Preparation
To be a good and effective teacher my first priority is to have a correct definition of some basic criteria; what is teaching? Who can be a teacher? What should I do as a teacher? What are my responsibilities? What is my aim of teaching? Who am I teaching to? What are their aims of being taught? What should I teach? Is there any difference among teaching different subjects? And so forth.
The answers to the above questions can give me a correct view of teaching. The very fact is that there are lots of teachers all around the world who never care about these Q&A s. they just go straight forward to the classroom and start what they call teaching. And the outcome of their actions is as clear as a day! Now I can understand more clearly why I’m living in a developing country which is still developing but in a direction of nowhere! So the responsibilities are more than what I can imagine. Then I should start.
My studies show that the answers to the mentioned questions are different according to different schools of thoughts; Structuralism & Behaviorism, Rationalism & Cognitivism, and Constructivism .they have different ideas regarding these questions and their diverse viewpoints led to arrival of various approaches and methods of teaching in which the role of teacher, the role of learner, materials, evaluation, etc are different. This diversity happens because of reconceptualization of the subject matter and in our filed reconceptualization of language.
Although some of these approaches seems out of date and under strong criticisms but still some teachers put them in practice and use related methods in their classes. So we can easily see that in countries like Iran still methods like GTM, Direct Method and ALM are used in schools and even some famous language institutes. Of course personally, I believe that no approaches can be totally either rejected or accepted and nearly all new approaches somehow try to complete the older ones and compensate their deficiencies. In addition some believes that some of these approaches are originally same and their differences are artificial. Like Widdowson who believes that both humanism and behaviorism are same because both say that to be affective is to be effective and both try to set up a condition for learning.
One of those approaches that seem more applicable today is the one in which teachers are regarded as guides and learners are at the center of attention. In other word it is learning that should be taken into consideration more than teaching. But at first one important point that worth mentioning is the difference between education and learning. Being educated is one of the goals of learners in general. But what is education? Is it same as learning? Are they alike or different? This is of utmost importance and lack of attention to this point may lead to misconception. Education is about knowledge and learning is just part of the education process but to be truly educative it must give a broader value and meaning to the learner’s life. This view of education is what the modern approaches of teaching are to express. Learner-centerness, negotiated curricula, authentic material, social interaction, etc are of key concepts of these approaches.
Learner centerness is a matter of educating learners so that they can gradually assume more responsibilities of their own learning. Such a classroom is a learning-how-to-learn classroom. There are two versions of learner centerness, weak and strong. The former believes in choices that should be assigned to learners and they just select among them while the later believes that all the jobs should be for learners to decide on them.
Despite the popularity and logic of the mentioned concepts they are among controversial issues. Some protect them and some criticize them on several grounds. Among criticics are those who believe that teachers’ role would be weaken by learner centerness process. Or those who believe learners have different views, capabilities, and preferences so how it is possible to have an acceptable program for the class.
At last but not least, it should be emphasized that teaching should be regarded as a research and the classroom as a context where two different kinds of activities, instructional and experimental will reinforce each other.
Assistance
Good teachers and researchers should have close attentions to others’ experiences. So the Teaching Methodology class can provide much more useful and precise discussions.
First of all we should pay attention to some terminologies because their distinctions are of utmost importance; education, learning, training, pedagogy and teaching. Learning is under the control of the learners, they observe, they experience, they weigh. It is theirs to decide what is right and what is wrong. But education is a facilitator. Education is teaching learners to learn how to learn. Education is to facilitate the condition for the learners to construct the meaning. Meaning is not created by education; the way to get meaning is paved by education. And training is another thing, it is product-oriented. Training makes meaning for the learners. Pedagogy is a process not a product. A process of teaching; teaching, testing,… . And teaching is a principled problem solving activity. It means that there is a problem and by teaching we want to find a solution which should be base on a specific theory. But Widdowson believes that there is no universal solution.
More recent theories believe in learner-centerness. For example Nuanun says about Organic Approach in which we should let students grow when they are ready to grow and the teacher’s role is like a gardener who just provides the necessary materials. Teachers are guides by the sides and they do transformation not transmission of authentic materials. Of course authenticity is a controversial term. And we should not mix means with ends. Authenticity of means does not mean the authenticity of the ends. To have a complete authentic end the context, the learners’ interpretation of the context, the task should be authentic. In Widdowson words authenticity is invalid because it can not distinguish between the two questions: what learners have to do to use language? What learners have to do to learn language? Widdowson believes that teaching language for communication is not same as teaching language as communication.
Now, one of the main and problematic points is the distinction between application and appraisal. Appraisal is conceptual evaluation escalated through a theory. It means that we should understand the theory behind any activity. And application is empirical evaluation. It puts the theory into practice. If we follow the prescription of some colleagues that say this activity works and take it and fit it into the classroom and think that it works according to Widdowson is nonsense. Widdowson says: “don’t apply what the others say to do so”. He believes we should be the teacher and the theorist of our own classes. so to devise a useful activity for our classroom first of all we should have a deep understanding of what theories exist and conceptually evaluate them if they fit the teachers’ requirements, the learners’ requirements, the class requirements, the concept requirements then we can apply it.
Piaget also has two terminologies, assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is when new ideas are introduced and people try to find a place in old ideas they already knew to fit the new into the old one. Widdowson believes that assimilation is the main source of all problems. What we need is accommodation. It is making changes in what has already done. We should be aware that teaching is a combination of art and skill. Some teachers maybe base on somehow the eclectic approach try to pick up various techniques from different approaches and methods and put the combination of them in practice in their all classes and then claim that it works well. But some points should be taken into consideration. First, what do they mean by working well? Base on what majors they have evaluated their students? And second, success of one technique and material in one class does not mean that they can be successful in all classes. Students, their capabilities, their aims, etc are different. Widdowson believes that the eclectic approach is actually a haphazard approach. Of course once again we can see that in our country even well known institutes just pick some techniques that they call them useful from different methods with different theoretical backgrounds and make a somehow an eclectic method and even teach their self-made method in their TTC classes to their new teachers.
Application
Now that I’m on the beginning of the way of teaching and by considering all the criticisms that I had to my teachers during all my academic years the most interesting point that I found useful was what mentioned about eclectic approach. Before this discussion I had a point in my mind from one of the books that I had studied in my undergraduate studies which had talked about eclectic approach. From then on I thought that it could be the best method of teaching in which I can easily provide the classroom’s needs that I would be teaching there. Now I understand that I should pay more attention to the subjects that I have studied about. So appraisal and accommodation are important and should be strongly considered.
Also, Organic approach has an interesting idea, in which the traditional role of the teachers that I could see in my nearly all teachers and professors has changed. Giving the responsibility of learning to the learners and the more and different responsibilities of the teachers is worth to be put in action.
Negotiated Curricula is another important and useful concept. The teacher can help learners to be familiar with different aims of learning, different techniques and strategies of learning, different materials, etc and then negotiate them with the learners to come up with an appropriate and successful curricula.
Having discussed so many important points, I hope that by careful research and study, cooperation and motive we could improve teaching and learning conditions in our country at least in our filed of English language despite all inconvenience.
Readings: Brown PLLT Chapter1, Widdowson pp.1-27, Johnson pp.1-13, Nunan pp.3-35, Williams & Burden pp.5-45
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