Challenging Assumptions: Tools for TESOL Teacher Education

Challenging Assumptions:Tools for TESOL Teacher Education Randi Harlev, Ph.D. TESOL 2008 April 3, 2008

In this presentation you will… • Understand the role of assumptions in guiding teaching. • Explore your own assumptions. • Connect assumptions to acts of meaning • Examine examples in practice teaching. • Learn tools for surfacing, challenging and changing assumptions.

What do you assume? As teacher educators, we enter our own or other classrooms with assumptions about learning and teaching…

Defining Assumptions Devon Woods: “the acceptance of a ‘fact’ which we cannot say we know, and which has not been demonstrated, but which we are taking as true for the time being.” (1996) Stephen Brookfield: “the taken for granted beliefs about the world, and our place within it, that seems so obvious to us as not to need to be stated explicitly.” (1995) Edgar Schein: “unconscious, taken for granted beliefs, perceptions, thoughts and feelings” (1993)

The Iceberg Phenomenon

Why surface assumptions? • They affect teaching. • They affect attitudes towards teaching and learning, and towards teachers and learners. • They help to understand why specific choices are made in the classroom. • They may be in conflict with new learning and prevent implementation of new ideas.

Assumptions and Teacher Training “A teacher’s priorities in structuring the classroom teaching will depend crucially on that teacher’s own assumptions about language, learning and teaching...the assumptions underlying the actual teaching that goes on in the second language classroom have remained unexplored”. (Devon Woods 1996)

Where can we look for assumptions? The Johari Window Luft, J. and Ingham, H. (1955)

Assumptions: focus on language As a teacher trainer, I had access to language in: • observed lessons [open] • feedback sessions [blind/hidden] • written assignments [surfacing unknown]

Assumptions in Language Halliday - Language is a metafunctional construct in which acts of meaning occur. (1993) • Interpersonal function = language as action • Ideational function = language as reflection • Textual function = meaning-making mediator

Assumptions and Acts of Meaning 1. Interpersonal Function (language as action) 3. TextualFunction(language as mediator between 1 and 2) 2. IdeationalFunction (language as reflection) Assumptions in the Language of Lessons Assumptions in the Language of Metaphors Assumptions in the Language of Feedback Sessions Language is a metafunctional construct in which acts of meaning occur. (Halliday 1993)

Teaching Reading: observation – 6th grade class Interpersonal function (language as action): S: …Now you know the new words. Open your books to page 63. We’re going to read about the trip to the zoo.” [Sandra read the text aloud to the class and asked them to follow. She interspersed translations in Hebrew. Then she asked comprehension questions.]

Teaching Reading: feedback session Ideational function (language as reflection): TT: What was your main objective for the lesson? S: …um, to get the kids to read for specific details in the story so they could draw a comic strip of it. TT: So it was about reading. What did you assume when you decided to read the text aloud to the class? S: …that the kids have to know what was in the story. TT: …and? S: …that the best way for them to know is if I read it to them. TT: So who was doing the reading?

Teaching Reading: feedback session/journal Textual function (language as mediator): TT: Let’s look at your lesson…as a metaphor. Try to complete this sentence: My lesson is like a ________ because ________. S: My lesson was like a mother duck and her ducklings. I was the mother duck. The ducklings were the students. They had to eat, but I had to get the food for them… TT: So what are you assuming here about your students? S: Hmm. Maybe that they can’t get their own food. I mean, they can’t read it themselves? TT: Try to explore this a bit more and write about it, please.

Changing Assumptions: Necessary Conditions • Disharmony • Access to Alternatives • Opportunity

Process of Challenging Assumptions automatic Role of Teacher Trainer How might you do this differently? What did you assume when...? 1 Uncovering Tacit Assumptions 2 Examining Assumptions and Setting Goals analyzed unanalyzed Automatizing New Routines Based on New Assumptions4 Revising Assumptions to Accommodate New Knowledge3 How might this affect your planning? How did your assumptions change? Role of Teacher non-automatic Based on: Variable Competence Model of L2 Variability (Ellis 1994:365-6)

Changing Assumptions of Teachers • Capture assumptionsin language in action in the classroom. • Surface assumptionsin language in reflection during feedback sessions. • Connect assumptionsin action and reflection through metaphorical representations of lessons and their interpretation. • Explore disharmony/dissonance between assumptions and actions. • Present or collaboratively surface viable alternatives. • Provide opportunities for implementation.

References • Ellis, R. (1994) The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Arnold. • Halliday, M. A. K., and Hasan, R., (1989). Language, context and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective, New York: Oxford University Press. • Halliday, M.A.K., (1993). Language in a Changing World (Occasional Papers 13). Melbourne: Australian Linguistics Association of Australia. • Halliday, M.A.K., and Hasan, R., (1985). Language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Luft, J. and Ingham, H. (1955) "The Johari window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness", Proceedings of the western training laboratory in group development. Los Angeles: UCLA. • Woods, D. (1996) Teacher Cognition in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thank you! Randi Harlev www.eltconsult.com randi@eltconsult.com

Challenging Assumptions: Tools for TESOL Teacher Education