on the Effectiveness of Reflection in Teacher Education...

25

vii

CHAPTER 3 – PROCEDURES, MATERIALS, AND METHODS…………….

26

The Research Questions......................................................................................

26

The Participants...................................................................................................

26

A Descriptive and Non-Judgmental Approach...................................................

27

Material and Procedures......................................................................................

28

Data Analysis......................................................................................................

39

CHAPTER 4 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.....................................................

46

Phase One: Reflecting on Basic Beliefs and Comparing Them with Practice....

47

Findings and commentaries regarding the essays of Phase One..................

48

Findings and commentaries regarding Group Discussion 1........................

56

Findings and commentaries regarding the YES/NO Survey Questionnaire

64

Final Evaluation of Phase One.....................................................................

68

Phase Two: From Reflection to Action.............................................................

69

Findings and commentaries regarding the essays of Phase Two.................

70

Findings and commentaries regarding Group Discussion 2........................

76

Findings and commentaries regarding the activities ranking......................

82

Final Evaluation of Phase Two.....................................................................

86

Phase Three: Planning Intervention..................................................................

87

Part II of Group Discussion 2 – Choosing topics for the action research plans..............................................................................................................

88

Findings and commentaries regarding the essays of Phase Three...............

90

Findings and commentaries regarding the Final Survey..............................

96

Findings and commentaries regarding Group Discussion 3........................

99

Final Evaluation of Phase Three..................................................................

103

viii

CHAFTER 5 – CONCLUSION................................................................................

105

The Answers to the Research Questions.............................................................

106

Pedagogical Implications....................................................................................

113

Limitations of this Study and Suggestions for Further Research........................ 114 Some Final Notes about Reflection..................................................................... 116 Some More Ideas of Reflective Activities..........................................................

116

Final Evaluation of the Findings.........................................................................

117

Final Comments..................................................................................................

118

BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................................................... .

120

APPENDIXES………………....................................................................................

127

Appendix A – The Schedule.............................................................................

127

Appendix B – Questionnaire A: What You Believe.........................................

128

Appendix C – Questionnaire B: What You Do................................................

129

Appendix D – Questionnaire C: (Essay Question)...........................................

130

Appendix E – YES/NO Questionnaire Form and Answers.............................. 132 Appendix F – Reflective Activities…..............................................................

136

Appendix G – Activities-Ranking Form...........................................................

160

Appendix H – Action Research Plans...............................................................

161

Appendix I – Final Survey Form.....................................................................

164

Appendix J – Reflective Essays of Phase One (Coded)..................................

165

Appendix K – Reflective Essays of Phase Two (Coded).................................. 173 Appendix L – Reflective Essays of Phase Three (Coded)................................ 183 Appendix M – The Coding Matrix....................................................................

188

ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Comparison of Two Frameworks..............................................................

24

Figure 3.1: Conceptual Map.........................................................................................

29

x LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Reflective Questions of Phase One as They Were Paired......................

31-32

Table 3.2: List of Reflective Activities....................................................................

35

Table 3.3: Data Sources and Methods of Analysis..................................................

41

Table 4.1: Results of the Ranking of Activities.......................................................

83

Table 4.2: Chart of the Average Preference for the Reflective Activities………...

84

Table 4.3: Final Survey: Weighted Average............................................................

97

1

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION A recent trend in second language teaching is a movement away from methods and other external or top-down views of teaching toward an approach that seeks to understand teaching in its own terms. (Richards & Lockhart, 1996, p. ix)

The choice of the topic for this research project was born from a sense of need, on the part of the researcher, of an inservice teacher development program that was context sensitive, teacher-learner centered, not prescriptive, not overloaded with irrelevant theory, motivating, and yet effective in promoting professional growth. A search in the literature of TESOL resulted in a significant number of apparently effective suggestions for and approaches to teacher development programs, and much enthusiasm over issues such as reflective teaching and action research but, surprisingly, few examples of structured programs that were transferable or adaptable, as well as little empirical evidence that such programs work. The researcher then decided to design a framework that put together all those characteristics and investigated their effectiveness from the point of view of the participant teacher. In other words, an investigation of how teachers react to an inservice teacher education program that relies entirely on reflection and action research.

The Scarcity of Data-Based Research on the Effectiveness of Teacher Education Approaches and Practices Richards and Nunan (1990) observed that the field of EFL/ESL teacher education was relatively underexplored up to that time. As evidence of this fact, he stated that few

2 of the articles published on this field in the previous twenty years were data-based, that little data had been gathered on the kinds of programs that worked and didn’t work, and that there had been a reluctance to subject assumptions behind current approaches and practices to critical scrutiny. Bernhardt and Hammadou (1987) cited 78 papers published on this topic in the preceding 10 years and pointed out that the vast majority constituted straightforward descriptions of programs or aspects of them, or pieces of practical advice which they called, “perceptions of experienced foreign language educators,” (p. 293) and that only eight papers focused on data-based research. Commenting on the scarcity of conceptual or research-wise attention paid to the development of teachers in second languages, Lange (1990) observed that the research data-base in second language teacher education at all levels is pitifully small. Although there have been a few important publications in the field of EFL/ESL teacher education after the early 1990s, such as a special edition of TESOL Quarterly in the Autumn of 1998, the fact is that empirical research in this field is still scarce.

The Effectiveness of Preservice Compared to Inservice Teacher Education Commenting on the clinical experience practicum of ESL graduate programs, and on a survey conducted by Richards and Crookes (1987), Lange (1990) noted that although the importance of such programs has been increasingly recognized, their effectiveness has yet to be determined. Given the limited time of such preservice experiences, particularly in graduate programs, the translation of the theoretical learning into practical application for the classroom is also limited and, as a result, Lange concludes, teachers may be learning more on the job. Such a conclusion, which is shared

3 by many other researchers (Renyi, 1996; Hawley & Valli, 1996; Sykes, 1996; Lewis, 1997; Bailey, Curtis, & Nunan, 1998; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999; among others), points to the importance of on-the-job learning and to the need of structured inservice teacher education programs to facilitate such learning.

Characteristics of Inservice Teacher Education Even structured inservice teacher education programs, however, often carry a front loading format, as Freeman (1994) noted, and share the same shortcomings of academic programs with an over emphasis on theoretically oriented workshops and seminars. Blair (1982), Oller & Richard-Amato (1983), and Larsen-Freeman (1986) observed that very often such programs are characterized by an obsession with methods which puts them in route of collision with up-to-date theory from college/university teacher development programs (Lange, 1990). Kumaravadivelu (2001) defends a context-sensitive language teacher education that enables teachers to construct their own theory of practice and treats learners, teachers, and teacher educators as coexplorers. For such he proposed a postmethod pedagogy based on the argument that teacher education must go beyond the limitations of the transmission model and that if it is to be relevant, teacher education programs must be sensitive to “a particular group of teachers teaching a particular group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in a particular sociocultural milieu,” (p. 538). Jack Richards, in the preface to the book Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms (Richards and Lockhart, 1996), states that “a recent trend in second language teaching is a movement away from methods and other external or top-down views of teaching toward an approach that seeks

4 to understand teaching in its own terms,” (p. ix). They suggest that traditional inservice teacher workshops designed to improve teaching skills often have only short-term effects and rarely involve teachers in an ongoing process of examining their teaching.

A Trend toward Teacher-Learner-Centeredness, Reflection, and Action Research Richards and Lockhart (1996) observe that, in order to change, inservice teacher education should focus on the instructors themselves, who would take the initiative and explore what they do and why they do it in search of a better understanding of their individual teaching processes. In the process, teachers observe themselves, collect data about their own classroom performance and results, and use that data for self-evaluation, questioning their attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, and teaching practices, in order to change and grow professionally. In this inquiry-based approach to reflective teaching, teachers are to answer questions whose answers will help them evaluate their teaching, question their assumptions, decide if aspects of their own teaching could be changed, develop strategies for change, and monitor the effects of implementing these strategies. Johnston and Irujo (2004) noted that studies of observation and supervision are now investigating new models that move away from transmission of information about good or bad teaching (e.g., Fanselow, 1988). They added that conceptualizations of inservice opportunities have been enriched by the work done around reflective teaching and action research (Edge, 2001; Edge & Richards, 1993; Kamhi-Stein & Galván, 1997; and others) and that there is a growing group of studies in which teacher educators further their own professional development, as well as knowledge about the processes of teacher education,

5 through reflective studies and action research (Mercado, 1996; Bailey, et al., 1998; Irujo, 2000; Johnston, 2000). Conferences on Language Teacher Education are being held all over the world displaying marked emphasis on inservice teacher education and programs that are teacher-learner-centered, and which promote reflection and collaborative action (research). One example is the International Conference on Language Teacher Education, sponsored by the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota which has been held once a year since 1999 and whose themes give a clear idea of that focus.

The Purpose Given such interest in a teacher-learner centered, context-sensitive language teacher education (Kumaravadivelu, 2001), the marked emphasis on reflection and action research (Richards & Lockhart, 1996; Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999; Burns, 1999; and others), and the still scarce amount of data-based evidence that such programs work or do not work (Richards & Nunan, 1990), this project aims at investigating the overall perception teachers have of a program that incorporates those characteristics and allow for teachers to take responsibility for their developmental process.

The Framework A 10-week inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research was devised following suggestions by Richards and Lockhart (1996); Gebhard and Oprandy (1999); Richards and Nunan (1990); Bailey, et al. (1998); Burns (1999) and

6 others. The program – essentially teacher-learner centered – started with teachers individually, continued with small group discussions, and finished with a practical and objective collaborative action-research activity. In the process, the teacher-learners were guided into acknowledging their beliefs, questioning them, comparing them with actual practice, reflecting on both – first individually and then in small groups, – and acting upon them for awareness and eventual change.

Specific Research Objectives and Organization The four specific research objectives (SRO) of this thesis are listed below. The way they are sequenced here follows a conceptual order, although this order may not coincide with the way in which the data was collected. SRO1: to investigate the impact of self and group reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices; SRO2: to investigate types of reflective activities that are more motivating for teachers; SRO3: to investigate types of specific learning issues that may emerge from an inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research; SRO4: to investigate the overall perception teachers have of a program based on reflection and action research. The initial research questions, which can be found in the Material, Procedures, and Methods chapter, refer to these specific objectives. No specific hypotheses were raised, as they were expected to emerge from the data.

7 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter starts by reviewing the recent history and trends in language teacher education to contextualize the design of the inservice program utilized for data collection in this research. It covers the distinction between preservice and inservice teacher education, pointing out some common problems regarding the first and a shift of emphasis toward the second. As the program designed for this research is based on reflection and action research, this review also addresses the emphasis on teacher-learner centered approaches, the suggested use of reflection and action-research in language teacher education programs, the kinds of reflective techniques suggested in the literature, and some issues related to teachers’ research, particularly, collaborative action research. The purpose of this review is to argue that there is still a need for research that investigates how teachers perceive the effectiveness of a program that puts together most of the principles describe above.

Recent History and Trends in TESOL Teacher Education Research Until around the mid 1970s, a concern with the credibility of the teacher profession in general led to the assumption that good teacher performance was the result of acquired research-driven knowledge (Holmes Group, 1986), or the knowledge of general theories and methods assumed to be applicable to any teaching context. For this reason, teaching was viewed as a set of discrete behaviors, conclusions about teaching were detached from the contexts within which it occurred, and the teachers’ perspectives and understandings of teaching practices were ignored (Woods, 1987). Teacher

8 education focused exclusively on theory, while a practicum provided opportunities for observation and practice, but the real development of teaching abilities and strategies would only happen when teachers got involved in real-life practice (Freeman & Johnson, 1998).

A focus on the importance of teachers’ thoughts An interest in teachers’ thoughts, judgments, decisions, and cognitive processes that shape behaviors emerged around the mid-seventies (Jackson, 1968; Shavelson & Stern, 1981) and was known as teacher cognition. This interest, however, was restricted to general observation of what teachers did and the reasons why they did so, with no focus on the teachers’ individual experiences and perspectives in the process of their own professional development (Freeman & Richards, 1996). The idea was simply to identify effective teaching behaviors and present them as models to teachers-in-preparation (Clark & Peterson, 1986). By the mid-eighties, a new interest emerged in how teachers thought their previous classroom experiences as learners shaped their teaching behaviors, values and beliefs (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Pajares, 1992), an interest which is still prevalent today, according to Freeman and Johnson (1998). In 1990, Richards and Nunan edited a collection entitled Second Language Teacher Education which is considered the first notable publication that was rich in both theoretical approaches and empirical data (Johnston & Irujo, 2004). Its papers brought a new emphasis to issues such as reflective teaching (Bartlett, 1990), and the need to design new models of teacher education programs (Lange, 1990).

9 A focus on the context-sensitive nature of teachers’ knowledge-base Gradually, the interest in teachers’ thoughts shifted towards a systematic effort to investigate the complex process of teacher knowledge during and after formal teacher education (Kumaravadivelu, 2001). In 1996 alone, five volumes were published on issues related to teacher knowledge (Woods, 1996; Freeman & Richards, 1996; Bailey et al., 1996; Nunan & Lamb, 1996; and Lier, 1996). Freeman and Johnson (1998) identified a problem with the knowledge-base of language teacher education, which is that it “often remains compartmentalized in separate course offerings, continues to be transmitted through passive instructional strategies, and remains generally disconnected from the authentic activity of teaching in actual schools and classrooms,” (p. 402). Thus, they proposed a reconceptualization of such a knowledge-base, so that it focused on the activity of teaching itself, and centered on the teacher who does it, the contexts in which it is done, and the pedagogy by which it is done. Moreover, they proposed a reconceptualization of teaching itself “from a behavioral view of what people do when they teach languages to a constructivist view of how people learn to teach,” (p. 402) – in other words, they proposed a change of focus from preservice to inservice teacher education.

Preservice and Inservice Language Teacher Education The distinction between preservice and inservice teacher education is usually agreed upon by researchers and the teaching community. Preservice refers to a course or program of study which student teachers complete before they begin teaching, whereas inservice refers to experiences which are provided to teachers who are already teaching

10 and which form part of their continued professional development (Richards & Schmidt, 2002). MA-TESOL programs, which are typical examples or preservice programs, usually require students to study methods and materials, phonology, morphology, syntax, applied linguistics and theories of second language acquisition (Richards & Hino, 1983; Reid, 1995/1996, Freeman & Johnson, 1998), and include a practicum which gives the teacher-learners the chance to practice what they have learned from those classes (Richards & Crookes, 1987). Although what preservice education provides is essential for the formation of teachers, Freeman and Johnson (1998) warn against the assumption that these discrete amounts of knowledge will be enough to make effective professionals and that they will be applicable to any teaching context. They state that, “the true locus of teacher learning lay in on-the-job initiation into the practices of teaching and not in the processes of professional teacher education,” (p. 399). Freeman and Johnson see schools and classrooms as critical to constructing effective teacher education because they function as frameworks of value and interpretation in which language teachers learn to work effectively; they are the places in which teacher-learners carry out their work, test out theory in practice, are socialized into teaching in their first years on the job, and receive inservice education. In discussing the contextual, situated nature of L2 teaching, Freeman (1994) observes that “aside from the structural distinctions between pre- and inservice education, front loading persists as the dominant format in teacher education so that a single, sustained professional input early on in teachers’ careers is assumed to equip recipients for a lifetime of professional work.” (p. 3). As Clair (1998) put it, “one-shot workshops

11 and prepackage seminars, although potentially effective for creating awareness and building discrete skills, are insufficient for facilitating teacher collaboration and change,” (p. 466). Similarly, Richards and Lockhart (1996) argue that simply exposing teachers to research or theory is not enough as they will build their experience in teaching and in the process construct their own theories. They also suggest that traditional inservice teacher workshops designed to improve teaching skills often have only short-term effects and rarely involve teachers in an ongoing process of examining their teaching. Bailey et al. (1998) stated their belief that successful professional development must be ongoing, sustained, and self-directed. As Lange (1990) noted, the phrase teacher development is used to describe “a process of continual intellectual, experiential, and attitudinal growth of teachers,” (p. 250). The term development is specifically used to suggest that teachers continue to evolve in the use, adaptations, and application of their art and craft. It is the continuance of that evolution – which Larsen-Freeman (1983) calls the educative process – that teacher education programs seek, but rarely establish. Freeman and Johnson (1998) observed that “because the research knowledge per se does not articulate easily and cogently into classroom practice, much current knowledge in SLA may be of limited use and applicability to practicing teachers,” (p. 411). For this reason, they argue that teacher education should focus less on what teachers need to know or on how they can be trained, and more on what they actually know, how this knowledge shapes what they do, or what the natural course of their professional development was over time.

12 Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) suggest that a new approach to inservice teacher education is needed because much of what is learned from in-campus programs is soon forgotten or discarded when teachers enter or return to schools. They argue that it is imperative to provide teachers with inservice programs which link the content of teacher education to the contexts in which they work. In summary, according to the literature, effective models of professional development should be authentic, embedded in the reality of school life, participatory, designed and directed with teachers’ input, and should reflect principles of adult learning and shared decision making. They should focus on individual and organizational learning; should be site based, coherent, comprehensive, rigorous, sustained, and adequate to facilitate growth, critical reflection, and change (Little, 1993; Hawley & Valli, 1996; Renyi, 1996; Sykes, 1996; Lewis, 1997).

From Top-Down to Teacher-Learner Centered Inservice Education Bailey, et al. (1998) observed that “just as teachers cannot do the learning for the learners, teacher educators cannot do the learning for preservice or in-service teachers,” (p. 554). Kumaravadivelu (2001) noted that it is well known by now that most models of teacher education follow a top-down approach, in which teacher educators engineer the classroom teaching of teacher-learners, suggest the best ways to teach, model appropriate teaching behaviors, and evaluate the mastery of such behaviors. He said that “such a transmission model of teacher education is hopelessly inadequate to produce selfdirecting and self-determining teachers,” (p.552). According to Kumaravadivelu, teacher

13 education should “start with practicing teachers, either individually or collectively, observing their teaching acts, evaluating their outcomes, identifying problems, finding solutions, and trying them out to see once again what works and what does not,” (p. 539) Nunan (1990) stated that a primary goal for inservice teacher education is to give teachers ways of exploring their own classroom. However, the purpose of preservice and inservice teacher supervision has often been to evaluate the teacher’s teaching, offer suggestions on the best way to teach, direct or guide the teacher, and model teaching behaviors.

This supervised (top-down) approach to teacher education is essentially

prescriptive in its nature and forces teachers to comply with what the supervisor thinks they should do in the classroom. In this way, teachers are not allowed to develop the skills they need to make informed decisions about how to teach (Gebhard & UedaMotonaga, 1992). An alternative approach to supervision, intended to provide teachers with opportunities to explore their own teaching, is presented by Fanselow (1982, 1987b, 1990), Gebhard (1990), and Gebhard, Gaitan and Oprandy (1990). This approach does not tell teachers what to do or how to do it, but rather collaborates with them in the process of exploring teaching possibilities. The goal of exploration is not to look for a better way to teach, but to construct and reconstruct a detailed description of teaching based on awareness gained from systematic observation (Gebhard & Ueda-Motonaga, 1992). Richards and Lockhart (1996) argue that it is important that the developmental responsibility be transferred to teachers, by putting them in the center of the teacherlearning process, and acknowledging their right to choose their own ways of teaching

14 according with their individual characteristics and beliefs. They also list the many influences that impact one’s teaching and point out how important it is that teachers reflect on them to gain teaching awareness. Building on John Fanselow’s ideas (1977a; 1977b; 1982; 1987b; 1990; Fanselow & Light, 1977), Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) defend an exploratory approach to teaching, in which teachers take responsibility for their own development through careful descriptive and nonjudgmental observation of teaching processes from different angles, and meticulous reflection on them. According to them, this is to be accomplished through careful examination of one’s beliefs about teaching, experimenting with practical actions that facilitate observation, locating practical classroom problems, acting upon them through action research projects, and expanding exploration beyond the boundaries of classroom and school.

Reflection in Language Teacher Education Programs A general agreement about the conceptualization of the notion or reflection is that it is an intrapersonal process with the potential to facilitate personal and professional knowledge, that it can be a process and method of informing practice with reason, and that it can promote changes in behavior and practice (Knowles, 1991). Reflection is considered an important component of learning in teacher development and has been a constant focus of teacher development activities based on the assumption that teachers can improve their understanding of teaching and the quality of their own teaching by reflecting critically on their teaching experiences (Richards & Schmidt, 2002).

15 Bartlett (1990) lists some of the approaches to teacher development proposed and implemented since the early eighties – teacher-as-researcher, action research, clinical supervision, the critical pedagogy perspective, and reflective teaching. He proposes a revisitation of the latter, first popularized by Cruickshank (Cruickshank & Applegate 1981; Cruickshank et al. 1981; Zeichner 1981-2) about twenty years ago. Reflective teaching is defined by Cruickshank and Applegate (1981) as the teacher’s thinking thoughtfully, analytically and objectively about what happens in classroom lessons, and about alternative means of achieving goals or aims. Their idea of reflection is constrained to the process of thinking, and the purpose of reflective teaching is ultimately to create good habits of thought. In this context, the most important action on the part of the teachers to improve their practice is the development of teaching techniques. According to Zeichner and Liston (1985), however, Cruickshank’s definition would broadly fit a first level of reflection, which they call origins, According to them, reflection should extend to the purposes and consequences of a teacher’s work, as well as to the material and ideological constraints and encouragements embedded in the classroom, school, and societal contexts in which they live. The goal is that teachers develop the pedagogical habits and skills they need for self growth.

The objective of reflection One of several goals behind a reflective approach is to encourage teachers to take responsibility for their professional development and in doing so, acquire a sense of ownership of their own professional growth and autonomy. While reflecting, teachers

16 must examine their attitudes, beliefs, assumptions and teaching practices, and use the information obtained as a basis for critical reflection about teaching (Richards & Lockhart, 1996). Moreover, by regularly reflecting on their own practices, teachers are expected to develop and test their own theories about teaching and learning (Calderhead & Gates, 1993). This kind of reflective practice is consistent with what Freeman and Richards (1996) called an interpretivist view of teaching (teaching as knowing what to do), as opposed to a behavioral view (teaching as doing), and a cognitive view (teaching as thinking and doing). Kumaravadivelu (2001) stated that a continual cycle of observation, reflection, and action is a prerequisite for the development of contextsensitive pedagogic knowledge. Reflecting on one’s teaching, and, in the process, developing knowledge and theories of teaching, is regarded as an essential component in the lifelong process of professional growth (Nunan & Lamb, 1996; Bailey, et al, 1998). Bailey, et al. (1998) observed that “regular reflection on their classroom experiences allows teachers to identify areas in their teaching that they feel need attention and thus spurs their continuing professional development,” (p. 536-537). In addition, when critical reflection is seen as an ongoing process and a routine part of teaching, it enables teachers to feel more confident in trying different approaches and assessing their effects on teaching (Richards & Lockhart, 1996).

Experience is not enough Richards and Lockhart (1996) argued that “experience is insufficient as a basis for development,” and that regardless of their experience, “much of what happens in teaching is unknown to the teacher,” (p. 3-4). According to the authors, critical reflection through

17 self-inquiry can trigger a deeper understanding of facts about their teaching that teachers are not aware of. Such examination involves posing questions about how and why things are the way they are, what value systems they represent, what alternatives might be available, and what the limitations are of doing things one way as opposed do another. Teachers who are better informed as to the nature of their teaching are able to evaluate their stage of professional growth and what aspects of their teaching they need to change.

Broadening the Scope of Reflective Activities For a study investigating reflective teaching, Bailey, et al. (1998) chose three reflective tools – journals, videotaping, and teaching portfolios – and stated their belief that the use of any of them could lead to powerful professional development. They argued that the fact that the participant teachers could voluntarily choose which activity to undertake allowed them to fit the activities to their regular routine, so as to make up for time constraints, and contributed to a sense of ownership and commitment. This suggests that to add flexibility to a teacher education program based on reflection, teacher educators should provide teacher-learners with as many choices of activities as possible, given the many possible variations of personalities, styles, personal preferences, and time availability.

Popular (and not so popular) types of reflective activities Activities such as journal writing, audio and videotaping, lesson reports, surveys and questionnaires, group discussion, and peer observation are often utilized in teacher education programs and are also referred to in the literature (Bartlett, 1992; Richards &

18 Lockhart, 1996; Bailey, et al., 1998; Farrell, 1998; Stanley, 1998; Thiel, 1999; and Crandall, 2000; among others). A far from exhaustive list of other reflective activities suggested in the literature includes: interviewing teachers, engaging a critical friend, drama /role play, trying the opposite, developing metaphors; storytelling, critical incident analysis, mind mapping, course/unit/program reviews, clinical supervision, mentoring, teaching portfolios, teaching/learning networks (e.g., WebLogs or Blogs & Web Forums), and action research. Although reports on the practical results of some of the activities listed above have been reported in the literature, to date there seems to be no study that compares many of them together for effectiveness and applicability – neither from the point of view of researchers, nor from that of practicing teachers.

Reflective activities as tools in action research Burns (1999) suggested reflective activities as tools for data collection in action research, and classified them in two great groups: observational and non-observational. She argued that observation tools have the advantages of enabling the action researcher to identify emerging classroom patterns and themes and clarify the issues that are central to the classroom investigation, while non-observational tools result in data that are essentially introspective, that is, they invite personal and individual accounts of events, attitudes and beliefs.

From Reflection to Action Dewey (1916, 1931, 1933), a pragmatist philosopher who is considered the father of all kinds of cyclical models in reflection, defined reflection as a tool to foster

19 pragmatic and instrumental improvement. Inspired by the pragmatic ideas of Dewey, Schon (1983, 1987) introduced the idea of reflection-in-action which represents the complex ways in which professionals interact with practical problems as they test out and modify hypotheses, spot problems and find solutions within the contexts in which they work. Schon’s work initiated a significant shift in teacher education and research towards an ever increasing emphasis on reflective practice so teachers come to understand their own thinking (Richards & Lockhart, 1996). This kind of reflection-in-action, according to Bailey, et al. (1998) “can lead to undeniable insights that come from the insider knowledge only we as teachers possess,” (p.548). To Kemmis (1986), reflection is more than “just an individual, psychological process. It is an action-oriented, historically-embedded, social and political frame, to locate oneself in the history of a situation, to participate in a social activity, and to take sides on issues. Through reflection and the action which it informs, we may transform the social relations which characterize our work and our working situation,” (p. 5)

Teachers and Research The notion of teacher research in TESOL has been growing steadily since the beginning of the 1900s and is advocated for by many researchers, among which is Kumaravadivelu. According to Kumaravadivelu (2001), practicing teachers can develop interpretive strategies to observe, analyze, and evaluate their own teaching acts by using a suitable classroom observation framework, and should start by “determining what basic assumptions about language, learning, and teaching are implied in their original pedagogic formulations, what existing assumptions need to be modified in light of

20 research findings, and what changes in pedagogic formulations are warranted by such modifications,” (p. 551 ). Kumaravadivelu suggested that it is through research initiated and implemented by teachers and motivated mainly by their own desire to self-explore and self-improve that teachers can theorize from practice and practice what they theorize. Burton (1998) suggested that teachers’ research should stimulate careful consideration of practice and theorizing as a means to further action. She places teachers as the central contributors in any reflective process on TESOL research and argued that teachers are not only the ones who can provide classroom data, but are also the most qualified interpreters of research data, and the ones who are more likely to act on research outcomes in the classroom. In addition to that, she suggested that the involvement of teachers in research will help them develop the skill of theorizing classroom practice – a point previously defended by Nunan (1987) and by Burton (1991) herself. Burton stated that “teachers’ insights on and involvement in research processes are essential, valuable contributions to curriculum innovation and professional renewal. In doing research, teachers learn to ask good questions about what they do and know, and what they do about what they know (Freeman, 1995), and to test the trustworthiness of their learning in action,” (p. 422). Burton listed six reasons why teacher education should focus on what teachers need from research: first, because orthodox research does not provide what teachers want to know; second, because teachers find learning about teaching for themselves professionally and intellectually satisfying; third, because unlike professional researchers, teachers have a personal, direct investment in research outcomes; fourth, because teachers tend to view learning as a continual construction process rather than as a body of knowledge to be discovered and maintained; fifth, because teachers seek

21 understanding and illumination rather than explanation and definition; and last, because teachers have different expectations of research reports: they appreciate thick description rather than the reduced context of formal research reports. Once the importance of the involvement of teachers in research is established, other issues come into play, such as what counts as research, how it should be done, who this research is useful for, how the outcomes can be shared, tested, and furthered, and how to guarantee its reliability and sustainability. A systematic approach to teachers’ research which seems to provide satisfactory responses to those issues and which has grown in popularity and respect over the years is action research. The next paragraphs define the term and show what some researchers say about its applicability, qualities, purposes, and methods.

Action Research Kurt Lewin (1948, 1952), a social psychologist, is regarded as the father of the concept of action research. The basic premise was that those affected by planned changes should be responsible for deciding the kind of action that will possibly lead to improvement as well as for evaluating the results of what was tried out in practice (Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999). The linking of the terms action and research highlights the essential feature of the method: trying out ideas in practice as a means of improvement and as a means of increasing knowledge about the curriculum, teaching and learning.

22 Action Research: tailor made for the field of education Corey (1952, 1953), adopted action research under the argument that formal research has little impact on educational practice. He observed that by studying their own teaching through action research, teachers were more likely to change their teaching than from reading about what someone else had discovered regarding the consequences of their teaching.

Action Research: context-based, collaborative, participatory, and self-evaluative Cohen and Manion (1985) described action research as a small-scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such intervention. They suggested that action research should be context-based, collaborative, participatory, and self-evaluative. A collaborative approach to action research is also what Burns (1999) defends. According to Burns, action research works best for teachers when it is collaborative and framed by supporting structures, such as a school and/or integrated within a professional development program.

Action Research: an exploratory approach Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) observed that action research provides teachers with a way of looking at their practice that helps them to reflect on their teaching and allows them to systematically work through the classroom problems or concerns by creating and initiating plans of action and then reflecting on the degree to which the plans work. They advocate the notion of exploratory teaching, and state that in order for action research to be valid as an exploration of teaching, its objective has to go beyond just finding a solution to a problem; it must include the discovery and rediscovery of our teaching

23 beliefs and practices and must produce awareness of our teaching related to our problemsolving processes.

Comparison of the Program Used for Data Collection in this Project with another Tri-Dimensional Teacher Education Framework Suggested in the Literature The inservice teacher education program designed for data collection bears some resemblance to a framework proposed by Kumaravadivelu (2001), although this program was not based on that. Kumaravadivelu’s framework was a reaction to what he called a “repeatedly articulated dissatisfaction with the limitations of the concept of method and the transmission model of teacher education,” (p. 537) and consists of a threedimensional system in which the parameters of particularity, practicality, and possibility are proposed as organizing principles for L2 teaching and teacher education. As can be seen from the comparative graphic in figure 2.1, the two first phases of the model designed for this project bear close resemblance to those proposed by Kumaravadivelu. Aside from some overlapping in the focus of each phase, it can be seen that both start from the teachers individually, helping them confront their beliefs and assumptions, and both bring reflection into practical pedagogical contexts by helping teachers observe their teaching acts, understand and identify problems, analyze and assess information, and consider and evaluate alternatives for intervention. Kumaravadivelu’s third dimension focus on a political dimension which is not explicitly mentioned in the framework of this program due to the fact that the focus here was on the teachers’ reactions to and learning from designing an intervention plan derived from reflection. It is undeniable, though, that political issues often play a crucial role in the design of action-research projects.

24 Figure 2.1

Kumaravadivelu (2001)

This Model

Comparison of Two Frameworks

25

Empirical Research on the Effectiveness of Reflection in Teacher Education As can be seen from this review, much has been discussed and theorized about reflection in teacher education, but little empirical evidence is available to support these theories.

Cornford (2002), noted that only a small number of empirical studies have

been published that have examined the effectiveness of reflective teaching or practice in achieving the desired objectives of a particular reflective approach. According to Cornford, even the few empirical studies published show disappointing results.

In

addition to that, he argued that as quality journals seldom report empirical studies that produce non-significant results, there is a good chance that many other studies were conducted but failed to demonstrate the effectiveness or significant benefits of reflective practices. Even if one does not subscribe to Cornford’s position, the fact remains that there is little published empirical evidence to support the widespread ideological enthusiasm for reflective teaching and reflection based teacher education approaches. This thesis project was motivated by this need of empirical evidence about whether an inservice teacher education program based solely on reflection and action research can effectively foster teacher development. The perspective, however, is not that of the researcher, or of scholars and professional experts, but that of the teachers themselves, who are in the heart of the process, confronting beliefs, theorizing from their practice and practicing what they theorize (Kumaravadivelu, 1999). This project investigated how teachers acknowledged the impact of reflection on their beliefs and practice; which activities they thought were more motivating and beneficial to them; what specific learning issues emerged from such a program, and how much this approach contributed to giving teachers a sense of ownership of their developmental process.

26 CHAPTER 3 PROCEDURES, MATERIALS, AND METHODS The Research Questions The four research questions (RQ), which are respectively consistent with the four specific research objectives (SRO) stated in the first chapter, are: 1. What is the impact of reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices? 2. What kinds of reflective activities are more motivating for teachers? 3. What specific learning issues may emerge from an inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research? 4. What is the overall perception teachers have of a program based on reflection and action research?

The Participants Four Teacher Assistants (TAs) from the Service Courses of the Division of English as an International Language (DEIL) of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) were invited to participate in this 10-week research project, and were given a brief explanation of the purpose of the study and a tentative schedule (The schedule can be seen in Appendix A). Upon their acceptance, a time was arranged for the first meeting when they signed the Letters of Consent and were given a detailed explanation about the whole project. For the sake of this thesis, and to preserve their confidentiality, the participant teachers were given pseudonyms and are referred to as Alice, Irwin, Mary and Yvonne. As far as teaching experience goes, Alice had no previous teaching experience

27 except for some tutoring of Spanish and ESL, and a few weeks teaching a service course on phonetics and morphology as a teacher assistant at the UIUC. Irwin had extensive experience with EFL tutoring, two years of experience teaching EFL in Mexico and was now teaching an undergraduate course on academic writing; Mary had over five years of experience in teaching Spanish as a foreign language and English as a second language at various levels and also taught academic writing at UIUC; and Yvonne had over 5 years of EFL tutoring experience and was also teaching academic writing as a TA.

The role of the participants The role of the participant teachers was that of learners in the sense that they were expected to be actively involved in the learning process and take responsibility for their role in it. Throughout this paper they are referred to as participant teachers, teacherlearners, or simply teachers. The role of the researcher was that of a teacher-supervisor, in the sense that rather than being the one who held the knowledge, he was an organizer, assessor, prompter, resource, and occasionally participant (Harmer, 2001).

A Descriptive and Non-Judgmental Approach This program was designed to be consistent with the ideas of Fanselow (1990) and Gebhard and Oprandy (1999), in which no activity was to be prescriptive or judgmental. The researcher provided the participants with an organized set of procedures and suggestions of activities to facilitate reflection and to achieve awareness-raising goals, but made clear that the main goal was simply exploration for the sake of learning.

28 The participants were informed that the results of their reflection would be objectively discussed rather than evaluated and that the entire set of procedures, as well as the final analysis, was to be as descriptive and non-judgmental as possible. What was expected from the participants was that they simply reflect on what they did, justify choices, and express preferences, the degree of satisfaction, and accomplishment from their participation in the program.

Material and Procedures Figure 3.1 aims at giving a global idea of the three-dimensional framework of this project. It starts with pure individual reflection, brings this reflection to more practical situations, and gradually moves to collaborative work. It searches for consistency with a teacher-centered, bottom-up approach, as defended in the literature (Richards & Lockhart, 1996; Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999; Richards & Nunan, 1990; Bailey, et al., 1998; Burns, 1999; and others). This conceptual map should function as a visual reference to help understand the whole process, as each phase of the project is being explained. The map shows the activities undertaken by the participants in each phase and their intrinsic purposes, the relevance of those activities for the purpose of data collection, and the specific data sources from each phase. Besides being a source of data, the group discussions (GDs) also served as an opportunity to instruct the participants in the procedures for the following phase. The following sections provide a narrative description of the procedures, materials and methods used in this study, along with explanation regarding sequence and components of the three phases of the program used for data collection.

29 Figure 3.1 Conceptual Map

Phase One The focus of Phase One was on the teacher individually and the purpose was primarily to help the participant teachers reflect on some of their basic beliefs in order to gain awareness, and secondarily, to allow them to compare their stated beliefs with their teaching practice for convergences or discrepancies. The result of reflection was to be

30 reported in an essay. The participants were informed about the first of those objectives, but not about the second, as not to predispose them to force a match between practice and beliefs when answering the second questionnaire. The possibility that they noticed such intention was considered but not regarded as a variable that might spoil the purpose of the research as it might simply anticipate reflection that would inform their essays. The specific research objectives (SRO) in this phase were primarily the investigation of the impact of self reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices (SRO1) from the point of view of the teachers. Secondarily, the data from this phase was also expected to contribute with information about types of specific learning issues that may emerge from an inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research (SRO3), and the overall perception teachers have of a program based on reflection and action research (SRO4).

The first meeting (Introducing phase one) Phase one was introduced at the end of the first meeting. The participants were told that they would receive by e-mail the first task – an awareness-raising questionnaire (Questionnaire A, which can be seen in appendix B) about their beliefs regarding ESL/EFL teaching. They were given one week to answer the questionnaire in a frank and objective way and have in mind that their answers should not be directed to the researcher but to themselves. They were also told that there was no right or wrong, which means they would not be judged as such since what really mattered for the project was their further reflection upon answering them. They were asked to try their best at answering all the questions, but were given the right to skip questions for which they did

31 not have an answer or which they did not want to answer. They were offered help with clarifications at any time by e-mail, telephone, or in person. Questionnaire B, which can be seen in appendix C, was also awareness-raising but with the focus on the participants’ ESL/EFL teaching practice. They were asked to think about their own teaching and what they did on a regular basis in class, and to answer another set of ten questions following the same criteria established for the first one – sincerity, objectiveness, focus on themselves, no concern with assessment, and the right to choose not to answer. The questions in Questionnaire B were purposely related to the stated beliefs of Questionnaire A, but arranged in a different order so that the participants would not immediately relate them with the questions they had previously answered. Table 3.1 below shows the questions as they were paired. The letters (A) and (B) refer to Questionnaires A and B. The numbers between brackets refer to the numbers that the questions were given in the original questionnaire:

Table 3.1 Reflective Questions of Phase One as They Were Paired About the choice of field

A. How would you characterize English teaching as a profession? [1] B. Why did you decide to become a teacher? Why did you choose teaching English? [1]

About experience as a Language Learner

A. How do you believe your own learning has influenced your teaching? [2] B. In what ways have you been able to bring the insights of your own learning experience into your teaching? [3]

32 Table 3.1 (Continued) About teaching as a profession

A. How can teachers pursue professional development? [3] B. What kinds of professional development activities have you been engaged in? [10]

About self image as a teacher (The teacher’s mirror)

A. What in your opinion are the personal characteristics necessary to make someone a successful teacher? [4] B. Chose three adjectives that would better describe you as a teacher and explain why they were chosen. Choose three words your students might use to describe you as a teacher and explain why they would choose them. [2]

About beliefs derived from educationally or research-based principles or from methods whose effectiveness the teacher trusts.

A. Is your teaching aligned with any known TESL/TEFL methodology? If so, which one and why? If not, how would you label your teaching approach? [5]

About the roles of teachers and learners

A. Visualize the ideal classroom: what does it look like? (Think of students, teachers, resources, and goals). [6]

B. What are some preferred activities you use in your classes? Why do you believe they are effective for learning? [6]

B. What is your role in your classroom? What role do you expect your students to assume in your classroom? [5] About making a difference (holistic teaching)

A. What kind of relationship do you think teachers should have with students in an EFL/ESL classroom? [7] B. What kind of learning environment do you try to create in your classroom? [4]

About catering for different learning styles

A. How important is to address individual learning styles and meet the needs of students with different levels of ability? [8] B. How do you vary instruction for the individual needs of your students? Give specific examples. [8]

About motivational strategies

A. What is the role of the teacher in motivating students to learn a foreign or second language? [9] B. What techniques do you use to keep students actively involved and motivated during a lesson? [9]

About the program and the curriculum

A. Who do you think should decide what to teach? [10] B. What determines the content of your lesson plan? (Ex.: the curriculum provided by the school, the textbook content, the needs your students have voiced or you noticed they have...) [7]

33

Questionnaire C (Essay Question – appendix D) was entitled How much does your practice match your beliefs? and, as the title suggests, prompted the participants to contrast their stated beliefs with their practice and reflect on how much their practices were consistent with their beliefs. The participants’ answers to the first two questionnaires were paired according to topic and the participants were asked to compare their answers for convergences and discrepancies between beliefs and practice and then write an essay on the main points of their reflection. They were asked to include in their essay reference to any point they were planning to give special consideration to and/or act upon, and to state their opinion about the relevance of acknowledging beliefs and comparing them with practice in terms of empowering a teacher to address specific needs related to his/her teaching.

The second meeting (closing Phase One and introducing phase two) The second meeting was planned to last sixty minutes: twenty minutes for a discussion of the tasks and events of Phase One and forty minutes for an explanation of phase two. The discussion was not monitored by the researcher, who observed at a distance and took notes. After the meeting, each participant was sent an electronic message with five YES/NO questions about Phase One and a box for comments. The questions are listed below and the full form can be seen in appendix E. 1. Did you find discrepancy(ies) between your beliefs and your practice? 2. After you reflected on your beliefs and your practice, is there any point you plan to give special consideration?

34 3. Do you feel that acknowledging your beliefs and comparing them with your practice may help you address your needs related to your teaching? 4. Do you feel that activities such as these of Phase One display respect for your individual teaching style? 5. Had you ever been prompted to check your beliefs against your practice before? The relevant materials for data collection in Phase One are the reflective essays and the answers to these questions.

Phase Two The focus of Phase Two was practical in the sense that the teachers’ reflections were directly linked to their teaching practice, feeding and being fed by it, thus enabling them to understand and identify problems, analyze and assess information, consider this information, and evaluate alternatives for intervention (Kumaravadivelu, 2001). Instead of the more philosophical reflection of phase one, the attention was now focused on the exploration of the teachers’ pedagogical practice. Moreover, the activities of this phase were expected to inform the designing of the action-research plan in phase three. The specific research objectives in this phase were primarily the investigation of types of reflective activities that are more motivating for teachers (SRO2), and the impact of self and group reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices (SRO1), all from the point of view of the teachers themselves. The enquiry about the teachers’ preference was expected to contribute to a holistic evaluation of this program (SRO4). As in all the others, this phase was also expected to provide information regarding types of specific

35 learning issues that may emerge from an inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research (SRO3). The twenty minutes left at the end of the second meeting for the explanation of Phase Two were barely enough, but this was compensated by the fact that the material prepared for it was self explanatory. The participants were told that this second phase should be less time consuming than the first phase – especially if they chose reflective activities that could be carried out during their regular classes. The task was to write an essay about one reflective activity they had tried out. They were reminded that they could try as many activities as they pleased, but should report on only one. Each participant received a kit of reflective activities as described in Table 3.2 below.

Table 3.2 List of Reflective Activities NON-OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES 1. Writing a teaching journal/diary Participants could choose between writing a journal or a diary, which could be either intrapersonal or dialogic. If dialogic, the journals or diaries should be exchanged either with another participant-teacher or with any other EFL/EFL teacher. 2. Writing an activity report Participants should write a report on an activity or section of their classes. Such activity or section should not be longer than 20 minutes. 3. Interviewing Teachers (Burns, 1999) Participants should interview teachers who were not involved in the research project on issues they were interested in knowing more about. For such they were provided with an extensive list of questions on several issues (The list addressed the same issues listed in Table 3.1 and some more. The full list can be seen in Appendix E) 4. Developing Metaphors (Block, 1992; Allan, 1994; Tobbin, 1990; Burns, 1999) Participants should think of a metaphor that described themselves and their teaching in imaginative ways. 5. Trying the opposite (Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999) Participants should choose one of their teaching behaviors – preferably a controversial one (e.g., error correction; use of L1) – and try an exact opposite behavior. There was no specific objective other than observing and reflecting on the results.

36 Table 3.2 (Continued) OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES 6. Audio or Video-recording a class Participants should audio- or video-record no more than 20 minutes of a class they taught, reflect on it afterwards, and produce a written report of their reflections. They were provided with suggestions of what to look for, but they were free to choose whatever they wanted to investigate. 7.

Seeing one’s teaching through the students’ eyes One or two students should be chosen and asked to observe a teacher’s class for specific aspects of their teaching (e.g., teacher talk, space the teacher fills in the classroom, questioning strategies, correction techniques, mannerisms, and so on). The teacher would conference with the student(s) afterwards and reflect on the outcome.

8.

Stepping into the Students’ Shoes Participants should put themselves in the students’ shoes by attending a beginners’ class of a language they knew nothing about, and reflect afterwards about how much they learned regarding what their students feel in their classroom.

9.

Classy Observation Participants were encouraged to observe a class that apparently has little in common with language teaching, reflect on their own teaching based on it, and write an essay based on their reflection.

10. Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies (Hahn & Alsberg - unpublished) Participants were given a DVD with clips of ten movies in which teachers are portrayed in the classroom (e.g., Mona Lisa Smile, Stand and Deliver, Dead Poets Society). They were asked to reflect on their teaching practice as well as on their teaching beliefs with basis on those stereotypes. They were provided with questions and guidelines for their reflection.

The materials included a folder with the ten reflective activities explained in detail, a DVD with support material for activity 10, and four booklets – two with support material for activities 3 and 10, one containing examples for activity 9, and one with the content of the full folder in a pocket format that they could carry with them for quick reference. The participants were given three weeks to try out as many of the reflective activities they pleased but to write a reflective essay about only one. They were told that they could approach the issues from any angle they chose but were asked to have in mind their answers to the two questionnaires of phase one. They were also told that they could contact the researcher at any time during the course of the three weeks of Phase Two and ask for help or clarification.

37 Ten reflective activities were provided, which is a significantly larger number of activities compared to the programs the literature on which this experiment was based suggests. This was done to obtain a better idea of how teacher-learners react to them in terms of preference and thus provide a richer answer to Research Question 2. The activities were divided in 5 non-observational and 5 observational, according to the categorization recommended by Burns (1999), in spite of the fact that, as Burns herself observed, these two broad categories are not mutually exclusive and may overlap. The full content of the folder and the texts that explain them can be found in appendix F.

The third meeting (closing Phase Two and introducing phase three) The third meeting was divided into two parts: the first, a debriefing of phase two. The second, a discussion about specific problems identified as a result of doing the reflective activities and which the participants would be interested in investigating with action research. The first part was a monitored discussion of Phase Two in which the participants discussed the reflective activities they had chosen to try and their reasons for such; the activities they had chosen to report on and why; the impact that those activities had already had on their teaching as well as the likelihood of a future impact; the activities they still planned to try; and general findings from the full experience. At the end of this part of the discussion, the participants were asked to fill out a form in which they ranked the activities from 1 to 10 (1 for their favorite activity, and 10 for the least likely to be chosen) and, in case they had not chosen to try out the one they ranked 1, they were asked to explain why.

38 In the second part of the meeting the participants made connections between their reflective experiences and problems which they might be interested in investigating through action research. In preparation for that, they were given a brief explanation of what action-research was about with a PowerPoint presentation they had been sent in advance. It was decided that the action research activity would be to devise an action research plan that could be carried out in the future. The choice of topics was left for the participants to decide later, provided that the four of them worked together or in pairs so as to keep the action research activity collaborative. In the scope of this study, this meant having a minimum of one and a maximum of two action research plans. The relevant materials for data collection in Phase Two were not only the content of the written report, but also the kind and number of activities the participants tried out; the choice of activities they had chosen to report on, and the reason for their choices.

Phase Three The focus of Phase Three was on intervention and collaboration. More specifically, how teachers translate the philosophical impacts of systematic reflection on their beliefs and pedagogical practices into action and intervention, and what specific learning issues emerge from the process. The final evaluation was an attempt to holistically evaluate the teachers perception about this kind of program based on reflection and action research. The specific research objectives in this phase were the investigation of the effectiveness of reflection in fostering teachers’ intervention (SRO1), types of specific learning issues that may emerge from an inservice teacher education program based on

39 reflection and action research (SRO3), and the overall perception teachers have of a program based on reflection and action research (SRO4).

The fourth meeting (Closing Phase Three/ Final Survey) In the final meeting, the participants handed in a final reflective essay about writing an action research plan that was based on their real and immediate needs as identified from the reflective activities they experimented with. They were then given a final survey with sixteen items which should be marked on a Likert Scale that ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree (The survey form can be seen in Appendix I). They were told that the questions were intended to summarize their final impressions about the project and about the validity of an alternative program for inservice teacher development and that right after they answered them, they would be given the chance to discuss them and elaborate on any issue that could not be well represented by that scale.

Data Analysis Given its broad scope, this research used triangulation, or multiple approaches for data collection and analysis. It followed a mix of narrative enquiry, case study, and grounded theory styles. Narrative enquiry because it gave the researcher and the participant teachers the opportunity to describe, represent, and assess human relations and interactions related to the acts of teaching (Beattie, 1995), and also because it allowed for collaborative ventures in which the participant teachers and the researcher raised questions about their practices, chose courses of action from multiple possibilities, and co-created new meanings for old conceptions and practices. Case study because a

40 situation was designed – an inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research – based on a theoretical framework that carried preconceived concepts and assumptions related to an ideal approach to inservice teacher education. Grounded theory because the researcher did not rely on fixed hypotheses but allowed for new concepts and hypotheses to emerge from the data, build new theory and modify the original design (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). As for the analysis, it was essentially qualitative, although it included some quantitative elements. The findings related to Research Question 2, for example, are represented by a graphic that shows the participants preferences in a quantitative way. The analysis, though, is qualitative in that it focuses on the why’s of participants’ choices. The same happens with the final survey, which shows quantitative data on the participants’ holistic impression about their participation but which is analyzed in comparison with field notes from the group discussion and final essays in search of impressions not represented by the graphic, and nuances in their impressions that would probably not be spotted if it were not for the survey. Given the triangulation previously mentioned, the specific coding methods will be better explained as each one of the data elements is discussed in Chapter 4.

Data sources and methods of analysis It should be noted that as this investigation was of the effectiveness of a full model of inservice teacher education program as a whole, all the data material collected may be of some degree of relevance for any of the research questions. Some of the

41 materials, however, may contribute more or less to answer specific questions. Table 1 shows the materials collected for analysis and the methods utilized:

Table 3.3 Data Sources and Methods of Analysis

Phase three

Phase Two

Phase One

The Data Sources

Method of Analysis

 four reflective essays

Content analysis by means of bracketing and with the help of a coding matrix (appendix M)

 three 5-question Yes/No survey questionnaires

Objective analysis of the YES/NO answers. Analysis of the Comments field content by means of bracketing and with the help of a coding matrix (appendix M)

 group discussion 1

Content analysis by means of bracketing and with the help of a coding matrix (appendix M)

 four reflective essays

Content analysis by means of bracketing and with the help of a coding matrix (appendix M)

 four activity-ranking questionnaires

Objective tallying of quantitative data with further qualitative analyses.

 group discussion 2

Content analysis by means of bracketing and with the help of a coding matrix (appendix M)

 three reflective essays

Content analysis by means of bracketing and with the help of a coding matrix (appendix M)

 four 16-question final survey questionnaires

Objective tallying of quantitative data with further qualitative analyses.

 group discussion 3

Content analysis by means of bracketing and with the help of a coding matrix (appendix M)

The data coding The data collection and analysis were essentially qualitative although they included some quantitative elements. The decisions about the kinds of research methods and materials were based on current literature on teacher education, the population being

42 researched, and the resources available. The holistic nature of the research objectives demanded triangulation of data sources among the YES/NO questionnaires, the reflective essays, and the field notes, in addition to triangulation to reconcile qualitative and quantitative data. A matrix was created for content analysis of the qualitative data sources and can be seen in Appendix M. The logical analysis was inductive, which means that the researcher looked for emergent patterns in the data, categorized the meaningful ones, and filled them into the matrix. Moreover, the analysis and interpretation were made by means of a bracketing system (Patton, 1990), which means the data sources were read repeatedly by the researcher and whenever it was located a key phrase or any statement that spoke directly to the phenomenon investigated, a bracket was inserted with the appropriate coding. The next steps were interpreting the meanings of those phrases; trying to obtain the subject's interpretations of them; inspecting the meanings for what they revealed about essential, recurring features of the phenomenon being studied; and offering a tentative statement, or definition, of that phenomenon in terms of the features identified (Denzin, 1989; Patton, 1990).

Coding of the essays, YES/NO Questionnaires, and Group Discussions Whenever a key phrase or statement was found in the essays and in the YES/NO Questionnaire, a bracket was inserted with a code that indicated impact on teachers in terms of evidence of awareness and evidence of changes in knowledge, attitude or behavior, as described below: a) Change in Knowledge [knw]: when the participants revealed having learned any new issue, which might include new insights on previous

43 learned subjects. Learning here is to be understood in a broad sense, which means learning not only about pedagogical practices, but also about the social context to which the participants belong, about their teaching environment and school policies and politics, and even about the participants themselves – in which learning is close to self-awareness. b) Change in Attitude [att]: when the participants revealed new positions and dispositions, as well as new manners, feelings, and beliefs; c) Change in Behavior [bhv]: when the participants changed any social or pedagogical behavior as a result of reflection, or due to simply participating in the program. Evidence of awareness and/or evidence of change were considered as evidence of impact and served to inform Research Question 4. Changes in knowledge also informed Research Question 3, regarding specific learning issues that emerged from the reflective activities. In order to investigate Research Question 2 – kinds of reflective activities that are more motivating for teachers – an Activity Ranking Form (appendix G) was used, in addition to the analysis of the activities actually chosen by the participants and the reasons for doing so that they stated in a group discussion (GD2). The Activity Ranking Form, which measured stated preference, served to calculate the average likelihood that each activity would be chosen based on the preferences stated by the participants. The stated preference was compared with the actual choice and the reasons for convergence or divergence were analyzed with basis on information from the group discussion (GD2).

44 In order to assess the overall impact of this kind of program on teachers – Research Question 4 – these guiding questions were devised: (A) Was the program effective in raising awareness? (B)

Was the program effective in fostering reflection?

(C)

Was the program effective in fostering changes in knowledge, behavior, or skills?

(D) Was the program effective in fostering intervention as a result of reflection and awareness? (E)

Did teachers display evidence of approval of this kind of program?

In order to investigate question (A), the essays, the YES/NO Questionnaires and excerpts from the recordings of the meetings were coded for evidence of awareness. Whenever a key phrase or statement was found that denoted awareness, a bracket was inserted with the coding [awr]. Questions (B) through (D) were answered holistically with basis on the overall results found in the coded analysis of the initial research questions. In order to investigate question (E) the same data sources were coded for evidence of approval, disapproval, or uncertainty regarding the question. As in the case of awareness, whenever a key phrase or statement was found that denoted one of those feelings, a bracket was inserted right after with the coding [app] [dsp] or [unc]. As with evidence of awareness, the numbers did not mean quantification, but certainly helped evaluation, especially in the comparison of approval and disapproval.

45 Consistent with the purpose that the whole project be teacher-learner-centered and follow a bottom-up approach, the answers to the research questions were to be searched for in the testimony that the participant teachers gave about their findings, impressions, and feelings during and after their participation in the program. This means that very often, the participants’ speech speaks for itself, in which case, quotations were provided and extensive interpretation was regarded as unnecessary. Close scrutiny of some statements would surely raise many questions whose answers can not be found in the discussion. Such questions were deliberately disregarded as most of them go beyond the scope of this research.

46 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION This chapter follows the order in which the data was collected in the three phases of the project. Each phase contributed primarily to inform the specific research issues under scrutiny in that phase but also informed the issues focused on in the other phases. Phase one focused on the impact of self-reflection on teachers beliefs and practices (SRO1/RQ1); Phase Two focused on the investigation of types of reflective activities that are more motivating for teachers (SRO2/RQ2); while Phase Three focused on how systematic reflection on beliefs and practices can be translated into action research, and on the overall perceptions teachers had of the program used for data collection (SRO4/RQ4). Research questions 1 and 2 will be directly addressed in this chapter along with explanations of how the coding system was used, descriptions of the findings, and detailed commentaries. Research question 3 is discussed only in Chapter 5 (Conclusion) because it was informed by the same data collected to answer RQ1. This means that the types of specific learning issues that emerged from the program used in this study (RQ3) were those coded as change in knowledge – one of the measures of impact of reflection on teachers (RQ1). Research question 4 is discussed both in this chapter and in the concluding chapter. This chapter discusses the findings from the final survey in phase three, while the final chapter discusses the contributions from the other data sources regarding the overall perception the participants had of the program used for data collection in this study – for example, the answers given to the YES/NO Questionnaire of Phase One, and general impressions revealed in the essays and group discussions.

47 Phase One – Reflecting on Basic Beliefs and Comparing Them with Practice The data collection sources for Phase One were four reflective essays, three 5question YES/NO survey questionnaires, and group discussion 1 (GD1) which closed Phase One and introduced phase two. The reflective essays of this phase were read carefully by the researcher as an informed reader and analyzed for key phrases and statements that spoke directly to the phenomena under investigation which, in this case, were those related to Research Question 1 – the impact of self reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices. The findings are expected to be generalizable to other teacher education programs based on reflection and action research. The main focus of Phase One was on RQ1 – What is the impact of awareness and reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices? This question addressed two distinct issues: first, whether any impact did take place, and second, what the nature of this impact was. For the sake of this investigation, question one should be understood in this way: 1.1) Was there any impact? a) If so, what was the nature of this impact? b) If not, why not? The answer to sub-question 1.1 should be an objective YES or NO; but in order to reach this answer, the researcher thoroughly analyzed the essays for evidence of awareness raised by the activities [awr], and for changes of knowledge [knw], attitude [att], or behavior [bhv]. The reflective essays of Phase One with the coding can be seen in appendix J.

48 Findings and commentaries regarding the essays of phase one. The four reflective essays of Phase One displayed clear indications that awareness of self or awareness related to the teacher’s practice had been raised by the questionnaires answered in phase one. Sometimes awareness meant a reaction to a state of affairs, such as in “even if I wanted to do something novel and different in the classroom, I am highly restricted to what that can be. For example, the entire syllabus and teaching style have been handed to me. I have little to no input in the process.” This apparently negative realization is followed by a display of positive attitude: “One positive aspect of this, is that I agree and enjoy what I have been given” (Alice). Even though awareness is included in the text of Research Question 1, it was also regarded as evidence of impact of the whole program on the participant teachers, as this awareness often conveyed an attitude for further reflection or for change such as in, I realized that there was something wrong with what I was doing (Irwin) While I think that gap will always exist, it should be my goal to try to decrease the distance between the two (Mary). This activity has alerted me to be more aware of what I do in the classroom and be prudent in molding and stating my beliefs (Yvonne). The questionnaires of this first phase were focused on awareness raising, and awareness was regarded as sufficient evidence of impact, but once the incidence of impact was found to be true, also the nature of this impact was investigated in terms of changes in knowledge, attitude, and behavior. Changes in attitude were evident in many

49 statements as can be seen in the coded essays in appendix J, or as in these examples from Yvonne’s essay: First of all, it is very crucial to continuously check back on myself to see if my beliefs and practice match. If they don’t, we should put our efforts into doing so. It is from this reflection that I feel the need for proper training to establish my beliefs as a teacher. Changes in behavior or changes in knowledge that go beyond awareness were not expected to be found in the reflective essays of phase one, but they appeared anyway. In this statement made by Mary, for example, awareness seems to have led to a new insight about herself and her teaching: “On one hand, I think that I am addressing students’ needs, but it is possible that my teaching is still mostly geared toward what I would want if I were the student”. Clearer evidence of changes in knowledge appeared in Irwin’s and Mary’s essays when they referred to previous experiences with inservice programs. As the programs they referred to also seem to have been based on reflection, their contributions were counted as evidence of the holistic impact of such programs on the participant teachers. Here are some examples of such statements: I learned that teacher’s beliefs play a very strong role on the way they behave while teaching. (Irwin) Suddenly, I found myself jumping from a teacher-centered class into more a student-centered one. (Irwin)

50 I have experienced how all students learn more and learn better when activities are extended and enhanced through the course of addressing multiple learning styles. (Mary)

Commentary The reflective essays of Phase One showed that the questionnaires did raise awareness – which was not surprising as they were designed to do so – and that this awareness in itself represented an impact. As to the nature of this impact, the results showed some change in attitude, and no significant change in beliefs, or behavior. This was also expected as this was a phase of purely reflective activities with no effort to extend reflection into practice, as there was not enough time to allow that to happen. The two first questionnaires of Phase One prompted the participants to confront their beliefs and then compare them with their practice for convergences or discrepancies. When prompted to do so, the participants did not find significant discrepancies. This is easily explained by the fact that all of them were at the same time practicing teachers and TESOL graduate students, which means that they were bombarded with theory and challenged to confront it with their practice on a regular basis. In this scenario, the few surprises or realizations that did take place take broader significance as in these examples: I think it is a really good idea to make teachers tell you their ideal situation and then ask them about the reality a short time later. This gives them an opportunity to objectively compare. I think it provides valuable insights. For example, I realized that I talk about the ideal in a way that is

51 too ideal. I set up expectations and situations that the “real” me think are impossible. I therefore set myself up to never be able to meet my own expectations as a teacher. (Alice) Going back to the ten questions and comparing the answers has helped me think in a different light. Although I may have ‘thought’ about such issues, this is the first time where I was able to reflect on myself from an objective angle. (Yvonne) A question remains: Would professional teachers in an inservice program in regular school settings have more surprises? The answer to this question, however, goes beyond the scope of this research and is a subject for further investigation.

Alice’s essay Alice approved of the idea of being questioned on her beliefs and, soon after, being confronted with what she called reality. She said that it gave her the opportunity to objectively compare both her beliefs and her reality and achieve valuable insights. Her reflection seems to be rather conflicting; she confesses to be pessimistic about the possibility of achieving a perfect match between ideal and practice, and concludes that her own idealization of teaching is too far from reality and that she feels like she will never be able to meet her own expectations about herself as a teacher. In addition to that, she mentions some contextual factors that interfere with this match, such as the kind of class she teaches, and the institutional rules and beliefs. More specifically, she says that in her case she is given an entire syllabus ready-made and instructions on how to teach it, and that there is not much she can do about it even if that contradicts her personal beliefs.

52 She said: “I have little to no input in the process”. She seems to justify her pessimism with the restrictions the context imposes on her but, in spite of that, she states that she likes the way she is told to teach, which implies that the top-down decisions on what and how to teach somehow match her beliefs and consequently her practice. She also says that where applicable, her teaching practice lines up with her beliefs about what an ideal teacher should be like. Even minimized by the expression where applicable, the conflict still sounds evident between the lines, beyond actual words or conscious acknowledgement. Alice’s dilemma suggests a need for teacher educators to constantly create situations that allow teachers to confront their beliefs with their practice. The hope to strike an acceptable balance lies in gradually adjusting both our beliefs to our practice, and our practice to our beliefs. From what Alice says, we can infer that the decisions about the way she should teach are top-down and prescriptive and as a novice teacher, she seems to be happy with that. For her, it is convenient to have a model to follow, especially because this model is one that she respects and admires, as can be seen in further testimony she gave. She declared later on, in one of the GD’s, that after one year she would be left on her own to teach that class and then she would be able to begin exploring her own teaching. Regardless of its being attainable or not, it is worthy to point out here that a perfect match between beliefs and practice is not necessarily good or bad. What ultimately determines effective teaching is the conscious acknowledgement of the principles behind ones’ actions and the constant questioning of these principles as to whether they are resulting in practice that effectively fosters students’ learning. A good

53 example of a perfect match between beliefs and practice that should be questioned is given by Irwin in his essay.

Irwin’s essay Irwin found a satisfactory match between his beliefs and practice as a result of answering the two first questionnaires, but as he himself proved later, this did not mean much. He wrote that the first time he was asked to compare his beliefs and practice was in an inservice teacher training program in his home country. His answer was that he taught the way he thought teaching and learning should be, which means, his teaching was the result of his beliefs about teaching and of his experience as a learner. Further reflection revealed that his teaching was exactly like that he had had as a student and his beliefs were also probably similar to those of his former teachers. He believed in teacher fronted classes, he trusted textbooks to determine the course and content of instruction, and he thought of grades as the ultimate educational goals to be reached. Realizing that his practice matched his beliefs did not by itself produce any awareness that could result in change and improvement. Only after he was exposed to new ideas about teaching, enthralled by them, and then again prompted to confront his newly acquired beliefs with his practice, did Irwin have his mind “shaped into a new paradigm”. Irwin confessed that he had an internal struggle before giving up the comfort and safety of his long held beliefs and, in his own words, his “favorite place in the front of the classroom”, which only happened after his mind was shaped into a new paradigm. This demonstrates that significant (and lasting) changes of beliefs happen inside-out as a result not of external pressures, but of teachers’ being exposed to new ideas, having their minds

54 opened to them, and having been given opportunities for self-observation, comparison, reflection, and spontaneous intervention.

Mary’s essay Mary was the only participant to directly refer to questionnaire questions and answers in her reflection. In her essay she quoted herself from the answer to one of the questions in which she commented: “I saw a gap between my ideologies and actual practice”. After reflecting, she concluded that she had found no glaring discrepancies, but that “just because the questionnaires were not able to tease out any glaring contradictions, it does not mean that they do not exist.” She defended the reason why she did not find discrepancies by saying, “I believe I managed to avoid them by hedging answers or conceding that I still had unformed notions about some of the topics”. In commenting on her answers to the pair A5B6 (Question 5 of Questionnaire A and Question 6 of Questionnaire B) – about theoretical beliefs related to methodology and actual practice – Mary clearly displayed her discernment of the issue, which can not be said of many teachers who are not simultaneously involved in academic studies and practice. The point is that while few or no discrepancies were found with these subjects, the same may not be true when this program is brought to institutional contexts. Interestingly enough, although being an academic, she confessed reluctance in adopting trendy jargon and labels as she knew how much more complex real teaching is. This showed acknowledgement of a distance between theory and practice, which implies that her beliefs, though aligned with her practice, might not have been perfectly aligned with the theory.

55 Like Alice, Mary admits that pressures of time and scheduling may interfere with an ideal match between what teachers think they should do and what they actually do. To exemplify that, she says that she believes a teacher has to cater to individual students and learning styles – and she does her best at pursuing that – but that very often this has to be sacrificed for the sake of time and curriculum. Like Irwin, Mary admits to be strongly influenced in her teaching by her past experience as a learner. She exemplifies by saying that when asked to teach a reading course – something she had never studied herself – she did not know what to do, in spite of having learned plenty of theory about how to teach such a course. Only after she had the chance to actually observe someone teaching the subject did she feel ready to do it herself, which seems to be an issue for further investigation. Mary seems to support the thesis that rather than flooding teachers with theory and methods, inservice teacher education programs should allow teachers to explore their own teaching and find their own answers to their professional conflicts. In Mary’s own words, Reading the latest research in teaching methodology does not do much to elicit change. It is only when teachers are using the practice in the classroom, and allowing other teachers (or future teachers) to observe them in action that change will gain momentum.

Yvonne’s essay Unlike all the other participants, Yvonne admitted to this having been the first time she had been prompted to reflect on those issues from an objective angle. She confessed that the activity alerted her to being more aware of what she did in the

56 classroom and more prudent in shaping and stating her beliefs. She noted that her answers to the questions about methodology, strategies, program and curriculum were relatively weak and vague, maybe due to the fact that she was a novice teacher. She said the questionnaires helped her understand how crucial it is that teachers continuously question their beliefs and check them against their practice, but she repeatedly stated her need of specialized training, of a supervisor who supplied what she called the appropriate tools to foster reflection and who provided established or informed beliefs about teaching.

Findings and commentaries regarding Group Discussion 1 GD1 was a sixty-minute meeting with the presence of all the participants. It was divided into two parts: forty minutes for a group discussion of the tasks and events of phase one, and twenty minutes for explanations regarding phase two. The researcher observed the discussion at distance and, after 40 minutes, interrupted it for the introduction of phase two. Only the first part was recorded and constitutes data source for this phase. The recording was listened to repeatedly and had some parts of it transcribed and analyzed for the same phenomena observed in the essays, i.e., evidence of awareness – regarded as evidence of impact on teachers’ beliefs – and the nature of such impact in terms of producing changes in attitude, knowledge, or behavior. The next paragraphs describe the discussion and findings in light of the same issues investigated in the essays: phrases or statements that spoke directly to the phenomena under investigation. Literal transcriptions are provided.

57 The first pair of questions the participants addressed was the one about the choice of professional field, the first in each of the questionnaires: A. How would you characterize English teaching as a profession? B. Why did you decide to become a teacher? Why did you choose teaching English? These two questions were intended to make the teachers look back at the original idea they had of the occupation, the reasons why they first chose to become teachers, and why specifically to teach English. The reason for including those questions is that very often, in the experience of the researcher, the answer to some professional conflicts that teachers experience may be traced back to a poor career choice, even when the actual symptoms are found in their practice. When this is the case, such realization may save the trouble to look for explanations elsewhere. For example, some teachers may be unhappy with their occupation because they feel it is not as well paid as they think it should be, which may result in lack of motivation, in not finding time to prepare classes accordingly, in not being patient or caring enough with the students’ needs, and much more. Another reason for including these questions is that by reflecting back on their beginnings, teachers may rekindle their love for the career they chose and by doing so, settle present conflicts. Although interesting findings resulted from the answers to these questions, it must be said that their choice was not consistent with the purpose of context-sensitiveness intended for the program designed for this study and, consequently, frustrated the purpose explained in the previous paragraph. These questions would better fit teachers in an

58 institutional professional setting with some (or many) years of practice, than this population made of teachers who were starting a career and still in honeymoon with it. In spite of frustrating their intended purpose, the questions did raise awareness to other relevant issues and foster interesting comments. Mary, the more experienced participant, raised the point by saying: I thought that was an interesting question about… English as a profession versus… or English teaching… like… were we trying to distinguish it from teaching History or Biology… This comment triggered a discussion on an intriguing point the participants had never thought about before. Irwin stated that he had chosen teaching English first of all because he loves the language, and second, because there is a demand for English teachers in his country. Alice and Mary, both native speakers, noted that there is also a good demand for ESL teachers in the USA, which might be their reason for choosing this career. They said that when they decided to be English teachers, they also decided that they did not want to teach it as a first language, mainly due to the students’ motivation, which they perceived as low compared to that of ESL learners. The realization of their reasons to enter the English teaching profession led to an appraisal of the importance of students’ motivation, and to considerations about the importance of teachers’ exploring the motivation their students bring to class. This was viewed as evidence of awareness that has the potential to promote changes in attitude, and even in knowledge. Alice mentioned a friend who was an ESL teacher and through whom she learned how fun ESL classes could be. This kind of realization may put a teacher back on track in case this teacher does not find the same pleasure in teaching s/he once did, or can not

59 bring the same joy to herself/himself or her students as s/he used to. Yvonne said that she decided to teach English after she had lived in the USA for some time and then understood how poorly the language was taught in her country, Korea. Alice brought up another issue regarding the notions of communicative language teaching, authentic material and approaches, and the reality of ESL classrooms. She said: I’m glad that we pushed this whole communicative thing, because it is something about using the language... even outside of the classroom, because when I get into a classroom it’s foreign, it’s easier, it’s a protected environment…. Yvonne was surprised that American ESL teachers, working in the USA, would have such a feeling. Everybody agreed that there is very little reality in what is done in the classroom and on how important it is to bring authenticity into language learning. Mary pointed out how what textbooks say is communicative is often not communicative at all, which appeals to teachers’ resourcefulness and willingness to go beyond the contents of the textbook. This part of the discussion fostered awareness, promoted a confrontation of theory with practice in search for answers about the best way to teach, prompted changes of attitude, and may have resulted in new insights about the issue. The next point was about how much of what a teacher does mirrors her/his past experiences as a learner, a point often addressed by researchers (e.g., Freeman and Johnson, 1998) and previously raised by Irwin in his essay. Alice said: “One of the reasons I went into teaching is because I had had a couple of awesome teachers who were language teachers”.

60 Yvonne questioned the relevance of a teacher’s doing everything s/he likes, or which s/he used to like as a student, without much concern for what the students like. She said, “I sometimes wonder whether this is not too personal?” and added, I ask myself this question when I teach… when I set up an activity… I basically do what I want to do… so… Would the students approve of it? Would they like this as much as I like it? Irwin said that all he used to do, up to a certain time, was replicating everything his own teachers had done, but that there came a time when he just stopped and said, “Is what I am doing really effective? The awareness just raised had the potential to generate issues to be investigated through action research, in which case awareness might result in changes of knowledge and behavior. The discussion suddenly shifted to the distance between theory and practice. Again, Alice raised the subject: We all have these awesome, idealistic things about what we should do, and then… what really happens in the classroom and…. I’m sick and tired of showing up to class and having people say, ‘we need to make this wonderful, communicative, healthy, unrestrictive environment, and I’m like… shut up about it already! I know all the socio-linguistic-political-c*, but what does that mean about the classroom? I don’t think that half of us are playing what we are saying (…) and even if we are, is it…is it possible? Sometimes I wish we didn’t so much focus on the idealization of

61 teaching and actually focused on what people do, even if it is bad… like… what is it that teachers are doing. Sometimes I feel like… attending conferences and workshops and… I think it is kind of all c*. It’s like politics, when you get these big catch phrases… like values, but they don’t really mean anything. I… I want something real; I want something I can… touch. Alice’s opinion, if shared by the other teachers, might bring strong support for inservice teacher education programs that focus on self-reflection, and self and collaborative exploration. The other participants displayed cautious agreement as can be seen in the following transcripts. Mary, elaborating on the issue of the usefulness of conferences and workshops, said: I find they are really motivating sometimes but the thing I focus on is that I would rather have an inservice with the four teachers I work most with and say, ‘what are you doing in your class? And, let me tell what I am doing in mine, and let’s pull all of our resources together and come out with the best things. Elaborating on alternative and more beneficial approaches to teacher-learning in inservice programs rather than workshops or seminars, Irwin said that peer and selfobservation have a great potential to change one’s beliefs and practice: This year I took this course that was based on observation, and I think that I learned from that experience much more than I did in my regular studies (…) you know, sharing and sharing – ‘This is what I do and here is why’.”

62 Mary said her default setting was “the way that I was taught” and added that this sometimes worked against her in which she found that it was difficult to apply different theories to her practice. She said that it would be easier if the classes in which she had been had applied the same theories she learns now, which, she said, was not true. About here default setting, Mary gave this example in her essay: Only when I saw a videotape of another person’s teaching could I begin to imagine what the reading class should ‘look’ like. That is, how it should be structured, how appropriate topics are chosen and activities carried out. Perhaps this is simply a reflection of my own learning style…show me, don’t tell me. Another example of a preference for the show-me-don’t-tell-me approach is given by Alice. Commenting on a course she was teaching for the first time, and the fact that she was asked to observe a more experienced teacher before she taught the same lesson to her own class, Alice said: I really like the way (…) he has this whole thing set up and it’s like an apprenticeship kind of thing and (…) every day you go and observe his class… I just think it’s really interesting because there are lots of different things that I get from him: a) I get to see somebody teach the class that I am going to teach every day… that’s awesome but b) it’s also really interesting when I see what he does and it goes in one way, and then if I do it, then it goes another way… It’s kind of: What’s different? Why did this go this way and this and that…?

63 Asked by another participant whether she felt constrained to do things his way, she said, Yeah, but he’s been doing this forever and (…) I pretty much agree with what happens. (…) it’s restrictive but, anyway, it is like what you said about observation; I like that, because I can see it and within 48 hours, try it. Irwin questioned what she said about getting different results and about what she had done about it, which was, actually, a question about reflection and intervention. Her answer showed that she had thoroughly done both. Yvonne asked Alice to try and apply her conclusions to another course. Alice said that she could not do so as she did not know much about the others’ classes, which is consistent with the known fact that every teaching context is unique in many ways. A point stands out, however, that there seems to be a marked preference for the show-medon’t-tell-me approach that teacher educators should take into account in the design of inservice teacher development programs. Show-me-don’t-tell-me, on the other hand, suggests a preference for observational activities, which is confirmed by both the quantitative and the qualitative analyses in this study. The group discussed the issue of peer observation further, particularly, how much one observes from another teacher can be replicated in his or her own practice. This gave way to a rich discussion that included individual styles, personality traits, role modeling, and ideas of what a good teacher is – plenty of awareness raising issues, a rich reservoir of ideas for action research, a favorable situation for changes in attitude, knowledge, or behavior.

64 Findings and commentaries regarding the YES/NO survey questionnaire After the meeting just discussed, each participant was sent an electronic message with five YES/NO questions about phase one, which is the third data source for this phase. Each question had a field for comments in which the respondents were instructed to fill in, if their answers could not be satisfactorily conveyed by an objective YES or NO. Three of the participants answered the questionnaire. The analysis of the comments was made with the same matrix used for the reflective essays, and elaborated on with descriptive and analytical commentaries. The five questions in the Survey Questionnaire were: 1. Did you find discrepancy(ies) between your beliefs and your practice? 2. After you reflected on your beliefs and your practice, is there any point you plan to give special consideration? 3. Do you feel that acknowledging your beliefs and comparing them with your practice may help you address your needs related to your teaching? 4. Do you feel that activities such as these of Phase One display respect for your individual teaching style? 5. Had you ever been prompted to check your beliefs against your practice before? Questions 1 through 3 were directly related to initial Research Question 1 and were intended to help teachers compare their stated beliefs with their pedagogical practice in the hope that the findings could cause an impact on their beliefs, their practice, or both. Given the fact that the participants were all MATESL students, any surprises

65 should grow in importance, as these teachers were simultaneously exposed to plenty of theory and practice and consequently being constantly challenged to contrast both with their beliefs. Question 4 and 5 addressed the perception of the participants regarding the program as a whole.

Alice’s answers to questions 1 through 3 Alice said YES to question number 1 and added this comment: “My beliefs seemed very idealistic while my practices seemed more pragmatic”, a comment that seems to lean toward practice and consider a revision of beliefs. This means that rather than being about a change in beliefs impacting practice, it is about practice impacting beliefs. This indicates that comparing beliefs with practice and reflecting about them may equally lead to changing one or the other. Question 2 is open to this possibility. Alice’s answer to question number 2 was also YES with the observation that “I think I will try to put more of that idealism into the pragmatics of my teaching” showing that reflection fostered a need for testing her beliefs (and hypotheses) about teaching practices, and prompted an attitude for change. Alice answered YES to question 3 with a comment that it helped her realize the discrepancy and the need to reconcile her beliefs with her practices, which is clear evidence of a change in attitude.

Mary’s answers to questions 1 through 3 Mary answered NO to question number 1 and commented that she had not found anything shocking or unknown to her, but added: “I think the exercise had the potential to find discrepancies… just lucky none turned up!” As she had stated in her essay, “just

66 because the questionnaires were not able to tease out any glaring contradictions, it does not mean that they do not exist.” These statements, plus the fact that she admitted to having previously found discrepancies, point out to the validity of this kind of reflection. To question number 2, Mary also answered NO, but added this comment: “though, to be honest I might think that I should if I wasn’t so incredibly busy this month or we weren’t following up with other reflective activities.” Her comment suggests the admission that the issue deserves further consideration – a positive attitude towards doing so in the future – and the hope that the next activities would allow for such. Together with the affirmative answer to question 3, Mary’s reactions display evidence of awareness and a change in attitude, which means that there was impact toward changes.

Yvonne’s answers to questions 1 through 3 To question number 1, Yvonne responded YES AND NO and commented: Judging from the answers, I would have to say both YES and NO. YES, because the answers were somewhat related to one another. NO, because some questions were answered with a different approach. Judging from what I believe and what I actually do in the classroom, however, I would lean more to YES because I do try extremely hard to follow my beliefs. Based on her words, Yvonne’s answer can be regarded as affirmative, especially because to question number 2 she responded affirmatively and added that now that she was more aware, she planned to be more careful in what she did and said in class. The answers to questions 1 and 2 together seem to confirm an impact on her beliefs; a

67 disposition for change is evident in her answer to question 3: “Yes, absolutely. However, I think further systematic steps should be taken to put information/awareness into use.”

The participants’ answers to questions 4 and 5 Questions 4 and 5 were intended to contribute to a general idea of the perception of the participants regarding the program as a whole, especially compared with other teacher education programs not primarily focused on reflection and in which teachers are not given much chance to voice their concerns or given tools to find their own answers. All the participants admitted, in response to questions 4, to having had their individuality respected, and this is regarded as evidence of approval of this program which was designed to be teacher centered. The issue of teacher-centeredness of inservice education programs was of secondary interest in this research, which justifies questions 4 and 5. The relation of questions 5 – whether the participants had been prompted to check their beliefs against their practice before – with teacher-centeredness is related to the fact that what teacher education programs often do is having teachers compare their practice with the research knowledge, which, according to Freeman and Johnson (1998) “does not articulate easily and cogently into classroom practice;” (p. 411); or in other words, which is alien to teachers reality. By being allowed to compare their practice with their beliefs, teachers should feel that their actual and immediate needs are being addressed. This does not in any way invalidate instruction on theory and research, as this is a more than valid way to inform teachers’ beliefs and establish a safe basis for change and improvement. The point of question 5 is to call attention to the possibility that this issue has not been given

68 the attention it deserves in teacher education. A negative answer to question 5 was expected to provide support to such assumption. Although all the participants answered question 5 negatively, it must be said that the question itself may lose significance under close scrutiny give the fact that Alice and Yvonne were novice teachers, and Irwin also had limited experience. Mary, the only experienced participant, answered NO, but added: “not in such a manner”. As the manners in which she had been prompted so that before are not known, it can not be said that this program better helps teachers compare their beliefs with their practice as compared with other approaches.

Final Evaluation of Phase One The analysis of the reflective essays of Phase One did show awareness raising, and changes in attitude, and although reflection and awareness alone were not enough to produce noticeable changes in behavior, it is evident that monitored reflection was necessary to lead to awareness, which is a necessary basis for behavioral change to occur. The results also showed that in the participant teachers’ view, instruction plays a significant role and that it is the combination of reflection and awareness with monitored exploration and intervention that eventually allows for learning and growth. As Freeman and Johnson (1998) put it, all of these are necessary “if we mean to strengthen and improve, rather than simply preserve and replicate, educational practice,” (p. 401). The group discussions were the eleventh reflective activity. Although not included in the Kit of Reflective Activities of phase two, they were present in all the phases and profitable for reflection and learning. In GD1, for example, forty minutes

69 were enough to cover very few of the reflection questions of phase one, which means that there was plenty of material for discussion in each pair. The findings from the answers to the survey questionnaire seem to have provided a positive answer to initial Research Question 1, which asked whether the activities of Phase One produced an impact on teachers’ beliefs. The findings indicate that reflection generated favorable attitudes for change and professional growth, which consequently serves as a confirmation of impact. The nature of this impact is related to raised awareness regarding beliefs and the theoretical principles behind them, raised awareness about actual pedagogical practice, and changes in attitude toward further reflection or intervention.

Phase Two – From Reflection to Action The data collection sources for Phase One were four reflective essays, four activity-ranking forms, and group discussion 2 (GD2) which closed Phase Two and introduced phase three. The reflective essays of this phase – which were supposed to be reports of one of the activities chosen by the participant to try out – were analyzed in the same way as those from phase one, but in this case, the focus was on Research Question 2 – kinds of reflective activities that are more motivating for teachers. Also relevant for this research was the kind and number of activities the participants tried out; the activities chosen to report on, as well as the ones not chosen for trial or to report on. In order to gather that information, an Activity Ranking Form (appendix G) was used in addition to the four reflective essays and the discussion in GD2, which was monitored with the use of specific questions. The data from the essays and the GD2 were also expected to

70 provide information regarding Research Question 1 – the impact of self reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices – and 3 – types of specific learning issues that emerged from participation in this program. As with the whole project, the findings are expected to be generalizable to other teacher education programs based on reflection and action research. Different from those of phase one, the reflective activities suggested for Phase Two were more practical, so as to give the teachers the chance to systematically delve into their teaching practices, exploring pedagogical processes, identifying problems, and considering alternative approaches to teaching. For such, ten reflective activities were provided – five non-observational and five observational – with detailed explanations and material of support. The participants were given three weeks to try out as many activities as they pleased, provided they reported on only one. The full content of the reflective activities kit and the texts that explain the activities can be found in appendix F. At the end of phase two, the participants were asked to rank the ten activities in order of preference (1 for their favorite, and 10 for the least likely to be chosen), and were monitored in a group discussion. The quantitative results of the activity-ranking form were qualitatively analyzed, together with the other data collected, for possible reasons behind the choices made by the participants.

Findings and commentaries regarding the essays of phase two. Unlike the essays of phase one, which were based on abstract reflection, the four reflective essays of Phase Two were expected to rely on more practical reflection, as

71 teachers looked at their practice from different angles and explored alternative approaches to teaching. The participants were given ten choices of observational and non-observational activities and displayed a marked preference for the observational ones. As the practical implication of observation is more difficult to assess, the results of this phase somewhat frustrated the researcher’s intention of making it less theoretical. Yet, it provided a satisfactory answer to Research Question 2, and relevant information for the other research questions.

Alice’s essay Alice was the only participant who chose a non-observational activity to try out and report on. She chose activity 2, in which she was supposed to write a report on a classroom activity that took no longer than 20 minutes. As her essay was supposed to be a report on an activity, her activity report was also her essay. Alice’s choice reflects one of the main reasons raised in the group discussion for their choices – time constraints. As she was on a tight schedule as a MATESL student and a first-semester TA, she put together this task with one she had been assigned for a practicum course she was taking at UIUC as part of her MATESL program. She reported on a 10-minute conversational activity given to 20 students from various nationalities. In her report, she thoroughly followed the instructions provided and after having described the class and the activity, she wrote her findings and conclusions. It was evident from her essay that she benefited from this exploratory opportunity and learned about her teaching. She highlighted the good points of the activity and an unexpected outcome from which she learned that there were variables she should try and account for in the future. Alice’s

72 report presented evidence of awareness raised by reflecting of the lesson she had taught, such as when she said: While circulating and listening to Ss, I realized that something a little different than planned happened. Instead of sticking to the given subject, personal past histories, Ss began talking about that but then shifted back and forth to the present (i.e. what do you do now that you are here in the US? Where are you from? etc). In other instances, Alice showed not only awareness, but also evidence of learning, and an attitude for future intervention, as in To improve my lesson study process, I could think more about possible outcomes before the lesson. That way, I would be more prepared. It had not crossed my mind that Ss might not stick to the subject of personal histories. Her report was complete; the essay, however, for the purpose of this research, missed something. The researcher expected a testimony of the validity of such reflective practice for teacher development. In other words, a testimony of how, in the participant’s view, such a reflective activity could be useful in helping teachers identify points in their teaching that deserve special attention and/or future intervention.

Irwin’s essay Irwin chose activity 10 (observational) – more specifically: the movie clip of Dangerous Minds (1995). In this movie, Michelle Pfeiffer plays a teacher in a highschool in which the students are poor Afro-Americans and Latinos. After a very negative

73 first encounter with the students, the teacher resorts to unconventional methods of teaching, using karate, Bob Dylan’s lyrics, friendship and attention, and thus getting the trust of the students. Influenced by the movie, Irwin’s reflection took him back to his first experience as a teacher and the first shock between theory and the reality of classroom. He said, “I soon realized that the knowledge that I had of teaching and learning did not quite match the daily teaching practice in the classroom”, and proceeded by describing some of the aspects that challenged his “storage of theories”. His focus was on the relationship between teacher and students and some of the many variables that come to play. The way Irwin put it suggests a feeling of not having been told that he would be dealing with human beings, as when he said: “Sometimes teachers must put aside what they have to teach and think of students as people with needs other than learning”. Irwin’s reflection suggests that in trying to stick to their theoretical roots in linguistics, teacher educators may sometimes overlook teachers’ real and immediate needs and thus frustrate these teachers and the purposes of the teacher education program itself. Irwin concludes that it is necessary to “find effective, meaningful, attitude-change provoking actions that will serve both purposes – meeting student’s needs while providing them with opportunities for learning”.

Mary’s essay Like Irwin, Mary also chose activity 10. Paraphrasing the nickname given to the activity (Teachers in the Movies), Mary entitled her essay, “Teaching in the Movies”. She started by calling attention to the fact that teachers in the movies are actually part of a fantasy realm, an idealistic and unrealistic portrait that can not be compared with real life.

74 She elaborated on that by saying that none of the teachers portrayed in those movies seem to have much in common with the teachers she had as a student or with herself as a teacher. Some of the dissimilitudes she mentioned are how easy energy and motivation are transferred to individual students by the teacher; how quick, flexible and creative teachers are to change the course of a lesson plan; how teachers can afford to invest their own money to enrich classroom work; and how they can find time to help students on an individual basis, even with personal matters. She admits though to how inspiring those characters are in that they make real teachers feel like striving for improvement and perfection. Mary concluded her essay by saying: I do find it useful to see teachers in the movies. It often helps to reenergize me with the idealism and idealistic situations of teachers in film. (…) Films remind me that teaching can be a wonderful and rewarding profession. Revisiting her history as a teacher in her reflection, Mary realized that experience had already taught her a great deal, but admitted that much more was still to be learned. She asked herself important questions such as “Do I convey the content of the class in a way that connects to the students?”; “Do I set high expectations that inspire students to greatness?”; and “What is the difference between making students work really hard and inspiring them to make themselves work hard?. All of these questions seem potentially rich in terms of fostering objective reflection and informed intervention. Actually, they eventually influenced the choice of one of the topics for the action research activity of Phase Three. In this sense, this activity provided an affirmative answer to Research Questions 1 and 3.

75 Yvonne’s essay Yvonne also chose activity 10 to reflect and to report on. She said that the first thought to come to her mind as she watched the movie clips was that “being a teacher is a fascinating but a very challenging profession”. Yvonne expressed her fascination for the power human beings have to influence one another, and considered it a big challenge to transform effort and dedication into making a difference. This fascination seems to have potential to be translated into rekindled motivation, and into a new disposition to face challenges, which are powerful allies in the venture of exploring one’s teaching. Yvonne observed that although real life classroom environments are usually friendlier than the ones in the movies, and everyday problems usually different, such environments and problems are equally challenging nonetheless. She specifically pointed out two challenges: acknowledging the uniqueness of each student, and catering for each student’s unique needs. Among others, she asked herself these questions, all of which may constitute rich subjects for teachers’ research: “What type of a teacher am I?”, “Have I had any influence on my students?”, “What efforts have I put in to make learning more effective?”, “Have I made a difference so far?” Yvonne saw all ten of the movie clips and commented that given the variety of subject-matters and styles they portray, she understood that there is no right answer for what best teaching should be like. She added that each class and each student will raise different questions that will deserve what she called “tailored answers”. Yvonne’s conclusion that there is no right way of teaching suggests that no top-down approach to teacher instruction will be as fit to contribute to teachers’ development as an approach that is born in their real-life context and immediate needs. Yvonne applied this reflection

76 to her current teaching experience and confessed: “I was a bit uncertain whether my teaching approach was ‘right’ or not. But now, with the reflection, I feel more confident about the way I teach and how I should go about it from now on.” This change in attitude suggests a favorable start for an exploratory journey. Yvonne concluded her essay by turning back to reality and saying: Certainly, there are teachers in these times that are as inspiring and dedicated, and it is because of these that we are stimulated. As teachers and as students, we have felt that invisible space which tends to keep the two entities somewhat distant than they really should be. And it is this barrier that the teachers need to tear down. In a nutshell, this means that we, as teachers, need to make it our ultimate goal to reach out to the minds and hearts of each and every student. Actually, this is precisely what Mary and Yvonne aimed at in their action research plan: breaking out barriers and reaching out for the students.

Findings and commentaries regarding Group Discussion 2 Group discussion 2 started with a monitored discussion of the participants’ experiences in trying out the reflective activities. In order to facilitate the discussion and also guarantee that it would provide relevant data for this research, six questions were directed to the whole group (which means that answers were voluntary). Question 1 was discussed before the filling out of the Activities Ranking Form, so that the participants could make better informed decisions about the ranking. After the forms were filled out, the discussion proceeded with the other questions. Here are the 6 questions:

77 1. Which reflective activity did you choose and why did you choose it? How would you rank the other 9 activities in order of preference? 2. Did the activity you tried impact your teaching in any way? If so, how? If not, why do you think it didn’t? 3. Do you think it may still impact your teaching in the future? 4. Do you intend to try any of the other activities in a near future? If so, which one(s)? If not, why not? 5. How do you feel doing activities such as these may contribute to your professional development? 6. Did the activity you chose raise any question about your teaching or your student’s learning that you would like to investigate?

Question 1 - Which reflective activity did you choose? Why did you choose it? The three participants present at the meeting had chosen the video to reflect on. When asked the first question, Mary said it was because it was more flexible to do as there was no need to schedule as it would happen with observation, for example. She also said that this was the activity that required the least preparation or pre-reflection. Yvonne agreed with that and added that it seemed more fun as compared to the other activities, and she liked the idea that it was visual, i.e., she could see people teaching. Irwin agreed that it was more practical in face of time constraints. What was mentioned next was the fact that those reasons and motivations sound similar to those of our students. Mary listed them: activities should be visual, easy on the schedule, and not require a lot of work

78 before one can start. Summarizing what all the participants said, reflective activities will be more likely to be chosen if they are: a) flexible and easy on the schedule; b) practical (i.e., not too time-consuming in terms of preparation and/or pre-reflection), c) fun to do; and d) visual and referential (serving as a model). All the participants were busy with the courses they were taking and the classes they were teaching, which explains their concern with time constraints. Teachers in real life institutional contexts, however, are likely to have the same problem, which argues in favor of teacher education programs that give teachers some flexibility of choices. This grows in relevance in face of the fact that the most popular reflective activities in teacher education are usually time-consuming: journal writing, video or audio-recordings (sometimes with transcription), group discussion (these three listed by Richards and Schmidt (2002)), and peer observation (sometimes with pre- and post-observation meetings). The argument for fun and visual activities was that they were more motivating. This led to the argument that most of the participants’ reactions as teacher-learners could and should be thought of as extendable to their students. On the other hand, teacher educators should be aware of the fact that the basic motivation of teacher-learners is similar to that of students in general, which becomes an argument against too many lectures or dry theories in teacher education programs. As for this discussion, the participants noticed that more than exploring their own teaching, they were probing into how people learn. It must be said at this point that the participants were not against theoretical instruction in inservice teacher education – quite the opposite. What they advocated for

79 was a fair distribution of theoretical instruction and practical, meaningful, and fun activities.

Question 2 - Did the activity you tried impact your teaching in any way? If so, how? If not, why do you think it didn’t? Yvonne said that when she entered her classroom for the first time after she watched the movie clips, she tried not to think of the class simply as a class. She had noticed that the way she talked to her students used to be as if she were reading a script. After the activity, she tried to balance her reason with her instincts and to think of her students as whole human beings. She said that she now needed to talk to them in order to check their understanding rather than using mechanical methods for such. She felt the need to communicate with the students beyond conventional ways. She confessed this realization had meant a great deal to her. When asked whether she believed that additional impacts were likely to happen in her teaching in the future as a result of that activity, Yvonne answered affirmatively. She said that it came at an initial point in her career in which she was constrained by limits or fixed patterns that she felt obligated to follow and that now she understood that in the near future she should manage to become less constrained. Asked specifically if that experience would, for example, change the way she prepared her lesson plans, she said that she would certainly think ahead and plan her classes in a more realistic way. Here is a summary of what Yvonne said about what she learned from doing that activity and reflecting on it:

80 a)

she learned about holistic teaching, or how important it is to see students as full and complex human beings that deserve individual attention;

b)

she learned that lesson plans, methods, approaches, and techniques should not be mechanical, as teachers are not dealing with machines but with human beings;

c)

she learned that there are no fixed, or right ways to do things, and that she would have to get rid of any straightjacket she has been given or adopted if she were to reach the best of herself as a professional;

d)

she learned that change must happen before she enters the classroom, when she is preparing her lesson plan.

Yvonne hopefully also learned that if change is to happen, it has to start even before the lesson plan, in the teachers’ heart and mind, or wherever beliefs reside. The fact is that learning did take place and impacted Yvonne’s beliefs and practice. Asked whether she intended to try any of the other activities in the near future, Yvonne said that she might try stepping into the students’ shoes, even though she had recently lived that experience. She justified her choice by saying that she suddenly realized that she remembers her former teachers – and maybe even models after them – but she does not remember as well what being a language learner is like. Irwin, following the same line of thought, said that doing the activity reminded him that the materials he dealt with were people, who needed a proper learning environment, who had needs that had to be satisfied, who had time limitations like everybody else, and who were exhausted by the time they came to his class in early

81 evening. Irwin admitted to an impact in his beliefs in the first place, and to a change in his attitude in the classroom as a consequence of that. He said that instead of coming into the classroom and immediately throwing at the students what he had prepared for the class, he now took five minutes just to talk to them, person to person, and confessed that he was amazed by the change it made in the atmosphere. He said it was like saying, “I care”, and finding out that students had something to say. Asked whether he intended to try any of the other activities in the near future, Irwin said he surely would, and mentioned specifically “interviewing teachers”, adding that the best way he had found so far to grow professionally was getting feedback from peers. Mary said that what struck her the most in the movies was the way teachers found a way to connect with their students, reach out to them and somehow say: “I see you for who you are, and I still think that you can be destined for greatness, and no matter how high the expectations are for you, you can meet them”, and thus motivate them to meet their goals. Asked about the impact the activity had on her, Mary said she felt reenergized but that it really did not actually change what she did in the classroom. Asked whether she intended to try any of the other activities in the near future, Mary said she would try the “classy observation”, which was about observing a class not directly related to ESL and applying that to her teaching. What she planned to do is what Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) call making personal connections to teaching. Further discussion led to an agreement by all that a teacher does not become a teacher when s/he enters the classroom. Teachers are teachers all the time, and it is more than natural that

82 they extend the exploration of their teaching to their mundane experiences out of their classrooms. An interesting finding is that when asked about other activities they intended to try out, none of the participants mentioned the one they ranked two (the second preferred one) in the form they had just filled out. Irwin said he would like to try activity 3, Interviewing teachers, which he had ranked 5 in the form. Mary said she would like to try activity 9, Classy Observation, which she had ranked 3; and Yvonne said she would probably try out activity 8, Stepping into the students’ shoes, which she had ranked 3). This once again points out to how flexible a teacher education program must be in order to adapt to the flexibility of teachers’ preferences and the way these preferences may vary according to contexts, moments, and moods.

Findings and commentaries regarding the Activities Ranking Before filling out the forms, the participants were informed that the criterion for their choices should be simply preference, for whatever reasons they had. They were instructed to rank the activities from 1 to 10 (1 for their favorite activity, and 10 for the least likely to be chosen). Table 4.1 below shows the results of the ranking. The last column on the right shows the average (AVG) ranking given to each activity. As the preferred activity was ranked 1, the lowest average results represent the activities most likely to be chosen. In the same fashion, the lower number obtained after the addition of the AVG column displays the preference for non-observational and observation activities.

83 Table 4.1 Results of the Ranking of Activities NON-OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES

Alice

Irwin

Mary Yvonne AVG

1. Writing a teaching journal/diary

6

6

7

9

7.00

2. Writing an activity report

1

8

6

10

6.25

3. Interviewing Teachers

5

3

1

5

3.50

4. Developing Metaphors

9

9

10

4

8.00

5. Trying the opposite

2

10

8

8

7.00

Preference for non-observational activities

31.75

OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES

Alice

Irwin

6. Audio or Video-recording a class

3

4

2

6

3.75

7. Seeing one’s teaching through the students’ eyes

10

7

9

2

7.00

8. Stepping into the Students Shoes

8

5

5

3

5.25

9. Classy Observation

4

2

3

7

4.00

10. Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies

7

1

4

1

3.25

Preference for observational activities

Mary Yvonne AVG

23.25

The chart represented by Table 4.2 gives a visual representation of the participants’ average preference for each activity. On average, the most preferred activity was number 10 - Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies. This was an expected result based on the actual choice that the participants had already made, and on what they had said in GD2. The two most salient reasons mentioned by the participants for the choice were the motivational component of movies that involve teachers, and time-constraints. In addition to this, the layout of the DVD with the movie clips was visually appealing and made the participants want to watch it.

84 Table 4.2 The Average Preference for the Reflective Activities Activity 1 - Writing a Teaching Journal/Diary Activity 2 - Writing an Activity Report Activity 3 - Interview ing Teachers Activity 4 - Developing Metaphors Activity 5 - Trying the Opposite Activity 6 - Audio- or Video-recording a Class Activity 7 - Seeing one's Teaching Through the Students' Eyes Activity 8 - Stepping into the Students Shoes Activity 9 - Classy Observation Activity 10 - Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Put together with the time constraints, the choice of activity 10 can be easily understood. In a certain way, the presentation of the material influenced the choice. ESL publishers make a point of producing material that is appealing to the eyes, and thus motivating to learners. The material designed for this research had the same concern, based on the assumption that this motivational variable should also be a concern of teacher educators. What was not given enough attention, though, is the fact that besides the natural appeal of movies, the presentation of the DVD also served to reduce the attractiveness of the rest of the material. It was this realization that prompted the researcher to try and design an unbiased tool to measure teachers’ preference of reflective activities. Mary chose activity 10 in spite of its being her forth choice and she was the only participant who did not choose to try out the activity ranked number one. She justified her choice with those two reasons mentioned before: motivational appeal and time constraints. As motivational appeal was also mentioned by the other two participants who

85 chose activity 10, this should serve as evidence that such a component in activities is as relevant for teacher-learners as it is for ESL/EFL students. Alice chose activity 2 – Writing an Activity Report – as her favorite one and, consistently, as the activity of choice for her reflection. In spite on this consistency, another piece of evidence, already mentioned in the discussion of her essay, suggests that time constraints was also a determining issue in Alice’s choice. Considering the average, the second activity most likely to be chosen was number 3 – Interviewing Teachers. This is consistent with the findings from GD2, when the participants revealed their preference for learning from each other instead of receiving theoretical instruction. It also supports the thesis that teacher education should be bottom up, and that teachers are willing to learn from sharing and collaboratively exploring their teaching (see Burns, 1999). This choice is not as consistent, however, with the general results that point to a preference for observational activities. This choice may suggest that what teachers have to say about what they do may mean more to other teachers than simple observation, as the descriptive report of their actions brings also a rationale. The third activity most likely to be chosen – number 6: Audio or Video-recording a class – also confirms that teachers want to explore their own teaching and learn from it. In addition to that, it indicates a preference for self observation and auto exploration, suggesting that teachers would rather judge themselves than be judged by others. The fourth activity most likely to be chosen – number 9: Classy Observation – consists of observing classes and activities that have little or no connection with ESL/EFL teaching, reflect on them, build metaphors about one’s own teaching, and learn in the process. The fact that the participants indicated preference for this activity suggests

86 that teachers are willing to extend the exploration of their teaching out of the limitations of the classroom; that they like the idea of learning from real life models and adapting them to their teaching, maybe bringing some more authenticity to their classrooms; and that they are willing to take measures to change their behavior for better whenever possible. The remaining activities are markedly in a dispreferred group, which is comprised of all the activities for which there was less than 50% likelihood to be chosen by these participants. This group starts with activity number 8 – Stepping into the Students Shoes – and proceeds respectively with activities 2 (Writing an Activity Report); 1 (Writing a Teaching Journal/Diary), 5 (Trying the Opposite), 7 (Seeing one’s Teaching through the student’s eyes), and 4 (Developing Metaphors), the least likely to be chosen. The reasons why these activities are dispreferred go beyond the scope of this project, but certainly deserve further investigation. As no specific reasons were elicited from or mentioned by the participant teachers in the GDs, any discussion here would be unwarranted speculation. One fact worthy of mention, however, is the fact that the writing of teaching journals and diaries, so popular in teacher development programs, proved to be clearly dispreferred in this experiment.

Final evaluation of Phase Two A general conclusion about the essays is that the reflective activities tried out did result in awareness, rekindled motivation, and attitude for change, which represents a positive answer to Research Questions 1 and 3. As for Research Question 2 – about types of reflective activities that are more motivating for teachers – the essays show a

87 preference for observational activities but little is evident about the reasons for the choices, except for the motivational appeal and time constraints. Although time constraints tend to be common to most teaching contexts, there may be some other variables to explain the participants’ choice other than those two explicitly mentioned by them, but such assumption asks for further research. This project relied solely on the ranking of the activities and the group discussion to assess the general attitudes of the teachers regarding the reflective activities.

Phase Three – Planning Intervention One of the objectives of phase three, related to Research Questions 1 and 3, was to investigate how the impact of systematic reflection on beliefs and practice can inform and foster action (research) and intervention. For such, the participants were asked to take advantage of their experiences in the previous phases and identify problems that might inform a collaborative action research project. The discussion that took place in the second part of GD2 was crucial in the process of selecting issues for that investigation. The relevant data sources regarding this objective were the reflective essays and GD3. The essays were analyzed in the same fashion as the others from the previous phases, but the analytical commentaries focused on the impression teachers had of designing an action research plan to investigate problems that they had located and which were close to their reality and needs. The analysis of part II of the GD2 followed the same analytical model used for the other GDs – description and analytical commentaries. Another objective of this phase was to inform Research Question 4 – the overall perception teachers have of an inservice teacher education program based solely on

88 reflection and action research. The main data source for this analysis was the quantitative data obtained from the final survey, but the results of the survey were analyzed together with the GD3 and data from all the other sources. GD3 was analyzed for qualitative data that served to crosscheck the results of the survey about the general perception the participants had of this program, while the other data sources were analyzed and coded for evidence of approval [app] or disapproval [dsp] of the program designed for this research. The findings are expected to be generalizable to other similar programs as well.

Part II of Group Discussion 2 – choosing topics for the action research plans After discussing their impressions from the experiences of phase two, the participants discussed potential problems that they had located and that might constitute subjects to be investigated through collaborative action-research. In preparation for that, they were given a brief explanation of what action-research was about, which was done with the help of a PowerPoint presentation they had been sent in advance. Some areas of interest that were raised in this discussion, and which could inform the action-research plan, were: a) how to improve a teacher’s ability to facilitate conversation in the classroom by identifying variables that contribute to students participation and engagement in classroom activities; b) how such improved facilitation can impact the rates between teacher and students’ talk; c) strategies that can help a teacher identify her/his teaching style and how the teacher can build upon that; d) how the improvement of the personal relationship between teacher and students impacts classroom work and the learning that occurs there (both teachers’ and students’ learning); e) reasons why two teachers teaching a same level and with a similar lesson plan get different results.

89 The participants were asked to try and devise an action research plan that could be carried out in a hypothetical next phase of this teacher education program. In spite of all the ideas raised in the discussion, the exact topic (or topics) the participants would be working on was not decided at the meeting. It was made clear that as the action research plan was to be collaborative, it should be developed by at least two participants, which means that either one or two action research plans would be devised. The main reason for postponing the decision about who would do what and with whom was the absence of one of the participants. Another reason was that the participants wanted to take some more time to discuss the topics and decide which topic to pick. Two topics were chosen by the participants, which means they worked in pairs. One of the pairs chose to write an action research plan on the topic (d) listed above: how the improvement of the personal relationship between teacher and students impacts classroom work and the learning that occurs there (both teachers’ and students’ learning. This choice was clearly influenced by reflective activity 10, which characterizes an impact of the reflective activities on teachers. The other pair chose a topic which had not been discussed at the meeting and which was a practical and immediate concern of the teacher who was not present at the meeting: whether or not classroom pair activities are useful for anything else than changing the class dynamic every now and again. This choice also seems related to the reflective activity chosen by Alice – a lesson report. The actual content of the action research plans is not considered data source for this research but both plans can be seen in appendix G. The fact that the ideas chosen for action research were inspired by the activities performed by the participants in the previous phases of the project, and that such ideas

90 were born from the needs of the teachers, suggests that the program was successful in impacting teachers and creating favorable conditions for learning, change, and improvement. This investigation, however, is primarily interested in how the teachers themselves perceived this impact, and the feelings of ownership they developed about the process. The essays and GD3 were expected to provide such information.

Findings and commentaries regarding the essays of phase three Alice and Irwin decided for a project on an issue that was an immediate need of Alice’s, and of which Irwin had made no mention at GD2. This sounds like a good definition of

collaboration as related to collaborative action research – mutual

understanding of peer needs, sharing of knowledge and experience about issues that are of common interest of the participants, or simply joint exploration for the sake of learning. As Irwin did not submit his reflective essay, the analysis regarding this actionresearch devising activity, and the impact it had on its developers, is based on Alice’s essay only.

Alice’s essay Alice and her partner taught very different classes: Alice taught pronunciation and phonetics, while Irwin taught academic writing.

They agreed to develop an action

research plan to investigate “whether or not classroom pair activities are useful for anything else than changing the class dynamic every now and again.” Here is what Alice had to say about the experience of developing the plan and about the process that led to it.

91 I believe that thinking about these issues was really helpful. Sometimes, when you teach a class, you do things without thinking about them. It is good to constantly be questioning yourself and your methods in the classroom. It was also helpful to realize that with a little bit of work, I personally could conduct a mini-experiment and get answers to questions unique to my class. I think what was most helpful about this task was brainstorming and discussing with another teacher the possible problems in my class that have to do with interactive learning. Alice’s words reveal approval of the activity, raised awareness about a new and apparently efficient tool to explore her teaching, and satisfaction at finding out that she could count on a peer to work out pedagogical problems that were hers only. Alice’s words seem to bring a positive response to Research Questions 1, 3, and 4.

Mary’s essay Mary and Yvonne’s thorough research plan was inspired by the reflective activities they tried out, and discussed in GD2. In their own words, their plan revolved “around the way instructors interact with students on a personal level.” Here is what Mary said about her initial motivation: I am one of many teachers who has always believed that the learning of course content is the most important aspect of the class, that teachers should not be ‘friends’ with the students, and they should not be influenced by a desire for popularity with the students. But although a line is drawn between the teacher and students, and although the main

92 goal of the class is to learn the content, the social aspect of the classroom is also very important. Mary’s words reveal that the awareness raised by previous reflection gave her and her partner a bold disposition to defy established rules in order to investigate and test hypotheses about better teaching. Regarding her expectations about the plan, she shows an unbiased and open-minded attitude, and expresses her confidence that that action research could be beneficial to her as a teacher: I think that this action research is important because it could influence me to believe that it is more important to know my students on a personal level than it is to keep a wall between us. (…) the action research will give me a more balanced view of the advantages and disadvantages of both, and I can make a better decision regarding my teaching based on my own personality and my own experiences.” In discussing the experience of developing an action research plan, Mary came back to a recurrent issue in all the GDs, that is, the distance between theory and practice. This once again points to the importance of the issue, and to the need that teacher educators give it special attention. Conducting action research allowed us to look at an aspect of teaching that was important to us, but which is not normally dealt with (I assume) in a lot of literature. Or if it is, it is certainly not something that is generalizable. Rather than spending time on how other people might look at this question, we chose to look at what we do with social

93 interaction in the classroom, and applied our own perspectives to the evaluation of this aspect of teaching. Mary said that she and her partner were doing something that the literature was not likely to provide, given the many variables that go on in real life classroom contexts. She confessed to how important they felt it is that teachers test their hypotheses on their own, look at issues from their own perspectives and according to their own discernment of values in order to find their own answers. By developing an action research plan that was born out of her immediate needs, Mary seems to have felt her individual needs catered for, as can be inferred from her words: The way in which we interact with students is completely individual, and the findings of this research are mainly applicable to the person who conducts the study.

We can share our findings and help others get a general

understanding of the subject, but as far as influencing teaching practice, the action research on this topic was essential. Without downplaying the importance of theory and research, Mary reinforces her impression that inservice teacher education must be contextualized and must give teachers the chance to experience research in order to learn and change. She makes clear the impact that such approach can have on teachers’ beliefs and practice: As far as influencing teaching practice, the action research on this topic was essential. While theory is important to help us gain knowledge and develop our methodology, it is only through experience that we change our practices.

94 About the importance of collaborative work, the potential benefits of action research, and the dangers of a top-down approach to teacher education, here is what Mary says: I feel that the collaborative model is important because it implements within the design of the task a sense of mentoring. The mentors may be colleagues on equal footing of experience and knowledge, but this can also be important to a support system. It is nice to have feedback and reassurance from a peer. Anytime the mentorship occurs with someone at a higher level or someone who is more of an administrator, there is always a sense of evaluation. Peer-to-peer collaboration removes the worst of that feeling and you are left to share both good and bad experiences, successes and failures, and help each other out with realistic suggestions or simply a sympathetic ear. The action research project encourages those interactions, but guides them to be conducted in a focused way. Although none of the participants knew about the research questions in this research, Mary’s conclusion to her essay seems to summarize the objectives and support positive answers to all of them: This is time well-spent because it gives teachers the opportunity to work on a topic that is near and dear to their hearts, it has a greater chance of changing not only teaching beliefs but also behaviors, and because it encourages teachers to communicate with each other in a concrete way about important issues in teaching.

95 Yvonne’s essay Yvonne made a cautious evaluation of action research in teacher education. She pointed out the practical and logistic difficulties it may present for teachers, such as definition of methods, possible obstacles for implementation, lack of time, resources, or tools, and validity of results. In spite of all that, Yvonne also highlighted the important role action-research may play in catering for teachers’ individual needs. She said: As a teacher, I find myself faced with ‘problems’ or ‘inquiries’ of big and small size everyday. Some are simple enough to be solved on my own, but others are more challenging, above my ability to handle due to the uniqueness of the class and its components. In this sense, the action plan is beneficial in a way that it tackles ‘my’ problems. This is a research that starts with ‘real’ research questions. In other words, it is a tailored research primarily aimed at investigating areas of my concern and, further, providing answers that can be shared with teachers who have similar concerns. In concluding her essay, Yvonne reinstated her impression about the limitations and difficulties in designing and carrying out collaborative action research, but added: “However, is still worth carrying it out because of the practicality that many conventional theories lack.” Wisely she observed that “this does not necessarily mean that theory based sessions and seminars for teachers should all be avoided or eliminated completely from a teacher training program”. Yvonne’s words seem to argue for a fair blend of both theoretical and hands-on instruction in teacher education.

96 Findings and commentaries regarding the Final Survey The final survey was primarily aimed at assessing the general impression the participants had of the program as a whole, and thus inform Research Question 4. The participants were given a form with sixteen items which should be marked on a Likert Scale that ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree. They were told that the items were intended to summarize their final impressions about the project and about the validity of a program for inservice teacher development such as the one they had experienced. They were also told that after they finished marking, they would have the chance to discuss the items and elaborate on any issue that could not have been well represented by that scale. The original form can be seen in appendix I. The survey was answered in no more than ten minutes and the rest of the time was used to discuss some of the items, so doing a final balance of the whole project, their impressions, their findings, and their perceived gain. Picture 4.2 shows a graph with the quantitative results – average of the responses. These results were put together with evidence collected from the other sources, as expressions of approval or disapproval, or other key phrases or statements that revealed the participants’ impressions of the program as a whole.

97 Table 4.3 Final Survey

98 Analysis of the quantitative results of the final survey A simple analysis of the quantitative results show strong approval of the program regarding its openness, flexibility, respect for teachers’ voice (6 and 8), potential to help teachers question their assumptions (13 and 14), acquire awareness, and consider change (14). Besides providing a positive response to Research Question 4, these results also support Research Question 1. The participants displayed clear agreement that the program was teacher-centered and had a clear focus on their needs (2, 5, and 7), that it impacted their beliefs (3), and that it seemed useful in helping teachers develop and implement strategies for change (15 and 16). Points of which the participant displayed rather moderate approval were that the reflection they had done had instilled a need for change or improvement (1), that the program gave them the chance to look at their teaching from different angles (9), that such an approach to inservice teacher education seems more beneficial than traditional top down approaches (11), and that this program can help teachers assess their teaching (12). The timid agreement with item 1 seems consistent with a holistic view of the rest of the data, in which no instances of willed decision to change can be seen, except for the apparently strong sense of a need of careful re-evaluation of the relationship between teachers and students. Item number 9 might have gotten a stronger agreement if the teachers had tried other reflective activities. The ones they did try certainly contributed little to their seeing their practice from other angles. The modest agreement with item 11 is consistent with the repeated observations by the participants that they still saw great importance in theory and research. As these were MATESL students, and potential

99 researchers themselves, this may as well be a rather biased position. A comparative study with teachers in other contexts should be a subject for further research. The issue about this program being useful in helping teacher assess their teaching (12) was not very well understood as can be seen in the subsequent discussion. An item that deserved a moderate approval was number 10, about the usefulness of self-reflection activities in raising issues for action research. This was rather surprising in the view of the researcher, who saw the number of issues raised from basically only one activity as quite significant. The least enthusiastic agreement was given to item 4, regarding a perceptible impact of the reflection on the participants’ practice. This seems perfectly consistent with the rest of the findings, as there was little evidence of change in behavior as a result of the reflection. The strong agreement with item 14, however, shows willingness and trust that that might happen in the future.

Findings and commentaries regarding group discussion 3 The discussion that followed confirmed the quantitative results and presented many points of convergence and none of divergence, besides the raising of one or two extra issues not addressed by the survey. For example, Alice suggested that some degree of authority and control in teacher education programs might be necessary and even desirable, a point that raised no comments from the participants. When asked if comment or clarification was needed regarding the survey, the participants asked for additional explanation of four items: 11, 12, 13, and 15.

100 In spite of the significant rating given to item 11 – This approach to inservice teacher education is more profitable to teachers than the traditional top down approaches – all the participants made a point of reaffirming their belief that a good approach to teacher education should be a combination of what this program suggests and the kind of teacher education usually provided in seminars and workshops. The researcher explained, however, that this program had not been designed as a substitute for conferences, seminars, workshops, or any other method currently used to make the knowledge base of theory and research available to teachers. Actually, this tentative framework was rooted in up-to-date suggestions from the literature and tried and incorporated its suggestions such as top-down orientation, prescriptive nature, contextualization, and teacher-centeredness. What this inservice program was intended to do was give teachers a chance to test their hypotheses in the light of those theories. On the other hand, if this program proved to be efficient, it might as well feed seminars with practical and empirically proved contributions to the teaching community. The data collected throughout the project presents several signs of participants’ reaction to the overflow of contextually meaningless theory in teacher education programs. Alice noticed that even this program would be a waste of time if there were no implementation. She said: It’s a lot of research; it's a lot of intellectual stuff (…) not that learner centered kind of stuff… (…) not the way that we do education.” (…) getting everybody in a room and saying, ‘this is what we believe’ and... convincing them to come to your side (…). Does that actually affect what

101 they are doing in the classroom?” (…) “If you could somehow get teachers to do it and see if they change…” Asked to state their opinion about the validity of this program, the participants mentioned the following points (the words in italics are literal quotations):  It focuses on the teacher; open to subjectivities: “It gives teachers the opportunity to do something individual and focused on individual, and specific needs”; (Irwin)  It facilitates reflection that would not occur otherwise: “I wouldn't have been able to reflect upon some issues until I watched myself. For example: video-taped my classes, tape recorded myself...” (Irwin)  It can (and should) be adapted for different contexts (including EFL): “It works differently according to the setting. As a foreign language teacher, it helped me a lot.” (Yvonne)  It’s casual and there is not excessive emphasis on methodology, and better than heavily theory based programs: “It’s more motivating that reading articles for a next inservice, or something similar. (…) You can't have one presentation, or read this, and then expect people to actually change the way they write their lesson plans”. (Mary)  There is no intimidation from authorities: “If you have someone higher than you that you trying to work with, you get this sense of evaluation whereas if you are collaborating among your peer group, that sense of evaluation is completely gone.” (Mary)

102  It fosters peer collaboration and sharing: “sometimes it’s just a shoulder to cry on, but that is so important, that the teacher, especially a new teacher, can just share all the successes and failures and not worry about judgment and critics.” (Mary)  It encourages sharing knowledge within a context that is common to everybody: “I think you have to really motivate people to do want to do something different, which is why I like the idea of observing other teachers”. (Alice) “I have always learned more by observing other teachers than otherwise.” (Irwin) I've seen three people teach (...) they have three totally different styles, all very good, but it's like you can pick and choose what you like out of each and implement that.” (Alice)  It creates a chance for teachers to contribute in seminars The participants also requested clarification of item 12 – This program can help teachers assess their teaching. They were told that it was not about a good-or-bad kind of assessment; rather it was about whether they felt that such a program could facilitate the exploration of their teaching. This exploration should help them identify points that needed intervention in order to make their teaching more effective, their classes more interesting and motivating, and their students more involved in the learning process. Another item that was not very clear was number 13 – This program can help teachers question their assumptions.

It was explained that teachers often make

assumptions based solely on intuition, and the point here was whether they felt that this

103 program could help them ask the right questions to prompt investigation and eventual intervention, like Alice had mentioned in her essay: Sometimes, when you teach a class, you do things without thinking about them. It is good to constantly be questioning yourself and your methods in the classroom. It was also helpful to realize that with a little bit of work, I personally could conduct a mini-experiment and get answers to questions unique to my class. Clarification was also requested for item 15 – This program can help teachers develop strategies for change. It was explained that one (not so difficult) thing to do is to locate a problem – reflection can do that; a completely different (and more complex) one is to devise ways to deal with it – action research is suggested as an informed way to develop strategies for dealing with those problems.

Final evaluation of Phase Three The reactions of the participants to designing an action research plan that was born from their immediate needs, as they themselves had found them out, were reassuring. Several ideas for investigation and intervention came from the reflection done in the previous phases. Mary referred to them as “near and dear to their hearts”. Two were used, and more encouraging than the action research plans themselves were the expressions of trust and enthusiasm that doing this activity elicited from the participants: This is time well-spent because it gives teachers the opportunity to work on a topic that is near and dear to their hearts, it has a greater chance of

104 changing not only teaching beliefs but also behaviors, and because it encourages teachers to communicate with each other in a concrete way about important issues in teaching. [Mary] It is a research that starts with ‘real’ research questions. In other words, it is a tailored research primarily aimed at investigating areas of my concerns and further, providing answers that can be shared with teachers of similar concerns. [Yvonne] The research action plan is an interesting and worthwhile approach to cope with imminent matters at hand. [Yvonne] Such positive reactions from the participants suggest that action research is indeed a valid tool to be included in teacher education programs. It has the potential to generate genuine and sustained improvement to teachers’ practice while giving teachers a sense of ownership of the process. It provides a systematic basis for exploration of teaching and allows teachers to address their real and immediate needs, experiment with new ideas, strategies, methods, and materials, and assess their effectiveness. It also allows for collaborative enterprises in which teachers share their knowledge and experiences and decide as a team on issues that are of common interest.

105 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION The main objective of this study was to investigate how teachers react to an inservice teacher education program that relies entirely on reflection and action research, two points often touted as effective tools in the ESL/EFL literature. More specifically, this study examines how teachers acknowledge the impact of reflection on their beliefs and practice and how they react to that; which activities are more motivating and beneficial to teachers’ professional development from their own points of view; what specific and practical learning issues emerge from a such a program, and how much an approach to teacher education that is not prescriptive or patronizing contributes to the building up of feelings of ownership and a sense of taking responsibility for their developmental process. The main concern was that the point of view be that of the teacher, with as little as possible interference of the researcher. This interference, however, was not always easy to avoid as the researcher, a teacher educator himself, was empathetic with those theories and hopeful that they would prove effective and feasible for such a program. In a way, designing the framework for data collection and the material for the reflective activities demanded trust and enthusiasm from the person who did it; this material would probably not have been as motivating to the participants if it had not been for the motivation of the one who created them in the first place. The researcher strived to be unbiased in his analysis, but may not have always succeeded. The data, however, are available in the appendixes and in the text to be judged by independent readers and to make up for unintentionally biased interpretations.

106 The Answers to the Research Questions RQ1: What is the impact of reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices? For the sake of analysis, this question was subdivided as follows: 1.1) Was there any impact? a) If so, what was the nature of this impact? b) If not, why not? As can be seen in the discussion of each phase, the answer to sub-question 1.1 was positive as plenty of evidence of impact was found in each phase and in the course of each activity undertaken by the participants. As for the nature of this impact, changes in attitude – when the participants revealed new positions and dispositions, as well as new manners, feelings, and beliefs – were more evident than changes in knowledge or behavior This can be explained by the relatively short time frame of the study. Even though the program gradually moved from reflective to more practical activities, it never really reached a phase in which the participants had time to test the assumptions derived from their reflection, conduct the action research they planned, and act upon the findings from this research. This same explanation can account for the little evidence of changes in behavior. The second most predominant evidence of impact was of changes in knowledge, which can be seen in the conclusions about RQ3. In summary, the findings related to Research Question 1 point to a positive answer.

RQ2. What kinds of reflective activities are more motivating for teachers? The findings show a marked preference for observational activities (as opposed to non-observational), particularly, activities that have a strong motivational appeal, which

107 are visual, which do not demand much preparation, which are easy on the schedule, and which are less time consuming. The most likely explanation for the marked preference for observational activities may be the show-me-don’t-tell-me style referred to by the participants. These findings suggest that teachers think they learn better from observing models of teaching behavior than by being observed or by reflecting and reporting on their pedagogical practices. Together with the strong approval given to items 6 and 8 of the final survey, the findings also suggest that teachers want to be given flexibility and freedom to adapt the models they observe to their individual style.

RQ3. What specific learning issues may emerge from an inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research? As the data sources were coded for evidence of impact, they were also coded for change in knowledge, which means learning. As it was explained in the methodology section, it was considered change in knowledge any instance that revealed that the participants had learned specific issues related not only to pedagogical practices, but also to themselves, their students, and the institutional policies and politics. The following list of quotations from the data shows examples of learning that seem to suffice as a positive response to Research Question 3:

Alice: It had not crossed my mind that students might not stick to the subject of personal histories.

108 It was helpful to realize that with a little bit of work, I personally could conduct a mini-experiment and get answers to questions unique to my class. I think what was most helpful about this task was brainstorming and discussing with another teacher the possible problems in my class that have to do with interactive learning.

Irwin: Appealing to student’s needs, selecting topics, holding more real communication, and exploring and implementing authentic material are new insights to teaching that would render various benefits for both teacher and learner. Now I understand that doing pair and group work is better than teacher’s lecturing, that language teaching should be student-centered. Teachers’ beliefs play a very strong role on the way they behave while teaching. Teachers should not be constrained by the syllabus. Sometimes teachers must put aside what they have to teach and think of students as people with needs other than learning. Some students bring their personal problems and necessities into the classroom. In order to cater for that, the teacher must find effective, meaningful, attitude-change provoking actions that will serve both purposes – meeting student’s needs while providing them with opportunities for the targeted learning.

109 Mary: I think that I am addressing students’ needs, but it is possible that my teaching is still mostly geared toward what I would want if I were the student. I have experienced how all students learn more and learn better when activities are extended and enhanced through the course of addressing multiple learning styles. (raised awareness of issues previously learned) Although a line is drawn between the teacher and students, and although the main goal of the class is to learn the content, the social aspect of the classroom is also very important. Conducting action research allowed us to look at an aspect of teaching that was important to us, but which is not normally dealt with (I assume) in a lot of literature. We can share our findings and help others get a general understanding of the subject, but as far as influencing teaching practice, the action research on this topic was essential. While theory is important to help us gain knowledge and develop our methodology, it is only through experience that we change our practices. The mentors may be colleagues on equal footing of experience and knowledge, but this can also be important to a support system. It is nice to have feedback and reassurance from a peer. The action research project encourages those interactions, but guides them to be conducted in a focused way.

110 Yvonne: There is no ‘right’ answer for all, but a tailored answer for every different class and student. About the need for teachers to entertain the students: This not only makes you look more confident and reassures the students that you know what you are doing, but it also makes the class more dynamic and interesting in most cases No matter what we decide to teach, what approach to take or what activities we choose, we always need to keep in mind that it all needs to be used to keep the learner engaged, give them a motive, a reason, and most importantly, show them that you care. Action research is a tailored research primarily aimed at investigating areas of my concerns and further, providing answers that can be shared with teachers of similar concerns. Other pieces of evidence can be found in the transcripts of the GDs previously discussed, but these examples should suffice to suggest a positive response to Research Question 3.

RQ4. What is the overall perception teachers have of a program based on reflection and action research? The fourth research question investigated the holistic effectiveness of this teacher education program from the perspective of the teachers. The data sources were analyzed for evidence of approval or disapproval of the program in the words or the participant teachers. To facilitate the analysis, five questions were devised:

111 (A) Was the program effective in raising awareness? (B) Was the program effective in fostering reflection? (C) Was the program effective in fostering changes in knowledge, behavior, or skills? (D) Was the program effective in fostering intervention as a result of reflection and awareness? (E) Did teachers display evidence of approval of this kind of program? Questions A and B found plenty of evidence for a positive answer in all the data sources. The analysis of the YES/NO Questionnaire of Phase One is a good example. In the reflective essays alone, sixty four statements were found that revealed awareness which was raised by the reflection fostered by this program. As for question C, there was clear evidence of changes in knowledge, as could be seen from the answer to RQ3. Changes in behavior were not salient, but could also be found, as, for example, in the testimonies of Irwin and Yvonne about the first class they taught immediately after having done the reflective activity in phase two. Irwin and Yvonne’s account can also be counted as evidence of intervention as a result of reflection and awareness, which is the issue in question D. The only evidence that demonstrates a change in skills is related to devising an action research plan, which seemed to have been new for most, if not all, of the participants. As for question E, the data sources were rich in information. Here are some quotations to serve as examples:

112 I think it is a really good idea to make teachers tell you their ideals and then ask them about the reality a short time later. This gives them an opportunity to objectively compare. I think it provides valuable insights. [Alice] The fact of being able to analyze issues such as decision-making, actions, objectives, who my students were, what their reasons to learn English were, whether what I did in class was effective raised my consciousness more than anything I had tried before. [Irwin] Although I may have ‘thought’ about such issues, this is the first time where I was able to reflect on myself from an objective angle. [Yvonne] But now, with the reflection, I feel more confident about the way I teach and how I should go about it from now on. [Yvonne] I believe that thinking about these issues was really helpful. [Alice]. Yes, it helped me realize the discrepancy and the need to reconcile my beliefs with my practices. [Alice] It is good to constantly be questioning yourself and your methods in the classroom. [Alice]I think that this action research is important because it could influence me to believe that it is more important to know my students on a personal level than it is to keep a wall between us. [Mary] I feel that the collaborative model is important because it implements within the design of the task a sense of mentoring. [Mary] The overall impression of the researcher concerning the way the participants reacted to this program based on reflection and action research is that it was viewed with

113 favorable receptivity, and even enthusiasm. In spite of the cautious appraisal made by Yvonne, the participants seemed very confident that including action research in a teacher education program seems to be a feasible and beneficial idea. Reflection seems to have been well fostered, awareness was evident and plenty, learning did take place, and several signs of change in attitude for change and improvement could be seen. In addition to that, the participants seemed to have acquired a genuine feeling of ownership and consciousness that they were in charge of their professional development process.

Pedagogical Implications The pedagogical implications of this study are primarily related to teacher education pedagogy. The findings show that the needs of teacher-learners are very similar to the needs of any other learner: they want to be heard about their learning styles, needs, and goals, and they want to be given activities which have a strong motivational appeal, which are visual, which do not demand much preparation, which are easy on the schedule, and which are not too time consuming. Moreover, they prefer observing to being observed, and they would rather learn from observation than from reporting on their pedagogical practices. Above all, teachers want to be given flexibility and freedom to adapt the models they observe, and the right to challenge established rules in the exploration of their teaching, in their search for more effective teaching approaches. The findings also indicate that if teacher educators are attentive to what teacherlearners have to say, they will probably find out that teachers want support and even direction, but that such support and direction should consist of suggestions and flexible choices, rather than prescription and imposition. Teacher-learners are willing to

114 systematically explore their own teaching and will gladly accept guidance in locating problems, creating questions, and planning intervention. In addition to that, the findings suggest that although acknowledging the value of workshops and seminars, teachers believe that they can learn more from each other and from the collaborative exploration of their teaching processes. As for the usefulness of reflection and action research in teacher education, the findings suggest that reflective activities rekindle motivation, and foster awareness and attitudes for change, while action research is seen by teachers as an effective tool for the systematic exploration of their teaching practices. As for the implications for pedagogy in general, common sense suggests that teachers’ development should result in improvement in students’ learning. In the case of this study, the research plans and the participants’ reactions to the reflective activities give testimony of that. They thought of their students in the first place, and considered a more humanistic approach to their teaching. They felt the need to reach out to their students, listen to what they had to say, and cater for their needs.

Limitations of this Study and Suggestions for Further Research Kumaravadivelu (2001) stated that “a relevant language pedagogy must be sensitive to a particular group of teachers instructing a particular group of learners who are pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in a particular sociocultural milieu,” (p. 533-534 ). This is one of the basic postulates behind a program such as this: that it be context sensitive. In this sense, this project was limited by the population it investigated, which, as with any other population or contexts,

115 has very peculiar characteristics and needs. Even being attentive to this, the researcher made mistakes in the elaboration of questions – such as the first question of the YES/NO Questionnaire – and activities that were not the most appropriate for this group in face of its immediate needs. A second edition of this project should avoid such mistakes. The participants in this project were all very enthusiastic and willing to collaborate with the researcher and with each other, but the whole situation was not real in a literal sense. Rather than teachers participating in a real inservice teacher education program, they were teacher-learners testing what they saw as a hypothetical alternative to traditional models of teacher education. This stole the authenticity that would greatly contribute to a fairer evaluation of the outcome. A larger number of participants in a real institutional context in which the participant teachers were exclusively involved with ESL/EFL teaching might be more appropriate for such research. In addition to that, the uniqueness of this group and situation may prevent many of the findings to be generalizable. Given the time allocated for the research and the contextual conditions, the participants did not have the chance to have a taste of all the reflective activities in order to make better informed choices. Therefore, their ranking was more of guessing what they would like to try than otherwise. Having several participants try them all, reflect upon the results and than rank them, might have produced more reliable results and stands as a suggestion for further research. They also did not have time to move from reflection to practice, intervention, and further reflection to close the cycle. Another limitation of this study, now regarding the data coding, is that the only person to read and code the data sources was the researcher himself. A replication of the

116 experiment with the involvement of more than one researcher may add interrater reliability to the findings. Two other suggestions for further research are the investigation of teachers’ perception of Journal Writing as a reflective activity in teacher education, and a search of other variables to explain the choice of reflective activities, other than motivational appeal or time constraints.

Some Final Notes about Reflection Reflection, as it was seen in this program, is not about the everyday routine reflection that often happens under natural circumstances, such as when a teacher shows authentic concern for problems but never writes it down or takes time to investigate reasons and consider intervention. Moreover, it is not only about locating problems and finding solutions to them, but about creatively exploring new possibilities for one’s teaching and finding inspiration in contexts other than the school or classroom settings. The pedagogical reflection advocated in this project is oriented to action, in which the teachers, as part of a teacher-learning program, constantly and systematically undertake deliberate and sustained reflection and action for the purpose of improvement.

Some More Ideas of Reflective Activities The twelve reflective activities used for the purpose of this program (ten in the kit, plus group discussions and the action research planning) include some which are common in teacher education, and some which are not so common or which were designed exclusively for this program. Many other activities, however, could be included

117 in teacher education programs in order to systematize reflection and make it more practical and beneficial. Table 5.1 shows the activities used in this project and a (far from exhaustive) list of other activities suggested in the literature: Table 5.1 A List of Reflective Activities This program

Other Suggestions

 Writing a Teaching Journal/Diary  Writing an Activity Report

 Course/Unit/Program Reviews  Peer Observation

 Interviewing Teachers  Developing Metaphors

 Clinical Supervision  Critical Incident Analysis

 Trying The Opposite  Audio or Video-Recording a Class

 Engaging a Critical Friend  Drama /Role Play

 Seeing One’s Teaching through the Students’ Eyes  Stepping into The Students Shoes

 Mentoring  Mind Mapping

 Classy Observation  Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies

 Storytelling  Teaching Portfolios

 Group Discussion  Action Research

 Teaching/Learning Networks  WebLogs (Blogs), and Forums

Final Evaluation of the Findings The results of both quantitative and qualitative analysis are promising for programs such as the one designed for this research. The framework suggested is not to be seen as a fixed model, but as a basis for modification and adaptation to other contexts. Modification and adaptation are expected and encouraged because they are part of the idea that teacher education must be context-sensitive.

It seems to the researcher,

however, that there should be a sequence to these three phases, when teachers would actually carry out the action research projects, analyze the results, plan and implement intervention, and re-start the cycle by reflecting on the results, locating problems, and so on.

118 Final Comments “Movie teachers are able to do things that the rest of us would get fired for.” These words were said by Mary, who labeled them “sad but true”. Mary was referring specifically to the relation between teachers and students, and barriers imposed by cultural and institutional policies, but if her words are to be generalized to other fields, and if the same feeling is shared by the majority of the teacher population, this is surely a variable that deserves serious investigation. For the sake of this research, those words seem to suggest that if inservice teacher education programs are to focus on the teachers and their needs, are to inspire them to explore their teaching in any possible way, and are to give them freedom to do so, they must allow teachers to dare and even defy some established rules if that is to help them to test hypotheses about better teaching. The promising findings of this research indicate that teachers, without downplaying the importance of instruction on ESL/EFL theory, see reflection and action research as effective tools for development.

The practical results of the reflective

activities also indicate that awareness was raised by reflection and that this awareness was translated into changes in attitude, knowledge, and behavior. Reflection and awareness allowed for the identification of problems, and prompted the planning of action and intervention. The analysis of teachers’ reactions to an inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research suggests that they approve of such a program, and see it as more beneficial to their professional development than programs heavily based on theory and methods, provided teachers also have the chance to occasionally participate in open workshops and seminars. A holistic view of the project suggests that inservice

119 teacher education programs should rest on reflection, on action upon reflection, and in teachers being given chances to confront their beliefs and explore their own teaching in order to locate and solve their own conflicts.

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125 Nunan, D., & Lamb, C. (1996). The self-directed teacher: Managing the learning process. In Cambridge Language Education series, edited by Jack C. Richards. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oller, J. W. Jr., & Richard-Amato P.A. (Eds). (1983). Methods that work: A smorgasbord of ideas for language teachers. Cambridge, MA: Newbury House Publishers. Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62, 307-332. Patton, M.Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. (2nd. ed.). London: Sage. Reid, J. M. (1995/1996, December/January). Let's put the "T" back in TESL/TEFL programs. TESOL Matters, p. 3. Renyi, J. (1996). Teachers take charge of their learning: Transforming professional development for student success. New York: National Foundation for the Improvement of Education. Richards, J. C., & Hino, N. (1983). Training ESL teachers: the need for needs assessment. In J. E. Alatis, H. H. Stern, and P. Strevens (eds.), GURT '83: Applied Linguistics and the Preparation of Second Language Teachers. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Richards, J. C., & Crookes G. (1987). The practicum: a survey of research and current practices. Paper presented at the 21st annual TESOL Convention, Miami Beach, Florida. Richards, J. C, & Nunan, D. (1990). Second language teacher education. New York: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C. & Lockhart C. (1996). Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. New York: CLE. Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. (2002). Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics (3rd ed.). London: Longman (Pearson Education). Schon, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Schon, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Shavelson, R. J., & Stern, P. (1981). Research on teachers’ pedagogical thoughts, judgments, decisions, and behavior. Review of Educational Research, 51, 455-498. Stanley, C. (1998). A framework for teacher reflectivity. TESOL Quarterly, 32(3), 584591.

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127 (Appendix A)

THE SCHEDULE (10 WEEKS) Sep 17 (Week 1)

Sep 24 (Week 2)

Oct 1 (Week 3)

Oct 8 (Week 4)

Oct 11-28 (Weeks 5-7)

Oct 29 (Week 7)

Meeting 1 (60 min): Opening Meeting between the researcher and the participants when the project will be explained in details, questions will be raised and answered, and the letter of Consent will be signed. Also, a first questionnaire will be handed out and the answers should be sent to the researcher electronically until Sep. 23.

The second questionnaire sent electronically and answers due Sep. 30.

Essay question sent electronically and due Oct.07

Meeting 2 (60 min): Participants meet with the researcher to share their findings on the self-reflection questionnaires and to receive material and instructions for the reflective activities.

Participants try out one or more of the reflective techniques and answer awareness-raising questions about their experience.

Meeting 3 (60 min): Participants meet with the researcher to discuss impressions and findings regarding the self-reflective activities and to plan a simple, practical, and objective collaborative action-research activity to be carried out in the next three weeks under the supervision of the researcher.

Nov 1-18

Participants carry out the action research activity and together write a (Weeks 8-10) report on their findings.

Nov 19 (Week 10)

Meeting 4 (Wrap-up – 60 min): Participants meet with the researcher, hand in a final report of their findings on the action research activity, discuss findings and final impressions on the whole project, and answer a few multiple-choice questions regarding those impressions.

128 (Appendix B)

QUESTIONNAIRE A: WHAT YOU B ELIEVE This is an awareness-raising questionnaire about your beliefs regarding ESL/EFL teaching. Please, answer the questions in an objective way and have in mind that you are not answering to anybody but yourself. There is no right or wrong, no expected answer, no assessment purpose. If you feel you don’t have an answer to any of the questions, just say so, but please try your best before skipping a question. You may write as much as you want but please be objective. 1.

How would you characterize English teaching as a profession?

2.

How do you believe your own learning has influenced your teaching?

3.

How can teachers pursue professional development?

4.

What in your opinion are the personal characteristics necessary to make someone a successful teacher?

5.

Is your teaching aligned with any known TESL/TEFL methodology? If so, which one and why? If not, how would you label your teaching approach?

6.

Visualize the ideal classroom: what does it look like? (Think of students, teachers, resources, and goals).

7.

What kind of relationship do you think teachers should have with students in an EFL/ESL classroom?

8.

How important is to address individual learning styles and meet the needs of students with different levels of ability?

9.

What is the role of the teacher in motivating students to learn a foreign or second language?

10.

Who do you think should decide what to teach?

129 (Appendix C)

QUESTIONNAIRE B: WHAT YOU DO This is an awareness-raising questionnaire about your ESL/EFL teaching practice. Please, think about your own teaching and what you do on a regular basis in class and answer the following questions in an objective way. Have in mind that you are not answering to anybody but yourself. There is no right or wrong, no expected answer, no assessment purpose. If you feel you don’t have an answer to any of the questions, just say so, but please try your best before skipping a question. You may write as much as you want but please be objective. 1.

Why did you decide to become a teacher? Why did you choose teaching English?

2.

Chose three adjectives that would better describe you as a teacher and explain why they were chosen. Choose three words your students might use to describe you as a teacher and explain why they would choose them?

3.

In what ways have you been able to bring the insights of your own learning experience into your teaching?

4.

What kind of learning environment do you try to create in your classroom?

5.

What is your role in your classroom? What role do you expect your students to assume in your classroom?

6.

What are some preferred activities you use in your classes? Why do you believe they are effective for learning?

7.

What determines the content of your lesson plan? (Ex.: the curriculum provided by the school, the textbook content, the needs your students have voiced or you noticed they have, etc.)

8.

How do you vary instruction for the individual needs of your students? Give specific examples.

9.

What techniques do you use to keep students actively involved and motivated during a lesson?

10.

What kinds of professional development activities have you been engaged in?

130 (Appendix D) – Contrasting Beliefs with Practice (Essay Question)

QUESTIONNAIRE C: ESSAY QUESTION How much does your practice match your beliefs? The table below shows your answers to the first two questionnaires paired according to topic. Compare your answers for convergences and discrepancies between beliefs and practice and then write an essay on the main points of your reflection. If there is any point you are planning to give special consideration, please state which one and what you are planning to do about it. In addition to that, express your opinion about the relevance of acknowledging beliefs and comparing them with practice in terms of empowering a teacher to address specific needs related to his/her teaching.

About the choice of field How would you characterize English teaching as a profession?

Why did you decide to become a teacher? Why did you choose teaching English? [1]

About experience as Language Learner How do you believe your own learning has influenced your teaching?

In what ways have you been able to bring the insights of your own learning experience into your teaching? [3]

About teaching as a profession How can teachers pursue professional development?

What kinds of professional development activities have you been engaged in? [10]

About self image as a teacher (The teacher’s mirror) What in your opinion are the personal characteristics necessary to make someone a successful teacher?

Chose three adjectives that would better describe you as a teacher and explain why they were chosen. Choose three words your students might use to describe you as a teacher and explain why they would choose them? [2]

131

About beliefs derived from educationally or research-based principles or from methods whose effectiveness the teacher trusts. Is your teaching aligned with any known TESL/TEFL methodology? If so, which one and why? If not, how would you label your teaching approach?

What are some preferred activities you use in your classes? Why do you believe they are effective for learning? [6]

About the roles of teachers and learners Visualize the ideal classroom: what does it look like? (Think of students, teachers, resources, and goals).

What is your role in your classroom? What role do you expect your students to assume in your classroom? [5]

About making a difference (holistic teaching) What kind of relationship do you think teachers should have with students in an EFL/ESL classroom?

What kind of learning environment do you try to create in your classroom? [4]

About catering for different learning styles How important is to address individual learning styles and meet the needs of students with different levels of ability?

How do you vary instruction for the individual needs of your students? Give specific examples. [8]

About motivational strategies What is the role of the teacher in motivating students to learn a foreign or second language?

What techniques do you use to keep students actively involved and motivated during a lesson? [9]

About the program and the curriculum Who do you think should decide what to teach?

What determines the content of your lesson plan? (Ex.: the curriculum provided by the school, the textbook content, the needs your students have voiced or you noticed they have...) [7]

132 (Appendix E)

YES/NO QUESTIONNAIRE (ORIGINAL FORM) If you find YES or NO only don’t reflect what you want to say about the issue, feel free to write comments in the space below the question. Yes 1.

Did you find discrepancy(ies) between your beliefs and your practice? [1] Comments: (Optional)

2.

After you reflected on your beliefs and your practice, is there any point you plan to give special consideration? [1] Comments: (Optional)

3.

Do you feel that acknowledging your beliefs and comparing them with your practice may help you address your needs related to your teaching? [2] Comments: (Optional)

4.

Do you feel that activities such as these of Phase One display respect for your individual teaching style? [2] Comments: (Optional)

5.

Had you ever been prompted to check your beliefs against your practice before? [3] Comments: (Optional)

No

133

YES/NO QUESTIONNAIRE (ANSWERS) SURVEY - PHASE ONE - ALICE Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

3

[knw] Knowledge

0

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

YES/NO QUESTIONS If you find YES or NO only don’t reflect what you want to say about the issue, feel free to write comments in the space below the question. 1.

Did you find discrepancy(ies) between your beliefs and your practice? [1] YES Comments: My beliefs seemed very idealistic while my practices seemed more pragmatic [awr].

2.

After you reflected on your beliefs and your practice, is there any point you plan to give special consideration? YES [att] Comments: I think I will try to put more of that idealism into the pragmatics of my teaching [att].

3.

Do you feel that acknowledging your beliefs and comparing them with your practice may help you address your needs related to your teaching? YES [app] Comments: Yes, it helped me realize the discrepancy and the need to reconcile my beliefs with my practices. [awr] [att]

4.

Do you feel that activities such as these of Phase One display respect for your individual teaching style? YES [app]

5.

Had you ever been prompted to check your beliefs against your practice before? NO [app]

134

SURVEY - P HASE ONE – MARY Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

1

[knw] Knowledge

0

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

N

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

YES/NO QUESTIONS If you find YES or NO only don’t reflect what you want to say about the issue, feel free to write comments in the space below the question. 1. Did you find discrepancy(ies) between your beliefs and your practice? [1] No (at least, nothing too shocking or unknown to me previously. I think the exercise had the potential to find discrepancies…[app] just lucky none turned up!)

2.

After you reflected on your beliefs and your practice, is there any point you plan to give special consideration? No (Though to be honest I might think that I should if I wasn't so incredibly busy this month or we weren't following up with other reflective activities.) [att]

3.

Do you feel that acknowledging your beliefs and comparing them with your practice may help you address your needs related to your teaching? Yes [app]

4.

Do you feel that activities such as these of Phase One display respect for your individual teaching style? Yes [app]

5.

Had you ever been prompted to check your beliefs against your practice before? Yes (but it's been a while)

135

SURVEY - PHASE ONE – YVONNE Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

1

[knw] Knowledge

0

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

Y

YES/NO QUESTIONS If you find YES or NO only don’t reflect what you want to say about the issue, feel free to write comments in the space below the question. 1. Did you find discrepancy(ies) between your beliefs and your practice? [1] Judging from the answers, I would have to say both YES and NO [unc]. Yes, because the answers were somewhat related to one another. No, because some questions were answered with a different approach. Judging from what I believe and what I actually do in the classroom, however, I would lean more to ‘YES’ [app] because I do try extremely hard to follow my beliefs. 2. After you reflected on your beliefs and your practice, is there any point you plan to give special consideration? [1] Yes. Now that I’m more aware, [awr] I plan to be more careful and prudent in what I do and say in class [att]. Especially in giving tasks that will take into consideration of the individual needs. 3. Do you feel that acknowledging your beliefs and comparing them with your practice may help you address your needs related to your teaching? [2] Yes, absolutely [app]. However, I think further systematic steps should be taken to put the information/awareness into use. 4. Do you feel that activities such as these of Phase One display respect for your individual teaching style? [2] Don’t quite understand what ‘display respect for your individual teaching style’ means [unc]. If you’re asking if the Phase One has helped me reflect on how I teach, I would have to answer YES. [app] 5. Had you ever been prompted to check your beliefs against your practice before? [3] No, not in such a manner. [app]

136 (Appendix F) – Reflective Activities

NON-OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES 1. Writing a teaching journal/diary Participants could choose between writing a journal or a diary, which could be either intrapersonal or dialogic. If dialogic, the journals or diaries should be exchanged either with another participant-teacher or with any other EFL/EFL teacher. 2. Writing an activity report Participants should write a report on an activity or section of their classes. Such activity or section should not be longer than 20 minutes. 3. Interviewing Teachers (Burns, 1999) Participants should interview teachers who were not involved in the research project on issues they were interested in knowing more about. For such they were provided with an extensive list of questions on issues such as teaching abilities; planning skills; teaching experience and strategies; catering for different learning styles; assignments, assessment, and self-assessment; classroom management; motivation; knowledge of content and material; and holistic teaching. 4. Developing Metaphors (Block, 1992; Allan, 1994; Tobbin, 1990; Burns, 1999)

137 Participants should think of a metaphor that described themselves and their teaching in imaginative ways. 5. Trying the opposite (Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999) Participants should choose one of their teaching behaviors (e.g., error correction; space; use of L1) – preferably a controversial one – and try an exact opposite behavior. There was no specific objective other than observing and reflecting on the results. OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES 6. Audio or Video-recording a class Participants should audio- or video-record no more than 20 minutes of a class they taught, reflect on it afterwards, and produce a written report of their reflections. They were provided with suggestions of what to look for, but they were free to choose whatever they wanted to investigate. The researcher offered help with the recording procedures and with transcription if they wanted. 7. Seeing one’s teaching through the students’ eyes Participants would choose one or two students of theirs and ask them to observe one of their classes for specific aspects or their teaching (e.g., teacher talk, space the teacher fills in the classroom, questioning, correction, mannerisms) and reflect on that afterwards.

138 8. Stepping into the Students Shoes Participants should put themselves in the students’ shoes by attending a beginners class of a language they knew nothing about, and reflect afterwards about how much they learned about what their students feel in their classroom. 9. Classy Observation Participants were encouraged to observe a class that apparently has little in common with language teaching, reflect on their own teaching based on it, and write an essay based on their reflection. They were provided with an example by Gebhard and Oprandy (1999). 10. Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies (Hahn & Alsberg unpublished) Participants were given a DVD with clips of ten movies in which teachers are portrayed in the classroom (e.g., Mona Lisa Smile, Stand and Deliver, Dead Poets Society). They were asked to reflect on their teaching practice as well as on their beliefs about teaching as compared with those stereotypes. They were provided with questions and guidelines for their reflection.

139 (Appendix E) – The Reflective Activities Kit

140

REFLECTIVE ACTIVITIES This kit contains 10 reflective activities (5 non-observational and 5 observational) of which you can try out as many as you please, but report on only one. The written report may be as long as needed and you may approach the issue from any angle you choose, but you are encouraged to have in mind your answers to the two questionnaires of phase one.

NON-OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES 1.

Writing a teaching journal/diary

2.

Writing an activity report

3.

Interviewing Teachers (Burns, A. 1999)

4.

Developing Metaphors (Block, D. 1992; Allan, L., 1994; Tobbin, K. 1990; Burns, A. 1999)

5.

Trying the opposite (Gebhard, J. G. and Oprandy, R., 1999)

OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES 6.

Audio or Video-recording a class

7.

Seeing one’s teaching through the students’ eyes

8.

Stepping into the Students Shoes

9.

Classy Observation

10. Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies (Hahn, L & Alsberg, J)

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REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 1 Writing a teaching journal/diary If you choose to write a journal, you should know that you are not supposed to hand it in to the researcher. If you are writing a dialogue journal, your journal will be read by yourself only or by a peer. What you are expected to do for the sake of this research is to submit an essay with your reflection on the effects of journal writing. You can choose to write an intrapersonal or a dialogic journal. Intrapersonal journals are an opportunity to openly explore thoughts that you might not be comfortable revealing to other people. Dialogic journals give you the chance to find out what feelings, issues, accomplishments, and problems you share with other teachers. The descriptive parts of these journals may also allow you to learn from the explorations of your peers. Because I am assuming that you already know a good deal about this kind of reflective activity, I will not explain it in detail, but if you need any help, feel free to come and talk to me. Just as a reminder, journals are known to provide:  a place to articulate and explore our beliefs and practices;  a place to keep a record of such things as self-observations and the observation of other teachers; conversations with peers; teaching ideas; questions and answers; and personal connections between who we are as individuals and who we are as teachers;  a way to work through the emotional part of your teaching, vent your frustrations, work through your judgments, and raise questions.(Bailey 1990 p.218); It is advisable that you add entries to your journal right after teaching experiences, but you can also do that at any time. For example, you might be watching a TV show and have a good idea for a class activity – record it down on your journal; you may be having a class on pottery and learn something about facilitating learning – write it down in your journal. Your journal is not to be a teaching journal, but rather a learning journal about your teaching.

142 Here are some simple suggestions for the entries in your journal. You may choose to follow all of them, some of them, or even none of them. Your entries might be on:  The actions and reactions of your students to your teaching;  Activities or actions that you feel like repeating in the future;  Activities or action that you will try and do differently in the future (and why you will change them);  How your students benefited from your lesson;  How much you learned from teaching that lesson (either in terms of teaching practice or in terms of actual learning of content)  The unexpected outcomes of your lesson plan;  A comparison between the theories and beliefs you hold about teaching and the actual practice;  A comparison between the ESL/EFL teaching theories you know of and your actual practice. Another important suggestion is that you make your journal as non-judgmental as possible. Avoid vague adjectives such as: the result was good; I liked it; the activity worked fine; etc. Even though your journal is a personal account of your impressions, those expressions may not help you acknowledge the WHY’s, i.e., why it was good, why you liked it, why it worked. Make your journal more exploratory by going beyond a simple descriptive account of facts.

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REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 2 Writing an activity report Write a report on one activity or section of one of your classes. This activity or section should not be longer than 20 minutes. By writing reports on activities you have another chance to reflect on your teaching practice and collect important information that will help you improve them for future use and better help your students to learn. These are some suggestions on what to include and how to organize your lesson report. Feel free, though, to format it the way you think it will better serve as a reference source in the future. BACKGROUND Course Student Population Classroom Setting

 Briefly describe the nature of the course in which the activity was given (a writing course, a conversation course, a test-prep course, etc.  Talk about where the activity fit into the course, discussing any previous lessons related to the activity you are reporting on.  Describe general characteristics of the student population, including any relevant differences among students, in terms of background and preparation for an activity such as the one you gave.  Indicate the class size as well as any relevant information about the learning environment.

ACTIVITY

 Identify the student-learning goal (or goals) of the activity.  Provide a detailed description of the activity.  Mention the amount of time estimated and the amount of time actually spent.  Explain how and why such an activity may influence student learning, thinking, and engagement.  Refer to any theoretical or empirical work you may know of that influenced the design of the activity and say how it influenced your choosing it.

FINDINGS

 Briefly describe what kinds of evidence were collected before, during and after the activity.  Report major results related to student learning and involvement (e.g., student engagement, types of thinking, attitudes, motivation, social behaviors, etc.)  Explain how findings relate to the learning goal(s) of the lesson.  Discuss any unexpected results.

Learning Goal Lesson Design Rationale

Approach Results

CONCLUSIONS

Effectiveness of Lesson Remaining Questions

 Reflect on how the lesson worked and evaluate its effectiveness (successes as well as areas for improvement).  Discuss how the lesson might be modified to improve its effectiveness.  Identify possible ways to improve your lesson study process.  Specify any remaining questions.

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REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 3 Interviewing Teachers (Burns, A. 1999) For this activity you will interview one or more teachers who are not involved in this research project. This shouldn’t be a formal interview – of the kind in which one person asks and the other answers – but one in which you discuss a topic and both participants learn from the discussion. Choose a topic of your interest, but make sure it is of the interest of the other teacher too. After the interview, reflect on what you two discussed and write an essay on the most important points of your reflection. Attached to this paper, you will find an extensive list of questions that should serve as source of ideas for your interview. The questions focus on different issues such as Basic beliefs about the English language; teaching as a profession; how people learn, what constitutes effective teaching, the roles of teachers and learners; curriculum development; the influence language learning experiences on one’s teaching; the characteristics and qualities of an effective teacher. Planning skills – effective lesson plans, defining goals, choosing activities, assigning homework, increasing the chance that students understand content; Teaching experience and strategies – e.g.: the process-approach to writing, cooperative learning, lecturing or group work, teaching grammar; Learning styles – catering for different learning styles; varying instruction, maximizing the learning potential of students, dealing with mixed ability classes / slow learners / advanced learners; Assignments, assessment, and self-assessment – the ideal homework load, how should ESL/EFL learning be assessed; make-up solutions for poor test results, accountability for poor results; Classroom management – the ideal classroom, dealing with students who finish assignments early, dealing with discipline problems, how to react and count-react to problems, establishing rules; Motivation – dealing with unmotivated students, the right amount of challenge to offer students, keeping students actively involved during a lesson, getting students excited about learning, enhancing students’ self-esteem; Knowledge of content material and technology available for teaching – what a teacher needs to teach, teaching with a textbook one does not like; effective material, criteria for evaluating textbooks for adoption, choosing a level to teach; Holistic teaching – teacher-student relationship, learning environment, teaching values, the importance of humor in the classroom;

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Beliefs about the English language 

Why do you think English is an important language?  Do you think English is more difficult to learn than other languages?  What do you think the most difficult aspects of learning English are? (grammar, voc, pronunciation) 

Which dialect of English do you think should be taught? (British, American, Australian…)



Do you think it is important to speak English with native-like pronunciation?  How does English sound to you compared to other languages you know?  What attitudes do you think your learners associate with English?  Do you think English has any qualities that make it different from other languages?

About teaching as a profession  How would you characterize English teaching as a profession?  What changes do you think are necessary in the language teaching profession?  What kind of training do you think language teachers need?  What kinds of professional development activities best support teaching?  What kind of support for professional developments is available at the school you work for?  What kind of support your school does not offer that you think it should?  What is the most rewarding aspect of teaching for you?  Do you think language teachers should be evaluated throughout their careers? If so, what form should this evaluation take?

Beliefs about how people learn (based on training, teaching experience, or experience as language learners)

 How do you define learning?  What are the best ways to learn a language?  What kinds of exposure to language best facilitate language learning?  What kinds of students do best in your classes?  What kinds of learning styles and strategies do you encourage in learners?  What kinds of learning styles and strategies do you discourage in learners?  What roles are students expected to assume in your classroom?  How do you personally feel students learn?

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Beliefs about what constitutes effective teaching  How do you see your role in the classroom?  How would this be apparent to a visitor?  What teaching methods do you try to implement in your classroom?  What teaching resources do you make use of?  How would you define effective teaching?  What is your approach to classroom management?  What are the qualities of a good teacher?

Beliefs about the roles of teachers and learners  What is the role of an EFL/ESL teacher?  What is your approach (methodology) to teaching?  What is your personal view of teaching?  What do you expect from your students?  How much of the talk should you do in a typical class?  How much is the teacher responsible for the students’ learning?  How much is the student responsible for his/her own learning?

About the Program and the Curriculum  Do you feel that the teacher should be responsible for developing programs and objectives or should these be provided by the coordination?  What do you think are the most important elements in an effective language teaching program?  What do you think the role of textbooks and teaching materials in a language program should be?  How useful do you think instructional objectives are in teaching?  Who decides how you teach: you or the institution?  How do you decide what to teach?  To what extent is your teaching based on your students’ needs?  What changes would you like to see in your program?  In an ESL/EFL course, how should a student's achievement and progress be measured?

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About the influence language learning experiences on one’s teaching,  Tell me how your own learning has influenced your teaching.  In what ways have you been able to bring the insights of your learning experience into your teaching?  Which one teacher you had you would like to emulate? Why?

About characteristics and qualities of an effective teacher (teaching abilities)  What are the qualities of an effective teacher? Which of those characteristics would you say you have?  Name three of your professional weaknesses. In what areas do you feel you need improvement?  How would you describe yourself as a teacher? Chose three adjectives that would better describe you and explain why they were chosen.  How would your students describe you as a teacher? What are three words your students might use to describe you as a teacher?  Could you describe your teaching style? What distinguishes you as a teacher?  What is your basic teaching philosophy? How do you incorporate your teaching philosophy into your daily instruction?  How do you hold yourself and others accountable for student progress?  Is it important for students to like you as a teacher?  How do you receive feedback? Criticism?

Planning skills, assignments, and assessment  Describe the components of an effective lesson plan.  Do you believe in detailed lesson plans? How closely do you follow your lesson plans?  What do you include when you write objectives?  How would you teach a conversation class for students at different levels ranging from low intermediate to advanced?  What is the role of homework? How much homework will you assign?  How do you increase the chances that students will understand what you are teaching?  If more than half of your students fail your first exam, what does this mean? What do you do?  How do you provide feedback to students about how they are doing?

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Teaching experience and strategies  Describe your past teaching experiences. What made them successful?  What are strategies that you have found effective in the classroom? Share a successful experience in teaching and why it was meaningful to you.  What do you think of cooperative learning?  Are you familiar with the process approach to writing? Do you use it? Why or why not?  What do you think are some effective ways to help students understand the structure of the language (grammar)?  How much time of a class do you estimate you lecture?  If students are having difficulty learning a skill or concept, what do you do?

Catering for different learning styles  How do you address the needs of diverse learners and meet the needs of students with different levels of ability while still covering the intended content?  How do you vary instruction for individual needs of students? Give specific examples.  Would you rather teach the slow learner or the high-achiever? Why?  How do you work with low achievers (students who perform below the expected level)?

Classroom management  Visualize an ideal classroom: What does it look like? (students, teachers, resources, and goals)  Some of your students always finish assignments early. How do you deal with the free time that they have?  What kind of rules do you have in your classroom? How are they established?  What techniques would you use to handle discipline problems that may arise in your classroom?  How do you develop a good student–teacher relationship?  Is it appropriate to tell your class that you are angry with them?  What would you do to promote a safe atmosphere in your classroom?  A student tells his teacher that he forgot to bring his paper, which he had written the night before. The teacher says, “I understand. I sometimes forget things like that too.” How do you evaluate the way this teacher responded to the student?

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Motivation  What techniques do you use to keep students actively involved and motivated?  How do you deal with the unmotivated student?  What kinds of challenges are you prepared to offer students?  What are some of your ideas for enhancing your students' self esteem?  How can you get students to be excited about learning?

Knowledge of content and material       

What is the most exciting initiative happening in your area of ESL/EFL today? What books, concepts or experiences have influenced you most in your professional development? What kind of materials and supplies would you need to do your best job? What materials have you used that you found most effective? Cite the criteria you would use to evaluate a textbook for possible adoption. What technology do you think is needed to promote a good learning environment? If you could choose to teach any level or kind of class, which would you select and why?

Holistic teaching (Making a difference)  What values are most important to you?  What do you value most in a student of yours?  What kind of relationship do you have with your students?  What kind of learning environment do you try to create?  What do you feel is important to know about your students? How do you gather this information?  What do you feel are the most important things students learn in your classroom?  What difference do you hope to make in the lives of your students?  Through your teaching, do you think students can be changed?  How do you show your students that you understand them and their frustrations?  How do you make students feel at ease around you, while still respecting you?  How do you deal with controversial subjects in class?  Do you believe in teaching students what to think or how to think?  In what ways have you incorporated critical thinking skills into your instruction?  Do you like laughter in your classroom?  How will your students remember you?

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REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 4 Developing Metaphors (Block, D. 1992; Allan, L., 1994; Tobbin, K. 1990; Burns, A. 1999) Allan (1994) proposes that the conscious use of metaphors can lead teachers to describe themselves and their teaching in unusual and imaginative ways. Metaphors can bring into play new sets of beliefs and attitudes that can be accompanied by changes in behavior. If you choose this activity, these are some steps you should follow: 1. Ask yourself the following questions. (a) What do I do when I teach? (Choose a specific teaching context and answer: I listen, negotiate, ask for feedback...) (b)

What roles do I take when I teach? (Continuing from above: organizer, mediator, observer...)

(c)

What metaphors do you associate with these roles? (Continuing from above: I see myself as a...)

2. After you build your metaphor, reflect on responses and explore the following questions: (d) Does this metaphor represent what I do, what I want to do, or a mix of both? (e) Does the role represented by this metaphor change when the context changes? (f) What roles and metaphors do my students see in my teaching? (g) Am I comfortable with my metaphor and the role it represents or would I like to make changes? How would I like to change it? (h) How does my metaphors and the role it represents link with the theoretical approaches in ESL/EFL? What are the consistencies/inconsistencies? What do I feel/think about this? 3. Use your metaphor(s) as a guide to evaluate your teaching. Reflect on your metaphor as you teach. If there are inconsistencies, you can make choices about changing your teaching or your metaphor. After you reflect for some time, write an essay sharing your experiences. Your essay may be as long as you wish. In the next page you will find some examples of metaphors from Allan's collaborative workshop group for Adult Basic Education teachers.

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Examples of Metaphors Allan, L. 1994. Reflections and teaching: cooperative workshops to explore your experience. Sydney: Adult Literacy Information Office.

Metaphors enabled individuals to name aspects of their teaching in increasing detail and depth. Some metaphors revealed aspects of teaching that were acceptable representations of a teacher's personal theories of teaching: The metaphor of a crossword-puzzle maker took a while to come up with. This was how I saw myself at the time. I didn't want to give students the answers. I could give them clues about how to get the solution, but I wanted them to come up with the answers... The crosswordpuzzle maker metaphor also recognized the fact that I as the teacher still had a responsibility to know my subject area. Then I looked at what I would like to be. This didn't require a total change of my metaphor but rather an extension. I wanted to make the puzzle more cryptic, so that students could take more responsibility and extend themselves into areas they may not have ventured. Eventually I would like to make them the puzzles.

Other metaphors produced thought-provoking portrayals of differences between learner and teacher perceptions, which challenged the researcher's ideals and acted as a catalyst for rethinking. I talked about my metaphor with my students. A lighthouse was mentioned. I'm there guiding, steady, shining, warning about the rocks and channels but only guiding. I think maybe that's a bit unflattering so I am not quite happy with it. I thought I had more interaction with them than that. It seems a bit stand-offish. I feel like a staple gun in the trades [classes] – like a band-aid only quicker and more violent – okay, formula – bang, staple, okay, ratio – bang, okay, trig – bang. Rosie the Riveter – bang, bang, bang. But in other classes it's not that at all – there's time, there's enjoyment. But the lighthouse is interesting – a problem. Blink, blink, blink, remember this, what do you already know, what's the question saying, question, prompt, blink, blink.

Developing metaphors may also enable a teacher to identify barriers that have an impact upon her/his classroom practices, such as syllabus constraints and timetabling arrangements. A further use of metaphors is illustrated by Chris Pearson (1997), a teacher of intermediate adult ESL students in Victoria. A metaphor helped Chris to express his initial dilemmas about motivating and unifying his student group. It was apparent from the outset that working with this group was going to pose problems that I had not encountered before. I often felt that I was driving a big bus down a particularly bumpy road with a group of passengers that did not seem to know what stop they wanted or why they had gotten on in the first place. As a consequence, passengers continually got off at the wrong stop or attempted to jump off while the bus was still moving. This meant we were constantly stopping to check for missing people and to encourage stragglers to get back on.

Through a process of trial and error, Chris and the group eventually evolved a “stop, think, write, stop and think again” formula for writing tasks. Although to Chris's mind this appeared “very mechanical”, it produced writing outcomes for his students that provided them with an effective learning structure and allowed them to gain results both through group processes and individually. Chris extended his metaphor as a way of evaluating what he believed had been achieved through the research process. While the bus has become in part more oriented towards a common goal than it was at the onset of this particular journey, there will no doubt be more flat tires and blown head gaskets to come.

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REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 5 Trying the opposite (Gebhard, J. G. and Oprandy, R., 1999) Trying the opposite is a very good strategy to deal with classroom problems. When you see that a certain approach to a problem is not giving good results, just try something radically different from that to see what happens. Even if it doesn’t solve the problem, it may give you a better idea of what to do about it. The idea of this activity goes a little beyond that, extending this experience to some specific classroom behaviors of yours. You should choose one of your teaching behaviors – preferably one that you know there is controversy about – and try an exact opposite just to see what happens. As an example, take the use of L1 in the classroom in EFL contexts. If you use L1 moderately, try not using it at all, and see how your students react to that. If you never use L1 (or if you use it most of the time), try using it moderately. You might do that, for example, by translating words that refer to concepts which are difficult to grasp, or by separating 5 minutes at the end of the class to discuss with your students, in their native language, any problems they may have found with the content of that class. Here is a sample list of other behaviors you might want to try the opposite. Some of these would work in two directions; some would not. Feel free to add to this list.  How much you talk in the classroom as compared to how much you allow your students to talk (you may pretend you have a problem with your voice and teach a class in which you barely say a word);  How much you write on the board.  How much time you give your students to answer your questions.  How many questions you ask.  How much you praise your students.  How much you correct your students’ talk.  How much of your class you teach with books open.  How much you use overhead or multimedia projectors.  How much you use songs or movies.  How detailed your lesson plans are.  How often you tell jokes in the classroom.  What kind of space you use in the classroom (e.g., where you walks, who you look at).  Which students you concentrate your class on (weak/strong students).

Try the opposite of a usual behavior of yours, reflect on the results, and write an essay on the main points of your reflection.

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REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 6 Audio or Video-recording a class Audio- or video-record no more than 20 minutes of a class you teach, watch and reflect on it afterwards, and produce a written report of the lesson together with your reflections. Even in 20 minutes there may be too much to be observed, so it may be a good idea to decide beforehand on what exactly you will observe for. For example, you may want to have a better idea of  The rate between your talking time as compared to how much you allow your students to talk;  The way you address students and how fair you are in giving them opportunities to participate;  How much your students really get involved in the activity and how much you contributed to that;  The response your students give to the motivational strategies you use;  The amount of time you wait after asking a question and getting a response.  The source and target of your questions. 

The number and types of questions you ask (e.g., either-or, yes-no, Wh-, tag).

 The number of display questions (questions you already knows the answer to) and referential questions (questions to which you don’t know the answer) you ask. 

The content of your questions (e.g., how many questions contain content about procedures, general life events, personal issues regarding the students, study of language, study of other subjects besides language).



The space you use in the classroom (e.g., where you walks, who you look at).

 The way you give instructions (e.g., writes on the board, gives them orally, has students repeat them) and

students' reactions to them.

 The error treatment techniques you make use of: who treats errors, when, how, what kinds of errors?  Your use of praise behaviors.

154 These are but just a few suggestions. There are plenty of other things you might be interested in investigating. Feel free to choose any. If you need, I may be able to help you with the recording or transcription. The analysis, though, will be up to you. A very important point is that you not get distracted by other events or aspects of the activity that are not related to the point you chose to investigate. It might make it more difficult to profit from the observation and to report on it later. Most people don’t like the sound of their voice recorded or even the way they look in the clothes they were wearing that day. Try not to bother about these kinds of things. They usually don’t affect your teaching or your students learning. Here is a link to a page of the NYU that you may want to visit. It’s called “Viewing Guide for Videotaped Classes – Improving Your Teaching through Self Examination”.  http://www.nyu.edu/cte/guide.html

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REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 7 Seeing one’s teaching through the students’ eyes For many teachers peer observation carries a very negative load. They feel they are being spied on, that supervisors or even fellow teachers expect them to be perfect, and that their jobs are jeopardized by class observation. They feel nervous, frightened, resentful, angry, or all that together. Ironically, though, consciously or unconsciously, they know that they are being constantly observed by their students who, especially in the case of EFL/ESL teaching, want them to be perfect. As this is a kind of observation you can’t avoid, it may be a good idea to learn from it. Your students can give you very rich feedback if you just give them the chance. They can say a lot about your way of teaching, your week and strong points as a teacher, your mannerisms, the space you fill in the classroom, the attention you distribute, your questioning style, your error correction techniques, how much you talk, and much, much more. The idea here, though, is not that you ask them about that – you may not be prepared for what you will hear. Instead, this suggestion is that you choose one or two students and ask them to observe you in a couple of classes for some very specific behavior(s). You may give them a checklist, so they will be discreet when taking notes and not miss out in the class or even distract you as you are teaching. Depending on what you want to be observed on, a checklist may not work. If this is the case, give your observer(s) a form that will facilitate observation and ask them (and instruct, if necessary) to be objective and descriptive in their observation, rather than judgmental. For example, instead of saying that your error correction techniques were “fine”, they should describe exactly what you did and what that means for the students. In the next page you will find a short list of some of the things you might want to be observed on. Of course there is much more you could think of. The choice is yours. Choose just a couple of behaviors, as to make observation and further assessment easier. After you reflect on the results of the observation, write an essay on the main points of your reflection.

156 Examples of teacher behaviors you might choose to be observed on  Amount of time teacher waits after asking a question and getting a response.  The source and target of questions. 

The number and types of questions the teacher asks (e.g., either-or, yes-no, Wh-, tag).

 The number of display questions (questions the teacher already knows the answer to) and referential questions (questions to which the teacher does not know the answer). 

The content of the teachers' questions (e.g., how many questions contain content about procedures, general life events, personal issues regarding the students, study of language, study of other subjects besides language).



The space the teacher uses in the classroom (e.g., where the teacher walks, who the teacher looks at).

 The way the teacher gives instructions (e.g., writes on the board, gives them orally, has students repeat them)

and students' reactions to them.

 Error treatment: Who treats errors, when, how, what kinds of errors?  The teacher's use of praise behaviors.

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REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 8 Stepping into the Students Shoes I learned an important lesson about my teaching when my mother-in-law asked me to give her some lessons on how to deal with a computer. She was almost 70 and had never touched a computer in her life. I confess that I was quite impatient in the beginning, and it took me quite a while to understand that she needed some good hours of practice only in dealing with the mouse, before I could tell her anything else. I wondered how often I did the same in my own teaching, taking for granted that students knew some things that seemed pretty obvious to me. Many times a certain piece of vocabulary or a concept seems so simple and easy that we think that teaching that is a waste of time. At another time I decided to take some French lessons. I though it would be easy because I am a language teacher and know how to learn a language. What I didn’t expect is that I would get a tutor who decided to show off and demonstrate how fluently she could speak French, and who wouldn’t see that I didn’t have a clue of what she was saying or wanted me to say or do. The only one class I had with that tutor taught me an important lesson and led me to carefully question my own teaching. Putting ourselves in the place of the student helps a lot and I advise every teacher to do it. This activity suggests that you attend a beginner’s class of a language you know nothing about, and reflect afterwards on your experience as a student and about what your students may feel in your classroom.

158

REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 9 Classy Observation “Each of us yearns to create and recreate for ourselves what has already been created by others for themselves.” J. F. Fanselow (1997, p. 167)

Class observation is classic and very effective reflective tool that you can use if you want, but this suggestion is quite different from that. The idea here is that you observe a class that apparently has little in common with language teaching, reflect on it, and write an essay based on your reflection. Examples of such classes are: dance, carpentry, photography, floral design, guitar, home maintenance, computers, painting, stained/art glass, yoga, or any other class of those special interest courses that are usually offered by community centers. I selected, as examples for your reflection and your essay, the written testimony of two renowned ESL researchers about what they learned about their teaching from this kind of experience. The first is Jerry Gebhard (1999), who tells about a yoga class he took, and the other is Robert Oprandy (1999), who describes his first oil-painting class. Example 1 Robert Oprandy (1999) describes his first oil-painting class: I picked up an artist's paintbrush for the first time since elementary school. My classmates and I learned to make the medium, to stretch and treat canvases, to paint ten shades of gray between white and black, to see objects and their colors with much more heightened attention, and to be in a creative process, much like what our language students go through as they try to express and explore meanings together in a foreign tongue. Learning all these things and putting myself in the position of learner was incredibly instructive. It made me reflect a great deal on how I was being taught and on how uniquely my classmates and I were reacting to our lessons. I was struck, for example, by how the lessons were structured. At the beginning of each class, there was minimal input from the teacher. This was followed by lots of individual practice/play with the teacher's ideas. During these playful practice parts of the lesson, we all had enough space to do our own thing and to take our own breaks to look at what our classmates were doing at their easels. This allowed me to pick up ideas from here and there and to look anew at my own canvas and the forms, brush strokes, and color choices I was making. I noticed that some students were using the whole studio in the way I was; others stayed primarily at their own easels, intent mostly on what they themselves were doing. What seemed important was that the choice was ours. The teacher would come around and make one or two comments here and there, but for the most part she would attend to student solicitations for her help. The class would usually close with a quick summary point or two from the teacher. As pleased as I was by the way the lessons were structured, I felt that it would also have been useful for us as a group to gather for 10 to 15 minutes each week to share what we were noticing, struggling with, and excited about in our painting. This would have allowed us to reflect a bit more on our process as painters, to "talk shop" as painters, however new we were to creating works of art, and to learn from one another's insights and feelings. Feeling membership in the club of painters might have been accelerated by such discussions. My experience as an art student contained many lessons for me as a language teacher. I have begun to think more about how to make the language classroom into a studio where students can come to work on their language skills.

159

REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY 10 Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies (Hahn, L. & Alsberg, J., 2004) Together with these instructions is a DVD with clips of movies in which teachers are portrayed regarding classroom work. Nine movies were selected: The Paper Chase (1973); Stand and Deliver (1988); Dead Poets Society (1989); Dangerous Minds (1995); Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995); The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996); A Beautiful Mind (2001); The Emperor’s Club (2002); and Mona Lisa Smile (2003). Besides these nine clips, there is an extra one from the movie Dead Poets Society, in which the main character, John Keating, gives a short but very interesting lecture on the issue of beliefs and conformity. The length of the video clips varies from 2 to 20 minutes. The DVD has a total footage of a little over two hours. If you choose this activity, you should watch as many of the clips you please, reflect on what you saw and write an essay on the main point of your reflection. You may choose to reflect on one movie only or on two or more, even on all of them, but you should write only one essay. Remember that your reflection will be primarily on your own teaching as compared with those stereotypes, and secondarily on what you realized about teaching in general based on the class situations portrayed in the movies. You are being given a booklet with some questions to assist you on your reflection. The booklet is sealed for a reason: you are advised to read it only after you have seen the clips, reflected on them, and written a first draft of your essay. You may even choose not to open the booklet at all. The questions are not designed to be directive in any way, but to help you with the afterthoughts, the questioning and refining of your first reflections. Some points, though, that you might want to have in mind as you watch the clips are the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the teachers, the most salient features of their styles and your personal identification with them, the actions they take to change their teaching according to circumstances, the activities and assignments they give, and most importantly, what you can take away from this reflective activity to help you become a more effective teacher.

160 (Appendix G) – Activities-Ranking Form

RANKING THE ACTIVITIES Please, rank the reflective activities below in the order of your preference. (1 for your favorite, and 10 for the least likely to be chosen). If number one is not the activity you chose to do, please say why.

NON-OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES 11. Writing a teaching journal/diary 12.

Writing an activity report

13.

Interviewing Teachers (Burns, A. 1999)

14. Developing

15.

Metaphors (Block, D. 1992; Allan, L., 1994; Tobbin, K. 1990; Burns, A. 1999)

Trying the opposite (Gebhard, J. G. and Oprandy, R., 1999)

OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES 16. Audio or Video-recording a class 17. Seeing one’s teaching through the students’ eyes 18. Stepping into the Students Shoes 19. Classy Observation

20. Reflecting on Stereotypes from the Movies (Hahn, L & Alsberg, J)

161 (Appendix H) – Action Research Plans

Action Research Plan I Instructors of Academic Writing for Non-Native Speakers University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 1. Problem and Area of Focus We feel that it is important to know students on a personal level. We wish to look at how we interact with students, and how improved personal relationships can improve the classroom and the learning that occurs there. 2. Research Questions and Hypotheses Q1. What are our current methods of reaching out to students on a personal level and how can we improve upon them? H. We currently engage students in personal conversation at the beginning of class. We use examples from the students’ experiences and background knowledge to explain course material. Students are asked to describe their individual lives and perceptions in certain assignments, such as journals. We conduct individual conferences on student writing assignments.

Q2. How will improved personal relationships between the teacher and students affect the learning in the classroom? H1. Reaching out to students on a personal level will motivate students to perform well on classroom tasks. H2. Reaching out to students on a personal level will allow the teacher to better understand and meet individual learner’s needs. H3. Reaching out to students on a personal level will improve the comfort level of students, and cause them to participate more openly in the classroom by volunteering answers and giving positive feedback to peers.

3. Data Collection and Analysis Plan  We will examine the course materials and assignments to discover how much of the activities ask students to rely on and/or share their personal experiences.  We will videotape the classes to see what methods we use to encourage personal interaction.  We will talk with students and colleagues to gather additional methods of reaching out to students.  We will gather data regarding students perceptions of motivation, effort, and classroom participation with questionnaires administered at the beginning and the end of the study 4. Timeline for Implementation Week 1: Teachers begin to implement plans, must videotape one lesson a week. First questionnaire administered to students Week 2: teachers meet to discuss questionnaire and videotape findings Week 3: teachers meet to discuss videotape findings Week 4: 2nd questionnaire administered to students Week 5: teachers meet to discuss questionnaire and videotape findings

162 5. Resource List    

References? 2 classrooms, 3 times a week for the ESL course of each instructor video recording equipment to tape class sessions 1 reserved conference room for 4 meetings of the ESL instructors to plan and discuss findings

6. Tools of Inquiry A. Questionnaire of Student Perceptions Sample Items: 1. Describe your teacher with three adjectives 2. Do you feel that your teacher understands your needs in this class? 3. Do you feel that classroom activities are motivating? 4. How well does your teacher know you (scale of 1-5) 5. Do you participate more actively in this class than in your other classes? Why or why not? 6. Do you feel comfortable speaking in front of your peers in this class? B. Video Review Checklist Directions: Watch the video of the lesson and check any types of interpersonal interaction that occurs with the students. Estimate the amount of time spent on each interaction. Indicate if any interaction is something new that you have tried. TYPES OF INTERACTION Asking about personal life Un-elicited discussion of personal life Allowance of off-task behavior or discussion Requesting personal examples to connect with lesson Un-elicited personal examples to connect with lesson Personal writing task Other ______________________

C. Discussion questions for instructor meetings What are your findings so far? Do you feel that you are doing enough to reach out to students? Do you worry that this is taking time away from the course content? What do you think you need to do more? What seems to be working? What does not seem to be working? How can you change what you are currently doing? Do you feel that the findings support the hypotheses?

7. The Research Group The research group includes two instructors, each with her own writing class of 15-25 students, and the supervising faculty member. Instructors will work together to develop the research action plan and to meet three times during the implementation to check progress and discuss findings. Implementation will be conducted individually by the instructors. The supervising faculty member will provide feedback on all stages of planning, implementation, and discussion of the results.

163

Action Research Plan II An action research plan which investigates interactive learning among students

Because we had two very different classes, our plans are also different problems.

Problems In my class, I ask students to constantly work as pairs reading dialogs to each other while focusing on phrase stress, word stress, or a segmental. Because I cannot be present I each dyad, I wanted to research whether or not these pair activities were useful for anything else more than changing the class dynamic every once and again.

Plan To investigate this, I would record students in several different classes and analyze their talk during pair work. I would check to see if when Student A made a mistake, did B correct it? If so, did A ‘learn’ from that correction? I would then compare the pair dialogs to class talk and see if student A still evidenced the changed behavior.

Prediction I would predict that ‘learning’ or correction would depend on the competency of the members in the dyad as well as their familiarity with each other. This research would have implications on how often I used pair work and how much displaying of knowledge I would then expect from students.

164 (Appendix I) –Final Survey Form

Somewhat disagree

Neutral

Somewhat agree

Strongly agree

These are just a few questions intended to summarize your final impressions about this project and about the validity of an alternative program for in-service teacher development. We will be discussing these questions anyway, so if you feel that your best answer to any of the statements wouldn’t fit in this scale, you will have the chance to clarify it.

Strongly disagree

FINAL SURVEY

1

2

3

4

5

1.

I felt a need for change or improvement as a result of the selfreflection I did in the course of this project.

3

1

2.

This approach to teacher education is geared towards my professional needs.

2

2

3.

Participating in this program has positively impacted my beliefs.

1

4.

Participating in this program has positively impacted the way I teach.

1

5.

This program is 100% centered on the teacher as a learner.

1

6.

Issues were openly discussed, decisions were flexible and opinions were listened to and respected.

7.

This project respected my individual teaching style and needs.

8.

I didn’t feel pushed toward any teaching model.

9.

I felt encouraged to look at my teaching practice from different angles, reflect, and try different ways of doing things.

1

1

2

10. The self-reflection activities were helpful in raising issues for action research.

1

2

1

11. This approach to in-service teacher education is more profitable to teachers than the traditional top down approaches.

1

1

2

12. This program can help teachers assess their teaching.

1

1

2

1

3

13. This program can help teachers question their assumptions.

3 3 3 4 2

2 4

14. This program can help teachers consider aspects of their teaching that could or should be changed.

4

15. This program can help teachers develop strategies for change.

2

2

16. This program can help teachers monitor the effects of implementing those strategies.

2

2

165 (Appendix J) – The Reflective Essays of Phase One

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 1 - ALICE Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

2

[knw] Knowledge

0

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

How much does my practice match my beliefs? Overall, it seems that where applicable, my teaching lines up with my ideals of goof teaching and a good teacher. Nevertheless, the basic trend I have noticed [awr], is that the class I am teaching now is very restrictive in terms of what I can teach and how. Even if I wanted to do something novel and different in the classroom, I am highly restricted to what that can be [awr]. For example, the entire syllabus and teaching style have been handed to me. I have little to no input in the process. One positive aspect of this, is that I agree and enjoy what I have been given [att]. I also seem to have a more idealistic tone when talking about "best" circumstances versus talking about reality [awr]. I think that while part of me loves the idea of an ideal classroom/students/teacher, etc, but I have a pessimistic side that thinks that such a thing doesn't really exist [att]. I think it is a really good idea to make teachers tell you their ideal situation and then ask them about the reality a short time later. This gives them an opportunity to objectively compare. I think it provides valuable insights [app]. For example, I realized that I talk about the ideal in a way that is too ideal. I set up expectations and situations that the “real” me think are impossible. I therefore set myself up to never be able to meet my own expectations as a teacher [awr].

166

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 1 - IRWIN Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

4

[knw] Knowledge

4

[bhv] Behavior

4

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged  Appealing to student’s needs, selecting topics, holding more real communication, and exploring and implementing authentic material are new insights to teaching that would render various benefits for both teacher and learner.  Now I understand that doing pair and group work is better that teacher’s lecturing, that language teaching should be student-centered.  Teachers’ beliefs play a very strong role on the way they behave while teaching.  Teachers should not be constrained by the syllabus.

How much does my practice match my beliefs? What influences a teacher’s classroom-performance behavior? This is a question that I heard from a professor over a year ago. It really captivated my attention and kept me pondering about it. In addition, it made me question myself on what I was doing in the classroom and why [awr]. During a one-year in-service training program I learned that teacher’s beliefs play a very strong role on the way they behave while teaching [knw]. Teacher’s beliefs about the teaching-learning process are surely expressed through actions in the classroom, either overt or covert. I knew that sometimes my lessons were either very interesting or too boring [awr]. Of course, there is no single teacher who wants their students to leave their classroom bearing a feeling that they have wasted their time. Thus, I realized that there was something wrong with what I was doing [awr] [att]. Then, through research, class self observation, and feedback I discovered that my teaching was a reflection of what I thought teaching and learning was all about [awr]. For instance, I used to believe that teaching was about teachers standing in the front and delivering information to their students, assuming that that was the way students would learn; that my own ways to explain were clear and unquestionable; that textbook would determine the course of the content; that grades were the ultimate goal to be reached; and that the way that I learnt should be as much the same the way that I should teach [awr].

167 As a result, my behavior in the classroom was comprised by a series of actions that matched such beliefs by which I mean things like teacher-centered teaching, teacher’s taking most of the class time, no classroom interaction – pair up, group work, etc. [knw]. Of course, this had a great impact on my students [awr]. Because many teachers strongly believe that what they do is simply the most adequate, a change in their way of thinking is perhaps a difficult thing to be achieved. Fortunately, I underwent the experience of watching and listening to my own teaching – through video recording, and I arrived at the conclusion that I should change some viewpoints about teaching and learning [att]. Self-reflection was crucial at that point [app]. The fact of being able to analyze issues such as decision-making, actions, objectives, who my students were, what their reasons to learn English were, whether what I did in class was effective or not raised my consciousness more than anything I had tried before[app]. The fact of understanding the teaching-learning process as an ever changing interaction between teacher and learner shaped my mind into a new paradigm [awr] [att]. Suddenly, I found myself jumping from a teacher-centered class into more a studentcentered one [bhv]. At first, I remember, it was somewhat uncomfortable to give up my favorite place (the front of the classroom), lessen the time that I should talk, and open opportunities for my students to experience the language. On the other hand, this new perspective released me from the painful way to having to stick up to useless constraints – syllabus, table of contents, and the like [knw] [bhv]. This new insight to teaching would render various benefits for both teacher and learner. For instance, appealing to student’s needs, selecting topics, holding more real communication, exploring and implementing authentic material, only to name a few [knw] [bhv]. As a conclusion, I have changed some beliefs [awr] [app] [att]. Thus, in the light of this new thinking I have tried to incorporate it into my everyday teaching practice [att] [bhv]. Now, I find some more congruities between the ways that I conceive the teachinglearning process and what I do in the classroom [awr] [app]. Still, there is a way ahead to go through [awr].

168

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 1 - MARY Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged  I think that I am addressing students’ needs, but it is possible that my teaching is still mostly geared toward what I would want if I were the student.

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

2

[knw] Knowledge

2

[bhv] Behavior

0

 I have experienced how all students learn more and learn better when activities are extended and enhanced through the course of addressing multiple learning styles. (raised awareness of issues previously learned)

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

N

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

How much does my practice match my beliefs? In the comparison of my beliefs and practices I am relieved to find no discrepancies. This is not to say that all answers are the same, but I do not contradict myself. However, did I portray my beliefs and practices as aligned because they are, in fact, mirroring each other? Or is it possible that I was simply wise enough to not fence in my answers. While I do not find actual discrepancies in my responses, I believe I managed to avoid them only by hedging answers or conceding that I still have unformed notions about some of the topics [awr]. In response to the question about teaching methodology, I responded that I did not feel comfortable attempting to place a label on the theories I prescribe to. While I am happy to discuss the activities I prefer in the classroom, and give a casual rationale for why I believe they are useful and successful in meeting course goals, I don’t wish to say I follow one methodology. I feel bad to not be able to answer this question in a more straightforward way, but I think my logic is sound. First, my mind simply doesn’t classify information in that way. Some people can classify themselves according to researcher’s names or their theories… but in my own mind those names and theories are easily confused, and I would rather use descriptive terms than be caught misquoting or mis-citing a concept. Second, I know that labeling myself will only result in ‘dating’ myself. In a year or two that label will be passé and I will just have to find a new label. I

169 want my personal teaching theory to be current and educationally sound, but I don’t have the energy to be ‘trendy’ and follow along with the buzz words of the hour. I know that I need to be familiar with the jargon that is common in this field, and yet I would rather focus on the concepts than the words that are used to label them. One topic that I am still forming my beliefs about is the notion of how my past experiences influence my present [awr]. My past experiences as a student have an extremely strong hold over how I teach. Last year I had the opportunity of teaching reading to intermediate level English learners.

This was an interesting experience

because, as I began this assignment, I struggled to understand how I should teach reading. My uncertainty was not the result of being uninformed in teaching theory and practice, but rather it was because it had been so incredibly long since I had witnessed the teaching of reading. Basically, if I haven’t seen one of my teachers (or teacher friends) do it in practice over the past 15 years, then I boggled by how to implement something new in the classroom myself. In this situation, I would have felt comfortable with text analysis and critical review in reading, but teaching the fundamentals of ‘how to read’ seemed a mystery. Only when I saw a videotape of another person’s teaching could I begin to imagine what the reading class should ‘look’ like. That is, how it should be structured, how appropriate topics are chosen and activities carried out. Perhaps this is simply a reflection of my own learning style…show me, don’t tell me [awr]. Also, I need trial and error. But this illustrates to me how difficult it is to introduce innovation [awr]. Reading the latest research in teaching methodology does not do much to elicit change. It is only when teachers are using the practice in the classroom, and allowing other teachers (or future teachers) to observe them in action that change will gain momentum [awr]. Another area of concern is that of addressing individual needs of the students [awr]. I think that this is a difficult area to look at in practice. On one hand, I think that I am addressing students’ needs, but it is possible that my teaching is still mostly geared toward what I would want if I were the student [knw]. Also, I think that the students whose needs are not being met are also the least likely to step forward and point it out to me [awr]. In the class that I currently teach, I assess whether their needs are being met by their success in the class. This works because I have managed to make sure that everyone is successful. When this does not work, however, is when some students are

170 not successful. Their lack tells you that their needs aren’t being met, but it doesn’t help you to assess how their needs are not being met. Once I have that figured out, I am happy to make accommodations. I have experienced how all students learn more and learn better when activities are extended and enhanced through the course of addressing multiple learning styles [knw]. At the same time, it’s nice to be able to move quickly through the curriculum when you have pressures of time and scheduling, too [awr]. In one questionnaire I wrote that, “…I see a gap between my ideologies and actual practice [awr]. While I think that gap will always exist, it should be my goal to try to decrease the distance between the two.” [att] Just because the questionnaires were not able to tease out any glaring contradictions, does not mean that they do not exist [awr]. I think that there are two more possibilities. First, contradictions between belief and practice exist and I just have not yet become aware of these differences yet myself [awr]. Or, I am aware of a gap, and yet I paint a better picture with words than you might witness if you watched my teaching [awr].

Still, I think that I mostly do strive to

‘practice what I preach’, and though I may not be perfect, I can keep trying [att].

171

REFLECTIVE E SSAY 1 - YVONNE Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

5

[knw] Knowledge

0

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

How much does my practice match my beliefs? Going back to the ten questions and comparing the answers has helped me think in a different light [awr] [att]. Although I may have ‘thought’ about such issues, this is the first time where I was able to reflect on myself from an objective angle [app]. Also, this activity has alerted me to be more aware of what I do in the classroom and be prudent in molding and stating my beliefs [awr] [att]. In comparing, I found that some were more difficult than others when trying to distinguish the similarities and differences between the paired answers. Although the wordings weren’t exactly the same, I can say that most of the questions were approached in a similar direction. Especially, the first four questions about one’s own personal experience such as choice of field, experience as a language learner and self image as a teacher were all answered with a similar and firm view. Surprisingly, however, the beliefs and practice that I wrote down for questions related to methodology, strategies, program and curriculum, were relatively weak and vague [awr]. This is because, as a novice teacher, I have not yet had enough experience, knowledge or professional training to position myself as a teacher with the appropriate tools [awr]. And it is from this reflection that I feel the need for proper training to establish my beliefs as a teacher [att]. From this opportunity, I realized a couple of things [awr]. First of all, it is very crucial to continuously check back on myself to see if my beliefs and practice match. If it

172 doesn’t, we should put our efforts into doing so [att]. But before we make any changes in our practice, we as teachers should dwell on what are beliefs are [att]; are they appropriate? Are they ideal? And it is at this point where another emphasis should be made; the importance of professional teacher training. It is not only important to train ourselves to teach well but to train ourselves to have the ‘right’ beliefs to teach well.

173 (Appendix K) – The Reflective Essays of Phase Two

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 2 – ALICE Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged  It had not crossed my mind that Ss might not stick to the subject of personal histories.

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

1

[knw] Knowledge

1

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

N

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

Reflective Activity – Activity Report Background The course I’m teaching in is called an SEC course. It is a teacher practicum course that has about 20-30 ESL teachers training to become professionals. After several weeks (6-7 weeks) of theory the ESL teachers get a chance to apply their theory by teaching 3 times in a Special English Class (SEC).

The SEC is designed to be a

communicative course (conversation) for intermediate learners. There are about 20 Ss in the SEC (10 from Korea and the rest from varying countries [Mexico, Turkey, China, etc]). The Ss are all very active in class and seem to enjoy each other and the course. After observing the course for 2 weeks, the ESL teachers in the practicum decided that the Ss did not need formal grammar instruction, but instead time to practice and automatize the things they had previously learned.

Activity The activity fit into the course about 3 ½ weeks into instruction. The stated goal the on formal lesson plan was: To have Ss practice talking about their personal histories

174 and questioning classmates about theirs. This activity followed a brainstorming activity in which Ss were asked to provide questions to the teacher about certain topics they might ask a stranger/slight acquaintance about their personal history upon meeting them. Ss were then put into random pairs and asked to converse with their partners and learn about each others personal histories (i.e. what did they do before they came to the US? When did they start studying English, etc). The stated amount of time for the task was 10 minutes and Ss were stopped after about 11 minutes. The activity was designed to give Ss time conversing and especially using the past tense in talking about personal past histories.

Findings Ss were very engaged in the task. All groups were talking and because Ss were so comfortable with each other there was no silence or resistance to the activity. While circulating and listening to Ss I realized that something a little different than planned happened [awr]. Instead of sticking to the given subject, personal past histories, Ss began talking about that but then shifted back and forth to the present (i.e. what do you do now that you are here in the US? Where are you from? etc) [awr].

Conclusions Even though Ss didn’t stick to the topic, I felt that the activity was still successful. As I walked around I would hear Ss repairing their own utterances to make them more correct. Even though Ss didn’t stick to the topic, they still were given an authentic opportunity to converse with someone in English. As I mentioned earlier, the ESL teachers in the course decided that what the Ss need most is time to practice. This activity gave them just that opportunity and with a subject matter relevant to their needs. Talking to strangers/slight acquaintances about their past histories and present status is something these Ss do with regularity. To improve the lesson’s effectiveness, Ss could be given even more time to converse. I had to stop Ss to move on with the class, but I believe they could have talked for much longer.

It is unnatural to have to stop a

conversation in the middle to move on to another topic. To improve my lesson study

175 process, I could think more about possible outcomes before the lesson. That way, I would be more prepared [att]. It had not crossed my mind that Ss might no stick to the subject of personal histories [awr]. [knw] I think the class went well, but unexpectedly [awr]. It was hard to have Ss focus particularly on past histories without talking about the present. But, maybe it’s good that they didn’t only talk about the past because then that would have been unnatural. I think having them speak for most of the time was a really good idea because when I was circulating, I noticed that most students had the correct grammatical form, but they would have to SISC repair. This means to me that what they really needed was time to practice what they already knew in order to make it more automatic [awr].

176

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 2 - IRWIN Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

1

[knw] Knowledge

2

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

N

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged  Sometimes teachers must put aside what they have to teach and think of students as people with needs other than learning.  Some students bring their personal problems and necessities into the classroom. In order to cater for that, the teacher must find effective, meaningful, attitude-change provoking actions that will serve both purposes – meeting student’s needs while providing them with opportunities for the targeted learning.

Reflecting on Stereotypes From the movie Dangerous Minds (1995) A few years ago, I started teaching EFL at a local Middle School in Puebla, southeastern Mexico. As every just-graduated professional, I was very excited that at least I would commence doing what I liked the most, teaching. Unfortunately, such a feeling of enjoyment lasted rather quite little. I soon realized that the knowledge that I had of teaching and learning did not quite match the daily teaching practice in the classroom. All of a sudden, my teenager students along with all those traits which are typical of such an age challenged that storage of theories. Thus, I had to learn that in order for teachers to be effective, they have to find a way which will enable them to identify themselves with students and go even beyond the boundaries of the subject matter that they must teach. Sometimes teachers must put aside what they have to teach and think of students as people with needs other than learning [awr] [knw]. For example, students whose affective needs are not being met will tend to reflect their emotions through some negative behavior patters. Those, of course, will influence the class development. This holds especially true for children and teenagers. However, some adults also carry their own problems and necessities into the classroom. As a result, the learning process is, to minor or major extent, hindered from being fulfilled.

177 Consequently, teachers should find ways to overcome such circumstances [att]. The question that might be raised at this point is what can teachers do under such settings? Part of the answer is to find effective, meaningful, attitude-change provoking actions that will serve both purposes – meeting student’s needs while providing them with opportunities for the targeted learning [knw]. This will require a double effort on the teachers’ side as to the design of their lessons. However, it is at this point where theory and practice meet and come alive [awr]. As a conclusion, there is no perfect teaching scenario in which the presence of a teacher results superfluous [awr]. Furthermore, and most importantly, neither is there any scenario where students are expected to act to perfection. Instead, there is a real world where both parties of the teaching-learning process depend on and need of each other. The key for both of them to thrive in such a process is to find the intricate way that leads to effective interaction among them [awr].

178

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 2 - MARY Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

1

[knw] Knowledge

0

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

Teaching in the movies I have to admit, I usually see teachers in the movies as part of a fantasy realm, and I don’t try to make a comparison to real life. Richard Dryfus, Edward James Olmos, Robin Williams, Michelle Pfiffer and others in their teaching roles do not seem to have much in common with the teachers I had as a student, and as a teacher myself, I never hold myself to their glamorous standards. In the movies, a teacher’s energy is easily transferred to the students. Motivation and ‘ganas’, if not found in the individual students, can be given to them by the sheer will of the instructor. The instructor always finds the flexibility to change a lesson plan at a moment’s notice, the money to spend on enriching the classroom, and the time to help students on an individual basis no matter what other personal problems or restrictions may exist elsewhere in their lives. In real life, we may not find the success that some of these movie-teachers do, but we can strive to have some of the same qualities to some degree. The qualities each teacher seems to have in common include the ability to be flexible in the classroom and adapt quickly to the students, the ability to explain content in a way that connects to students, and the ability to set expectations that inspire students to meet them. Are these qualities that I possess? Sometimes. I still work to be flexible

179 and adapt quickly to the reactions of my students. To answer questions that I don’t know the answers to. To deal quickly and effectively with students who disagree or who are simply being disagreeable [awr]. How do you react to the student who says “You are a bitch!”? Or to the student who never does his or her homework? Or the student who calls another student a rag-head because she follows a different faith? Sometimes the challenge is to react to good things, like a student who has created an interactive web-site to illustrate the point that you taught the day before. I’ve experienced all of these things, and it is not as though I was a horrible teacher, but if I were faced with them now, I think that I would be a lot better than before [att]. Age, maturity and experience can count for a lot! Do I connect the content of the class in a way that connects to the students? Again, this is something that I have gotten better at over time [awr]. Through the feedback that I received as a first and second year teacher, I learned that one of my weaknesses was my ability to convey the purpose of the lessons and to provide transition and connection between topics [awr].

Over time, I’ve become more skilled with this. I think that I

always had enthusiasm, sometimes even the ‘ganas’ to share with the students, but I make a more conscious effort to explain how the content is important to real life. And as time goes by, sometimes I even do this unconsciously [awr]. Do I set high expectations that inspire students to greatness? Umm, maybe? Last semester I received a very flattering letter from a student who claimed that all students, native speakers or no, should have my class to fulfill the rhetoric requirement. He said that the course challenged him, and really pushed him to improve his writing skills like no other course ever had. But this seems like a gray area. What is the difference between making students work really hard and inspiring them to make themselves work hard? [awr] There are two big differences between movie teachers and my real-world life. First, they are star-teachers every day of their careers, while I often have more off-days. Professor Kingsfield of the Paper Chase and Mr. Holland of Mr. Holland’s Opus are exceptions, since they were often jerks, but this realism is the main reason that those movies are so superior. Secondly, movie teachers are able to do things that the rest of us would get fired for [awr]. Some of these behaviors belong to the sad-but-true category. For example, we can’t hug our students, and are encouraged to avoid pretty much all physical contact. We can’t make jokes that would infer anything about the students

180 romantic life, sexuality, or intelligence. In the school I worked in before, we couldn’t ‘humiliate’ a student by asking them to sit in the corner or perform some punishment, like erasing the blackboards, in front of other students. Of course, I have visited classrooms that are more like Jaime Escalante’s and such familiarity on behalf of the teachers (and students) is more similar to Jaime’s. But I think all teachers, in all ‘real’ settings, are more conscious that their behavior and comments can have a great effect on students. I think teachers are more aware that they need to care for students’ mental states, and not just their academic status. I would hate to be last person a student spoke to before he or she committed suicide. I would also hate to be one of many targets in a Columbine-like outburst. This does not mean that I avoid reaching out to my students on a personal level. I’m not actually very good at it, but I’m not Professor Kingsfield either [awr]. During my first year teaching I picked up a habit from a good teacher friend of mine, and that is excessive praise. It doesn’t matter how small the behavior is that is receiving praise; everyone feels a moment of happiness in receiving it. And I tend to give special praise for actions not related to the course content, like for throwing away someone else’s garbage left on the floor, or complimenting another student, and then they get the “thank you for being a good member of our community” praise. I do find it useful to see teachers in the movies [app]. It often helps to re-energize me with the idealism and idealistic situations of teachers in film. When I was still teaching at the high school level, I couldn’t watch Boston Public because I found it depressing and de-motivating, but movies were always more inspiring. I know that I can’t be exactly like the actors and actresses who portray teachers in the film, but films remind me that teaching can be a wonderful and rewarding profession [awr].

181

REFLECTIVE E SSAY 2 - YVONNE Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged  There is no ‘right’ answer for all, but a tailored answer for every different class and student.

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

2

[knw] Knowledge

3

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

 About the need for teachers to entertain the students: This not only makes you look more confident and reassures the students that you know what you are doing, but it also makes the class more dynamic and interesting in most cases  No matter what we decide to teach, what approach to take or what activities we choose, we always need to keep in mind that it all needs to be used to keep the learner engaged, give them a motive, a reason and most importantly, show them that you care.

Teachers in the Movies ‘Being a teacher is a fascinating but a very challenging profession’ [awr]. This is the first thought that stuck to my mind as I sat gazing at the screen as the last scene faded away. ‘Fascinating’, because it is amazing how one human being can influence another. ‘Difficult’, because it takes so much effort and dedication to make a difference. There is another thought that crossed my mind: Although the teacher figures portrayed in the movies seem to be all situated in somewhat more ‘challenging’ environment than your everyday teacher, I believe that any classroom is as challenging because each and every student is unique and has unique needs [awr]. With these thoughts, I started asking myself numerous questions: “What type of a teacher am I?”, “Have I had any influence on the students?”, “What efforts have I put in to make learning more effective?”, “Have I made a difference so far?” and, needless to say, a lot more. [awr] The subjects taught were diverse; law, poetry, mathematics, music and art. And as diverse as the subjects were so were the teachers and their teaching methods. Although very different in teaching tactics, the teachers in the movies were all successful at being recognized, acknowledged, and approved by the students. Their approach was ‘customizing’. This means that there is no ‘right’ answer for all, but a tailored answer for every different class and student [knw]. This eventually applies to the ESL service course that I’m teaching, as well. This being my first semester teaching such a course, I was a bit

182 uncertain whether my teaching approach was ‘right’ or not. But now, with the reflection, I feel more confident about the way I teach and how I should go about it from now on [awr] [app]. There is another similarity that was found in most of the teachers in the movies. In addition to being teachers, they were actors and entertainers. I totally agree with the notion that you need to have or build this trait to some extent when teaching. This will not only make you look more confident that reassures the students that you know what you are doing but it also makes the class more dynamic and interesting, not in all but in most cases [awr] [knw]. We have to take into consideration the fact that these subject matters were made into movies because it isn’t something we see or experience so often. But, certainly, there are teachers in these times that are as inspiring and dedicated. And it is because of these movies that we are stimulated. As teachers and as students, we have felt that invisible space which tends to keep the two entities somewhat distant than they really should be. And it is this barrier that the teachers need to tear down [awr] [att]. In a nut shell, this means that we, as teachers, need to make it our ultimate goal to reach out to the minds and hearts of each and every student [att]. To do this, much effort is needed. No matter what we decide to teach, what approach to take or what activities we choose, we always need to keep in mind that it all needs to be used to keep the learner engaged. Give them a motive, a reason and most importantly, show them that you care by engaging into the activities yourself [knw].

183 (Appendix L) –Reflective Essays of Phase Three

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 3 - ALICE Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged

[att] Attitude

0

 It was helpful to realize that with a little bit of work, I personally could conduct a mini-experiment and get answers to questions unique to my class.

[knw] Knowledge

2

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2)

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

 I think what was most helpful about this task, was brainstorming and discussing with another teacher, the possible problems in my class that have to do with interactive learning.

Devising a Research Plan I think that when Irwin and I talked about interactive learning we realized that between the two of us we had very different classes. This meant that we would have to develop very different action research plans to investigate interactive learning in our two distinct classes. We also challenged ideas as to whether or not pair work was really helpful in our classes [awr]. Because in both of our classes pair work entails one students correcting another, we were skeptical about how much of this really took place. Because we cannot be present at all pair interactions, we would have to devise an action research plan that involved recording the interactions. I believe that thinking about these issues was really helpful [app]. Sometimes, when you teach a class, you do things without thinking about them [awr]. It is good to constantly be questioning yourself and your methods in the classroom [app]. It was also helpful [app] to realize that with a little bit of work, I personally could conduct a miniexperiment and get answers to questions unique to my class [knw].

I think what was

most helpful about this task, was brainstorming and discussing with another teacher, the possible problems in my class that have to do with interactive learning [att] [knw].

184

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 3 - MARY Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

4

[knw] Knowledge

7

[bhv] Behavior

0

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

N

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged  Although a line is drawn between the teacher and students, and although the main goal of the class is to learn the content, the social aspect of the classroom is also very important.  Conducting action research allowed us to look at an aspect of teaching that was important to us, but which is not normally dealt with (I assume) in a lot of literature.  We can share our findings and help others get a general understanding of the subject, but as far as influencing teaching practice, the action research on this topic was essential.  While theory is important to help us gain knowledge and develop our methodology, it is only through experience that we change our practices.  The mentors may be colleagues on equal footing of experience and knowledge, but this can also be important to a support system.  It is nice to have feedback and reassurance from a peer.  The action research project encourages those interactions, but guides them to be conducted in a focused way.

In response to action research: Our action research revolves around the way instructors interact with students on a personal level. I am one of many teachers who has always believed that the learning of course content is the most important aspect of the class, that teachers should not be ‘friends’ with the students, and they should not be influenced by a desire for popularity with the students. But although a line is drawn between the teacher and students, and although the main goal of the class is to learn the content, the social aspect of the classroom is also very important [awr] [att] [knw]. I think that this action research is important [app] because it could influence me to believe that it is more important to know my students on a personal level than it is to keep a wall between us [awr]. I am interested to find out if increased social interaction with the students will lead to better learning, as I suspect that it will [att]. There are still many good reasons for the “wall” to exist, but the action research will give me a more balanced view of the advantages and disadvantages of both, and I can make a better

185 decision regarding my teaching based on my own personality and my own experiences [att]. Conducting action research allowed us to look at an aspect of teaching that was important to us, but which is not normally dealt with (I assume) in a lot of literature [awr] [knw]. Or if it is, it is certainly not something that is generalizable [awr]. Rather than spending time on how other people might look at this question, we chose to look at what we do with social interaction in the classroom, and applied our own perspectives to the evaluation of this aspect of teaching [att]. The way in which we interact with students is completely individual, and the findings of this research are mainly applicable to the person who conducts the study. We can share our findings and help others get a general understanding of the subject, but as far as influencing teaching practice, the action research on this topic was essential [knw]. While theory is important to help us gain knowledge and develop our methodology, it is only through experience that we change our practices [awr] [knw]. At least for myself, I tend to need more hands-on, experiential learning. I feel that the collaborative model is important [app] because it implements within the design of the task a sense of mentoring. The mentors may be colleagues on equal footing of experience and knowledge, but this can also be important to a support system [knw]. It is nice to have feedback and reassurance from a peer [awr] [knw]. Anytime the mentorship occurs with someone at a higher level or someone who is more of an administrator, there is always a sense of evaluation. Peer-to-peer collaboration removes the worst of that feeling and you are left to share both good and bad experiences, successes and failures, and help each other out with realistic suggestions or simply a sympathetic ear [app]. The action research project encourages those interactions, but guides them to be conducted in a focused way [app] [knw]. The use of action research is challenging because it takes time to plan, implement and analyze the study. However, this is time well-spent [app] because it gives teachers the opportunity to work on a topic that is near and dear to their hearts, it has a greater chance of changing not only teaching beliefs but also behaviors [app], and because it encourages teachers to communicate with each other in a concrete way about important issues in teaching [app].

186

REFLECTIVE E SSAY 3 - YVONNE Evidence of Impact (SO1.1) →

Y

↓ Nature of Impact (SO1.2) [att] Attitude

1

[knw] Knowledge

1

[bhv] Behavior

0

SO3 Specific Learning Issues that emerged  Action research is a tailored research primarily aimed at investigating areas of my concerns and further, provides answers that can be shared with teachers of similar concerns.

↓ Holistic Evaluation [awr] Evidence of awareness

Y

[app] Evidence of approval

Y

[dsp] Evidence of disapproval

N

[unc] Evidence of uncertainty

Y

Action Research Plan Essay There are numerous obstacles and points of concern when teaching. As a teacher, I find myself faced with ‘problems’ or ‘inquiries’ of big and small everyday. Some are simple enough to be solved on ones own, but others are more challenging, above ones ability, to handle due to the uniqueness of the class and its components. In this sense, the action plan is beneficial [app] in a way that it tackles ‘my’ problems. It is a research that starts with ‘real’ research questions [app]. In other words, it is a tailored research primarily aimed at investigating areas of my concerns and further, provides answers that can be shared with teachers of similar concerns [knw]. As appealing as the action research plan is, due to its ‘practical’ characteristics, it seems to have obstacles of its own in planning and implementation [awr] [unc]. The planning part was a bit dubious and as to the uncertainty of the methods that were to be used [unc]. In the process of coming up with the necessary resources and tools, I was a little skeptical of the authority and reliability they had to be to serve as substantial evidence for such a research [unc]. Another difficulty is in the implementation part. Although it deals with realistic issues, it can be a little unrealistic in its implementation which might take too much time and effort away from the actual class leading to other unexpected results [unc].

187 The action research plan does have its limitations. It, however, is still worth carrying out [app] because of its practicality that many conventional theories lack. This does not necessarily mean that theory based sessions and seminars for teachers should all be avoided or eliminated completely from a teacher training program [unc]. I personally, as a teacher new to the teaching field, feel the need and greatly desire for both theoretical and practical training. As a consequence, both aspects should be moderately blended in to a program for synergy effects that would reel in applicable results. All in all, the research action plan is an interesting and worthwhile approach to cope with imminent matters at hand [app]. With the ‘right’ or ‘adequate’ guidance and setting, I believe that many teachers will benefit from such action research [att].

188 (Appendix M) – The Coding Matrix

MATRIX FOR CONTENT ANALYSIS – BRACKETING (1) ANALYSIS PROCEDURES: The essays, YES/NO Questionnaires, and excerpts from the recording of the meetings were read repeatedly and carefully, and analyzed following this sequence: 1. Locating key phrases and statements that speak directly to the phenomenon in question and insert a bracket with the coding; 2. Interpreting the meanings of these phrases; 3. Trying to obtain the subject's interpretations of those phrases; 4. Inspecting these meanings for what they reveal about the essential, recurring features of the phenomenon being studied; 5. Offering a tentative statement, or definition, of that phenomenon in terms of the essential recurring features identified (Denzin, 1989: 55-56). Whenever a key phrase or statement was found, a bracket was inserted right after with the coding below.

CODING: 1. What is the impact of awareness and reflection on teachers’ beliefs and practices? 1.1) Was there an impact? [Y] [N] (Depending whether 1.2 is true or not) 1.2) What was the nature of this impact? [att]

Changes in attitudes, manners, positions, dispositions, feelings, beliefs: (Confirmation is also considered)

[knw] Changes in knowledge (including new knowledge about the way things are) [bhv] Changes in behaviors:

189 2. What kinds of reflective activities are more motivating for teachers? a) Stated preference: Activities Ranking Form: Quantitative Data Non-Observational Activities (NOA)  Activities 1-5 Observational Activities (OA)  Activities 6-10 b) Choice for trial and report (Comparison with stated preference) Tried and reported on the same activity stated as preferred: Evidence of reasons: (should emerge from the data) 1) Easy on the schedule 2) Does not demand extended preparation time 3) Visual aspect of the activity

Tried and reported on a different activity from that stated as preferred:  Only one participant did so, but there was not evidence as to the reason. Note: Each participant chose only one activity to try and report on. If any participant had tried two or more activities and chosen one to report on, there would be another variable to be considered.

3. What specific learning issues may emerge from an inservice teacher education program based on reflection and action research? Evidence of learning issues should emerge from the data coded for change in knowledge. The specific issues learned by the participants should be listed in the discussion of the results).

190

4. What is the overall perception teachers have of a program based on reflection and action research? In order to assess the overall impact of this kind of program on teachers, these guiding questions were formulated: (A) Was the program effective in raising awareness? (B) Was the program effective in fostering reflection? (C) Was the program effective in fostering changes in knowledge, behavior, or skills? (D) Was the program effective in fostering intervention as a result of reflection and awareness? (E) Did teachers display evidence of approval of this kind of program? Question (A):

In search for an answer to this question, the reflective essays, YES/NO Questionnaires, and excerpts from the recordings of the meetings should be coded for evidence of awareness [awr], and the results assessed holistically for a general appraisal of the effectiveness of the program in raising awareness.

Questions (B, C, D) = In search for an answer to this question, the coding of all the data sources should be used for a holistically evaluation. Question (E):

In search for an answer to this question, the reflective essays, YES/NO Questionnaires, and excerpts from the recordings of the meetings should be coded for evidence of approval [app], disapproval [dsp], or uncertainty [unc].

NOTE: The numerical figures resulting from the coding for evidence of awareness, approval, disapproval, or uncertainty, should not be interpreted quantitatively, but assessed holistically in terms of weak, moderate, or strong evidence regarding each one of those issues.