The readings are quite relevant to my dissertation (tentative title: “The Influence of Cognitive Processes and Contextual Factors on Public School Teachers’ Interpretation of ELT Policies and Classroom Practices”) and my proposed LPP paper (proposed ELL312 topic #2: empowering teachers in LPP) because they both reveal the crucial role of teachers in translating policies into classroom practices.
In Farrell & Tan’s piece, I found the following statement quite striking: “The findings of this study demonstrate how the many complex beliefs held by teachers can sometimes be in conflict with each other and how these beliefs exert different degrees of power and influence on the teachers’ final classroom practices” (2008, p. 396). This is one area that I would like to explore in my dissertation. I would like to find out how teachers’ belief systems and their classroom practices connect or clash given particular contextual factors (e.g. ELT policies; logistical constraints). I intend to unveil the intervention of teachers’ personal pedagogical paradigms because it is a major influence on classroom instruction.
Farrell & Tan’s work has also made me realize that, indeed, teachers need to be involved in all stages of LPP because they are the ultimate interpreters, translators, evaluators, and executors of language policies. As Tupas (forthcoming) asserts: “It goes without saying that, if we want to empower teachers and learners with particular models of English, we must let these models emerge from the communities of cultures, literacies and politics” (p. 577). Thus, language policies should be based on the NEEDS of particular teaching/learning communities or contexts (bottom-up process), NOT on what policy makers perceive to be the needs of these teaching/learning communities or contexts (top-down process).
The studies that I have reviewed for my dissertation proposal reveal that in many instances, policies are not implemented successfully because there is a “cultural mismatch” (Kennedy, 1988, p. 333) between the prescribed policies coming from the state and the local teaching-learning communities. Thus, teachers either follow policies and compromise the learning needs of their students or deviate from them to meet their students’ needs.
How can a bottom-up process be followed in LPP? This is one question I intend to answer in my ELL312 paper by presenting the NEEDS ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK I designed in conducting the review of language courses of the Ateneo de Manila University School of Humanities English Department. This framework focuses on learning needs with the following elements: situation needs: teaching and learning context; language needs: the purpose for teaching and learning English; learners’ objective needs: students’ proficiency and skills levels; learners’ subjective needs: students’ preferences and expectations. This comprehensive framework covers both the macro-level and micro-level perspectives that need to be taken into account in evaluating, improving, and developing programs.
Moreover, I will discuss the PROCESS-ORIENTED approach our program review team followed to allow teachers to participate in proposing CHANGES and evaluating proposed CHANGES. Instead of employing an “external agency” to study learners’ needs and propose program changes, teachers who are the main agents of implementation are the ones directly involved in analyzing the learning needs. This is a form of TEACHER EMPOWERMENT and one venue for promoting OWNERSHIP among them.
My purpose in writing this paper is to share it with other departments and institutions that may consider a more bottom-up process in evaluating and improving their language programs. The current issues discussed in the works of Farrell & Tan and Tupas often surface in language conferences (e.g. ACELT conferences). Teachers often ask: What kind of English should we teach? I agree with Jenkins (2007, p. 36) that the “decision should be made by those directly involved.”
References:
Farrell, T. & Tan, S.K.K. (2008). Language policy, language teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices. Applied Linguistics 29 (3): 381-403.
Jenkins, J. (2007). English as a lingua franca: Attitude and identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kennedy, C. (1988) Evaluation of the management of change in ELT projects. Applied
Linguistics 9:4, 329-342.
Tupas, T.R.F. (forthcoming). Which norms in everyday practice and why? In A. Kirkpatrick (Ed.). Handbook of World Englishes. Routledge.
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ReplyDeleteHi Jen. The "process" approach that you describe does sound very empowering.
ReplyDeleteI found the following statement a bit oversimplistic though:
I agree with Jenkins (2007, p. 36) that
the “decision should be made by those
directly involved.”
I believe that whatever decision teachers make, there also has to be an understanding of the range of choices the teachers have in making a decision. I must have said this elsewhere:
If a teacher decides to do something because she has to decide between Option A and Option B, this is different from a teacher deciding to do the same thing, but he chooses from Options A, B, C, D, E, and F.
I completely agree indeed with the statement that teachers should be making the decision themselves, but even when we think they are making the decision, we still need to find out what options (or lack of them) they have in making the decision, the circumstances of the choosing, and so on.
The "process" approach is essentially a good thing, but I believe that there also has to be a self-questioning stance to it in the sense that we also need to ask whether in the end, it is really the teachers' voices that we are listening to. After all as Bakhtin says, our voices are "multivocal". As we utter a word or present an argument, it is never a new word or a new argument. Already the word and the argument have so much history in them, even before we articulate them. Same goes with our belief systems. They are multivocal. They have history in them.
Thank you for the enlightening input! Indeed, it is a COMPLEX process that has to be seen from a CRITICAL perspective.
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